“Volpone. A little in a mist, but not dejected;
Never--but still myself.”
BEN JONSON: Volpone.
“Peregrine. Am I enough disguised?
Mer. Ay. I warrant you.
Per. Save you, fair lady.”--Ibid.
It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The ill wind that had blown
gout to Lord Lilburne had blown Lord Lilburne away from the injury he
had meditated against what he called “the object of his attachment.” How
completely and entirely, indeed, the state of Lord Lilburne’s feelings
depended on the state of his health, may be seen in the answer he gave
to his valet, when, the morning after the first attack of the gout,
that worthy person, by way of cheering his master, proposed to ascertain
something as to the movements of one with whom Lord Lilburne professed
to be so violently in love,--“Confound you, Dykeman!” exclaimed the
invalid,--“why do you trouble me about women when I’m in this condition?
I don’t care if they were all at the bottom of the sea! Reach me the
colchicum! I must keep my mind calm.”
Whenever tolerably well, Lord Lilburne was careless of his health; the
moment he was ill, Lord Lilburne paid himself the greatest possible
attention. Though a man of firm nerves, in youth of remarkable daring,
and still, though no longer rash, of sufficient personal courage, he was
by no means fond of the thought of death--that is, of his own death.
Not that he was tormented by any religious apprehensions of the Dread
Unknown, but simply because the only life of which he had any experience
seemed to him a peculiarly pleasant thing. He had a sort of instinctive
persuasion that John Lord Lilburne would not be better off anywhere
else. Always disliking solitude, he disliked it more than ever when
he was ill, and he therefore welcomed the visit of his sister and the
gentle hand of his pretty niece. As for Beaufort, he bored the sufferer;
and when that gentleman, on his arrival, shutting out his wife and
daughter, whispered to Lilburne, “Any more news of that impostor?”
Lilburne answered peevishly, “I never talk about business when I have
the gout! I have set Sharp to keep a lookout for him, but he has learned
nothing as yet. And now go to your club. You are a worthy creature,
but too solemn for my spirits just at this moment. I have a few people
coming to dine with me, your wife will do the honors, and--you can
come in the evening.” Though Mr. Robert Beaufort’s sense of importance
swelled and chafed at this very unceremonious conge, he forced a smile,
and said:--
“Well, it is no wonder you are a little fretful with the gout. I have
plenty to do in town, and Mrs. Beaufort and Camilla can come back
without waiting for me.”
“Why, as your cook is ill, and they can’t dine at a club, you may as
well leave them here till I am a little better; not that I care, for I
can hire a better nurse than either of them.”
“My dear Lilburne, don’t talk of hiring nurses; certainly, I am too
happy if they can be of comfort to you.”
“No! on second thoughts, you may take back your wife, she’s always
talking of her own complaints, and leave me Camilla: you can’t want her
for a few days.”
“Just as you like. And you really think I have managed as well as I
could about this young man,--eh?”
“Yes--yes! And so you go to Beaufort Court in a few days?”
“I propose doing so. I wish you were well enough to come.”
“Um! Chambers says that it would be a very good air for me--better
than Fernside; and as to my castle in the north, I would as soon go to
Siberia. Well, if I get better, I will pay you a visit, only you always
have such a stupid set of respectable people about you. I shock them,
and they oppress me.”
“Why, as I hope soon to see Arthur, I shall make it as agreeable to him
as I can, and I shall be very much obliged to you if you would invite a
few of your own friends.”
“Well, you are a good fellow, Beaufort, and I will take you at your
word; and, since one good turn deserves another, I have now no scruples
in telling you that I feel quite sure that you will have no further
annoyance from this troublesome witness-monger.”
“In that case,” said Beaufort, “I may pick up a better match for
Camilla! Good-bye, my dear Lilburne.”
“Form and Ceremony of the world!” snarled the peer, as the door closed
on his brother-in-law, “ye make little men very moral, and not a bit the
better for being so.”
It so happened that Vaudemont arrived before any of the other guests
that day, and during the half hour which Dr. Chambers assigned to his
illustrious patient, so that, when he entered, there were only Mrs.
Beaufort and Camilla in the drawing-room.
Vaudemont drew back involuntarily as he recognized in the faded
countenance of the elder lady, features associated with one of the dark
passages in his earlier life; but Mrs. Beaufort’s gracious smile,
and urbane, though languid welcome, sufficed to assure him that the
recognition was not mutual. He advanced, and again stopped short, as his
eye fell upon that fair and still childlike form, which had once knelt
by his side and pleaded, with the orphan, for his brother. While he
spoke to her, many recollections, some dark and stern--but those, at
least, connected with Camilla, soft and gentle--thrilled through his
heart. Occupied as her own thoughts and feelings necessarily were with
Sidney, there was something in Vaudemont’s appearance--his manner, his
voice--which forced upon Camilla a strange and undefined interest; and
even Mrs. Beaufort was roused from her customary apathy, as she glanced
at that dark and commanding face with something between admiration and
fear. Vaudemont had scarcely, however, spoken ten words, when some other
guests were announced, and Lord Lilburne was wheeled in upon his
sofa shortly afterwards. Vaudemont continued, however, seated next to
Camilla, and the embarrassment he had at first felt disappeared. He
possessed, when he pleased, that kind of eloquence which belongs to
men who have seen much and felt deeply, and whose talk has not been
frittered down to the commonplace jargon of the world. His very
phraseology was distinct and peculiar, and he had that rarest of all
charms in polished life, originality both of thought and of manner.
Camilla blushed, when she found at dinner that he placed himself by her
side. That evening De Vaudemont excused himself from playing, but the
table was easily made without him, and still he continued to converse
with the daughter of the man whom he held as his worst foe. By degrees,
he turned the conversation into a channel that might lead him to the
knowledge he sought.
“It was my fate,” said he, “once to become acquainted with an intimate
friend of the late Mr. Beaufort. Will you pardon me if I venture to
fulfil a promise I made to him, and ask you to inform me what has become
of a--a--that is, of Sidney Morton?”
“Sidney Morton! I don’t even remember the name. Oh, yes! I have heard
it,” added Camilla, innocently, and with a candour that showed how
little she knew of the secrets of the family; “he was one of two poor
boys in whom my brother felt a deep interest--some relations to my
uncle. Yes--yes! I remember now. I never knew Sidney, but I once did see
his brother.”
“Indeed! and you remember--”
“Yes! I was very young then. I scarcely recollect what passed, it was
all so confused and strange; but, I know that I made papa very angry,
and I was told never to mention the name of Morton again. I believe they
behaved very ill to papa.”
“And you never learned--never!--the fate of either--of Sidney?”
“Never!”
“But your father must know?”
“I think not; but tell me,”--said Camilla, with girlish and unaffected
innocence, “I have always felt anxious to know,--what and who were those
poor boys?”
What and who were they? So deep, then, was the stain upon their name,
that the modest mother and the decorous father had never even said to
that young girl, “They are your cousins--the children of the man in
whose gold we revel!”
Philip bit his lip, and the spell of Camilla’s presence seemed vanished.
He muttered some inaudible answer, turned away to the card-table, and
Liancourt took the chair he had left vacant.
“And how does Miss Beaufort like my friend Vaudemont? I assure you that
I have seldom seen him so alive to the fascination of female beauty!”
“Oh!” said Camilla, with her silver laugh, “your nation spoils us
for our own countrymen. You forget how little we are accustomed to
flattery.”
“Flattery! what truth could flatter on the lips of an exile? But you
don’t answer my question--what think you of Vaudemont? Few are more
admired. He is handsome!”
“Is he?” said Camilla, and she glanced at Vaudemont, as he stood at a
little distance, thoughtful and abstracted. Every girl forms to herself
some untold dream of that which she considers fairest. And Vaudemont had
not the delicate and faultless beauty of Sidney. There was nothing that
corresponded to her ideal in his marked features and lordly shape! But
she owned, reluctantly to herself, that she had seldom seen, among the
trim gallants of everyday life, a form so striking and impressive. The
air, indeed, was professional--the most careless glance could detect the
soldier. But it seemed the soldier of an elder age or a wilder clime. He
recalled to her those heads which she had seen in the Beaufort Gallery
and other Collections yet more celebrated--portraits by Titian of those
warrior statesman who lived in the old Republics of Italy in a perpetual
struggle with their kind--images of dark, resolute, earnest men.
Even whatever was intellectual in his countenance spoke, as in those
portraits, of a mind sharpened rather in active than in studious
life;--intellectual, not from the pale hues, the worn exhaustion, and
the sunken cheek of the bookman and dreamer, but from its collected and
stern repose, the calm depth that lay beneath the fire of the eyes, and
the strong will that spoke in the close full lips, and the high but not
cloudless forehead.
And, as she gazed, Vaudemont turned round--her eyes fell beneath his,
and she felt angry with herself that she blushed. Vaudemont saw the
downcast eye, he saw the blush, and the attraction of Camilla’s presence
was restored. He would have approached her, but at that moment Mr.
Beaufort himself entered, and his thoughts went again into a darker
channel.
“Yes,” said Liancourt, “you must allow Vaudemont looks what he is--a
noble fellow and a gallant soldier. Did you never hear of his battle
with the tigress? It made a noise in India. I must tell it you as I have
heard it.”
And while Laincourt was narrating the adventure, whatever it was, to
which he referred, the card-table was broken up, and Lord Lilburne,
still reclining on his sofa, lazily introduced his brother-in-law to
such of the guests as were strangers to him--Vaudemont among the rest.
Mr. Beaufort had never seen Philip Morton more than three times; once
at Fernside, and the other times by an imperfect light, and when his
features were convulsed by passion, and his form disfigured by his
dress. Certainly, therefore, had Robert Beaufort even possessed that
faculty of memory which is supposed to belong peculiarly to kings and
princes, and which recalls every face once seen, it might have tasked
the gift to the utmost to have detected, in the bronzed and decorated
foreigner to whom he was now presented, the features of the wild and
long-lost boy. But still some dim and uneasy presentiment, or some
struggling and painful effort of recollection, was in his mind, as he
spoke to Vaudemont, and listened to the cold calm tone of his reply.
“Who do you say that Frenchman is?” he whispered to his brother-in-law,
as Vaudemont turned away.
“Oh! a cleverish sort of adventurer--a gentleman; he plays.--He has
seen a good deal of the world--he rather amuses me--different from other
people. I think of asking him to join our circle at Beaufort Court.”
Mr. Beaufort coughed huskily, but not seeing any reasonable objection
to the proposal, and afraid of rousing the sleeping hyaena of Lord
Lilburne’s sarcasm, he merely said:--
“Any one you like to invite:” and looking round for some one on whom to
vent his displeasure, perceived Camilla still listening to Liancourt.
He stalked up to her, and as Liancourt, seeing her rise, rose also and
moved away, he said peevishly, “You will never learn to conduct yourself
properly; you are to be left here to nurse and comfort your uncle, and
not to listen to the gibberish of every French adventurer. Well, Heaven
be praised, I have a son--girls are a great plague!”
“So they are, Mr. Beaufort,” sighed his wife, who had just joined
him, and who was jealous of the preference Lilburne had given to her
daughter.
“And so selfish,” added Mrs. Beaufort; “they only care for their own
amusements, and never mind how uncomfortable their parents are for want
of them.”
“Oh! dear mamma, don’t say so--let me go home with you--I’ll speak to my
uncle!”
“Nonsense, child! Come along, Mr. Beaufort;” and the affectionate
parents went out arm in arm. They did not perceive that Vaudemont had
been standing close behind them; but Camilla, now looking up with tears
in her eyes, again caught his gaze: he had heard all.
“And they ill-treat her,” he muttered: “that divides her from them!--she
will be left here--I shall see her again.” As he turned to depart,
Lilburne beckoned to him.
“You do not mean to desert our table?”
“No: but I am not very well to-night--to-morrow, if you will allow me.”
“Ay, to-morrow; and if you can spare an hour in the morning it will be a
charity. You see,” he added in a whisper, “I have a nurse, though I have
no children. D’ye think that’s love? Bah! sir--a legacy! Good night.”
“No--no--no!” said Vaudemont to himself, as he walked through the
moonlit streets. “No! though my heart burns,--poor murdered felon!--to
avenge thy wrongs and thy crimes, revenge cannot come from me--he is
Fanny’s grandfather and--Camilla’s uncle!”
And Camilla, when that uncle had dismissed her for the night, sat down
thoughtfully in her own room. The dark eyes of Vaudemont seemed still
to shine on her; his voice yet rung in her ear; the wild tales of daring
and danger with which Liancourt had associated his name yet haunted her
bewildered fancy--she started, frightened at her own thoughts. She took
from her bosom some lines that Sidney had addressed to her, and, as she
read and re-read, her spirit became calmed to its wonted and faithful
melancholy. Vaudemont was forgotten, and the name of Sidney yet murmured
on her lips, when sleep came to renew the image of the absent one, and
paint in dreams the fairy land of a happy Future!