The next day a somewhat old-fashioned, but exceedingly patrician,
equipage stopped at Riccabocca’s garden-gate. Giacomo, who, from a
bedroom window, had caught sight of its winding towards the house, was
seized with undefinable terror when he beheld it pause before their
walls, and heard the shrill summons at the portal. He rushed into his
master’s presence, and implored him not to stir,--not to allow any
one to give ingress to the enemies the machine might disgorge. “I have
heard,” said he, “how a town in Italy--I think it was Bologna--was once
taken and given to the sword, by incautiously admitting a wooden horse
full of the troops of Barbarossa and all manner of bombs and Congreve
rockets.”
“The story is differently told in Virgil,” quoth Riccabocca, peeping
out of the window. “Nevertheless, the machine looks very large and
suspicious; unloose Pompey.”
“Father,” said Violante, colouring, “it is your friend, Lord L’Estrange;
I hear his voice.”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite. How can I be mistaken?”
“Go, then, Giacomo; but take Pompey with thee,--and give the alarm if we
are deceived.”
But Violante was right; and in a few moments Lord L’Estrange was seen
walking up the garden, and giving the arm to two ladies.
“Ah,” said Riccabocca, composing his dressing-robe round him, “go, my
child, and summon Jemima. Man to man; but, for Heaven’s sake, woman to
woman.”
Harley had brought his mother and Helen, in compliment to the ladies of
his friend’s household.
The proud countess knew that she was in the presence of Adversity, and
her salute to Riccabocca was only less respectful than that with which
she would have rendered homage to her sovereign. But Riccabocca, always
gallant to the sex that he pretended to despise, was not to be outdone
in ceremony; and the bow which replied to the courtesy would have
edified the rising generation, and delighted such surviving relics of
the old Court breeding as may linger yet amidst the gloomy pomp of the
Faubourg St. Germain. These dues paid to etiquette, the countess briefly
introduced Helen as Miss Digby, and seated herself near the exile. In
a few moments the two elder personages became quite at home with each
other; and, really, perhaps Riccabocca had never, since we have known
him, showed to such advantage as by the side of his polished, but
somewhat formal visitor. Both had lived so little with our modern,
ill-bred age! They took out their manners of a former race, with a
sort of pride in airing once more such fine lace and superb brocade.
Riccabocca gave truce to the shrewd but homely wisdom of his proverbs,
perhaps he remembered that Lord Chesterfield denounces proverbs as
vulgar; and gaunt though his figure, and far from elegant though his
dressing-robe, there was that about him which spoke undeniably of the
grand seigneur,--of one to whom a Marquis de Dangeau would have offered
a fauteuil by the side of the Rohans and Montmorencies.
Meanwhile Helen and Harley seated themselves a little apart, and were
both silent,--the first, from timidity; the second, from abstraction.
At length the door opened, and Harley suddenly sprang to his
feet,--Violante and Jemima entered. Lady Lansinere’s eyes first rested
on the daughter, and she could scarcely refrain from an exclamation of
admiring surprise; but then, when she caught sight of Mrs. Riccabocca’s
somewhat humble, yet not obsequious mien,--looking a little shy, a
little homely, yet still thoroughly a gentlewoman (though of your plain,
rural kind of that genus), she turned from the daughter, and with the
savoir vivre of the fine old school, paid her first respects to the
wife; respects literally, for her manner implied respect,--but it
was more kind, simple, and cordial than the respect she had shown to
Riccabocca; as the sage himself had said, here “it was Woman to Woman.”
And then she took Violante’s hand in both hers, and gazed on her as if
she could not resist the pleasure of contemplating so much beauty. “My
son,” she said softly, and with a half sigh,--“my son in vain told me
not to be surprised. This is the first time I have ever known reality
exceed description!”
Violante’s blush here made her still more beautiful; and as the countess
returned to Riccabocca, she stole gently to Helen’s side.
“Miss Digby, my ward,” said Harley, pointedly, observing that his
mother had neglected her duty of presenting Helen to the ladies. He then
reseated himself, and conversed with Mrs. Riccabocca; but his bright,
quick eye glanced over at the two girls. They were about the same
age--and youth was all that, to the superficial eye, they seemed to have
in common. A greater contrast could not well be conceived; and, what is
strange, both gained by it. Violante’s brilliant loveliness seemed yet
more dazzling, and Helen’s fair, gentle face yet more winning. Neither
had mixed much with girls of her own age; each took to the other at
first sight. Violante, as the less shy, began the conversation.
“You are his ward,--Lord L’Estrange’s?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you came with him from Italy?”
“No, not exactly; but I have been in Italy for some years.”
“Ah! you regret--nay, I am foolish--you return to your native land.
But the skies in Italy are so blue,--here it seems as if Nature wanted
colours.”
“Lord L’Estrange says that you were very young when you left Italy; you
remember it well. He, too, prefers Italy to England.”
“He! Impossible!”
“Why impossible, fair sceptic?” cried Harley, interrupting himself in
the midst of a speech to Jemima.
Violante had not dreamed that she could be overheard--she was speaking
low; but, though visibly embarrassed, she answered distinctly,
“Because in England there is the noblest career for noble minds.”
Harley was startled, and replied, with a slight sigh, “At your age I
should have said as you do. But this England of ours is so crowded with
noble minds that they only jostle each other, and the career is one
cloud of dust.”
“So, I have read, seems a battle to a common soldier, but not to the
chief.”
“You have read good descriptions of battles, I see.”
Mrs. Riccabocca, who thought this remark a taunt upon her
step-daughter’s studies, hastened to Violante’s relief.
“Her papa made her read the history of Italy, and I believe that is full
of battles.”
HARLEY.--“All history is, and all women are fond of war and of warriors.
I wonder why?”
VIOLANTE (turning to Helen, and in a very low voice, resolved that
Harley should not hear this time).--“We can guess why,--can we not?”
HARLEY (hearing every word, as if it had been spoken in St. Paul’s
Whispering Gallery).--“If you can guess, Helen, pray tell me.”
HELEN (shaking her pretty head, and answering with a livelier smile than
usual).--“But I am not fond of war and warriors.”
HARLEY (to Violante).--“Then I must appeal at once to you,
self-convicted Bellona that you are. Is it from the cruelty natural to
the female disposition?”
VIOLANTE (with a sweet musical laugh). “From two propensities still more
natural to it.”
HARLEY.--“YOU puzzle me: what can they be?”
VIOLANTE.--“Pity and admiration; we pity the weak and admire the brave.”
Harley inclined his head, and was silent.
Lady Lansmere had suspended her conversation with Riccabocca to listen
to this dialogue. “Charming!” she cried.
“You have explained what has often perplexed me. Ah, Harley, I am glad
to see that your satire is foiled: you have no reply to that.”
“No; I willingly own myself defeated, too glad to claim the signorina’s
pity, since my cavalry sword hangs on the wall, and I can have no longer
a professional pretence to her admiration.”
He then rose, and glanced towards the window. “But I see a more
formidable disputant for my conqueror to encounter is coming into the
field,--one whose profession it is to substitute some other romance for
that of camp and siege.”
“Our friend Leonard,” said Riccabocca, turning his eye also towards the
window. “True; as Quevedo says, wittily, ‘Ever since there has been
so great a demand for type, there has been much less lead to spare for
cannon-balls.’”
Here Leonard entered. Harley had sent Lady Lansmere’s footman to him
with a note, that prepared him to meet Helen. As he came into the room,
Harley took him by the hand and led him to Lady Lansmere.
“The friend of whom I spoke. Welcome him now for my sake, ever after for
his own;” and then, scarcely allowing time for the countess’s elegant
and gracious response, he drew Leonard towards Helen. “Children,” said
he, with a touching voice, that thrilled through the hearts of both, “go
and seat yourselves yonder, and talk together of the past. Signorina, I
invite you to renewed discussion upon the abstruse metaphysical subject
you have started; let us see if we cannot find gentler sources for pity
and admiration than war and warriors.” He took Violante aside to the
window. “You remember that Leonard, in telling you his history last
night, spoke, you thought, rather too briefly of the little girl who had
been his companion in the rudest time of his trials. When you would
have questioned more, I interrupted you, and said, ‘You should see her
shortly, and question her yourself.’ And now what think you of Helen
Digby? Hush, speak low. But her ears are not so sharp as mine.”
VIOLANTE.--“Ah! that is the fair creature whom Leonard called his
child-angel? What a lovely innocent face!--the angel is there still.”
HARLEY (pleased both at the praise and with her who gave it).--“You
think so; and you are right. Helen is not communicative. But fine
natures are like fine poems,--a glance at the first two lines suffices
for a guess into the beauty that waits you if you read on.”
Violante gazed on Leonard and Helen as they sat apart. Leonard was the
speaker, Helen the listener; and though the former had, in his narrative
the night before, been indeed brief as to the episode in his life
connected with the orphan, enough had been said to interest Violante
in the pathos of their former position towards each other, and in the
happiness they must feel in their meeting again,--separated for years on
the wide sea of life, now both saved from the storm and shipwreck. The
tears came into her eyes. “True,” she said, very softly, “there is more
here to move pity and admiration than in--” She paused.
HARLEY.--“Complete the sentence. Are you ashamed to retract? Fie on your
pride and obstinacy!”
VIOLANTE.--“No; but even here there have been war and heroism,--the war
of genius with adversity, and heroism in the comforter who shared it
and consoled. Ah, wherever pity and admiration are both felt, something
nobler than mere sorrow must have gone before: the heroic must exist.”
“Helen does not know what the word ‘heroic’ means,” said Harley, rather
sadly; “you must teach her.”
“Is it possible,” thought he as he spoke, “that a Randal Leslie could
have charmed this grand creature? No ‘Heroic’ surely, in that sleek
young placeman.--Your father,” he said aloud, and fixing his eyes on her
face, “sees much, he tells me, of a young man about Leonard’s age, as to
date; but I never estimate the age of men by the parish register, and
I should speak of that so-called young man as a contemporary of my
great-grandfather,--I mean Mr. Randal Leslie. Do you like him?”
“Like him,” said Violante, slowly, and as if sounding her own
mind,--“like him--yes.”
“Why?” asked Harley, with dry and curt indignation. “His visits seem to
please my dear father. Certainly I like him.”
“Hum. He professes to like you, I suppose?”
Violante laughed unsuspiciously. She had half a mind to reply, “Is that
so strange?” But her respect for Harley stopped her. The words would
have seemed to her pert. “I am told he is clever,” resumed Harley.
“Oh, certainly.”
“And he is rather handsome. But I like Leonard’s face better.”
“Better--that is not the word. Leonard’s face is as that of one who has
gazed so often upon Heaven; and Mr. Leslie’s--there is neither sunlight
nor starlight reflected there.”
“My dear Violante?” exclaimed Harley, overjoyed; and he pressed her
hand.
The blood rushed over the girl’s cheek and brow; her hand trembled in
his. But Harley’s familiar exclamation might have come from a father’s
lips.
At this moment Helen softly approached them, and looking timidly into
her guardian’s face, said, “Leonard’s mother is with him: he asks me to
call and see her. May I?”
“May you! A pretty notion the signorina must form of your enslaved state
of pupilage, when she hears you ask that question. Of course you may.”
“Will you come with us?”
Harley looked embarrassed. He thought of the widow’s agitation at his
name; of that desire to shun him, which Leonard had confessed, and of
which he thought he divined the cause. And so divining, he too shrank
from such a meeting.
“Another time, then,” said he, after a pause. Helen looked disappointed,
but said no more.
Violante was surprised at this ungracious answer. She would have blamed
it as unfeeling in another; but all that Harley did was right in her
eyes.
“Cannot I go with Miss Digby?” said she, “and my mother will go too. We
both know Mrs. Fairfield. We shall be so pleased to see her again.”
“So be it,” said Harley; “I will wait here with your father till you
come back. Oh, as to my mother, she will excuse the--excuse Madame
Riccabocca, and you too. See how charmed she is with your father. I must
stay to watch over the conjugal interests of mine.”
But Mrs. Riccabocca had too much good old country breeding to leave the
countess; and Harley was forced himself to appeal to Lady Lansmere. When
he had explained the case in point, the countess rose and said,
“But I will call myself, with Miss Digby.”
“No,” said Harley, gravely, but in a whisper. “No; I would rather not. I
will explain later.”
“Then,” said the countess aloud, after a glance of surprise at her son,
“I must insist on your performing this visit, my dear madam, and you,
Signorina. In truth, I have something to say confidentially to--”
“To me,” interrupted Riccabocca. “Ah, Madame la Comtesse, you restore me
to five-and-twenty. Go, quick, O jealous and injured wife; go, both of
you, quick; and you, too, Harley.”
“Nay,” said Lady Lansmere, in the same tone, “Harley must stay, for my
design is not at present upon destroying your matrimonial happiness,
whatever it may be later. It is a design so innocent that my son will be
a partner in it.”
Here the countess put her lips to Harley’s ear, and whispered. He
received her communication in attentive silence; but when she had done,
pressed her hand, and bowed his head, as if in assent to a proposal.
In a few minutes the three ladies and Leonard were on their road to the
neighbouring cottage.
Violante, with her usual delicate intuition, thought that Leonard and
Helen must have much to say to each other; and (ignorant, as Leonard
himself was, of Helen’s engagement to Harley) began already, in the
romance natural to her age, to predict for them happy and united days in
the future. So she took her stepmother’s arm, and left Helen and Leonard
to follow.
“I wonder,” she said musingly, “how Miss Digby became Lord L’Estrange’s
ward. I hope she is not very rich, nor very high-born.”
“La, my love,” said the good Jemima, “that is not like you; you are not
envious of her, poor girl?”
“Envious! Dear mamma, what a word! But don’t you think Leonard and Miss
Digby seem born for each other? And then the recollections of their
childhood--the thoughts of childhood are so deep, and its memories so
strangely soft!” The long lashes drooped over Violante’s musing eyes as
she spoke. “And therefore,” she said, after a pause,--“therefore I hoped
that Miss Digby might not be very rich nor very high-born.”
“I understand you now, Violante,” exclaimed Jemima, her own early
passion for match-making instantly returning to her; “for as Leonard,
however clever and distinguished, is still the son of Mark Fairfield the
carpenter, it would spoil all if--Miss Digby was, as you say, rich and
high-born. I agree with you,--a very pretty match, a very pretty match,
indeed. I wish dear--Mrs. Dale were here now,--she is so clever in
settling such matters.”
Meanwhile Leonard and Helen walked side by side a few paces in the rear.
He had not offered her his arm. They had been silent hitherto since they
left Riccabocca’s house.
Helen now spoke first. In similar cases it is generally the woman, be
she ever so timid, who does speak first. And here Helen was the bolder;
for Leonard did not disguise from himself the nature of his feelings,
and Helen was engaged to another, and her pure heart was fortified by
the trust reposed in it.
“And have you ever heard more of the good Dr. Morgan, who had powders
against sorrow, and who meant to be so kind to us,--though,” she added,
colouring, “we did not think so then?”
“He took my child-angel from me,” said Leonard, with visible emotion;
“and if she had not returned, where and what should I be now? But I have
forgiven him. No, I have never met him since.”
“And that terrible Mr. Burley?”
“Poor, poor Burley! He, too, is vanished out of my present life. I have
made many inquiries after him; all I can hear is that he went abroad,
supposed as a correspondent to some journal. I should like so much to
see him again, now that perhaps I could help him as he helped me.”
“Helped you--ah!”
Leonard smiled with a beating heart, as he saw again the dear prudent,
warning look, and involuntarily drew closer to Helen. She seemed more
restored to him and to her former self.
“Helped me much by his instructions; more, perhaps, by his very faults.
You cannot guess, Helen,--I beg pardon, Miss Digby, but I forgot that we
are no longer children,--you cannot guess how much we men, and more than
all, perhaps, we writers whose task it is to unravel the web of human
actions, owe even to our own past errors; and if we learned nothing by
the errors of others, we should be dull indeed. We must know where the
roads divide, and have marked where they lead to, before we can erect
our sign-post; and books are the sign-posts in human life.”
“Books! and I have not yet read yours. And Lord L’Estrange tells me you
are famous now. Yet you remember me still,--the poor orphan child, whom
you first saw weeping at her father’s grave, and with whom you burdened
your own young life, over-burdened already. No, still call me Helen--you
must always be to me a brother! Lord L’Estrange feels that; he said so
to me when he told me that we were to meet again. He is so generous, so
noble. Brother!” cried Helen, suddenly, and extending her hand, with
a sweet but sublime look in her gentle face,--“brother, we will never
forfeit his esteem; we will both do our best to repay him! Will we
not?--say so!”
Leonard felt overpowered by contending and unanalyzed emotions. Touched
almost to tears by the affectionate address, thrilled by the hand
that pressed his own, and yet with a vague fear, a consciousness that
something more than the words themselves was implied,--something that
checked all hope. And this word “brother,” once so precious and so dear,
why did he shrink from it now; why could he not too say the sweet word
“sister”?
“She is above me now and evermore!” he thought mournfully; and the tones
of his voice, when he spoke again, were changed. The appeal to renewed
intimacy but made him more distant, and to that appeal itself he made no
direct answer; for Mrs. Riccabocca, now turning round, and pointing to
the cottage which came in view, with its picturesque gable-ends, cried
out,
“But is that your house, Leonard? I never saw anything so pretty.”
“You do not remember it then,” said Leonard to Helen, in accents of
melancholy reproach,--“there where I saw you last? I doubted whether
to keep it exactly as it was, and I said, ‘--No! the association is
not changed because we try to surround it with whatever beauty we can
create; the dearer the association, the more the Beautiful becomes to it
natural.’ Perhaps you don’t understand this,--perhaps it is only we poor
poets who do.”
“I understand it,” said Helen, gently. She looked wistfully at the
cottage.
“So changed! I have so often pictured it to myself, never, never like
this; yet I loved it, commonplace as it was to my recollection; and the
garret, and the tree in the carpenter’s yard.”
She did not give these thoughts utterance. And they now entered the
garden.