SUNSET IN AN ITALIAN CATHEDRAL.
A dim, religious light came softly stealing
Along the solemn stillness of those aisles--
The sculptured arch and groined roof revealing--
As the bright present on tradition smiles.
But Isabel Chester. I wish you could have seen her as she stood upon
the deck of the Atlantic steamer, which was to convey the Farnhams to
Europe! Those large almond-shaped eyes, velvety and soft, yet capable
of intense brilliancy--that raven hair, so glossy and with a purple
glow in it, and those oval cheeks, with their peachy richness of
bloom. Indeed, Isabel was very beautiful. No wonder she was
embarrassed, with all that quantity of bouquets, and seemed a little
annoyed by their profusion; for young Farnham was looking on, and he
did not appear particularly well pleased.
Isabel was not the least of a flirt, but she really could not prevent
all this crowd of persons coming down to see her off, with lavish
flowers and more lavish compliments; besides, what right had Fred to
be angry? he was not even a brother!
Mrs. Farnham was delighted with this display of her protege's
popularity. It seemed to cast a reflected glory on herself, and she
began to calculate, very seriously, on marrying so much beauty to a
Prince of the blood, at least, of whose palace she was herself to
dispense the honors. But Frederick Farnham had little time to devote
even to the jealousy this crowd of admirers was calculated to excite,
if, in reality, he cared for the matter at all. He was looking eagerly
over the side of the steamer, as if in expectation of some one who had
not arrived.
At last his eyes brightened, and he threw out his handkerchief as a
signal.
A young man who stood near the gangway answered this recognition with
a wave of the hand; a moment after he was on the deck, and Isabel came
gladly forward.
"Dear Joseph! this is so kind of you; we heard that your father was
worse, and hardly expected you," she said.
"He is worse, but I could not let you and Farnham go away for so long
without a parting word," answered the youth, reaching his hand to
Frederick, who held it affectionately in his.
"Don't say anything sorrowful now, or you will set me off into another
crying fit," said Isabel, striving to laugh back the tears that came
into her eyes, as she turned away, burying her face in the flowers
with which she was still encumbered.
"Come this way one moment, Edward, I want to speak with you," said
young Farnham, drawing the young artist aside. "I want you to paint me
a picture, old fellow, anything you please!"
"Shall I paint Isabel from memory?" said the young man, with a quiet
smile, glancing at the young girl.
Farnham blushed.
"You can't do it, Joseph; no pencil on earth can paint her! but--but
if you are not joking, I should like it of all things."
"I can make the effort," was the good-natured reply.
"And will?"
"And will!"
"Thank you, Esmond, you are a capital fellow, now let me--let me. It
isn't half what a picture of her would be worth."
Here Frederick thrust a bank-note into his friend's hand, blushing
like a girl.
"Thank you," said Esmond, gently, "my father is so ill, for his
sake--the picture shall be my first work."
Isabel forgot her other admirers in looking at the two young men, as
they stood together contrasted, and yet in many things so much alike;
both were tall, and an air of singular refinement distinguished them
above all others.
In different styles they were remarkably fine-looking young men. The
golden hair of the artist had taken a chestnut tinge, but still it was
bright with sunny waves, and his eyes had lost nothing of the heavenly
expression. His manner too was calm and thoughtful. The sickly boy had
become an intelligent man.
In everything Fred was a contrast to his friend; passionate and
impetuous even in his most noble acts, he carried the fire of an
ardent nature in his looks and his manner. His dark eyes were bright
with animation, and even Isabel's tresses of purplish black were not
more glossy, than the short curling locks that shaded his manly
forehead. In everything the young men were contrasts, and yet they
loved each other like brothers.
"And now, good-bye," said Joseph, with a slight tremor in his voice,
but struggling manfully for firmness.
Isabel gave him her hand, while she drew down her veil, that he might
not see how moist her eyes were becoming.
Fred wrung his hand.
The bell rang, and many a warm heart leaped painfully to the farewell
summons. There arose starting tears, sobs, and the warm clasp of
hands, that might never meet again. Then there was a rush to the
gangway, a moment's pause and the steamer swung out from its berth,
and swept proudly into the river.
Isabel stood upon the stern, languidly waving her embroidered
handkerchief to a group of admirers gathered on the wharf.
You would have thought a flock of doves had taken flight by the cloud
of scented cambric that answered her farewell signal. But there was
one form standing out alone, which she and Frederick watched to the
last, and even Mrs. Farnham looked earnestly in that direction through
her eye-glass, so long as Joseph Esmond was visible.
But the steamer made rapid progress. In a few minutes the passengers
upon her deck lost sight of the crowded wharf, and became themselves
invisible, wrapped in a cloud of haze, from all the eyes that followed
them. During the voyage young Farnham and Isabel were thrown
constantly together for the first time. He was fresh from college, and
the young girl had only been two months from school.
They travelled through England and France, stopping a month or two in
Paris. The winter found them in Italy, and here the reader has one
more glance at Isabel.
She has changed somewhat, and there is a look of restlessness about
her. The color comes and goes on her cheek in crimson waves, when any
one addresses her suddenly, as if some sweet hidden thought had been
disturbed, and, like a shaken rose, sent its perfume to her face. She
has grown a little thinner too, and the dreamy contentment of her eyes
is utterly broken up; there is unrest and anxiety in the bright
flashes that come like sudden gleams of starlight through those inky
lashes.
There need be no lengthened explanation of the causes which led to
these indications of an aroused heart. Indeed, we scarcely know when
or where Frederick Farnham first told Isabel of the love, which had
become a portion of his being; for their whole lives were so
intermingled, every opening thought was so promptly shared between
them, that affection required no words, till it had become the essence
of their souls. It was a happy season for them while this love
remained impassive, as perfume sleeps in the heart of the Lotus bud,
swayed softly by the waters and breathing out its sweet life
imperceptibly, till some sudden gust of wind or outburst of sunshine,
scatters the secret perfume from its heart, which can never close
again.
Through all her years of adoption, Isabel had been haunted by a sense
of wrong, in receiving kindness from the mother and son of Farnham.
Her education and course of reading had tended to increase this
prejudice; and she learned to look upon herself, like Hamlet, as in
some way destined to avenge her father's death. She had no idea how
this was to be accomplished, but certain it is she never received an
obligation from Mrs. Farnham, or a kindness from her son, but it was
with a rebellious swelling of the heart, as if she were inflicting a
fresh wrong on the memory of her father.
But Frederick Farnham shared in none of these feelings, nor even
suspected their existence. When he became aware of the depth of his
own passion for the lovely orphan, he spoke it frankly, and with all
the earnestness of a true-hearted man. Love makes the proudest heart
distrustful, and even Isabel's pride was satisfied with the humility
of his pleading. Now came her punishment. In every throb of her heart
and nerve of her body, Isabel felt a response to the generous love
offered to her. But her will rose proudly against him, and against
herself. Love for Farnham's son, was in her estimation a fearful wrong
to the memory of her parents.
"I will never marry the son of my father's destroyer," she said, "it
would be sacrilege!"
Frederick could not believe her in earnest--she, so playful, so loving
in all her bright ways; surely, these bitter feelings could not have
lived all these years in her heart! He would wait--he would give her
time for reflection; his father's sin could not be so cruelly brought
up from the past, to poison his own young life; he would not believe
it!
But Isabel was firm; the very love that thrilled her with every sound
of his footstep or tone of his voice, brought with it bitter
self-upbraiding. She looked on the purest and holiest sensations her
soul could ever know, as a sin against the dead.
This was the condition of things when they reached Arezzo, an Etruscan
city, in the mountainous portions of Italy. They were to remain in
this place overnight, on their way from Rome to Florence.
Arezzo is a picturesque old town, rich with historical and religious
associations, and as the birth-place of Petrarch, possessed a singular
interest in the eyes of Isabel; for, just then, she was keenly alive
to all that was sad in the life and love of the Italian poet.
It was with all the romance of her nature aroused, that she came in
sight of this ancient place. It seemed to her, as she saw its spires
rising from the hill-side upon which they stood, surrounded by the
luxurious beauty of an Italian winter, that, in some way, the town was
connected with her destiny, that she would neither be so strong nor so
free when that was left behind.
It was an unhealthy state of mind, but Isabel had become passionate,
romantic and headstrong, in the process of her fashionable education.
True these faults were on the surface, and had not yet reached her
inner soul, but they were grave defects in a beautiful nature.
All day their route had been among the hills, along roads hedged in
with laurestines, covered with sunny blossoms and myrtle thickets
always in rich leafiness. The atmosphere was bland as spring-time, and
though the sun was going down when they drove up to the hotel at
Arezzo, Isabel entered it reluctantly, the twilight was so beautiful.
Frederick remembered that it was the hour for vespers, and gently
touched Isabel's arm as she was following Mrs. Farnham into the hotel.
"There is light enough yet, let us go to the cathedral," he said, in
the low serious voice with which he always addressed her now.
She started, with a thrill of pleasure, and took his arm.
The cathedral at Arezzo stands in the most elevated portion of the
town.
Isabel was almost breathless with the rapidity of their walk, as they
mounted the ascent, for Frederick hurried on in silence, urged
forward, as it seemed, by the force of buried thoughts that had kept
him silent all day.
The cathedral was seen just touched with the coming twilight when they
entered it. A calm stillness hung around it, a stillness that seemed
independent of the strain of music that swelled, rich with sacred
sweetness, from one of the chapels.
They moved forward through the solemn twilight of the interior. The
atmosphere without had been singularly transparent, but now many
stained windows tinted it with gorgeous mistiness, and the shadows, as
they gathered around the sculpture and ancient paintings, were broken
with a soft purplish haze that was lifted in waves and eddies by the
slow swell of the music.
The chapel from which these vesper hymns were stealing, was lighted
up, and the tapers gleamed like flashes of starlight across that end
of the edifice, rendering the gorgeous gloom in which they stood more
palpable by contrast.
It was by this beautiful twilight alone that they approached the grand
altar, and saw the carved foliage that lay upon it like incrustations
of frozen music, left there more than five hundred years ago, when
Geovanni Pisano gave his genius to religion.
Those young hearts had been swelling with poetic thoughts all the day,
and now, surrounded by everything that could thrill the soul and
delight the imagination, they stood hand in hand listening to the
distant music.
Their fingers were woven together, and trembled with the electric
shock of two souls thrilled with a worship of the beautiful, and the
solemn poetry of the past.
Frederick felt Isabel's hand tremble in his; he bent down his head,
clasping that little hand more tightly.
"Isabel, my beautiful--speak to me!"
"Hush!" said Isabel, trembling, "I beseech you do not speak now."
"Why not, Isabel! There can be no place so holy that a love like mine
may not be pleaded there. It is the religion of my soul!"
"I cannot--oh, I cannot listen to this," murmured the young girl,
striving feebly to extricate her hand from his clasp; "do not, I
entreat you, do not speak to me in this way again!"
Her voice faltered, and she leaned against the altar for support, but
he would not be repulsed. He felt that her resolution was giving
way--that the love of her young heart was growing powerful in his
behalf, and drawing her from the altar supported her with his arm.
"Isabel, be true to yourself, be just to me! Why shrink from a
happiness so great? Speak to me, beloved--speak to me!"
Isabel felt her resolution wavering; her strength gave way, she
yielded to the pressure of his arm, and for one moment was drawn to
his heart.
Down in the distant chapel the music still swelled, and with it came
the voices of the choir, "Father, oh, our Father!"
The solemn Latin in which those words were uttered fell upon her like
winged arrows; she started forward and stood for an instant immovable,
horrified by the tenderness to which she had yielded.
"Oh, my father, my father, forgive me!" she exclaimed, passionately.
"Isabel, Isabel, what is this?" pleaded the young man, astonished at
the abrupt change.
"Stop!" she said, waving him back. "Tempt me no more, I cannot bear
it!"
Still he pressed toward her, grieved and anxious. He had not observed
the words of the music, and her change of manner was inexplicable.
"Listen to me, Isabel!"
She waved him back, and walking toward the high altar fell upon her
knees before it, and there, touching the sculptured leaves that had
occupied a human life five hundred years before, she uttered a solemn
vow. The words fell in whispers from her white lips, her forehead was
one moment uplifted to heaven. She arose and stood before her lover,
cold and pale as the marble she had touched.
Then the music swelled out again in a slow, plaintive strain, as if it
were moaning over the burial of a dead hope. Those who had gathered
for worship in the chapel, glided away; the tapers were extinguished,
and through the gathering darkness Frederick Farnham and Isabel
Chester walked forth into the world again.
Isabel had made a vow never to marry the son of her father's murderer.
It was a rash act, for even then she had not the courage to tell
Frederick of the oath she had taken. Oh, Isabel! that vow may prove
like that of Jepthah yet--only it is your own hand that gives, and
your own heart that receives the blow.