FIRST LOVE.
WE are under very changeful influences in this world! The night on which
occurred the interview with Aubrey that I have just narrated, I was
burning to leave Devereux Court. Within one little week from that time
my eagerness was wonderfully abated. The sagacious reader will readily
discover the cause of this alteration. About eight miles from my uncle’s
house was a seaport town; there were many and varied rides leading
to it, and the town was a favourite place of visitation with all the
family. Within a few hundred yards of the town was a small cottage,
prettily situated in the midst of a garden, kept with singular neatness,
and ornamented with several rare shrubs and exotics. I had more than
once observed in the garden of this house a female in the very first
blush of youth, and beautiful enough to excite within me a strong
curiosity to learn the owner of the cottage. I inquired, and ascertained
that its tenant was a Spaniard of high birth, and one who had acquired
a melancholy celebrity by his conduct and misfortunes in the part he
had taken in a certain feeble but gallant insurrection in his native
country. He had only escaped with life and a very small sum of money,
and now lived in the obscure seaport of------, a refugee and a recluse.
He was a widower, and had only one child,--a daughter; and I was
therefore at no loss to discover who was the beautiful female I had
noted and admired.
On the day after my conversation with Aubrey detailed in the last
chapter, in riding past this cottage alone, I perceived a crowd
assembled round the entrance; I paused to inquire the cause.
“Why, your honour,” quoth a senior of the village, “I believe the
tipstaves be come to take the foreigner for not paying his rent; and he
does not understand our English liberty like, and has drawn his sword,
and swears, in his outlandish lingo, he will not be made prisoner
alive.”
I required no further inducement to make me enter the house. The crowd
gave way when they saw me dismount, and suffered me to penetrate into
the first apartment. There I found the gallant old Spaniard with his
sword drawn, keeping at bay a couple of sturdy-looking men, who appeared
to be only prevented from using violence by respect for the person
or the safety of a young woman, who clung to her father’s knees and
implored him not to resist where resistance was so unavailing. Let me
cut short this scene; I dismissed the bailiffs, and paid the debt. I
then endeavoured to explain to the Spaniard, in French, for he scarcely
understood three words of our language, the cause of a rudeness towards
him which he persisted in calling a great insult and inhospitality
manifested to a stranger and an exile. I succeeded at length in
pacifying him. I remained for more than an hour at the cottage, and
I left it with a heart beating at a certain persuasion that I had
established therein the claim of acquaintance and visitation.
Will the reader pardon me for having curtailed this scene? It is
connected with a subject on which I shall better endure to dwell as
my narrative proceeds. From that time I paid frequent visits to the
cottage; the Spaniard soon grew intimate with me, and I thought the
daughter began to blush when I entered, and to sigh when I departed.
One evening I was conversing with Don Diego D’Alvarez (such was the
Spaniard’s name), as he sat without the threshold, inhaling the gentle
air, that stole freshness from the rippling sea that spread before us,
and fragrance from the earth, over which the summer now reigned in its
most mellow glory. Isora (the daughter) sat at a little distance.
“How comes it,” said Don Diego, “that you have never met our friend
Senor Bar--Bar--these English names are always escaping my memory. How
is he called, Isora?”
“Mr.--Mr. Barnard,” said Isora (who, brought early to England, spoke its
language like a native), but with evident confusion, and looking down as
she spoke--“Mr. Barnard, I believe, you mean.”
“Right, my love,” rejoined the Spaniard, who was smoking a long pipe
with great gravity, and did not notice his daughter’s embarrassment,--“a
fine youth, but somewhat shy and over-modest in manner.”
“Youth!” thought I, and I darted a piercing look towards Isora. “How
comes it, indeed,” I said aloud, “that I have not met him? Is he a
friend of long standing?”
“Nay, not very,--perhaps of some six weeks earlier date than you, Senor
Don Devereux. I pressed him, when he called this morning, to tarry your
coming: but, poor youth, he is diffident, and not yet accustomed to
mix freely with strangers, especially those of rank; our own presence a
little overawes him;” and from Don Diego’s gray mustachios issued a yet
fuller cloud than was ordinarily wont to emerge thence.
My eyes were still fixed on Isora; she looked up, met them, blushed
deeply, rose, and disappeared within the house. I was already
susceptible of jealousy. My lip trembled as I resumed: “And will Don
Diego pardon me for inquiring how commenced his knowledge of this
ingenuous youth?”
The question was a little beyond the pale of good breeding; perhaps the
Spaniard, who was tolerably punctilious in such matters, thought so, for
he did not reply. I was sensible of my error, and apologizing for it,
insinuated, nevertheless, the question in a more respectful and
covert shape. Still Don Diego, inhaling the fragrant weed with renewed
vehemence, only--like Pion’s tomb, recorded by Pausanias--replied to
the request of his petitioner _by smoke_. I did not venture to renew my
interrogatories, and there was a long silence. My eyes fixed their gaze
on the door by which Isora had disappeared. In vain; she returned not;
and as the chill of the increasing evening began now to make itself felt
by the frame of one accustomed to warmer skies, the Spaniard soon rose
to re-enter his house, and I took my farewell for the night.
There were many ways (as I before said) by which I could return home,
all nearly equal in picturesque beauty; for the county in which my
uncle’s estates were placed was one where stream roved and woodland
flourished even to the very strand or cliff of the sea. The shortest
route, though one the least frequented by any except foot-passengers,
was along the coast, and it was by this path that I rode slowly
homeward. On winding a curve in the road about one mile from Devereux
Court, the old building broke slowly, tower by tower, upon me. I have
never yet described the house, and perhaps it will not be uninteresting
to the reader if I do so now.
It had anciently belonged to Ralph de Bigod. From his possession it
had passed into that of the then noblest branch the stem of Devereux,
whence, without break or flaw in the direct line of heritage, it had
ultimately descended to the present owner. It was a pile of vast extent,
built around three quadrangular courts, the farthest of which spread to
the very verge of the gray, tall cliffs that overhung the sea; in this
court was a rude tower, which, according to tradition, had contained the
apartments ordinarily inhabited by our ill-fated namesake and distant
kinsman, Robert Devereux, the favourite and the victim of Elizabeth,
whenever he had honoured the mansion with a visit. There was nothing,
it is true, in the old tower calculated to flatter the tradition, for it
contained only two habitable rooms, communicating with each other,
and by no means remarkable for size or splendour; and every one of our
household, save myself, was wont to discredit the idle rumour which
would assign to so distinguished a guest so unseemly a lodgment. But, as
I looked from the narrow lattices of the chambers, over the wide expanse
of ocean and of land which they commanded; as I noted, too, that the
tower was utterly separated from the rest of the house, and that the
convenience of its site enabled one on quitting it, to escape at once,
and privately, either to the solitary beach, or to the glades and groves
of the wide park which stretched behind,--I could not help indulging
the belief that the unceremonious and not unromantic noble had himself
selected his place of retirement, and that, in so doing, the gallant of
a stately court was not perhaps undesirous of securing at well-chosen
moments a brief relaxation from the heavy honours of country homage; or
that the patron and poetic admirer of the dreaming Spenser might have
preferred, to all more gorgeous accommodation, the quiet and unseen
egress to that sea and shore, which, if we may believe the accomplished
Roman,* are so fertile in the powers of inspiration.
* “O mare, O litus, verum secretumque Movoetov, quam multa dictatis,
quam multa invenitis!”--PLINIUS.
“O sea, O shore, true and secret sanctuary of the Muses, how many things
ye dictate, how many things ye discover!”
However this be, I had cheated myself into the belief that my conjecture
was true, and I had petitioned my uncle, when, on leaving school, he
assigned to each of us our several apartments, to grant me the exclusive
right to this dilapidated tower. I gained my boon easily enough; and--so
strangely is our future fate compounded from past trifles--I verily
believe that the strong desire which thenceforth seized me to visit
courts and mix with statesmen--which afterwards hurried me into
intrigue, war, the plots of London, the dissipations of Paris, the
perilous schemes of Petersburg, nay, the very hardships of a Cossack
tent--was first formed by the imaginary honour of inhabiting the same
chamber as the glittering but ill-fated courtier of my own name. Thus
youth imitates where it should avoid; and thus that which should have
been to me a warning became an example.
In the oaken floor to the outer chamber of this tower was situated a
trap-door, the entrance into a lower room or rather cell, fitted up as
a bath; and here a wooden door opened into a long subterranean passage
that led out into a cavern by the sea-shore. This cave, partly by
nature, partly by art, was hollowed into a beautiful Gothic form; and
here, on moonlight evenings, when the sea crept gently over the yellow
and smooth sands and the summer tempered the air from too keen a
freshness, my uncle had often in his younger days, ere gout and rheum
had grown familiar images, assembled his guests. It was a place which
the echoes peculiarly adapted for music; and the scene was certainly not
calculated to diminish the effect of “sweet sounds.” Even now, though my
uncle rarely joined us, we were often wont to hold our evening revels
in this spot; and the high cliffs, circling either side in the form of a
bay, tolerably well concealed our meetings from the gaze of the vulgar.
It is true (for these cliffs were perforated with numerous excavations)
that some roving peasant, mariner, or perchance smuggler, would now and
then, at low water, intrude upon us. But our London Nereids and
courtly Tritons were always well pleased with the interest of what they
graciously termed “an adventure;” and our assemblies were too numerous
to think an unbroken secrecy indispensable. Hence, therefore, the cavern
was almost considered a part of the house itself; and though there was
an iron door at the entrance which it gave to the passage leading to
my apartments, yet so great was our confidence in our neighbours or
ourselves that it was rarely secured, save as a defence against the high
tides of winter.
The stars were shining quietly over the old gray castle (for castle it
really was), as I now came within view of it. To the left, and in the
rear of the house, the trees of the park, grouped by distance, seemed
blent into one thick mass of wood; to the right, as I now (descending
the cliff by a gradual path) entered on the level sands, and at about
the distance of a league from the main shore, a small islet, notorious
as the resort and shelter of contraband adventurers, scarcely relieved
the wide and glassy azure of the waves. The tide was out; and passing
through one of the arches worn in the bay, I came somewhat suddenly by
the cavern. Seated there on a crag of stone I found Aubrey.
My acquaintance with Isora and her father had so immediately succeeded
the friendly meeting with Aubrey which I last recorded, and had so
utterly engrossed my time and thoughts, that I had not taken of that
interview all the brotherly advantage which I might have done. My heart
now smote me for my involuntary negligence. I dismounted, and fastening
my horse to one of a long line of posts that ran into the sea,
approached Aubrey and accosted him.
“Alone, Aubrey? and at an hour when my uncle always makes the old walls
ring with revel? Hark! can you not hear the music even now? It comes
from the ball-room, I think, does it not?”
“Yes,” said Aubrey, briefly, and looking down upon a devotional book,
which (as was his wont) he had made his companion.
“And we are the only truants!--Well, Gerald will supply our places with
a lighter step, and, perhaps, a merrier heart.”
Aubrey sighed. I bent over him affectionately (I loved that boy with
something of a father’s as well as a brother’s love), and as I did bend
over him, I saw that his eyelids were red with weeping.
“My brother--my own dear brother,” said I, “what grieves you?--are we
not friends, and more than friends?--what can grieve you that grieves
not me?”
Suddenly raising his head, Aubrey gazed at me with a long, searching
intentness of eye; his lips moved, but he did not answer.
“Speak to me, Aubrey,” said I, passing my arm over his shoulder; “has
any one, anything, hurt you? See, now, if I cannot remedy the evil.”
“Morton,” said Aubrey, speaking very slowly, “do you believe that Heaven
pre-orders as well as foresees our destiny?”
“It is the schoolman’s question,” said I, smiling; “but I know how these
idle subtleties vex the mind; and you, my brother, are ever too occupied
with considerations of the future. If Heaven does pre-order our destiny,
we know that Heaven is merciful, and we should be fearless, as we arm
ourselves in that knowledge.”
“Morton Devereux,” said Aubrey, again repeating my name, and with an
evident inward effort that left his lip colourless, and yet lit his dark
dilating eye with a strange and unwonted fire,--“Morton Devereux, I feel
that I am predestined to the power of the Evil One!”
I drew back, inexpressibly shocked. “Good Heavens!” I exclaimed, “what
can induce you to cherish so terrible a phantasy? what can induce you to
wrong so fearfully the goodness and mercy of our Creator?”
Aubrey shrank from my arm, which had still been round him, and covered
his face with his hands. I took up the book he had been reading; it was
a Latin treatise on predestination, and seemed fraught with the most
gloomy and bewildering subtleties. I sat down beside him, and pointed
out the various incoherencies and contradictions of the work, and the
doctrine it espoused: so long and so earnestly did I speak that at
length Aubrey looked up, seemingly cheered and relieved.
“I wish,” said he, timidly, “I wish that you loved me, and that you
loved _me only_: but you love pleasure, and power, and show, and wit,
and revelry; and you know not what it is to feel for me as I feel at
times for you,--nay, perhaps you really dislike or despise me.”
Aubrey’s voice grew bitter in its tone as he concluded these words, and
I was instantly impressed with the belief that some one had insinuated
distrust of my affection for him.
“Why should you think thus?” I said; “has any cause occurred of late
to make you deem my affection for you weaker than it was? Has any one
hinted a surmise that I do not repay your brotherly regard?”
Aubrey did not answer.
“Has Gerald,” I continued, “jealous of our mutual attachment, uttered
aught tending to diminish it? Yes, I see that he has.”
Aubrey remained motionless, sullenly gazing downward and still silent.
“Speak,” said I, “in justice to both of us,--speak! You know, Aubrey,
how I _have_ loved and love you: put your arms round me, and say that
thing on earth which you wish me to do, and it shall be done!”
Aubrey looked up; he met my eyes, and he threw himself upon my neck, and
burst into a violent paroxysm of tears.
I was greatly affected. “I see my fault,” said I, soothing him; “you
are angry, and with justice, that I have neglected you of late; and,
perhaps, while I ask your confidence, you suspect that there is some
subject on which I should have granted you mine. You are right, and, at
a fitter moment, I will. Now let us return homeward: our uncle is never
merry when we are absent; and when my mother misses your dark locks and
fair cheek, I fancy that she sees little beauty in the ball. And yet,
Aubrey,” I added, as he now rose from my embrace and dried his tears,
“I will own to you that I love this scene better than any, however gay,
within;” and I turned to the sea, starlit as it was, and murmuring with
a silver voice, and I became suddenly silent.
There was a long pause. I believe we both felt the influence of the
scene around us, softening and tranquillizing our hearts; for, at
length, Aubrey put his hand in mine, and said, “You were always more
generous and kind than I, Morton, though there are times when you seem
different from what you are; and I know you have already forgiven me.”
I drew him affectionately towards me, and we went home. But although I
meant from that night to devote myself more to Aubrey than I had done
of late, my hourly increasing love for Isora interfered greatly with my
resolution. In order, however, to excuse any future neglect, I, the
very next morning, bestowed upon him my confidence. Aubrey did not much
encourage my passion: he represented to me Isora’s situation, my own
youth, my own worldly ambition; and, more than all (reminding me of my
uncle’s aversion even to the most prosperous and well-suited marriage),
he insisted upon the certainty that Sir William would never yield
consent to the lawful consummation of so unequal a love. I was not too
well pleased with this reception of my tale, and I did not much trouble
my adviser with any further communication and confidence on the subject.
Day after day I renewed my visits to the Spaniard’s cottage; and yet
time passed on, and I had not told Isora a syllable of my love. I was
inexpressibly jealous of this Barnard, whom her father often eulogized,
and whom I never met. There appeared to be some mystery in his
acquaintance with Don Diego, which that personage carefully concealed;
and once, when I was expressing my surprise to have so often missed
seeing his friend, the Spaniard shook his head gravely, and said that he
had now learnt the real reason for it: there were circumstances of state
which made men fearful of new acquaintances even in their own country.
He drew back, as if he had said too much, and left me to conjecture
that Barnard was connected with him in some intrigue, more delightful in
itself than agreeable to the government. This belief was strengthened by
my noting that Alvarez was frequently absent from home, and this too
in the evening, when he was generally wont to shun the bleakness of the
English air,--an atmosphere, by the by, which I once heard a Frenchman
wittily compare to Augustus placed between Horace and Virgil; namely, in
the _bon mot_ of the emperor himself, _between sighs and tears_.
But Isora herself never heard the name of this Barnard mentioned without
a visible confusion, which galled me to the heart; and at length, unable
to endure any longer my suspense upon the subject, I resolved to seek
from her own lips its termination. I long tarried my opportunity; it
was one evening that coming rather unexpectedly to the cottage, I
was informed by the single servant that Don Diego had gone to the
neighbouring town, but that Isora was in the garden. Small as it was,
this garden had been cultivated with some care, and was not devoid
of variety. A high and very thick fence of living box-wood, closely
interlaced with the honeysuckle and the common rose, screened a few
plots of rarer flowers, a small circular fountain, and a rustic arbour,
both from the sea breezes and the eyes of any passer-by, to which the
open and unsheltered portion of the garden was exposed. When I passed
through the opening cut in the fence, I was somewhat surprised at not
immediately seeing Isora. Perhaps she was in the arbour. I approached
the arbour trembling. What was my astonishment and my terror when I
beheld her stretched lifeless on the ground!
I uttered a loud cry, and sprang forward. I raised her from the earth,
and supported her in my arms; her complexion--through whose pure
and transparent white the wandering blood was wont so gently, yet
so glowingly, to blush, undulating while it blushed, as youngest
rose-leaves which the air just stirs into trembling--was blanched into
the hues of death. My kisses tinged it with a momentary colour not its
own; and yet as I pressed her to my heart, methought hers, which seemed
still before, began as if by an involuntary sympathy, palpably and
suddenly to throb against my own. My alarm melted away as I held her
thus,--nay, I would not, if I could, have recalled her _yet_ to life; I
was forgetful, I was unheeding, I was unconscious of all things else,--a
few broken and passionate words escaped my lips, but even they ceased
when I felt her breath just stirring and mingling with my own. It seemed
to me as if all living kind but ourselves had, by a spell, departed
from the earth, and we were left alone with the breathless and inaudible
Nature from which spring the love and the life of all things.
Isora slowly recovered; her eyes in opening dwelt upon mine; her blood
rushed at once to her cheek, and as suddenly left it hueless as before.
She rose from my embrace, but I still extended my arms towards her;
and words over which I had no control, and of which now I have no
remembrance, rushed from my lips. Still pale, and leaning against the
side of the arbour, Isora heard me, as--confused, incoherent, impetuous,
but still intelligible to her--my released heart poured itself forth.
And when I had ceased, she turned her face towards me, and my blood
seemed at once frozen in its channel. Anguish, deep ineffable anguish,
was depicted upon every feature; and when she strove at last to speak,
her lips quivered so violently that, after a vain effort, she ceased
abruptly. I again approached; I seized her hand, which I covered with my
kisses.
“Will you not answer me, Isora?” said I, trembling. “_Be_ silent, then;
but give me one look, one glance of hope, of pardon, from those dear
eyes, and I ask no more.”
Isora’s whole frame seemed sinking beneath her emotions; she raised her
head, and looked hurriedly and fearfully round; my eye followed
hers, and I then saw upon the damp ground the recent print of a man’s
footstep, not my own: and close to the spot where I had found Isora lay
a man’s glove. A pang shot through me; I felt my eyes flash fire, and my
brow darken, as I turned to Isora and said, “I see it; I see all: I have
a rival, who has but just left you; you love me not; your affections
are for him!” Isora sobbed violently, but made no reply. “You love him,”
said I, but in a milder and more mournful tone, “you love him; it is
enough; I will persecute you no more; and yet--” I paused a moment,
for the remembrance of many a sign, which my heart had interpreted
flatteringly, flashed upon me, and my voice faltered. “Well, I have no
right to murmur--only, Isora--only tell me with your lips that you love
another, and I will depart in peace.”
Very slowly Isora turned her eyes to me, and even through her tears they
dwelt upon me with a tender and a soft reproach.
“You love another?” said I; and from her lips, which scarcely parted,
came a single word which thrilled to my heart like fire,--“No!”
“No!” I repeated, “no? say that again, and again; yet who then is this
that has dared so to agitate and overpower you? Who is he whom you have
met, and whom, even now while I speak, you tremble to hear me recur
to? Answer me one word: is it this mysterious stranger whom your father
honours with his friendship? is it Barnard?”
Alarm and fear again wholly engrossed the expression of Isora’s
countenance.
“Barnard!” she said; “yes--yes--it is Barnard!”
“Who is he?” I cried vehemently; “who or what is he; and of what nature
is his influence upon you? Confide in me,” and I poured forth a long
tide of inquiry and solicitation.
By the time I had ended, Isora seemed to have recovered herself. With
her softness was mingled something of spirit and self-control, which was
rare alike in her country and her sex.
“Listen to me!” said she, and her voice, which faltered a little at
first, grew calm and firm as she proceeded. “You profess to love me:
I am not worthy your love; and if, Count Devereux, I do not reject nor
disclaim it--for I am a woman, and a weak and fond one--I will not at
least wrong you by encouraging hopes which I may not and I dare not
fulfil. I cannot,--” here she spoke with a fearful distinctness,--“I
cannot, I can never be yours; and when you ask me to be so, you know not
what you ask nor what perils you incur. Enough; I am grateful to
you. The poor exiled girl is grateful for your esteem--and--and your
affection. She will never forget them,--never! But be this our last
meeting--our very last--God bless you, Morton!” and, as she read my
heart, pierced and agonized as it was, in my countenance, Isora
bent over me, for I knelt beside her, and I felt her tears upon my
cheek,--“God bless you--and farewell!”
“You insult, you wound me,” said I, bitterly, “by this cold and taunting
kindness; tell me, tell me only, who it is that you love better than
me.”
Isora had turned to leave me, for I was too proud to detain her; but
when I said this, she came back, after a moment’s pause, and laid her
hand upon my arm.
“If it make you happy to know _my_ unhappiness,” she said, and the tone
of her voice made me look full in her face, which was one deep blush,
“know that I am not insensible--”
I heard no more: my lips pressed themselves involuntarily to hers,--a
long, long kiss,--burning, intense, concentrating emotion, heart, soul,
all the rays of life’s light into a single focus; and she tore herself
away from me,--and I was alone.