Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
But limns the water, or but writes in dust.
BACON.
They arrived in Berkeley-square. Lady Lodore alighted, and perceived with
something of a beating heart, that her husband followed her, as she
passed on to the inner drawing-room. Lady Santerre was not there. Taking
a letter from the table, so to give herself the appearance of an excuse
for having entered a room she was about immediately to quit, she was
going, when Lodore, who stood hesitating, evidently desirous of
addressing her, and yet uncertain how to begin, stopped her by speaking
her name, "Cornelia!"
She turned--she was annoyed; her conscience whispered what was in all
probability the subject to which her attention was to be called. Her
meditations in the drawing-room of the Russian Ambassador, convinced her
that she had, to use the phrase of the day, flirted too much with Count
Casimir, and she had inwardly resolved to do so no more. It was
particularly disagreeable therefore, that her husband should use
authority, as she feared that he was about to do, and exact from his
wife's obedience, what she was willing to concede to her own sense of
propriety. She was resolved to hear as little as she could on the
subject, and stood as if in haste to go. His faltering voice betrayed
how much he felt, and once or twice it refused to frame the words he
desired to utter: how different was their import from that expected by
his impatient auditress!
"Cornelia," said he, at length, "can you immediately, and at once--this
very night--prepare to quit England?"
"Quit England! Why?--whither?" she exclaimed.
"I scarcely know," replied Lodore, "nor is it of the slightest import. The
world is wide, a shelter, a refuge can be purchased any where--and that
is all I seek."
The gaming table, the turf, loss of fortune, were the ideas naturally
conveyed into the lady's mind by this reply. "Is all--every thing
gone--lost?" she asked.
"My honour is," he answered, with an effort, "and the rest is of little
worth."
He paused, and then continued in a low but distinct voice, as if every
word cost him a struggle, yet as if he wished each one to be fraught
with its entire meaning to his hearer; "I cannot well explain to you the
motives of my sudden determination, nor will I complain of the part you
have had in bringing on this catastrophe. It is over now. No power on
earth--no heavenly power can erase the past, nor change one iota of
what, but an hour ago, did not exist, but which now exists; altering all
things to both of us for ever; I am a dishonoured man."
"Speak without more comment," cried Lady Lodore; "for Heaven's sake
explain--I must know what you mean."
"I have insulted a gentleman," replied her husband, "and I will yield no
reparation. I have disgraced a nobleman by a blow, and I will offer no
apology, could one be accepted--and it could not; nor will I give
satisfaction."
Lady Lodore remained silent. Her thoughts speedily ran over the dire
objects which her husband's speech presented. A quarrel--she too readily
guessed with whom--a blow, a duel; her cheek blanched--yet not so; for
Lodore refused to fight. In spite of the terror with which an anticipated
rencontre had filled her, the idea of cowardice in her husband, or the
mere accusation of it, brought the colour back to her face. She felt
that her heedlessness had given rise to all this harm; but again she
felt insulted that doubts of her sentiments or conduct should be the
occasion of a scene of violence. Both remained silent. Lodore stood
leaning on the mantelpiece, his cheek flushed, agitation betraying
itself in each gesture, mixed with a resolve to command himself.
Cornelia had advanced from the door to the middle of the room; she stood
irresolute, too indignant and too fearful to ask further explanation,
yet anxious to receive it. Still he hesitated. He was desirous of
finding some form of words which might convey all the information that
it was necessary she should receive, and yet conceal all that he desired
should remain untold.
At last he spoke. "It is unnecessary to allude to the irretrievable
past. The future is not less unalterable for me. I will not fight with,
nor apologize to, the boy I have insulted I must therefore fly--fly my
country and the face of man; go where the name of Lodore will not be
synonymous with infamy--to an island in the east--to the desert wilds of
America--it matters not whither. The simple question is, whether you are
prepared on a sudden to accompany me? I would not ask this of your
generosity, but that, married as we are, our destinies are linked, far
beyond any power we possess to sunder them. Miserable as my future
fortunes will be, far other than those which I invited you but four
years ago to share, you are better off incurring the worst with me, than
you could be, struggling alone for a separate existence."
"Pardon me, Lodore," said Cornelia, somewhat subdued by the magnitude of
the crisis brought about, she believed, however involuntarily by herself,
and by the sadness that, as he spoke, filled the dark eyes of her
companion with an expression more melancholy than tears; "pardon me, if
I seek for further explanation. Your antagonist" (they neither of them
ventured to speak a name, which hung on the lips of both) "is a mere
boy. Your refusal to fight with him results of course from this
consideration; while angry, and if I must allude to so distasteful a
falsehood, while unjust suspicion prevent your making him fitting and
most due concessions. Were the occasion less terrible, I might disdain
to assert my own innocence; but as it is, I do most solemnly declare,
that Count Casimir----"
"I ask no question on that point, but simply wish
to know whether you will accompany me," interrupted Lodore, hastily;
"the rest I am sorry for--but it is over. You, my poor girl, though in
some measure the occasion, and altogether the victim, of this disaster,
can exercise no controul over it. No foreign noble would accept the most
humiliating submissions as compensation for a blow, and this urchin
shall never receive from me the shadow of any."
"Is there no other way?" asked Cornelia.
"Not any," replied Lodore, while his agitation increased, and his voice
grew tremulous; "No consideration on earth could arm me against his life.
One other mode there is. I might present myself as a mark for his
vengeance, with a design of not returning his fire, but I am shut out even
from this resource. And this," continued Lodore, losing as he spoke, all
self-command, carried away by the ungovernable passions he had hitherto
suppressed, and regardless, as he strode up and down the room, of
Cornelia, who half terrified had sunk into a chair; "this--these are the
result of my crimes--such, from their consequences, I now term, what by
courtesy I have hitherto named my follies--this is the end! Bringing
into frightful collision those who are bound by sacred ties--changing
natural love into unnatural, deep-rooted, unspeakable hate--arming blood
against kindred blood--and making the innocent a parricide. O Theodora,
what have you not to answer for!"
Lady Lodore started. The image he presented was too detestable. She
repressed her emotions, and assuming that air of disdain, which we are so
apt to adopt to colour more painful feelings, she said, "This sounds very
like a German tragedy, being at once disagreeable and inexplicable."
"It is a tragedy," he replied; "a tragedy brought now to its last dark
catastrophe. Casimir is my son. We may neither of us murder the other;
nor will I, if again brought into contact with him, do other than
chastise the insolent boy. The tiger is roused within me. You have a
part in this."
A flash of anger glanced from Cornelia's eyes. She did not reply--she
rose--she quitted the room--she passed on with apparent composure, till
reaching the door of her mother's chamber, she rushed impetuously in.
Overcome with indignation, panting, choked, she threw herself into her
arms, saying, "Save me!" A violent fit of hysterics followed.
At first Lady Lodore could only speak of the injury and insult she had
herself suffered; and Lady Santerre, who by no means wished to encourage
feelings, which might lead to violence in action, tried to soothe her
irritation. But when allusions to Lodore's intention of quitting England
and the civilized world for ever, mingled with Cornelia's exclamations,
the affair assumed a new aspect in the wary lady's eyes. The barbarity of
such an idea excited her utmost resentment. At once she saw the full
extent of the intended mischief, and the risk she incurred of losing the
reward of years of suffering and labour. When an instantaneous departure
was mentioned, an endless, desolate journey, which it was doubtful
whether she should be admitted to share, to be commenced that very
night, she perceived that her measures to prevent it must be promptly
adopted. The chariot was still waiting which was to have conveyed Lord
and Lady Lodore to their assembly; dressed as she was for this, without
preparation, she hurried her daughter into the carriage, and bade the
coachman drive to a villa they rented at Twickenham; leaving, in
explanation, these few lines addressed to her son-in-law.
"The scene of this evening has had an alarming effect upon Cornelia.
Time will soften the violence of her feelings, but some immediate step
was necessary to save, I verily believe, her life. I take her to
Twickenham, and will endeavour to calm her: until I shall have in some
measure succeeded, I think you had better not follow us; but let us hear
from you; for although my attention is so painfully engrossed by my
daughter's sufferings, I am distressed on your account also, and shall
continue very uneasy until I hear from you.
"_Friday Evening._"
Lady Santerre and her daughter reached Twickenham. Lady Lodore went to bed,
and assisted by a strong composing draught, administered by her mother, her
wrongs and her anger were soon hushed in profound sleep. Night, or
rather morning, was far spent before this occurred, so that it was late
in the afternoon of the ensuing day before she awoke, and recalled to
her memory the various conflicting sentiments which had occupied her
previous to her repose.
During the morning, Lady Santerre had despatched a servant to
Berkeley-square, to summon her daughter's peculiar attendants. He now
brought back the intelligence that Lord Lodore had departed for the
continent, about three hours after his wife had quitted his house. But to
this he added tidings of another circumstance, for which both ladies were
totally unprepared. Cornelia had entered the carriage the preceding
night, without spending one thought on the sleeping cherub in the
nursery. What was her surprise and indignation, when she heard that her
child and its attendant formed a part of his lordship's travelling
suite. The mother's first impulse was to follow her offspring; but this
was speedily exchanged for a bitter sense of wrong, aversion to her
husband, and a resolve not to yield one point, in the open warfare thus
declared by him.