I had always felt a warm and almost filial affection for Lady Ellinor,
independently of her relationship to Fanny, and of the gratitude
with which her kindness inspired me: for there is an affection very
peculiar in its nature, and very high in its degree, which results
from the blending of two sentiments not often allied,--viz., pity
and admiration. It was impossible not to admire the rare gifts
and great qualities of Lady Ellinor, and not to feel pity for the
cares, anxieties, and sorrows which tormented one who, with all the
sensitiveness of woman, went forth into the rough world of man.
My father's confession had somewhat impaired my esteem for Lady
Ellinor, and had left on my mind the uneasy impression that she _had_
trifled with his deep, and Roland's impetuous, heart. The conversation
that had just passed allowed me to judge her with more justice--allowed
me to see that she had really shared the affection she had inspired
in the student, but that ambition had been stronger than love--an
ambition, it might be, irregular and not strictly feminine, but still
of no vulgar nor sordid kind. I gathered, too, from her hints and
allusions, her true excuse for Roland's misconception of her apparent
interest in himself: she had but seen, in the wild energies of the
elder brother, some agency by which to arouse the serener faculties
of the younger. She had but sought, in the strange comet that flashed
before her, to fix a lever that might move the star. Nor could I
withhold my reverence from the woman who, not being married precisely
from love, had no sooner linked her nature to one worthy of it, than
her whole life became as fondly devoted to her husband's as if he had
been the object of her first romance and her earliest affections. If
even her child was so secondary to her husband--if the fate of that
child was but regarded by her as one to be rendered subservient to the
grand destinies of Trevanion--still it was impossible to recognise
the error of that conjugal devotion without admiring the wife, though
one might condemn the mother. Turning from these meditations, I felt
a lover's thrill of selfish joy, amidst all the mournful sorrow
comprised in the thought that I should see Fanny no more. Was it true
as Lady Ellinor implied, though delicately, that Fanny still cherished
a remembrance of me--which a brief interview, a last farewell, might
re-awaken too dangerously for her peace? Well, that was a thought that
it became me not to indulge.
What could Lady Ellinor have heard of Roland and his son? Was it
possible that the lost lived still? Asking myself these questions, I
arrived at our lodgings, and saw the Captain himself before me, busied
with the inspection of sundry specimens of the rude necessaries an
Australian adventurer requires. There stood the old soldier, by the
window, examining narrowly into the temper of hand-saw and tenor-saw,
broad axe and drawing-knife; and as I came up to him, he looked at me
from under his black brows, with gruff compassion, and said peevishly--
"Fine weapons these for the son of a gentleman!--one bit of steel in
the shape of a sword were worth them all."
"Any weapon that conquers fate is noble in the hands of a brave man,
uncle!"
"The boy has an answer for everything," quoth the Captain, smiling, as
he took out his purse and paid the shopman.
When we were alone, I said to him--"Uncle, you must go and see Lady
Ellinor; she desires me to tell you so."
"Pshaw!"
"You will not?"
"No!"
"Uncle, I think that she has something to say to you with regard
to--to--pardon me!--to my cousin."
"To Blanche?"
"No, no--to the cousin I never saw."
Roland turned pale, and, sinking down on a chair, faltered out--"To
him--to my son!"
"Yes; but I do not think it is news that will afflict you. Uncle, are
you sure that my cousin is dead?"
"What!--how dare you!--who doubts it? Dead--dead to me for ever! Boy,
would you have him live to dishonour these gray hairs!"
"Sir, sir, forgive me--uncle, forgive me: but, pray, go to see Lady
Ellinor; for whatever she has to say, I repeat that I am sure it will
be nothing to wound you."
"Nothing to wound me--yet relate to _him_!"
It is impossible to convey to the reader the despair that was in those
words.
"Perhaps," said I, after a long pause, and in a low voice--for I was
awestricken--"perhaps--if he be dead--he may have repented of all
offence to you before he died."
"Repented!--ha, ha!"
"Or, if he be not dead"--
"Hush, boy--hush!"
"While there is life, there is hope of repentance."
"Look you, nephew," said the Captain, rising and folding his arms
resolutely on his breast--"look you, I desired that that name might
never be breathed. I have not cursed my son yet; could he come to
life--the curse might fall! You do not know what torture your words
have given me, just when I had opened my heart to another son, and
found that son in you! With respect to the lost, I have now but one
prayer, and you know it--the heartbroken prayer--that his name never
more may come to my ears!"
As he closed these words, to which I ventured no reply, the Captain
took long disordered strides across the room; and suddenly, as if
the space imprisoned, or the air stifled him, he seized his hat, and
hastened into the streets. Recovering my surprise and dismay, I ran
after him; but he commanded me to leave him to his own thoughts, in a
voice so stern, yet so sad, that I had no choice but to obey. I knew,
by my own experience, how necessary is solitude in the moments when
grief is strongest and thought most troubled.