When the force of Wilfrid's embrace had died out from her body, Emilia
conceived wilfully that she had seen an apparition, so strange, sudden,
and wild had been his coming and going: but her whole body was a song to
her. “He is not false: he is true.” So dimly, however, was the 'he' now
fashioned in her brain, and so like a thing of the air had he descended
on her, that she almost conceived the abstract idea, 'Love is true,' and
possibly, though her senses did not touch on it to shape it, she had the
reflection in her: “After all, power is mine to bring him to my side.”
Almost it seemed to her that she had brought him from the grave. She sat
hugging herself in the carriage, hating to hear words, and seeing a ball
of fire away in the white mist. Georgiana looked at her no more; and
when Tracy remarked that he had fancied having seen a fellow running up
the bank, she said quietly, “Did you?”
“Robert must have seen him, too,” added Merthyr, and so the interloper
was dismissed.
On reaching home, no sooner were they in the hall than Emilia called for
her bedroom candle in a thin, querulous voice that made Tracy shout with
laughter and love of her quaintness.
Emilia gave him her hand, and held up her mouth to kiss Georgiana, but
no cheek was bent forward for the salute. The girl passed from among
them, and then Merthyr said to his sister: “What is the matter?”
“Surely, Merthyr, you should not be at a loss,” she answered, in a
somewhat unusual tone, that was half irony.
Merthyr studied her face. Alone with her, he said: “I could almost
suppose that she has seen this man.”
Georgiana smiled sadly. “I have not seen him, dear; and she has not told
me so.”
“You think it was so?”
“I can imagine it just possible.”
“What! while we were out and had left her! He must be mad!”
“Not necessarily mad, unless to be without principle is to be mad.”
“Mad, or graduating for a Spanish comedie d'intrigue,” said Merthyr.
“What on earth can he mean by it? If he must see her, let him come
here. But to dog a carriage at midnight, and to prefer to act startling
surprises!--one can't help thinking that he delights in being a
stage-hero.”
Georgiana's: “If he looks on her as a stage-heroine?” was unheeded,
and he pursued: “She must leave England at once,” and stated certain
arrangements that were immediately to be made.
“You will not give up this task you have imposed on yourself?” she said.
“To do what?”
She could have answered: “To make this unsatisfactory creature love
you;” but her words were, “To civilize this little savage.”
Merthyr was bright in a moment: “I don't give up till I see failure.”
“Is it not possible, dear, to be dangerously blind?” urged Georgiana.
“Keep to the particular case,” he returned; “and don't tempt me into
your woman's snare of a generalization. It's possible, of course, to be
one-ideaed and obstinate. But I have not yet seen your savage guilty of
a deceit. Her heart has been stirred, and her heart, as you may judge,
has force enough to be constant, though none can deny that it has been
roughly proved.”
“For which you like her better?” said Georgiana, herself brightening.
“For which I like her better,” he replied, and smiled, perfectly armed.
“Oh! is it because I am a woman that I do not understand this sort of
friendship?” cried Georgiana. “And from you, Merthyr, to a girl such as
she is! Me she satisfies less and less. You speak of force of heart, as
if it were manifested in an abandonment of personal will.”
“No, my darling, but in the strong conception of a passion.”
“Yes; if she had discriminated, and fixed upon a worthy object!”
“That,” rejoined Merthyr, “is akin to the doctrine of justification by
success.”
“You seek to foil me with sophisms,” said Georgiana, warming. “A
woman--even a girl--should remember what is due to herself. You are
attracted by a passionate nature--I mean, men are.”
“The general instance,” assented Merthyr.
“Then, do you never reflect,” pursued Georgiana, “on the composition and
the elements of that sort of nature? I have tried to think the best of
it. It seems to me still no, not contemptible at all--but selfishness
is the groundwork of it; a brilliant selfishness, I admit. I see that
it shows its best feature, but is it the nobler for that? I think, and
I must think, that excellence is a point to be reached only by
unselfishness, and that usefulness is the test of excellence.”
“Before there has been any trial of her?” asked Merthyr. “Have you not
been a little too eager to put the test to her?”
Georgiana reluctantly consented to have her argument attached to a
single person. “She is not a child, Merthyr.”
“Ay; but she should bethought one.”
“I confess I am utterly at sea,” Georgiana sighed. “Will you at least
allow that sordid selfishness does less mischief than this 'passion' you
admire so much?”
“I will allow that she may do herself more mischief than if she had the
opposite vice of avarice--anything you will, of that complexion.”
“And why should she be regarded as a child?” asked Georgiana piteously.
“Because, if she has outnumbered the years of a child, she is no further
advanced than a child, owing to what she has to get rid of. She is
overburdened with sensations that set her head on fire. Her solid, firm,
and gentle heart keeps her balanced, so long as there is no one playing
on it. That a fool should be doing so, is scarcely her fault.”
Georgiana murmured to herself, “He is not a fool.” She said, “I do see
a certain truth in what you say, dear Merthyr. But I have been
disappointed in her. I have taken her among my poor. She listens to
their tales, without sympathy. I took her into a sick-room. She stood
by a dying bed like a statue. Her remark when we came into the air was,
'Death seems easy, if it were not so stifling!' Herself always! herself
the centre of what she sees and feels! And again, she has no active
desire to do good to any mortal thing. A passive wish that everybody
should be happy, I know she has. Few have not. She would give money if
she had it. But this is among the mysteries of Providence to me, that
one no indifferent to others should be gifted with so inexplicable a
power of attraction.”
Merthyr put this case to her: “Suppose you saw any of the poor souls
you wait on lying sick with fever, would it be just to describe the
character of one so situated as fretful, ungrateful, of rambling tongue,
poor in health, and generally of loose condition of mind?”
“There, again, is that foreign doctrine which exults in the meanest
triumphs by getting the thesis granted that we are animal--only
animals!” Georgiana burst out. “You argue that at this season and at
that season she is helpless. If she is a human creature, must she not
have a mind to cover those conditions?”
“And a mind,” Merthyr took her up, “specially experienced, armed, and
alert to be a safeguard to her at the most critical period of her life!
Oh, yes! Whether she 'must' have it is one thing; but no one can content
the value of such a jewel to any young person.”
Georgiana stood silenced; and knew later that she had been silenced by a
fallacy. For, is youth the most critical period of life? Neither brother
nor sister, however, were talking absolutely for the argument. Beneath
this dialogue, the current in her mind pressed to elicit some avowal of
his personal feeling for the girl, toward whom Georgiana's disposition
was kindlier than her words might lead one to think. He, on the other
hand, talked with the distinct object of disguising his feelings under
a tone of moderate friendship for Emilia, that was capable of excusing
her. A sensitive man of thirty odd years does not loudly proclaim his
appreciation of a girl under twenty: moreover, Merthyr wished to spare
his sister.
He thought of questioning Robert, the coachman, whether anyone had
visited the carriage during his five minutes' absence from it: but
Merthyr's peculiar Welsh delicacy kept him from doing that, hard as
it was to remain in doubt and endure the little poisoned shafts of a
suspicion.
In the morning there was a letter from Marini on the breakfast-table.
Merthyr glanced down the contents. His countenance flashed with a
marvellous light. “Where is she?” he said, looking keenly for Emilia.
Emilia came in from the garden.
“Now, my Sandra!” cried Merthyr, waving the letter to her; “can you pack
up, to start in an hour? There's work coming on for us, and I shall be
a boy again, and not the drumstick I am in this country. I have a
letter from Marini. All Lombardy is prepared to rise, and this time the
business will be done. Marini is off for Genoa. Under the orange-trees,
my Sandra! and looking on the bay, singing of Italy free!”
Emilia fell back a step, eyeing him with a grave expression of wonder,
as if she beheld another being from the one she had hitherto known. The
calm Englishman had given place to a volcanic spirit.
“Isn't that the sketch we made?” he resumed. “The plot's perfect. I
detest conspiracies, but we must use what weapons we can, and be Old
Mole, if they trample us in the earth. Once up, we have Turin to back
us. This I know. We shall have nothing but the Tedeschi to manage: and
if they beat us in cavalry, it's certain that they can't rely on their
light horse. The Magyars would break in a charge. We know that they
will. As for the rest:--
'Soldati settentrionali,
Come sarebbe Boemi a Croati,'
we are a match for them! Artillery we shall get. The Piedmontese are mad
for the signal. Come; sit and eat. The air seems dead down in this quiet
country; we're out of the stream. I must rush up to London to breathe
and then we won't lose a moment. We shall be in Italy in four days. Four
days, my Sandra! And Italy going to be free; Georgey, I'm fasting. And
you will see all your old friends. All? Good God! No!--not all! Their
blood shall nerve us. The Austrian thinks he wastes us by slaughter.
With every dead man he doubles the life of the living! Am I talking like
a foreigner, Sandra mia? My child, you don't eat! And I, who dreamed
last night that I looked out over Novara from the height of the Col di
Colma, and saw the plain under a red shadow from a huge eagle!”
Merthyr laughed, swinging round his arm. Emilia continued staring at him
as at a man transformed, while Georgiana asked: “May Marini's letter be
seen?” Her visage had become firm and set in proportion as her brother's
excitement increased.
“Eat, my Sandra! eat!” called Merthyr, who was himself eating with a
campaigning appetite.
Georgiana laid down the letter folded under Merthyr's fingers, keeping
her hand on it till he grew alive to her meaning, that it should be put
away.
“Marini is vague about artillery,” she murmured.
“Vague!” echoed Merthyr. “Say prudent. If he said we could lay hands on
fifty pieces, then distrust him!”
“God grant that this be not another pit for further fruitless
bloodshed!” was the interjection standing in Georgiana's eyes, and then
she dropped them pensively, while Merthyr recounted the patient schemes
that had led to this hour, the unuttered anxieties and the bursting
hopes.
Still Emilia kept her distressfully unenthusiastic looks turned from one
to the other, though her Italy was the theme. She did not eat, but had
dropped one hand flat on her plate, looking almost idiotic. She heard
of Italy as of a distant place, known to her in ancient years. Merthyr's
transformation, too, helped some form of illusion in her brain that she
was cut off from any kindred feeling with other people.
As soon as he had finished, Merthyr jumped up; and coming round to
Emilia, touched her shoulder affectionately, saying: “Now! There won't
be much packing to do. We shall be in London to-night in time for your
mother to pass the evening with you.”
Emilia rose straightway, and her eyes fell vacantly on Georgiana for
help, as far as they could express anything.
Georgiana gave no response, save a look well nigh as vacant in the
interchange.
“But you haven't eaten at all!” said Merthyr.
Emilia shook her head. “No.”
“Eat, my Sandra! to please me! You will need all your strength if you
would be a match for Georgey anywhere where there's action.”
“Yes!” Emilia traversed his words with a sudden outcry. “Yes, I will go
to London. I am ready to go to London now.”
It was clear that a new light had fallen on her intelligence.
Merthyr was satisfied to see her sit down to the table, and he at once
went out to issue directions for the first step in the new and momentous
expedition.
Emilia put the bread to her mouth, and crumbled it on a dry lip: but it
was evident to Georgiana, hostile witness as she was, that Emilia's mind
was gradually warming to what Merthyr had said, and that a picture was
passing before the girl. She perceived also a thing that no misery of
her own had yet drawn from Emilia. It was a tear that fell heavily on
the back of her hand. Soon the tears came in quick succession, while the
girl tried to eat, and bit at salted morsels. It was a strange sight for
Georgiana, this statuesque weeping, that got human bit by bit, till
the bosom heaved long sobs: and yet no turn of the head for sympathy;
nothing but passionless shedding of big tear-drops!
She went to the girl, and put her hand upon her; kissed her, and then
said: “We have no time to lose. My brother never delays when he has come
to a resolve.”
Emilia tried to articulate: “I am ready.”
“But you have not eaten!”
Emilia made a mechanical effort to eat.
“Remember,” said Georgiana, “we have a long distance to go. You will
want your strength. You would not be a burden to him? Eat, while I get
your things ready.” And Georgiana left her, secretly elated to feel that
in this expedition it was she, and she alone, who was Merthyr's mate.
What storm it was, and what conflict, agitated the girl and stupefied
her, she cared not to guess, now that she had the suitable designation,
'savage,' confirmed in all her acts, to apply to her.
When Tracy Runningbrook came down at his ordinary hour of noon to
breakfast, he found a twisted note from Georgiana, telling him that
important matters had summoned Merthyr to London, and that they were all
to be seen at Lady Gosstre's town-house.
“I believe, by Jove! Powys manoeuvres to get her away from me,” he
shouted, and sat down to his breakfast and his book with a comforted
mind. It was not Georgiana to whom he alluded; but the appearance of
Captain Gambier, and the pronounced discomposure visible in the handsome
face of the captain on his hearing of the departure, led Tracy to think
that Georgiana's was properly deplored by another, though that other was
said to be engaged. 'On revient toujours,' he hummed.