J. qio L I E) RARY OF THE UN IVLR5ITY Of ILLINOIS 823 L9Be 1837 n >^7 ':4 A y ERNEST MALTRAVERS. MR. BULWER^S ATHENS. Now Reaby, in 2 Vols. 8vo. ATHENS : ITS RISE AND FALL. WITH VIEWS OF THE ARTS, LITERATURE, AND SOCIAL LIFE OF THE ATHENIAN PEOPLE. BY E. L. BULWER, Esq., M.R, M.A., AUTHOR OF " ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH," " RIENZI," &c. Mr. Bulwer's works are read and admired in every language iu Europe, and are spread, like Scott's, over the face of the civilized world. His poetical imaginings have stirred the bosom of the gentle lovers of nature of every cluss and in every clime. His classical creations have extorted the praises of the learned, while they excited the best sympathies of unschooled humanity. In his present work he comes before us as a historian, and well does he sustain the grand effort. Years of labour liave not been mispent iu the research and consiiieratioa of the subject, and the style is worthy of the best names iu this elevated' department of our national ]\ler?Ltaie."— Literary Gazette. " The want of such a work as this has long been one of the most lamentable wants of English literature. It is written on what we believe to be the true prin- ciples of history, which should always be beyond every other class of literature, distinctly and essentially popular. It is the absence of this which has withheld previous works on this subject from a wide and useful circulation, it is its presence which will give to Mr. Bulwer's a permanent and most beneficial influence. He has here mingled with the happiest skill, the literature with the politics of Athens, and shown, in their inseparable connexion, the secret of those triumphs of both, which have survived for upwards of twenty centuries the annihilation of her liberty and lungaage."— Examiner. " The Rise and Fall of Athens from the pen of Mr. Edward Bulwer. What a theatre for description ! what themes for the graphic narrator ! and how strongly marked are the pauses and transitions in the action he is invited to record.' We cannot too much applaud Mr. Bulwer's general tone of moderation.and candour. ♦ • • These specimens and other passages combine a warm feeling of the great or the beautiful, with a wakeful sagacity, ever throwing out abundance of new and line o\)&eY\iit'ions."—Edinburi;h Review. " Mr. Bulwer is in every point of view a distinguished writer. He has here selected for his subject the Athenian democracy— the eye of Greece— the cradle of history, tragedy, and the fine arts, the spot in the world where, in the narrowest limits, achievements the most mighty have been won, and genius the most im- mortal has been developed. Athens was a favourable ground lo take, in order to enforce the incalculable powers of the democratic spring in society. * • We rejoice that he has made the attempt. * * Mr. Bulwer has brought to his subject the power of a cultivated mind, and the vigour of an enlarged intellect."— i?/acA- wood's Magazine. " A statesmanlike History of Athens was long wanting. Mr. Bulwer possesses many qualifications for the task, and never had the moral anatomist a better subject than is supplied by the History of Athens." — Athenceuin. " Many and mighty, as well as engaging or instructive, are the lessons to be gathered from the Rise and Fall of Athens, and Mr. Bulwer has delected, de- veloped, and enforced them with a fine and masterly hand. That he has read history correctly, and observed mankind closely, might be gathered from such short and convincing passages as those we have quoted. To us the manner is perfectly charming in which he has treated his sabject."— Monthly Review. ERNEST MALTRAVERS BY THE AUTHOR OF PELHAM," « EUGENE ARAM," " RIENZI," &c. &c. GAPPn Tn AIOIKOYNTI. M. Antomn, lib. vi. sec. 8. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 1837. LONDON: PRINTED BY IBOTSON AND PALMER, SAVOY STREET. V, I TO THE GREAT GERMAN PEOPLE, A NATION OF THINKERS AND OF CRITICS ; A FOREIGN BUT FAMILIAR AUDIENCE, PROFOUND IN JUDGMENT, CANDID IX REPROOF, GENEROUS IN APPRECIATION, THIS WORK B 23el)icateU BY AN ENGLISH AUTHOR. ^ ^^^^LondoUf Aug. \2, 1837 i^ <5^ A WORD TO THE READER. Thou must not, my old and partial friend, look into this work for that species of interest which is drawn from stirring adventures and a perpe- tual variety of incident. To a Novel of the pre- sent day are necessarily forbidden the animation, the excitement, the bustle, the pomp, and the stage-effect which History affords to Romance. Whatever merits, in thy gentle eyes, " Rienzi," or " The Last Days of Pompeii," may have possess- ed, this Tale, if it please thee at all, must owe that happy fortune to qualities widely different from those which won thy favour to pictures of the Vlll A WORD TO THE READER. Past. Thou must sober down thine imagination, and prepare thyself for a story not dedicated to the narrative of extraordinary events — nor the elucidation of the characters of great men. Though there is scarcely a page in this work episodical to the main design, there may be much that may seem to thee wearisome and prolix, if thou wilt not lend thyself, in a kindly spirit and with a generous trust, to the guidance of the Author. In the hero of this tale thou wilt find neither a majestic demigod, nor a fascinating de- mon. He is a man with the weaknesses derived from humanity, with the strength that we inhe- rit from the soul ; not often obstinate in error, more often irresolute in virtue ; sometimes too aspiring, sometimes too despondent; influenced by the circumstances to which he yet struggles to be superior, and changing in character with the changes of time and fate ; but never wan- tonly rejecting those great principles by which alone we can work out the Science of Life— a de- sire for the Good, a passion for the Honest, a A WORD TO THE READER. IX yearning after the True. From such principles, Experience, that severe teacher, learns us at length, the safe and practical philosophy which consists of Fortitude to bear. Serenity to enjoy, and Faith to look beyond ! It would have led, perhaps, to more striking in- cidents and have furnished an interest more in- tense, if I had cast Maltravers, the Man of Ge- nius, amidst those fierce but ennobling struggles with poverty and want to which genius is so often condemned. But wealth and lassitude have their temptations as well as penury and toil. And for the rest — I have taken much of my tale and many of my characters fi-om real hfe, and would not unnecessarily seek other fountains when the Well of Truth was in my reach. The author has said his say, he retreats once more into silence and into shade ; he leaves you alone with the creations he has called to life the representatives of his emotions and his thoughts— the intermediators between the indi- vidual and the crowd : — Children not of the clay, X A WORD TO THE READER. but of the spirit, may they be faithful to their origin ! — so should they be monitors, not loud but deep, of the world into which they are cast, struggling against the obstacles that will beset them, for the heritage of their parent — the right to survive the grave ! London, August 12, 1837. BOOK I. T^ yap v^a^ou eV ToiOJtrSe fioaKeTai XupoKTiv avrov ' Ka\ viv ov 6d\Tros deov OyS' ofi^pos, ovdh iruevfidTUV ovShu KXovei 'A\A' r)5ova7s &{xoxdov e|atpei filou. Soph. Trachin. 144. " Youth pastures in a valley of its own : The glare of noon — the rains and winds of heaven Mar not the calm vet virgin of all care : But ever with sweet joys it buildeth up The airv halls of life." VOL. I. ERNEST MALTRAVERS. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. " My meaning in't, I protest, was very honest in the behalf of the maid .... yet, who would have sus- pected an ambush where I was taken?" All's Well that Ends Well. Act iv. Scene 3. Some four miles distant from one of our nor- thern manufacturing towns, in the year 18 — , was a wide and desolate common; — a more dreary spot it is impossible to conceive — the herbage B 2 4 THE COTTAGERS. grew up in sickly patches from the midst of a black and stony soil. Not a tree was to be seen in the whole of the comfortless ex- panse. Nature herself had seemed to desert the solitude, as if scared by the ceaseless din of the neighbouring forges, and even Art, which presses all things into service, had disdained to cull use or beauty from these unpromising de- mesnes. There was something weird and pri- maeval in the aspect of the place. Especially when in the long nights of winter you beheld the distant fires and lights, which give to the vi- cinity of certain manufactories so preternatural an appearance, streaming red and wild over the waste. So abandoned by man appeared the spot, that you found it difficult to imagine that it was only from human fires that its bleak and barren desolation was illumined. For miles along the moor you detected no vestige of any habitation ; but as you approached the verge nearest to the town, you could just perceive at a little distance from the main road, by which the common was THE COTTAGERS. 5 intersected, a small, solitary, and miserable hovel. Within this lone abode, at the time in which my story opens, were seated two persons. The one was a man of about fifty years of age, and in a squalid and wretched garb which was yet re- lieved by an affectation of ill-sorted finery : a silk handkerchief, which boasted the ornament of a large brooch of false stones, was twisted jauntily round a muscular but meagre throat. His tattered breeches were also decorated by buckles, one of pinchbeck, and one of steel. His fi^ame was thin, but broad and sinewy, indicative of con- siderable strength. His countenance was prema- turely marked by deep furrows, and his grizzled hair waved over a low, rugged, and forbidding brow, on which there hung an everlasting frown that no smile from the lips (and the man smiled often) could chase away. It was a face that spoke of long- continued and hardened vice — it was one on which the Past had written indelible characters. The brand of the hangman could 6 THE COTTAGERS. not have stamped it more plainly, nor have more unequivocally warned the suspicion of honest or timid men. He was employed in counting some few and paltry coins, which, though an easy enough matter to ascertain their value, he told and retold, as if the act could increase the amount. " There must be some mistake here, Alice," he said, in a low and muttered tone ; " we can't be so low — you know I had two pounds in the drawer but Monday, and now Alice, you must have stolen some of the money — curse you ! " The person thus addressed sate at the opposite side of the smouldering and sullen fire : she now looked quietly up,— and her face singularly contrasted that of the man. She seemed about fifteen years of age, and her complexion was remarkably pure and delicate, even despite the sunburnt tinge which her ha- bits of toil had brought it. Her auburn hair hung in loose and natural curls over her fore- head, and its luxuriance was remarkable even in THE COITAGERS. 7 one so young. Her countenance was beautiful, nay, even faultless, in its small and childlike fea- tures, but the expression pained you — it was so vacant. In repose it was almost the expression of an idiot — but when she spoke, or smiled, or even moved a muscle, the eyes, colour, lips, kindled into a life which proved that the intellect was still there, though but imperfectly awakened .... f ' I did not steal any, father," she said, in a quiet voice, " but I should like to have taken some, only I knew you would beat me if I did." " And what do you want money for?" " To get food when I'm hungered." " Nothing else ? " I don't know." The girl paused — " Why don't you let me," she said after a while, " why don't you let me go and work with the other girls at the factory ? I should make money there for you and me both." The man smiled — such a smile — it seemed to bring into sudden play all the revolting characte- 8 THE COTTAGERS. ristics of his countenance. " Child," he said, " you are just fifteen, and a sad fool you are : perhaps if you went to the factory, you would get away from me ; and what should I do with- out you? No, 1 think, as you are so pretty, you might get more money another way." The girl did not seem to understand this allu- sion ; but repeated, vacantly, " I should like to go to the factory." " Stuff !" said the man, angrily ; " I have three minds to — " Here he was interrupted by a loud knock at the door of the hovel. The man grew pale. " What can that be ?" he muttered. " The hour is late — near eleven. Again — again ! Ask who knocks, Alice." The girl stood spell- bound a moment at the door ; and as she stood, her form, rounded yet slight, her earnest look, her varying colour, her tender youth, and a singular grace of attitude and gesture, would have inspired an artist with the very ideal of rustic beauty. THE STRANGER. if After a pause, she placed her lips to a chink in the door, and repeated her father's question. " Pray pardon me," said a clear, loud, yet courteous voice, " but seeing a light at your win- dow, I have ventured to ask if any one within will conduct me to **** ; I will pay the service handsomely." " Open the door, Alley," said the owner of the hut. The girl drew a large wooden bolt from the door; and a tall figure crossed the thres- hold. The new-comer was in the first bloom of youth, perhaps about eighteen years of age, and his air and appearance surprised both sire and daugh- ter. Alone, on foot, at such an hour, it was im- possible for any one to mistake him for other than a gentleman ; yet his dress was plain, and somewhat soiled by dust, and he carried a small knapsack on his shoulder. As he entered, he lifted his hat with something of foreign urbanity, and a profusion of fair brown hair fell partially B 5 10 THE STRANGER over a high and commanding forehead. His features were handsome, without being eminently so, and his aspect at once bold and prepossess- ing. " I am much obliged by your civility," he said, advancing carelessly, and addressing the man, who surveyed him with a scrutinising eye ; " and trust, my good fellow, that you will increase the obligation by accompanying me to ^^**." " You can't miss your way well," said the man, surlily : "the lights will direct you." " They have rather misled me, for they seem to surround the whole common, and there is no path across it that I can discern ; however, if you will put me in the right way, I will not trouble you further." " It is very late," replied the churlish landlord, equivocally, " The better reason why I should be at ****. Come, my good friend, put on your hat, and I'll give you half-a-guinea for your trouble." The man advanced ; then halted ; again sur- BECOMES THE GUEST. 11 veyed his guest, and said, " Are you quite alone, sir?" '' Quite." " Probably you are known at **** ?" " Not I. But what matters that to you ? I am a stranger in these parts." " It is full four miles." " So far, and I am fearfully tired already !" exclaimed the young man, with impatience. As he spoke, he drew out his watch. " Past eleven, too !" The watch caught the eye of the cottager; that evil eye sparkled. He passed his hand over his brow. " I am thinking, sir," he said, in a more civil tone than he had yet assumed, " that if you are so tired, and the hour is so late, you might almost as well " " What ?" exclaimed the stranger, half stamp- ing petulantly. " I don't like to mention it ; but my poor roof is at your service, and I would go with you to '^^"^"^ at day-break to-morrow." 12 THE STRANGER The stranger stared at the cottager, and then at the dingy walls of the hut. He was about, very abruptly, to reject the hospitable proposal, when his eye rested suddenly on the form of Alice, who stood, eager-eyed, and open-mouthed, gazing on the handsome intruder. As she caught his eye, she blushed deeply, and turned aside. The view seemed to change the inten- tions of the stranger. He hesitated a moment ; then muttered between his teeth : and sinking his knapsack to the ground, he cast himself into a chair beside the fire, stretched his limbs, and cried gaily, " So be it, my host : shut up your house again. Bring me a cup of beer, and a crust of bread, and so much for supper ! As for bed, this chair will do vastly well." " Perhaps we can manage better for you than that chair," answered the host. " But our best accommodation must seem bad enough to a gen- tleman : we are very poor people — hard-working, but very poor." " Never mind me," answered the stranger. BECOMES THE GUEST. 13 busying himself in stirring the fire ; " I am tole- rably well accustomed to greater hardships than sleeping on a chair, in an honest man's house ; and though you are poor, I will take it for granted you are honest," The man grinned ; and turning to Alice, bade her spread what their larder would afford. Some crusts of bread, some cold potatoes, and some tolerably strong beer, composed all the fare set before the traveller. Despite his previous boasts, the young man made rather a wry face at these Socratic prepa- rations, while he drew his chair to the board. But his look grew more gay as he caught Alice's eye ; and as she lingered by the table, and fal- tered out some hesitating words of apology, he seized her hand, and squeezing it tenderly — " Prettiest of lasses," said he; and while bespoke he gazed on her with undisguised admiration — " a man who has travelled on foot all day, through the ugUest country within the three seas, is suffi- ciently refreshed at night by the sight of so fair a face/' 14 QUESTIONS Alice hastily withdrew her hand, and went and seated herself in a corner of the room, whence she continued to look at the stranger with her usual vacant gaze, but with a half smile upon her rosy lips. Alice's father looked hard at the young people. " Eat, sir," said he, with a sort of chuckle, " and no fine words ; poor Alice is honest, as you said just now." " To be sure," answered the traveller, em- ploying with great zeal a set of strong, even, and dazzling teeth at the tough crusts ; " to be sure she is. I did not mean to offend you ; but the fact is, that I am half a foreigner, and abroad, you know, one may say a civil thing to a pretty girl, without hurting her feelings, or her father's either." " Half a foreigner ! why you talk English as well as I do," said the host, whose intonation and words were, on the whole, a little above his station. The stranger smiled. " Thank you for the com- pliment," said he. " What I meant was, that I AND ANSWERS. 15 have been a great deal abroad ; in fact, I have just returned from Germany. But I am English- born." " And going home?" " Yes." " Far from hence ?" " About thirty miles, I believe." " You are young, sir, to be alone?" The traveller made no answer, but finished his uninviting repast, and drew his chair again to the fire. He then thought he had sufficiently ministered to his host's curiosity to allow him to attend to his own. " You w^ork at the factories, I suppose ?" said he. " I do, sir — bad times." " And your pretty daughter ?" " Minds the house." " Have you no other children?" " No ; one mouth besides my own is as much as I can feed, and that scarcely. But you would like to rest now ; you can have my bed, sir, — I can sleep here." 16 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, " By no means," said the stranger, quickly ; " just put a few more coals on the fire, and leave me to make myself comfortable." The man rose, and did not press his offer, but left the room for a supply of fuel. Alice re- mained in her corner. " Sweetheart," said the traveller, looking round, and satisfying himself that they were alone ; " I should sleep well if I could get one kiss from those coral lips." Alice hid her face with her hands. " Do I vex you?" " O no, sir." At this assurance the traveller rose, and ap- proached Alice softly. He drew away her hands from her face, when she said gently, " Have you much money about you ?" '' O the mercenary baggage !" said the tra- veller to himself; and then replied aloud, " Why, pretty one ? — Do you sell your kisses so high then ?" Alice frowned, and tossed the hair from her SUSPICION. 17 brow. " If you have money," she said, in a whisper, " don't say so to father. Don't sleep if you can help it. I'm afraid — hush — he comes f" The young man returned to his seat with an altered manner. And as his host entered, he for the first time surveyed him closely. The im- perfect glimmer of the half-dying and single candle, threw into strong lights and shades the marked, rugged, and ferocious features of the cottager; and the eye of the traveller, glancing from the face to the limbs and frame, saw that whatever the mind might design of evil, the body might well execute. The traveller sank into a gloomy reverie. The wind howled — the rain beat — through the case- ment shone no solitary star — all was dark and sombre ; — should he proceed alone — might he not suffer a greater danger upon that wide and desert moor — might not the host follow — assault him in the dark ? He had no weapon, save a stick. But within, he had at least a rude re- 18 SUSPICION. source in the large kitchen-poker that was be- side him. At all events, it would be better to wait for the present. He might at any time, when alone, withdraw the bolt from the door, and slip out unobserved. Such was the fruit of his meditations while his host plyed the fire. " You will sleep sound to-night," said his en- tertainer, smiling. " Humph ! Why I am over-fatigued ; I dare say it will be an hour or two before I fall asleep ; but when I once am asleep, I sleep like a rock!" " Come, Alice," said her father, " let us leave the gentleman. Good night, sir." " Good night — good night," returned the tra- veller, yawning. The father and daughter disappeared through a door in the corner of the room. The guest heard them ascend the creaking stairs— all was still. " Fool that I am !"" said the traveller to him- THE guest's soliloquy, 19 self; " will nothing teach me that I am no longer a student at Gottingen, or cure me of these pedestrian adventures ? Had it not been for that girl's big blue eyes, I should be safe at # * * # ]^y ^jiig time; if, indeed, the grim father had not murdered me by the road. How- ever, we'll balk him yet ; another half-hour, and I am on the moor : we must give him time. And in the meanwhile here is the poker. At the worst it is but one to one ; but the churl is strongly built." Although the travellei* thus endeavoured to cheer his courage, his heart beat more loudly than its wont. He kept his eyes stationed on the door by which the cottagers had vanished, and his hand on the massive poker. While the stranger was thus employed below, Alice, instead of turning to her own narrow cell, went into her father's room. The cottager was seated at the foot of his bed, muttering to himself, and with eyes fixed on the ground. 20 ALICE The girl stood before him, gazing on his face, and with her arms lightly crossed above her bo- som. " It must be worth twenty guineas," said the host abruptly to himself. " What is it to you, father, what the gentle- man's watch is worth ?" The man started. " You mean," continued Alice, quietly, " you mean to do some injury to that young man ; but you shall not." The cottager's face grew black as night " How,'' he began, in a loud voice, but suddenly dropped the tone into a deep growl — " how dare you talk to me so?— go to bed — go to bed." " No, father." " No ?" " I will not stir from this room until day- break." " We will soon see that," said the man with an oath. " Touch me, and I will alarm the gentleman, and toll him that — " AND HER FATHER. 21 « Whatr The girl approached her father, placed her Hps to his ear, and whispered, " That you intend to murder him." The cottager's frame trembled from head to foot ; he shut his eyes and gasped painfully for breath ; " Ahce," said he gently, after a pause — *' Alice, we are often nearly starving." " / am — you never !" " Wretch, yes ! if I do drink too much one day, I pinch for it the next. But go to bed, I say — I mean no harm to the young man. Think you I would twist myself a rope? — no, no;— go along, go along." Ahce's face, which had before been earnest, and almost intelligent, now relapsed into its wonted vacant stare. " To be sure, father, they would hang you if you cut his throat. Don't forget that; — good night;" — and so saying, she walked to her own opposite chamber. Left alone, the host pressed his hand tightly 22 ALICE to his forehead, and remained motionless for nearly half-an-hour. " If that cursed girl would but sleep," he muttered at last, turning round, " it might be done at once. And there's the pond behind, as deep as a well ; and I might say at daybreak that the boy had bolted. He seems quite a stranger here — nobody '11 miss him. He must have plenty of blunt to give half-a-guinea for a companion for four miles ! I want money, and I won't work — if I can help it, at least." While he thus soliloquised, the air seemed to oppress him; he opened the window, he leant out — the rain beat upon him. He closed the window with an oath ; took off his shoes, stole to the thresh- old, and, by the candle which he shaded with his hand, surveyed the opposite door. It was closed. He then bent anxiously forward and listened. " All's quiet," thought he ; " perhaps he sleeps already. I will steal down. If Jack Walters would but come to night, the job could be done charm- ingly." With that he crept gently down the stairs. In AND HER FATHER^ 23 a corner, at the foot of the staircase, lay sundrj- matters, a few faggots, and a cleaver. He caught up the last. " Aha," he muttered, " and there's the sledge-hammer somewhere for Walters." Leaning himself against the door, he then applied his eye to a chink which admitted a dim view of the room within, lighted fitfully by the fire. 24 DANGER. CHAPTER IL " What have we here? A carrion death !" Merchant of Venice, Act ii. Scene vii. It was about this time that the stranger deemed it advisable to commence his retreat. The shght and suppressed sound of voices, which at first he had heard above in the conversation of the father and child, had died away. The stillness at once en- couraged and warned him. He stole to the front- door, softly undid the bolt, and found the door locked and the key missing. He had not observed that during his repast, and ere his suspicions had been aroused, his host, in replacing the bar and DANGER. 25 relocking the entrance, had abstracted the key. His fears were now confirmed. His next thought was the window— the shutter only protected it half way, and was easily removed ; but the aper- ture of the lattice, which only opened in part, hke most cottage casements, was far too small to ad- mit his person. His only means of escape was in breaking the whole window ; a matter not to be effected without noise and consequent risk. He paused in despair. He was naturally of a strong-nerved and gallant temperament, nor un- accustomed to those perils of life and limb which German students delight to brave ; but his heart well nigh failed him at that moment. The si- lence became distinct and burthensome to him, and a chill moisture gathered to his brow. While he stood irresolute and in suspense, striving to collect his thoughts, his ear, preternaturally sharpened by fear, caught the faint muffled sound of creeping footsteps — he heard the stairs creak. The sound broke the spell. The previous vague apprehension gave way, when the danger became VOL. I. c 26 DANGER. actually at hand. His presence of mind returned at once. He went back quickly to the fire-place, seized the poker, and began stirring the fire, arid coughing loud, and indicating as vigorously as possible that he was wide awake. He felt that he was watched — he felt that he was in momently peril. He felt that the appear- ance of slumber would be the signal for a mortal conflict. Time passed, all remained silent; nearly half-an-hour had elapsed since he had heard the steps upon the stairs. His situation began to prey upon his nerves, it irritated them — it became intolerable. It was not now fear that he expe- rienced, it was the overwrought sense of mortal enmity — the consciousness that a man may feel who knows that the eye of a tiger is on him, and who, while in suspense he has regained his courage, foresees that sooner or later the spring must come. The suspense itself becomes an agony, and he desires to expedite the deadly struggle he cannot shun. Utterly incapable any longer to bear his own DANGER. 27 sensations, the traveller rose at last, fixed his eyes upon the fatal door, and was about to cry aloud to the listener to enter, when he heard a low tap at the window ; it was twice repeated ; and at the third time a low voice pronounced the name of Darvil. It was clear, then, that accom- pHces had arrived ; it was no longer against one man he should have to contend. He drew his breath hard, and listened with throbbing ears. He heard steps without upon the plashing soil ; they retired, — all was still. He paused a few minutes, and walked deUbe- rately and firmly to the inner door at which he fancied his host stationed ; with a steady hand he attempted to undo the bolt ; it was fastened on the opposite side. " So !" said he, bitterly, and grind- ing his teeth ; " I must die like a rat in a cage. Well, ril die biting." He returned to his former post, drew himself up to his full height, and stood grasping his homely weapon, prepared for the worst, and not altogether unelated with a proud consciousness of c 2 28 THE INTRUSION. his own natural advantages of activity, stature, strength, and daring. Minutes rolled on; the silence was broken by some one at the inner door ; he heard the bolt gently withdrawn. He raised his weapon with both hands; and started to find the intruder was only Alice. She came in with bare feet, and pale as marble, her finger on her lips. She approached — she touched him. " They are in the shed behind," she whispered, " looking for the sledge-hammer —they mean to murder you; get you gone— quick.*' " How ? — the door is locked." " Stay. I have taken the key from his room." She gained the door, applied the key — the door yielded. The traveller threw his knapsack once more over his shoulder and made but one stride to the threshold. The girl stopped him. " Don't say anything about it ; he is my father -— they would hang him." " No, no. But you ?— are safe, I trust ; de- pend on my gratitude. I shall be at * * "^ * * THE ESCAPE. '29 to-morrow — the best inn— seek me if you can! Which way now ?" " Keep to the left." The stranger was already several paces distant; through the darkness, and in the midst of the rain, he fled on with the speed of youth. The girl lingered an instant, sighed, then laughed aloud; closed and re-barred the door, and was creeping back, when from the inner entrance, advanced the grim father, and another man, of broad, short, sinewy frame, his arms bare, and wielding a large hammer. " How !'' asked the host ; " Alice here, and — hell and the devil, have you let him go ?" " I told you that you should not harm him." With a violent oath, the ruffian struck his daughter to the ground, sprang over her body, unbarred the door, and, accompanied by his com- rade, set off in vague pursuit of his intended victim. so MORNING. CHAPTER III. " You knew— none so well^ of my daughter's flight." Merchant of Venice, Act iii. Scene 1. The day dawned ; it was a mild, damp, hazy morning ; the sod sank deep beneath the foot, the roads were heavy with mire, and the rain of the past night lay here and there in broad shallow pools. Towards the town, waggons, carts, pe- destrian groups were already moving ; and, now and then, you caught the sharp horn of some early coach, wheeling its be-cloaked outside and be- night-capped inside passengers along the north- ern thoroughfare. A. young man bounded over a stile into the THE RENCONTRE. 31 road just opposite to the mile -stone, that de- clared him to be one mile from ^ * * * *. " Thank heaven !" he said, almost aloud. " After spending the night wandering about morasses like a will-o'-the-wisp, I approach a town at last. Thank heaven again and for all its mercies this night ! I breathe freely* I am SAFE." He walked on somewhat rapidly ; he passed a slow waggon — ^he passed a group of mechanics — he passed a drove of sheep, and now he saw^ walk- ing leisurely before him a single figure. It was a girl, in a worn and humble dress ; who seemed to seek her weary way with pain and languor. He was about also to pass her, when he heard a low cry. He turned, and beheld in the wayfarer his preserver of the previous night. " Heavens ! is it indeed you ? can I believe my eyes ?" " I was coming to seek you, sir," said the girl, faintly. " I too have escaped ; I shall never go 32 THE YOUNG SCHOLAR back to father, I have no roof to cover my head now." " Poor child ! but how is this? Did they ill-use you for releasing me?" " Father knocked me down, and beat me again when he came back ; but that is not all," she added, in a very low tone. "What else?" The girl grew red and white by turns. She set her teeth rigidly, stopped short, and then walk- ing on quicker than before, replied, — " It don't matter; I will never go back — Vm. alone now. What, what shall I do?" and she wrung her hands. The traveller's pity was deeply moved. " My good girl," said he earnestly, " you have saved my life, and I am not ungrateful. Here," (and he placed some gold in her hand,) "get yourself a lodging, food and rest; you look as if you wanted them ; and see me again this evening when it is dark, and we can talk unobserved." AXD THE IGNORANT GIRL. 33 The girl took the money passively, and looked up in his face while he spoke ; the look was so unsuspecting, and the whole countenance was so beautifully modest and virgin-like, that had any evil passion prompted the traveller's last words — it must have fled scared and abashed as he met the gaze. " My poor girl," said he, embarrassed, and after a short pause ; — " you are very young, and very, very pretty. In this town you will be exposed to many temptations : take care where you lodge : you have, no doubt, friends here.'' " Friends. — what are friends?" answered Alice. " Have you no relations ; no mother's k'm .^" <•' None." " Do you know where to ask shelter ?" " No sir ; for I can't go where father goes, lest he should find me out." " Well, then, seek some quiet inn, and meet me this evening, just here, half-a-mile from the c 5 34 MALTRAVERS. town, at seven. I will try and think of some- thing for you in the meanwhile ; but you seem tired, you walk with pain ; perhaps it will fatigue you to come — I mean, you had rather perhaps rest another day." " Oh ! no, no ! it will do me good to see you again, sir." The young man's eyes met hers, and hers were not withdrawn ; their soft blue was suifused with tears — they penetrated his soul. He turned away hastily, and saw that they were already the subject of curious observation to the various passengers that overtook tUem. " Don't forget !" he whispered, and strode on with a pace that soon brought him to the town. He inquired for the principal hotel — entered it with an air that bespoke that nameless conscious- ness of superiority which belongs to those accus- tomed to purchase welcome, wherever welcome is bought and sold — and before a blazing fire and no unsubstantial breakfast, forgot all the terrors MALT RAVERS. 35 of the past night, or rather felt rejoiced to think he had added a new and strange hazard to the catalogue of adventures, already experienced by Ernest Maltravers. 36 MALTRAVERS. CHAPTER IV. Con una Dama tenia U^ galan conversacion. Moratin ; El Tcatro Espanol. — Num. 15. Maltravers was first at the appointed place. His character was in most respects singularly energetic, decided, and premature in its deve- lopement ; but not so in regard to women : with them he was the creature of the moment; and, driven to and fro by whatever impulse, or what- ever passion, caught the caprice of a wild, roving, and all-poetical imagination, Maltravers was, half unconsciously, a poet — a poet of action, and wo- man was his muse. He had formed no plan of conduct towards MA.LTRAVERS. " 37 the poor girl he was to meet. He meant no harm to her. If she had heen less handsome, he would have been equally grateful ; and her dress, and youth, and condition, would equally have compelled him to select the hour of dusk for an interview. He arrived at the spot. The winter night had already descended; but a sharp frost had set in : the air was clear, the stars were bright, and the long shadows slept still and calm along the broad road, and the whitened fields be- yond. He walked briskly to and fi'O, without much thought of the interview, or its object, half chaunting old verses, German and English, to himself, and stopping to gaze every moment at the silent stars. At length he saw Alice approach : she came up to him timidly and gently. His heart beat more quickly ; he felt that he was young, and alone with beauty. " Sweet girl," he said, with involuntary and mechanical compliment, " how VOL. I. c 7 38 EXPLANATIONS. well this light becomes you ! How shall I thank you for not forgetting me ?" Alice surrendered her hand to his without a struggle. " What is your name ?"" said he, bending his face down to hers. " Ahce Darvil." " And your terrible father, is he, in truth, your father ?" " Indeed he is father and mother too !" " What made you suspect his intention to mur- der me ? Has he ever attempted the like crime ?'' " No ; but lately he has often talked of rob- bery. He is very poor, sir. And when I saw his eye, and when afterwards, while your back was turned, he took the key from the door, I felt that — that you were in danger." " Good girl — go on." " I told him so when we went up stairs. I did not know what to believe, when he said he would not hurt you ; but I stole the key of the front door, which he had thrown on the table. EXPLANATIONS. ' 39 and went to my room. I listened at my door ; I heard him go down the stairs : he stopped there for some time ; and I watched him from above. The place where he was, opened to the field by the backway. After some time, I heard a voice whisper him : I knew the voice, and then .they both went out by the backway ; so I stole down, and went out and listened ; and I knew the other man was John Walters. I'm afraid of him, sir. And then Walters said, says he, ' I will get the hammer, and, sleep or wake, will do it.' And father said, ' It's in the shed.' So I saw there was no time to be lost, sir, and — and — but you know all the rest." " But how did you escape ?" " Oh, my father, after talking to Walters, came to my room, and beat and frightened me ; and when he was gone to-bed, I put on my clothes, and stole out ; it was just light ; and I walked on till I met you.'"* " Poor child, in what a den of vice you have been brought up !" 40 THE PHILOSOPHER STARTLED. " Allan, sir." " She don't understand me. Have you been taught to read and write ?" " O no !" " But I suppose you have been taught, at least, to say your catechism — and you pray sometimes ?" " I have prayed to father not to beat me." "But to God?" " God, sir, what is that ?" * Maltravers drew back, shocked and appalled. Premature philosopher as he was, this depth of ignorance perplexed his wisdom. He had read all the disputes of school-men, whether or not * This ignorance— indeed the whole sketch of Alice — is from the life ; nor is such ignorance, accompanied by what almost seems an instinctive or intuitive notion of right or wrong, very uncommon, as our police re. ports can testify. In the ' Examiner,' for, I think, the year 1835, (I am not able, where I now write, to con- sult the files of that journal and ascertain the precise date,) will be found the case of a young girl ill-treated by her father, whose answers to the interrogatories of the magistrate are very similar to those of Alice. THE PHILOSOPHER MOVED. 41 the notion of a Supreme Being is innate ; but he had never before been brought face to face with a living creature, who was unconscious of a God. After a pause, he said — " My poor girl, we misunderstand each other. You know that there is a God?" " No, sir." " Did no one ever tell you who made the stars you now survey — the earth on which you tread?" " No." " And have you never thought about it your- self?" " Why should I ? What has that to do with being cold and hungry ?" Maltravers looked incredulous. " You see that great building, with the spire rising in the starlight?" " Yes, sir, sure." " What is it called ?" " Why, a church." " Did you never go into it ?" 42 THE PHILOSOPHER PROVED. « No." " What do people do there ?" " Father says one man talks nonsense, and the other folk listen to him." " Your father is no matter. Good hea- vens, what shall I do with this unhappy child ?" " Yes, sir, 1 am very unhappy," said Alice, catching at the last words ; and the tears rolled silently down her cheeks. Maltravers never was more touched in his life. Whatever thoughts of gallantry might have en- tered his young head, had he found Alice such as he might reasonably have expected, he now felt there was a kind of sanctity in her igno- rance; and his gratitude and kindly sentiment towards her took almost a brotherly aspect. — " You know, at least, what school is ? " he asked. " Yes, I have talked with girls who go to school." " Would you like to go there too?" " O no, sir — pray not !" A WILD BOY. 43 " What should you Hke to do, then ?— speak out, child. I owe you so much, that I should be too happy to make you comfortable and contented in your own way." " I should like to live with you, sir." Maltravers started, and half smiled, and co- loured .... But looking on her eyes, which were fixed earnestly on his, there was so much art- lessness in their soft, unconscious gaze, that he saw she was wholly ignorant of the interpreta- tion that might be put upon so candid a confes- sion. I have said that Maltravers was a wild, enthu- siastic, odd being — he was, in fact, full of strange German romance and metaphysical speculations. He had once shut himself up for months to study astrology — and been even suspected of a serious hunt after the philosopher's stone — another time he had narrowly escaped with life and hberty from a frantic conspiracy of the young republicans of his university, in which, being bolder and madder than most of them, he had been an ac- 44 THE ARRANGEMENT. tive ringleader ; it was, indeed, some such folly that had compelled him to quit Germany sooner than himself or his parents desired. He had nothing of the sober Enghshman about him. Whatever was strange and eccentric had an irre- sistible charm for Ernest Maltravers. And agree- ably to this disposition he now revolved an idea that enchanted his mobile and fantastic philoso- phy. He himself would educate this charming girl— he would write fair and heavenly characters upon this blank page — he would act the Saint Preux to this Julie of Nature. Alas, he did not think of the result which the parallel should have suggested ! At that age, Ernest Maltravers never damped the ardour of an experiment by the anticipation of consequences. " So," he said, after a short reverie, " so you would like to live with me. But, Alice, we must not fall in love with each other." " I don't understand, sir." " Never mind,'' said Maltravers, a httle dis- concerted. THE ARRANGE3IENT. 45 " I always wished to go into service." « Ha ! " " And you would be a kind master/' Maltravers was half-disenchanted. " No very flattering preference," thought he ; " so much the safer for us. Well, AUce, it shall be as you wish. Are you comfortable where you are, in your new lodging ? " " No." " Why ? they do not insult you." " No ; but they make a noise, and I like to be quiet to think of you." The young philosopher was reconciled again to his scheme. " Well, Alice — go back — I will take a cottage to-morrow, and you shall be my servant, and I will teach you to read and write, and say your prayers, and know that you have a Father above, who loves you better than he below. Meet me again at the same hour to-morrow. Why do you cry, Alice ? why do you cry ?" " Because — because," sobbed the girl, " I am 46 THE CAPRICE. SO happy, and I shall live with you and see you." " Go, child — go, child,"" said Maltravers, has- tily — and he walked away with a quicker pulse than became his new character of master and preceptor. He looked back, and saw the girl gazing at him — he waved his hand, and she moved on and followed him slowly back to the town. Maltravers, though not an elder son, was the heir of affluent fortunes — he enjoyed a munifi- cent allowance that sufficed for the whims of a youth, who had learned in Germany none of the extravagant notions common to young English- men of similar birth and prospects. He was a spoiled child, with no law but his own fancy, — his return home was not expected — there was nothing to prevent the indulgence of his new ca- price. The next day he hired a cottage in the neighbourhood, which was one of those pretty thatched edifices, with verandahs and monthly roses, a conservatory and a lawn, which justify the Enghsh provefrb about a cottage and love. It THE COTTAGE. 47 had been built by a mercantile bachelor for some fair Rosamond, and did credit to his taste. An old woman, let with the house, was to cook and do the work. Alice was but a nominal servant. Neither the old woman nor the landlord compre- hended the platonic intentions of the young stranger. But he paid his rent in advance, and they were not particular. He, however, thought it prudent to conceal his name. It was one sure to be known in a town not very distant from the residence of his father, a wealthy and long des- cended country gentleman. He adopted, there- fore, the common name of Butler, which, in- deed, belonged to one of his maternal con- nexions, and by that name alone was he known both in the neighbourhood and to Alice. From her he v>^ould not have sought concealment — but somehow or other no occasion ever occurred for him to talk much to her of his parentage or birth. 48 READING AND WRITING. CHAPTER V. Thought would destroy their Paradise." Gray. Maltravers found Alice as docile a pupil as any reasonable preceptor might have desired. But still, reading and writing — they are very uninter- esting elements ! Had the groundwork been laid, it might have been delightful to raise the fairy palace of knowledge ; but the digging the founda- tions and the constructing the cellars is weary labour. Perhaps he felt it so — for in a few days Alice was handed over to the very oldest and ugliest writing-master that the neigh- bouring ^own could aiford. It is astonishing what MALTRAVERS. 49 care Maltravers took of her morals. The poor girl at first wept much at the exchange, but the grave remonstrances and solemn exhortations of Maltravers reconciled her at last, and she pro- mised to work hard and pay every attention to her lessons. I am not sure, however, that it was the tedium of the work that deterred the ideal- ist — perhaps he felt its danger — and at the bot- tom of his sparkling dreams and brilHant follies, lay a sound, generous, and noble heart. He was fond of pleasure, and had been already the dar- ling of the sentimental Genman ladies. But he was too young, and too vivid, and too romantic to be that which is called a sensualist. He could not look upon a fair face, and a guileless smile, and all the ineffable symmetry of a woman's shape, with the eye of a man buying cattle for base uses .... He very easily fell in love, or fancied he did, it is true — but then he could not separate desire from fancy, or calculate the game of passion without bringing the heart or VOL. I. D 50 MALTRAVERS. the imagination into the matter. And though Alice was very pretty and very engaging, he was not yet in love with her, and he had no intention of becoming so. He felt the evening somewhat long, when for tlie first time Alice discontinued her usual les- son; but Maltravers had abundant resources in himself. He placed Shak&peare and Schiller on his table, and lighted his German meerschaum — he read till he became inspired, and then he wrote — and when he had composed a few stanzas he was not contented till he had set them to music and tried their melody with his voice. For he had all the passion of a German for song and music — that wild Maltravers ! — and his voice was sweet, his taste consummate, his science profound. As the sun puts out a star, so the full blaze of his imagination, fairly kindled, ex- tinguished for the time, his fairy fancy for his beautiful pupil. It was late that night when Maltravers went to bed— and as he passed through the narrow cor- MALTRAVERS. 51 ridor that led to his chamber, he heard a hght step flpng before him, and caught the glimpse of a female figure escaping through a distant door. — " The silly child !" thought he, at once divining the cause — " she has been hstening to my singing. I shall scold her." But he forgot that resolution. The next day, and the next, and many days passed, and Maltravers saw but little of the pupil for whose sake he had shut himself up in a country cottage, in the depth of winter. Still he did not repent his purpose, nor was he in the least tired of his seclusion — he would not inspect Alice's progress, for he was cer- tain he should be dissatisfied with its slow- ness — and people, however handsome, cannot learn to read and write in a day. But he amused himself, notwithstanding. He was glad of an op- portunity to be alone with his own thoughts, for he was at one of those periodical epochs of life when we like to pause and breathe awhile, from that methodical race in which we run to the grave. He wished to re-collect the stores of his D 2 LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF ILUN01S 52 MALTRAVEKS. past experience and repose on his own mind, be- fore he started afresh upon the active world. The weather was cold and inclement ; but Ernest Maltravers was a hard}^ lover of nature, and neither snow nor frost could detain him from his daily rambles. So about noon, he regularly threw aside books and papers, took his hat and staff, and went, whistling or humming his favourite airs, through the dreary streets, or along the bleak waters, or amidst the leafless woods, just as the humour seized him ; for he was not an Edwin or Harold, who reserved speculation only for lonely brooks and pastoral hills. Maltravers delighted to contemplate nature in men as well as in sheep or trees. The humblest alley in a crowded town had something poetical for him ; he was ever ready to mix in a crowd, if it were only gathered round a barrel-organ, or a dog-fight, and listen to all that was said, and notice all that was done. And this I take to be the true poetical tempera- ment essential to every artist who aspires to be something more than a scene-painter. But above MALTRAVERS. 53 all things he was most interested in any display of human passions or affections ; he loved to see the true colours of the heart, where they are most transparent — in the uneducated and poor. — For he was something of an optimist, and had a hearty faith in the loveliness of our nature. Per- haps, indeed, he owed much of the insight into and mastery over character that he was afterwards considered to display, to his disbelief that there is any wickedness so dark as not to be suscep- tible of the light in some place or another. But Maltravers had his fits of unsociability, and then nothing but the most solitary scenes delighted him. Winter or summer, barren w^aste, or pro- digal verdure, all had beauty in his eyes ; for their beauty lay in his own soul, through which he beheld them. From these walks he would return home at dusk, take his simple meal — rhyme or read away the long evenings with such alternation as music or the dreamy thoughts of a young man with gay life before him could afford. Happy Maltravers ! — youth and genius 54 A SURPRISE. have luxuries all the Rothschilds cannot pur- chase ! And yet, Maltravers, you are ambitious ! — life moves too slowly for you ! — you would push on the wheels of the clock ! — Fool — bril- liant fool ! — you are eighteen and a poet ! — What more can you desire ? — Bid time stop for ever ! One morning, Ernest rose earlier than his wont, and sauntered carelessly through the conserva- tory which adjoined his sitting-room ; observing the plants with placid curiosity, (for besides be- ing a little of a botanist, he had odd visionary notions about the life of plants, and he saw in them a hundred mysteries which the herbalists do not teach us,) when he heard alow, and very musical voice singing at a little distance. He listened and recognised with surprise words of his own, which he had lately set to music, and was sufficiently pleased with, to sing nightly. When the song ended, Maltravers stole softly through the conservatory, and as he opened the door which led into the garden, he saw at the A CONVERSATION. 55 open window of a little room which was appor- tioned to Alice, and jutted out from the building in the fanciful irregularity common to ornamental cottages, the form of his discarded pupil. She did not observe him, and it was not till he twice called her by name that she started from her thoughtful and melancholy posture. " Alice," said he gently, " put on your bon- net, and walk with me in the garden : you look pale, child ; the fresh air will do you good." Alice coloured and smiled, and in a few mo- ments was by his side. Maltravers, meanwhile, had gone in, and lighted his meerschaum, for it was his great inspirer whenever his thoughts were perplexed, or he felt his usual fluency likely to fail him, and such was the case now. With this faithful ally he awaited Alice in the little walk that circled the lawn, amidst shrubs and ever- greens. " Alice," said he, after a pause ; but he stopped short. Alice looked up at him with grave respect. 56 A CONVERSATION. " Tush !" said Maltravers, — " perhaps the smoke is unpleasant to you. It is a bad habit of mine." " No, sir," answered AHce, and she seemed dis- appointed. Maltravers paused and picked up a snowdrop. " It is pretty," he said; " do you Jove flowers ?" " Oh, dearly," answered Alice, with some en- thusiasm; " I never saw many till I came here." " Now then, I can go on," thought Maltravers: why, I cannot say, for I do not see the sequitur ; but on he went in medias res. " Alice, you sing charmingly." " Ah ! sir, you — you — " she stopped abruptly and trembled visibly. " Yes, I overheard you, Alice." " And you are angry." " I — Heaven forbid ! It is a talent^ but you don't know what that is ; I mean it is an excel- lent thing to have an ear, and a voice, and a heart for music; and you have all three." He paused, for he felt his hand touched; Alice A CONVERSATION. 57 suddenly clasped and kissed it. Maltravers thrilled through his whole frame ; but there was something in the girl's look that showed she was wholly unaware that she had committed an un- maidenly or forward action. " I was so afraid you would be angry," she said, wiping her eyes as she dropped his hand ; " and now, I suppose you know all." " All !" " Yes; how I listened to you every evening, and lay awake the whole night with the music ring- ing in my ears, till I tried to go over it myself ; and so at last I ventured to sing aloud. I like that much better than learning to read." All this was dehghtful to Maltravers ; the girl had touched upon one of his weak points : how- ever, he remained silent. Alice continued. " And now, sir, I hope you will let me come and sit outside the door every evening and hear you ; I will make no noise — I will be so quiet." " What, in that cold corridor, these bitter nights?" D 5 58 MR. SIMCOX " I am used to cold, sir. Father would not let me have a fire when he was not at home.'* " No, Alice, but you shall come into the room while I play, and I will give you a lesson or two. I am glad you have so good an ear ; it may be a means of your earning your own honest livelihood when you leave me." " When I but I never intend to leave you, sir !" said Alice, beginning fearfully and ending calmly. Maltravers had recourse to the meerschaum. Luckily, perhaps, at this time they were joined by Mr. Simcox, the old writing-master. Alice went in to prepare her books ; but Maltravers laid his hand upon the preceptor's shoulder. " You have a quick pupil, I hope, sir," said he. " O very, very, Mr. Butler. She comes on famously. She practises a great deal when I am away, and I do my best.'' " And," asked Maltravers, in a grave tone, " have you succeeded in instilling into the poor ON THEOLOGY. 59 child's mind some of those more sacred notions, of which I spoke to you in our first meeting ?" " Why, sir, she was indeed quite a heathen, quite a Mahometan, I may say ; but she is a Uttle better now." " What have you taught her ?'' " That God made her/' " That is a great step." " And that he loves good girls, and will watch over them." " Bravo ! You beat Plato." " No, sir, I never beat any one, except Uttle Jack Turner ; but he's a dunce." " Bah ! What else do you teach her ?" " That the devil runs away with bad girls, and " " Stop there, Mr. Simcox. Never mind the devil yet awhile. Let her first learn to do good, that God may love her ; the rest will follow. I would rather make people religious through their best feelings than their worst,— through their gra- titude and affections, rather than their fears and 60 MR. SIMCOX ON THEOLOGY. calculations of risk and punishment. We can do without the devil at present : that is a great mystery, and to be approached cautiously," mut- tered Maltravers. Mr. Simcox stared. " Does she say her prayers?" " I have taught her a short one." " Did she learn it readily ?" " Lord love her, yes. When I told her she ought to pray God to bless her benefactor, she would not rest till I had repeated one out of our Sunday-school book, and she got it by heart at once." " Enough, Mr. Simcox. I will not detain you longer." Forgetful of his untasted breakfast, Maltra- vers continued his meerschaum and his reflec- tions : he did not cease, till he had convinced himself that he was but doing his duty to Alice, by teaching her to cultivate the charming talent she evidently possessed, and through which she might secure her own independence. He fan- SCRUPLES RECONCILED. 61 cied that he should thus relieve himself of a charge and responsibility, which often perplexed him. Alice would leave him, enabled to walk the world in an honest professional path. It was an excellent idea. " But there is danger," whispered conscience. " Ay," answered philo- sophy and pride, those wise dupes that are al- ways so solemn, and always so taken in ; " but what is virtue without trial ?" And now every evening, when the windows were closed, and the hearth burnt clear, while the winds stormed, and the rain beat without, a lithe and lovely shape hovered about the stu- dent's chamber ; and his wild songs were sung by a voice, which nature had made even sweeter than his own. Alice''s talent for music was indeed surprising; enthusiastic and quick, as he himself was in all he undertook, Maltravers was amazed at her rapid progress. He soon taught her to play by ear ; and Maltravers could not but notice that her hand, always delicate in shape, had lost the 62 THE IMPROVEMENT. rude colour and roughness of labour. He thought of that pretty hand more often than he ought to have done, and guided it over the keys, when it could have found its way very well without him. On coming to the cottage, he had directed the old servant to provide suitable and proper clothes for Alice ; but now that she was admitted " to sit with the gentleman,"" the crone had the sense, without w^aiting for new orders, to buy the " pretty young woman" garments, still indeed simple, but of better materials, and less rustic fashion ; and Alice's redundant tresses were now carefully arranged into orderly and glossy curls, and even the texture was no longer the same ; and happiness and health bloomed on her downy cheeks, and smiled from the dewy lips, which never quite closed over the fresh white *{eeth, except when she was sad; — but that seemed never, now she was not banished from Maltra- vers. To say nothing of the unusual grace and GIRLS VERSUS BOYS. 63 delicacy of Alice's form and features, there is nearly always something of Nature's own genti- lity in very young women, (except indeed when they get together and fall a-giggling ;) it shames us men to see how much sooner they are polish- ed into conventional shape, than our rough, mas- culine angles, A vulgar boy requires. Heaven knows what assiduity, to move three steps— I do not say like a gentleman, but like a body that has a soul in it ; but give the least advantage of society or tuition to a peasant girl, and a hun- dred to one but she will glide into refinement, before the boy can make a bow without upset- ting the table. There is sentiment in all wo- men, and sentiment gives dehcacy to thought, and tact to manner. But sentiment with men is generally acquired, an offspring of the intel- lectual quality, not, as with the other sex, of the moral. In the course of his musical and vocal lessons, Maltravers gently took the occasion to cor- rect poor Alice's frequent offences against gram- 64 WISE OLD WOMAN. mar and accent ; and her memory was prodigiously quick and retentive. The very tones of her voice seemed altered in the ear of Maltravers ; and, somehow or other, the time came when he was no longer sensible of the difference in their rank. The old woman-servant, when she had seen how it would be from the first, and taken a pride in her own prophecy, as she ordered Alice's new dresses, was a much better philosopher than Maltravers; though he was already up to his ears in the moon -lit abyss of Plato; and had filled a dozen common-place books with criti- cisms on Kant. ALICE. 65 CHAPTER VI. " Young mau, I fear thy blood is rosy red. Thy heart is soft." D'Aguilar's Fiesco, Act iii. Scene 1. As education does not consist in reading and writing only, so Alice, while still very backward in those elementary arts, forestalled some of their maturest results in her intercourse with Maltravers. Before the inoculation took effect, she caught knowledge in the natural way. For the refinement of a graceful mind and a happy manner is very contagious. And Maltravers was encouraged by her quickness in music to attempt such instruction in other studies as conversation 66 THE NEW ABELARD. could afford. It is a better school than parents and masters think for : there was a time when all information was given orally ; and probably the Athenians learnt more from hearing Aris- totle, than we do from reading him. It was a delicious revival of Academe — in the walks, or beneath the rustic porticos of that little cottage, the romantic philosopher and the beautiful dis- ciple ! And his talk was much like that of a sage of the early world, with some wistful and earnest savage for a listener ; — of the stars and their courses — of beasts and birds and fishes, and plants and flowers — the wide Family of Nature — of the beneficence and power of God — of the mystic and spiritual History of Man. Charmed by her attention and docility, Mal- travers at length diverged from lore into poetry ; he would repeat to her the simplest and most natural passages he could remember in his fa- vourite poets ; he would himself compose verses elaborately adapted to her understanding : she hked the last the best, and learned them the THE NEW HELOISE. 67 easiest. Never had young poet a more gracious inspiration, and never did this inharmonious world more complacently resolve itself into soft dreams, as if to humour the novitiate of the victims it must speedily take into its joyless priesthood. And Alice had now quietly and insensibly carved out her own avocations — the tenor of her service. The plants in the conser- vatory had passed under her care, and no one else was privileged to touch Maltravers' books, or arrange the sacred litter of a student's apart- ment. When he came down in the morning, or returned from his walks, everything was in order, yet by a kind of magic, just as he wished it; the flowers he loved best, bloomed, fresh- gathered, on his table ; the very position of the large chair, just in that corner by the fire-place, whence, on entering the room, its hospitable arms opened with the most cordial air of wel- come, bespoke the presiding genius of a woman ; and then, precisely as the clock struck eight, Ahce entered, so pretty and smiling, and happy- bb SWEET BUT WRONG. looking, that it was no wonder the single hour at first allotted to her extended into three. Was Alice in love with Maltravers ? — she cer- tainly did not exhibit the symptoms in the ordi- nary way— she did not grow more reserved, and agitated, and timid — there was no worm in the bud of her damask cheek ; nay, though from the first she had been tolerably bold, she was more free and confidential, more at her ease every day ; in fact, she never for a moment suspected that she ought to be otherwise ; she had not the conventional and sensitive delicacy of girls who, whatever their rank of life, have been taught that there is a mystery and a peril in love ; she had a vague idea about girls going wrong, but she did not know that love had anything to do with it ; on the contrary, according to her father, it had connexion with money, not love ; all that she felt was so natural, and so very sinless. Could she help being so delighted to listen to him, and so grieved to depart? What thus she felt she expressed, no less simply and no less POOR ALICE. 69 guilelessly: and the candour sometimes com- pletely blinded and misled him. No, she could not be in love, or she could not so frankly own that she loved him — it was a sisterly and grateful sentiment. " The dear girl — I am rejoiced to think so," said Maltravers to himself; " I knew there would be no danger." Was he not in love himself ? — the reader must decide. " Ahce,'' said Maltravers, one evening, after a long pause of thought and abstraction on his side, while she was unconsciously practising her last acquisition on the piano—" Alice, — no, don't turn round — sit where you are, but listen to me. We cannot live always in this way." Alice was instantly disobedient — she did turn round, and those great blue eyes Mere fixed on his own v;ith such anxiety and alarm, that he had no resource but to get up and look round for the meerschaum. But Alice, who divined by an instinct his lightest wish, brought it to 70 THE STRUGGLE. him, while he was yet hunting, amidst the farther corners of the room, in places were it was cer- tain not to be. There it was, already filled with the fragrant Salonica, glittering with the gilt pastile which, not too healthfully, adulterates the seductive weed, with odours that pacify the repugnant censure of the fastidious — for Mal- travers was an epicurean even in his worst habits ; — there it was, I say, in that pretty hand which he had to touch as he took it ; and while he lit the weed, he had again to blush and shrink beneath those great blue eyes. '« Thank you, Alice," he said ; " thank you. Do sit down — there — out of the draught. I am going to open the window, the night is so lovely." He opened the casement, overgrown with creepers, and the moonlight lay fair and breath- less upon the smooth lawn. The calm and holi- ness of the night soothed and elevated his thoughts, he had cut himself off fi-om the eyes of Alice, and he proceeded with a firm, though gentle, voice : — THE STRUGGLE. 71 " My dear Alice, we cannot always live toge- ther in this way ; you are now wise enough to un- derstand me, so listen patiently. A young woman never wants a fortune so long as she has a good character; she is always poor and despised with- out one. Now, a good character in this world is lost as much by imprudence as guilt; and if you were to live with me much longer, it would be imprudent, and your character would suffer so much that you would not be able to make your own way in the world; far, then, from doing you a service, I should have done you a deadly injury, which I could not atone for : be- sides. Heaven knows what may happen worse than imprudence ; for, I am very sorry to say,"' added Maltravers, with great gravity, " that you are much too pretty and engaging to — to — in short, it wont do ! I must go home ; my friends will have a right to complain of me, if I remain thus, lost to them many weeks longer. And you, my dear Alice, are now sufficiently advanced to re- ceive better instruction than I or Mr. Simcox 72 THE STRUGGLE. can give you. I therefore propose to place you in some respectable family, where you will have more comfort, and a higher station than you have here. You can finish your education, and instead of being taught, you will be thus enabled to become a teacher to others. With your beauty, Alice," (and Maltravers sighed,) " and natural talents, and amiable temper, you have only to act well and prudently, to secure at last a worthy husband and a happy home. Have you heard me, Alice? Such is the plan I have formed for you." The young man thought as he spoke, with honest kindness and upright honour ; it was a bitterer sacrifice than perhaps the reader thinks for. But Maltravers, if he had an impassioned, had not a selfish, heart ; and he felt, to use his own expression, more emphatic than eloquent, that " it would not do," to live any longer alone with this beautiful girl, like the two children, whom the good Fairy kept safe from sin and the world, in the Pavilion of Roses. THE STRUGGLE. 73 But it is observable, that a woman is never so sure of going to the deuce, as when her lover attempts to save her from it. She is compara- tively safe if she is persecuted and pressed, by an ardour evidently selfish. But whether it is that her pride is alarmed, or her affection wounded, or her generosity appealed to, she certainly never can bear that her lover should have any feeling, however high-minded, so strong as his passion for her. And thus, directly the friendly hand is extended to warn her from the precipice, she shuts her eyes and down she goes. Certainly Alice was unconscious of this per- versity of her sex, for she comprehended neither her own danger nor Ernest's motives, but she took precisely the way to upset the virtue of an anchorite. She rose, pale and trembling — ap- proached Maltravers, and laid her hand gently on his arm. " I will go away, when and where you wish — the sooner the better — to-morrow — yes, to- morrow ; you are ashamed of poor Alice : and VOL. J. E 74 THE STRUGGLE. it has been very silly in me to be so happy." ( She struggled with her emotion for a moment, and went on.) " You know God can hear me, even when I am away from you, and when I know more I can pray better ; and God will bless you, sir, and make you happy, for I never can pray for anything else." With these words she turned away, and walked proudly towards the door. But when she reached the threshold, she stopped and looked round, as if to take a last farewell. All the associations and memories of that beloved spot rushed upon her— she gasped for breath, — tottered, — and fell to the ground insensible. Maltravers was already by her side ; he lifted her light weight in his arms ; he uttejed wild and impassioned exclamations — " Alice, beloved Ahce — forgive me; we will never part!" He chafed her hands in his own, while her head lay on his bosom. He could not resist the tempta- tion, and he kissed again and again those beau- tiful eyelids, till they opened slowly upon him, THE RESULT. 75 and the tender arms tightened round him in- voluntarily. " Alice," he whispered — " Alice, dear Ahce, I love thee ;" and he kissed no longer the eye- lids, but the lips themselves, as they half-sighed and half-smiled an answer. The kiss lingered — was it returned ? he thought so. Maltravers lost his head, and, all things considered, Zeno himself would have done the same, — at the age of eighteen ! e2 76 CONSCIENCE. CHAPTER VII. How like a younker or a prodigal. The scarfed bark puts from her native Bay ! Merchant of Venice. We are apt to connect the voice of Conscience with the stillness of midnight. But I think we wrong that innocent hour. It is that terrible " NEXT MORNING," wheu reason is wide awake, upon which remorse fastens its fangs. Has a man gambled away his all, or shot his friend in a duel — has he committed a crime, or incurred a laugh— it is the next morning, when the irre- trievable Past rises before him like a spectre — then doth the churchyard of memory yield up CONSCIE!^CE. 77 its grisly dead — then is the witching hour when the foul fiend within us can least tempt perhaps, but most torment. At night we have one thing to hope for, one refuge to fly to — ob- Uvion and sleep ! But at morning, sleep is over, and we are called upon coldly to review, and re-act, and live again the waking bitterness of self-reproach. Maltravers rose a penitent and unhappy man — remorse was new to him, and he felt as if he had committed a treacherous and fraudulent as well as guilty deed. This poor girl, she was so innocent, so confiding, so unprotected, even by her own sense of right. He went down stairs listless and dispirited. He longed yet dreaded to encounter Alice .... He heard her step in the conservatory — paused, ir- resolute, and at length joined her. For the first time she blushed and trembled, and her eyes shunned his. But when he kissed her hand in silence, she whispered, " And am I now to leave you?" And Maltravers answered fer- vently, " Never ! " and then her face grew so ra- 78 INNOCENCE IN SIN. diant with joy, that Maltravers was comforted despite himself. Alice knew no remorse, though she felt agitated and ashamed ; she did not com- prehend that she had lost caste for ever in the eyes of her sex. In fact, she never thought of herself. Her whole soul was with him ; she gave him back in love the spirit she had caught from him in knowledge . . . And they strolled together through the garden all that day, and Maltravers grew reconciled to himself. He had done wrong, it is true, but then perhaps Alice had already suffered as much as she could in the world's opi- nion, by living with him alone, though innocent, so long. And now she had an everlasting claim to his protection— she should never know shame or want. And the love that had led to the wrong, should, by fidelity and devotion, take from it the character of sin. " Natural and common- place sophistries ! Vhomme se pique ! as old Montaigne said, man is his own sharper ! The conscience is the most elastic material in the world. To-day you can- LOVE IN A COTTAGE. 79 not stretch it over a mole hill, to-moiTow it hides a mountain. O how happy they were now — that young pair ! How the days flew like dreams ! No doubt we blame them, and women very properly; but men, at least, cannot blame them very justly. For all of as male-animals have either been as happy once in our lives, or wished we were so. Time went on, winter passed away, and the early spring with its flowers and sunshine, was like a mirror to their own youth. Alice never ac- companied Maltravers in his walks abroad, partly because she feared to meet her father, and partly because Maltravers himself was fastidious- ly averse to all pubhcity. But then they had all that little world of three acres — lawn and foun- tain, shrubbery and terrace — to themselves, and Alice never asked if there was any other world without She was now quite a scholar, as Mr. Simcox himself averred. She could read aloud and fluently to Maltravers, and copied out his poetry in a small fluctuating hand, and he had 80 LOVE IN A COTTAGE. no longer to chase throughout his vocabulary for short Saxon monosyllables to make the bridge of intercourse between their ideas Eros and Psyche are ever united, and love opens all the petals of the soul. On one subject alone, Maltravers was less eloquent than of yore. He had not succeeded as a moralist, and he thought it hypocritical to preach what he did not practise. But Alice was gentler and purer, and as far as she knew, sweet fool, better than ever — she had invented a new prayer for herself . . . and she prayed as regularly and as fervently as if she were doing nothing amiss. But the code of heaven is gentler than that of earth, and does not declare that ignorance excuseth not the crime .... If a jury of Cherubim had tried Alice's offence, they would hardly have allowed the heart to bear witness against the soul ! A HOME PICTURE. 81 CHAPTER VIII. Some clouds sweep on as vultures for their prey,. •?{. -x- * * * -x- * No azure more shall robe the firmament. Nor spangled stars be glorious. Byron — Heaven and Earth. It was a lovely evening in April, the weather was unusually mild and serene for that time of year, in the northern districts of cur isle, and the bright drops of a recent shower sparkled upon the buds of the hlac and laburnum that cluster- ed round the cottage of Maltravers. The little fountain that played in the centre of a circular basin, on whose clear surface the broad-leaved E 5 82 A HOME PICTURE. water-lily cast its fairy shadow — added to the fresh green of the lawn ; — " And softe as velvet the yonge grass," on which the rare and early flowers were closing their heavy lids. That twilight shower had given a racy and vigorous sweetness to the air whicli stole over many a bank of violets, and slightly stirred the golden ringlets of Alice, as she sate by the side of her entranced and silent lover. They were seated on a rustic bench just without the cottage — and the open windows behind them admitted the view of that happy room — with its litter of books and musical instruments— elo- quent of the Poetry of Home. Maltravers was silent, for his flexile and ex- citable fancy was conjuring up a thousand shapes along that transparent air, or upon those shadowy violet banks. He was not thinking, he was imagining. His genius reposed dreamily upon the calm, but exquisite sense of his happi- ness. Alice was not absolutely in his thoughts. THOUGHTS. 83 but unconsciously she coloured them all— if she had left his side, the whole charm would have been broken. But Alice, who was not a poet or a genius, loas thinking, and thinking only of Maltravers .... His image was " the broken mirror" multiplied, in a thousand faithful fi'ag- ments, over everything fair and soft in that love- ly microcosm before her. But they were both alike in one thing — they were not with the Fu- ture, they were sensible of the Present ; — the sense of the actual life, the enjoyment of the breathing time, was strong within them. Such is the privilege of the extremes of our existence — Youth and Age. Middle life is never with to-day, its home is in to-morrow . . . anxious, and schem- ing, and desiring, and wishing this plot ripened and that hope fulfilled, while every wave of the forgotten Time brings it near and nearer to the end of all things. Half our life is consumed in longing to be nearer death. "Alice," said Maltravers, waking at last from his reverie, and drawing that light, childlike form, 84 lovers'* talk. nearer to him, " you enjoy this hour as much as I do." • " Oh, much more !" " More ! and why so ?" " Because I am thinking of you, and perhaps you are not thinking of yourself.""* Maltravers smiled, and stroked those beautiful ringlets and kissed that smooth innocent fore- head, and Alice nestled herself in his breast. " How young you look by this light, Alice !" said he, tenderly looking down. " Would you love me less if I were old?" asked Alice. " I suppose I should never have loved you in the same way, if you had been old when I first saw you." " Yet I am sure I should have felt the same for you if you had been — oh ! ever so old !" " What, with wrinkled cheeks, and palsied head, and a brown wig, and no teeth, like Mr. Simcox ? " " Oh, but you could never be like that ! lovers' talk. 85 You would always look young — your heart would be allrays in your face. That dear smile — ah, you would be beautiful to the last !" " But Simcox, though not very lovely now, has been, I dare say, handsomer than I am, Alice, and I shall be contented to look as well when I am as old." " I should never know you were old, because I can see you just as I please. Sometimes, when you are thoughtful, your brows meet, and you look so stern that I tremble ; but then I think of you when you last smiled^ and look up again, and though you are frowning still, you seem to smile. I am sure you are different to other eyes than to mine .... and time must kill me before, in my sight, it could alter you." " Sweet Alice, you talk eloquently, for you talk love." " My heart talks to you. Ah ! I wish it could say all it felt. I wish I could make poetry like you, or that words were music— I would never speak to you in anything else. I was so de- 86 LOVERS* TALK. lighted to learn music, because when I played I seemed to be talking to you. I am suM that whoever invented music did it because he loved dearly and wanted to say so. I said ' he,' but I think it was a woman. Was it ?" " The Greeks I told you about, and whose life was music, thought it was a god." " Ah, but you say the Greeks made Love a god. Were they wicked for it ?" " Our ov/n God above is Love," said Ernest seriously, " as our own poets have said and sung. But it is a love of another nature — di- vine, not human. Come, we will go within, the air grows cold for you." They entered, his arm round her waist. The room smiled upon them its quiet welcome; and Alice, whose heart had not half vented its fulness, sat down to the instrument still to " talk love" in her own way. But it was Saturday evening. Now every Sa- turday, Maltravers received from the neighbour- ing town, the provincial newspaper — it was his THE NEWSPAPER. 87 only medium of communication with the great worra. But it was not for that communication that he always seized it with avidity, and fed on it with interest. The county in which his father resided bordered the ghire in which Ernest sojourned, and the paper included the news of that fami- liar district in its comprehensive columns. It therefore satisfied Ernest's conscience and sooth- ed his filial anxieties to read, from time to time, that " Mr. Maltravers was entertaining a dis- tinguished party of friends at his noble mansion of Lisle Court;" or that " Mr. Maltravers' fox- hounds had met on such a day at something copse ;" or that " Mr. Maltravers, with his usual munificence, had subscribed twenty guineas to the new county jail.'' . . . And as now^ Maltra- vers saw the expected paper laid beside the hiss- ing urn, he seized it eagerly, tore the envelope, and hastened to the well-known corner appro- priated to the paternal district. The very first words that struck his eyes were these: — 88 THE NEWSPAPER. " ALARMING ILLNESS OF MR. MALTRAVERS. " We regret to state that this exemplary and distinguished gentleman was suddenly seized on Wednesday night with a severe spasmodic affec- tion. Dr was immediately sent for, who pronounced it to be gout in the stomach — the first medical assistance from London has been summoned. " Postscript. — We have just learned, in an- swer to our inquiries at Lisle Court, that the respected owner is considerably worse ; but slight hopes are entertained of his recovery. Captain Maltravers, his eldest son and heir, is at Lisle Court. An express has been despatch- ed in search of Mr. Ernest Maltravers, (Mr. M.'s only other surviving child,) who, involved by his high English spirit in some dispute with the authorities of a despotic government, had suddenly disappeared from Gottingen, where his extraordinary talents had highly distinguished him. He is supposed to be staying at Paris." DISMAY. 89 The paper dropped on the floor. Ernest threw himself back on the chair, and covered his face with his hands. Alice was beside him in a moment. He looked up, and caught her wistful and terrified gaze. " O, Alice !*' he cried, bitterly, and al- most pushing her away, " what remorse have you not occasioned me !'' Then springing on his feet, he hurried from the room. Presently the whole house was in commotion. The gardener, who was always in the house about supper-time, flew to the town for post- horses. The old woman was in despair about the laundress, for her first and only thought was for " master's shirts." Ernest locked himself in his room. Alice ! poor Alice ! In little more than twenty minutes, the chaise was at the door; and Ernest, pale as death, came into the room where he had left Alice. She was seated on the floor, and the fatal paper was on her lap. She had been endeavour- ing, in vain, to learn what had so sensibly affect- 90 THE PARTING. ed Maltravers, for, as I said before, she was unacquainted with his real name, and therefore the ominous paragraph did not even arrest her eye. He took the paper from her, for he wanted again and again to read it : some little word of hope or encouragement must have escaped him. And then Alice flung herself on his breast. " Do not weep,'^ said he, " Heaven knows I have sorrow enough of my own ! My father is dying ! So kind, so generous, so indulgent ! O God forgive me ! There, there, compose yourself. You will hear from me in a day or two.'' He kissed her ; but the kiss was cold and forced. He hurried away. She heard the wheels grate on the pebbles. She rushed to the window; but that beloved face was not visible. Maltravers had drawn the blinds, and thrown himself back to indulge his grief. A moment more, and even the vehicle that bore him away was gone. And before her were the flowers, and the star-lit lawn, THE PARTING. 91 and the playful fountain, and the bench where they had sat in such heartfelt and serene de- light. He was gone ; and often. Oh how often, did Alice remember, that his last words had been uttered in estranged tones — that his last embrace had been without love ! 9*2 AN ENGLISH PARK. CHAPTER IX. '' Thy due from me Is tears ; and heavy sorrows of the blood. Which nature, love, and filial tenderness. Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously !" Second Part of Henry IV. — Act 4. — Scene iv It was late at night when the chaise that bore Maltravers stopped at the gates of a park lodge. It seemed an age to Maltravers before the pea- sant within was aroused from the deep sleep of labour-loving health. " My father," he cried, while the gate creaked on its hinges ; " my father — is he better ? Is he alive ?"" AN ENGLISH PARK. 93 '• Oh, bless your heart, master Ernest, the 'squire was a little better this evening.'"' "Thank God! On— on !" The horses smoked and galloped along a road that wound through venerable and ancient groves. The moonlight slept soft upon the sward, and the cattle, disturbed from their sleep, rose lazily up, and gazed upon the unseasonable intruder. It is a wild and weird scene, one of those noble English parks at midnight, with its rough forest-ground broken into dell and valley, its never-innovated and mossy grass, overrun with fern, and its immemorial trees, that have looked upon the birth, and look yet upon the graves, of a hundred generations. Such spots are the last proud and melancholy trace of Norman knight- hood and old romance, left to the laughing land- scapes of cultivated England. They always throw something of shadow and solemn gloom upon minds that feel their associations, like that which belongs to some ancient and holy edifice. They are the cathedral aisles of Nature, with 94 THE ARRIVAL. their darkened vistas, and columned trunks, and arches of mighty fohage. But in ordinary times the gloom is pleasing, and more delightful than all the cheerful lawns and sunny slopes of the modern taste. Now to Maltravers it was ominous and oppressive : the darkness of death seemed brooding in every shadow, and its warn- ing voice moaning in every breeze. The wheels stopped again. Lights flitted across the basement story ; and one above, more dim than the rest, shone palely from the room in which the sick man slept. The bell rang shrilly out from amidst the dark ivy that clung around the porch. The heavy door swung back — Maltravers was on the threshold. His father lived — was better — was awake. His son was in his arms. ALICE ALONE. 95 CHAPTER X. '' The guardian oak Mourned o'er the roof it sheltered : the thick air Laboured with doleful sounds." Elliott of Sheffield. Many days had passed, and Alice was still alone ; but she had heard twice from Maltravers. The letters w^ere short and hurried. One time his father was better, and there were hopes ; another time, and it was not expected that he should sur- vive the week. They were the first letters Alice had ever received from him. Those Jirst letters are an event in a girl's life— in Alice's life they were a very melancholy one. Ernest did not ask her to write to him ; in fact, he felt, at such an 96 ALICE ALONE. hour, a repugnance to disclose his real name, and receive the letters of clandestine love in the house in which a father lay in death. He might have given the feigned address he had previously assumed, at some distant post-town where his person was not known. But then to obtain such letters, he must quit his father's side for hours. The thing was impossible. These diffi- culties Maltravers did not explain to Alice. She thought it singular he did not wish to hear from her ; but Alice was humble. What could she say worth troubling him with, and at such an hour? But how kind in him to write ! how pre- cious those letters ! and yet they disappointed her, and cost her floods of tears : they were so short — so full of sorrow — there was so little of love in them ; and " dear," or even " dearest Alice," that, uttered by the voice, was so tender, looked cold upon the lifeless paper. If she but knew the exact spot where he was, it would be some comfort; but she only knew that he was away, and in grief; and though he was little more than ALICE ALONE. 97 thirty miles distant, she felt as if immeasurable space divided them. However, she consoled herself as she could ; and strove to shorten the long, miserable day, by playing over all the airs he liked, and reading all the passages he had commended. She should be so improved when he returned — and how lovely the garden would look !— for every day its trees and bosquets caught a new smile from the deepening spring. Oh they would be so happy once more ! Alice novj learned the life that lies in the future ; and her young heart had not as yet been taught that of that future there is any prophet but Hope ! Maltravers, on quitting the cottage, had for- gotten that AHce was without money; and now that he found his stay would be indefinitely prolonged, he sent a remittance. Several bills were unpaid -some portion of the rent was due ; and Alice, as she was desired, entrusted the old servant with a bank note, with which she was to discharge these petty debts. One evening, as she VOL. I. F 98 MRS. Jones's adventure. brought Alice the surplus, the good dame seemed greatly discomposed. She was pale and agitated, or, as she expressed it, " had a terrible fit of the shakes." " What is the matter, Mrs, Jones ? no news of him — of — of my — of your master ?" " Dear heart, miss — no,'' answered Mrs. Jones ; " how should I ? But I'm sure I don't wish to frighten you ; there has been two sitch robberies in the neighbourhood." " O, thank heaven that's all !" exclaimed Alice. " O don't go for to thank heaven for that, miss ; it's a shocking thing for two lone females like us, and them ere windows all open to the ground ! You sees, as T was taking the note to be changed, at Mr. Harris's, the great grocer's shop, where all the poor folk was a buying agin to-morrow"— (for it was Saturday night, the second Saturday after Ernest's departure; from that Hegira, Alice dated all her chronology) — " and every body was a-talking about the rob • MRS. Jones's adventure. 99 beries last night. La, miss, they bound old Betty— you know Betty — a most respectable 'oman, who has known sorrows, and drinks tea with me once a-week. Well, miss, they (only think !) bound Betty to the bed-post, with no- thing on her but her shift— poor old soul ! and as Mr. Harris gave me the change — (please to see, miss, it's all right) — and I asked for half gould, miss, it's more convenient, sitch an ill- looking fellow was by me, a buying o' baccy, and he did so stare at the money, that I vows I thought he'd have rin away with it from the counter — so I grabbled it up, and went away. But would you believe, miss, just as I got into the lane, afore you turns through the gate, I chanced to look back, and there, sure enough, was that ugly fellow close behind me, a running like mad. O I set up such a skreetch ; and young Dobbins was a taking his cow out of the field, and he perked up over the hedge when he heard me ; and the cow too, with her horns, Lord bless her ! So the fellow stopped, and I bustled through the F 2 100 NIGHT. gate, and got home. But la, miss, if we are all robbed and murdered !" Alice had not heard much of this harangue ; but what she did hear, very slightly affected her strong, peasant-born nerves, not half so much, indeed, as the noise Mrs. Jones made in double-locking all the doors, and barring, as well as a peg and a rusty inch of chain would allow, all the windows, — which operation occupied at least an hour and a-half. All at last w-as still. Mrs. Jones had gone to bed— in the arms of sleep she had forgotten her terrors— and Alice had crept up stairs, and un- dressed, and said her prayers, and wept a little ; and, with the tears yet moist upon her dark eye- lashes, had ghded into dreams of Ernest. Mid- night was past — one o'clock sounded unheard from the clock at the foot of the stairs. The moon was gone — a slow, drizzling rain was falling upon the flowers, and cloud and darkness ga- thered fast and thick around the sky. About this time, a low, regular, grating sound THE ATTACK. 101 commenced at the thin shutters of the sitting- room below, preceded by a very faint noise, hke the tinkhng of small fragments of glass on the gravel without. At length it ceased, and the cautious and partial gleam of a lanthorn fell along the floor ; another moment, and two men stood in the room. " Hush, Jack !" whispered one ; " hang out the glim, and let's look about us." The dark-Ian thorn, now fairly unmuffled, pre- sented to the gaze of the robbers nothing that could gratify their cupidity. Books and music, chairs, tables, carpet, and fire-irons, though valuable enough in a house-agent's inventory, are worthless to the eyes of a house-breaker. They muttered a mutual curse. " Jack," said the former speaker, " we must make a dash at the spoons and forks, and then hey for the money. The old girl had thirty shiners, besides flimsies." The accomplice nodded consent ; the lanthorn was again partially shaded, and with noiseless 102 THE ALARM. and stealthy steps the men quitted the apart- ment. Several minutes elapsed, when Alice was awakened from her slumber by a loud scream ; she started, all was again silent ; she must have dreamt it : her little heart beat violently at first, but gradually regained its tenor. She rose, however, and, the kindness of her nature being more susceptible than her fear — she imagined Mrs. Jones might be ill — she would go to her. With this idea she began partially dress- ing herself, when she distinctly heard heavy footsteps and a strange voice in the room beyond. She was now thoroughly alarmed — her first im- pulse v/as to escape from the house — her next to bolt the door, and call aloud for assistance. But who would hear her cries ? Between the two purposes she halted irresolute . . and remained, pale and trembling, seated on the foot of the bed, when a broad light streamed through the chinks of the door — an instant more and a rude hand seized her. " Come, mem ; don't be fritted, we won't harm THE INTERVIEW. 103 you : but where's the gold-dust — where's the money? — the old girl says youVe got it. Fork it over." " O mercy, mercy ! John Walters, is that you?" " Damnation !" muttered the man, staggering back, " so you knows me then ; but you shan't peach ; you sha'n't scrag me, b — t you." While he spoke he again seized Alice, held her forcibly down with one hand, while with the other he deliberately drew from a side pouch a long case-knife. In that moment of deadly peril, the second ruffian, who had been a moment delayed in securing the servant, rushed for- ward. He had heard the exclamation of Alice, he heard the threat of his comrade ; he darted to the bed-side, cast a hurried gaze upon Alice, and hurled the intended murderer to the other side of the room. " What, man, art mad ?" he growled between his teeth. " Don't you know her ? it is Alice ; it is my daughter." 104 THE CAPTIVE. Alice had sprung up when released from the murderer's knife, and now with eyes strained and starting with horror, gazed upon the dark and evil face of her deliverer, " O God, it is — it is my father !" she muttered, and fell senseless. " Daughter or no daughter," said John Wal- ters, " I shall not put my scrag in her power ; recollect how she fritted us before, when she run away." Darvil stood thoughtful and perplexed — and his associate approached doggedly with a look of such settled ferocity as it was impossible for even Darvil to contemplate without a shudder. " You say right," muttered the father after a pause; but fixing his strong gripe on his comrade's shoulder, — " the girl must not be left here — the cart has a covering. We are leaving the coun- try ; I have a right to my daughter — she shall go with us. There, man, grab the money — it's on the table ; . . you've got the spoons. Now then—" as Darvil spoke he seized his daughter in his THE CAPTIVE. 105 arms ; threw over her a shawl and a cloak that lay at hand, and was already on the threshold. " I don't half like it," said Walters, grum- blingly — " it heen't safe." " At least it is safe as murder !" answered Darvil, turning round with a ghastly grin ; — " make haste." When Alice recovered her senses, the dawn was breaking slowly along desolate and sullen hills. She was lying upon rough straw — the cart was jolting over the ruts of a precipitous, lonely road, — and by her side scowled the face of that dreadful father. F 5 106 Ernest's return. CHAPTER XI. " Yet he beholds her with the eyes of mind — He sees the form which he no more shall meet — She like a passionate thought is come and gone. While at his feet the bright rill bubbles on." Elliot of Sheffield. It was about three weeks after that fearful night when the chaise of Maltravers stopped at the cottage door — the windows were shut up; no one answered the repeated summons of the post-boy. Maltravers himself, alarmed and amazed, des- cended from the vehicle : he was in deep mourn- ing. He went impatiently to the back entrance ; that also was locked ; round to the French win- 107 dovvs of the drawing-room, always hitherto half- opened, even in the frosty days of winter,— they were now closed like the rest. He shouted in terror, " Alice ! Alice !" — no sweet voice answered in breathless joy, no fairy step bounded forv/ard in welcome. At this moment, however, appeared the form of the gardener, coming across the lawn. The tale was soon told; the house had been robbed— the old woman at morning found gagged and fastened to her bed-post — Ahce flown. A ma- gistrate had been applied to, — suspicion fell upon the fugitive. None knew anything of her origin or name, not even the old woman, Maltravers had naturally and sedulously ordained Alice to preserve that secret, and she was too much in fear of being detected and claimed by her father, not to obey the injunction with scrupulous cau- tion. But it was known, at least, that she had entered the house a poor peasant girl, and what more common than for ladies of a certain descrip- tion to run away fi'om their lover, and take some of his property by mistake ? And a poor girl like 108 Ernest's return. Alice — what else could be expected? The magis- trate smiled, and the constables laughed. After all, it was a good joke at the young gentleman's expense ! Perhaps, as they had no orders from Maltravers, and they did not know where to find him, and thought he would be little inchned to prosecute, the search was not very rigorous. But two houses had been robbed the night before. Their owners were more on the alert. Suspi- cion fell upon a man of infamous character, John Walters, he had disappeared from the place. He had been last seen with an idle, drunken fel- low, who was said to have known better days, and who at one time had been a skilful and well-paid mechanic, till his habits of theft and drunken- ness threw him out of employ ; and he had been since accused of connexion with a gang of coiners — tried — and escaped from want of sufficient evidence against him. That man was Luke Darvil. His cottage was searched ; but he also had fled. The trace of cart-wheels by the gate of Maltravers gave a faint clue to pursuit; and Ernest's return. 109 after an active search of some days, persons an- swering to the description of the suspected bur- glars—with a young female in their company — w^ere tracked to a small inn, notorious as a resort for smugglers, by the sea-coast. But there every vestige of their supposed whereabout disappeared. And all this was told to the stunned Mal- travers ; the garruhty of the gardener precluded the necessity of his own inquiries, and the name of Darvil explained to him all that was dark to others. And Alice was suspected of the basest and the blackest guilt ! Obscure, beloved, pro- tected as she had been, she could not escape the calumny from which he had hoped everlastingly to shield her. But did he share that hateful thought ? Maltravers was too generous and too enhghtened. " Dog !" said he, grinding his teeth, and clench- ing his hands, at the startled menial, " dare to utter a syllable of suspicion against her, and I will trample the breath out of your body." The old woman, who had vowed that for the 110 THE SEARCH. varsal world, she would not stay in the house after such a " night of shakes,*"* had now learned the news of her master's return, and came hob- bling up to him. She arrived in time to hear his menace to her fellow-servant. " Ah, that's right; give it him, your honour, bless your good heart — that's what I says. Miss rob the house, says I — miss run away ! O no — depend on it they have murdered her, and buried the body." Maltravers gasped for breath, but without uttering another word here-entered the chaise and drove to the magistrate's. He found that func- tionary a worthy and intelligent man of the world. To him he confided the secret of Alice's birth and his own. The magistrate concurred with him, in believing that Alice had been discovered and removed by her father. New search was made — gold was lavished. Maltravers himself headed the search in person. But all came to the same result as before, save that by the de- scriptions he heard of the person — the dress — the ERNEST AGAIN DEPARTS. Ill tears, of the young female who had accompanied the men supposed to be Darvil and Walters, he was satisfied that Alice yet lived ; he hoped she might yet escape and return. In that hope he lingered for weeks — for months, in the neighbour- hood ; but time past, and no tidings He was forced at length to quit a neighbourhood at once so saddened and endeared. But he secured a friend in the magistrate, who promised to com- municate with him if Alice returned, or her father was discovered. He enriched Mrs. Jones for life, in gratitude for her vindication of his lost and early love : he promised the amplest rewards for the smallest clue. And with a crushed and des- pondent spirit, he obeyed at last the repeated and anxious summons of the guardian to whose care, until his majority was attained, the young orphan was now entrusted. 112 A CHARACTER. CHAPTER XIL " Sure there are poets that did never dream Upon Parnassus/' Denhv.m. " Walk sober off, before a sprightlier age Come tittering on and shove you from the stage." Pope. " Hence to repose your trust in me was wise." Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel. Mr. Frederick Cleveland, a younger son of Lord Byrneham, and therefore entitled to the style and distinction of « Honourable,' was the guardian of Ernest Maltravers. He was now about the age of forty-three ; a man of letters and a man of fashion, if the last half-obsolete expression be A CHARACTER. 113 permitted to us as being at least more classical and definite than any other which modern euphu- ism has invented to convey the same meaning. Highly educated, and with natural abilities con- siderably above mediocrity, Mr. Cleveland early in life, had glowed with the ambition of an author He had written well and grace- fully — but his success, though respectable, did not satisfy his aspirations. The fact is, that a new school of literature ruled the Public despite the critics— a school very different from that in which Mr. Cleveland had formed his unimpas- sioned and polished periods. And as that old Earl, I think of Norwich, who in the time of Charles the First was the reigning wit of the court, in the time of Charles the Second was considered too dull even for a butt, so every age has its ow^n lite- rary stamp and coinage, and consigns the old cir- culation to its shelves and cabinets, as neglected curiosities. Cleveland could not become the fashion with the public as an author, though the coteries cried him up and the reviewers adored 114 A CHARACTER. him— aild the ladies of quality and the amateur dilettanti bought and bound his volumes of careful poetry and cadenced prose. But Cleveland had high birth and a handsome competence — his man- ners were delightful, his conversation fluent — and his disposition was as amiable as his mind was cultured. He became, therefore, a man greatly sought after in society — both respected and be- loved. If he had not genius, he had great good sense; —he did not vex his urbane temper and kindly heart with walking after a vain shadow, and disquieting himself in vain. Satisfied with an honourable and unenvied reputation, he gave up the dream of that higher fame that he clearly saw was denied to his aspirations — and main- tained his good-humour with the world, though in his secret soul he thought it was very wrong in its literary caprices. Cleveland never mar- ried : he lived partly in town, but principally at Temple Grove, a villa not far from Richmond. Here, with an excellent library, beautiful grounds, and a circle of attached and admiring friends, which A CHARACTER. 115 comprised all the more refined and intellec- tual members of what is termed, by emphasis, Good Society— this accompUshed and elegant per- son passed a Hfe, perhaps, much happier than he would have known, had his young visions been fulfilled— and it had become his stormy fate to lead the rebellious and fierce Democracy of Letters. Cleveland was indeed, if not a man of high and original genius, — at least very superior to the generaUty of patrician authors. In retiring, himself, from frequent exercise in the arena, he gave up his mind with renewed zest to the thoughts and masterpieces of others. From a well-read man, he became a deeply-instructed one. Metaphysics, and some of the material sciences, added new treasures to information more light and miscellaneous — and contributed to impart weight and dignity to a mind, that might otherwise have become somewhat effemi- nate and frivolous. His social habits, his clear sense, and benevolence of judgment, 116 A CHARACTER. made him also an exquisite judge of all those indefinable nothings or little things, that, formed into a total, become knowledge of the Great World. I say the Great World — for of the world without the circle of the great, Cleveland naturally knew but little. But of all that related to that subtle orbit in which gentlemen and ladies move in elevated and etherial order, Cleveland was a profound philosopher. It was the mode with many of his admirers to style him the Horace Walpole of the day. But though in some of the more ex- ternal and superficial points of character, they were alike, Cleveland had considerably less cleverness and infinitely more heart. The late Mr. Maltravers, a man not indeed of literary habits, but an admirer of those who were, an elegant, high-bred, hospitable seigneur de province, had been one of the earliest of Cleve- land's friends — Cleveland had been his fag at Eton — and he found Hal Maltravers— (Hand- some Hal ! ) — had become the darling of the clubs, when he made his own debut in society. Ernest's parentage. 117 They were inseparable for a season or two — and when Mr. Maltravers married, and enamoured of country pursuits, proud of his old hall, and sen- sibly enough conceiving that he was a greater man in his own broad lands than in the repub- lican aristocracy of London, settled peaceably at Lisle Court, Cleveland corresponded with him regularly, and visited him twice a year. Mrs. Maltravers died in giving birth to Ernest, her second son. Her husband loved her tenderly, and was long inconsolable for her loss. He could not bear the sight of the child that had cost him so dear a sacrifice. Cleveland and his sister. Lady Julia Danvers, were residing with him at the time of this melancholy event ; and with judicious and delicate kindness. Lady Juha proposed to place the unconscious offender amongst her own children for some months. The proposition was accepted, and it was two years before the infant Ernest was restored to the paternal mansion. During the greater part of that time he had gone through all the events and 118 Ernest's rearing. revolutions of baby life, under the bachelor roof of Frederick Cleveland. The result of this was, that the latter loved the child like a father. Ernest's first intelligible word hailed Cleveland as ' papa ' — and when the urchin was at length deposited at Lisle Court, Cleveland talked all the nurses out of breath with admonitions, and cautions, and injunctions, and promises, and threats, which might have put many a careful mother to the blush. This circumstance formed a new tie between Cleveland and his friend. Cleveland's visits were now three times a year instead of twice. Nothing was done for Ernest without Cleveland's advice. He was not even breeched till Cleveland gave his grave consent. Cleveland chose his school, and took him to it, — and he spent a week of every vacation in Cleve- land's house. The boy never got into a scrape, or won a prize, or wanted a tip, or coveted a book, but what Cleveland was the first to know of it. Fortunately, too, Ernest manifested be- times, tastes that the graceful author thought Ernest's rearing. 119 similar to his own. He early developed very re- markable talents and a love for learning — though these were accompanied vi^ith a vigour of life and soul — an energy — a daring — which gave Cleve- land some uneasiness, and which did not appear to him at all congenial with the moody shyness of an embryo genius, or the regular placidity of a precocious scholar. Meanwhile the relation between father and son was rather a singular one. Mr. Maltravers had overcome his first not unna- tural repugnance to the innocent cause of his irremediable loss. He was now fond and proud of his boy — as he was of all things that belonged to him. He spoiled and petted him even more than Cleveland did. But he interfered very little with his education or pursuits. His eldest son, Cuthbert, did not engross all his heart, but occu- pied all his care. With Cuthbert he connected the heritage of his ancient name, and the succes- sion of his ancestral estates. Cuthbert was not a genius nor intended to be one, he was to be an accomplished gentleman, and a great 120 Ernest's rearing. proprietor. The father understood Cuthbert — and could see clearly both his character and career. He had no scruple in managing his edu- cation, and forming his growing mind. But Ernest puzzled him. He was even a little em- barrassed in his society— he never quite overcame that feeling of strangeness towards him which he had experienced when he first received him back from Cleveland, and took Cleveland's directions about his health and so forth. It always seemed to him as if his friend shared his right to the child — and he thought it a sort of presumption to scold Ernest, though he very often swore at Cuth- bert. As the younger son grew up, it certainly was evident that Cleveland did understand him better than his own father did ; and so, as I have before said, on Cleveland the father was not displeased passively to shift the responsibility of the rearing. Perhaps Mr. Maltravers might not have been so indifferent, had Ernest's prospects been those of a younger son in general. If a profession THE FATHER PUZZLED. 121 had been necessary for him, Mr. Maltravers would have been naturally anxious to see him duly fitted for it. But from a maternal relation, Ernest inherited an estate of about four thousand pounds a-year ; and he was thus made independent of his father. This loosened another tie between them ; and so by degrees Mr. Maltravers learned to consider Ernest less as his own son, to be ad- vised or rebuked, praised or controlled, than as a very affectionate, promising, engaging boy, who, somehow or other, without any trou- ble on his part, except that which took place before his birth, was very likely to do great credit to his family, and indulge his eccentricities upon four thousand pounds a-year. The first time that Mr. Maltravers was seriously perplexed about him was when the boy, at the age of six- teen, having taught himself German, and intoxi- cated his wild fancies with ' Werter' and ' The Robbers,' announced his desire, which sounded very like a demand, of going to Gottingen, in- VOL. I. G 122 OXFORD VERSUS GOTTINGEN. stead of to Oxford. Never were Mr. Maltravers' notions of a proper and gentleman-like finish to education more completely and rudely assaulted. He stammered out a negative, and hurried to his study to write a long letter to Cleveland, who, himself an Oxford prize-man, would, he was persuaded, see the matter in the same light. Cleveland answered the letter in per- son : listened in silence to all the father had to say, and then strolled through the park with the young man. The result of the latter con- ference was, that Cleveland declared in favour of Ernest. " But, my dear Frederick," said the astonished father, " I thought the boy was to carry off all the prizes at Oxford ?" •=' I carried off some, Maltravers ; but I don't see what good they did me."" " O Cleveland !" " I am serious." " But it is such a very odd fancy." " Your son is a very odd young man." OXFORD VERSUS GOTTINGEN. 123 " I fear he is so — I fear he is, poor fellow ! But what will he learn at Gottingen ?" " Languages and Independence," said Cleve- land. ^' And the classics — the classics— you are such an excellent Grecian !" " There are great Grecians in Germany," an- swered Cleveland ; " and Ernest cannot well unlearn what he knows already. My dear Mal- travers, the boy is not like most clever young men. He must either go through action, and adventure, and excitement, in his own way, or he will be an idle dreamer, or an impracticable en- thusiast all his hfe. Let him alone» — So Cuth- bert is gone into the Guards?" " But he went first to Oxford." " Humph ! What a fine young man he is !" " Not so tall as Ernest, but — " " A handsomer face," said Cleveland. " He is a son to be proud of in one way, as I hope Ernest will be in another. Will you show me your new hunter ?" G 2 124 NEW QUARTERS. It was to the house of this gentleman, so judi- ciously made his guardian, that the student of Gottingen now took his melancholy way. A LITERARY MAN*S VILLA. 1-25 CHAPTER XIII. " But if a little exercise you choose. Some zest for ease, 'tis not forbidden here. Amid the groves you may indulge the Muse, Or tend the blooms and deck the vernal year." Castle of Indolence. The house of Mr. Cleveland was an Italian villa adapted to an English climate. Through an Ionic arch you entered a domain of some eighty or a hundred acres in extent, but so well planted and so artfully disposed, that you could not have supposed the unseen boundaries enclosed no ampler a space. The road wound through the greenest sward, in which trees of venerable growth were relieved by a profusion of shrubs. 126 A LITERARY MAN's VILLA. and flowers gathered into baskets intertwined with creepers, or blooming from Etruscan vases, placed with a tasteful and classic care, in such spots as required the Jilling up, and harmonised well with the object chosen. Not an old ivy- grown pollard, not a modest and bending willow, but was brought out, as it were, into a peculiar feature by the art of the owner. Without being overloaded, or too minutely elaborate, (the com- mon fault of the rich man's villa,) the whole place seemed one diversified and cultivated garden ; even the air almost took a different odour from different vegetation, with each winding of the road ; and the colours of the flowers and foliage varied with every view. At length, when, on a lawn sloping towards a glassy lake, overhung by limes, and chestnuts, and backed by a hanging wood, the house itself came in sight — the whole prospect seemed sud- denly to receive its finishing and crowning feature. The house was long and low. A deep peristyle that supported the roof extended the A LITERARY MAN's VILLA. 1*27 whole length, and being raised above the base- ment, had the appearance of a covered terrace ; broad flights of steps, with massive balustrades, supporting vases of aloes and orange-trees, led to the lawn; and under the peristyle were ranged statues, old Roman antiques, and rare exotics. On this side the lake another terrace, very broad, and adorned, at long intervals, with urns and sculpture, contrasted the sloping and shadowy bank beyond ; and commanded, through unexpected openings in the trees, extensive views of the distant landscape, with the stately Thames winding through the midst. The in- terior of the house corresponded v/ith the taste without. All the principal rooms, even those appropriated to sleep, were on the same floor. A small but lofty and octagonal hall, conducted to a suite of four rooms. At one extremity was a moderately-sized dining-room, with a ceiUng copied from the rich and gay colours of Guido's " Hours ;" and landscapes painted by Cleveland himself, with no despicable skill, were let into 128 A LITERARY MAN's VILLA. the walls. A single piece of sculpture, copied from the Piping Faun, and tinged with a flesh - like glow by purple and orange draperies behind it, relieved, without darkening the broad and arched window which formed its niche. This communicated with a small picture-room, not indeed rich with those immortal gems for which princes are candidates, for Cleveland's fortune was but that of a private gentleman, though, managed with a discreet if liberal economy, it sufficed for all his elegant desires. But the pic- tures had an interest beyond that of art, and their subjects were within the reach of a collector of ordinary opulence. They made a series — some originals, some copies — (and the copies were often the best) — of Cleveland's favourite authors. And it was characteristic of the man, that Pope's worn and thoughtful countenance looked down from the central place of honour. Appropriately enough, this room led into the library, the largest room in the house, the only one indeed that was noticeable from its size, as A LITERARY MAN's VILLA. 129 well as its embellishments. It was nearly sixty feet in length. The book-cases of dark rose- wood, inlaid with ormolu, were crowned by bronze busts, while at intervals, statues, placed in open arches, backed with mirrors, gave the appearance of galleries opening from the book- lined walls, and introduced an inconceivable air of classic lightness and repose into the apart- ment; with these arches the windows harmo- nised so well, opening on the peristyle, and bringing into delightful view, the sculpture, the flowers, the terraces, and the lake without, that the actual prospects half seduced you into the belief that they were designs by some master hand of the poetical gardens that yet crown the hills of Rome. Even the colouring of the prospects on a sunny day favoured the delusion, owing to the deep, rich hues of the simple dra- peries, and the stained glass, of which the upper panes of the windows were composed. Cleve- land was peculiarly fond of sculpture; he was sensible too of the mighty impulse which that art G 5 130 HINTS ON SCULPTURE. has received, in Europe and especially in Eng- land, within the last half century. He was even capable of asserting the doctrine, not yet suffi- ciently acknowledged in this country, that Flax- man surpassed Canova. He loved sculpture too, not only for its own beauty, but for the beautify- ing and intellectual effect that it produces wherever it is admitted. It is a great mistake, he was wont to say, in collectors of statues, to arrange them pcle mele in one long mono- tonous gallery. The single relief, or statue or bust, or simple urn, introduced appropriately in the smallest apartment we inhabit, charms us infinitely more than those gigantic museums, crowded into rooms never entered but for show, and without a chill, uncomfortable shiver. Be- sides, this practice of galleries, which the herd consider orthodox, places sculpture out of the patronage of the public. There are not a dozen people who can afford galleries. But every moderately affluent gentleman can afford a statue or a bust. The influence, too, upon ART EXPLAINS ART. 131 a man's mind and taste, created by the constant and habitual view of monuments of the only im- perishable art that resorts to physical materials, is unspeakable. Looking upon the Greek marble, we become acquainted, almost insensibly, with the character of the Greek life and literature. That Aristides, that Genius of Death, that frag- ment of the unrivalled Psyche, are worth a thousand Scaligers ! " Do you ever look at the Latin translation when you read ^schylus ?" said a schoolboy once to Cleveland. " That is my Latin translation," said Cleve- land, pointing to the Laocoon. The library opened, at the extreme end, to a small cabinet for curiosities and medals, which, still in a straight line, conducted to a long bel- videre, terminating in a little circular summer- house, that by a sudden wind of the lake below,- hung perpendicularly over its transparent tide, and, seen from the distance, appeared almost sus- pended on air, so light were its slender columns 132 THE WELCOME. and arching dome. Another door from the library opened upon a corridor, that conducted to the principal sleeping chambers ; the nearest door was that of Cleveland's private study, com- municating with his bed-room and dressing- closet. The rest of the rooms were appropriated to, and named after, his several friends. Mr. Cleveland had been advised by a hasty line, of the movements of his ward, and he re- ceived the young man with a smile of welcome, though his eyes were moist and his lips trembled — for the boy was like his father ! — a new genera- tion had commenced for Cleveland ! " Welcome, my dear Ernest," said he ; "I am so glad to see you that I will not scold you for your mysterious absence. This is your room, you see your name over the door ; it is a larger one than you used to have, for you are a man now : and there is your German sanctum ad- joining — for Schiller and the meerschaum ! — a bad habit that, the meerschaum ! but not worse than the Schiller perhaps ! You see you are in ITS EFFECT. 133 the peristyle immediately. The meerschaum is good for flowers, I fancy, so have no scruple. Why, my dear boy, how pale you are I Be cheered — be cheered. Well, I must go myself, or you will infect me." Cleveland hurried away ; he thought of his lost friend. Ernest sank upon the first chair, and bu- ried his face in his hands. Cleveland's valet entered, and bustled about and unpacked the portmanteau, and arranged the evening dress. But Ernest did not look up nor speak ; the first bell sounded ; the second tolled unheard upon his ear. He was thoroughly overcome by his emotions. The first notes of Cleveland's kind voice had touched upon a soft chord, that months of anxiety and excitement had strained to an- guish, but had never woke to tears. His nerves were shattered — those strong young nerves ! He thought of his dead father when he first saw Cleveland ; but when he glanced round the room prepared for him, and observed the care for his comfort, and the tender recollection of his most 134 ASSOCIATIONS. trifling peculiarities everywhere visible, Alice, the watchful, the humble, the loving, the lost Alice, rose before him. Surprised at his ward's delay, Cleveland entered the room ; there sate Ernest still, his face buried in his hands. Cleveland drew them gently away, and Maltra- vers sobbed like an infant. It was an easy mat- ter to bring tears to the eyes of that young man : a generous or a tender thought, an old song, the simplest ah- of music, sufficed for that touch of the mother's nature. But the vehement and awful passion which belongs to manhood when thorough- ly unmanned— this was the first time in which the relief of that stormy bitterness was known to him! YOUTH AND 3IANH00D. 135 CHAPTER XIV. '' Musing full sadly in his sullen mind." Spenser. " There forth issued from under the altar-smoke A dreadful fiend." Ibid, on Superstition. Nine times out of ten it is over the Bridge of Sighs that we pass the narrow gulf from Youth to Manhood. That interval is usually oc- cupied by an ill-placed or disappointed affection. We recover, and we find ourselves a new being. The intellect has become hardened by the fire through which it has passed. The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion, and we may mea- 136 sow THE ROSE sure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone. But Maltravers was yet oyi the bridge, and, for a time, both mind and body were prostrate and enfeebled. Cleveland had the sagacity to discover that the affections had their share in the change which he grieved to witness, but he had also the delicacy not to force himself into the young man's confidence. But by little and little he wound himself so complete- ly round Ernest's heart, that Ernest himself one evening told him his whole tale. As a man of the world, Cleveland perhaps rejoiced that it was no worse, for he had feared some existent entangle- ment, perhaps, with a married woman. But as a man who was better than the world in general, he sympathised with the unfortunate girl whom Ernest pictured to him in faithful and unflatter- ed colours, and he long forbore consolations which he foresaw would be unavailing. He felt, indeed, that Ernest was not a man " to betray the noon of manhood to a myrtle-shade f — that with so sanguine, buoyant, and hardy a tempera- AND REAP THE THORN ! 137 ment, he would at length recover from a depres- sion which, if it could bequeath a warning, might as well not be wholly divested of remorse. And he also knew that few become either great authors or great men, (and he fancied Ernest was born to be one or the other,) without the fierce emotions and passionate struggles, through which the Wilhelm Meister of Real Life must work out his apprenticeship, and attain the Mas- ter-Rank. But at last he had serious misgivings about the health of his ward. A constant and spectral gloom seemed bearing him to the grave. It was in vain that Cleveland, who secretly de- sired him to thirst for a public career, endeavour- ed to arouse his ambition — the boy's spirit seem- ed quite broken — and the visit of a political cha- racter, the mention of a pohtical work, drove him at once into his solitary chamber. At length his mental disease took a new turn. He became of a sudden most morbidly, and fa- natically I was about to say, religious; but that is not the word ; let me call it pseudo-reli- 138 WE LIGHT ONE PASSION gious. His strong sense and cultivated taste did not allow him to delight in the raving tracts of illiterate fanatics — and yet out of the benign and simple elements of the scripture, he conjur- ed up for himself a fanaticism quite as gloomy and intense. He lost sight of God the Father, and night an,d day dreamt only of God the Aven- ger. His vivid imagination was perverted to raise out of its own abyss phantoms of colossal terror. He shuddered aghast at his own crea- tions, and earth and heaven alike seemed black with the everlasting wrath. These symptoms completely baffled and perplexed Cleveland. He knew not what remedy to administer — and to his unspeakable grief and surprise, he found that Ernest, in the true spirit of his strange bigotry, began to regard Cleveland — the amiable, the benevolent Cleveland — as one no less out of the pale of grace than himself. His elegant pur- suits, his cheerful studies, were considered by the young but stern enthusiast, as the miserable recreations of Mammon and the world. There AT THE ASHES OF ANOTHER. 139 seemed every probability that Ernest Maltra- vers would die in a madhouse, or, at best, suc- ceed to the delusions, without the cheerful inter- vals, of Cowper. 140 LUMLEY PERRERS. CHAPTER XV. '' Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit, Restless — unfixed in principles and place." Dryden. *' Whoever acquires a very great number of ideas interesting to the society in which he lives, will be regarded in that society as a man of abilities." Helvetius. It was just when Maltravers was so bad, that he could not be worse, that a young man visited Temple Grove. His name was Lumley Ferrers, his age about twenty-six — his fortune about eight hundred a-year — he followed no profes- sion. Lumley Ferrers had not what is usually LUMLEY FERRERS. 141 called genius ; that is, he had no enthusiasm ; and if the word talent be properly interpreted as meaning the talent of doing something bet- ter than others, Ferrers had not much to boast of on that score. He had no talent for writing, nor for public speaking, nor for music nor paint- ing, nor the ordinary round of accomplishments ; neither at present had he displayed much of the hard and useful talent for action and business. But Ferrers had what is often bet- ter than either genius or talent : he had a power- ful and most acute mind. He had, moreover, great animation of manner, high physical spi- rits, a witty, odd, racy vein of conversation, deter- mined assurance, and profound confidence in his own resources. He was fond of schemes, stratagems, and plots — they amused and excited him — his power of sarcasm and of argument, too, was great., and he usually obtained an astonish- ing influence over those with whom he was brought in contact. His high spirits and a most happy frankness of bearing carried off and dis- 14*2 LUMLEY FERRERS. guised his leading vices of character, which were an extraordinary callousness of affection, and an insensibility to moral principles. Though less learned than Maltravers, he was on the whole a very instructed man. He mastered the sur- face of many sciences, became satisfied of their general principles, and threw the study aside never to be forgotten, (for his memory was like a vice,) but never to be prosecuted any farther. To this he added a general acquaintance with whatever is most generally acknowledged as standard in extant or modern literature. What is admired only by a few, Lumley never took the trouble to read. Living amongst trifles, he made them in- teresting and novel by his mode of viewing and treating them. And here indeed was a talent — it was the talent of social life — the talent of en- joyment to the utmost with the least degree of trouble to himself. Lumley Ferrers was thus exactly one of those men whom every body calls exceedingly clever, and yet it would puzzle one to say in what he was so clever. It was, indeed. LUMLEY FERRERS. 143 that nameless power which belongs to ability, and which makes one man superior, on the whole, to another, though in many details by no means remarkable. I think it is Goethe who says somewhere, that in reading the life of the greatest genius, we always find that he was ac- quainted with some men superior to himself, who yet never attained to general distinction. To the class of these mystical superior men, Lumley Ferrers might have belonged ; for though an ordinary journalist would have beaten him in the arts of composition, few men of genius, however eminent, could have felt themselves above Ferrers in the ready grasp and plastic vigour of natural intellect. It only remains to be said of this singular young man, whose character as yet was but half developed, that he had seen a great deal of the world, and could live at ease and in content with all tempers and ranks; fox- hunters or scholars, lawyers or poets, patricians or parvenus, it was all one to Lumley Ferrers. Ernest was, as usual, in his own room, when 144 LUMLEY FERRERS. he heard, along the corridor without, all that indefinable bustling noise, which announces an arrival. Next came a most ringing laugh, and then a sharp, clear, vigorous voice, that ran through his ears like a dagger. Ernest was immediately aroused to all the majesty of indignant sullen- ness. He walked out on the terrace of the por- tico, to avoid the repetition of the disturbance : and once more settled back into his broken and hypochondriacal reveries, pacing to and fro that part of the peristyle which occupied the more retired wing of the house, with his arms folded, his eyes downcast, and his brows knit, and all the angel darkened on that noble countenance, which formerly looked as if, like truth, it could shame the devil and defy the world, Ernest followed the evil thought that mastered him, through the Valley of the Shadow. Suddenly he was aware of something — some obstacle which he had not previously encountered. He started, and saw before him a young man, of plain dress, gentleman-like appearance, and striking coun- tenance. LUMLEY FERRERS. 145 " Mr. Maltravers, I think," said the stranger, and Ernest recognised the voice that had so dis- turbed him : " this is lucky ; we can now intro- duce ourselves, for I find Cleveland means us to be intimate. Mr. Lumley Ferrers, Mr. Ernest Maltravers. There now, I am the eldest, so I first offer my hand, and grin properly. People always grin when they make a new acquaint- ance ! Well, that's settled. A\Tiich way are you walking ?" Maltravers could, when he chose it, be as stately as if he had never been out of England. He now drew himself up in displeased astonish- ment ; extricated his hand from the gripe of Fer- rers, and, saying very coldly, " Excuse me, sir, I am busy," stalked back to his chamber. He threw himself down on his chair, and was pre- sently forgetful of his late annoyance, when, to his inexpressible amazement and wrath, he heard again the sharp, clear voice close at his elbow. Ferrers had followed him through the French casements into the room. " You are busy, you VOL. I. H 146 LUMLEY FERRERS. say, my dear fellow. I want to write some let- ters : we shaVt interrupt each other — don't dis- turb yourself:" and Ferrers seated himself at the writing-table, dipped a pen into the ink, arranged blotting-book and paper before him in due order, and was soon employed in covering page after page with the most rapid and hieroglyphical scrawl that ever engrossed a mistress, or per- plexed a dun. " The presuming puppy !" growled Maltra- vers, half audibly, but effectually roused from himself; and, examining with some curiosity so cool an intruder, he was forced to own that the countenance of Ferrers was not that of a puppy. A forehead, compact and solid as a block of granite, overhung small, bright, intelligent eyes of a light hazel ; the features were handsome, yet rather too sharp and fox-like; the complexion, though not highly coloured, was of that hardy, healthy hue, that generally betokens a robust constitution and high animal spirits ; the jaw was massive, and, to a physiognomist, betokened LUMLEY FERRERS. 147 firmness and strength of character ; but the hps, full and large, were those of a sensualist, and their restless play and habitual half-smile, spoke of gaiety and humour, though when in repose there was in them something furtive and sinister. Maltravers looked at him in grave silence ; but when Ferrers, concluding his fourth letter before another man would have got through his first page, threw down the pen, and looked full at Maltravers, with a good-humoured but pene- trating stare, there was something so whimsi- cal in the intruder's expression of face, and in- deed in the whole scene, that Maltravers bit his lip to restrain a smile, the first he had known for weeks. " I see you read, Maltravers," said Ferrers, carelessly turning over the volumes on the table ; " All very right : we should begin life with books ; they multiply the sources of employment ; so does capital ; — but capital is of no use, unless we live on the interest, — books are waste-paper, unless we spend in action the wisdom we get H 2 148 LUMLEY FERRERS. from thought. Action, Maltravers, action, that is the life for us. At our age, we have passion, fancy, sentiment ; we can't read them away, nor scribble them away ; — we must live upon them generously, but economically." Maltravers was struck ; the intruder was not the empty bore he had chosen to fancy him. He roused himself languidly to reply. " Life, Mr. Ferrers " " Stop, mon cher, stop ; don't call me Mister ; we are to be friends ; I hate delaying that which must be, even by a superfluous dissyllable ; you are Maltravers, I am Ferrers. But you were going to talk about life. Suppose we live a little while, instead of talking about it. It wants an hour to dinner : let us stroll into the grounds ; I want to get an appetite ; — besides, I like nature, when there are no Swiss mountains to climb before one can get at a prospect. Allans /" " Excuse," again began Maltravers, half inte- rested, half annoyed. " I'll be shot if I do. Come." LUMLEY FERRERS. 149 Ferrers gave Maltravers his hat, wound his arm in his, and they were on the broad terrace by the lake, before Ernest was aware of it. How animated, how eccentric, how easy, was Ferrers' talk ; (for talk it was, rather than con- versation, since he had the ball to himself:) books, and men, and things; he tossed them about, and played with them like shuttlecocks : and then his egotistical narrative of half a hun- dred adventures, in which he had been the hero, told so, that you laughed at him, and laughed with him. And woman, bright woman, was the nucleus of all the stories ! 150 YOUTH INFLUENCES YOUTH. CHAPTER XVI. " Now the bright moriiing star, day's harbinger. Comes dancing from the east." Milton. Hitherto Ernest had never met with any mind that had exercised a strong influence over his own. At home, at school, at Gottingen, every- where, he had been the brilUant and wayward leader of others, persuading or commanding wiser and older heads than his own : even Cleve- land always yielded to him, though not aware of it. In fact, it seldom happens that we are very strongly influenced by those much older than ourselves. It is the senior, of from two to ten years, that most seduces and enthralls YOUTH INFLUENCES YOUTH. 151 US. He has the same pursuits — views, objects, pleasures, but more art and experience in them all. He goes with us in the path we are ordain- ed to tread, but from which the elder generation desires to warn us off. There is very little influ- ence where there is not great sympathy. It was now an epoch in the intellectual life of Maltra- vers. He met for the first time with a mind that controlled his own. Perhaps the physical state of his nerves made him less able to cope with the half-bullying, but thoroughly good-hu- moured imperiousness of Ferrers. Every day this stranger became more and more potential with Maltravers. Ferrers, who was an utter egotist, never asked his new friend to give him his confidence, he never cared three straws about other people's secrets, unless useful to some pur- pose of his own. But he talked with so much zest about himself — about women and pleasure, and the gay, stirring life of cities, — that the young spirit of Maltravers was roused from its dark lethargy without an effbrt of his own. The 152 THE CURE. gloomy phantoms vanished gradually — his sense broke from its cloud — he felt once more that God had given the sun to light the day, and even in the midst of darkness had called up the host of stars. Perhaps no other person could have succeeded so speedily in curing Maltravers of his diseased enthusiasm : a crude or sarcastic unbeliever he would not have listened to ; a moderate and en- lightened divine he would have disregarded, as a worldly and cunning adjuster of laws celestial with customs earthly. But Lumley Ferrers, who, when he argued, never admitted a senti- ment or a simile in reply, who wielded his plain iron logic like a hammer, which, though its me- tal seemed dull, kindled the ethereal spark with every stroke — Lumley Ferrers was just the man to resist the imagination, and convince the reason of Maltravers ; and the moment the matter came to argument the cure was soon completed ; for however we may darken and puzzle ourselves with fancies and visions, and the ingenuities of THE CURE. 153 fanatical mysticism, no man can mathematically or syllogistically contend, that the world, which a God made, and a Saviour visited, was designed to be damned ! And Ernest Maltravers one night softly stole to his room, and opened the New Testament, and read its heavenly moralities with purged eyes ; and when he had done, he fell upon his knees, and prayed the Almighty to pardon the ungrateful heart that, worse than the Atheist's, had confessed His existence, but denied His goodness. And the sleep of Ernest Maltravers that night was deep and sweet, and his dreams were cheerful : and he woke the next morning reconciled with God and man. H 5 154 ENDS AND MEANS. CHAPTER XVII. " There are times when we are diverted out of errors, but could not be preached out of them. — There are practitioners who can cure us of one disorder, though, in ordinary cases, they be but poor physicians, nay, dangerous quacks." Stephen Montague. Lt5MLEY Ferrers, the accidental agent of this re- generation, was anything but a saint ; for it is not the best tools that shape out the best ends ; if so, Martin Luther would not have been se- lected as the master-spirit of the Reformation. Ferrers laid it down as a rule, to make all things, and all persons, subservient to himself. And THE NEW PLAN. 155 Ferrers now intended to go abroad for some years. He wanted a companion, for he disliked solitude : besides, a companion shared the ex- penses ; and a man of eight hundred a-year, who desires all the luxuries of life, does not des- pise a partner in the taxes to be paid for them. Ferrers, at this period, rather liked Ernest than not : it was convenient to choose friends from those richer than himself, and he resolved, when he first came to Temple Grove, that Ernest should be his travelling companion. This resolution formed, it was very easy to execute it. Maltravers was now warmly attached to his new friend, and eager for change. Cleveland was sorry to part with him ; but he dreaded a relapse, if the young man were again left upon his hands. Accordingly the guardian's consent was obtained ; a travelling-carriage was bought, and fitted up wifh every imaginable imperial and malle. A Swiss (half valet and half courier) was engaged ; one thousand a-year was allowed to 156 lumley's sketch Maltravers ; — and one soft and lovely morning, towards the close of October, Ferrers and Mal- travers found themselves midway on the road to Dover. " How glad I am to get out of England," said Ferrers : " it is a famous country for the rich ; but here eight hundred a-year, without a profes- sion, save that of pleasure, goes upon pepper and salt : it is a luxurious competence abroad." " I think I have heard Cleveland say that you will be rich some day or other." " O yes ; I have what are called expecta- tions ! You must know that I have a kind of settlement on two stools, the Well-born and the Wealthy; but between two stools— you recollect the proverb ! The present Lord Saxingham, once plain Frank Lascelles, and my father, INIr. Ferrers, were first cousins. Two or three rela- tions good-naturedly died, and Frank Lascelles became an earl ; the lands did not go with the coronet ; he was poor, and married an heiress. The lady died ; the estate was settled on her OF HIMSELF AND PROSPECTS. J 57 only child, the handsomest little girl you ever saw. Pretty Florence, I often wish I could look up to you ! Her fortune will be nearly all at her own disposal too when she comes of age : now she's in the nursery, ' eating bread and honey.' My father, less lucky and less wise than his cousin, thought fit to marry a Miss Temple- ton — a nobody. The Saxingham branch of the family politely dropped the acquaintance. Now my mother had a brother, a clever, plodding fel- low, in what is called ' business : ' he became rich and richer ; but my father and mother died, and were never the better for it. And I came of age, and worth (I like that expression) not a farthing more or less than this often-quoted eight hundred pounds a-year. My rich uncle is married, but has no children. I am, therefore the heir pre- sumptive — but he is a saint, and close, though ostentatious. The quarrel between uncle Tem- pleton and the Saxinghams still continues. Tem- pleton is angry if I see the Saxinghams — and the Saxinghams — my Lord, at least — is by no means so sure that I shall be Templeton's heir 158 lumley's sketch, &c. as not to feel a doubt lest I should some day or other sponge upon his lordship for a place. Lord Saxingham is in the administration, you know. Somehow or other, I have an equivocal amphi- bious kind of place in London society, which I don't like : on one side I am a patrician connexion whom the parvenu branches always incline lov- ingly to — and on the other side I am a half de- pendent cadet whom the noble relations look civilly shy at. Some day, when I grow tired of travel and idleness, I shall come back and wres- tle with these little difficulties, conciliate my methodistical uncle, and grapple with my noble cousin. But now I am fit for something better than getting on in the world. Dry chips, not green wood, are the things for making a blaze ! How slow this fellow drives ! Hollo, you sir ! get on ! mind, twelve miles to the hour ! you shall have sixpence a mile ! Give me your purse, Maltravers ; I may as well be cashier, be- ing the elder and the wiser man ; we can settle accounts at the end of the journey. By Jove, what a pretty girl !" BOOK II. 0K»jTw»' S'fxppa Tt(T &v6os exi? iroKxrfjpaTov fjfi^s, Kovcpov excof Qvjj.hv, irSW' ccTeAeo-Ttt voe7. Simonides in Vit. Hum. He, of wide-blooming- youth's fair flower possest, Owns the vain thoughts — the heart that cannot rest !" A REIGNING BEAUTY. 161 BOOK II. CHAPTER I. '' II y eut certainement quelque chose de singulier dans mes sentimens pour cette charmante femme." Rousseau. It was a brilliant ball at the Palazzo of the Aus- trian embassy at Naples : and a crowd of those loungers, whether young or old, who attach themselves to the reigning beauty, was gathered round Madame de St. Ventadour. Generally speaking, there is more caprice than taste in the election of a beauty to the Idalian throne. 162 A REIGNING BEAUTY. Nothing disappoints a stranger more than to see for the first time the woman to whom the world has given the golden apple. Yet he usual- ly falls at last into the popular idolatry, and passes with inconceivable rapidity from indignant scepticism into superstitious veneration. In fact, a thousand things besides mere symmetry of feature go to make up the Cytherea of the hour . . . tact in society — the charm of maimer — a nameless and piquant brilliancy. Where the w orld find the Graces they proclaim the Venus. Few persons attain pre-eminent celebrity for any- thing, without some adventitious and extraneous circumstances which have nothing to do with the thing celebrated. Some qualities or some cir- cumstances throw a mysterious or personal charm about them. " Is Mr. So-and-So really such a genius ? " — " Is Mrs. Such-a-One really such a beauty?" you ask incredulously. " Oh, yes," is the answer. " Do you know all about him or her? Such a thing is said, or such a thing has happened." The idol is A REIGXING BEAUTY. 163 interesting in itself, and therefore its leading and popular attribute is worshipped. Now Madame de St. Ventadour was at this time the beauty of Naples ; and though fifty wo- men in the room were handsomer, no one would have dared to say so. Even the women confessed her pre-eminence — for she was the most perfect dresser that even France could exhibit. And to no pretensions do ladies ever concede with so Httle demur, as those which depend upon that feminine art which all study, and in which few excel. Women never allow beauty in a face that has an odd-looking bonnet above it, nor will they readily allow any one to be ugly whose caps are unexceptionable. Madame de St. Ventadour had also the magic that results fi'om intuitive high breeding, polished by habit to the utmost. She looked and moved the grande datue, as if Nature had been employed by Rank to make her so. She was descended from one of the most illustrious houses of France ; had married at six- teen a man of equal birth, but old, dull, and 164 A REIGNING BEAUTY. pompous — a caricature rather than a portrait of that great French noblesse, now almost if not wholly extinct. But her virtue was without a blemish— some said from pride, some said from coldness. Her wit was keen and court-like — lively, yet subdued ; for her French high breed- ing was very different from the lethargic and ta- citurn imperturbability of the English. All silent people can seem conventionally elegant. A groom married a rich lady ; he dreaded the ridi- cule of the guests whom his new rank assembled at the table — an Oxford clergyman gave him this piece of advice, " Wear a black coat and hold your tongue !" The groom took the hint, and is always considered one of the most gentleman- like fellows in the county. Conversation is the touchstone of the true delicacy and subtle grace which make the ideal of the moral mannerism of a court. And there sate Madame de St. Ventadour, a little apart from the dancers, with the silent English dandy Lord Taunton, exqui- sitely dressed and superbly tall, bolt upright be- A REIGNING BEAUTY. 165 hind her chair ; and the sentimental German Ba- ron Von Schomberg, covered with orders, whis- kered and wigged to the last hair of perfection, sighing at her left hand ; and the French minis- ter, shrewd, bland, and eloquent in the chair at her right ; and round on all sides pressed and bowed and complimented, a crowd of diploma- tic secretaries and Italian princes, whose bank is at the gaming table, whose estates are in their galleries, and who sell a picture, as English gen- tlemen cut down a wood, whenever the cards grow gloomy. The charming St. Ventadour ! she had attraction for them all ! smiles for the silent, badinage for the gay, pohtics for the Frenchman, poetry for the German— the elo- quence of loveliness for all I She was looking her best — the slightest possible tinge of rouge gave a glow to her transparent complexion, and lighted up those large dark sparkling eyes, (with a latent softness beneath the sparkle,) seldom seen but in the French — and widely distinct from the unintellectual languish of the Spaniard, or 166 TALK. the full and majestic fierceness of the Italian gaze. Her dress of black velvet, and graceful hat with its princely plume, contrasted the ala- baster whiteness of her arms and neck. And what with the eyes, the skin, the rich colouring of the complexion, the rosy lips, and the small ivory teeth, no one would have had the cold hy- percriticism to observe that the chin was too pointed, the mouth too wide, and the nose, so beautiful in the front face, was far from perfect in the profile. " Pray was madame in the Strada Nuova, to- day?" asked the German, with as much sweet- ness in his voice as if he had been vowing eter- nal love. " What else have we to do with our mornings, we women?" replied Madame de St. Ventadour. " Our hfe is a lounge from the cradle to the grave, and our afternoons are but the type of our career. A promenade and a crowd, voila tout ! We never see the world except in an open car- riage." TALK. 167 *' It is the pleasantest way of seeing it," said the Frenchman, drily. " Ten doute ; the worst fatigue is that which comes without exercise." " Will you do me the honour to waltz ?" said the tall English lord, who had a vague idea that Madame de St. Ventadour meant she would ra- ther dance than sit still. The Frenchman smiled. '• Lord Taunton enforces your own philoso- phy," said the minister. Lord Taunton smiled because every one else smiled ; and besides he had beautiful teeth ; but he looked anxious for an answer. " Not to-night, my lord — I seldom dance. Who is that very pretty woman? — What lovely com- plexions the English have ! and who," continued Madame de St. Ventadour, without waiting for an answer to the first question, " who is that gen- tleman, the young one I mean, leaning against the door?" " What with the dark moustache ?" said Lord Taunton, — " he is a cousin of mine.'' 168 ERNEST AGAIN. " Oh no — not Colonel Bellfield — I know him, how amusing he is ! — no, the gentleman I mean wears no moustache." " Oh, the tall Englishman with the bright eyes and high forehead,'' said the French minister. " He is just arrived — from the East, I believe." " It is a striking countenance," said Madame de St. Ventadour, " there is something chival- rous in the turn of the head. Without doubt, Lord Taunton, he is ' nohle.^ " " He is what you call ' nohle^ replied Lord Taunton — " that is, what we call a ' gentleman,' — his name is Maltravers. — Mr. Maltravers. He lately came of age— and has, I believe, rather a good property." " Monsieur Maltravers, only Monsieur !" re- peated Madame de St. Ventadour. " Why," said the French minister, " you un- derstand that the English gentilhomme does not require a De or a title to distinguish him from the Roturier," " I know that, but he has an air above a sim- ERNEST AGAIN. 169 pie gentilhomme. There is something great in his look — but it is not, I must own, the conventional greatness of rank — perhaps he would have looked the same had he been born a peasant." " You don't think him handsome?" said Lord Taunton, almost angrily, (for he was one of the Beauty-men, and Beauty-men are sometimes jealous.) " Handsome ! I did not say that," replied Ma- dame de St. Ventadour, smiling ; " it is rather a fine head than a handsome face. Is he clever, I wonder — but all you English, milord, are well educated." " Yes, profound — profound, v/e are profound, not superficial," replied Lord Taunton, drawing down his wristbands. " Will Madame de St. Ventadour allow me to present to her one of my countrymen ?'"* said the English minister, approaching—" Mr. Maltravers." Madame de St. Ventadour half smiled and half VOL. I. I 170 MADAME d'ePINAY. blushed, as she looked up, and saw bent admir- ingly upon her, the proud and earnest counte- nance she had remarked. The introduction was made — a few monosylla- bles exchanged. The French diplomatist rose and walked away with the English one. Maltra- vers succeeded to the vacant chair. "Have you been long abroad?" asked Ma- dame de St. Ventadour. " Only four years — yet long enough to ask whether I should not be most abroad in England.*' " You have been in the East — I envy you. And Greece, and Egypt, — all the associations ! — you have travelled back into the Past— you have escaped, as Madame D'Epinay wished, out of ci- vilisation and into romance." " Yet Madame D'Epinay passed her own life in making pretty romances out of a very agree- able civilisation," said Maltravers, smiling. " You know her memoirs, then," said Ma- dame de St. Ventadour, slightly colouring. " In the current of a more exciting literature, few ERNEST ON FRENCH ME^IOIRS. 171 have had time for the second-rate writings of a past century." " Are not those second-rate performances often the most charming," said Maltravers, " when the mediocrity of the intellect seems almost as if it were the effect of a touching, though too fee- ble delicacy of sentiment ? Madame D'Epinay's memoirs are of this character. She was not a virtuous woman — but she felt virtue and loved it : she was not a woman of genius — but she was tremblingly alive to all the influences of genius. Some people seem born with the temperament and the tastes of genius without its creative power — they have its nervous system, but some- thing is wanting in the intellectual. They feel acutely, yet express tamely. These persons al- ways have in their character an unspeakable kind of pathos — a court civilisation produces many of them — and the French memoirs of the last century are particularly fraught with such examples. This is interesting — this struggle of sensitive minds against the lethargy of a society, I 2 172 THE beauty's husband. dull yet brilliant, that glares them as it were to sleep. It comes home to us — for," added Mal- travers, with a shght change of voice— "how many of us fancy we see our own image in the mirror !" And where was the German baron? — flirt- ing at the other end of the room. And the Eng- lish Lord ?— dropping monosyllables to dandies by the door-way. And the minor satellites ? — dancing, whispering, making love, or sipping le- monade. And Madame de St. Ventadour was alone with the young stranger in a crowd of eight hundred persons ; and their lips spoke of sentiment, and their eyes involuntarily ap- plied it ! While they were thus conversing, Maltravers was suddenly startled by hearing, close behind him, a sharp, significant voice, saying in French, " Hein, hein ! I've my suspicions — I've my suspicions." Madame de St. Ventadour looked round with a smile — " It is only ray husband," said she, quietly — " let me introduce him to you." THE beauty's husband. 173 Maltravers rose and bowed to a little thin man, most elaborately dressed, with an immense pair of spectacles upon a long sharp nose. " Charmed to make your acquaintance, sir ! " said Monsieur de St. Ventadour. " Have you been long in Naples ? . . . Beautiful weather — won't last long — hein, hein, I've my suspi- cions ! No news as to your parliament — be dis- solved soon ! Bad opera in London this year ; — hein, hein — I've my suspicions." This rapid monologue was delivered with appropriate gesture. Each new sentence Mons. de St. Ventadour began with a sort of bow, and when it dropped in the almost invariable conclu- sion affirmative of his shrewdness and incredu- lity, he made a mystical sign with his fore fin- ger by passing it upward in a parallel line with his nose, which at the same time performed its own part in the ceremony, by three convulsive twitches which seemed to shake the bridge to its base. 174 LUMLEY AND ERNEST. Maltravers looked with mute surprise upon the connuhial partner of the graceful creature by his side — and Mons. de St. Ventadour, who had said as much as he thought necessary, wound up his eloquence by expressing the rapture it would irive him to see Mons. Maltravers at his hotel. Then, turning to his wife, he began assuring her of the lateness of the hour, and the expediency of departure. Maltravers ghded away, and as he regained the door was seized by our old friend, Lumley Ferrers. " Come, my dear fellow," said the latter. " I have been waiting for you this half hour. Allons. But, perhaps, as I am dying to go to bed, you have made up your mind to stay supper. Some people have no regard for other people's feelings." " No, Ferrers, I'm at your service," — and the young men descended the stairs and passed along the Chiaja towards their hotel. As they gained the broad and open space on which it stood, with the lovely sea before them, sleeping in the arms LUMLEY AND ERNEST. 175 of the curving shore, Maltravers, who had hi- therto listened in silence to the volubility of his companion, paused abruptly. " Look at that sea, Ferrers . . . What a scene ! — what delicious air ! How soft this moonlight ! Can you not fancy the old Greek adventurers when they first colonised this divine Parthe- nope — the darling of the ocean — gazing along those waves, and pining no more for Greece ?" " I cannot fancy anything of the sort," said Ferrers ..." And depend upon it the said gen- tlemen, at this hour of the night, unless they were on some piratical excursion — for they were cursed ruffians, those old Greek colonists — w^ere fast asleep in their beds." " Did you ever write poetry, Ferrers?" " To be sure, all clever men have written poe- try once in their lives — small-pox and poetry — they are our two diseases." " And did you ever feel poetry ? " " Feel it!" 176 LUMLEY AND ERNEST. " Yes ; if you put the moon into your verses, did you first feel it shining into your heart ?'* " My dear Maltravers, if I put the moon into my verses, in all probability it was to rhyme to noon. ' The night was at her noon' — is a capital ending for the first hexameter — and the moon is booked for the next stage. Come in." " No, I shall stay out." " Don't be nonsensical." " By moonlight there is no nonsense like common sense." " What we who have climbed the Pyramids, and sailed up the Nile, and seen magic at Cairo, and been nearly murdered, bagged, and Bospho- rised at Constantinople, because you insisted on our following an old woman " " Ah, don't talk of that — my beautiful Geor- gian !" " Well, I say, is it for us, who have gone through so many adventures, looked on so many scenes, and crowded into four years events that LUMLEY AND ERNEST. 177 would have satisfied the appetite of a cormorant in romance, if it had lived to the age of a phoe- nix; — is it for us to be doing the pretty and sigh- ing to the moon, hke a black-haired apprentice without a neckcloth, on board of the Margate hoy ? Nonsense, I say — we have lived too much not to have lived away our green sickness of sen- timent." " Perhaps you are right, Ferrers," said Mal- travers, smiling. " But I can still enjoy a beau- tiful night." " Oh, if you like flies in your soup, as the man said to his guest, when he carefully replaced those entomological black amores in the tureen after helping himself. " If you like flies in your .soup, well and good, — hiiona notte" Ferrers certainly was right in his theory, that when we have known real adventures, we grow less morbidly sentimental. Life is a sleep in which we dream most at the commencement and the close — the middle part absorbs us too much for dreams. But, still, as Maltravers said, we i5 178 ERNEST can enjoy a fine night, especially on the shores of Naples. Maltravers paced musingly to and fro for some time. His heart was softened — old rhymes rang in his ear — old memories passed through his brain. But the soft dark eyes of Madame de St. Ventadour shone forth through every sha- dow of the past, Delicious intoxication — the draught of the rose-coloured phial — which is fancy, but seems love ! VISITS MADAME DE ST. VENTADOUR. 179 CHAPTER 11. '' Then 'gan the Palmer thus— '^ Most wretched man That to affections dost the bridle lend : In their beginning they are weak and wan , But soon, through sufFrance, growe to fearfull end ; While they are weak, betimes with them contend.' " Spenser. Maltravers went frequently to the house of Madame de St. Ventadour — it was open twice a-week to the world, and thrice a-week to friends. Maltravers was soon of the latter class. Madame de St. Ventadour had been in England in her childhood, for her parents had been emigres. She spoke English well and fluently, and this pleased Maltravers ; for though the French Ian- 180 PRIDE IN SELF guage was sufficiently familiar to him, he was like most who are more vain of their mind than their person, and proudly averse to hazard- ing his best thoughts in the domino of a foreign language. We don't care how faulty the ac- cent, or how incorrect the idiom, in which we talk nothings ; but if we utter any of the poetry within us, we shudder at the risk of the most trifling solecism. This was especially the case with Maltravers ; for besides being now somewhat ripened from his careless boyhood into a proud and fastidious man, he had a natural love for the Becoming, This love was unconsciously visible in trifles : it is the natural parent of Good Taste. And it was indeed an inborn good taste which redeemed Er- nest^s natural carelessness in those personal mat- ters, in which young men usually take a pride. An habitual and soldier-like neatness of dress, and a love of order and symmetry, stood with him in the stead of elaborate attention to equipage and dress. DESTROYS VANITY. 181 Maltravers had not thought twice in his life whether he was handsome or not ; and, like most men who have a knowledge of the gentler sex, he knew that beauty had little to do with en- gaging the love of women. The air, the man- ner, the tone, the conversation, the something that interests, and the something to be proud of, these are the attributes of the man made to be loved. And the Beauty-man is, nine times out of ten, little more than the oracle of his aunts, and the " sitch a love" of the housemaids ! To return from this digression — Maltravers was glad that he could talk in his own language to Madame de St. Ventadour ; and the conversa- tion between them generally began in French, and glided away into English. Madame de St. Ventadour was eloquent, and so was Maltravers ; yet a more complete contrast in their mental views and conversational pecuharities, can scarcely be conceived. Madame de St. Ventadour viewed every thing as a woman of the world ; she was brilliant, thoughtful, and not without 182 THE FRENCHWOMAN delicacy and tenderness of sentiment ; still all was cast in a worldly mould. She had been form- ed by the influences of society, and her mind be- trayed its education. At once witty and melan- choly, (no uncommon union,) she was a disci- ple of the sad but caustic philosophy produced by Satiety. In the life she led, neither her heart nor her head was engaged ; the faculties of both were irritated, not satisfied or employed. She felt somewhat too sensitively, the hollowness of the great world, and had a low opinion of Human Nature. In fact, she was a woman of the French Memoirs, — one of those charming and spirituelles Aspasias of the Boudoir who interest us by their subtlety, tact, and grace, their ex- quisite tone of refinement, and are redeemed from the superficial and frivolous, — partly by a consummate knowledge of the social system in which they move, and partly by a half-concealed and touching discontent of the trifles on which their talents and affections are wasted. These are the women who, after a youth of false plea- AND THE SCHOLAR. 183 sure, often end by an old age of false devotion. They are a class peculiar to those ranks and countries in which shines and saddens that gay and unhappy thing — a woman withotd a home ! Now this was a specimen of life — this Vale« rie de St. Ventadour — that Maltravers had never yet contemplated, and Maltravers was perhaps equally new to the Frenchwoman. They were delighted with each other's society, although it so happened that they never agreed. Madame de St. Ventadour rode on horse- back, and Maltravers was one of her usual com- panions : one of them, — for she had too great a regard for the bienseances, to permit a cavalier seuL And oh, the beautiful landscapes through which their daily excursions lay ! Maltravers was an admirable scholar. The stores of the immortal dead were as fami- liar to him as his own language. The poetry, the philosophy, the manner of thought and habits of life — of the graceful Greek and the luxurious Roman — were a part of knowledge 184 LEARNING that constituted a common and household por- tion of his own associations and peculiarities of thought. He had saturated his intellect with the Pactolus of old — and the grains of gold came down from the classic Tmolus with every tide. This knowledge of the Dead, often so use- less, has an inexpressible charm when it is ap- plied to the places where the Dead lived. We care nothing about the ancients on Highgate Hill — but at Baise, Pompeii, by the Virgilian Hades, the ancients are society with which we thirst to be familiar. To the animated and cu- rious Frenchwoman what a cicerone was Ernest Maltravers ! How eagerly she hstened to accounts of a life more elegant than that of Paris ! — of a civilisation which the world never can know again — tant mieux, for it was rotten at the core ; though most glorious in the complexion. Those cold names and unsubstantial shadows w^hich Madame de St. Ventadour had been ac- customed to yawn over in skeleton histories, took from the eloquence of Maltravers the breath of SUITED TO TIME AND PLACE. 185 life — they glowed and moved — they feasted and made love — were wise and foolish, merry and sad, like living things. On the other hand, Mal- travers learnt a thousand new secrets of the ex- isting and actual world, from the lips of the ac- complished and observant Valerie. What a new step in the philosophy of life does a young man of genius make when he first compares his theo- ries and experience with the intellect of a clever woman of the world ! Perhaps it does not elevate him, but how it enlightens and refines ! — what numberless minute yet important mysteries in human character and practical wisdom does he drink unconsciously from the sparkling persiflage of such a companion ! Our education is hardly ever complete without it. " And so you think these stately Romans were not, after all, so aissimilar to ourselves ? " said Valerie, one day, as they looked over the same earth and ocean along which had roved the eyes of the voluptuous but august Lucullus. •' In the last days of their Republic, a coup- 186 ERNEST ON crceil of their social date, might convey to us a general notion of our own. Their system, like ours — a vast aristocracy, rather than a mo- narchy; an aristocracy, heaved and agitated, but kept ambitious and intellectual, by the great democratic ocean which roared below and around it. An immense distinction between rich and poor — a nobility sumptuous, wealthy, cultivated, yet scarcely elegant or refined ; — a people with mighty aspirations for more perfect liberty, but always liable, in a crisis, to be influenced and subdued by a deep-rooted and antique venera- tion for the very aristocracy against w^hich they struggled; — a ready opening through all the walls of custom and privilege, for every descrip- tion of talent and ambition ; but so deep and universal a respect for wealth, that the finest spirit grew avaricious, griping, and corrupt, almost unconsciously; and the man who rose from the people did not scruple to enrich him- self out of the abuses he affected to lament; and the man who would have died for his country ANCIENT ROME. 187 could not help thrusting his hands into her pockets. Cassius, the stubborn and thoughtful patriot, with his heart of iron, had, you remem- ber, an itching palm. Yet, what a blow to all the hopes and dreams of a world was the over- throw of the free party after the death of Caesar ! What generations of freemen fell at Philippi ! In England, perhaps, we may have ultimately the same struggle ; in France, too, (perhaps a larger stage, with far more inflammable actors,) we already perceive the same war of elements which shook Rome to her centre, which finally replaced the generous Julius with the hypocritical Au- gustus, which destroyed the colossal patricians to make way for the glittering dwarfs of a court, and cheated a people out of the substance with the shadow of liberty. How it may end in the modern world, who shall say ! But while a nation has already a fair degree of constitu- tional freedom, I believe no struggle so perilous and awful as that between the aristocratic and the democratic principle. A people against a 188 ANCIENT TIMES despot — that contest requires no prophet; but the change from an aristocratic to a democratic commonwealth, is indeed the wide, unbounded prospect upon which rest shadows, clouds, and darkness. If it fail— for centuries is the dial hand of Time put back ; if it succeed -" Maltravers paused. " And if it succeed ?" said Valerie. " Why, then, man will have colonised Utopia !" exclaimed Maltravers, with sparkling eyes. " But at least, in modern Europe," he con- tinued, " there will be fair room for the experi- ment. For we have not that curse of slavery which, more than all else, vitiated every system of the ancients, and kept the rich and the poor alternately at war ; and we have a press, which is not only the safety-valve of the passions of every party, but the great note-book of the experi- ments of every hour — the homely, the invalu- able ledger of losses and of gains. No ; the people who keep that tablet well, never can be bankrupt. And the society of those old Ro- COMPARED WITH MODERN. 189 mans ; their daily passions — occupations — hu- mours ! — why, the satire of Horace is the glass of our own follies ! We may fancy his easy pages written in the Chaussee d'Antin, or May- fair ; but there was one thing that will ever keep the ancient world dissimilar from the modern." " And what is that?" " The ancients knew not that delicacy in the affections which characterises the descendants of the Goths," said Maltravers, and his voice slightly trembled ; " they gave up to the mono- poly of the senses, what ought to have had an equal share in the reason and the imagination. Their love was a beautiful and wanton butter- fly ; but not the butterfly which is the emblem of the soul." Valerie sighed. She looked timidly into the face of the young philosopher, but his eyes were averted. " Perhaps," she said, after a short pause, " we pass our lives happier without love than with it. And in our modern social system," (she con- 190 LOVE TOO MUCH INDULGED. tinued, thoughtfully, and with great truth, though it is scarcely the conclusion to which a woman often arrives,) " I think we have pampered Love to too great a preponderance over the other excitements of life. As children we are taught to dream of it ; in youth — our books, our conversation, our plays, are filled with it. We are trained to consider it the essential of life ; and yet the moment we come to actual expe- rience, the moment we indulge this inculcated and stimulated craving, nine times out of ten we find ourselves wretched and undone. Ah, believe me, Mr. Maltravers, this is not a world in which we should preach up, too far, the philosophy of Love !" " And does Valerie de St. Ventadour speak from experience ?" asked Maltravers, gazing earnestly upon the changing countenance of his companion. " No ; and I trust that I never may !" said Valerie, with great energy. Ernest's lip curled slightly, for his pride was touched. FERRERS NOT COMPLIMENTARY. 191 " I could give up many dreams of the future," said he, " to hear Madame de St. Ventadour revoke that sentiment." " We have outridden our companions, Mr. Maltravers," said Valerie, coldly, and she reined in her horse. " Ah, Mr. Ferrers,"" she con- tinued, as Lumley and the handsome German Baron now joined her, " you are too gallant ; I see you imply a dehcate compliment to my horsemanship, when you wish me to believe you cannot keep up with me : Mr. Maltravers is not so polite." " Nay," returned Ferrers, who rarely threw away a compliment without a satisfactory return, " Nay, you and Maltravers appeared lost among the old Romans ; and our friend the Baron took that opportunity to tell me of all the ladies who adored him." " Ah, Monsieur Ferrare, que vous ties malin r said Schomberg, looking very much confused. " Malin ! no ; I spoke from no envy : / never was adored, thank Heaven. What a bore it must be !" 192 RIDES DISCONTINUED. " I congratulate you on the sympathy between yourself and Ferrers," whispered Maltravers to Valerie. Valerie laughed ; but during the rest of the excursion she remained thoughtful and absent — and for some days their rides were discontinued. Madame de St. Ventadour was not well. WORLDLY INFLUENCES. 193 CHAPTER III. " O Love_, forsake me not ; Mine were a lone dark lot Bereft of thee." Genius Singing to Love. — Hem an s. Ernest Maltravers was not so good a man as when he left England. He had lived in lands where public opinion is neither strong in its influence nor rigid in its canons, and that does not make a man better. Moreover, thrown into bustling life, with ardent passions and intel- lectual superiority, he had been led by the one into many errors, from the consequences of which VOL. I. K 194 WORLDLY INFLUENCES. the other had delivered him ; the necessity of roughing it through the world — of resisting fraud to-day and violence to-morrow, — had hardened over the surface of his heart, though at bottom the springs were still fresh and living. He had lost much of his chivalrous veneration for women, whom he had begun to consider rather as playthings than idols ; he found that they de- ceive us as often as we deceive them. He found also that their feelings are frequently less deep than they appear, and that they fall in love, and fall out of it, without breaking their hearts. Again, too, the last few years had been spent without any high aims or fixed pursuits. Mal- travers had been hving on the capital of his fa- culties and affections in a wasteful, speculating spirit. It is a bad thing for a clever and ardent man not to have some paramount object of life. All this considered, we can scarcely wonder that Maltravers should have fallen into an invo- luntary system of pursuing his own amusements AIMS WITHOUT ENDS. 195 and pursuits, without much forethought of the harm or the good they were to do to others or himself. He had grown less elevated and more selfish. In his present intercourse with Madame de St. Ventadour, he formed no plan. He was in- terested and excited; and Valerie's manners, which to-day flattered, and to-morrow piqued him, enlisted his vanity and pride on the side of his fancy. He was resolved that he would esta- blish his power over her — it became his ambi- tion. For when a man has no other ambition, he will covet a much more insignificant bauble than the mastery over such a woman as Valerie de St. Ventadour. Maltravers, it is true, would never have dreamt of seducing even the most lukewarm affection from the wife of a man he loved or respected, or who he thought would be afflicted at the loss. But Monsieur de St. Ven- tadour, a frivolous and profligate Frenchman, seemed utterly indifferent as to what his wife chose to do ; and in the society in which Valerie k2 196 CONVENIENT MORALITY. lived, almost every lady had her cavalier, so that if Valerie thought fit to like Maltravers, it seemed to him neither a wrong to her husband, nor the smallest injury to herself. Ernest did not yet look beyond individual effects to the vast results of social morality. He was living with the world, and the world affected him as it al- most always does every one else. But still he had, at times, in his heart, the feeling that he was not fulfilling his proper destiny and duties ; and when he stole from the brilliant resorts of an unworthy and heartless pleasure, he was ever and anon haunted by his old familiar aspirations for the Beautiful, the Virtuous, and the Great. However, hell is paved with good intentions, and so, in the meanwhile, Ernest Maltravers surrendered himself to the delicious presence of Valerie de St. Ventadour. One evening, Maltravers, Ferrers, the little French minister, a pretty Italian, and the Princess di J made the whole party collected at Madame de St. Ventadour's. The conversation THE ENGLISH. 197 fell upon one of the tales of scandal relative to English persons, so common on the conti- nent. " Is it true, Monsieur," said the French mi- nister, gravely, to Lumley, " that your country- men are much more immoral than other people ? It is very strange, but in every town I enter, there is always some story in which les Anglais are the heroes. I hear nothing of French scandal — nothing of \\.dX\3i\\-— ton jours les An- glais" " Because we are shocked at these things, and make a noise about them, while you take them quietly. Vice is our episode — your epic." " I suppose it is so," said the Frenchman, with affected seriousness. " If we cheat at play, or flirt with a fair lady, we do it with decorum, and our neighbours think it no business to move heaven and earth about it ; they may run us through the body, but they don't go to law with us. But you think every peccadillo is a public concern— to be discussed and talked over, and exclaimed against — and told to all the world." 198 SCANDAL VINDICATED. " I like the system of scandal," said Madame de St. Ventadour, abruptly, " say what you will ; the policy of fear keeps many of us virtuous. Sin might not be odious, if we did not tremble at the consequence even of appearances." " Hein, hein," grunted Monsieur de St. Ventadour, shuffling into the room. " How are you? — how are you? Charmed to see you. Dull night — I suspect we shall have rain. Hein, hein. Aha, Monsieur Ferrers, comment se va-t-il, will you give me my revenge at ecartt ? I have my suspicions that I am in luck to-night. Hein, hein." " Ecarte I — well, with pleasure," said Fer- rers. Ferrers played well. The conversation ended in a moment. The little party gathered round the table — all, except Valerie and Maltravers. The chairs that were vacated left a kind of breach between them ; but still they were next to each other, and they felt embarrassed, for they felt alone. PRIDE SUPPLIES PRINCIPLE. 199 " Do you never play ?'* asked Madame de St. Ventadour, after a pause. " I have played," said Maltravers, " and I know the temptation. I dare not play now. I love the excitement, but I have been humbled at the debasement : it is a moral drunkenness, that is worse than the physical." " You speak warmly." " Because I feel keenly. I once won of a man I respected, who was poor. His agony was a dreadful lesson to me. I went home, and was terrified to think I had felt so much pleasure in the pain of another. I have never played since that night." " So young and so resolute !" said Valerie, with admiration in her voice and eyes ; " you are a strange person. Others would have been cured by losing, you were cured by winning. It is a fine thing to have principle at your age, Mr. Maltravers." " I fear it was rather pride than principle," said Maltravers. " Error is sometimes sweet ; 200 THE TEMPTATION. but there is no anguish Uke an error of which we feel ashamed. I cannot submit to blush for myself." " Ah !" muttered Valerie ; " this is the echo of my own heart !" She rose and went to the window. Maltravers paused a moment, and fol- lowed her. Perhaps he half thought there was an invitation in the movement. There, lay before them the still street, with its feeble and unfrequent lights; beyond, a few- stars, struggling through an atmosphere un- usually clouded, brought the murmuring ocean partially into sight. Valerie leaned against the wall, and the draperies of the window veiled her from all the guests, save Maltravers ; and be- tween her and himself was a large marble vase filled with flowers ; and by that uncertain light Valerie's brilliant cheek looked pale, and soft, and thoughtful. Maltravers never before felt so much in love with the beautiful French- woman. "Ah, madam!" said he, softly; "there is THE AVOWAL. '201 one error, if it be so, that never can cost me shame." " Indeed !" said Valerie, with an unaffected start, for she was not aware he was so near her. As she spoke she began plucking (it is a com- mon woman's trick) the flowers from the vase between her and Ernest. That small, delicate, almost transparent hand ! — Maltravers gazed upon the hand, then on the countenance, then on the hand again. The scene swam before him, and involuntarily, and as by an irresistible impulse, the next moment that hand was in his own. " Pardon me — pardon me," said he, falter- ingly ; " but that error is in the feelings that I know for thee.'" f Valerie lifted on him her large and radiant eyes, and made no answer. Maltravers went on. " Chide me, scorn me, hate me if thou wilt, Valerie, I love thee !" Valerie drew away her hand, and still re- mained silent. K 5 202 THE REPLY. « " Speak to me,'' said Ernest, leaning forward, " one word, I implore thee, speak to me !" He paused, — still no reply ; he listened breath- lessly — he heard her sob. Yes ; that proud, that wise, that lofty woman of the world, in that mo- ment was as weak as the simplest girl that ever listened to a lover. But how different the feel- ings that made her weak ! — what soft and what stern emotions were blent together ! " Mr. Maltravers," she said, recovering her voice, though it sounded hollow, yet almost un- naturally firm and clear — " the die is cast, and I have lost for ever the friend for whose happiness I cannot live, but for whose welfare I would have died; I should have foreseen this, but I was blind. No more— no more ; see me to-morrow, and leave me now !" « But, Valerie " " Ernest Maltravers," said she, laying her hand lightly on his own ; " there is no anguish like an error of which we feel ashamed /" • WOMEN ARE HYPOCRITES. 203. Before he could reply to this citation from his own unlucky aphorism, Valerie had glided away; and was already seated at the card-table, by the side of the Italian princess. Maltravers also joined the group. He fixed his eyes on Madame de St Ventadour, but her face was calm, — not a trace of emotion was dis- cernible. Her voice, her smile, her charming and courtly manner, all were as when he first beheld her. " These women — what hypocrites they are !" muttered Maltravers to himself; and his lip writhed into a sneer, that had of late often forced away the serene and gracious expression of his earlier years, ere he knew what it was to despise. But Maltravers mistook the woman he dared to scorn. He soon withdrew from the palazzo, and sought his hotel. There, while yet musing in his dressing-room, he was joined by Ferrers. The time had past when Ferrers had exercised an influence over Maltravers; the boy had 204 INTIMATES NOT FRIENDS. grown up to be the equal of the man, in the exercise of that two-edged sword — the reason. And Maltravers now felt, unalloyed, the calm consciousness of his superior genius. He could not confide to Ferrers what had passed between him and Valerie. Lumley was too hard for a confidant in matters where the heart was at all concerned. In fact, in high spirits, and in the midst of frivolous adventures, Ferrers was charm- ing. But in sadness, or in the moments of deep feeling, Ferrers was one whom you would wish out of the way ! " You are sullen to-night, mon cher^'' said Lumley, yawning ; " I suppose you want to go to bed — some persons are so ill-bred— so selfish — they never think of their friends. Nobody asks me what I won at ecarte. Don't be late to-morrow — I hate breakfasting alone, and / am never later than a quarter before nine — I hate egotistical, ill-mannered people. Good night." With this, Ferrers sought his own room ; there, as he slowly undressed, he thus soliloquised ;— LUMLEYS SOLILOQUY. 205 " I think I have put this man to all the use I can make of him. We don't pull well together any longer ; perhaps I myself am a little tired of this sort of life. That is not right. I shall grow ambitious by-and-bye ; but I think it a bad cal- culation not to make the most of youth. At four or five-and- thirty, it will be time enough to consider what one ought to be at fifty !" 206 THE COURIER. CHAPTER IV. '^ . . . . Most dangerous Is that temptation that does goad us on To shi, in loving virtue." Measure for Measure. " See her to-morrow ! — that morrow is come !" thought Maltravers, as he rose the next day from a sleepless couch. Ere yet he had obeyed the impatient summons of Ferrers, who had thrice sent to say that " he never kept people waiting," his servant entered with a packet from England, that had just arrived by one of those rare couriers, who sometimes honour that Naples, which might be so lucrative a mart to EngUsh Cleveland's letter. 207 commerce, if Neapolitan kings cared for trade, or English senators for " foreign politics." Letters from stewards and bankers were soon got through ; and Maltravers reserved for the last an epistle from Cleveland. There was much in it that touched him home. After some dry details about the property to which Maltravers had now succeeded, and some trifling comments upon trifling remarks in Ernest's former letters, Cleveland went on thus : — " I confess, my dear Ernest, that I long to welcome you back to England. You have been abroad long enough to see other countries ; do not stay long enough to prefer them to your own. You are at Naples, too — I tremble for you. I know well that delicious, dreaming, hohday-life of Italy, so sweet to men of learn- ing and imagination— so sweet too to youth — so sweet to pleasure.' But, Ernest, do you not feel already how it enervates ? — how the luxuri- ous far niente unfits us for grave exertion? 208 Cleveland's letter. Men may become too refined and too fastidious for useful purposes ; and nowhere can they be- come so better, and more rapidly, than in Italy. My dear Ernest, I know you well ; you are not made to sink down into a virtuoso, with a cabinet full of cameos and a head full of pictures ; still less are you made to be an indolent cicesbeo to some fair Italian, with one passion and two ideas : and yet I have known men as clever as you, whom that bewitching Italy has sunk into one or the other of these emasculate beings. Don't run away with the notion that you have plenty of time before you. You have no such thing. At your age, and with your fortune, (I wish you were not so rich !) the holiday of one year becomes the custom of the next. In England, to be a useful or a distinguished man, you must labour. Now, labour itself is sweet, if we take to it early. We are a hard race, but we are a manly one; and our stage is the most exciting in Europe for an able and an honest ambition. Perhaps you will tell me Cleveland's letter. 209 you are not ambitious now ; very possibly — but ambitious you will be; and, believe me, there is no unhappier wretch than a man who is ambitious but disappointed, — who has the de- sire for fame, but has lost the power to achieve it, — who longs for the goal, but will not, and cannot, put away his slippers to walk to it. What I most fear for you is one of these two evils — an early marriage, or a fatal haison with some married woman. The first evil is cer- tainly the least, but for you it would still be a great one. With your sensitive romance, with your m.orbid cravings for the Ideal, domestic happiness would soon grow trite and dull. You would demand new excitement, and become a restless and disgusted man. It is necessary for you to get rid of all the false fever of life, before you settle down to everlasting ties. You do not yet know your ov/n mind; you would choose your partner from some visionary caprice, or momentary impulse, and not from the deep and accurate knowledge of those qualities which 210 Cleveland's letter. would most harmonise with your own character. People, to live happily with each other, must Jit iUf as it were — the proud be mated with the meek, the irritable with the gentle, and so forth. We talk of congenial minds, but married persons must not too closely resemble each other. No, my dear Maltravers, do not think of marriage yet awhile ; and if there is any danger of it, come over to me immediately. But if I warn you against a lawful tie, how much more against an illicit one ; you are precisely of the age, and of the disposition, which render the temptation so strong and so deadly. With you it might not be the sin of an hour, but the bondage of a life. I know your chivalric honour — your tender heart ; I know how faithful you would be to one who had sa- crificed for you. But that fidelity, Maltravers, to what a life of wasted talent and energies would it not compel you ! — What so fatal to a bold and proud temper, as to be at war with society at the first entrance into life ? What so withering to manly aims and purposes, as the Cleveland's letter. 211 giving into the keeping of a woman, who has in- terest in your love, but not in your fame — the control of your future destinies ! I could say more, but I trust what I have said is superfluous : if so, pray assure me of it. Depend upon this, Ernest Maltravers, that if you do not fulfil what nature intended for your fate, you will be a morbid misanthrope, or an indolent volup- tuary — wretched and listless in manhood — re- pining and joyless in old age. But if you do fulfil your fate, you must enter soon into your apprenticeship. Let me see you labour and aspire— no matter what in — what to. Work, work — that is all I ask of you ! " I wish you could see your old country- house ; it has a venerable and picturesque look, and during your minority they have let the ivy cover three sides of it. Montaigne might have lived there. " Adieu, dearest Ernest, " Your anxious and affectionate guardian, " Frederick Cleveland/' 212 SELFISHNESS IS SENSE. " P. S. I am writing a book— it shall last me ten years — it occupies me, but does not fatigue. Write a book yourself." Maltravers had just finished this letter, when Ferrers entered impatiently. " Will you ride out T said he. " I have sent the breakfast away ; I saw that breakfast was a vain hope to-day — indeed, my appetite is gone." " Pshaw !" said Maltravers. " Pshaw ! humph ! for my part I like well- bred people." " I have had a letter from Cleveland." " And what the deuce has that got to do with the chocolate ?" " Oh, Lumley, you are insufferable ; you think of nothing but yourself, and self with you means nothing that is not animal." " Why, yes ; I believe I have some sense," replied Ferrers, complacently. " I know the phi- losophy of life. All unfledged bipeds are animals, I suppose. If Providence had made me gramini- THE BOUDOIR. 213 vorous I should have eaten grass ; if ruminating, I should have chewed the cud ; but as it has made me a carnivorous, culinary, and cachinnatory animal, I eat a cutlet, scold about the sauce, and laugh at you; and this is what you call being selfish !" It was late at noon when Maltravers found himself at the palazzo of Madame de St. Ven- tadour. He was surprised, but agreeably so, to observe that he was admitted, for the first time, into that private sanctum, which bears the hacknied and vulgar title of boudoir. But Madame de St. Ventadour'^s morning-room, where she read, thought, and wrote, was very different from the silken closets that assume that name. It was a lofty apartment, stored with books, and furnished with chaste and simple grace, more resembling the chamber of a Cor- nelia than an Aspasia. Valerie was not there; and Maltravers, left alone, after a hasty glance around the chamber, leaned abstractedly against the wall, and forgot 214 THE CRITICAL INTERVIEW. all the admonitions of Cleveland. In a few mo- ments the door opened, and Valerie entered. She was unusually pale, and Maltravers thought her eyeUds betrayed the traces of tears. He was touched, and his heart smote him. " I have kept you waiting, I fear," said Va- lerie, motioning him to a seat at a little distance from that on which she placed herself; " but you will forgive me," she added, with a sUght smile. Then, observing he was about to speak, she went on rapidly. " Hear me, Mr. Mal- travers — before you speak, hear me ! You uttered words last night that ought never to have been addressed to me. You professed to— love me!" " Professed !" " Answer me," said Valerie, with abrupt energy, " not as man to woman, but as one human creature to another. From the bottom of your heart, from the core of your conscience, I call on you to speak the honest and the simple truth. Do you love me as your heart, your genius, must be capable of loving ?" THE CRITICAL INTERVIEW. 215 " I love you truly — passionately I" said Mal- travers, surprised and confused, but still with enthusiasm in his musical voice and earnest eyes. Valerie gazed upon him as if she sought to penetrate into his soul. Maltravers went on. " Yes, Valerie, when we first met, you aroused a long-dormant and delicious sentiment. But, since then, what deep emotions has that senti- ment called forth ! Your graceful intellect — your lovely thoughts, wise yet womanly — have completed the conquest your face and voice began. Valerie, I love you. And you — you, Valerie — ah ! I do not deceive myself — you also " " Love !" interrupted Valerie, deeply blush- ing, but in a calm voice. " Ernest Maltravers, I do not deny it ; honestly and frankly I confess the fault. I have examined my heart during the whole of the last sleepless night, and I confess that I love you. Now then, understand me; we meet no more." " What !" said Maltravers, falUng involunta- 216 THE CRITICAL INTERVIEW. rily at her feet, and seeking to detain her hand, which he seized. " What ! now, when you have given hfe a new charm, will you as suddenly blast it? No, Valerie; no, I will not listen to you." Madame de St. Ventadour rose, and said with a cold dignity, " Hear me calmly, or I quit the room; and all I would now say rests for ever unspoken." Maltravers rose also, folded his arms haughtily, bit his lip, and stood erect and confronting Valerie, rather in the attitude of an accuser than a suppliant. " Madam," said he, gravely, " I will offend no more — I will trust to your manner, since I may not believe your words." " You are cruel," said Valerie, smiling mourn- fully ; " but so are all men. Now let me make myself understood. I was betrothed to Monsieur de St. Ventadour in my childhood. I did not see him till a month before we married. I had Valerie's confession. 217 no choice. French girls have none ! We were wed. I had formed no other attachment. I was proud and vain : wealth, ambition, and social rank for a time satisfied my faculties and my heart. At length I grew restless and unhappy. I felt that the something of life was wantmg. Monsieur de St. Ventadour's sister was the first to recommend to me the common resource of our sex — at least in France— a lover. I was shocked and startled, for I belonged to a family in w^hich women are chaste and men brave. I began, however, to look around me, and examine the truth of the philosophy of vice. I found that no woman who loved honestly and deeply an illicit lover, was happy. I found, too, the hideous profundity of Rochfoucauld's maxim, that a woman — I speak of French women — may live without a lover ; but, a lover once admitted, never goes through life with only one. She is deserted; she cannot bear the anguish and the solitude ; she fills up the void with a second idol. For her there is no longer a fall from VOL. I, L 218 Valerie's confession. virtue — it is a gliding and involuntary descent from sin to sin, till old age comes on and leaves her without love and without respect. I reason- ed calmly — for my passions did not blind my reason. I could not love the egotists around me. I resolved upon my career — and now, in temp- tation, I will adhere to it. Virtue is my lover, my pride, my comfort, my life of life. Do you love me, and will you rob me of this treasure ? I saw you, and for the first time, I felt a vague and in- toxicating interest in another; but I did not dream of danger. As our acquaintance progressed I formed to myself a romantic and delightful vi- sion. I would be your firmest, your truest friend — your confidant, your adviser — perhaps, in some epochs of life, your inspiration and your guide. I repeat that I foresaw no danger in your society. I felt myself a nobler and a better being. I felt more benevolent, more tolerant, more exalted : I saw life through the medium of purifying ad- miration for a gifted nature, and a profound and generous soul. I fancied we might be ever thus, — VALERIE S CONFESSION. 219 each to each;— one strengthened, assured, sup- ported by the other. Nay, I even contemplated with pleasure the prospect of your future mar- riage with another — of loving your wife — of con- tributing with her to your happiness — my ima- gination made me forget that we are made of clay. Suddenly all these visions were dispelled — the fairy palace was overthrown, and I found my- self awake, and on the brink of the abyss — you loved me, and in the moment of that fatal con- fession the mask dropped from my soul, and I felt that you had become too dear to me. Be si- lent still, I implore you. I do not tell you of the emotions, of the struggles, through which I have passed the last few hours — the crisis of a life. I tell you only of the resolution I formed. I thought it due to you, nor unworthy of myself, to speak the truth. Perhaps it might be more womanly to conceal it ; but my heart has some- thing masculine in its nature. I have a great faith in your nobleness. I believe you can sympathise with whatever is best in human weakness. I tell l2 220 THE RESULT. you that I love you — I throw myself upon your generosity. I beseech you to assist my ov.n sense of right — to think well of me, to honour me — and to leave me !" During the last part of this strange and frank avowal, Valerie's voice had grown inexpressibly touching : her tenderness forced itself into her manner ; and when she ceased, her lip quivered, her tears, repressed by a violent effort, trembled in her eyes — her hands were clasped — her attitude was that of humility, not pride. Maltravers stood perfectly spell-bound. At length he advanced ; dropped on one knee, kiss- ed her hand with an aspect and air of reveren- tial homage — and turned to quit the room in si- lence, for he would not dare to trust himself to speak. Valerie gazed at him in anxious alarm. " Oh no, no !" she exclaimed, " do not leave me yet ; this is our last meeting — our last. Tell me at least that you understand me — that you see, if 1 am no weak fool, I am also no heartless co- THE RESULT. 221 quette ; tell me that you see I am not as hard as I have seemed — that I have not knowingly tri- fled with your happiness — that even now I am not selfish. Your love,— I ask it no more ! But your esteem, your good opinion. Oh, speak — speak, I implore you ! " " Valerie," said Maltravers, " if I was silent it was because my heart is too full for words. You have raised all womanhood in my eyes. I did love you — I now venerate and adore. Your noble frankness, so unlike the irresolute frailty, the miserable wiles of your sex, has touch- ed a chord in my heart, that has been mute for years. I leave you, to think better of human nature. Oh !" he continued, " hasten to forget all of me that can cost you a pang. Let me still in absence and in sadness think that I re- tain, in your friendship — let it be friendship only — the inspiration, the pride of which you spoke ; and if hereafter, men shall name me with praise and honour, feel, Valerie, feel that I have com- forted myself for the loss of your love, by 222 THE RESULT. becoming worthy of your confidence, your es- teem. Oh, that we had met earlier, when no bar- rier was between us." " Go, go, now^^ — faltered Valerie, almost chok- ed with her emotions — " may God bless you — go!" The virtue of Maltravers was in great danger as he saw her struggles with herself. He even advanced a step towards her. But his better angel was at hand — he checked himself — mutter- ed a few inaudible and incoherent words, and rushed from the apartment. THE DEPARTURE. 223 CHAPTER V. " The men of sense, those idols of the shallow, are very inferior to the men of Passions — it is the strong passions which, rescuing us from sloth, can alone impart to us that continuous and earnest attention necessary to great intellectual efforts." Helvetius. When Ferrers returned that day from his cus- tomary ride, he was surprised to see the lob- bies and hall of the apartment which he occupied in common with Maltravers, littered with bags and malles — boxes and books, and Ernest's Swiss valet directing porters and waiter in a mosaic of French — English — and Italian. " Well !" said Lumley, " and what is all this ?'' 224 THE DEPARTURE. " II signore va partir, sare, ah ! mon Dieu ! — tout of a sudden." " O — h ! — and where is he now ? " " In his room, sare." Over the chaos strode Ferrers, and opening the door of his friend's dressing-room without ceremony, he saw Maltravers buried in a fau- teuil, with his arms drooping on his knees, his head bent over his breast, and his whole atti- tude expressive of dejection and exhaustion. " What is the matter, my dear Ernest ? You have not killed a man in a duel ?" « No !" " What then ?— why are you going away, and whither?" " No matter, leave me in peace." " Friendly ! " said Ferrers, " very friendly ! And what is to become of me — what companion am I to have in this cursed resort of antiquarians and Lazzaroni ? You have no feeling, Mr. Mal- travers ! " " Will you come with me, then ?' said Maltra- vers, in vain endeavouring to rouse himself. THE DEPARTURE. 225 " But where are you going?" " Anywhere — to Paris— to London/' " No ; I have arranged my plans for the sum- mer. I am not so rich as some people. I hate change, it is so expensive." ^ " But, my dear fellow — " "Is this fair dealing with me?" continued Lumley, who for once in his life was really an- gry. " If I were an old coat you had worn for five years, you could not throw me off with more nonchalance." " Ferrers, forgive me. My honour is concerned. I must leave this place. I trust you will remain ray guest here, though in the absence of your host. You know that I have engaged the apart- ments for the next three months." " Humph !" said Ferrers ; " as that is the case, I may as well stay here. Besides, I have a little Sicilian on my hands at present. But why so secret ? Have you seduced Madame St. Venta- dour, or has her wise husband his suspicions ? Hein — hein ! " L 5 226 THE DEPARTURE. Maltravers smothered his disgust at this coarseness— and perhaps there is no greater trial of temper than in a he friend's gross remarks upon the connexions of the heart. " Ferrers," said he, " if you care for me, breathe not a word disrespectful to Madame de St. Ventadour ; she is an angel ! " " But why leave Naples ?" " Trouble me no more." " Good day, sir," said Ferrers, highly offend- ed — and he stalked out of the chamber, nor did Ernest see him again before his departure. It was late that evening when Maltravers found himself alone in his carriage, pursuing by star- light the ancient and melancholy road to Mola di Gaeta. His solitude was a luxury to Maltravers; he felt an inexpressible sense of release to be freed from Ferrers. The hard sense, the unpliant though humorous imperiousness, the animal sensuality of his companion, would have been a torture to him in his present state of mind. MOLA DI GAETA. 227 The next morning when he rose, the orange blossoms of Mola di Gaeta were sweet beneath the window of the inn where he rested. It was now the early spring, and the freshness of the odour, the breathing health of earth and air, it is impossible to describe. Italy itself boasts few spots more lovely than that same Mola di Gaeta — nor does that halcyon sea wear, even at Naples or Sorrento, a more bland and en- chanting smile. So after a hasty, and scarcely-tasted breakfast, Maltravers strolled through the orange groves, and gained the beach ; and there, stretched at idle length by the murmuring waves, he resigned himself to thought, and endeavoured, for the first time since his parting with Valerie, to collect and examine the state of his mind and feehngs. Maltravers, to his own surprise, did not find himself so unhappy as he had expected. On the contrary, a soft and almost delicious sentiment, which he could not well define, floated over all his memories of the beautiful Frenchwoman. 228 USES OF DISAPPOINTMENT Perhaps the secret was, that while his pride was not mortified, his conscience was not galled — perhaps, also, he had not loved Valerie so deeply as he had imagined. The confession and the se- paration had happily come before her presence had grown — the want of a life. As it was, he felt as if by some holy and mystic sacrifice, he had been made reconciled to himself and mankind. He woke to a juster and higher appreciation of human nature, and of woman's nature in espe- cial. He had found honesty, truth, and vir- tue, where he might least have expected it — in a woman of a court — in a woman surrounded by vicious and frivolous circles — in a woman who had nothing in the opinion of her friends, her country, her own husband, the social system in which she moved, to keep her from the sweet concessions of frailty — in a woman of the world — a woman of Paris ! — yes, it was his very disap- pointment that drove away the fogs and vapours that, rising from the marshes of the great world, had gradually settled round his soul. Valerie de St. WHERE THERE IS NO REMORSE. 2*29 Ventadour had taught him not to despise her sex, not to judge by appearances, not to sicken of a low and a hypocritical world. He looked in his heart for the love of Valerie, and he found there the love of Virtue. Thus, as he turned his eyes inward, did he gradually awaken to a sense of the true impressions engraved there. And he felt the bitterest drop of the deep foun- tains was not sorrow for himself but for her. What pangs must that high spirit have endured ere it could have submitted to the avowal it had made ! Yet even in this affliction, he found at last a solace. A mind so strong could support and heal the weakness of the heart. He felt that Valerie de St. Ventadour was not a woman to pine away in the unresisted indulgence of mor- bid and unholy emotions. He could not flatter himself that she would not seek to eradicate a love she repented ; and he sighed with a natural selfishness, when he owned also that sooner or later she would succeed. " But be it so," said he, half aloud — " I will prepare my heart to 230 PHILOSOPHY OF THE PASSIONS. , rejoice when I learn that she remembers me only as a friend. Next to the bliss of her love is the pride of her esteem." Such was the sentiment with which his reve- ries closed — and with every league that bore him farther from the south, the sentiment grew strengthened and confirmed. Ernest Maltravers felt that there is in the Af- fections themselves, so much to purify and ex- alt, that even the error of an unlawful love, con- ceived without a cold design, and (when its na- ture is fairly understood,) wrestled against with a noble spirit, leaves the heart more tolerant and tender, and the mind more settled and enlarged. The philosophy limited to the reason puts into motion the automata of the closet — but to those who have the world for a stage, and who find their hearts are the great actors — experience and wisdom must be wrought from the Philoso- phy of the Passions. BOOK III. ' n VoAA.wi' ov iraurl (pa^iuerac, 'Os y.iu "(Sr], jxiyas ovros. Callim. Ex hymno in Apollineiii. " Not to all men Apollo shews himself — W ho sees Him — he is great !" SONG. 233 BOOK III. CHAPTER I. " Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears — soft stillness and the night, Become the touches of sweet harmony." Shakspeare. ^©AT ^©^