Ernest Maltravers Part 57

"Best as it is, Shinfield--he will excuse all.--Go."

Mrs. Shinfield shrugged her shoulders, and departed. A few moments more--a step on the stairs, the creaking of the door,--and Maltravers and Florence were again alone. He stood motionless on the threshold. She had involuntarily risen, and so they stood opposite to each other, and the lamp fell full upon her face. Oh, Heaven! when did that sight cease to haunt the heart of Maltravers! When shall that altered aspect not pa.s.s as a ghost before his eyes!--there it is, faithful and reproachful alike in solitude and in crowds--it is seen in the glare of noon--it pa.s.ses dim and wan at night beneath the stars and the earth--it looked into his heart and left its likeness there for ever and for ever!

Those cheeks, once so beautifully rounded, now sunken into lines and hollows--the livid darkness beneath the eyes--the whitened lip--the sharp, anxious, worn expression, which had replaced that glorious and beaming regard from which all the life of genius, all the sweet pride of womanhood had glowed forth, and in which not only the intelligence, but the eternity of the soul, seemed visibly wrought.

There he stood, aghast and appalled. At length a low groan broke from his lips--he rushed forward, sank on his knees beside her, and clasping both her hands, sobbed aloud as he covered them with kisses. All the iron of his strong nature was broken down, and his emotions, long silenced, and now uncontrollable and resistless, were something terrible to behold!

"Do not--do not weep so," murmured Lady Florence, frightened by his vehemence; "I am sadly changed, but the fault is mine--Ernest, it is mine; best, kindest, gentlest, how could I have been so mad! And you forgive me? I am yours again--a little while yours. Ah, do not grieve while I am so blessed!"

As she spoke, her tears--tears from a source how different from that whence broke the scorching and intolerable agony of his own! fell soft upon his bended head, and the hands that still convulsively strained hers. Maltravers looked wildly up into her countenance, and shuddered as he saw her attempt to smile. He rose abruptly, threw himself into a chair, and covered his face. He was seeking by a violent effort to master himself, and it was only by the heaving of his chest, and now and then a gasp as for breath, that he betrayed the stormy struggle within.

Florence gazed at him a moment in bitter, in almost selfish penitence.

"And this was the man who seemed to me so callous to the softer sympathies--this was the heart I trampled upon--this the nature I distrusted!"

She came near him, trembling and with feeble steps--she laid her hand upon his shoulder, and the fondness of love came over her, and she wound her arms around him.

"It is our fate--it is my fate," said Maltravers at last, awaking as from a hideous dream, and in a hollow but calm voice--"we are the things of destiny, and the wheel has crushed us. It is an awful state of being this human life!--What is wisdom--virtue--faith to men--piety to Heaven--all the nurture we bestow on ourselves--all our desire to win a loftier sphere, when we are thus the tools of the merest chance--the victims of the pettiest villainy; and our very existence--our very senses almost, at the mercy of every traitor and every fool!"

There was something in Ernest's voice, as well as in his reflections, which appeared so unnaturally calm and deep that it startled Florence, with a fear more acute than his previous violence had done. He rose, and muttering to himself, walked to and fro, as if insensible of her presence--in fact he was so. At length he stopped short, and fixing his eyes upon Lady Florence, said in a whispered and thrilling tone:

"Now, then, the name of our undoer?"

"No, Ernest, no--never, unless you promise me to forego the purpose which I read in your eyes. He has confessed--he is penitent--I have forgiven him--you will do so too!"

"His name!" repeated Maltravers, and his face, before very flushed, was unnaturally pale.

"Forgive him--promise me."

"His name, I say,--his name?"

"Is this kind?--you terrify me--you will kill me!" faltered out Florence, and she sank on the sofa exhausted: her nerves, now so weakened, were perfectly unstrung by his vehemence, and she wrung her hands and wept piteously.

"You will not tell me his name?" said Maltravers, softly. "Be it so. I will ask no more. I can discover it myself. Fate the Avenger will reveal it."

At the thought he grew more composed; and as Florence wept on, the unnatural concentration and fierceness of his mind again gave way, and, seating himself beside her, he uttered all that could soothe, and comfort, and console. And Florence was soon soothed! And there, while over their heads the grim skeleton was holding the funeral pall, they again exchanged their vows, and again, with feelings fonder than of old, spoke of love.

CHAPTER V.

"Erichtho, then, Breathes her dire murmurs, which enforce him bear Her baneful secrets to the spirits of horror."--MARLOWE.

WITH a heavy step Maltravers ascended the stairs of his lonely house that night, and heavily, with a suppressed groan, did he sink upon the first chair that proffered rest.

It was intensely cold. During his long interview with Lady Florence, his servant had taken the precaution to go to Seamore Place, and make some hasty preparations for the owner's return. But the bedroom looked comfortless and bare, the curtains were taken down, the carpets were taken up (a single man's housekeeper is wonderfully provident in these matters; the moment his back is turned, she bustles, she displaces, she exults; "things can be put a little to rights!"). Even the fire would not burn clear, but gleamed sullen and fitful from the smothering fuel.

It was a large chamber, and the lights imperfectly filled it. On the table lay parliamentary papers, and pamphlets, and bills and presentation-books from younger authors--evidences of the teeming business of that restless machine the world. But of all this Maltravers was not sensible: the winter frost numbed not his feverish veins. His servant, who loved him, as all who saw much of Maltravers did, fidgeted anxiously about the room, and plied the sullen fire, and laid out the comfortable dressing-robe, and placed wine on the table, and asked questions which were not answered, and pressed service which was not heeded. The little wheels of life go on, even when the great wheel is paralysed or broken. Maltravers was, if I may so express it, in a kind of mental trance. His emotions had left him thoroughly exhausted. He felt that torpor which succeeds and is again the precursor of great woe.

At length he was alone, and the solitude half unconsciously restored him to the sense of his heavy misery. For it may be observed, that when misfortune has stricken us home, the presence of any one seems to interfere between the memory and the heart. Withdraw the intruder, and the lifted hammer falls at once upon the anvil! He rose as the door closed on his attendant--rose with a start, and pushed the hat from his gathered brows. He walked for some moments to and fro, and the air of the room, freezing as it was, oppressed him.

There are times when the arrow quivers within us--in which all s.p.a.ce seems too confined. Like the wounded hart, we could fly on for ever; there is a vague desire of escape--a yearning, almost insane, to get out from our own selves: the soul struggles to flee away, and take the wings of the morning.

Impatiently, at last, did Maltravers throw open his window; it communicated with a balcony, built out to command the wide view which, from a certain height, that part of the park affords. He stepped into the balcony and bared his breast to the keen air. The uncomfortable and icy heavens looked down upon the h.o.a.r-rime that gathered over the gra.s.s, and the ghostly boughs of the deathlike trees. All things in the world without brought the thought of the grave, and the pause of being, and the withering up of beauty, closer and closer to his soul. In the palpable and griping winter, death itself seemed to wind around him its skeleton and joyless arms. And as thus he stood, and, wearied with contending against, pa.s.sively yielded to, the bitter pa.s.sions that wrung and gnawed his heart,--he heard not a sound at the door--nor the footsteps on the stairs--nor knew he that a visitor was in his room--till he felt a hand upon his shoulder, and turning round, he beheld the white and livid countenance of Castruccio Cesarini.

"It is a dreary night and a solemn hour, Maltravers," said the Italian, with a distorted smile--"a fitting night and time for my interview with you."

"Away!" said Maltravers, in an impatient tone. "I am not at leisure for these mock heroics."

"Ay, but you shall hear me to the end. I have watched your arrival--I have counted the hours in which you remained with her--I have followed you home. If you have human pa.s.sions, humanity itself must be dried up within you, and the wild beast in his cavern is not more fearful to encounter. Thus, then, I seek and brave you. Be still. Has Florence revealed to you the name of him who belied you, and who betrayed herself to the death?"

"Ha!" said Maltravers, growing very pale, and fixing his eyes on Cesarini, "you are not the man--my suspicions lighted elsewhere."

"I am the man. Do thy worst."

Scarce were the words uttered, when, with a fierce cry, Maltravers threw himself on the Italian;--he tore him from his footing--he grasped him in his arms as a child--he literally whirled him around and on high; and in that maddening paroxysm, it was, perhaps, but the balance of a feather, in the conflicting elements of revenge and reason, which withheld Maltravers from hurling the criminal from the fearful height on which they stood. The temptation pa.s.sed--Cesarini leaned safe, unharmed, but half senseless with mingled rage and fear, against the wall.

He was alone--Maltravers had left him--had fled from himself--fled into the chamber--fled for refuge from human pa.s.sions to the wing of the All-Seeing and All-Present. "Father," he groaned, sinking on his knees, "support me, save me: without Thee I am lost."

Slowly Cesarini recovered himself, and re-entered the apartment. A string in his brain was already loosened, and, sullen and ferocious, he returned again to goad the lion that had spared him. Maltravers had already risen from his brief prayer. With locked and rigid countenance, with arms folded on his breast, he stood confronting the Italian, who advanced towards him with a menacing brow and arm, but halted involuntarily at the sight of that commanding aspect.

"Well, then," said Maltravers at last, with a tone preternaturally calm and low, "you then are the man. Speak on--what arts did you employ?"

"Your own letter. When, many months ago, I wrote to tell you of the hopes it was mine to conceive, and to ask your opinion of her I loved, how did you answer me? With doubts, with depreciation, with covert and polished scorn, of the very woman whom, with a deliberate treachery, you afterwards wrested from my worshipping and adoring love. That letter I garbled. I made the doubts you expressed of my happiness seem doubts of your own. I changed the dates--I made the letter itself appear written, not on your first acquaintance with her, but subsequent to your plighted and accepted vows. Your own handwriting convicted you of mean suspicions and of sordid motives. These were my arts."

"They were most n.o.ble. Do you abide by them--or repent?"

"For what I have done to _thee_ I have no repentance. Nay, I regard thee still as the aggressor. Thou hast robbed me of her who was all the world to me--and, be thine excuses what they may, I hate thee with a hate that cannot slumber--that abjures the abject name of remorse! I exult in the very agonies thou endurest. But for her--the stricken--the dying! O G.o.d, O G.o.d! The blow falls upon mine own head!"

"Dying!" said Maltravers, slowly and with a shudder. "No, no--not dying--or what art thou? Her murderer! And what must I be? Her avenger!"

Overpowered with his own pa.s.sions, Cesarini sank down and covered his face with his clasped hands. Maltravers stalked gloomily to and fro the apartment. There was silence for some moments.

At length Maltravers paused opposite Cesarini and thus addressed him:

"You have come hither not so much to confess the basest crime of which man can be guilty, as to gloat over my anguish and to brave me to revenge my wrongs. Go, man, go--for the present you are safe. While she lives, my life is not mine to hazard--if she recover, I can pity you and forgive. To me your offence, foul though it be, sinks below contempt itself. It is the consequences of that crime as they relate to--to--that n.o.ble and suffering woman, which can alone raise the despicable into the tragic and make your life a worthy and a necessary offering--not to revenge, but justice:--life for life--victim for victim! 'Tis the old law--'tis a righteous one."

"You shall not, with your accursed coldness, thus dispose of me as you will, and arrogate the option to smite or save! No," continued Cesarini, stamping his foot--"no; far from seeking forbearance at your hands--I dare and defy you! You think I have injured you--I, on the other hand, consider that the wrong has come from yourself. But for you, she might have loved me--have been mine. Let that pa.s.s. But for you, at least, it is certain that I should neither have sullied my soul with a vile sin, nor brought the brightest of human beings to the grave. If she dies, the murder may be mine, but you were the cause--the devil that tempted to the offence. I defy and spit upon you--I have no softness left in me--my veins are fire--my heart thirsts for blood. You--you--have still the privilege to see--to bless--to tend her:--and I--I, who loved her so--who could have kissed the earth she trod on--I--well, well, no matter--I hate you--I insult you--I call you villain and dastard--I throw myself on the laws of honour, and I demand that conflict you defer or deny!"

"Home, doter--home--fall on thy knees, and pray to Heaven for pardon--make up thy dread account--repine not at the days yet thine to wash the black spot from thy soul. For, while I speak, I foresee too well that her days are numbered, and with her thread of life is entwined thine own. Within twelve hours from her last moment, we shall meet again: but now I am as ice and stone,--thou canst not move me. Her closing life shall not be darkened by the aspect of blood--by the thought of the sacrifice it demands. Begone, or menials shall cast thee from my door: those lips are too base to breathe the same air as honest men. Begone, I say, begone!"

Though scarce a muscle moved in the lofty countenance of Maltravers--though no frown darkened the majestic brow--though no fire broke from the steadfast and scornful eye--there was a kingly authority in the aspect, in the extended arm, the stately crest, and a power in the swell of the stern voice, which awed and quelled the unhappy being whose own pa.s.sions exhausted and unmanned him. He strove to fling back scorn to scorn, but his lips trembled, and his voice died in hollow murmurs within his breast. Maltravers regarded him with a crushing and intense disdain. The Italian with shame and wrath wrestled against himself, but in vain: the cold eye that was fixed upon him was as a spell, which the fiend within him could not rebel against or resist.

Mechanically he moved to the door,--then turning round, he shook his clenched hand at Maltravers, and, with a wild, maniacal laugh, rushed from the apartment.

CHAPTER VI.

"On some fond breast the parting soul relies."--GRAY.

NOT a day pa.s.sed in which Maltravers was absent from the side of Florence. He came early, he went late. He subsided into his former character of an accepted suitor, without a word of explanation with Lord Saxingham. That task was left to Florence. She doubtless performed it well, for his lordship seemed satisfied though grave, and, almost for the first time in his life, sad. Maltravers never reverted to the cause of their unhappy dissension. Nor from that night did he once give way to whatever might be his more agonised and fierce emotions--he never affected to reproach himself--he never bewailed with a vain despair their approaching separation. Whatever it cost him, he stood collected and stoical in the intense power of his self control. He had but one object, one desire, one hope--to save the last hours of Florence Lascelles from every pang--to brighten and smooth the pa.s.sage across the Solemn Bridge. His forethought, his presence of mind, his care, his tenderness, never forsook him for an instant: they went beyond the attributes of men, they went into all the fine, the indescribable minutiae by which woman makes herself, "in pain and anguish," the "ministering angel." It was as if he had nerved and braced his whole nature to one duty--as if that duty were more felt than affection itself--as if he were resolved that Florence should not remember that _she had no mother_!

And, oh, then, how Florence loved him! how far more luxurious, in its grateful and clinging fondness, was that love, than the wild and jealous fire of their earlier connection! Her own character, as is often the case in lingering illness, became incalculably more gentle and softened down, as the shadows closed around it. She loved to make him read and talk to her--and her ancient poetry of thought now grew mellowed, as it were, into religion, which is indeed poetry with a stronger wing....