Ernest Maltravers Part 7

O how happy they were now--that young pair! How the days flew like dreams! Time went on, winter pa.s.sed away, and the early spring, with its flowers and sunshine, was like a mirror to their own youth. Alice never accompanied Maltravers in his walks abroad, partly because she feared to meet her father, and partly because Maltravers himself was fastidiously averse to all publicity. But then they had all that little world of three acres--lawn and fountain, shrubbery and terrace, to themselves, and Alice never asked if there was any other world without. She was now quite a scholar, as Mr. Simc.o.x himself averred. She could read aloud and fluently to Maltravers, and copied out his poetry in a small, fluctuating hand, and he had 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.

CHAPTER VIII.

"Some clouds sweep on as vultures for their prey.

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 the time of year, in the northern districts of our isle, and the bright drops of a recent shower sparkled upon the buds of the lilac and laburnum that cl.u.s.tered round the cottage of Maltravers. The little fountain that played in the centre of a circular basin, on whose clear surface the broad-leaved water-lily cast its fairy shadow, added to the fresh green of the lawn;

"And softe as velvet the yonge gra.s.s,"

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 which 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 window behind them admitted the view of that happy room--with its litter of books and musical instruments--eloquent of the POETRY of HOME.

Maltravers was silent, for his flexile and excitable fancy was conjuring up a thousand shapes along the 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 happiness. Alice was not absolutely in his thoughts, 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, _was_ thinking, and thinking only of Maltravers.... His image was "the broken mirror" multiplied in a thousand faithful fragments over everything fair and soft in that lovely microcosm before her. But they were both alike in one thing--they were not with the Future, 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 scheming, and desiring, and wishing this plot ripened, and that hope fulfilled, while every wave of the forgotten Time brings it nearer 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 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 forehead, 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. Simc.o.x?"

"Oh, but you could never be like that! You would always look young--your heart would be always in your face. That clear smile--ah, you would look beautiful to the last!"

"But Simc.o.x, 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 I felt. I wish it could make poetry like you, or that words were music--I would never speak to you in anything else. I was so delighted to learn music, because when I played I seemed to be talking to you. I am sure 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 of, and whose life was music, thought it was a G.o.d."

"Ah, but you say the Greeks made Love a G.o.d. Were they wicked for it?"

"Our own G.o.d above is Love," said Ernest, seriously, "as our own poets have said and sung. But it is a love of another nature--divine, 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 Sat.u.r.day evening. Now every Sat.u.r.day, Maltravers received from the neighbouring town the provincial newspaper--it was his only medium of communication with the great world. 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 on the shire in which Ernest sojourned, and the paper included the news of that familiar district in its comprehensive columns. It therefore satisfied Ernest's conscience and soothed his filial anxieties to read from time to time that "Mr. Maltravers was entertaining a distinguished party of friends at his n.o.ble mansion of Lisle Court;" or that "Mr. Maltravers's foxhounds 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 gaol."... And as now Maltravers saw the expected paper laid beside the hissing urn, he seized it eagerly, tore the envelope, and hastened to the well-known corner appropriated to the paternal district. The very first words that struck his eye were these:

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 affection.

Dr. ------ was immediately sent for, who p.r.o.nounced it to be gout in the stomach. The first medical a.s.sistance from London has been summoned.

"Postscript.--We have just learned, in answer 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 despatched in search of Mr. Ernest Maltravers, 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."

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. "Oh, Alice!" he cried, bitterly, and almost pushing her away, "if you could but guess my remorse!" 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 endeavouring, in vain, to learn what had so sensibly affected 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 G.o.d, forgive me! Compose yourself, Alice. 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 starlit lawn, and the playful fountain, and the bench where they had sat in such heartfelt and serene delight. 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!

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 iv. Sc. 4.

IT was late at night when the chaise that bore Maltravers stopped at the gates of a park lodge. It seemed an age before the peasant 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?"