Tancred Part 19

'So many things! Oh! yes. You know he has been a great traveller; he has been everywhere; he has been at Jerusalem.'

'Fortunate man!' exclaimed Tancred, half to himself. 'Would I were there!'

'Would we were there, you mean,' said Lady Bertie, in a tone of exquisite melody, and looking at Tancred with her rich, charged eyes.

His heart trembled; he was about to give utterance to some wild words, but they died upon his lips. Two great convictions shared his being: the absolute necessity of at once commencing his pilgrimage, and the persuasion that life, without the constant presence of this sympathising companion, must be intolerable. What was to be done? In his long reveries, where he had brooded over so many thoughts, some only of which he had as yet expressed to mortal ear, Tancred had calculated, as he believed, every combination of obstacle which his projects might have to encounter; but one, it now seemed, he had entirely omitted, the influence of woman. Why was he here? Why was he not away? Why had he not departed? The reflection was intolerable; it seemed to him even disgraceful. The being who would be content with nothing less than communing with celestial powers in sacred climes, standing at a tavern window gazing on the moonlit mudbanks of the barbarous Thames, a river which neither angel nor prophet had ever visited! Before him, softened by the hour, was the Isle of Dogs! The Isle of Dogs! It should at least be Cyprus!

The carriages were announced; Lady Bertie and Bellair placed her arm in his.

CHAPTER XXII.

_The Crusader Receives a Shock_

TANCRED pa.s.sed a night of great disquiet. His mind was agitated, his purposes indefinite; his confidence in himself seemed to falter. Where was that strong will that had always sustained him? that faculty of instant decision which had given such vigour to his imaginary deeds?

A shadowy haze had suffused his heroic idol, duty, and he could not clearly distinguish either its form or its proportions. Did he wish to go to the Holy Land or not? What a question? Had it come to that? Was it possible that he could whisper such an enquiry, even to his midnight soul? He did wish to go to the Holy Land; his purpose was not in the least faltering; he most decidedly wished to go to the Holy Land, but he wished also to go thither in the company of Lady Bertie and Bellair.

Tancred could not bring himself to desert the only being perhaps in England, excepting himself, whose heart was at Jerusalem; and that being a woman! There seemed something about it unknightly, unkind and cowardly, almost base. Lady Bertie was a heroine worthy of ancient Christendom rather than of enlightened Europe. In the old days, truly the good old days, when the magnetic power of Western Asia on the Gothic races had been more puissant, her n.o.ble yet delicate spirit might have been found beneath the walls of Ascalon or by the purple waters of Tyre. When Tancred first met her, she was dreaming of Palestine amid her frequent sadness; he could not, utterly void of all self-conceit as he was, be insensible to the fact that his sympathy, founded on such a divine congeniality, had often chased the cloud from her brow and lightened the burthen of her drooping spirit. If she were sad before, what would she be now, deprived of the society of the only being to whom she could unfold the spiritual mysteries of her romantic soul? Was such a character to be left alone in this world of slang and scrip; of coa.r.s.e motives and coa.r.s.er words? Then, too, she was so intelligent and so gentle; the only person who understood him, and never grated for an instant on his high ideal. Her temper also was the sweetest in the world, eminent as her generous spirit. She spoke of others with so much kindness, and never indulged in that spirit of detraction or that love of personal gossip which Tancred had frankly told her he abhorred.

Somehow or other it seemed that their tastes agreed on everything.

The agitated Tancred rose from the bed where the hope of slumber was vain. The fire in his dressing-room was nearly extinguished; wrapped in his chamber robe, he threw himself into a chair, which he drew near the expiring embers, and sighed.

Unhappy youth! For you commences that great hallucination, which all must prove, but which fortunately can never be repeated, and which, in mockery, we call first love. The physical frame has its infantile disorders; the cough which it must not escape, the burning skin which it must encounter. The heart has also its childish and cradle malady, which may be fatal, but which, if once surmounted, enables the patient to meet with becoming power all the real convulsions and fevers of pa.s.sion that are the heirloom of our after-life. They, too, may bring destruction; but, in their case, the cause and the effect are more proportioned.

The heroine is real, the sympathy is wild but at least genuine, the catastrophe is that of a ship at sea which sinks with a rich cargo in a n.o.ble venture.

In our relations with the softer s.e.x it cannot be maintained that ignorance is bliss. On the contrary, experience is the best security for enduring love. Love at first sight is often a genial and genuine sentiment, but first love at first sight is ever eventually branded as spurious. Still more so is that first love which suffuses less rapidly the spirit of the ecstatic votary, when he finds that by degrees his feelings, as the phrase runs, have become engaged. Fondness is so new to him that he has repaid it with exaggerated idolatry, and become intoxicated by the novel gratification of his vanity. Little does he suspect that all this time his seventh heaven is but the c.r.a.pulence of self-love. In these cases, it is not merely that everything is exaggerated, but everything is fact.i.tious. Simultaneously, the imaginary attributes of the idol disappearing, and vanity being satiated, all ends in a crash of iconoclastic surfeit.

The embers became black, the night air had cooled the turbulent blood of Lord Montacute, he shivered, returned to his couch, and found a deep and invigorating repose.

The next morning, about two hours after noon, Tancred called on Lady Bertie. As he drove up to the door, there came forth from it the foreigner who was her companion in the city fray when Tancred first saw her and went to her rescue. He recognised Lord Montacute, and bowed with much ceremony, though with a certain grace and bearing. He was a man whose wrinkled visage strangely contrasted with his still gallant figure, scrupulously attired; a blue frock-coat with a ribboned b.u.t.ton-hole, a well-turned boot, hat a little too hidalgoish, but quite new. There was something respectable and substantial about him, notwithstanding his moustaches, and a carriage a degree too debonair for his years. He did not look like a carbonaro or a refugee. Who could he be?

Tancred had asked himself this question before. This was not the first time that he had encountered this distinguished foreigner since their first meeting. Tancred had seen him before this, quitting the door of Lord Bertie and Bellair; had stumbled over him before this, more than once, on the staircase; once, to his surprise, had met him as he entered the personal saloon of Lady Bertie. As it was evident, on that occasion, that his visit had been to the lady, it was thought necessary to say something, and he had been called the Baron, and described, though in a somewhat flurried and excited manner, as a particular friend, a person in whom they had the most entire confidence, who had been most kind to them at Paris, putting them in the way of buying the rarest china for nothing, and who was now over here on some private business of his own, of great importance. The Bertie and Bellairs felt immense interest in his exertions, and wished him every success; Lord Bertie particularly.

It was not at all surprising, considering the innumerable kindnesses they had experienced at his hands, was it?

'Nothing more natural,' replied Tancred; and he turned the conversation.

Lady Bertie was much depressed this morning, so much so that it was impossible for Tancred not to notice her unequal demeanour. Her hand trembled as he touched it; her face, flushed when he entered, became deadly pale.

'You are not well,' he said. 'I fear the open carriage last night has made you already repent our expedition.'

She shook her head. It was not the open carriage, which was delightful, nor the expedition, which was enchanting, that had affected her. Would that life consisted only of such incidents, of barouches and whitebait banquets! Alas! no, it was not these. But she was nervous, her slumbers had been disquieted, she had encountered alarming dreams; she had a profound conviction that something terrible was impending over her.

And Tancred took her hand, to prevent, if possible, what appeared to be inevitable hysterics. But Lady Bertie and Bellair was a strong-minded woman, and she commanded herself.

'I can bear anything,' said Tancred, in a trembling voice, 'but to see you unhappy.' And he drew his chair nearer to hers.

Her face was hid, her beautiful face in her beautiful hand. There was silence and then a sigh.

'Dear lady,' said Lord Montacute.

'What is it?' murmured Lady Bertie and Bellair.

'Why do you sigh?'

'Because I am miserable.'

'No, no, no, don't use such words,' said the distracted Tancred. 'You must not be miserable; you shall not be.'

'Can I help it? Are we not about to part?'

'We need not part,' he said, in a low voice.

'Then you will remain?' she said, looking up, and her dark brown eyes were fixed with all their fascination on the tortured Tancred.

'Till we all go,' he said, in a soothing voice.

'That can never be,' said Lady Bertie; 'Augustus will never hear of it; he never could be absent more than six weeks from London, he misses his clubs so. If Jerusalem were only a place one could get at, something might be done; if there were a railroad to it for example.'

'A railroad!' exclaimed Tancred, with a look of horror. 'A railroad to Jerusalem!'

'No, I suppose there never can be one,' continued Lady Bertie, in a musing tone. 'There is no traffic. And I am the victim,' she added, in a thrilling voice; I am left here among people who do not comprehend me, and among circ.u.mstances with which I can have no sympathy. But go, Lord Montacute, go, and be happy, alone. I ought to have been prepared for all this; you have not deceived me. You told me from the first you were a pilgrim, but I indulged in a dream. I believe that I should not only visit Palestine, but even visit it with you.' And she leant back in her chair and covered her face with her hands.

Tancred rose from his seat, and paced the chamber. His heart seemed to burst.

'What is all this?' he thought. 'How came all this to occur? How has arisen this singular combination of unforeseen causes and undreamed-of circ.u.mstances, which baffles all my plans and resolutions, and seems, as it were, without my sanction and my agency, to be taking possession of my destiny and life? I am bewildered, confounded, incapable of thought or deed.'

His tumultuous reverie was broken by the sobs of Lady Bertie.

'By heaven, I cannot endure this!' said Tancred, advancing. 'Death seems to me preferable to her un-happiness. Dearest of women!'

'Do not call me that,' she murmured. 'I can bear anything from your lips but words of fondness. And pardon all this; I am not myself to-day.

I had thought that I had steeled myself to all, to our inevitable separation; but I have mistaken myself, at least miscalculated my strength. It is weak; it is very weak and very foolish, but you must pardon it. I am too much interested in your career to wish you to delay your departure a moment for my sake. I can bear our separation, at least I think I can. I shall quit the world, for ever. I should have done so had we not met. I was on the point of doing so when we did meet, when, when my dream was at length realised. Go, go; do not stay. Bless you, and write to me, if I be alive to receive your letters.'

'I cannot leave her,' thought the harrowed Tancred. 'It never shall be said of me that I could blight a woman's life, or break her heart.' But, just as he was advancing, the door opened, and a servant brought in a note, and, without looking at Tancred, who had turned to the window, disappeared. The desolation and despair which had been impressed on the countenance of Lady Bertie and Bellair vanished in an instant, as she recognised the handwriting of her correspondent. They were succeeded by an expression of singular excitement. She tore open the note; a stupor seemed to spread over her features, and, giving a faint shriek, she fell into a swoon.

Tancred rushed to her side; she was quite insensible, and pale as alabaster. The note, which was only two lines, was open and extended in her hands. It was from no idle curiosity, but it was impossible for Tancred not to read it. He had one of those eagle visions that nothing could escape, and, himself extremely alarmed, it was the first object at which he unconsciously glanced in his agitation to discover the cause and the remedy for this crisis. The note ran thus:

_'3 o'clock.' The Narrow Gauge has won. We are utterly done; and Snicks tells me you bought five hundred more yesterday, at ten. Is it possible?_

'_f._'

'Is it possible?' echoed Tancred, as, entrusting Lady Bertie to her maid, he rapidly descended the staircase of her mansion. He almost ran to Davies Street, where he jumped into a cab, not permitting the driver to descend to let him in.

'Where to?' asked the driver.