The Gipsy Part 2

"He started," replied the gipsy, "and then muttered something about a villain and betraying him; but the moment after, as you must have seen him to do long ago, he gathered himself up, and looking as proud and stern as if the lives of a whole world were at his disposal, he asked, what was Sir William Ryder's motive in bidding me return. 'Some motive of course, he has,' he added, looking at me bitterly. 'Does he intend to play villain, or fool, or both,--for whatever folly his knavery may tempt him to commit, he will only injure himself; for at this time of day it is somewhat too late to try to injure _me_;' and as he spoke,"

continued the gipsy, "he nodded his head gravely but meaningly, as if he would have said, 'You know that I speak truth.'"

The lip of the stranger curled as his companion related this part of a conversation in which he seemed to take no slight interest; but as we do not choose to know any thing of what was pa.s.sing in his bosom, we must leave that somewhat bitter smile to interpret itself.

"I told him," continued the gipsy, "as you directed me, that his friend stood in some need of five thousand pounds, and trusting to his lordship's kindness and generosity, had directed me to come back and apply to him for that sum. So when he heard that, his face grew very dark; and after thinking for a minute of two, he looked up two of the walks, for he stood in the crossing, to see if he could see any of the park-keepers, to give me into their hands--I know that was what he wanted. However there was no one there; and he answered, looking at me as if he would have withered me into dust, 'Tell Sir William Ryder, wherever he is, that he shall ring no more from me. I have sent him his thousand a year regularly, and if any of the packets missed him, he should have let me know; but I will be no sponge to be squeezed by any man's pleasure; nor do I care,' he went on, 'who conspires to bring any false accusation against me. I am prepared to meet every charge boldly, and to prove my innocence before the whole world, if any one dare to accuse me.' He spoke very firmly," added the gipsy; "and as long as he continued speaking I kept my eyes upon the ground, though I felt that his were bent upon me: but the moment he had done, I raised mine and looked full upon his face, and his lip quivered and his eye fell in a moment."

"Did he hold his resolution of refusing?" demanded the other, over whose countenance, as he listened, had been pa.s.sing emotions as various as those which the gipsy had depicted; "did he hold his resolution to the end?"

"Firmly!" replied Pharold, "though he softened his tone a great deal towards me. He said he was only angry with Sir William Ryder, not with me, and asked where I had been during so many years; and when I told him in Ireland, he replied, that it was a poor country: I could not have made much money there; and then he talked of other days, when the old lord took me to the hall because I was a handsome boy, and kept me for two years and more, and would have had me educated; and he vowed I did mighty wrong to run away and join my own people again; and he took out his purse and gave me all that it contained, and was sorry that it was no more; but if I would tell him, he said, where we were lying, he would send me more, for old acquaintance sake; and all the while he talked to me he looked up the walks to see if he could see the park-keepers, to have me taken up, and to accuse me of robbing him, or of some such thing. I could see it all in his eye; and so I told him that we were lying five miles to the east; and took leave of him civily, and came away, laughing that he should think I was fool enough to fancy he and I could ever do anything but hate each other to our dying day."

His companion mused for several minutes; and even when he did speak, he took no notice either of the gipsy's suspicions or of the news he gave him, but rather,--as one sometimes does when one wishes any thing just heard to mature itself in the mind, ere further comment be made upon it,--he linked on what he next said, to that part of Pharold's speech which might have seemed the least interesting, namely, the gipsy's own history; and yet, although he certainly did this, in order to avoid, for the time, the most important parts of his narrative, he did not do it with the commonplace tone of one who speaks of feelings with which he has no sympathy: on the contrary, he spoke with warmth, and kindness, and enthusiasm; and expressed profound regret that the gipsy had, in his boyhood, thrown away advantages so seldom held out to one of his tribe.

"Why? why?" cried the gipsy, "why should you grieve? I did but what you have done yourself. I quitted a life of sloth, effeminacy, and bondage, for one of ease, freedom, and activity. I left false forms, unnatural restraints, enfeebling habits--ay! and sickness too, for the customs of my fathers, for man's native mode of life, for a continual existence in the bosom of beautiful nature, and for blessed health. We know no sickness but that which carries us to our grave; we feel no vapours; we know no nerves. Go, ask the mult.i.tude of doctors,--a curse which man's own luxurious habits have brought upon him,--go, ask your doctor's whether a gipsy be not to be envied, for his exemption from the plagues that punish other men's effeminate habits."

"True, Pharold! true!" replied his companion; "but still, even the short time that you lived in other scenes must have given your mind a taste for very different enjoyments from those that you can now find.

You must have seen the beauty of law and order; you must have learned to delight in mental pleasures; you must long for the society of those of equal intellect and knowledge with yourself."

"And do I not find them?" cried the gipsy, warming in defence of his race; "to be sure I do. Think not that we have none among us as learned and as thoughtful as yourselves, though in another way. But you cannot understand us. You think that it is in our habits alone that we are different; but, remember, that when you speak to a true gipsy, who follows exactly the path of his fathers, you speak to one different in race, and creed, and mind, and feeling, and law, and philosophy, from you and yours. You think us all ignorant, and either bound as drudges to some low rejected trade, or plundering others, because we do not comprehend the excellence of laws. But let me tell you again, that there are men among us deeply read in sciences which you know not; speaking well a language, for a hundred words of which your schools have laboured long years in vain. Have we not laws, too, of our own? laws better observed than your boasted codes? But you choose to doubt that we have them, because we put you beyond our code, as you put us beyond yours. When was ever justice shown to a gipsy?

and therefore we look upon you as things to pillage. You speak, too, of the pleasures of the mind. Do you think my mind finds no exercise in scenes like these? I walk hand in hand with the seasons through the world. Winter, your enemy, is my friend and companion. Gladly do I see him come, with his white mantle, through the bare woods and over the brown hills. I watch the budding forth of spring, too, and her light airs and changing skies, as I would the sports of a beloved child. I hail the majestic summer, as if the G.o.d of my own land had come to visit our race, even here; and in the yellow autumn, too, with the rich fruit and the fading leaf, I have a comrade full of calmer thoughts. The sunrise, and the sunset, and the midday, to me, are all eloquence. The storm, the stream, the clouds, the wind, for me have each a voice. I talk with the bright stars as they wander through the deep sky, and I listen to the sun and moon, as they sing along their lonely pilgrimage. Is not this enough? What need I more than nature?"

Perhaps his companion, whose mind was in no degree wanting in acuteness, might imagine that in all the very enjoyments which the gipsy enumerated, as well as in the tone he used, were to be traced some remains of a better education than that of his race in general; and might believe, that had that education been continued, every pleasure that he felt would have been doubled by refinement. But all this came upon his mind as impression rather than as thought; and the reader will please to observe, that there is an immense difference between the two. The truth was, that ever since the conversation had turned to the gipsy himself, his companion had been doing what is oftener done than the world imagines; that is to say, talking without thinking, and listening without attending. In short, he was thinking of other things; and yet, as we have said, he spoke with kindness, and zeal, and real feeling; but the fact is, that the language he was talking was memory. Years before, he had come to the same conclusions, and held the same arguments in his own mind, regarding the very person in whose company he was now once more; so that--having, in all the news he had heard, greater calls upon present thought than he could well satisfy,--as soon as the gipsy began to speak of gipsy-life, he turned that topic over to memory, well knowing that she had a plentiful stock of ideas prepared to supply any demand upon such a subject; while intellect went on, quietly thinking of himself and of the present. This plan, when skilfully executed, has a collateral advantage, which, by-the-way, is often turned into a princ.i.p.al one; namely, that while you let memory go on with the conversation--unless she trips, or something of that kind--your companion does not perceive that you are thinking at all; and thus the stranger, apparently listened to, and took part in the gipsy's conversation about himself, while his inner soul was busy, most busy, with the other tidings which he had received. By the time that the enumeration of wild pleasures, afforded by a wandering life was over, he had settled his plans in his own mind; and, breaking off the subject there, demanded abruptly,--

"When, Pharold--tell me, when did you see him?"

He mentioned no name; and the gipsy, at once dropping the high and enthusiastic tone in which he had been speaking, answered, as to a common question, "It was but to-day--not four hours ago, or you had not found me here."

"And why not?" demanded the other. "Whither would you go?"

"Far away," answered the gipsy, "far away! I love not his neighbourhood; nor is it safe for me and mine. He thinks evil against us, and he will not be long ere he tries to bring his thoughts to pa.s.s."

"But he cannot injure you," replied the other; "in all the things wherein you and he have borne a part, he has more cause to fear you than you have to fear him."

"True! true!" said the gipsy; "and yet I love not his neighbourhood. I may have done things in this land in my youth, when pa.s.sion and revenge were strong, and wisdom and forbearance weak, that I should little like to have investigated in my middle age. Not that I fear for myself; for, from the dark leap that all men must take, I have never shrunk through life. But I fear the sorrow of those that would weep for me, and the unjust mingling of the innocent with the guilty, for which your laws are infamous."

His companion mused for a moment; and then, laying his hand upon the arm of the gipsy, he replied, in a tone where kindness mingled with authority: "Mark me, Pharold!" said he; "you know that I am not one either to counsel you amiss, or to fall from you at a moment of need: base, indeed, should I be, were I to do so, after all you have done for me. But my resolutions are not yet fixed--my mind is not yet made up; and I must hear more, and examine deeply, ere I execute my half-formed purpose. Still you have no cause to fear; call upon me whenever you need me; and, in the meantime, if you please, you can remove from the spot where you now are, but not so far that I cannot find you, for you must help me to the end of all this."

"To the common, at the back of Mrs. Falkland's woods?" asked the gipsy: "they will hardly seek us there."

"As good a spot as any," replied his companion; "and in the case of necessity, Pharold, here, I have written down where you may always find me in this immediate neighbourhood; remembering, in the meantime, all that you have promised."

"I have promised--I have promised!" replied the gipsy; "and you never knew me break my word. But what is this you give me with the paper? I want not gold--and from you, William."

"But your people may," replied the other; "take it, take it, Pharold; it is never useless in such a life as yours."

"I will take it," answered the gipsy, "because it may give me more control over my people; for although among our nation there are men whose minds you little dream of, yet these I have here are not, perhaps, of the best,--not that they are evil either; but wild, and headstrong, and rash--as I was myself, when I was young."

They had already turned in their walk, and were now re-approaching the fire, round which the gipsies were gathered. Their conversation had not been without its share of interest to either, and each had much matter for reflection: so that--as thought is not that which makes a man speak, but that which keeps him silent--they advanced without another word to the spot where the stranger's horse stood. It was a fine powerful animal, of great bone and blood; but it was standing like a lamb in the hands of a little boy, while the beautiful girl, whom we have mentioned as accosting the other travellers, now stood stroking his proud neck, and examining the accoutrements with a care that some people might have thought suspicious. As Pharold and his companion returned, however, she sprung away to the rest of her tribe with a step as light as the moonshine on the sea.

"She is very beautiful," said the stranger, whose eye had rested on her for a moment; "who is she, Pharold?"

"She is my wife!" replied the gipsy, abruptly.

His companion shook his head with a sigh, and putting his foot in the stirrup, mounted his horse, and rode away.

CHAPTER III.

While such events as have just been described were pa.s.sing in the wood, the two travellers whom we first brought before the reader, and to whom we must now return, rode on; but begging leave to pa.s.s over all their farther journey, as it did not consist of more than half a mile, we may bring them safe to the gate of the very house, whose lights and shadows they had seen from the slope above the village.

By this time it was as dark as could well be desired. It was not exactly Egyptian darkness, for there was nothing in it that could be _felt_, but the sun was gone entirely; and the last fringe of his golden robe had swept the sky some time. The moon was not yet up, so that the stars had the sky all to themselves; but though they were shining as brightly as they did many a thousand years ago, when they were first sent glittering into the depths of s.p.a.ce, they did very little to show the travellers their way.

Edward de Vaux, indeed, had taken it into his head to go to the back entrance of his aunt's house. But the truth is, he had worked himself up, as he came along, into a belief that there might be some fuss made upon his return, and had conjured up before his imagination everything that might or could possibly occur, in which there was the least smack of ridicule; although all the time he knew perfectly well that his companion was of too generous and feeling a disposition even to dream that anything was ridiculous which sprung from the heart. He well knew, also, that those he was about to meet were by education, and habit, and natural character, the last persons in the world to do or say anything that was not graceful and _bienseant_. But still, as his imagination was not the most tractable imagination in the world, but roved hither and thither, whether he liked it or not, on all occasions, he could not get the better of her in the present instance; and therefore, in order that everything in the way of reception might pa.s.s as quietly and as quickly as possible, he rode up to the gate of the back court, and after feeling about for the bell for some time, he rang for admittance.

After a little delay, a coachman with a powdered wig, and three rows of curls round his ears, opened the gates with a lantern in his hand, and demanded what the strangers wanted; but without other reply, De Vaux rode into the yard with his companion, and springing to the ground, exposed his well-known face to the glare of the lantern and the wondering eyes of old Joseph, the immemorial coachman, who, bursting forth into a loud exclamation, called vehemently to the groom, and the helper, and the stable-boy. "The oaken doors returned a brazen sound!" and not only those that the old curly-wigged official of the hammercloth called to his aid appeared with ready prompt.i.tude, but eke a footman emerged from the pa.s.sage of the servants'-hall, and two or three pippin-faced housemaids were seen "peeping from forth the alleys green" beyond.

Thus, as usual, De Vaux's precaution in regard to not making a bustle had, in fact, the very contrary effect in the house itself. But this was not all: his method of proceeding had the very contrary effect with his companion, also, to that which he had purposed. Colonel Manners certainly did think, in the first instance, that such an entrance was a somewhat strange one for the house he saw before him; and when he found that it was in truth the stable-yard into which he had been taken, he thought the conduct of his friend still stranger.

But by this time Charles Manners had known Edward de Vaux too long not to have some slight insight into his character and into the weaknesses thereof; and as they had ridden along together upon that day's journey, various little traits, which might have escaped any but a very keen and a very friendly eye, had given him the key of his friend's feelings on his return--a key which he did not fail to apply on the present occasion. The result was, that he soon comprehended the general motives of De Vaux, though perhaps not all the little ins and outs of the business--ins and outs, by-the-way, which depended as much upon the plan and architecture of the house, and upon the fact of the first landing of the grand staircase leading at once into the little ante-room of the drawing-room, so that the voice and step of any one ascending could be recognised instantly, as upon anything else in the world.

A slight smile curled Colonel Manners's lip as he perceived what had been pa.s.sing in his friend's mind; but he would not have had that smile seen for any recompense that could have been offered to him, unless it had been that of curing his friend of a folly. But he knew very well that De Vaux was not a man to be laughed out of anything on earth; and that, with all his sensibility to ridicule, it was only so long as the sneer was silent and suppressed that he cared anything about it. The moment that the laugh was open, his pride took arms to defend the position which he occupied, and every one knows that pride would always rather blow up the place than capitulate.

Colonel Manners did, indeed, wish that his friend could be taught, with the same sort of bold determination which he displayed in opposing the loud laugh, to despise the silent sneer, which is as often excited in the minds of the worldlings by traits of a good and n.o.ble nature as by folly or by awkwardness: but he knew that the only lessons he would receive upon the subject would be gentle ones, spoken by the voice of friendship, without a touch of sarcasm.

"It is a pity, a great pity," thought he, "that De Vaux, who affects to, and perhaps really does, despise the opinion of the general fool, should thus, as it were, make himself a slave to the laugh of his own fancy. I hope and trust that his fair future bride may have influence enough to school him from these weaknesses."

Such was all his comment; and by the time it was made their horses were in safe hands, and a footman, as antique as the coachman, was leading the way up the back stairs towards the drawing-room.

De Vaux was somewhat uneasy at the back stairs, and at a distant prospect of the kitchen, and the servants' hall, and the housekeeper's room; but Manners, though he saw it all, appeared to see nothing, rubbed his boot with his riding-whip, and talked of North America with all the zeal and volubility of a Mohawk. His companion was relieved; and following the fat legs and white stockings of the old footman up the narrow staircase, they were soon in a small lobby which led into the drawing-room. Soft Turkey carpets covered the floor of the lobby; against each of the piers stood a small antique table of tortoise-sh.e.l.l and bra.s.s; and in the deep recesses of the windows were placed those immense and beautiful china jars which formed the glory of our great-grandmothers. These again were filled with a composition of all the sweet-scented leaves gathered from the garden during the past year; and which, mingled with orris-root and many a fragrant spice, diffused through the whole air a rich perfume of the eighteenth century.

But there was music upon the air of this bower as well as perfume. It was the music, however, of a sweet, low-toned woman's voice, speaking some sentences of which nothing could be distinguished but the melody.

Nevertheless, it made the fitful colour come up for a moment in the cheek of Edward de Vaux; and whether his heart beat more quickly, or whether it maintained its even pulse, is a problem which we shall leave others to solve; for, the next moment, the door was thrown open, and the visiters all silently and unannounced entered the room.

It was a large handsome chamber, fitted up as unlike a modern drawing-room as possible. There was nothing in it of the last fashion, even of that day; but all was comfortable, and all bespoke both taste and affluence. On the walls were a few cabinet pictures, which at first appeared dark and dingy, but which, when any one looked farther, turned out gems; and on the rich and ma.s.sive marble mantel-piece--which was itself nearly equal in size, and quite equal in value, to a house in a modern square--were placed paG.o.das, and feather fans, and screens, and many a little curiosity from different parts of the world--bracelets that might have clasped the arm of Cleopatra, and idols that had been acquainted with Captain Cook. The room, like every clever room, had a great number of tables of all sorts and sizes; and at two of these tables, not with hospitable cares intent, but very busy with that sort of idleness which ladies call work, sat two fair dames, who, in point of age, might divide between them the apportioned years of man. The division of those seventy years, however, was very unequal, as the one nearest the door had monopolized at least forty-six of them to herself, and had left her daughter--for such was the other lady--not much more than twenty-three. They were both very handsome women nevertheless; the mother feeling her years as light as a young king's crown, and the daughter, in addition to a very beautiful person, and a face where all that is fine was softened by all that is pleasing, having the advantage of youth and all youth's graces. There was one peculiarity in her countenance, which, as it had something to do with her mind, may as well be noticed. It was one of those faces which love not clouds--which smile where others frown; and as she sat with her eyes bent upon a provoking knot in her work, which for the last ten minutes had defied all her efforts to disentangle it, she was still half-laughing at the perversity of the silk, which seemed to take a pleasure in baffling her.

There was a third person in the drawing-room, younger than either, and very different from both. As she lay upon a sofa at the other side of the room, with a book in her hand, and her eyes bent upon the pages, the light of the lamp falling at the same time from above upon her clear fair forehead, on her beautiful eyelids with their long dark eyelashes, and on the marble white chiselling of her nose and upper lip, she did not appear to be more than eighteen; but her real age, which we are bound to give, was twenty years, eleven months, and a few days, the exact number of which is forgotten. Her form was light and beautiful, and though those who did not love her might contend that she was certainly not equal to the Medicean Venus, yet she was a great deal more graceful than many another G.o.ddess, and as fair a specimen of the fairest of earth's creatures as the eye of man has ever seen since Eve's ill-fated experiment in Eden.

Her hair was of that glossy golden brown, which is so beautiful and so seldom seen; and as the whole party had given up the expectation of their visiters for that night, she had turned back the shining curls which would have fallen into her eyes while reading; so that, with a wavy line on either side, they left her fair forehead bare, and formed a bunch of ringlets behind each ear, that might have defied the chisel of a Chantry.

As the door which admitted De Vaux and his companion was that which led to the back staircase, the party in the drawing-room concluded, naturally enough, that it was opened by one of the domestics on some of the many motives or pretexts upon which a servant can visit the drawing-room. No one took any notice, no one looked up; and the fair girl upon the sofa went on commenting upon the book in her hand, without knowing that any one was listening to her gentle criticism.

Thus each of the two visiters had time to make their own observations, if they chose it. A bright pleased smile lighted up the rough features of Colonel Manners, as he was thus at once admitted, without the help of an Asmodeous into the very heart of an English domestic circle, to each member of which he was a stranger. To him it was a sight full of pleasure and interest; it was a sight that he had seldom seen even when in England, and which he had not seen at all for several years while serving abroad: but it was one which fancy had often renewed for him in his solitary wanderings, which had been painted to his eye in the still night, and in the tented field on distant sh.o.r.es, which had been to him a dream, whereunto imagination could cling without the apprehension of disappointment; for he had ever thought of it as a thing whereof he might be the spectator, but never a sharer in its dearer ties.

As for Edward de Vaux, he _did not_ choose to make any observations on the scene at all, for more fastidious in antic.i.p.ation than in reality, the moment he was in the midst of his domestic circle a host of bright warm feelings rose up at once in his heart, and trampled every cold calculation of Chesterfieldism beneath their feet. Pa.s.sing the old servant, who was himself amused to see the unconsciousness of the party in the drawing-room, De Vaux at once advanced towards the fair girl on the sofa. But there was a sound in his step different from that of any of the servants, which only let him pa.s.s half across the room ere her eyes were raised from the book and fell upon him. The sight instantly called into them a gleam as bright as sunshine after a storm, and the warm, eloquent blood rose into her cheek and brow, while with a voice of unquestionable icy, she exclaimed, "Edward! My dear aunt, here is Edward!"

The next moment, however, the light of her glance faded away, the blood ebbed back from her cheek, and from that moment it was scarcely perceivable that Edward de Vaux was anything more to her than an intimate friend. It was all the work of an instant, and Colonel Manners had only time to think, "This is all very odd!" ere the other two ladies rose to welcome his companion and himself; while the one who had spoken, gracefully but composedly drew her small foot from the sofa to the ground, and advanced to meet her lover; contriving to execute what is sometimes a difficult man[oe]uvre, without showing half an inch of her ankle, though it might very well have borne the display.

The elder lady now of course took the lead, and expressed her joy at the return of her nephew, in a manner which showed how compatible real dignity and grace are with every zealous and kindly feeling. "And this," she said the next moment, "is of course Colonel Manners; though you have not introduced him to me, Edward; but Colonel Manners indeed requires no introduction here; for allow me to say, my dear sir, that even were it not that you had saved the life of my nephew, and rendered him so many inestimable services, the son of your mother, who was my dear and early friend, would always be the most welcome of guests at my fire-side."