The stars were shining quietly over the old gray castle (for castle it really was), as I now came within view of it. To the left, and in the rear of the house, the trees of the park, grouped by distance, seemed blent into one thick mass of wood; to the right, as I now (descending the cliff by a gradual path) entered on the level sands, and at about the distance of a league from the main shore, a small islet, notorious as the resort and shelter of contraband adventurers, scarcely relieved the wide and glassy azure of the waves. The tide was out; and passing through one of the arches worn in the bay, I came somewhat suddenly by the cavern. Seated there on a crag of stone I found Aubrey.
My acquaintance with Isora and her father had so immediately succeeded the friendly meeting with Aubrey which I last recorded, and had so utterly engrossed my time and thoughts, that I had not taken of that interview all the brotherly advantage which I might have done. My heart now smote me for my involuntary negligence. I dismounted, and fastening my horse to one of a long line of posts that ran into the sea, approached Aubrey and accosted him.
"Alone, Aubrey? and at an hour when my uncle always makes the old walls ring with revel? Hark! can you not hear the music even now? It comes from the ball-room, I think, does it not?"
"Yes," said Aubrey, briefly, and looking down upon a devotional book, which (as was his wont) he had made his companion.
"And we are the only truants!—Well, Gerald will supply our places with a lighter step, and, perhaps, a merrier heart."
Aubrey sighed. I bent over him affectionately (I loved that boy with something of a father's as well as a brother's love), and as I did bend over him, I saw that his eyelids were red with weeping.
"My brother—my own dear brother," said I, "what grieves you?—are we not friends, and more than friends?—what can grieve you that grieves not me?"
Suddenly raising his head, Aubrey gazed at me with a long, searching intentness of eye; his lips moved, but he did not answer.
"Speak to me, Aubrey," said I, passing my arm over his shoulder; "has any one, anything, hurt you? See, now, if I cannot remedy the evil."
"Morton," said Aubrey, speaking very slowly, "do you believe that Heaven pre-orders as well as foresees our destiny?"
"It is the schoolman's question," said I, smiling; "but I know how these idle subtleties vex the mind; and you, my brother, are ever too occupied with considerations of the future. If Heaven does pre-order our destiny, we know that Heaven is merciful, and we should be fearless, as we arm ourselves in that knowledge."
"Morton Devereux," said Aubrey, again repeating my name, and with an evident inward effort that left his lip colourless, and yet lit his dark dilating eye with a strange and unwonted fire,—"Morton Devereux, I feel that I am predestined to the power of the Evil One!"
I drew back, inexpressibly shocked. "Good Heavens!" I exclaimed, "what can induce you to cherish so terrible a phantasy? what can induce you to wrong so fearfully the goodness and mercy of our Creator?"
Aubrey shrank from my arm, which had still been round him, and covered his face with his hands. I took up the book he had been reading; it was a Latin treatise on predestination, and seemed fraught with the most gloomy and bewildering subtleties. I sat down beside him, and pointed out the various incoherencies and contradictions of the work, and the doctrine it espoused: so long and so earnestly did I speak that at length Aubrey looked up, seemingly cheered and relieved.
"I wish," said he, timidly, "I wish that you loved me, and that you loved /me only/: but you love pleasure, and power, and show, and wit, and revelry; and you know not what it is to feel for me as I feel at times for you,—nay, perhaps you really dislike or despise me."
Aubrey's voice grew bitter in its tone as he concluded these words, and I was instantly impressed with the belief that some one had insinuated distrust of my affection for him.
"Why should you think thus?" I said; "has any cause occurred of late to make you deem my affection for you weaker than it was? Has any one hinted a surmise that I do not repay your brotherly regard?"
Aubrey did not answer.
"Has Gerald," I continued, "jealous of our mutual attachment, uttered aught tending to diminish it? Yes, I see that he has."
Aubrey remained motionless, sullenly gazing downward and still silent.
"Speak," said I, "in justice to both of us,—speak! You know, Aubrey, how I /have/ loved and love you: put your arms round me, and say that thing on earth which you wish me to do, and it shall be done!"
Aubrey looked up; he met my eyes, and he threw himself upon my neck, and burst into a violent paroxysm of tears.
I was greatly affected. "I see my fault," said I, soothing him; "you are angry, and with justice, that I have neglected you of late; and, perhaps, while I ask your confidence, you suspect that there is some subject on which I should have granted you mine. You are right, and, at a fitter moment, I will. Now let us return homeward: our uncle is never merry when we are absent; and when my mother misses your dark locks and fair cheek, I fancy that she sees little beauty in the ball. And yet, Aubrey," I added, as he now rose from my embrace and dried his tears, "I will own to you that I love this scene better than any, however gay, within;" and I turned to the sea, starlit as it was, and murmuring with a silver voice, and I became suddenly silent.
There was a long pause. I believe we both felt the influence of the scene around us, softening and tranquillizing our hearts; for, at length, Aubrey put his hand in mine, and said, "You were always more generous and kind than I, Morton, though there are times when you seem different from what you are; and I know you have already forgiven me."
I drew him affectionately towards me, and we went home. But although I meant from that night to devote myself more to Aubrey than I had done of late, my hourly increasing love for Isora interfered greatly with my resolution. In order, however, to excuse any future neglect, I, the very next morning, bestowed upon him my confidence. Aubrey did not much encourage my passion: he represented to me Isora's situation, my own youth, my own worldly ambition; and, more than all (reminding me of my uncle's aversion even to the most prosperous and well-suited marriage), he insisted upon the certainty that Sir William would never yield consent to the lawful consummation of so unequal a love. I was not too well pleased with this reception of my tale, and I did not much trouble my adviser with any further communication and confidence on the subject. Day after day I renewed my visits to the Spaniard's cottage; and yet time passed on, and I had not told Isora a syllable of my love. I was inexpressibly jealous of this Barnard, whom her father often eulogized, and whom I never met. There appeared to be some mystery in his acquaintance with Don Diego, which that personage carefully concealed; and once, when I was expressing my surprise to have so often missed seeing his friend, the Spaniard shook his head gravely, and said that he had now learnt the real reason for it: there were circumstances of state which made men fearful of new acquaintances even in their own country. He drew back, as if he had said too much, and left me to conjecture that Barnard was connected with him in some intrigue, more delightful in itself than agreeable to the government. This belief was strengthened by my noting that Alvarez was frequently absent from home, and this too in the evening, when he was generally wont to shun the bleakness of the English air,—an atmosphere, by the by, which I once heard a Frenchman wittily compare to Augustus placed between Horace and Virgil; namely, in the /bon mot/ of the emperor himself, /between sighs and tears/.
But Isora herself never heard the name of this Barnard mentioned without a visible confusion, which galled me to the heart; and at length, unable to endure any longer my suspense upon the subject, I resolved to seek from her own lips its termination. I long tarried my opportunity; it was one evening that coming rather unexpectedly to the cottage, I was informed by the single servant that Don Diego had gone to the neighbouring town, but that Isora was in the garden. Small as it was, this garden had been cultivated with some care, and was not devoid of variety. A high and very thick fence of living box-wood, closely interlaced with the honeysuckle and the common rose, screened a few plots of rarer flowers, a small circular fountain, and a rustic arbour, both from the sea breezes and the eyes of any passer-by, to which the open and unsheltered portion of the garden was exposed. When I passed through the opening cut in the fence, I was somewhat surprised at not immediately seeing Isora. Perhaps she was in the arbour. I approached the arbour trembling. What was my astonishment and my terror when I beheld her stretched lifeless on the ground!
I uttered a loud cry, and sprang forward. I raised her from the earth, and supported her in my arms; her complexion—through whose pure and transparent white the wandering blood was wont so gently, yet so glowingly, to blush, undulating while it blushed, as youngest rose-leaves which the air just stirs into trembling—was blanched into the hues of death. My kisses tinged it with a momentary colour not its own; and yet as I pressed her to my heart, methought hers, which seemed still before, began as if by an involuntary sympathy, palpably and suddenly to throb against my own. My alarm melted away as I held her thus,—nay, I would not, if I could, have recalled her /yet/ to life; I was forgetful, I was unheeding, I was unconscious of all things else,—a few broken and passionate words escaped my lips, but even they ceased when I felt her breath just stirring and mingling with my own. It seemed to me as if all living kind but ourselves had, by a spell, departed from the earth, and we were left alone with the breathless and inaudible Nature from which spring the love and the life of all things.
Isora slowly recovered; her eyes in opening dwelt upon mine; her blood rushed at once to her cheek, and as suddenly left it hueless as before. She rose from my embrace, but I still extended my arms towards her; and words over which I had no control, and of which now I have no remembrance, rushed from my lips. Still pale, and leaning against the side of the arbour, Isora heard me, as—confused, incoherent, impetuous, but still intelligible to her—my released heart poured itself forth. And when I had ceased, she turned her face towards me, and my blood seemed at once frozen in its channel. Anguish, deep ineffable anguish, was depicted upon every feature; and when she strove at last to speak, her lips quivered so violently that, after a vain effort, she ceased abruptly. I again approached; I seized her hand, which I covered with my kisses.
"Will you not answer me, Isora?" said I, trembling. "/Be/ silent, then; but give me one look, one glance of hope, of pardon, from those dear eyes, and I ask no more."
Isora's whole frame seemed sinking beneath her emotions; she raised her head, and looked hurriedly and fearfully round; my eye followed hers, and I then saw upon the damp ground the recent print of a man's footstep, not my own: and close to the spot where I had found Isora lay a man's glove. A pang shot through me; I felt my eyes flash fire, and my brow darken, as I turned to Isora and said, "I see it; I see all: I have a rival, who has but just left you; you love me not; your affections are for him!" Isora sobbed violently, but made no reply. "You love him," said I, but in a milder and more mournful tone, "you love him; it is enough; I will persecute you no more; and yet—" I paused a moment, for the remembrance of many a sign, which my heart had interpreted flatteringly, flashed upon me, and my voice faltered. "Well, I have no right to murmur—only, Isora—only tell me with your lips that you love another, and I will depart in peace."
Very slowly Isora turned her eyes to me, and even through her tears they dwelt upon me with a tender and a soft reproach.
"You love another?" said I; and from her lips, which scarcely parted, came a single word which thrilled to my heart like fire,—"No!"
"No!" I repeated, "no? say that again, and again; yet who then is this that has dared so to agitate and overpower you? Who is he whom you have met, and whom, even now while I speak, you tremble to hear me recur to? Answer me one word: is it this mysterious stranger whom your father honours with his friendship? is it Barnard?"
Alarm and fear again wholly engrossed the expression of Isora's countenance.
"Barnard!" she said; "yes—yes—it is Barnard!"
"Who is he?" I cried vehemently; "who or what is he; and of what nature is his influence upon you? Confide in me," and I poured forth a long tide of inquiry and solicitation.
By the time I had ended, Isora seemed to have recovered herself. With her softness was mingled something of spirit and self-control, which was rare alike in her country and her sex.
"Listen to me!" said she, and her voice, which faltered a little at first, grew calm and firm as she proceeded. "You profess to love me: I am not worthy your love; and if, Count Devereux, I do not reject nor disclaim it—for I am a woman, and a weak and fond one—I will not at least wrong you by encouraging hopes which I may not and I dare not fulfil. I cannot,—" here she spoke with a fearful distinctness,—"I cannot, I can never be yours; and when you ask me to be so, you know not what you ask nor what perils you incur. Enough; I am grateful to you. The poor exiled girl is grateful for your esteem—and—and your affection. She will never forget them,—never! But be this our last meeting—our very last—God bless you, Morton!" and, as she read my heart, pierced and agonized as it was, in my countenance, Isora bent over me, for I knelt beside her, and I felt her tears upon my cheek,—"God bless you—and farewell!"
"You insult, you wound me," said I, bitterly, "by this cold and taunting kindness; tell me, tell me only, who it is that you love better than me."
Isora had turned to leave me, for I was too proud to detain her; but when I said this, she came back, after a moment's pause, and laid her hand upon my arm.
"If it make you happy to know /my/ unhappiness," she said, and the tone of her voice made me look full in her face, which was one deep blush, "know that I am not insensible—"
I heard no more: my lips pressed themselves involuntarily to hers,—a long, long kiss,—burning, intense, concentrating emotion, heart, soul, all the rays of life's light into a single focus; and she tore herself away from me,—and I was alone.
CHAPTER IX
A DISCOVERY AND A DEPARTURE
I HASTENED home after my eventful interview with Isora, and gave myself up to tumultuous and wild conjecture. Aubrey sought me the next morning: I narrated to him all that had occurred: he said little, but that little enraged me, for it was contrary to the dictates of my own wishes. The character of Morose in the "Silent Woman" is by no means an uncommon one. Many men—certainly many lovers—would say with equal truth, always provided they had equal candour, "All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome." Certainly I felt that amiable sentiment most sincerely with regard to Aubrey. I left him abruptly: a resolution possessed me. "I will see," said I, "this Barnard; I will lie in wait for him; I will demand and obtain, though it be by force, the secret which evidently subsists between him and this exiled family."
Full of this idea, I drew my cloak round me, and repaired on foot to the neighbourhood of the Spaniard's cottage. There was no place near it very commodious for accommodation both of vigil and concealment. However, I made a little hill, in a field opposite the house, my warder's station, and, lying at full length on the ground, wrapt in my cloak, I trusted to escape notice. The day passed: no visitor appeared. The next morning I went from my own rooms, through the subterranean passage into the castle cave, as the excavation I have before described was generally termed. On the shore I saw Gerald by one of the small fishing-boats usually kept there. I passed him with a sneer at his amusements, which were always those of conflicts against fish or fowl. He answered me in the same strain, as he threw his nets into the boat, and pushed out to sea. "How is it that you go alone?" said I; "is there so much glory in the capture of mackerel and dogfish that you will allow no one to share it?"
"There are other sports besides those for men," answered Gerald, colouring indignantly: "my taste is confined to amusements in which he is but a fool who seeks companionship; and if you could read character better, my wise brother, you would know that the bold rover is ever less idle and more fortunate than the speculative dreamer."
As Gerald said this, which he did with a significant emphasis, he rowed vigorously across the water, and the little boat was soon half way to the opposite islet. My eyes followed it musingly as it glided over the waves, and my thoughts painfully revolved the words which Gerald had uttered. "What can he mean?" said I, half aloud; "yet what matters it? Perhaps some low amour, some village conquest, inspires him with that becoming fulness of pride and vain-glory; joy be with so bold a rover!" and I strode away along the beach towards my place of watch; once only I turned to look at Gerald; he had then just touched the islet, which was celebrated as much for the fishing it afforded as the smuggling it protected.
I arrived at last at the hillock, and resumed my station. Time passed on, till, at the dusk of evening, the Spaniard came out. He walked slowly towards the town; I followed him at a distance. Just before he reached the town, he turned off by a path which led to the beach. As the evening was unusually fresh and chill, I felt convinced that some cause, not wholly trivial, drew the Spaniard forth to brave it. My pride a little revolted at the idea of following him; but I persuaded myself that Isora's happiness, and perhaps her father's safety, depended on my obtaining some knowledge of the character and designs of this Barnard, who appeared to possess so dangerous an influence over both daughter and sire; nor did I doubt but that the old man was now gone forth to meet him. The times were those of mystery and of intrigue: the emissaries of the House of Stuart were restlessly at work among all classes; many of them, obscure and mean individuals, made their way the more dangerously from their apparent insignificance. My uncle, a moderate Tory, was opposed, though quietly and without vehemence, to the claims of the banished House. Like Sedley, who became so stanch a revolutionist, he had seen the Court of Charles II. and the character of that King's brother too closely to feel much respect for either; but he thought it indecorous to express opposition loudly against a party among whom were many of his early friends; and the good old knight was too much attached to private ties to be very much alive to public feeling. However, at his well-filled board, conversation, generally, though displeasingly to himself, turned upon politics, and I had there often listened, of late, to dark hints of the danger to which we were exposed, and of the restless machinations of the Jacobites. I did not, therefore, scruple to suspect this Barnard of some plot against the existing state, and I did it the more from observing that the Spaniard often spoke bitterly of the English Court, which had rejected some claims he had imagined himself entitled to make upon it; and that he was naturally of a temper vehemently opposed to quiet and alive to enterprise. With this impression, I deemed it fair to seize any opportunity of seeing, at least, even if I could not question, the man whom the Spaniard himself confessed to have state reasons for concealment; and my anxiety to behold one whose very name could agitate Isora, and whose presence could occasion the state in which I had found her, sharpened this desire into the keenness of a passion.
While Alvarez descended to the beach, I kept the upper path, which wound along the cliff. There was a spot where the rocks were rude and broken into crags, and afforded me a place where, unseen, I could behold what passed below. The first thing I beheld was a boat approaching rapidly towards the shore; one man was seated in it; he reached the shore, and I recognized Gerald. That was a dreadful moment. Alvarez now slowly joined him; they remained together for nearly an hour. I saw Gerald give the Spaniard a letter, which appeared to make the chief subject of their conversation. At length they parted, with the signs rather of respect than familiarity. Don Diego returned homeward, and Gerald re-entered the boat. I watched its progress over the waves with feelings of a dark and almost unutterable nature. "My enemy! my rival! ruiner of my hopes!—/my brother/!—/my twin brother/!" I muttered bitterly between my ground teeth.
The boat did not make to the open sea: it skulked along the shore, till distance and shadow scarcely allowed me to trace the outline of Gerald's figure. It then touched the beach, and I could just descry the dim shape of another man enter; and Gerald, instead of returning homewards, pushed out towards the islet. I spent the greater part of the night in the open air. Wearied and exhausted by the furious indulgence of my passions, I gained my room at length. There, however, as elsewhere, thought succeeded to thought, and scheme to scheme. Should I speak to Gerald? Should I confide in Alvarez? Should I renew my suit to Isora? If the first, what could I hope to learn from my enemy? If the second, what could I gain from the father, while the daughter remained averse to me? If the third,—there my heart pointed, and the third scheme I resolved to adopt.
But was I sure that Gerald was this Barnard? Might there not be some hope that he was not? No, I could perceive none. Alvarez had never spoken to me of acquaintance with any other Englishman than Barnard; I had no reason to believe that he ever held converse with any other. Would it not have been natural too, unless some powerful cause, such as love to Isora, induced silence,—would it not have been natural that Gerald should have mentioned his acquaintance with the Spaniard? Unless some dark scheme, such as that which Barnard appeared to have in common with Don Diego, commanded obscurity, would it have been likely that Gerald should have met Alvarez alone,—at night,—on an unfrequented spot? What that scheme /was/, I guessed not,—I cared not. All my interest in the identity of Barnard with Gerald Devereux was that derived from the power he seemed to possess over Isora. Here, too, at once, was explained the pretended Barnard's desire of concealment, and the vigilance with which it had been effected. It was so certain that Gerald, if my rival, would seek to avoid me; it was so easy for him, who could watch all my motions, to secure the power of doing so. Then I remembered Gerald's character through the country as a gallant and a general lover; and I closed my eyes as if to shut out the vision when I recalled the beauty of his form contrasted with the comparative plainness of my own.
"There is no hope," I repeated; and an insensibility, rather than sleep, crept over me. Dreadful and fierce dreams peopled my slumbers; and, when I started from them at a late hour the next day, I was unable to rise from my bed: my agitation and my wanderings had terminated in a burning fever. In four days, however, I recovered sufficiently to mount my horse: I rode to the Spaniard's house; I found there only the woman who had been Don Diego's solitary domestic. The morning before, Alvarez and his daughter had departed, none knew for certain whither; but it was supposed their destination was London. The woman gave me a note: it was from Isora; it contained only these lines:
Forget me: we are now parted forever. As you value my peace of mind—of happiness I do not speak—seek not to discover our next retreat. I implore you to think no more of what has been; you are young, very young. Life has a thousand paths for you; any one of them will lead you from remembrance of me. Farewell, again and again!
ISORA D'ALVAREZ.
With this note was another, in French, from Don Diego: it was colder and more formal than I could have expected; it thanked me for my attentions towards him; it regretted that he could not take leave of me in person, and it enclosed the sum by the loan of which our acquaintance had commenced.
"It is well!" said I, calmly, to myself, "it is well; I will forget her:" and I rode instantly home. "But," I resumed in my soliloquy, "I will yet strive to obtain confirmation to what perhaps needs it not. I will yet strive to see if Gerald can deny the depth of his injuries towards me; there will be at least some comfort in witnessing either his defiance or his confusion."
Agreeably to this thought, I hastened to seek Gerald. I found him in his apartment; I shut the door, and seating myself, with a smile thus addressed him,—
"Dear Gerald, I have a favour to ask of you."
"What is it?"
"How long have you known a certain Mr. Barnard?" Gerald changed colour; his voice faltered as he repeated the name "Barnard!"
"Yes," said I, with affected composure, "Barnard! a great friend of Don Diego D'Alvarez."
"I perceive," said Gerald, collecting himself, "that you are in some measure acquainted with my secret: how far it is known to you I cannot guess; but I tell you, very fairly, that from me you will not increase the sum of your knowledge."
When one is in a good sound rage, it is astonishing how calm one can be!
I was certainly somewhat amazed by Gerald's hardihood and assurance, but I continued, with a smile,
"And Donna Isora, how long, if not very intrusive on your confidence, have you known her?"
"I tell you," answered Gerald, doggedly, "that I will answer no questions."
"You remember the old story," returned I, "of the two brothers, Eteocles and Polynices, whose very ashes refused to mingle; faith, Gerald, our love seems much of the same sort. I know not if our ashes will exhibit so laudible an antipathy: but I think our hearts and hands will do so while a spark of life animates them; yes, though our blood" (I added, in a voice quivering with furious emotion) "prevents our contest by the sword, it prevents not the hatred and the curses of the heart."
Gerald turned pale. "I do not understand you," he faltered out,—"I know you abhor me; but why, why this excess of malice?"
I cast on him a look of bitter scorn, and turned from the room.
It is not pleasing to place before the reader these dark passages of fraternal hatred: but in the record of all passions there is a moral; and it is wise to see to how vast a sum the units of childish animosity swell, when they are once brought into a heap, by some violent event, and told over by the nice accuracy of Revenge.
But I long to pass from these scenes, and my history is about to glide along others of more glittering and smiling aspect. Thank Heaven, I write a tale, not only of love, but of a life; and that which I cannot avoid I can at least condense.