I tried my best to obey her, but I fear my attempt was a poor one; I was able, however, to listen to her with a certain amount of composure, and, while doing so, to remark how much she had improved in grace and beauty since we met. Years had developed the charms which girlhood then but shadowed forth, and in the full and liquid softness of her dark and long-lashed eyes, and the playful delicacy of her mouth, I saw how a consciousness of fascination had served to lend new powers of pleasing.
She spoke to me of her widowhood without any affectation of feeling grieved or sorry. So long as Don Geloso had lived, her existence had been like that of a nun in a cloister; he was too jealous to suffer her to go into the world, and, save at the Court Chapel each morning and evening, she never saw anything of that brilliant society in which her equals were moving. When her uncle was created Bishop of Seville, she removed to that city to visit him, and had never seen her husband after. Such, in few words, was the story of a life, whose monotony would have broken the spirit of any nature less buoyant and elastic than her own. Don Estaban was dead; and of him she spoke with deep and affectionate feeling; betraying besides that her own lot was rendered almost a friendless one by the bereavement.
That same evening, as we walked through the rooms, examining pictures and ancient armor, of which our host was somewhat vain, I learned the secret to which the Senhora had alluded at table, and divesting which of all the embarrassment the revelation occasioned herself, was briefly this: The Fra, who had never, for some reasons of his own, either liked or trusted me, happened to discover some circumstances of my earlier adventures in Texas, and even traced me in my rambles to the night of my duel with the Ranchero. Hence he drew the somewhat rash and ungenerous conclusion that my character was not so unimpeachable as I affected, and that my veracity was actually open to question! An active correspondence had taken place between Don Geloso and himself about me, in which the former, after great researches, pronounced that no noble family of my name had existed in Old Spain, and that, in plain fact, I was nothing better than an impostor! In this terrible delusion the old gentleman died; but so fearful was he of the bare possibility of injuring one in whose veins flowed the pure blood of Castile that on his death-bed he besought the Bishop to ascertain the fact to a certainty, and not to desist in the investigation till he had traced me to my birth, parentage, and country. Upon this condition he had bequeathed all his fortune to the Church, and not alone all his own wealth, but all Donna Maria’s also.
The Bishop’s visit to Ireland, therefore, had no other object than to look for my baptismal certificate, – an investigation, I need scarcely say, somewhat difficult and intricate!
Of course, in this confession, the fair Contessa never hesitated to regard me as an injured and calumniated individual; but so assured was she of the Bishop’s desire to endow the Church with her wealth that he would have less brooked to discover me a noble of title and rank indisputable, than to find me a poor and ignoble adventurer. “Were he but to recognize you,” said she, “I should be condemned to a nunnery for life!” and this terror, however little startling to my ears, had too much of significance to her mind to be undervalued.
Of course my present position, the companionship of me Prince, the foreign orders I wore, were more than sufficient to accredit me to her as anything I pleased to represent myself; but somehow I felt little inclination for that vein of fiction in which so often and so largely I had indulged! For the first time in my life I regarded this flow of invention as a treachery! and, when pressed by her to relate the full story of my life, I limited myself to that period which, beginning with my African campaign, brought me down to the moment of telling I was in love. Such is the simple solution of the mystery; nor can I cite a more convincing evidence of the ennobling nature of the passion than that it made me, such as I was, tenacious of the truth.
Every succeeding day brought me into closer intimacy with the Señhora, and taught me more and more to value her for other graces than those of personal beauty. The seclusion in which she had passed her last few years had led her to cultivate her mind by a course of study such as few Spanish women ever think of, and which gave an almost serious character to a nature of more than childlike buoyancy. We talked of her own joyous land, to which she seemed longing to return, and of our first meeting beside the “Rio Colloredo,” and then of our next meeting on her own marriage-day; and she wondered where, if ever, we should see each other again! The opportunity was not to be lost. I pressed her hand to my lips, and asked her never to leave me! I told her that, for me, country had no ties, – that I had neither home nor kindred. I would at that moment have confessed everything, even to my humble birth! I pledged myself to live with her amidst the sierras of the Far West, or, if she liked better, in some city of the Old World. I told her that I was rich, and that I needed not that wealth of which her uncle’s covetousness would rob her. In fact, I said a great deal that was true; and when I added anything that was not so, it was simply as painters introduce a figure with a “bit of red,” to heighten the landscape. I will not weary my fair reader with all the little doubts, and hesitations, and fears, so natural for her to experience and express; nor will I tire my male companion by saying how I combated each in turn. Love, like a lawsuit, has but one ritual. First comes the declaration, – usually a pretty unintelligible piece of business, in either case; then come the “affidavits,” the sworn depositions; then follow the cross-examinations; after which, the charge and the verdict. In my case it was a favorable one, and I was almost out of my senses with delight.
The Bishop, with whom my acquaintanceship had never betrayed my secret, was to leave Ireland in a few days, and the Prince, to whom I told everything, with the kindness of a true friend promised that he would take the very same day for his own departure. The remainder we were to leave to fortune. Love-making left me little time for any other thoughts; but still as, for appearance’ sake, I was obliged to pass some hours of every day apart from Donna Maria, I took the occasion of one of these forced absences to visit a scene which had never quitted my mind through all the changeful fortunes of my life, – the little spot where I was born. Rising one morning at break of day, I set out for Horseleap, to see once more, and for the last time, the humble home of my childhood. The distance was about sixteen miles; but as I rode slowly, my mind full of old memories and reflections, I did not reach the place till nigh noon. Alas! I should never have known the spot! There had been a season of famine and pestilence, and now the little village was almost tenantless. Many of the cabins were unroofed; in some, the blackened rafters bore tokens of fire. The one shop that used to supply the humble luxuries of the poor was closed, and I passed on with a heavy heart towards the cross-roads where “Con’s Acre” lay.
I had not gone far when my eye, straining to catch it, detected the roof of the cabin rising above the little thorn hedge that flanked the road. Ay, there was the old stone-quarry I used to play in, as a child, fancying that its granite sides were mountain precipices, and its little pools were lakes. There was the gate on which for hours long I have sat, gazing at the bleak expanse of moorland, and wondering if all the wide world beyond had nothing fairer or more beautiful than this.
“Who lives in that cabin yonder?” asked I, of a peasant on the road.
The man replied that it was “the minister;” adding his name, which, however, I could not catch. Long as I had been away from Ireland, I could not forget that this was the especial title given to the Protestant clergyman of the parish, and I rode up to the door wondering how it chanced that he was reduced to a dwelling of such humble pretensions. An old woman came out as I drew up, and told me that the curate was from home, but would be back in less than an hour; requesting me to “put in my beast,” and sit down in the parlor till he came.
I accepted the invitation, followed her into the cabin, which, although in a condition of neatness very different from what I remembered it of old, brought back all my boyish days in an instant. There was the fireside, where, with naked feet roasting before the blazing turf, I had sat and slept full many an hour, dreaming of adventures which were as nothing to those my real life had met with. There the corner where I used to sit throughout the night, copying those law papers my father would bring back with him from Kilbeggan. There stood the little bed where often I have sobbed myself to sleep, when, wearied and worn out, I was punished for some trifling omission, some slight and accidental mistake. I sat down, and covered my face with my hands, for a sense of my utter loneliness in the world came suddenly over me; I felt as if this poor hovel was my only real home, and that all my success in life was a mere passing dream.
Meanwhile the old woman, with true native volubility, was explaining how the Bishop – “bad scran to him! – would n’t let his riv’rence have pace and ease till he kem and lived in the parish, though there was n’t a spot fit for a gentleman in the whole length and breadth of it! and signs on it,” added she, “we had to put up with this little place here, they call Con’s Acre, and it was all a ruin when we got it.”
“And who owned this cabin before?” asked I.
“A villain they call Con Cregan, your honor, – the biggest thief ye ever heard of; he was paid for informin’ agin the people, and whin the Government had done wid him, they transported him too!”
“Had he any children, this same Con?”
“He had a brat of a boy that was drowned at ‘say,’ they tell me; but I’d never believe it was that way that Con Cregan’s son was to die!”
I need scarcely remark that I saw no inducement for prolonging this conversation, wherein all the facts quoted were already familiar, and all the speculations the reverse of flattery; and I was far more agreeably occupied in discussing the eggs and milk the old lady had placed before me, when the door opened, and the curate entered. A deep cavernous cough and a stooped figure announcing the signs of some serious chest disease, were all I had time to observe; when, with the politeness of a gentleman, he advanced towards me. The first sound of his voice was enough, and I cried out, “Lyndsay! my oldest and best friend, – don’t you know me?”
“I am ashamed to say that I do not,” said he, faltering, while he still held my hand, and gazed into my face.
“Not yet?” asked I again, smiling at the embarrassment of his countenance.
“Not even yet,” said he. “Tell me, I beseech you, where did we meet?”
“Come here,” said I, leading him to the door, and pointing to the wide-stretching moor that lay before us; “it was there, – yonder, where you see that heavy cloud-shadow stealing along, – yonder we first met. Do you know me now?”
He started; his pale cheek grew paler, and he fell upon my neck in a burst of tears. Who shall ever know the source, or what the meaning? They were not of joy, still less of sorrow, – they were the outbreak of a hundred emotions. Old memories of happy days, never to come back; boyish triumphs, successes, failures; moments of ecstasy – of bitter anguish; his own bleak, joyless existence, perhaps, contrasting with mine; and then at last the fell consciousness of the malady in which he was but lingering out life.
“And here are you, and here!” cried he, in a voice which his faltering accents made scarce intelligible; “who should say that we were to meet thus?” Then, as if his words had conveyed a meaning of which he was ashamed, he blushed deeply, and said, “And oh, my friend! how truly you told me that life had its path for each, if we but knew how to choose it.”
I must not say how the hours were passed, nor how it was nightfall ere either of us guessed it. Lyndsay insisted upon hearing every adventure that had befallen me, questioning me eagerly as I went, how each new feature of prosperity had “worked with me,” and whether gold had yet hardened my heart, and taught me indifference to the poor.
I told him of my love, and with such rapturous delight that he even offered to aid me in my object, by marrying me to Donna Maria, – a piece of generous zeal, I am certain, that originated less in friendship than in the prospect of a proselyte, – the niece of a bishop, too! Poor fellow, he might make many converts, if he were thus easily satisfied.
The next day I drove Donna Maria out for an airing, and, while occupying her mind with various matters, contrived to prolong our excursion to Horseleap. “What a dreary spot you have chosen for our drive!” said she, looking around her.
“Do you see yonder little hut,” said I, “where the smoke is rising?”
“Yes, that poor cabin yonder! You have not come to show me that?” said she, laughing.
“Even so, Maria,” said I; “to show you that poor and humble hut, and to tell you that it was there I was born, – a peasant’s son; that from that same lowly roof I wandered out upon the world friendless and hungry; that partly by energy, partly by a resolution to succeed, partly by the daring determination that would not admit a failure, I have become what I am, – titled, honored, wealthy, but still the son of a poor man. I could not have gone on deceiving you, even though this confession should separate us forever.” I could not speak more, nor needed I. Her hand had already clasped mine as she murmured: “Yours more than ever.”
“Now is the moment, then, to become so,” said I, as I lifted her from the carriage and led her within the cabin.
The company were already waiting dinner ere we returned to the Castle. “I have to make our excuses,” said I to the hostess; “but we prolonged our drive to a considerable distance.”
“Ah, we feared you might have taken the road by the lake, where there is no turning back,” said she.
“Exactly, madam; that is what we did precisely, for we are married!”
Need I dwell upon the surprise and astonishment of this announcement? The Bishop – fortunately it was in Spanish – uttered something very like an oath. The bride blushed – some of the ladies looked shocked – the men shook hands with me, and the Prince, saluting Donna Maria with a most hearty embrace, begged to say “that the lady would be very welcomely received in Paris, since it was the only drawback to my appointment as an ambassador – that I was unmarried.”
Here I have done, – not that my Confessions are exhausted, but that I fear my reader’s patience may be; I may, however, add that this was not the only “Spanish marriage” in which I had a share, – that my career in greatness was not less eventful than my life in obscurity, and that I draw up at this stage, leaving it for the traveller to say if he should ever care hereafter to journey further with me.
THE END.