Kitabı oku: «Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience», sayfa 17
CHAPTER XXI. AT REST
Having already acquainted my reader with the source from which I have derived all these materials of my family history, he will not be surprised to learn that MacNaghten’s imprisonment leaves a blank in this part of my narrative. All that I know, indeed, of these early years can be told in a few lines. My mother repaired with me to the cottage in the Killeries, to which also came De Gabriac shortly after, followed by Polly Fagan, whose affection for my mother now exhibited itself most remarkably. Not vainly endeavoring to dam up the current of a grief that would flow on, she tried to interest my mother in ways and by pursuits which were totally new to her, and, consequently, not coupled with painful recollections. She taught her to visit the poor in their cabins; to see them, in the hard struggle of their poverty, stoutly confronting fortune day by day, carrying the weary load of adversity, without one hope as to the time when they might cease to labor and be at rest. These rambles through wild and unvisited tracts rewarded them well in the grand and glorious objects of scenery with which they became acquainted. It was everlasting discovery, – now of some land-locked little bay, half-hid among its cliffs; now some lone island, with its one family for inhabitants; or now some picturesque bit of inland scenery, with wood and mountain and waving grass. Occasionally, too, they ventured out to sea, either to creep along the coast, and peep into the rocky caverns with which it is perforated, or they would set sail for the distant islands of Arran, – bleak and desolate spots on the wide, wild ocean. The charms of landscape in its grandest features were, however, the least of the benefits these excursions conferred, at least on my poor mother. She learned then to see and to feel that the sorrows of life fall uniformly; that few, indeed, are singled out for especial suffering; and that the load is apportioned to the strength that is to bear it. She saw, besides, how the hard necessities of existence formed in themselves a barrier against the wearing influence of grief: the hands that must labor for daily bread are not wrung in the wild transports of misery! It is the law of human nature, and the claims of the living are the counterpoise to the memory of the dead.
Neither her early education nor her habits disposed her to any exertion. All her ideas of life were circumscribed within the limits of certain pleasures and enjoyments. From her infancy she had never known any other care than how to make time pass swiftly and agreeably: now she had to learn the more rewarding lesson that life can be profitably passed; and to this task she addressed herself, I believe, with a hearty earnestness.
It is only by estimating the change which took place in her character at this time, and which marked it during the short remainder of her life, that I am led to speculate upon the cause. Her days were passed in intercourse with the peasantry, whom, at last, she began to understand, through all the difficulties of their strange temperament and all the eccentricities of their habits. There was not a cabin for miles round, with every one of whose inmates she was not acquainted, and of whose joys and sorrows, whose hopes and cares, she was not in some shape the participator.
When the sea was too rough and the weather too wild for the fishermen to venture out, she was constantly amongst them with some material for home occupation; and it was curious to see those fingers, which had never been used to harder toil than the mock labor of the embroidery frame, ingeniously moving through the mazes of a fishing-net, while in her foreign English she would relate some story of her Breton countrymen, certain to interest those who sat admiringly around her.
How singular it is that the experience and the habits which are destined to guide us through the great trials of life are frequently acquired in scenes and amongst people the very opposite to those wherein the lesson is to be profitable! And yet so it was. In exhorting and cheering others she elevated the tone of her own mind; in suggesting exertion to the faint-hearted, she imbibed courage herself; and when teaching them to be of good cheer, she spoke the language of encouragement to herself. Her bodily health, too, kept pace with her mental. She who rarely had ventured out if the weather merely were threatening, could now face the stormiest seasons of that wild west. The darkest day of winter would see her abroad, braving with an almost childish excitement the beating rain and wind, or fighting onward to some lone cabin amongst the hills, through sleet and snowdrift, undeterred!
I have heard but little of the life they led within doors, but I believe that the evenings were passed pleasantly with books and conversation, De Gabriac reading aloud, while my mother and Polly worked; and thus the winter glided easily over, and spring was now approaching ere they were well aware that so many months had gone by. If my mother wondered at times why they never heard from MacNaghten, De Gabriac and Polly, who were in the secret for his mishap, would frame various excuses to account for his silence. Meanwhile they heard that such was the complication of the law proceedings which concerned the estate, so intricate the questions, and so puzzling, that years might pass in litigation ere any decision could be come to. A reserved offer came at this time from Sir Carew O’Moore to settle some small annuity on my mother if she would relinquish all claim to the estate in his favor; but Fagan hesitated to acquaint her with a proposal which he well knew she would reject, and the very fact of which must be an insult to her feelings. This the Grinder commented on in a letter to his daughter, while he also avowed that as he saw no prospect of anything favorable to my mother likely to issue from the course of law, he must press upon her the necessity of her seeking an asylum in her own country and amongst her own friends.
I have never been able to ascertain why my mother herself did not at once determine on returning to France after my father’s death. Perhaps the altered circumstances of her fortune deterred her. There might have been reasons, perhaps, on the score of her birth. My impression is, that De Gabriac had quitted the Continent overwhelmed with debt, and dared not return there, and that, as his counsels greatly swayed her, she was influenced by whatever arguments he adduced.
So little was my mother acquainted with the details of her altered condition in life, that she still believed a small but secure income remained to her; and it was only by a few lines addressed to her, and inclosed in a letter to Polly, that she was at length brought to see that she was actually without means of support for a single day, and that hitherto she had been a dependent on Fagan’s kindness for a home.
I believe that this communication was not made with any harshness or want of feeling; on the contrary, that it was conveyed with whatever delicacy the writer could summon to so ungracious a task. It is more than probable, besides, that Fagan would not have made it at all, or at least not for a considerable time, had he not at that moment been involved in an angry correspondence with Polly, who had flatly refused to quit my mother and return home. Irritated at this, and driven to extremities, he had determined in this last course to accomplish his object.
My mother was so much overwhelmed by the tidings that she thought she could not have understood them aright, and hastened to Polly’s room, with the letter in her hand.
“Tell me,” cried she, “what this means. Is it possible – can it be true – that I am actually a beggar?”
Polly read the lines with a flashing eye and heightened color, but never uttered a word.
“Speak, Polly, dearest, and relieve me of this terrible fear, if you can,” cried my mother, passionately.
“I understand what this means,” said Polly, crushing the note in her hand; “this is a question that requires explanation. You must leave it to me. I’ll go up to town this evening, and before the end of the week I ‘ll be back with you. My father is mistaken, – that’s all; and you have misunderstood him!”
And thus planning, and excusing and contradicting herself, she at last succeeded in allaying my mother’s fears and assuring her that it was a mere misapprehension, and that a few days would suffice to rectify it.
My mother insisted that Polly should not travel alone, and that Gabriac should be her companion, – an arrangement to which she acceded with comparative ease and willingness. Had Polly Fagan and Gabriac merely met as people meet in society, with no other opportunities of knowing each other than are presented by the ordinary intercourse with the world, the great likelihood is that they should have conceived for each other a rooted dislike. There was scarcely one single subject on which they thought in common. They differed in ideas of country and people. Their tastes, their prejudices, their ambitions, all took opposite directions; and yet such is the effect of intimacy, such the consequence of daily, hourly communion, that each not only learned to tolerate, but even to imbibe, some of the notions of the other; and an imperceptible compromise was at length entered into, by Which individuality became tempered down, and even the broad traits of nationality almost effaced. The Count came to perceive that what he had at first regarded as coarse and inelegant was in reality the evidence of only a bold and vigorous spirit, exulting in its own energy, and confident of its power; and Polly began to recognize that remarkable truth, that a coxcomb need not necessarily be a coward, and that the most excessive puppyism can consort with even a chivalrous courage and daring. Of these qualities – the very first in Polly’s estimation – he had given several proofs in their adventures by sea and land, and under circumstances, too, where the very novelty of the peril to be surmounted might have suggested some fear.
There is a generous impulse usually to exalt in our esteem those whom we had once held cheaply, when on nearer intimacy we discover that we had wronged them. We feel as if there was a debt of reparation due to them, and that we are unjust till we have acquitted it. It may chance that now and then this honorable sentiment may carry us beyond reasonable bounds, and that we are disposed to accord even more than is due to them.
I have no means of knowing if such were the case here: I can but surmise from other circumstances the causes which were in operation. It is enough, however, if I state that long before Gabriac had passed the limit of admiration for Polly, she had conceived for him a strong sentiment of love; and while he was merely exerting those qualities which are amongst the common gifts of his class and his country, she was becoming impressed with the notion of his vast superiority to all of those she had ever met in society. It must be taken into account that his manner towards her evinced a degree of respect and devotion which, though not overpassing the usual observance of good manners in France, contrasted very favorably with the kind of notice bestowed by country gentlemen upon “the Grinder’s daughter.” Those terrible traditions of exorbitant interest, those fatal compacts with usury, that had made Fagan’s name so dreadfully notorious in Ireland, were all unknown to Gabriac. He only saw in Polly a very handsome girl, of a far more than common amount of intelligence, and with a spirit daringly ambitious. As the favored friend and companion of his cousin, he took it for granted that the peculiar customs of Ireland admitted such intimacies between those socially unequal, and that there was nothing strange or unusual in seeing her where she was. He therefore paid her every attention he would have bestowed on the most high-born damsel of his own court; he exhibited that deference which his own language denominated homage; and, in fact, long before he had touched her affections, he had flattered her pride and self-love by a courtesy to which she had never, in all her intercourse with the world, been habituated.
Perhaps my reader needs not one-half of the explanation to surmise why two young people – both good-looking, both attractive, and both idle – should, in the solitude of a country cottage, fall in love with each other. That they did so, at all events, – she first, and he afterwards, – is, however, the fact; and now, by the simple-hearted arrangement of my poor mother, – whose thoughts had never taken in such a casualty, – were they to set off together as fellow-travellers for Dublin. So far, indeed, from even suspecting such a possibility, it was only a few days previously that she had been deploring to Polly her cousin’s fickleness in breaking off his proposed marriage in France, on the mere ground that his absence must necessarily have weakened the ties that bound him to his betrothed What secret hopes the revelation may have suggested to Polly’s mind is matter that I cannot even speculate on.
It was with a heavy heart my poor mother saw them drive from the door, and came back to sit down in solitude beside the cradle of her baby. It was a dark and rainy day of winter; the beating of the waves against the rocky shore, and the wailing winds, made sad chorus together; and without, as well as within, all was cheerless and depressing. Dark and gloomy as was the landscape, it was to the full as bright as the scene within her own heart; for now that she began to arrange facts and circumstances together, and to draw inferences from them, she saw that nothing but ruin lay before her. The very expressions of Fagan’s letter, so opposite to the almost submissive courtesy of former times, showed her that he no longer hesitated to declare her the dependent on his bounty. “And yet,” cried she, aloud, “are these the boasted laws of England? Is the widow left to starve? – is the orphan left houseless, except some formality or other be gone through? To whom descends the heritage of the father, while the son is still living?” From these thoughts, which no ingenuity of hers could pierce, she turned to others not less depressing. What had become of all those who once called themselves her husband’s friends? She, it is true, had herself lived estranged and retired from the world; but Walter was everywhere, – all knew him, all professed to love him. Bitter as ingratitude will ever seem, all its poignancy is nothing compared to the smart it inflicts when practised towards those who have gone from us forever; we feel then as though treachery had been added to the wrong. “Oh!” cried she, in her anguish, “how have they repaid him whose heart and hand were ever open to them!” A flood of recollections, long dammed up by the habits of her daily life, and the little cares by which she was environed, now swept through her mind, and from her infancy and her childhood, in all its luxurious splendor, to her present destitution, each passage of her existence seemed revealed before her. The solitude of the lonely cottage suggesting such utter desolation, and the wild and storm-lashed scene without adding its influence to her depression, she sat for some time still and unmoved, like one entranced; and then, springing to her feet, she rushed out into the beating rain, glad to exchange the conflict of the storm for that more terrible war that waged within her.
Like one flying from some terrific enemy, she ran with all her speed towards the shore. The sea was now breaking over the rocks with tremendous force, and sending vast clouds of spray high into the air, while whole sheets of foam were wildly tossed about by the wind. Through these she struggled on; now stumbling or falling, as her tender feet yielded to the sharp rocks, till she reached a little promontory over the sea, on which the waves struck with all their force; and there, with streaming hair and dripping garments, she sat braving the hurricane, and, in a wild paroxysm of imagined heroism, daring fortune to her worst.
Physical ills are as nothing to those that make the heart their dwelling-place; and to her there seemed an unspeakable relief in the thundering crash of the storm, as compared with the desolate silence of her lonely house.
The whole of that day saw her on the self-same spot; and there was she discovered at nightfall by some fishermen, propped up in a crevice of the rock, but cold, and scarcely conscious. They all knew her well, and with the tenderest care they carried her to her cottage. Even before they reached it, her mind began to wander, and wild and incoherent words dropped from her. That same night she was seized with fever; the benevolent but simple people about her knew not what to do; the nearest medical aid was many miles off; and when it did arrive, on the following morning, the malady had already attacked the brain.
The same sad, short series of events so many have witnessed, so many have stood by, with breaking hearts, now occurred. To wild delirium, with all its terrible excesses, succeeded the almost more dreadful stupor; and to that again the brief lucid moment of fast-ebbing life; and then came the sleep that knows no waking – and my mother was at rest!
CHAPTER XXII. THE VILLAGE OF REICHENAU
I must now ask of my reader to clear at a bound both time and space, and stand beside me some years later, and in a foreign land.
The scene is at the foot of the Splugen Alps, in a little village begirt with mountains, every crag and eminence of which is surmounted by a ruined castle. There is a grandeur and solemnity in the whole landscape, not alone from its vast proportions, but from the character of impregnability suggested by those fastnesses and the gray, sad-colored tint of hill and verdure around.
There is barely space for the# village in the narrow glen, which is traversed by two streams, – the one, yellow, turbid, and sluggish; the other, sparkling, bright, and impetuous. These are the Rhines, which, uniting below the village of Reichenau, form that noble river whose vine-clad cliffs and castled crags are lyrical in every land of Europe.
I scarcely know a spot throughout the whole Continent more typical of isolation and retirement than this. There is no entrance to it from the north, save by a wooden bridge over the torrent; towards the south it is only accessible by the winding zig-zag of the “Via Mala;” east and westward rise gigantic mountains untraversed by even the chamois-hunter; and yet there is no appearance of that poverty and destitution so usually observable in remote and unvisited tracts. Many of the houses are large and substantially built, some evince a little architectural pretension in the way of ornament, and one, which occupies a little terrace above the river, has somewhat the air of a chateau, and in its windowed roof and moated gardens shows that it aspired to the proud distinction of a seignorial residence.
It might be difficult to ascertain how an edifice of this size and pretension came to be built in such a place; at the time I speak of, it was a school, and a modest-looking little board affixed to a pear-tree at the gate announced, “The Academy of Monsieur Jost.” In my boyish eyes, this château, its esplanade above the stream, the views it embraced, and the wild, luxuriant orchard by which it was begirt, comprised an amount of magnificence and beauty such as no stretch of imagination could surpass. In respect to its picturesque site, my error was probably not great: the mountain scene, in all its varied tints of season and sunlight, is still before me, nor can I remember one whose impression is more pleasing.
The château, for so it was called, lost nothing in my estimation by any familiarity with its details. I only knew of the large school-room with its three windows that opened on the terrace, the smaller chamber where the classical teacher held his more select audience, and a little den, fitted up with cases of minerals, insects, and stuffed birds, which was denominated Monsieur Jost’s cabinet, and where that worthy man sat, weeks, mouths, I believe years long, microscope in eye, examining the intricate anatomy of beetles, or poring over some singular provisions in the eyelids of moths. Save when “brought up” for punishment, we rarely saw him. Entirely engrossed with his own pursuits, he seldom bestowed a thought upon us; and when, by any untoward incident such as I have alluded to, we were thrust into his notice, the presence of a strange-looking butterfly, a brilliant dragon-moth, a spider even, would be certain to divert his thoughts into a new channel, and ourselves and our derelictions be utterly forgotten. Need I say that no culprit ever appeared in the dock without some such recommendation to mercy, nor was there one of us ever unprepared with some specimen of the insect tribe, ready to be produced at any moment of emergency?
It is but fair to say that the other masters – there were but two – were singularly forbearing and indulgent. Monsieur Gervois, who “taught” the little boys, was a quaint-looking, venerable old gentleman, with a queue, and who wore on fête-days a ribbon in his button-hole. He was, it was said, originally a French noble of large fortune, but who had lost everything by the extravagance of an only son, and had sought out, in voluntary exile, this remote spot to end his days in. His manners were always marked with a tinge of proud reserve which none ever infringed upon, nor, out of school-hours, did any one ever presume to obtrude upon his retirement.
The classical teacher was a foreigner, we knew not of what nation; we called him sometimes a Pole, now a Spaniard, now an Irishman, – for all these nationalities only to us expressed distant and unknown lands. He was small almost to dwarfishness, and uniformly dressed in a suit of peculiarly colored brown cloth; his age might have been fifty, sixty, or even more, for there was little means of deciphering the work of time in a face sad and careworn, but yet un wrinkled, and where sorrow had set its seal in early life, but without having worn the impress any deeper by time. Large spectacles of blue glass concealed his eyes, of which, the story ran, one was sightless; and his manner was uniformly quiet and patient, – extending to every one the utmost limit of forbearance, and accepting the slightest efforts to learn, as evidences of a noble ambition. To myself he was more than generous, – he was truly and deeply affectionate. I was too young to be one of his class, but he came for me each morning to fetch me to the school; for I did not live at the château, but at a small two-storied house abutting against the base of the mountain. There we lived; and now let me explain who we were.
But a peep within our humble sitting-room will save both of us much time. I have called it humble, – I might have used a stronger word; for it was poor almost to destitution. The wooden chairs and tables; the tiled floor; the hearth, on which some soaked branches of larch are smoking; the curtainless window; as well as the utter absence of even the very cheapest appliances of comfort, – all show indigence; while a glance at the worn form and hollow cheek of her who now bends over the embroidery-frame attests that actual want of sustenance is there written. Haggard and thin as the features are, it needs no effort to believe that they once constituted beauty of a high order. The eye, now sunken and almost colorless, was once flashing in its brilliancy; and that lip, indrawn and bloodless, was full and rounded like that of a Grecian statue. Even yet, amidst all the disfigurement of a coarse dress, the form is graceful, and every motion and gesture indicate a culture that must have been imbibed in a very different sphere.
How I have her before me at this instant, as, hearing my childish footstep at the door, she pulls the string to admit me, and then, turning from her frame, kneels down to kiss me! Monsieur Joseph, for so is the Latin master called, stands just within the doorway, as if waiting to be invited to come further.
“And how has he been to-day, – a good boy?” asks she.
Monsieur Joseph smiles, and nods his head.
“I’m glad of it; Jasper will always behave well. He will know that to do right is a duty, and a duty fulfilled is a blessing. What says Monsieur Gervois, – is he content too?”
“Quite so,” I reply. “He said I knew my hymn perfectly, and that if I learned the two pages that he showed me, off by heart, I should be made ‘elite’ of my class.”
“And what will that be?”
“I shall be above them all, and they must salute me when we meet out of school and in play-hours.”
“Let them do so in affection, but not for coercion, Jasper; he who is cleverer than his fellows ought to be humbler, if he would be as happy.”
“Quite true, Polly, quite true; you never said anything more just. The conscious power of intellect tells its possessor of his weakness as well as of his strength. Jasper, my child, be humble.”
“But when I said humble,” broke in she again, “I meant in self-esteem; for there is a kind of pride that sustains and elevates us.”
Monsieur Joseph only sighed gently, but never spoke.
After a few words like these, I was usually dismissed to my play-room, a little corner eked out of an old tower which had been accidentally joined to the house after it was built, but which to me was a boon unspeakable, for it was all my own; but can I revel in the delight of that isolation which each afternoon saw me enjoy? I would briefly tell my reader, if so be that he need the information, that she who in that worn attire bends over her task is Polly Fagan, and that Monsieur Joseph is no other than our old acquaintance Joe Raper!
De Gabriac had married Polly secretly, Joe Raper alone being admitted to their confidence. For months long they had watched for some favorable opportunity of breaking the event to the old man; and at last, worn out by care and anxiety, Polly could refrain no longer, but made the avowal herself, and, in a few brief words, told her fault and her sorrow.
The Grinder heard her with the stern impassiveness that he ever could summon in any dread emergency. He had that species of courage that can surmount every peril, only let its full extent be known; and although it was true that the announcement of the loss of all he was worth in the world would have been lighter tidings than those he now listened to, he heard her to the end without interruption. There was that in his calm, cold face which smote her to the very heart; the very way he drew back his hand, as she tried to grasp it in her own, was a shock to her; and ere she finished her sad story, her voice was broken, and her lips tremulous.
Terrible conflict was it between father and child! between two natures each proud as the other, – each bold, stern, and unforgiving!
“The date of this event?” asked he, as she concluded.
“The ninth of October.”
“Where?”
“At a chapel in Cullenswood Avenue.”
“Who witnessed it?”
“Raper.”
“Any other?”
“No other.”
“The ninth of October fell on a Tuesday; it was then, or the day after, that I gave you a diamond clasp, a present?”
“It was.”
“Who performed this ceremony?”
“A priest, but I am not at liberty to tell his name, – at least, without the assurance of your forgiveness.”
“Then do not tell it! The man is still living?”
“I believe so.”
“And your husband, – where is he?”
“In the city. He is waiting but to be received by you ere he return to France to arrange his affairs in that country.”
“He need not long delay his departure, then: tell him so.”
“You forgive us, then?” cried she, almost bursting with gratitude.
“No! – never!”
“Not forgive us! – not acknowledge us!”
“Never! never!” reiterated he, with a thick utterance that sounded like the very concentration of passion. The words seemed to have a spell in them to conjure up a feeling in her who heard, as deeply powerful as in him who spoke them.
“Am I no longer your daughter, sir?” asked she, rising and drawing herself to her full height before him.
“You are a Countess, madam,” said he, with a scornful irony; “I am but an humble man, of obscure station and low habits. I know nothing of nobility, nor of its ways.”
“I ask again, do you disown me?” said she, with a voice as calm and collected as his own.
“For ever and ever,” said he, waving his hand, as though the gesture was to be one of adieu. “You are mine no longer, – you had ceased to be so ere I knew it. Go to your home, if you have one; here, you are but an intruder, – unasked, unwished for!”
“Bitter words to part with! but hear me, sir. He who has joined his lot to mine should not pay the penalty of my fault. Against him you can bear no malice; he at least does not merit the reproach you have cast on me. Will you see him, – may he speak with you?”
“Whenever he pleases, – provided it be but once. I will not be importuned.”
“You will bear in mind, sir, that he is a man of birth and station, and that to his ears words of insult are a stranger.”
“I will treat him with all the deference I owe to his rank, and to the part he has performed towards myself,” said Fagan, slowly.
“It were, perhaps, better, then, that you should not meet?”
“It were, perhaps, better so!”
“Good-bye, sir. I have no more to say.”
“Good-bye, madam. Tell Raper I want to speak to him, as you pass out.”
With Raper the interview was briefer still. Fagan dryly informed his old follower that he no longer needed his services. And although Joe heard the words as a criminal might have listened to those of his last sentence, he never uttered a syllable. Fagan was brief, though bitter. He reproached him with the long years he had sheltered him beneath his roof, and reviled him for ingratitude! He spoke of him as one who had eaten the bread of idleness, and repaid an existence of ease by treachery. Once, and only once, did the insulting language he lavished on him seem to sting him beyond further endurance. It was when Fagan said:
