Kitabı oku: «The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume I», sayfa 29

CHAPTER XXXIV. JEKYL’S COUNSELS

ONE of the most striking characteristics of our present age is the singular mixture of frivolity and seriousness, the almost absurd contrast between grave inquiry and reckless dissipation, which pervades the well-to-do classes. Never was there a period when merely sensual gratification was more highly prized and paid for; and never, perhaps, a time when every rank in life was more eager in the pursuit of knowledge. To produce this state of things a certain compromise was necessary; and while the mere man of pleasure affected a taste for literature and politics, the really active-minded either sought his relaxation, or extended his influence, by mingling in scenes of frivolity and amusement.

The age which made dandies philosophers made lord chancellors droll, and bishops eccentric. A paradoxical spirit was abroad, and it seemed to be a matter of pride with every one to do something out of his station. The whole temper of society and the tone of conversation exhibited this new taste.

Lady Hester Onslow was not a bad specimen of the prevailing mania. There was by nature a certain fidgety, capricious volatility about her that defied everything like a regular pursuit or a continued purpose. With a reasonably quick apprehension and no judgment, in being everything, she became nothing. Always mistaking sympathies for convictions, it was quite sufficient to interest her imagination to secure her adhesion, not, indeed, that it was worth much when obtained, seeing that she was but a feeble ally at the best. Her employment of the day was a type of herself. The mornings were passed in mesmeric experiences with her doctor, or what she fancied were theological discussions with the Abbe D’Esmonde.

It would be difficult to say in which the imaginative exaltation more predominated. All the authentic and incredible phenomena of the one, all the miraculous pretensions of the other, were too little for a credulity that stopped at nothing. Of second sight, remote sympathy, and saintly miracles she never could hear enough. “Give me facts,” she would say; by which she meant narratives. “I will have no theories, doctor.” “Don’t bear me down with arguments, Monsieur l’Abbe.” “Facts, and facts alone, have any influence with me.”

Now, such facts as she asked for were easily obtainable, and the greatest miser need not have grudged her an ample meal of them. Many of the facts, too, possessed the pleasing feature of being personal in their interest. One day it was a charming young patient of the doctor, who, having touched a tress of Lady Hester’s hair, made the most astonishing revelations of her Ladyship’s disposition; telling facts of her feelings, her nature, and even her affections, that “she knew were only confided to her own heart.” Various little incidents of her daily life were foretold, even to such minute matters as the purchase of articles of jewelry, which she had not even seen at the time, and only met her eyes by accident afterwards. The Abbe, with equal success, assured her of the intense interest taken in her by the Church. Beautifully bound and richly illustrated books were offered to her, with the flattering addition that prayers were then being uttered at many a shrine for her enlightenment in their perusal. Less asked to conform herself to a new belief than to reconcile the faith to her own notions, she was given the very widest latitude to her opinions. If she grew impatient at argument, a subtle illustration, an apt metaphor, or sometimes a happy mot settled the question. The Abbe was a clever talker, and varied his subjects with all the skill of a master. He knew how to invoke to his aid all that poetry, art, and romance could contribute. The theme was a grand one when the imagination was to be interested, and really deserved a better listener; for save when the miraculous interposition of saints or the gaudy ceremonials of the Church were spoken of, she heard the subject with indifference, if not apathy. The consideration of self could, however, always bring her back; and it was ever a successful flattery to assure her how fervently such a cardinal prayed for her “right-mindedness,” and how eagerly even his Holiness looked forward to the moment of counting her among his children.

Her very tastes those same tastes that ascetic Protestantism was always cavilling at were beautifully Roman. The Church liked display. Witness her magnificence and splendor, her glorious cathedrals, the pomp and grandeur of her ceremonial! As to music, the choir of the “Duomo” was seraphic, and needed not the association of the dim vaulted aisles, the distant altar, and the checkered rays of stained-glass windows to wrap the soul in a fervor of enthusiasm. Even beauty was cherished by the Church, and the fair Madonnas were types of an admiring love that was beautifully catholic in its worship.

With all this, the work of conversion was a Penelope’s web, that must each day be begun anew, for, as the hour of the Cascini drew nigh, Lady Hester’s carriage drew up, and mesmerism, miracles, and all gave way to the fresher interests of courtly loungers, chit-chat, and “bouquets of camellias.”

For the next hour or so, her mind was occupied with the gossiping stories of Florentine life, its surface details all recounted by the simpering dandies who gathered around her carriage; its deeper not unfrequently darker histories being the province of Mr. Albert Jekyl. Then home to luncheon, for, as Haggerstone related, she dined always after the Opera, and it was then, somewhere verging on midnight, that she really began to live. Then, in all the blaze of dress and jewels, with beauty little impaired by years, and a manner the perfection of that peculiar school to which she attached herself, she was indeed a most attractive person.

Kate Dalton’s life was, of course, precisely the same. Except the few hours given to controversial topics, and which she passed in reading, and the occasional change from driving to riding in the Cascini, Kate’s day was exactly that of her friend. Not, however, with the same results; for while one was wearied with the same routine of unvarying pleasure, tired of the monotonous circle of amusement, the other became each day more and more enamored of a life so unchanging in its happiness. What was uniformity to Lady Hester, imparted a sense of security to Kate. It was not alone the splendor that surrounded her, the thousand objects of taste and elegance that seemed to multiply around them, that captivated her so much, it was the absence of all care, the freedom from every thought that this state was a mere passing one. This Kate felt to be the very highest of enjoyments, and when at night she whispered to herself, “To-morrow will be like to-day,” she had said everything that could brighten anticipation.

Her father’s letter was the first shock to this delightful illusion. Her own false position of splendor, in contrast to his poverty, now came up palpably before her, and in place of those blissful reveries in which she often passed hours, there rose to her mind the bitter self-accusings of a penitent spirit. She never slept through the night; the greater part of it she spent in tears. Her absence from home, brief as it was, was quite enough to make her forget much of its daily life. She could, it is true, recall the penury and the privation, but not the feelings that grew out of them. “How changed must he have become to stoop to this!” was the exclamation that she uttered again and again. “Where was all that Dalton pride they used to boast of? What become of that family dignity which once was their bulwark against every blow of Fortune?”

To these thoughts succeeded the sadder one, of what course remained for her to adopt? a difficulty the greater since she but half understood what was required of her. He spoke of a bill, and yet the letter contained none: before she broke the seal, it felt as though there was an enclosure, yet she found none; and if there were, of what use would it be? It was perfectly impossible that she could approach Sir Stafford with such a request; every sense of shame, delicacy, and self-respect revolted at the very thought. Still less could she apply to Lady Hester, whose extravagant and wasteful habits always placed her in want of money; and yet to refuse her father on grounds which he would deem purely selfish was equally out of the question. She well knew that in a moment of anger and impatience stung by what he would call the ingratitude of his children he would probably himself write to Sir Stafford, narrating every circumstance that drove him to the step. Oh, that she had never left him, never ceased to live the life of want and hardship to which time had accustomed her! all the poverty she had ever known brought no such humiliation as this! Poor Nelly’s lot now was a hundredfold superior to hers. She saw, too, that reserve once broken on such a theme, her father would not scruple to renew the application as often as he needed money. It was clear enough that he saw no embarrassment, nor any difficulty for her in the matter; that it neither could offend her feelings nor compromise her position. Could she descend to an evasive or equivocal reply, his temper would as certainly boil over, and an insulting letter would at once be addressed to Sir Stafford. Were she to make the request and fail, he would order her home, and under what circumstances should she leave the house of her benefactors! And yet all this was better than success.

In such harassing reflections warring and jarring in her mind, the long hours of the night were passed. She wept, too: the bitterest tears are those that are wrung from shame and sorrow mingled. Many a generous resolve, many a thought of self-devotion and sacrifice rose to her mind; at moments she would have submitted herself to any wound to self-esteem to have obtained her father’s kind word, and at others all the indignity of a false position overwhelmed her, and she cried as if her very heart were bursting.

Wearied and fevered, she arose and went into the garden. It was one of the brilliant mornings which for a week or ten days in Italy represent the whole season of spring. Although still early, the sun was hot, and the flowers and shrubs, refreshed by the heavy dew, were bursting out into renewed luxuriance in the warm glow. The fountains sparkled, and the birds were singing, and all seemed animated by that joyous spirit which seems the very breath of early morning, all save poor Kate, who, with bent-down head and slow step, loitered along the walks, lost in her gloomiest thoughts.

To return home again was the only issue she could see to her difficulties, to share the humble fortunes of her father and sister, away from a world in which she had no pretension to live! And this, too, just when that same world had cast its fascinations round her, just when its blandishments had gained possession of her heart, and made her feel that all without its pale was ignoble and unworthy. No other course seemed, however, to offer itself, and she had just determined on its adoption, when the short, quick step of some one following her made her turn her head. As she did so, her name was pronounced, and Mr. Albert Jekyl, with his hat courteously removed, advanced towards her.

“I see with what care Miss Dalton protects the roses of her cheeks,” said he, smiling; “and yet how few there are that know this simple secret.”

“You give me a credit I have no claim to, Mr. Jekyl. I have almost forgotten the sight of a rising sun, but this morning I did not feel quite well a headache a sleepless night – ”

“Perhaps caused by anxiety,” interposed he, quietly. “I wish I had discovered your loss in time, but I only detected that it must be yours when I reached home.”

“I don’t comprehend you,” said she, with some hesitation.

“Is not this yours, Miss Dalton?” said he, producing the bill, which had fallen unseen from her father’s letter. “I found it on the floor of the small boudoir, and not paying much attention to it at the time, did not perceive the signature, which would at once have betrayed the ownership.”

“It must have dropped from a letter I was reading,” said Kate, whose cheek was now scarlet, for she knew Jekyl well enough to be certain that her whole secret was by that time in his hands. Slighter materials than this would have sufficed for his intelligence to construct a theory upon. Nothing in his manner, however, evinced this knowledge, for he handed her the paper with an air of most impassive quietude; while, as if to turn her thoughts from any unpleasantness of the incident, he said,

“You haven’t yet heard, I suppose, of Lady Hester’s sudden resolve to quit Florence?”

“Leave Florence! and for where?” asked she, hurriedly.

“For Midchekoff’s villa at Como. We discussed it all last night after you left, and in twenty-four hours we are to be on the road.”

“What is the reason of this hurried departure?”

“The Ricketts invasion gives the pretext; but of course you know better than I do what a share the novelty of the scheme lends to its attractions.”

“And we are to leave this to-morrow?” said Kate, rather to herself than for her companion.

Jekyl marked well the tone and the expression of the speaker, but said not a word.

Kate stood for a few seconds lost in thought. Her difficulties were thickening around her, and not a gleam of light shone through the gloomy future before her. At last, as it were overpowered by the torturing anxieties of her situation, she covered her face with her hands to hide the tears that would gush forth in spite of her.

“Miss Dalton will forgive me,” said Jekyl, speaking in a low and most respectful voice, “if I step for once from the humble path I have tracked for myself in life, and offer my poor services as her adviser.”

Nothing could be more deferential than the speech, or the way in which it was uttered, and yet Kate heard it with a sense of pain. She felt that her personal independence was already in peril, and that the meek and bashful Mr. Jekyl had gained a mastery over her. He saw all this, he read each struggle of her mind, and, were retreat practicable, he would have retreated; but, the step once taken, the only course was “forwards.”

“Miss Dalton may reject my counsels, but she will not despise the devotion in which they are proffered. A mere accident” here he glanced at the paper which she still held in her fingers “a mere accident has shown me that you have a difficulty; one for which neither your habits nor knowledge of life can suggest the solution.” He paused, and a very slight nod from Kate emboldened him to proceed. “Were it not so, Miss Dalton were the case one for which your own exquisite tact could suffice, I never would have ventured on the liberty. I, who have watched you with wondering admiration, directing and guiding your course amid shoals and reefs and quicksands, where the most skilful might have found shipwreck, it would have been hardihood indeed for me to have offered my pilotage. But here, if I err not greatly, here is a new and unknown sea, and here I may be of service to you.”

“Is it so plain, then, what all this means?” said Kate, holding out the bill towards Jekyl.

“Alas! Miss Dalton,” said he, with a faint smile, “these are no enigmas to us who mix in all the worries and cares of life.”

“Then how do you read the riddle?” said she, almost laughing at the easy flippancy of his tone.

“Mr. Dalton being an Irish gentleman of a kind disposition and facile temper, suffers his tenantry to run most grievously into arrear. They won’t pay, and he won’t make them; his own creditors having no sympathy with such proceedings, become pressing and importunate. Mr. Dalton grows angry, and they grow irritable; he makes his agent write to them, they ‘instruct’ their attorney to write to him. Mr. D. is puzzled, and were it not that But, may I go on?”

“Of course; proceed,” said she, smiling.

“You’ll not be offended, though?” said he, “because, if I have not the privilege of being frank, I shall be worthless to you.”

“There is no serious offence without intention.”

“Very true; but I do not wish there should be even a trivial transgression.”

“I ‘m not afraid. Go on,” said she, nodding her head.

“Where was I, then? Oh! I remember. I said that Mr. Dalton, seeing difficulties thickening and troubles gathering, suddenly bethinks him that he has a daughter, a young lady of such attractions that, in a society where wealth and splendor and rank hold highest place, her beauty has already established a dominion which nothing, save her gentleness, prevents being a despotism.”

“Mr. Jekyl mistakes the part of a friend when he becomes flatterer.”

“There is no flattery in a plain unadorned truth,” said he, hastily.

“And were it all as you say,” rejoined she, speaking with a heightened color and a flashing eye, “how could such circumstances be linked with those you spoke of?”

“Easily enough, if I did but dare to tell it,” was his reply.

“It is too late for reserve; go on freely,” said she, with a faint sigh.

Jekyl resumed,

“Mr. Dalton knows there are thousands could have told him so that his daughter may be a princess to-morrow if she wishes it. She has but to choose her rank and her nationality, and there is not a land in Europe in whose peerage she may not inscribe her name. It is too late for reserve,” said he, quickly, “and consequently too late for resentment. You must not be angry with me now; I am but speaking in your presence what all the world says behind your back. Hearing this, and believing it, as all believe it, what is there more natural than that he should address himself to her at whose disposal lie all that wealth can compass? The sun bestows many a gleam of warmth and brightness before he reaches the zenith. Do not mistake me. This request was scarcely fair; it was ill-advised. Your freedom should never have been jeopardized for such a mere trifle. Had your father but seen with his own eyes your position here, he would never have done this; but, being done, there is no harm in it.”

“But what am I to do?” said Kate, trembling with embarrassment and vexation together.

“Send the money, of course,” said he, coolly.

“But how from what source?”

“Your own benevolence, none other,” said he, as calmly.

“There is no question of a favor, no stooping to an obligation necessary. You will simply give your promise to repay it at some future day, not specifying when; and I will find a banker but too happy to treat with you.”

“But what prospect have I of such ability to pay? what resources can I reckon upon?”

“You will be angry if I repeat myself,” said Jekyl, with deep humility.

“I am already angry with myself that I should have listened to your proposal so indulgently; my troubles must, indeed, have affected me deeply when I so far forgot myself.”

Jekyl dropped his head forward on his breast, and looked a picture of sorrow; after a while he said,

“Sir Stafford Onslow would, I well know, but be honored by your asking him the slight favor; but I could not counsel you to do so. Your feelings would have to pay too severe a sacrifice, and hence I advise making it a mere business matter; depositing some ornament a necklace you were tired of, a bracelet, anything in fact, a nothing and thus there is neither a difficulty nor a disclosure.”

“I have scarcely anything,” said Kate; “and what I have, have been all presents from Lady Hester.”

“Morlache would be quite content with your word,” said Jekyl, blandly.

“And if I should be unable to acquit the debt, will these few things I possess be sufficient to do it?”

“I should say double the amount, as a mere guess.”

“Can I dare I take your counsel?” cried she, in an accent of intense anxiety.

“Can you reject it, when refusal will be so bitter?”

Kate gave a slight shudder, as though that pang was greater than all the rest.

“There is fortunately no difficulty in the matter whatever,” said Jekyl, speaking rapidly. “You will, of course, have many things to purchase before you leave this. Well; take the carriage and your maid, and drive to the Ponte Vecchio. The last shop on the right-hand side of the bridge is ‘Morlache’s.’ It is unpromising enough outside, but there is wealth within to subsidize a kingdom. I will be in waiting to receive you, and in a few minutes the whole will be concluded; and if you have your letter ready, you can enclose the sum, and post it at once.”

If there were many things in this arrangement which shocked Kate, and revolted against her sense of delicacy and propriety, there was one counterpoise more than enough to outweigh them all: she should be enabled to serve her father, she, who alone of all his children had never contributed, save by affection, to his comfort, should now materially assist him. She knew too well the sufferings and anxieties his straitened fortune cost him, she witnessed but too often the half-desperation in which he would pass days, borne down and almost broken-hearted! and she had witnessed that outbreak of joy he would indulge in when an unexpected help had suddenly lifted him from the depth of his poverty. To be the messenger of such good tidings to be associated in his mind with this assistance, to win his fervent “God bless you!” she would have put life itself in peril; and when Jekyl placed so palpably before her the promptitude with which the act could be accomplished, all hesitation ceased, and she promised to be punctual at the appointed place by three o’clock that same afternoon.

“It is too early to expect to see Lady Hester,” said Jekyl; “and indeed, my real business here this morning was with yourself, so that now I shall drive out to Midchekoff’s and make all the arrangements about the villa. Till three, then, good-bye!”

“Good-bye,” said Kate, for the first time disposed to feel warmly to the little man, and half reproach herself with some of the prejudices she used to entertain regarding him.

Jekyl now took his way to the stables, and ordering a brougham to be got ready for him, sauntered into the house, and took his coffee while he waited.