Ernest Maltravers Part 54

"You will pardon my intrusion," said the latter, with his usual frankness--"but--"

"But what, sir? I am engaged."

"I shall be very brief. Maltravers, you are my old friend. I retain regard and affection for you, though our different habits have of late estranged us. I come to you from my cousin--from Florence--there has been some misunderstanding between you. I called on her to-day after you left the house. Her grief affected me. I have only just quitted her.

She has been told by some gossip or other some story or other--women are credulous, foolish creatures;--undeceive her, and, I dare say, all may be settled."

"Ferrers, if a man had spoken to me as Lady Florence did, his blood or mine must have flowed. And do you think that words that might have plunged me into the guilt of homicide if uttered by a man, I could ever pardon in one whom I had dreamed of for a wife? Never!"

"Pooh, pooh--women's words are wind. Don't throw away so splendid a match for such a trifle."

"Do you too, sir, mean to impute mercenary motives to me?"

"Heaven forbid! You know I am no coward, but I really don't want to fight you. Come, be reasonable."

"I dare say you mean well, but the breach is final--all recurrence to it is painful and superfluous. I must wish you good evening."

"You have positively decided?"

"I have."

"Even if Lady Florence made the _amende honorable_?"

"Nothing on the part of Lady Florence could alter my resolution. The woman whom an honourable man--an English gentleman--makes the partner of his life, ought never to listen to a syllable against his fair name: his honour is hers, and if her lips, that should breathe comfort in calumny, only serve to retail the lie--she may be beautiful, gifted, wealthy, and high-born, but he takes a curse to his arms. That curse I have escaped."

"And this I am to say to my cousin?"

"As you will. And now stay, Lumley Ferrers, and hear me. I neither accuse nor suspect you, I desire not to pierce your heart, and in this case I cannot fathom your motives; but if it should so have happened that you have, in any way, ministered to Lady Florence Lascelles'

injurious opinions of my faith and honour, you will have much to answer for, and sooner or later there will come a day of reckoning between you and me."

"Mr. Maltravers, there can be no quarrel between us, with my cousin's fair name at stake, or else we should not now part without preparations for a more hostile meeting. I can bear your language. _I_, too, though no philosopher, can forgive. Come, man, you are heated--it is very natural;--let us part friends--your hand."

"If you can take my hand, Lumley, you are innocent, and I have wronged you."

Lumley smiled, and cordially pressed the hand of his old friend.

As he descended the stairs, Maltravers followed, and just as Lumley turned into Curzon Street, the carriage whirled rapidly past him, and by the lamps he saw the pale and stern face of Maltravers.

It was a slow, drizzling rain,--one of those unwholesome nights frequent in London towards the end of autumn. Ferrers, however, insensible to the weather, walked slowly and thoughtfully towards his cousin's house. He was playing for a mighty stake, and hitherto the cast was in his favour, yet he was uneasy and perturbed. His conscience was tolerably proof to all compunction, as much from the levity as from the strength of his nature; and (Maltravers removed) he trusted in his knowledge of the human heart, and the smooth speciousness of his manner, to win, at last, in the hand of Lady Florence, the object of his ambition. It was not on her affection, it was on her pique, her resentment, that he relied.

"When a woman fancies herself slighted by the man she loves, the first person who proposes must be a clumsy wooer indeed, if he does not carry her away." So reasoned Ferrers, but yet he was ruffled and disquieted; the truth must be spoken,--able, bold, sanguine, and scornful as he was, his spirit quailed before that of Maltravers; he feared the lion of that nature when fairly aroused: his own character had in it something of a woman's--an unprincipled, gifted, aspiring, and subtle woman's,--and in Maltravers--stern, simple, and masculine--he recognised the superior dignity of the "lords of the creation;" he was overawed by the antic.i.p.ation of a wrath and revenge which he felt he merited, and which he feared might be deadly.

While gradually, however, his spirit recovered its usual elasticity, he came in the vicinity of Lord Saxingham's house, and suddenly, by a corner of the street, his arm was seized: to his inexpressible astonishment he recognised in the m.u.f.fled figure that accosted him the form of Florence Lascelles.

"Good heavens!" he cried, "is it possible?--You, alone in the streets, at this hour, in such a night, too! How very wrong--how very imprudent!"

"Do not talk to me--I am almost mad as it is: I could not rest--I could not brave quiet, solitude,--still less, the face of my father--I could not!--but quick, what says he?--What excuse has he? Tell me everything--I will cling to a straw."

"And is this the proud Florence Lascelles?"

"No,--it is the humbled Florence Lascelles. I have done with pride--speak to me!"

"Ah, what a treasure is such a heart! How can he throw it away?"

"Does he deny?"

"He denies nothing--he expresses himself rejoiced to have escaped--such was his expression--a marriage in which his heart never was engaged. He is unworthy of you--forget him."

Florence s.h.i.+vered, and as Ferrers drew her arm in his own, her ungloved hand touched his, and the touch was like that of ice.

"What will the servants think?--what excuse can we make?" said Ferrers, when they stood beneath the porch. Florence did not reply; but as the door opened, she said softly,--

"I am ill--ill," and clung to Ferrers with that unnerved and heavy weight which betokens faintness.

The light glared on her--the faces of the lacqueys betokened their undisguised astonishment. With a violent effort, Florence recovered herself, for she had not yet done with pride, swept through the hall with her usual stately step, slowly ascended the broad staircase, and gained the solitude of her own room, to fall senseless on the floor.

BOOK IX.

I go, the bride of Acheron.--SOPH. _Antig._

These things are in the Future.--_Ib._ 1333.

CHAPTER I.

* * * "There the action lies In its true nature * * * *

* * * What then? What rests?

Try what repentance can!"--_Hamlet_.

"I doubt he will be dead or ere I come."--_King John_.

IT was a fine afternoon in December, when Lumley Ferrers turned from Lord Saxingham's door. The knockers were m.u.f.fled--the windows on the third story were partially closed. There was sickness in that house.

Lumley's face was unusually grave; it was even sad. "So young--so beautiful," he muttered. "If ever I loved woman, I do believe I loved her:--that love must be my excuse.... I repent of what I have done--but I could not foresee that a mere lover's stratagem was to end in such effects--the metaphysician was very right when he said, 'We only sympathise with feelings we know ourselves.' A little disappointment in love could not have hurt me much--it is d----d odd it should hurt her so. I am altogether out of luck: old Templeton--I beg his pardon, Lord Vargrave--(by-the-by, he gets heartier every day--what a const.i.tution he has!) seems cross with me. He did not like the idea that I should marry Lady Florence--and when I thought that vision might have been realised, hinted that I was disappointing some expectations he had formed; I can't make out what he means. Then, too, the government have offered that place to Maltravers instead of to me. In fact, my star is not in the ascendant. Poor Florence, though,--I would really give a great deal to know her restored to health!--I have done a villainous thing, but I thought it only a clever one. However, regret is a fool's pa.s.sion. By Jupiter!--talking of fools, here comes Cesarini."

Wan, haggard, almost spectral, his hat over his brows, his dress neglected, his air reckless and fierce, Cesarini crossed the way, and thus accosted Lumley:

"We have murdered her, Ferrers; and her ghost will haunt us to our dying day!"

"Talk prose; you know I am no poet. What do you mean?"

"She is worse to-day," groaned Cesarini, in a hollow voice. "I wander like a lost spirit round the house; I question all who come from it.

Tell me--oh, tell me, is there hope?"

"I do, indeed, trust so," replied Ferrers, fervently. "The illness has only of late a.s.sumed an alarming appearance. At first it was merely a severe cold, caught by imprudent exposure one rainy night. Now they fear it has settled on the lungs; but if we could get her abroad, all might be well."

"You think so, honestly?"