Venetia Part 55

'Nevertheless, I hope the muse has not slumbered,' said Herbert; 'for you have had the happiest inspiration in the climes in which you have resided; not only are they essentially poetic, but they offer a virgin vein.'

'I have written a little,' replied Cadurcis; 'I will give it you, if you like, some day to turn over. Yours is the only opinion that I really care for. I have no great idea of the poetry; but I am very strong in my costume. I feel very confident about that. I fancy I know how to hit off a pasha, or touch in a Greek pirate now. As for all the things I wrote in England, I really am ashamed of them. I got up my orientalism from books, and sultans and sultanas at masquerades,' he added, archly. 'I remember I made my heroines always wear turbans; only conceive my horror when I found that a Turkish woman would as soon think of putting my hat on as a turban, and that it was an article of dress entirely confined to a Bond Street milliner.'

The evening pa.s.sed in interesting and diverting conversation; of course, princ.i.p.ally contributed by the two travellers, who had seen so much. Inspirited by his interview with Lady Annabel, and her gracious reception of his overtures, Lord Cadurcis was in one of those frolic humours, which we have before noticed was not unnatural to him. He had considerable powers of mimicry, and the talent that had pictured to Venetia in old days, with such liveliness, the habits of the old maids of Morpeth, was now engaged on more considerable topics; an interview with a pasha, a peep into a harem, a visit to a pirate's isle, the slave-market, the bazaar, the barracks of the janissaries, all touched with irresistible vitality, and coloured with the rich phrases of unrivalled force of expression. The laughter was loud and continual; even Lady Annabel joined zealously in the glee. As for Herbert, he thought Cadurcis by far the most hearty and amusing person he had ever known, and could not refrain from contrasting him with the picture which his works and the report of the world had occasionally enabled him to sketch to his mind's eye; the n.o.ble, young, and impa.s.sioned bard, pouring forth the eloquent tide of his morbid feelings to an idolising world, from whose applause he nevertheless turned with an almost misanthropic melancholy.

It was now much past the noon of night, and the hour of separation, long postponed, was inevitable. Often had Cadurcis risen to depart, and often, without regaining his seat, had he been tempted by his friends, and especially Venetia, into fresh narratives. At last he said, 'Now we must go. Lady Annabel looks good night. I remember the look,' he said, laughing, 'when we used to beg for a quarter of an hour more. O Venetia! do not you remember that Christmas when dear old Masham read Julius Caesar, and we were to sit up until it was finished. When he got to the last act I hid his spectacles. I never confessed it until this moment. Will you pardon me, Lady Annabel?' and he pressed his hands together in a mockery of supplication.

'Will you come and breakfast with us to-morrow?' said Lady Annabel.

'With delight,' he answered. 'I am used, you know, to walks before breakfast. George, I do not think George can do it, though. George likes his comforts; he is a regular John Bull. He was always calling for tea when we were in Turkey!'

At this moment Mistress Pauncefort entered the room, ostensibly on some little affair of her mistress, but really to reconnoitre.

'Ah! Mistress Pauncefort; my old friend, Mistress Pauncefort, how do you do?' exclaimed his lords.h.i.+p.

'Quite well, my lord, please your lords.h.i.+p; and very glad to see your lords.h.i.+p again, and looking so well too.'

'Ah! Mistress Pauncefort, you always flattered me!'

'Oh! dear, my lord, your lords.h.i.+p, no,' said Mistress Pauncefort, with a simper.

'But you, Pauncefort,' said Cadurcis, 'why there must be some magic in the air here. I have been complimenting your lady and Miss Venetia; but really, you, I should almost have thought it was some younger sister.'

'Oh! my lord, you have such a way,' said Mistress Pauncefort, retreating with a slow step that still lingered for a remark.

'Pauncefort, is that an Italian cap?' said Lord Cadurcis; 'you know, Pauncefort, you were always famous for your caps.'

Mistress Pauncefort disappeared in a fl.u.s.ter of delight.

And now they had indeed departed. There was a pause of complete silence after they had disappeared, the slight and not painful reaction after the mirthful excitement of the last few hours. At length Herbert, dropping, as was his evening custom, a few drops of orange-flower into a tumbler of water, said, 'Annabel, my love, I am rather surprised that neither you nor Venetia should have mentioned to me that you knew, and knew so intimately, a man like Lord Cadurcis.'

Lady Annabel appeared a little confused; she looked even at Venetia, but Venetia's eyes were on the ground. At length she said, 'In truth, Marmion, since we met we have thought only of you.'

'Cadurcis Abbey, papa, is close to Cherbury,' said Venetia.

'Cherbury!' said Herbert, with a faint blush. 'I have never seen it, and now I shall never see it. No matter, my country is your mother and yourself. Some find a home in their country, I find a country in my home. Well,' he added, in a gayer tone, 'it has gratified me much to meet Lord Cadurcis. We were happy before, but now we are even gay.

I like to see you smile, Annabel, and hear Venetia laugh. I feel, myself, quite an unusual hilarity. Cadurcis! It is very strange how often I have mused over that name. A year ago it was one of my few wishes to know him; my wishes, then, dear Annabel, were not very ambitious. They did not mount so high as you have since permitted them. And now I do know him, and under what circ.u.mstances! Is not life strange? But is it not happy? I feel it so. Good night, sweet wife; my darling daughter, a happy, happy night!' He embraced them ere they retired; and opening a volume composed his mind after the novel excitement of the evening.

CHAPTER IV.

Cadurcis left the brig early in the morning alone, and strolled towards the villa. He met Herbert half-way to Spezzia, who turned back with him towards home. They sat down on a crag opposite the sea; there was a light breeze, the fis.h.i.+ng boats wore out, and the view was as animated as the fresh air was cheering.

'There they go,' said Cadurcis, smiling, 'catching John Dory, as you and I try to catch John Bull. Now if these people could understand what two great men were watching them, how they would stare! But they don't care a sprat for us, not they! They are not part of the world the three or four thousand civilised savages for whom we sweat our brains, and whose fetid breath perfumed with musk is fame. Pah!'

Herbert smiled. 'I have not cared much myself for this same world.'

'Why, no; you have done something, and shown your contempt for them.

No one can deny that. I will some day, if I have an opportunity. I owe it them; I think I can show them a trick or two still.[A] I have got a Damascus blade in store for their thick hides. I will turn their flank yet.'

[Footnote A: I think I know a trick or two would turn Your flanks.

_Don Juan_.]

'And gain a victory where conquest brings no glory. You are worth brighter laurels, Lord Cadurcis.'

'Now is not it the most wonderful thing in the world that you and I have met?' said Cadurcis. 'Now I look upon ourselves as something like, eh! Fellows with some pith in them. By Jove, if we only joined together, how we could lay it on! Crack, crack, crack; I think I see them wincing under the thong, the pompous poltroons! If you only knew how they behaved to me! By Jove, sir, they hooted me going to the House of Lords, and nearly pulled me off my horse. The ruffians would have ma.s.sacred me if they could; and then they all ran away from a drummer-boy and a couple of grenadiers, who were going the rounds to change guard. Was not that good? Fine, eh? A brutish mob in a fit of morality about to immolate a gentleman, and then scampering off from a sentry. I call that human nature!'

'As long as they leave us alone, and do not burn us alive, I am content,' said Herbert. 'I am callous to what they say.'

'So am I,' said Cadurcis. 'I made out a list the other day of all the persons and things I have been compared to. It begins well, with Alcibiades, but it ends with the Swiss giantess or the Polish dwarf, I forget which. Here is your book. You see it has been well thumbed. In fact, to tell the truth, it was my cribbing book, and I always kept it by me when I was writing at Athens, like a gradus, a _gradus ad Parna.s.sum_, you know. But although I crib, I am candid, and you see I fairly own it to you.'

'You are welcome to all I have ever written,' said Herbert. 'Mine were but crude dreams. I wished to see man n.o.ble and happy; but if he will persist in being vile and miserable, I must even be content. I can struggle for him no more.'

'Well, you opened my mind,' said Cadurcis. 'I owe you everything; but I quite agree with you that nothing is worth an effort. As for philosophy and freedom, and all that, they tell devilish well in a stanza; but men have always been fools and slaves, and fools and slaves they always will be.'

'Nay,' said Herbert, 'I will not believe that. I will not give up a jot of my conviction of a great and glorious future for human destinies; but its consummation will not be so rapid as I once thought, and in the meantime I die.'

'Ah, death!' said Lord Cadurcis, 'that is a botherer. What can you make of death? There are those poor fishermen now; there will be a white squall some day, and they will go down with those lateen sails of theirs, and be food for the very prey they were going to catch; and if you continue living here, you may eat one of your neighbours in the shape of a shoal of red mullets, when it is the season. The great secret, we cannot penetrate that with all our philosophy, my dear Herbert. "All that we know is, nothing can be known." Barren, barren, barren! And yet what a grand world it is! Look at this bay, these blue waters, the mountains, and these chestnuts, devilish fine! The fact is, truth is veiled, but, like the Shekinah over the tabernacle, the veil is of dazzling light!'

'Life is the great wonder,' said Herbert, 'into which all that is strange and startling resolves itself. The mist of familiarity obscures from us the miracle of our being. Mankind are constantly starting at events which they consider extraordinary. But a philosopher acknowledges only one miracle, and that is life. Political revolutions, changes of empire, wrecks of dynasties and the opinions that support them, these are the marvels of the vulgar, but these are only transient modifications of life. The origin of existence is, therefore, the first object which a true philosopher proposes to himself. Unable to discover it, he accepts certain results from his unbia.s.sed observation of its obvious nature, and on them he establishes certain principles to be our guides in all social relations, whether they take the shape of laws or customs.

Nevertheless, until the principle of life be discovered, all theories and all systems of conduct founded on theory must be considered provisional.'

'And do you believe that there is a chance of its being discovered?'

inquired Cadurcis.

'I cannot, from any reason in my own intelligence, find why it should not,' said Herbert.

'You conceive it possible that a man may attain earthly immortality?'

inquired Cadurcis.

'Undoubtedly.'

'By Jove,' said Cadurcis, 'if I only knew how, I would purchase an immense annuity directly.'

'When I said undoubtedly,' said Herbert, smiling, 'I meant only to express that I know no invincible reason to the contrary. I see nothing inconsistent with the existence of a Supreme Creator in the annihilation of death. It appears to me an achievement worthy of his omnipotence. I believe in the possibility, but I believe in nothing more. I antic.i.p.ate the final result, but not by individual means. It will, of course, be produced by some vast and silent and continuous operation of nature, gradually effecting some profound and comprehensive alteration in her order, a change of climate, for instance, the great enemy of life, so that the inhabitants of the earth may attain a patriarchal age. This renovated breed may in turn produce a still more vigorous offspring, and so we may ascend the scale, from the threescore and ten of the Psalmist to the immortality of which we speak. Indeed I, for my own part, believe the operation has already commenced, although thousands of centuries may elapse before it is consummated; the threescore and ten of the Psalmist is already obsolete; the whole world is talking of the general change of its seasons and its atmosphere. If the origin of America were such as many profound philosophers suppose, viz., a sudden emersion of a new continent from the waves, it is impossible to doubt that such an event must have had a very great influence on the climate of the world.

Besides, why should we be surprised that the nature of man should change? Does not everything change? Is not change the law of nature?

My skin changes every year, my hair never belongs to me a month, the nail on my hand is only a pa.s.sing possession. I doubt whether a man at fifty is the same material being that he is at five-and-twenty.'

'I wonder,' said Lord Cadurcis, 'if a creditor brought an action against you at fifty for goods delivered at five-and-twenty, one could set up the want of ident.i.ty as a plea in bar. It would be a consolation to an elderly gentleman.'

'I am afraid mankind are too hostile to philosophy,' said Herbert, smiling, 'to permit so desirable a consummation.'

'Should you consider a long life a blessing?' said Cadurcis. 'Would you like, for instance, to live to the age of Methusalem?'

'Those whom the G.o.ds love die young,' said Herbert. 'For the last twenty years I have wished to die, and I have sought death. But my feelings, I confess, on that head are at present very much modified.'