My Novel Part 89

"I love her the more," said young Hazeldean, raising his front with a n.o.ble pride, that seemed to speak of his descent from a race of cavaliers and gentlemen,--"I love her the more because the world has slandered her name,--because I believe her to be pure and wronged. But would they at the Hall,--they who do not see with a lover's eyes, they who have all the stubborn English notions about the indecorum and license of Continental manners, and will so readily credit the worst?

Oh, no! I love, I cannot help it--but I have no hope."

"It is very possible that you may be right," exclaimed Randal, as if struck and half convinced by his companion's argument,--"very possible; and certainly I think that the homely folks at the Hall would fret and fume at first, if they heard you were married to Madame di Negra. Yet still, when your father learned that you had done so, not from pa.s.sion alone, but to save him from all pecuniary sacrifice,--to clear yourself of debt, to--"

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Frank, impatiently.

"I have reason to know that Madame di Negra will have as large a portion as your father could reasonably expect you to receive with any English wife. And when this is properly stated to the squire, and the high position and rank of your wife fully established and brought home to him,--for I must think that these would tell, despite your exaggerated notions of his prejudices,--and then, when he really sees Madame di Negra, and can judge of her beauty and rare gifts, upon my word, I think, Frank, that there would be no cause for fear. After all, too, you are his only son. He will have no option but to forgive you; and I know how anxiously both your parents wish to see you settled in life."

Frank's whole countenance became illuminated. "There is no one who understands the squire like you, certainly," said he, with lively joy.

"He has the highest opinion of your judgment. And you really believe you could smooth matters?"

"I believe so; but I should be sorry to induce you to run any risk; and if, on cool consideration, you think that risk is incurred, I strongly advise you to avoid all occasion of seeing the poor marchesa. Ah, you wince; but I say it for her sake as well as your own. First, you must be aware, that, unless you have serious thoughts of marriage, your attentions can but add to the very rumours that, equally groundless, you so feelingly resent; and, secondly, because I don't think any man has a right to win the affections of a woman--especially a woman who seems to me likely to love with her whole heart and soul--merely to gratify his own vanity."

"Vanity! Good heavens! can you think so poorly of me? But as to the marchesa's affections," continued Frank, with a faltering voice, "do you really and honestly believe that they are to be won by me?"

"I fear lest they may be half won already," said Randal, with a smile and a shake of the head; "but she is too proud to let you see any effect you may produce on her, especially when, as I take it for granted, you have never hinted at the hope of obtaining her hand."

"I never till now conceived such a hope. My dear Randal, all my cares have vanished! I tread upon air! I have a great mind to call on her at once."

"Stay, stay," said Randal. "Let me give you a caution. I have just informed you that Madame di Negra will have, what you suspected not before, a fortune suitable to her birth. Any abrupt change in your manner at present might induce her to believe that you were influenced by that intelligence."

"Ah!" exclaimed Frank, stopping short, as if wounded to the quick. "And I feel guilty,--feel as if I was influenced by that intelligence. So I am, too, when I reflect," he continued, with a naivete that was half pathetic; "but I hope she will not be very rich; if so, I'll not call."

"Make your mind easy, it is but a portion of some twenty or thirty thousand pounds, that would just suffice to discharge all your debts, clear away all obstacle to your union, and in return for which you could secure a more than adequate jointure and settlement on the Casino property. Now I am on that head, I will be yet more communicative.

Madame di Negra has a n.o.ble heart, as you say, and told me herself, that, until her brother on his arrival had a.s.sured her of this dowry, she would never have consented to marry you, never crippled with her own embarra.s.sments the man she loves. Ah! with what delight she will hail the thought of a.s.sisting you to win back your father's heart! But be guarded meanwhile. And now, Frank, what say you--would it not be well if I ran down to Hazeldean to sound your parents? It is rather inconvenient to me, to be sure, to leave town just at present; but I would do more than that to render you a smaller service. Yes, I'll go to Rood Hall to-morrow, and thence to Hazeldean. I am sure your father will press me to stay, and I shall have ample opportunities to judge of the manner in which he would be likely to regard your marriage with Madame di Negra,--supposing always it were properly put to him. We can then act accordingly."

"My dear, dear Randal, how can I thank you? If ever a poor fellow like me can serve you in return--but that's impossible."

"Why, certainly, I will never ask you to be security to a bill of mine,"

said Randal, laughing. "I practise the economy I preach."

"Ah!" said Frank, with a groan, "that is because your mind is cultivated,--you have so many resources; and all my faults have come from idleness. If I had had anything to do on a rainy day, I should never have got into these sc.r.a.pes."

"Oh, you will have enough to do some day managing your property. We who have no property must find one in knowledge. Adieu, my dear Frank, I must go home now. By the way, you have never, by chance, spoken of the Riccaboccas to Madame di Negra."

"The Riccaboccas? No. That's well thought of. It may interest her to know that a relation of mine has married her countryman. Very odd that I never did mention it; but, to say truth, I really do talk so little to her: she is so superior, and I feel positively shy with her."

"Do me the favour, Frank," said Randal, waiting patiently till this reply ended,--for he was devising all the time what reason to give for his request,--"never to allude to the Riccaboccas either to her or to her brother, to whom you are sure to be presented."

"Why not allude to them?"

Randal hesitated a moment. His invention was still at fault, and, for a wonder, he thought it the best policy to go pretty near the truth.

"Why, I will tell you. The marchesa conceals nothing from her brother, and he is one of the few Italians who are in high favour with the Austrian court."

"Well!"

"And I suspect that poor Dr. Riccabocca fled his country from some mad experiment at revolution, and is still hiding from the Austrian police."

"But they can't hurt him here," said Frank, with an Englishman's dogged inborn conviction of the sanct.i.ty of his native island. "I should like to see an Austrian pretend to dictate to us whom to receive and whom to reject."

"Hum--that's true and const.i.tutional, no doubt; but Riccabocca may have excellent reasons--and, to speak plainly, I know he has (perhaps as affecting the safety of friends in Italy)--for preserving his incognito, and we are bound to respect those reasons without inquiring further."

"Still I cannot think so meanly of Madame di Negra," persisted Frank (shrewd here, though credulous elsewhere, and both from his sense of honour), "as to suppose that she would descend to be a spy, and injure a poor countryman of her own, who trusts to the same hospitality she receives herself at our English hands. Oh, if I thought that, I could not love her!" added Frank, with energy.

"Certainly you are right. But see in what a false position you would place both her brother and herself. If they knew Riccabocca's secret, and proclaimed it to the Austrian Government, as you say, it would be cruel and mean; but if they knew it and concealed it, it might involve them both in the most serious consequences. You know the Austrian policy is proverbially so jealous and tyrannical?"

"Well, the newspapers say so, certainly."

"And, in short, your discretion can do no harm, and your indiscretion may. Therefore, give me your word, Frank. I can't stay to argue now."

"I'll not allude to the Riccaboccas, upon my honour," answered Frank; "still, I am sure that they would be as safe with the marchesa as with--"

"I rely on your honour," interrupted Randal, hastily, and hurried off.

CHAPTER V.

Towards the evening of the following day, Randal Leslie walked slowly from a village in the main road (about two miles from Rood Hall), at which he had got out of the coach. He pa.s.sed through meads and cornfields, and by the skirts of woods which had formerly belonged to his ancestors, but had been long since alienated. He was alone amidst the haunts of his boyhood, the scenes in which he had first invoked the grand Spirit of Knowledge, to bid the Celestial Still One minister to the commands of an earthly and turbulent ambition. He paused often in his path, especially when the undulations of the ground gave a glimpse of the gray church tower, or the gloomy firs that rose above the desolate wastes of Rood.

"Here," thought Randal, with a softening eye,--"here, how often, comparing the fertility of the lands pa.s.sed away from the inheritance of my fathers, with the forlorn wilds that are left to their mouldering Hall,--here how often have I said to myself, 'I will rebuild the fortunes of my House.' And straightway Toil lost its aspect of drudge, and grew kingly, and books became as living armies to serve my thought.

Again--again O thou haughty Past, brace and strengthen me in the battle with the Future." His pale lips writhed as he soliloquized, for his conscience spoke to him while he thus addressed his will, and its voice was heard more audibly in the quiet of the rural landscape, than amidst the turmoil and din of that armed and sleepless camp which we call a city.

Doubtless, though Ambition have objects more vast and beneficent than the restoration of a name, that in itself is high and chivalrous, and appeals to a strong interest in the human heart. But all emotions and all ends of a n.o.bler character had seemed to filter themselves free from every golden grain in pa.s.sing through the mechanism of Randal's intellect, and came forth at last into egotism clear and unalloyed.

Nevertheless, it is a strange truth that, to a man of cultivated mind, however perverted and vicious, there are vouchsafed gleams of brighter sentiments, irregular perceptions of moral beauty, denied to the brutal unreasoning wickedness of uneducated villany,--which perhaps ultimately serve as his punishment, according to the old thought of the satirist, that there is no greater curse than to perceive virtue yet adopt vice. And as the solitary schemer walked slowly on, and his childhood--innocent at least indeed--came distinct before him through the halo of bygone dreams,--dreams far purer than those from which he now rose each morning to the active world of Man,--a profound melancholy crept over him, and suddenly he exclaimed aloud, "Then I aspired to be renowned and great; now, how is it that, so advanced in my career, all that seemed lofty in the end has vanished from me, and the only means that I contemplate are those which my childhood would have called poor and vile? Ah, is it that I then read but books, and now my knowledge has pa.s.sed onward, and men contaminate more than books? But," he continued, in a lower voice, as if arguing with himself, "if power is only so to be won,--and of what use is knowledge if it be not power--does not success in life justify all things? And who prizes the wise man if he fails?" He continued his way, but still the soft tranquillity around rebuked him, and still his reason was dissatisfied, as well as his conscience. There are times when Nature, like a bath of youth, seems to restore to the jaded soul its freshness,--times from which some men have emerged, as if reborn. The crises of life are very silent. Suddenly the scene opened on Randal Leslie's eyes,--the bare desert common, the dilapidated church, the old house, partially seen in the dank dreary hollow, into which it seemed to Randal to have sunken deeper and lowlier than when he saw it last. And on the common were some young men playing at hockey. That old-fas.h.i.+oned game, now very uncommon in England, except at schools, was still preserved in the primitive vicinity of Rood by the young yeomen and farmers. Randal stood by the stile and looked on, for among the players he recognized his brother Oliver. Presently the ball was struck towards Oliver, and the group instantly gathered round that young gentleman, and s.n.a.t.c.hed him from Randal's eye; but the elder brother heard a displeasing din, a derisive laughter. Oliver had shrunk from the danger of the thick clubbed sticks that plied around him, and received some stroke across the legs, for his voice rose whining, and was drowned by shouts of, "Go to your mammy. That's Noll Leslie all over. b.u.t.ter s.h.i.+ns!"

Randal's sallow face became scarlet. "The jest of boors--a Leslie!" he muttered, and ground his teeth. He sprang over the stile, and walked erect and haughtily across the ground. The players cried out indignantly. Randal raised his hat, and they recognized him, and stopped the game. For him at least a certain respect was felt. Oliver turned round quickly, and ran up to him. Randal caught his arm firmly, and without saying a word to the rest, drew him away towards the house.

Oliver cast a regretful, lingering look behind him, rubbed his s.h.i.+ns, and then stole a timid glance towards Randal's severe and moody countenance.

"You are not angry that I was playing at hockey with our neighbours,"

said he, deprecatingly, observing that Randal would not break the silence.

"No," replied the elder brother; "but in a.s.sociating with his inferiors, a gentleman still knows how to maintain his dignity. There is no harm in playing with inferiors, but it is necessary to a gentleman to play so that he is not the laughing-stock of clowns."

Oliver hung his head, and made no answer. They came into the slovenly precincts of the court, and the pigs stared at them from the palings, as their progenitors had stared, years before, at Frank Hazeldean.

Mr. Leslie, senior, in a shabby straw-hat, was engaged in feeding the chickens before the threshold, and he performed even that occupation with a maundering lack-a-daisical slothfulness, dropping down the grains almost one by one from his inert dreamy fingers.

Randal's sister, her hair still and forever hanging about her ears, was seated on a rush-bottom chair, reading a tattered novel; and from the parlour window was heard the querulous voice of Mrs. Leslie, in high fidget and complaint.

Somehow or other, as the young heir to all this helpless poverty stood in the courtyard, with his sharp, refined, intelligent features, and his strange elegance of dress and aspect, one better comprehended how, left solely to the egotism of his knowledge and his ambition, in such a family, and without any of the sweet nameless lessons of Home, he had grown up into such close and secret solitude of soul,--how the mind had taken so little nutriment from the heart, and how that affection and respect which the warm circle of the heart usually calls forth had pa.s.sed with him to the graves of dead fathers, growing, as it were, bloodless and ghoul-like amidst the charnels on which they fed.

"Ha, Randal, boy," said Mr. Leslie, looking up lazily, "how d' ye do?

Who could have expected you? My dear, my dear," he cried, in a broken voice, and as if in helpless dismay, "here's Randal, and he'll be wanting dinner, or supper, or something." But, in the mean while, Randal's sister Juliet had sprung up and thrown her arms round her brother's neck, and he had drawn her aside caressingly, for Randal's strongest human affection was for this sister.

"You are growing very pretty, Juliet," said he, smoothing back her hair; "why do yourself such injustice,--why not pay more attention to your appearance, as I have so often begged you to do?"