Night and Morning Part 77

But unless you--you, with your own lips, tell me that you love me no more--that you love another--I will not yield you but with life."

He stalked sternly and impetuously up to Philip, who recoiled as his rival advanced. The characters of the two men seemed suddenly changed.

The timid dreamer seemed dilated into the fearless soldier. The soldier seemed shrinking--quailing-into nameless terror. Sidney grasped that strong arm, as Philip still retreated, with his slight and delicate fingers, grasped it with violence and menace; and frowning into the face from which the swarthy blood was scared away, said, in a hollow whisper:

"Do you hear me? Do you comprehend me? I say that she shall not be forced into a marriage at which I yet believe her heart rebels. My claim is holier than yours. Renounce her, or win her but with my blood."

Philip did not apparently hear the words thus addressed to him. His whole senses seemed absorbed in the one sense of sight. He continued to gaze upon the speaker, till his eye dropped on the hand that yet griped his arm. And as he thus looked, he uttered an inarticulate cry. He caught the hand in his own, and pointed to a ring on the finger, but remained speechless. Mr. Beaufort approached, and began some stammered words of soothing to Sidney, but Philip motioned him to be silent, and, at last, as if by a violent effort, gasped forth, not to Sidney, but to Beaufort,--

"His name?--his name?"

"It is Mr. Spencer--Mr. Charles Spencer," cried Beaufort. "Listen to me, I will explain all--I--"

"Hush, hus.h.!.+ cried Philip; and turning to Sidney, he put his hand on his shoulder, and looking him full in the face, said,--

"Have you not known another name? Are you not--yes, it is so--it is--it is! Follow me--follow!"

And still retaining his grasp, and leading Sidney, who was now subdued, awed, and a prey to new and wild suspicions, he moved on gently, stride by stride--his eyes fixed on that fair face--his lips muttering-till the closing door shut both forms from the eyes of the three there left.

It was the adjoining room into which Philip led his rival. It was lit but by a small reading-lamp, and the bright, steady blaze of the fire; and by this light they both continued to gaze on each other, as if spellbound, in complete silence. At last Philip, by an irresistible impulse, fell upon Sidney's bosom, and, clasping him with convulsive energy, gasped out:

"Sidney!--Sidney!--my mother's son!"

"What!" exclaimed Sidney, struggling from the embrace, and at last freeing himself; "it is you, then!--you, my own brother! You, who have been hitherto the thorn in my path, the cloud in my fate! You, who are now come to make me a wretch for life! I love that woman, and you tear her from me! You, who subjected my infancy to hards.h.i.+p, and, but for Providence, might have degraded my youth, by your example, into shame and guilt!"

"Forbear!--forbear!" cried Philip, with a voice so shrill in its agony, that it smote the hearts of those in the adjoining chamber like the shriek of some despairing soul. They looked at each other, but not one had the courage to break upon the interview.

Sidney himself was appalled by the sound. He threw himself on a seat, and, overcome by pa.s.sions so new to him, by excitement so strange, hid his face, and sobbed as a child.

Philip walked rapidly to and fro the room for some moments; at length he paused opposite to Sidney, and said, with the deep calmness of a wronged and goaded spirit:

"Sidney Beaufort, hear me! When my mother died she confided you to my care, my love, and my protection. In the last lines that her hand traced, she bade me think less of myself than of you; to be to you as a father as well as brother. The hour that I read that letter I fell on my knees, and vowed that I would fulfil that injunction--that I would sacrifice my very self, if I could give fortune or happiness to you. And this not for your sake alone, Sidney; no! but as my mother--our wronged, our belied, our broken-hearted mother!--O Sidney, Sidney! have you no tears for her, too?" He pa.s.sed his hand over his own eyes for a moment, and resumed: "But as our mother, in that last letter, said to me, 'let my love pa.s.s into your breast for him,' so, Sidney, so, in all that I could do for you, I fancied that my mother's smile looked down upon me, and that in serving you it was my mother whom I obeyed. Perhaps, hereafter, Sidney, when we talk over that period of my earlier life when I worked for you, when the degradation you speak of (there was no crime in it!)--was borne cheerfully for your sake, and yours the holiday though mine the task--perhaps, hereafter, you will do me more justice.

You left me, or were reft from me, and I gave all the little fortune that my mother had bequeathed us, to get some tidings from you. I received your letter--that bitter letter--and I cared not then that I was a beggar, since I was alone. You talk of what I have cost you--you talk! and you now ask me to--to--Merciful Heaven! let me understand you--do you love Camilla? Does she love you?

Speak--speak--explain--what, new agony awaits me?"

It was then that Sidney, affected and humbled, amidst all his more selfish sorrows, by his brother's language and manner, related, as succinctly as he could, the history of his affection for Camilla, the circ.u.mstances of their engagement, and ended by placing before him the letter he had received from Mr. Beaufort.

In spite of all his efforts for self-control, Philip's anguish was so great, so visible, that Sidney, after looking at his working features, his trembling hands, for a moment, felt all the earlier parts of his nature melt in a flow of generous sympathy and remorse. He flung himself on the breast from which he had shrunk before, and cried,--

"Brother, brother! forgive me; I see how I have wronged you. If she has forgotten me, if she love you, take her and be happy!"

Philip returned his embrace, but without warmth, and then moved away; and, again, in great disorder, paced the room. His brother only heard disjointed exclamations that seemed to escape him unawares: "They said she loved me! Heaven give me strength! Mother--mother! let me fulfil my vow! Oh, that I had died ere this!" He stopped at last, and the large dews rolled down his forehead. "Sidney!" said he, "there is a mystery here that I comprehend not. But my mind now is very confused. If she loves you--if!--is it possible for a woman to love two? Well, well, I go to solve the riddle: wait here!"

He vanished into the next room, and for nearly half an hour Sidney was alone. He heard through the part.i.tion murmured voices; he caught more clearly the sound of Camilla's sobs. The particulars of that interview between Philip and Camilla, alone at first (afterwards Mr. Robert Beaufort was re-admitted), Philip never disclosed, nor could Sidney himself ever obtain a clear account from Camilla, who could not recall it, even years after, without great emotion. But at last the door was opened, and Philip entered, leading Camilla by the hand. His face was calm, and there was a smile on his lips; a greater dignity than even.

that habitual to him was diffused over his whole person. Camilla was holding her handkerchief to her eyes and weeping pa.s.sionately. Mr.

Beaufort followed them with a mortified and slinking air.

"Sidney," said Philip, "it is past. All is arranged. I yield to your earlier, and therefore better, claim. Mr. Beaufort consents to your union. He will tell you, at some fitter time, that our birthright is at last made clear, and that there is no blot on the name we shall hereafter bear. Sidney, embrace your bride!"

Amazed, delighted, and still half incredulous, Sidney seized and kissed the hand of Camilla; and as he then drew her to his breast, she said, as she pointed to Philip:--

"Oh! if you do love me as you say, see in him the generous, the n.o.ble--"

Fresh sobs broke off her speech; but as Sidney sought again to take her hand, she whispered, with a touching and womanly sentiment, "Ah! respect him: see!--" and Sidney, looking then at his brother, saw, that though he still attempted to smile, his lip writhed, and his features were drawn together, as one whose frame is wrung by torture, but who struggles not to groan.

He flew to Philip, who, grasping his hand, held him back, and said,--

"I have fulfilled my vow! I have given you up the only blessing my life has known. Enough, you are happy, and I shall be so too, when G.o.d pleases to soften this blow. And now you must not wonder or blame me, if, though so lately found, I leave you for a while. Do me one kindness,--you, Sidney--you, Mr. Beaufort. Let the marriage take place at H----, in the village church by which my mother sleeps; let it be delayed till the suit is terminated: by that time I shall hope to meet you all--to meet you, Camilla, as I ought to meet my brother's wife; till then, my presence will not sadden your happiness. Do not seek to see me; do not expect to hear from me. Hist! be silent, all of you; my heart is yet bruised and sore. O THOU," and here, deepening his voice, he raised his arms, "Thou who hast preserved my youth from such snares and such peril, who hast guided my steps from the abyss to which they wandered, and beneath whose hand I now bow, grateful if chastened, receive this offering, and bless that union! Fare ye well."

CHAPTER XXI.

"Heaven's airs amid the harpstrings dwell; And we wish they ne'er may fade; They cease; and the soul is a silent cell, Where music never played.

Dream follows dream through the long night-hours."

WILSON: The Past, a poem.

The self-command which Philip had obtained for a while deserted him when he was without the house. His mind felt broken up into chaos; he hurried on, mechanically, on foot; he pa.s.sed street upon street, now solitary and deserted, as the lamps gleamed upon the thick snow. The city was left behind him. He paused not, till, breathless, and exhausted in spirit if not in frame, he reached the churchyard where Catherine's dust reposed. The snow had ceased to fall, but it lay deep over the graves; the yew-trees, clad in their white shrouds, gleamed ghost-like through the dimness. Upon the rail that fenced the tomb yet hung a wreath that f.a.n.n.y's hand had placed there. But the flowers were hid; it was a wreath of snow! Through the intervals of the huge and still clouds, there gleamed a few melancholy stars. The very calm of the holy spot seemed unutterably sad. The Death of the year overhung the Death of man. And as Philip bent over the tomb, within and without all was ICE and NIGHT!

For hours he remained on that spot, alone with his grief and absorbed in his prayer. Long past midnight f.a.n.n.y heard his step on the stairs, and the door of his chamber close with unwonted violence. She heard, too, for some time, his heavy tread on the floor, till suddenly all was silent. The next morning, when, at the usual hour, Sarah entered to unclose the shutters and light the fire, she was startled by wild exclamations and wilder laughter. The fever had mounted to the brain--he was delirious.

For several weeks Philip Beaufort was in imminent danger; for a considerable part of that time he was unconscious; and when the peril was past, his recovery was slow and gradual. It was the only illness to which his vigorous frame had ever been subjected: and the fever had perhaps exhausted him more than it might have done one in whose const.i.tution the disease had encountered less resistance. His brother; imagining he had gone abroad, was unacquainted with his danger. None tended his sick-bed save the hireling nurse, the feed physician, and the unpurchasable heart of the only being to whom the wealth and rank of the Heir of Beaufort Court were as nothing. Here was reserved for him Fate's crowning lesson, in the vanity of those human wishes which anchor in gold and power. For how many years had the exile and the outcast pined indignantly for his birthright?--Lo! it was won: and with it came the crushed heart and the smitten frame. As he slowly recovered sense and reasoning, these thoughts struck him forcibly. He felt as if he were rightly punished in having disdained, during his earlier youth, the enjoyments within his reach. Was there nothing in the glorious health--the unconquerable hope--the heart, if wrung, and chafed, and sorely tried, free at least from the direst anguish of the pa.s.sions, disappointed and jealous love? Though now certain, if spared to the future, to be rich, powerful, righted in name and honour, might he not from that sick-bed envy his earlier past? even when with his brother orphan he wandered through the solitary fields, and felt with what energies we are gifted when we have something to protect; or when, loving and beloved, he saw life smile out to him in the eyes of Eugenie; or when, after that melancholy loss, he wrestled boldly, and breast to breast with Fortune, in a far land, for honour and independence? There is something in severe illness, especially if it be in violent contrast to the usual strength of the body, which has often the most salutary effect upon the mind; which often, by the affliction of the frame, roughly wins us from the too morbid pains of the heart! which makes us feel that, in mere LIFE, enjoyed as the robust enjoy it, G.o.d's Great Principle of Good breathes and moves. We rise thus from the sick-bed softened and humbled, and more disposed to look around us for such blessings as we may yet command.

The return of Philip, his danger, the necessity of exertion, of tending him, had roused f.a.n.n.y from a state which might otherwise have been permanently dangerous to the intellect so lately ripened within her.

With what patience, with what fort.i.tude, with what unutterable thought and devotion, she fulfilled that best and holiest woman's duty--let the man whose struggle with life and death has been blessed with the vigil that wakes and saves, imagine to himself. And in all her anxiety and terror, she had glimpses of a happiness which it seemed to her almost criminal to acknowledge. For, even in his delirium, her voice seemed to have some soothing influence over him, and he was calmer while she was by. And when at last he was conscious, her face was the first he saw, and her name the first which his lips uttered. As then he grew gradually stronger, and the bed was deserted for the sofa, he took more than the old pleasure in hearing her read to him; which she did with a feeling that lecturers cannot teach. And once, in a pause from this occupation, he spoke to her frankly,--he sketched his past history--his last sacrifice. And f.a.n.n.y, as she wept, learned that he was no more another's!

It has been said that this man, naturally of an active and impatient temperament, had been little accustomed to seek those resources which are found in books. But somehow in that sick chamber--it was f.a.n.n.y's voice--the voice of her over whose mind he had once so haughtily lamented, that taught him how much of aid and solace the Herd of Men derive from the Everlasting Genius of the Few.

Gradually, and interval by interval, moment by moment, thus drawn together, all thought beyond shut out (for, however crus.h.i.+ng for the time the blow that had stricken Philip from health and reason, he was not that slave to a guilty fancy, that he could voluntarily indulge--that he would not earnestly seek to shun--all sentiments 'chat yet turned with unholy yearning towards the betrothed of his brother);--gradually, I say, and slowly, came those progressive and delicious epochs which mark a revolution in the affections:--unspeakable grat.i.tude, brotherly tenderness, the united strength of compa.s.sion and respect that he had felt for f.a.n.n.y seemed, as he gained health, to mellow into feelings yet more exquisite and deep. He could no longer delude himself with a vain and imperious belief that it was a defective mind that his heart protected; he began again to be sensible to the rare beauty of that tender face--more lovely, perhaps, for the paleness that had replaced its bloom. The fancy that he had so imperiously checked before--before he saw Camilla, returned to him, and neither pride nor honour had now the right to chase the soft wings away. One evening, fancying himself alone, he fell into a profound reverie; he awoke with a start, and the exclamation, "was it true love that I ever felt for Camilla, or a pa.s.sion, a frenzy, a delusion?"

His exclamation was answered by a sound that seemed both of joy and grief. He looked up, and saw f.a.n.n.y before him; the light of the moon, just risen, fell full on her form, but her hands were clasped before her face; he heard her sob.

"f.a.n.n.y, dear f.a.n.n.y!" he cried, and sought to throw himself from the sofa to her feet. But she drew herself away, and fled from the chamber silent as a dream.

Philip rose, and, for the first time since his illness, walked, but with feeble steps, to and fro the room. With what different emotions from those in which last, in fierce and intolerable agony, he had paced that narrow boundary! Returning health crept through his veins--a serene, a kindly, a celestial joy circ.u.mfused his heart. Had the time yet come when the old Florimel had melted into snow; when the new and the true one, with its warm life, its tender beauty, its maiden wealth of love, had risen before his hopes? He paused before the window; the spot within seemed so confined, the night without so calm and lovely, that he forgot his still-clinging malady, and unclosed the cas.e.m.e.nt: the air came soft and fresh upon his temples, and the church-tower and spire, for the first time, did not seem to him to rise in gloom against the heavens.

Even the gravestone of Catherine, half in moonlight, half in shadow, appeared to him to wear a smile. His mother's memory was become linked with the living f.a.n.n.y.

"Thou art vindicated--thy Sidney is happy," he murmured: "to her the thanks!"

Fair hopes, and soft thoughts busy within him, he remained at the cas.e.m.e.nt till the increasing chill warned him of the danger he incurred.

The next day, when the physician visited him, he found the fever had returned. For many days, Philip was again in danger--dull, unconscious even of the step and voice of f.a.n.n.y.

He woke at last as from a long and profound sleep; woke so refreshed, so revived, that he felt at once that some great crisis had been pa.s.sed, and that at length he had struggled back to the sunny sh.o.r.es of Life.

By his bedside sat Liancourt, who, long alarmed at his disappearance, had at last contrived, with the help of Mr. Barlow, to trace him to Gawtrey's house, and had for several days taken share in the vigils of poor f.a.n.n.y.

While he was yet explaining all this to Philip, and congratulating him on his evident recovery, the physician entered to confirm the congratulation. In a few days the invalid was able to quit his room, and nothing but change of air seemed necessary for his convalescence. It was then that Liancourt, who had for two days seemed impatient to unburden himself of some communication, thus addressed him:--

"My--My dear friend, I have learned now your story from Barlow, who called several times during your relapse; and who is the more anxious about you, as the time for the decision of your case now draws near. The sooner you quit this house the better."