CHAPTER II.
"Now why
Are her eyes downcast, and his white brow glowing?
Say, have they vowed—while heaven was witness by,
With all her radiant lights, like fountains flowing—
To love while water runs and woods are growing?"
The Maid of Elvar.
Francesca was one evening returning from her now favourite occupation, if occupation it could be called, namely, of sitting by Guido's grave, lost in profound and gloomy meditation. She would pass whole hours, full of all those fancies which haunt the solitude of indulged grief. Here she recalled all the passages of their former life, till scarcely could she believe that they were gone by for ever! Then, again, she almost thought that the soft and wailing wind which swept mournfully through the sepulchral boughs of the large old yews, had a voice not of this world—was it the inarticulate plaining of her brother's gentle spirit, debarred from intercourse, but still keeping over her the deep and eternal watch of love? She soothed herself with the belief that the workings of her soul were still known to him,—that her regret and her despondency were but the needful preparation for that other sphere, where now her only remaining hope was garnered.
There are some moods which are singularly profitless; and such is that of allowing the thoughts to wander into combinations of past events with creations never likely to occur. This was the state of Francesca's mind. She employed herself in inventing situations, imagining conversations, recalling facts long since forgotten, in utter waste of the imagination. Ah! the weight of actual existence forces us to dream an unreal one.
It was growing late, for one pale pure star trembled on the verge of the horizon, while the rosy clouds melted away before its calm, clear light, like a spiritual influence refining the passionate hues which are of earth and earth's vapours. The moon, too, was rising—at first, white, like frosted silver; but soon brightening into her own peculiar and lucid radiance.
Francesca passed slowly into the forest—now with the boughs closing over her head, and then opening into a glen flooded with moonlight, whose only tenants were the deer crouching amid the fern. Even her soft step startled them; up sprung the herd, and sought some further recess, leaving the place to deeper stillness than before.
No one can feel gay by moonlight; the influence is as overpowering as it is solemn. There are a thousand mysterious sympathies, which act upon our nature, and for which we can render up no account; and the power of this mournful and subduing beauty may be more easily acknowledged than analysed. But the young, the buoyant, and the glad, feel it. They wander alone, and the thoughts unconsciously take a tone of tender melancholy. Alas! it is some dim prophecy of the future, with all its cares and its sorrows, that floats upon the atmosphere; and we are penetrated by the effect, though the cause be unrevealed.
Francesca deeply felt the sadness of the hour: more than once she stopped to dash aside the tears that fell thick and fast; and with even more than usual tenderness did her thoughts revert to the dead and to the departed. She felt so isolated—so thrown back upon herself. "How different," thought she, "would my destiny have been, had Evelyn been less unworthy of the great and true love which I bore him! Good God! is the heart a light thing, to be so trifled with? How has that brief period coloured my whole existence! I look back to our too happy days in Italy, when I trusted that I was beloved, as if the rest of my life had been a vision, and only that brief space reality. How many new feelings then awoke within me! Till then I knew not how to enjoy—a sudden loveliness seemed to animate all nature; but it was from my own fresh and glad hopes that it came. Ah! did I not love him then? I cannot imagine sorrow or suffering that I could not have endured for his sake,—I never even dreamed of a separate future! How well I recollect the delight with which I listened to my own voice, when I strove to utter words of his language! And now I speak that tongue as if it were mine own,—I stand upon his native soil,—I can see in the distance those halls he so often described,—and yet I know that we are parted, and for ever—parted by his own false tongue and fickle mind! Alas, alas! it is not only his loss for which I weep—nay, for that I do not weep—pride alone would keep me from weeping for one whom I scorn; but I do weep over the warm feelings, the believing hopes—all that was good and kind in my nature, with which he tampered but to destroy. Never again can I love; for in whom could I trust and confide as I did in him who deceived me? The contrast between my past and present is too bitter. I cannot bear to think on the utter blank of the days to come; and yet how happy, how very happy, they might have been!"
Francesca's current of thought was at this moment interrupted by the sound of voices near—a circumstance too unusual not to excite surprise; and one step forward enabled her to see the speakers, though herself unseen. She paused breathless with amazement. The moonlight shone full on the little dell which lay just below the narrow path she was threading, and, falling directly on the face of the cavalier, revealed the features of him who had been so present to her meditation—the features of Evelyn; and, her hand clasped in his, her slender form bent timidly towards him in that attitude of shrinking yet earnest attention, which is bestowed but upon one subject, was Lucy Aylmer!
For a moment Francesca was motionless, and continued gazing on the two below. It was like the sensation of a dream, in which to move is to awaken. There he stood, the folds of his dark cloak rather adding to the effect of his graceful figure; the pale moon beam glittering on his white upraised brow—and the subdued colour which it gave suiting well with the softened expression of his countenance. So had she seen him stand amid the pine boughs that sheltered their own early meetings; and now those gentle looks were turned on another, and those impassioned words breathed again, but not for her.
Gradually they had drawn nearer to where she was concealed; the sound of their voices rose upon her ear,—another instant, and she would be able to distinguish their words. The idea of being a hidden listener instantly recalled her to herself. With a noiseless step she turned away, and sought the next path, which led her home. Many and bitter were the thoughts which crossed her mind as she returned. No woman can see with indifference the man whom she once loved devoted to another. No: though the heart has long since renounced the creed of its former faith, has awakened to its errors, and reasoned away the once exquisite delusion; still the weakness lingers; and it needed all Francesca's vivid remembrance of Evelyn's treachery and meanness, to prevent her softening almost into regret for her faithless lover. But pride did what reason could not: she felt that she had deserved far other return—and disdain is sorrow's most certain consolation.