CHAPTER XXVIII.
"Oh, man! hold thee on in courage of soul,
Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way."
Shelley.
It was a small and gloomy-looking apartment in one of the retired streets of Paris, where all was as quiet as if it had not been in the centre of that busy metropolis. Only a distant and incessant murmur, like the rolling of the sea against the resounding shore, told that life was pouring the perpetual tumult of its restless waves around. The contrast was oppressive, for the stillness of the place itself was that of inaction, not of repose. Like one excluded from the general struggle, not like one retired from it, a young cavalier was the sole tenant of that lonely chamber, and for the last half-hour he had sat in a desponding reverie, watching the blaze of his wood-fire gradually dying away on the hearth—his sole employment, meditating over a past whose every recollection was a disappointment—and his sole solace, drawing fanciful similitudes between the faded embers and his own quenched hopes. "So have they perished before me, one and all, the dreams in which I have indulged—the aims to which I aspired. Love—that which should have been the one sweet flower on my weary path—has indeed been to me the reed which pierced the heart that leant on it so confidingly. Since falsehood could wear such fair similitude of truth—since Francesca could deceive me—whom can I ever trust again? And, good God! to think that it was my own brother, from whom I had not kept back one thought—who knew how I prized the treasure of which he robbed me—that he should have turned away from me that affection I deemed so entirely my own! But, poor Francis! I must not think of him now with anger. Cut off in the pride of youth, he has dearly paid for all his faults and follies. But a few months more, and what a change would have awaited him! The Stuarts are now on the English throne—an event which must have realised all his hope of brilliant fortunes. Had he lived, my father's house would not have passed into the hands of strangers. How vain are the schemes in which we all delight! Francis, ardent and courtly, devotes himself to that royal cause which, when he has perished, becomes triumphant. I delude myself with vain aspirations for that liberty which the few secure to the many; and I see the servile shackles of old rights and prejudices more closely riveted than ever. Now, a future without hope that can elevate, or aim that can attach, is before me. A worthless mercenary in some foreign service, or an idle loiterer in stranger lands, is all that remains for a life that once believed in its higher and nobler calling." At this moment his page entered with a packet. "Lights!" said Evelyn, carelessly—for, as our readers will have already divined, he was the melancholy soliloquist—"I may as well read the Cardinal's epistle at once;—but I am no tool for his purpose. Whatever may be the wrongs and the discontent of my old companions, it is not to serve the interested views of France, fain to disturb Charles's government, that their energies should be called into dangerous action. A time may come when the spirit of resistance it is now useless to excite may rise hopeful and enlightened in defence of those civil and religious rights, whose value will be more deeply imprinted in men's minds every hour. But not now—their present defenders have lived too soon."
He opened the Cardinal's epistle, which contained little beyond indefinite offers of service and expressions of consideration; while towards the end a wish was thrown out to see him. But this letter contained another, with the brief remark, "My niece, Madame de Soissons, now in England, has met with some friends of yours, and of whose communications she has taken charge, as the enclosed will explain, which she requested might be forwarded at once—a wish I have had much pleasure in immediately obeying."
Evelyn took the letter, but curiosity for a moment was lost in a yet more powerful feeling. Madame de Soissons was by him, chiefly remembered as Marie Mancini, his friend and almost confidante in Italy. Her image could not come alone, and Evelyn forgot the scroll while thinking what had been the fate of her more lovely but less fortunate companion. How had his brother’s death affected her?—did she know of it? Alas! into what depths of misery might she now be plunged! On his arrival in Paris, whither he had come straight from Ireland when Henry Cromwell allowed the King to be proclaimed, he had used every possible means to find her abode; but no traces could he discover, beyond the fact that she had certainly left the capital; but whither she had gone all his attempts to learn were in vain. At length, in hopes of escaping from reflections so fraught with bitterness, he opened the letter, which ran thus:
"Dear Mr. Evelyn,
"For as I mean to claim the privilege of an old friend, I shall not abate one atom of our former kindly feeling,—I give you full permission to be as much surprised as you please at my thus addressing you, provided to surprise you add patience, and read my letter with the attention which I can assure you it deserves. I write in the earnest wish to promote your happiness—a little for your own sake, but still more for that of another. That other is my nearest and dearest friend, whom you knew as Francesca Carrara."
At the sight of that name, which had been so long absent from all save the depths of his own memory, the page dropped from his hand—he rose from his seat, and began to pace the room hurriedly; and when he again resumed the perusal, the added paleness of his brow, the blood upon his bitten lip, belied the forced composure with which he took up the paper. It continued as follows:
"She is ignorant of my writing—I would not tell her—for your faith has been severely tried, and may have changed. Should another, therefore, have consoled you for her supposed falsehood, it is but merciful to spare her suspense, at least. I shall have done her the justice of explanation, and saved her the wretchedness of knowing that it has been made too late. You have both been strangely deceived, and by the treachery of one who was bound by every tie of honour and affection to your service."
But it is needless for us to repeat this portion of the Comtesse’s letter; our readers are already acquainted with the cruel deception which Francis's likeness to his brother enabled him to practise—how completely it failed, even while undiscovered—and the confession to which death so soon put its seal. Her change of fortune was also narrated; and the epistle concluded with these words:—
"But under all circumstances, Francesca's attachment to yourself has been her ruling feeling. Prosperous, courted, as she is at this moment, her heart is yours—dearly and truly as when your earlier vows were pledged amid the pine-forests by the old palazzo. If fettered by other ties, send me one line—if not, come to England. I am aware that you are an exile, but it is not in Charles's nature to be very inexorable; a few prayers, and, if need be, tears, and I am sure we shall obtain your pardon.
"Accept the best wishes of
Your sincere friend,
"Marie de Soissons."
Evelyn leant his head on his arm, confused and dizzy with happiness. Francesca, his only and long-loved, unchanged, and with a heart but the more dearly his own for its many trials!—methinks all the suffering of a miserable life were overpaid by that moment of exquisite enjoyment. Again and again he read Madame de Soissons’ letter—he required repeated assurance of his happiness—he paced the room now in that fever of the spirits so delicious in its unrest; and this was the cavalier who, half an hour since, had seen nothing but evil upon earth—who was hopeless and discontented, and looked upon the future as a desert, and life as a burden.