CHAPTER XXXI.
"I mean that willing sense of the insufficingness of the self for itself which predisposes a generous nature to see, in the total being of another, the supplement and completion of its own."
Coleridge.
Ah me! how poor, after all, is the boasted power of the writer!—his subject-words desert him at "His utmost need:" but rather be the fault on language itself; for how much is there of passionate feeling that could never yet be written or told! What form of speech may express the happiness of the one half-hour passed beside that lonely pool, which never before imaged a love-meeting so perfect in its affection?—the delicious silence broken by unconscious exclamations; the asking looks that question without a sound; the forgetfulness of past and future, as if life were centred in this one present and dearest dream. Let it pass unimaged, unless by memory. But happiness is like that fairy flower whose home and birth-place are the air, the most unstable of elements, tossed by every wind, destroyed by every shower,—the frailest, and yet most exposed, of created things. Too soon Francesca was forced to awaken to the precarious situation of her lover;—an outlaw, he had yet ventured to the place of all others where he was in the greatest danger, where he was so well known, and which also contained his worst enemies.
"Dearest Evelyn!" exclaimed she, roused by hearing the Castle-clock, heard so distinctly in the calm evening, "How rash to come here! Why did not you write?"
"Write, Francesca, when I could come!" was his reply.
"Alas!" whispered the anxious girl, "it is a dearly purchased pleasure that perils your safety for a moment. Just now, I think can rely upon all being engaged; but, God of Heaven! I dare not think on what a chance may effect! I shall not have one moment's peace till we meet again, and yet tremble to think on the risk of that meeting. But, oh, the King seems so kind—so good-natured, he can never refuse your pardon!"
"I shall have a powerful enemy in the Duke of Buckingham,"—his companion started and reddened; but she had mistaken the cause, for Evelyn continued—"Our estate has been confiscated, and for his Grace's use; it is too fair spoil to be readily relinquished."
"Let the estate go, if you were but safe; but how can you hope to remain in this neighbourhood undiscovered?"
"There are true hearts among our trusty foresters; I sleep as securely in the shelter of its lonely glades as ever king did in his guarded palace. Were it but for my father's sake, there are many here who would forfeit life and land to guard me from harm. Believe me, dearest, I am in no danger."
"But you encounter all risks in seeking me—selfish that I am to feel so happy!"
"I can well forgive such selfishness; but, tell me, when shall I next see you?"
"Alas, alas!—how can I see you, and yet not trifle with your precious life? I have no means of communicating with you. Alice, my attendant, is kind and true, but too timid and too simple for trust."
"I can easily find messengers that may be relied upon. I will send to you to-morrow, for I must see you again. My beloved Francesca, our destiny is now in our own hands. I can no longer offer the fair halls and the broad lands of the once honoured house of Evelyn; my portion is an obscure home in a foreign country; but if love tried by years, by utter hopelessness, by what seemed change in yourself, and which yet but became more deep and more intense,—if such love can be security for your future, that future, Francesca, you will entrust to my care."
She said nothing, no colour rose into her pale soft cheek; but she looked up in his face, with her whole soul in her eyes, and extended her hands to him;—Evelyn caught them in his, and then clasped her tenderly to his heart. "To-morrow!" was the last word of each; and he sprang again into the thicket. Was ever music at once so sweet and so sad as the echo of his receding steps?
Francesca stood listening long after they were past. Slowly she returned towards the Castle, but how changed since last she trod that path! Her step was light, and a conscious smile played round her beautiful mouth, while the gladness of other days returned and lighted up her large black eyes. How querulous, how unfounded did her discontent now seem! The bright records of the last hour effaced all the darker traces left by long and weary days. It was a long-forgotten feeling the eager hope to which she resigned herself. With the active fancy of her sex and country, she called up their future life vividly before her. They would live in Italy, and those summer skies, whose stars they had so often, with all the poetry of early passion, called to witness the gentle vows which love so delights to make—those very skies would brighten around their home, where affection would more than realise its promise and its dream.
Francesca could feel no regret at leaving England. How much sorrow, how much anxiety, had she known upon its soil! Never had her southern frame become accustomed to its chilling vapours and its driving winds. How often had she turned to the glorious elements, the green and fragrant earth, the sunny atmosphere, of her delicious land! "I leave nothing," thought she, "but Guido's grave." Lord Avonleigh she felt had no claim. With what selfish indifference would he have sacrificed her in the first instance! His late acknowledgment had been wrung from him in a moment of hasty fear, when a heavy and terrible misfortune had startled him with a superstitious dread of a sudden judgment, which is the religion of a weak mind. Since then, with what coldness, what unkindness, had she been treated!—the one selected victim of his petulance, because so dependent upon it. And now, with what hard cruelty had he decided upon her marriage!—her affections not only unconsulted, but derided; his own ambition the sole consideration to which her happiness was to be sacrificed, and sacrificed as a thing of nought—not to be weighed for a moment against his own marquisate and the future honours of his line. "A few kind looks," thought she, "A few encouraging words, a little, a very little love, and I should have been so grateful! and grateful I should still be, for I am at least spared the struggles of a divided duty."
Francesca returned to the gay circle in the Castle, somewhat more silent than her wont, and with eye more downcast—her soul sought to brood over its own sweet thoughts; but there was a flush of beautiful delight upon her face, and her mouth relaxed with an unconscious smile.
"The dews of the evening have been a very bath of beauty!" whispered the Duke of Buckingham.
Francesca blushed, and the Duke thought it was at his own compliment.
"I am making some progress," was his agreeable reflection. "I observe that she does not blush at flattery in general; she therefore blushes because I flatter. Confusion is love's first symptom."
He was mistaken, as people usually are when self-love is in the question. Good Heaven! when we observe what egregious nonsense other people talk, what woful follies other people commit, sure we must be tempted to turn upon ourselves and ask—"What do I do that is equally silly?" We may feel quite sure that we form no exception to the general rule; we make our mistakes like the rest, and take our turn in the round of universal foolishness. Human egotism is very much exaggerated. No one in reality occupies less of our thoughts than we do ourselves. We seriously consider the qualities of others, we dilate on their folly, question curiously on the motives of their actions, and investigate all the recesses of their minds into which we can penetrate. We never do so by ourselves. Who ever sits down to think over himself? Self is the only individual we take for granted. Were the character of any one of our friends to be sketched with tolerable accuracy, we should recognise the likeness at once; but let our own, drawn to the very life, be brought before us, we should not know it, and even when told, we should in all probability deny the acquaintance.
The Comtesse do Soissons read the bright colour that fluctuated on Francesca's cheek more accurately. The moment they were alone, she exclaimed—
"You have seen Mr. Evelyn?"
"To-night!" replied her companion, in a faltering voice, as if afraid to trust the very air with her treasured secret.
"You look very pretty on the strength of it. I only wish a lover improved my complexion as it does yours. But I don't take these matters much to heart now. And so, in the true spirit of a knight-errant, our hero has run into all sorts of dangers and difficulties, as if on purpose to shew his lady what a very imprudent choice she has made! Well, I intend enacting la fée lumineuse or bienfaisante who is to extricate you. Just dramatise the situation—take Charles by surprise; and my diamonds against your destiny, that our fairy tale ends with a benevolent monarch, a marriage, and a—'they lived very happy for the rest of their lives.'"