“The same. Sir Rupert treats her shamefully—neglects her in every way, and passes whole months away from his home. He has, moreover, expended all the fortune she brought him, and is again, I understand, deeply involved in debt.”
“Poor Lady Cecilia!” ejaculated Isabella. “She is deeply to be pitied!”
“But to return to this sudden resolution of yours to depart to-morrow,” said the count.
“Which resolution is very suddenly taken,” added the signora, affecting to be engaged in contemplating a book of prints which lay upon the table before her, while her beautiful countenance was suffused with a deep blush.
“My resolution is sudden, certainly,” observed Richard. “Circumstances over which I have no control, and which it would be useless to communicate to you, frequently compel me to adopt sudden resolutions, and act up to them. Be assured, however, that the memory of your kindness will always be dear to me.”
“You speak as if we were never to meet again,” exclaimed the count.
“We cannot dispose of events in this world according to our own will,” said Markham, emphatically. “Would to God we could!”
“But there are certain circumstances in which we seem to be free agents,” said Isabella, still holding down her head; “and remaining in one place, or going to another, appears to be amongst those actions which depend upon our own volition.”
At this moment a servant entered the room and informed the count that the private secretary of the envoy of the Grand Duke of Castelcicala to the English court desired to speak with him in another apartment.
“Oh! I am interested in this,” exclaimed the countess; and, upon a signal of approval on the part of her husband, she accompanied him to the room where the secretary was waiting.
Markham was now alone with Isabella.
This was a probable occurrence which he had dreaded all that evening. He felt himself cruelly embarrassed in her presence; and the silence which prevailed between them was awkward to a degree.
At length the signora herself spoke.
“It appears that you are determined to leave us, Mr. Markham?” she said, without glancing towards him, and in a tone which she endeavoured to render as cool and indifferent as possible.
“I feel that I have been too long here already, signora,” answered Richard, scarcely knowing what reply to make.
“Do you mean to tax us with inattention to your comfort, Mr. Markham?”
“God forbid, signora! In the name of heaven do not entertain such an idea!”
“Mr. Markham has been treated as well as our humble means would admit; and he leaves us with an abruptness which justifies us in entertaining fears that he is not comfortable.”
“How can I convince you of the injustice of your suspicions?” ejaculated Markham. “You would not wantonly wound my feelings, Miss Isabella, by a belief which is totally unfounded? No! that is not the cause of my departure. My own happiness—my own honour—every thing commands me to quit a spot where—where I shall, nevertheless, leave so many reminiscences of joy and tranquil felicity behind me! I dare not explain myself farther at present; perhaps never will you know the cause—but, pardon me, signora—I am wandering—I know not what I say!”
“Pray compose yourself, Mr. Markham,” said Isabella, now raising her head from the book, and glancing towards him.
“Compose myself, Isabella—signora, I mean,” he exclaimed: “that is impossible! Oh! if you knew all, you would pity me! But I dare not now reveal to you what I wish. A word which this day dropped from your father’s lips has banished all hope from my mind. Now I am wandering again! In the name of heaven, take no notice of what I say; I am mad—I am raving!”
“And what was it that my father said to annoy you?” inquired Isabella timidly.
“Oh! nothing—nothing purposely,” answered Markham. “He himself was unaware that he fired the arrow from his bow.”
“Am I unworthy of your confidence in this instance?” asked Isabella; “and may I not be made acquainted with the nature of the annoyance which my father has thus unintentionally caused you to experience?”
“Oh! why should I repeat words which would only lead to a revelation of what it is now useless to reveal. Your father and mother both delivered the same sentiment—a sentiment that destroys all hope. But, oh! you cannot understand the cause of my anxiety—my grief—my disappointment!”
“And why not entrust me with that cause? I could sympathise with you as a friend.”
“As a friend! Alas, Isabella, is it useless for me now to deplore the visions which I had conjured up, and which have been so cruelly destroyed? You yourself know not what is in store for you—what plans your father may have formed concerning you!”
“And are you acquainted with those plans?” asked the beauteous Italian, in a tone of voice rendered almost inaudible by a variety of emotions—for the heart of that innocent and charming being fluttered like a bird in the net of the fowler.
“Do not question me on that head, Isabella! Let me speak of myself—for it is sweet to be commiserated by such as you! My life for some time past has been a scene of almost unceasing misery. When I came of age I found my vast property dissipated by him to whom it was entrusted. And other circumstances gave a new and unpleasant aspect to those places which were dear to me in my childhood. What wild hopes, in early life, had I there indulged,—what dreams for the future had there visited my mind in its boyhood!—what vain wishes, what strong yearnings, what ambitious aspirations had there first found existence! When I returned to those spots, after an absence of two years, and thought of the feelings that there once agitated my bosom, and contrasted them with those which had displaced them,—when I traced the history of each hope from its inception there, and followed it through the vista of years until its final extinction,—when I thought how differently my course in life had been shaped from that career which I had there marked out, and how vain and futile were all the efforts and strivings which I exerted against the tide of events and the force of circumstances,—I awoke, as it were from a long dream,—I opened my eyes upon the path which I should thenceforth have to pursue, and judged of it by the one I had been pursuing;—I saw the nothingness of men’s lives in general, and the utter vanity of the main pursuits which engross their minds, and waste their energies;—and I then felt convinced that I was indeed but an instrument in the hands of another, and that the ends which I had obtained had not been those for which I had striven, but which the Almighty willed!—So is it with me now, Isabella. I had planned a dream—a dream of Elysium, with which to cheer and bless the remainder of my existence; and, behold! like all the former hopes and aspirations of my life, this one is also suddenly destroyed!”
“How know you that it is destroyed?” inquired Isabella, casting down her eyes.
“Oh! I am unworthy of you, Isabella—I do not deserve you; and yet it was to your hand that I aspired;—you were the star that was to irradiate the remainder of my existence! Oh! I could weep—I could weep, Isabella, when I think of what I might have been, and what I am!”
“You say that you aspired to my hand,” murmured the lovely Italian maiden, casting down her large dark eyes and blushing deeply; “you did me honour!”
“Silence, Isabella—silence!” interrupted Richard. “I dare not now hear the words of hope from your lips! But I love thee—I love thee—God only knows how sincerely I love thee!”
“And shall I conceal my own feelings with regard to you, Richard?” said Isabella, approaching him and laying her delicate and beautifully modelled hand lightly upon his wrist.
“She loves me in return—she loves me!” ejaculated Markham, half wild with mingled joy and apprehensions;—and, yielding to an impulse which no mortal under such circumstances could have conquered, he caught her in his arms.
He kissed her pure and chaste brow—he felt her fragrant breath upon his cheek—her hair commingled with his own—and he murmured the words, “You love me?”
A gentle voice breathed an affirmative in his ear; and he pressed his lips to hers to ratify that covenant of two fond hearts.
Suddenly he recollected that Count Alteroni had declared that no one against whom there was even a suspicion of crime should ever form a connection with his family. Markham’s high sense of honour told him in a moment that he had no right to secure the affections of a confiding and gentle girl whose father would never yield an assent to their union: his brain, already excited, now became inflamed almost to madness;—he abruptly turned aside from her who had just avowed her attachment to him, he muttered some incoherent words which she did not comprehend, and rushed out of the room.
He hurried to the garden at the back of the house, and walked rapidly up and down a shady avenue of trees which ran along the wall that bounded the enclosure on the side of the public road.
By degrees he grew calm and relaxed the speed of his pace. He then fell into a long and profound meditation upon the occurrences of the last half hour.
He was beloved by Isabella, it was true;—but never might he aspire to her hand;—never could it be accorded to him to lead her to the altar where their attachment might be ratified and his happiness confirmed! An inseparable barrier seemed to oppose itself to his wishes; and he felt that no alternative remained to him but to put his former resolution into force, and take his departure homewards on the ensuing morning.
Thus was it that he now reasoned.
The moon shone brightly; and the heavens were studded with stars.
As Markham was about to turn for the twentieth time at that end of the avenue which was the more remote from the house, the beams of the moon suddenly disclosed to him a human face peering over the wall at him.
He started, and was about to utter an exclamation of alarm, when a well-known voice fell upon his ears.
“Hush!” was the word first spoken; “I have just one question to ask you, and then one thing to tell you; and the last will just depend upon the first.”
“Wretch—miscreant—murderer!” exclaimed Richard; “nothing shall now prevent me from securing you on the behalf of justice.”
“Fool!” coolly returned the Resurrection Man—for it was he; “who can catch me in the darkness and the open fields?”
“True!” cried Markham, stamping his foot with vexation. “But God grant that the day of retribution may come!”
“Come, come—none of this nonsense, my dear boy,” said the Resurrection Man, with diabolical irony. “Now, answer me—will you give me a cool hundred and fifty? If not, then I will get the swag in spite of you.”
“Why do you thus molest and persecute me? I would sooner handle the most venomous serpent, than enter into a compromise with a fiend like you!”
“Then beware of the consequences!”
The moon shone full upon the cadaverous and unearthly countenance of the Resurrection Man, and revealed the expression of ferocious rage which it wore as he uttered these words. That vile and foreboding face then suddenly disappeared behind the wall.
“Who are you talking to, Markham?” cried the voice of the count, who was now advancing down the avenue.
“Talking to?” repeated Richard, alarmed and confused.
“Yes—I heard your voice, and another answering you,” said the count.
“It was a man in the road,” answered Markham.
“I missed you from the drawing-room on my return; and Bella said she thought you were unwell, and had gone to walk in the garden for the fresh air. The news I have received from Castelcicala, through the Envoy’s secretary, are by no means favourable to my hopes of a speedy return to my native land. You therefore see that I have done well to lay out my capital in this. But we will not discuss matters of business now; for there is company up stairs, and we must join them. Who do you think have just made their appearance?”
“Mr. Armstrong and other friends?” said Markham inquiringly.
“No—Armstrong is on the Continent. The visitors are Sir Cherry Bounce and Captain Smilax Dapper; and I am by no means pleased with their company. However, my house must always remain open to them in consequence of the services rendered to me by their deceased relative.”
Markham accompanied the count back to the drawing-room, where Captain Smilax Dapper had seated himself next to the signora; and Sir Cherry Bounce was endeavouring to divert the countess with an account of their journey that evening from London. They both coloured deeply and bowed very politely when Richard entered the apartment.
“Well, ath I wath thaying,” continued Sir Cherry, “one of the twatheth bwoke at the bottom of the hill, and the hortheth took to fwight. Thmilakth thwore like a twooper; but nothing could thwop the thaithe till it wolled thlap down into a dwy dith. Dapper then woared like a bull; and I——”
“And Cherry began to cry, strike me if he didn’t!” ejaculated the gallant hussar, caressing his moustache. “A countryman who passed by asked him if his mamma knew he was out: Cherry thought that the fellow was in earnest, and assured him that he had her permission to undertake the journey. I never laughed so much in my life!”
“Oh! naughty Dapper to thay that I cwied! That really ith too cwuel. Well, we got the thaithe lifted out of the dith, and the twathe mended.”
“You are the heroes of an adventure,” said the count.
“I intend to put it into verse, strike me ugly if I don’t!” cried the young officer; “and perhaps the signora will allow me to copy it into her Album?”
“Oh! I must read it first,” said Isabella, laughing. “But since you speak of my Album, I must show you the additions I have received to its treasures.”
“This is really a beautiful landscape,” observed Captain Dapper, as he turned over the leaves of the book which the beautiful Italian presented to him. “The water flowing over the wheel of the mill is quite natural, strike me! And—may I never know what fair woman’s smiles are again, if those trees don’t seem actually to be growing out of the paper!”
“Thuperb!” ejaculated Sir Cherry Bounce. “The wiver litewally wollth along in the picthure. The cowth and the theepe are walking in the gween fieldth. Pway who might have been the artitht of thith mathleth producthion?”
“That is a secret,” said the signora. “And now read these lines.”
“Read them yourself, Bella,” said the count. “No one can do justice to them but you.”
Isabella accordingly read the following stanzas in a tone of voice that added a new charm to the words themselves:—
LONDON.
’TWAS midnight—and the beam of Cynthia shone
In company with many a lovely star,
Steeping in silver the huge Babylon
Whose countless habitations stretch afar,
Plain, valley, hill, and river’s bank upon,
And in whose mighty heart all interests jar!—
O sovereign city of a thousand towers,
What vice is cradled in thy princely bowers!
If thou would’st view fair London-town aright,
Survey her from the bridge of Waterloo;
And let the hour be at the morning’s light,
When the sun’s earliest rays have struggled through
The star-bespangled curtain of the night,
And when Aurora’s locks are moist with dew:
Then take thy stand upon that bridge, and see
London awake in all her majesty!
Then do her greatest features seem to crowd
Down to the river’s brink:—then does she raise
From off her brow the everlasting cloud,
And for a moment shows her features, proud
To catch the Rembrandt light of the sun’s rays:—
Then may the eye of the beholder dwell
On steeple, column, dome, and pinnacle.
Yes—he may reckon temple, mart, and tower—
The old historic sites—the halls of kings—
The seats of art—the fortalice of power—
The ships that waft our commerce on their wings;—
All these commingle in that dawning hour;
And each into one common focus brings
Some separate moral of life’s scenes so true,
As all those objects form one point of view!
The ceaseless hum of the huge Babylon
Has known no silence for a thousand years;
Still does her tide of human life flow on,
Still is she racked with sorrows, hopes, and fears;
Still the sun sets, still morning dawns upon
Hearts full of anguish, eye-balls dimmed with tears;—
Still do the millions toil to bless the few—
And hideous Want stalks all her pathways through!
“Beautiful—very beautiful!” exclaimed Captain Dapper. “Strike me if I ever heard more beautiful poetry!”
“Almotht ath good ath your lineth on the Thea Therpent. Wath the poem witten by the thame perthon that painted the landthcape?”
“The very same,” answered Isabella. “His initials are in the corner.”
“R. M. Who can that be?” exclaimed Dapper.
“Robert Montgomery, perhaps?” said Isabella, smiling with charmingly arch expression of countenance.
“No—Wichard Markham!” cried Sir Cherry; and then he and his friend the hussar captain were excessively annoyed to think that they had been extolling to the skies the performance of an individual who had frightened the one out of his wits, and boxed the ears of the other.
The Mysteries of London Volume 1 Page 45