Read Ebook: Muistelmia matkalta Venäjän Karjalassa kesällä 1879 by Ervasti A V August Vilhelm

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 310 lines and 64178 words, and 7 pages

"My darling! what has happened in your ride to agitate you so? I can see you are not much hurt. Come and make confession instantly."

This was apparently the young lady's intention, for she had evidently come straight to the boudoir after dismounting; she was still in her riding-dress, and had only taken off her Spanish hat. While her mother was speaking she came near with the swift, springy step which made her inimitable, and knelt down by the low couch, half-concealing her glowing face and sparkling eyes.

"Mamma, Alan asked me this afternoon to marry him; and--I love him dearly."

The two voices were strangely alike in their accent and inflexions; but the girl's voice, even when, as now, somewhat tremulous and uncertain, was mellower in its rich cadences, fuller and rounder in its music.

Lady Mildred clasped her daughter's waist, and bent down to kiss her, repeatedly, with passionate tenderness. When the close embrace was ended, she lingered yet for a few seconds with her cheek pillowed on Helen's forehead; during those seconds her features were set, and her lips tense and rigid; that brief interval of self-indulgence lasted just so long as it would have taken her to utter the words--"It shall never be."

Now, mark; the daughter was kneeling at her mother's feet, as she might have knelt to say the first prayer of infancy; she had just told the secret which involved her life's hope of happiness--whether wrongly or rightly founded it matters not; the mother sate there, with a firm, cool resolve at her heart to crush the hope and frustrate the purpose; and yet she kissed her child without shivering or shrinking. To our rough common sense it would seem, that caress more cruel in its falsehood, more base in its deliberate treachery, never was bestowed since that one over which angels wept and devils shouted for joy--the kiss given in the Garden of Gethsemane.

"My dearest child, you have quite taken my breath away. I cannot tell yet whether I am sorry or glad to hear this. It comes so very suddenly!"

"Ah, mamma, say at least that you are not angry--with Alan," the soft voice pleaded.

Lady Mildred did not think it necessary to remain long astounded, being always averse to unnecessary expenditure of time or trouble. So she answered, after drawing one or two deep, agitated breaths , with intense gentleness of manner and tone--

A WAIF FROM A WRECK.

"Look into a man's Past, if you would understand his Present, or guess at his Future." So spake some sage, name unknown, but probably intermediate in date between the Great King and Mr. M. F. Tupper. The rule is not implicitly to be relied on, but perhaps there is as much of truth in it as in most apophthegms of proverbial philosophy.

The main facts are very soon told: his twenty-first birthday saw him in possession of a perfectly unencumbered estate of ?12,000 a year, and all the accumulations that two paragon guardians had toiled to amass during an unusually long minority; his twenty-eighth dawned on a comparative pauper.

Though they arrived then at a tolerably accurate idea of the state of Alan's finances, it took months to complete the final arrangements. When everything in town and country that could well be sold had been disposed of, Wyverne was left with a life-income of just as many hundreds a-year as he had started with thousands. But all his personal debts, and liabilities incurred for others, were paid in full. The only absolute luxuries that he retained were the two best hunters in his stud, and his gray Arab, "Maimouna." That residue might have been nearly doubled, if Alan would have consented to dismantle the Abbey. But he could not help looking upon its antique furniture and fittings in the light of heirlooms. He had added little to them when he came into his inheritance: he took nothing away when he lost it. So the great, grave mansion still retained its old-fashioned and somewhat faded magnificence; and few changes, so far, were to be seen there, except that the grass grew long on the lawns, and the flowers wandered over the parterres at their own sweet will, and instead of thick reeks of unctuous smoke, only a thin blue line stole out modestly from two or three chimneys now and then in the shooting season. The game was still kept up, and the farmers watched it as jealously and zealously as if they had been keepers in their landlord's pay.

The sternest Stoic alive could scarcely have fallen into his new position more naturally, or adapted himself to its requirements more gracefully, than did that gay, careless Epicurean. If he had any regrets for the irrevocable Past, he kept them to himself, and never wearied his friends for their sympathy or compassion; he accused no one with reference to his ruin; I doubt if he even blamed himself very severely. There was no more of recklessness in his conduct, than there was of despondency in his demeanour; but he comported himself exactly as you would expect to see a man do, of good birth and breeding, and average steadiness, born to a modest competency. His experience, brief as it was, might have taught him to be somewhat sceptical as to the virtues of our human nature, more especially having regard to such trifles as truth and honesty; but no amount of punishment will beat wisdom or knowledge into a confirmed dunce or idler. His constitutional indolence may have had something to say to it; but to the last hour of his life Alan Wyverne never learnt to be suspicious, or sullen, or cynical.

"My dear lord,--In spite of your prohibition, I feel it my duty," &c.

Sad and strange shapes of sin and sorrow cross our path sometimes, as we walk home from club or ball through the early morning. Saddest, perhaps, and strangest of all, is the spectacle of one of God's creatures, unsexed and deformed by passion and fiery liquor, struggling in blind undiscriminating rage, and shrieking out defiance alike of friends and foes. The Menad ceased to be romantic when the Great Pan died. Erigone may be magnificent on canvas, but even B?ranger failed in making her attractive on paper: in flesh and blood she is simply repellent. Public sympathy would side rather with Pentheus nowadays than with his cruelly convivial mother; and we hold the disguise of drink to be the least becoming of all Myrrha's masquerades. Such a sight affected Wyverne with a disgust and pain that few men could have fully appreciated; but he rarely would pass by without an attempt at mediation. They say that his kind, gentle voice was almost magical in its soothing power. The exasperated guardian of the night would relax the roughness of his grasp; and the "strayed reveller" would subside from shrill fury into murmurs placable and plaintive, yielding, in spite of the devil that possessed her, to the charm of his cordial compassion and invincible courtesy.

All things considered, womankind had rather a better reason for petting Alan than could be given for most of their whims. When his resources were almost unlimited, he was always so perfectly regardless of time and trouble and cost in endeavouring to gratify even their unexpressed wishes, that it was no wonder if, when the positions were reversed, he began to reap his reward, and found out that he had laid up treasure against the time of need.

I have said more than enough to give you some insight into a character in which the elements of hardness and ductility, passionate impulse and consummate coolness, recklessness and self-control, were strangely mingled, like the gold, brass, iron, and clay in the frame of the giant Image that stood beside the prophet in his trance, on the banks of "the great river Hiddekel."

With all his faults and failings, Hubert Vavasour would have chosen him out of broad England for a son-in-law. Lady Mildred thought that such a bridal dress would become her daughter worse than a winding-sheet.

Which of the two was right? Probably neither. There is little wisdom in extremes.

THE GIFTS OF A GREEK.

When Helen came into the cedar drawing-room she found her father alone. His face was rather thoughtful and grave, but it brightened as she came quickly to his side, and nothing but intense love and tenderness remained, when she rested her clasped hands on his shoulder, and looked up at him with a deepened rose colour on her cheek, and a question in her great, earnest eyes. If she had dreaded the meeting, all fear would have vanished even before the strong, true arm circled her waist, and the kind, honest voice that had never yet lied to man or woman murmured "God bless you, my own darling!" Helen felt happier and safer then than when she rose from receiving her mother's more elaborate caress and benediction.

Nothing, surely, can be more natural or justifiable under such circumstances than a paternal embrace; therefore there was no particular reason for those two starting apart, with rather a guilty and conscience-stricken expression of countenance, when the door opened, and Lady Mildred glided in with the even noiseless step and languid grace that all her friends knew so well, and some admired so much. The appearance of things did not greatly please her, neither did it trouble her much. She had a high opinion of her own resources, and a very poor one of the talents against which she meant to contend; so she regarded the signs of coalition before her with the same contemptuous indifference that a minister would display, when the opposition threatens a division, or that a consummate billiard-player would feel, when his antagonist makes a grand but unproductive fluke.

If his own life or fortunes had been at stake, there would not have been half such pitiful pleading in his eyes and his tone.

Lady Mildred's memory was unusually retentive, but it did not accuse her of any such weakness. Her imagination must have been tasked before she could have pleaded guilty; nevertheless she called up a little conscious look with admirable success, and smiled with infinite sweetness. Perhaps there was the faintest sarcastic inflexion in the first few words of her reply, but it needed a sharper ear to detect it than either her husband or daughter owned.

Nevertheless Lady Mildred's knowledge of her nephew's character made her aware that it would not answer to try with him the line of strategy which might succeed with her husband and daughter. It was very unlikely that he would be taken in by the feint of unconditional surrender. Alan had not devoted himself to the society of womankind for so many years without acquiring a certain insight into their charming wiles. It was very easy to persuade, but wonderfully difficult to delude him. She did not like him the worse for that; indeed she only spoke the truth when she said he was one of her chief favourites. Under any other circumstances she would have grudged neither time nor trouble to serve him, either by gratifying his wishes or advancing his fortunes, and perhaps really regretted the stern political necessity which made it an imperative duty to foil him if possible. Her game now was the temporising one--to treat, but under protest. She looked up once in Alan's face as she leant on his arm on their way to the dining-room. That glance was meant to combine affection with a slight tinge of reproach, but a gleam of covert amusement in her eyes almost spoilt the intended effect. Lady Mildred had a strong sense of humour, and, after the first vexation was over, she could not help laughing at her own carelessness and want of prevision. The fact was, she believed Wyverne capable of any amount of flirtation with any creature wearing a kirtle; but, with regard to serious matrimonial intentions, she had held him safe as if he had been vowed to celibacy; in default of a better, she would have allowed him on an emergency to play chaperon to Helen. Lo, the sheep-dog not only proved faithless to his trust, but was trying to make off with the flower of the flock, leaving its mistress to sing--with the "lass of the Cowdenknowes"--

Ere he had taken the lamb he did, I had lieve he had taken them a'.

"It may be a match, and it mayn't be a match. I've nothing to say against Sir Allan, and I wish him well; but there'll be some curious games up, or I'm mistaken. I doubt my lady ain't altogether pleased about it--she was so uncommon pleasant at dinner!"

The Squire of Dene was not so clear-sighted as his major-domo: indeed, that pleasant habit of contemplating things in general through roseate medium is apt to lead one into errors with regard to objects distant or near. He thought the aspect of affairs decidedly favourable; so, when they were alone again, he looked across the table at Wyverne with a smile full of hope and intelligence--draining at the same time his first beaker of claret with a gusto not entirely to be ascribed to the flavour of the rare '34.

"I drink to our castle in Spain," he said; "it seems to me the first stone has been laid auspiciously."

The other filled a bumper very slowly and drained it deliberately, before he replied. Surely it was more that curious presentiment of some counterbalancing evil in the dim background, which so often accompanies great and unexpected happiness, than any intuitive knowledge of the real state of things, which prompted the half-sigh--not smothered so soon but that Vavasour's ear caught it 'flying.'

"It is almost too good to be true, Uncle Hubert. I'm modest about my own merits; and I think I know pretty well by this time how much luck I ought to expect. Would it not be wrong to reckon on winning such a prize as that, without some trouble, and toil, and anxiety? I confess I don't like these very 'gay' mornings; the clouds are strangely apt to gather before noon, and one often gets drenched before sunset."

During the short interval that had elapsed since the first confidence was made, the Squire had signed in his own mind a treaty with his nephew, offensive and defensive; he had identified himself so thoroughly with the latter's interests, that it provoked him a good deal now to meet with something like despondency; he had counted on an exhilaration at least equal to his own.

"Your poetical vein fails you, Alan; you are scarcely so happy in your similes as you were three hours ago. That's rather a threadbare one, and certainly not worth of the occasion; it isn't true, either, as you would find if your habits were more matutinal. I don't think you know much about your own merits, or about 'my lady's' intentions; perhaps you do injustice to both. But--simply to gratify you--we will suppose the worst; suppose that she is hostile, and only hiding her game. Well, I believe there is such a thing as paternal authority, though mine has been in abeyance ever since Max was born: I think I should be equal to exercising it if we came to extremities. When all one's other possessions are encumbered, there would be a certain satisfaction in disposing of a daughter. I'm not aware that any one holds a mortgage on Helen."

Now Hubert Vavasour spoke in perfect sincerity and singleness of heart, when he thus purposed to assert a suzerainty quite as unreal as the kingdom of Jerusalem or the bishopric of Westminster. His chances of success in such a reactionary movement would have been about equal to those of a modern French proprietor who, at the marriage of one of his tenants, should attempt to revive those curious seignorial rights, used or abused four centuries ago by Giles de Retz and his compeers. Alan could not but admire the audacity of the resolve; but his sense of the absurd was touched when he reflected on the utter impossibility of its accomplishment. Perhaps this last feeling helped to dispel the gloom which had gathered on his face; at any rate, his smile was gay enough now to satisfy his sanguine confederate.

"That's more like the old form," Vavasour replied; "say no more about it now. The claret stands with you; don't linger over it to-night, I fancy we are waited for."

Wyverne's first glance on entering the drawing-room searched for his cousin; he was rather relieved than otherwise at not finding her there; he felt that the difficulties of the next half hour were best encountered alone. Lady Mildred was reclining on her usual sofa; close to it, and just within easy ear-shot of the cushion supporting her head, was placed a very low and luxurious arm-chair. "My lady" was ever considerate as to the personal comfort of her victims, and took especial care that they should not be galled by the ropes that bound them to the stake; acting, I suppose, on the same benevolent principle which prompts the Spaniard to deny nothing to those who must die by the garotte on the morrow.

It would savour somewhat of repetition, and simply bore you, if all the conversation that ensued were given in detail. "My lady's" line was perfect frankness and candour. She alluded pleasantly to the great matrimonial fortunes that she had projected for Helen, and confessed--pleasantly, too--her conviction that the alliance now contemplated was perfectly imprudent, and in a worldly point of view altogether undesirable; she dilated rather more at length on the affection for Alan, indulgence to Helen, &c. &c., which induced the parents to overlook all such objections, and to give their conditional consent; but even on this point she was not oratorical or prosy. Nevertheless her hearer was quite aware that there was some more serious obstacle kept in the background; all these preliminary observations were so many shots to try the distance; the battery did not take him by surprise when it opened in earnest.

"I've hardly had time to realize the position, Aunt Mildred," Wyverne answered, "but I am conscious of a perfect flower-show of good resolutions, budding and blossoming already. While I was dressing, I was considering how I could best get rid of my hunters, and I have almost decided where to place them."

To apply to the speaker either of the two epithets she deprecated would have been simply impossible. Her bright eyes sparkled with a malicious amusement and gay triumph, as she marked the effect of her words in the quaint look of contrition mingled with perplexity which overspread Wyverne's face--usually so imperturbable. For once in his life, he felt fairly at a loss for a reply. Those general accusations are remarkably hard to meet, even when one is conscious of innocence; but woe to the respondent, if the faintest shadow of self-conviction hangs over his guilty head! The adverse advocate sees the weak point in a moment, and bears down on his victim with the full flood of indignant eloquence, exulting in a verdict already secured.

On this occasion, however, Lady Mildred did not seem inclined to press her advantage; she interrupted Alan's attempt at a disclaimer, before his embarrassment could become painful.

The clear dark eyes were fastened on Lady Mildred's inscrutable face very earnestly, as if beseeching that at least truth might be answered by truth. The trained glance of that great diplomatist did not care to meet the challenge; it must needs have quailed. I would not affirm that a momentary compunction did not assail her just then, while she did justice, in thought, to the kind, generous nature of the man she had determined to betray. It behoves the historian to be impartial, and not to attribute an ideal perfection even to his pet politician. The Prince of Benevento himself might be pardoned for indulging in a brief self-reproach, after maligning his own daughter and lying to her accepted lover, within the same half-hour. When Lady Mildred spoke again, her voice, always low and musical, was unusually gentle and subdued.

But her position was perfectly safe and unassailable. When a prospective mother-in-law consents to ignore a suitor's social and financial disadvantages, he cannot well quarrel with her for endeavouring to make sure that the damsel's affections are not morally misplaced: of course her domestic prospects ought to be bright, in proportion as her worldly ones are gloomy. The aspirant may have a private surmise, amounting almost to a certainty, that he is being unfairly dealt with. He may murmur to himself that, if he had been a marquis or a millionaire, the maternal scruples would have been mute; but it would show sad lack of wisdom to express such feelings aloud. If the case were to come on for trial, no judge or jury in England would give the plaintiff a verdict. He would not only lose his cause, but get "committed for contempt of court," and incur all sorts of vague pains and penalties, besides being held up as a phenomenon of ingratitude, and a warning to his fellows for the remainder of his natural life. Most men who come to grief under such circumstances will find their position disagreeable enough, even without the perpetual punishment of the pillory.

Yes, reason, if not right, was on "my lady's" side; and she was perfectly aware of her advantage; for her eyes met Wyverne's steadily enough now as she waited for his reply.

The latter had reckoned so fully on meeting with opposition somewhere in this quarter, that it is doubtful if he was exactly disappointed at the turn the conversation had lately taken; though perhaps, as a matter of taste, he would have preferred more overt antagonism and obstacles more tangible to grapple with. At any rate, there was not a trace of sullenness or vexation in his manner when he spoke.

I have the pleasure of knowing very slightly a Companion of the Order of Valour, who carried the colours of his regiment at the Alma--it was his "baptism of fire." At the most critical moment of the day, when the troops were struggling desperately up "the terrible hill side," somewhat disordered by the vineyards and broken ground; when the Guards were reeling and staggering under the deadly hail that beat right in their faces; the man I speak of turned to the comrade nearest to him and remarked:

They say his manner was as listless and unconcerned as usual, with just a shade of diffidence and doubt, as if he had been consulting a diplomatic friend on some point of etiquette at a foreign court. I have the happiness of knowing very well an officer in the sister service who has received a medal scarcely less glorious, for rescuing a sailor from drowning in the Indian Sea. They had had a continuance of bad weather, and worse was coming up all round; great lead-coloured billows weltered and heaved under the lee--foam-wreaths breaking here and there, to show where the strong ship had cloven a path through the sullen surges; there was the chance, too, of encountering one of two sharks which had been haunting them for days; but I have heard that on Cis Hazelwood's face when he went over the bulwarks, there was the same expression of cheery confidence as it might have worn when he was diving for eggs at The Weirs.

Now it is fair to presume, that both these men were endowed with courage and coolness to an exceptional degree; but I very much doubt if, in perfect exemption from moral and physical fear, and in contempt for danger either in this world or the next , Lady Mildred might not have matched the pair. When the Vavasours were travelling in Wales, soon after their marriage, something broke as they were descending a long steep hill, and the horses bolted; it was a very close question between life and death, till they were stopped by a couple of quarrymen just at the spot where the road turned sharp to the left over a high narrow archway; no carriage going that pace could have weathered that corner, and the fall was thirty feet clear. The poor Welshmen certainly earned their rich reward, for they both went down, and were much bruised in the struggle, and one got up with a broken collar-bone. When the horses first broke away, "my lady" deigned to lay aside the book she was reading, but showed no other sign of interest in the proceedings, far less of discomposure. The Squire was once asked "how his wife behaved after it was all over?" . "She looked," was the answer, "precisely as if she had expected the episode all along; as if it had formed part of the programme of our wedding tour that the horses should bolt on that particular hill, and be stopped at that very critical spot by those identical quarrymen. It struck me that she praised and compassionated the poor fellow that was hurt, exactly as one might an acrobat who had met with an accident while performing for our amusement."

As it happened, Wyverne was not deceived for a moment; but as the really important points of the hollow treaty were already decided, he did not think it worth while to hesitate over minor details.

"You shall have all you ask without reservation," he said, "and 'thereto I plight my troth.'"

So they locked hands there--faith and falsehood--truth and treachery--the one, harbouring no thought that was not honest and tender; the other, consistent to the last in her dark, pitiless scheming. Yet the woman's fingers were most cordial in their pressure, and they never shrank or trembled.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet