CHAPTER XI.
CONTAINING MORE THAN ANY OTHER CHAPTER IN THE SECOND BOOK OF THIS
HISTORY.
MY first proposal was to remove the patient, with all due care and
gentleness, to a better lodging, and a district more convenient for the
visits of the most eminent physicians. When I expressed this wish to
Isora, she looked at me long and wistfully, and then burst into tears.
"/You/ will not deceive us," said she, "and I accept your kindness at
once,--from /him/ I rejected the same offer."
"Him?--of whom speak you?--this Barnard, or rather--but I know him!" A
startling expression passed over Isora's speaking face.
"Know him!" she cried, interrupting me, "you do not,--you cannot!"
"Take courage, dearest Isora,--if I may so dare to call you,--take
courage: it is fearful to have a rival in that quarter; but I am
prepared for it. This Barnard, tell me again, do you love him?"
"Love--O God, no!"
"What then? do you still fear him?--fear him, too, protected by the
unsleeping eye and the vigilant hand of a love like mine?"
"Yes!" she said falteringly, "I fear for /you/!"
"Me!" I cried, laughing scornfully, "me! nay, dearest, there breathes
not that man whom you need fear on /my/ account. But, answer me; is
not--"
"For Heaven's sake, for mercy's sake!" cried Isora, eagerly, "do not
question me; I may not tell you who, or what this man is; I am bound, by
a most solemn oath, never to divulge that secret."
"I care not," said I, calmly, "I want no confirmation of my knowledge:
this masked rival is my own brother!"
I fixed my eyes full on Isora while I said this, and she quailed beneath
my gaze: her cheek, her lips, were utterly without colour, and an
expression of sickening and keen anguish was graven upon her face. She
made no answer.
"Yes!" resumed I, bitterly, "it is my brother,--be it so,--I am
prepared; but if you can, Isora, say one word to deny it."
Isora's tongue seemed literally to cleave to her mouth; at last with a
violent effort, she muttered, "I have told you, Morton, that I am bound
by oath not to divulge this secret; nor may I breathe a single syllable
calculated to do so,--if I deny one name, you may question me on
more,--and, therefore, to deny one is a breach of my oath. But,
beware!" she added vehemently, "oh! beware how your suspicions--mere
vague, baseless suspicions--criminate a brother; and, above all,
whomsoever you believe to be the real being under this disguised name,
as you value your life, and therefore mine,--breathe not to him a
syllable of your belief."
I was so struck with the energy with which this was said, that, after a
short pause, I rejoined, in an altered tone,--
"I cannot believe that I have aught against life to fear from a
brother's hand; but I will promise you to guard against latent danger.
But is your oath so peremptory that you cannot deny even one name?--if
not, and you /can/ deny this, I swear to you that I will never question
you upon another."
Again a fierce convulsion wrung the lip and distorted the perfect
features of Isora. She remained silent for some moments, and then
murmured, "My oath forbids me even that single answer: tempt me no more;
now, and forever, I am mute upon this subject."
Perhaps some slight and momentary anger, or doubt, or suspicion,
betrayed itself upon my countenance; for Isora, after looking upon me
long and mournfully, said, in a quiet but melancholy tone, "I see your
thoughts, and I do not reproach you for them--it is natural that you
should think ill of one whom this mystery surrounds,--one too placed
under such circumstances of humiliation and distrust. I have lived long
in your country: I have seen, for the last few months, much of its
inhabitants; I have studied too the works which profess to unfold its
national and peculiar character: I know that you have a distrust of the
people of other climates; I know that you are cautious and full of
suspicious vigilance, even in your commerce with each other; I know, too
[and Isora's heart swelled visibly as she spoke], that poverty itself,
in the eyes of your commercial countrymen, is a crime, and that they
rarely feel confidence or place faith in those who are unhappy;--why,
Count Devereux, why should I require more of you than of the rest of
your nation? Why should you think better of the penniless and
friendless girl, the degraded exile, the victim of doubt,--which is so
often the disguise of guilt,--than any other, any one even among my own
people, would think of one so mercilessly deprived of all the decent and
appropriate barriers by which a maiden should be surrounded? No--no:
leave me as you found me; leave my poor father where you see him; any
place will do for us to die in."
"Isora!" I said, clasping her in my arms, "you do not know me yet: had I
found you in prosperity, and in the world's honour; had I wooed you in
your father's halls, and girt around with the friends and kinsmen of
your race,--I might have pressed for more than you will now tell me; I
might have indulged suspicion where I perceived mystery, and I might not
have loved as I love you now! Now, Isora, in misfortune, in
destitution, I place without reserve my whole heart--its trust, its
zeal, its devotion--in your keeping; come evil or good, storm or
sunshine, I am yours, wholly and forever. Reject me if you will, I will
return to you again; and never, never--save from my own eyes or your own
lips--will I receive a single evidence detracting from your purity, or,
Isora,--mine own, own Isora,--may I not add also--from your love?"
"Too, too generous!" murmured Isora, struggling passionately with her
tears, "may Heaven forsake me if ever I am ungrateful to thee; and
believe--believe, that if love more fond, more true, more devoted than
woman ever felt before can repay you, you shall be repaid!"
Why, at that moment, did my heart leap so joyously within me?--why did I
say inly,--"The treasure I have so long yearned for is found at last: we
have met, and through the waste of years, we will work together, and
never part again"? Why, at that moment of bliss, did I not rather feel
a foretaste of the coming woe? Oh, blind and capricious Fate, that
gives us a presentiment at one while and withholds it at an other!
Knowledge, and Prudence, and calculating Foresight, what are
ye?--warnings unto others, not ourselves. Reason is a lamp which
sheddeth afar a glorious and general light, but leaveth all that is
around it in darkness and in gloom. We foresee and foretell the destiny
of others: we march credulous and benighted to our own; and like
Laocoon, from the very altars by which we stand as the soothsayer and
the priest, creep forth, unsuspected and undreamt of, the serpents which
are fated to destroy us!
That very day, then, Alvarez was removed to a lodging more worthy of his
birth, and more calculated to afford hope of his recovery. He bore the
removal without any evident signs of fatigue; but his dreadful malady
had taken away both speech and sense, and he was already more than half
the property of the grave. I sent, however, for the best medical advice
which London could afford. They met, prescribed, and left the patient
just as they found him. I know not, in the progress of science, what
physicians may be to posterity, but in my time they are false witnesses
subpoenaed against death, whose testimony always tells less in favour of
the plaintiff than the defendant.
Before we left the poor Spaniard's former lodging, and when I was on the
point of giving some instructions to the landlady respecting the place
to which the few articles of property belonging to Don Diego and Isora
were to be moved, Isora made me a sign to be silent, which I obeyed.
"Pardon me," said she afterwards; "but I confess that I am anxious our
next residence should not be known,--should not be subject to the
intrusion of--of this--"
"Barnard, as you call him. I understand you; be it so!" and accordingly
I enjoined the goods to be sent to my own house, whence they were
removed to Don Diego's new abode and I took especial care to leave with
the good lady no clew to discover Alvarez and his daughter, otherwise
than /through me/. The pleasure afforded me of directing Gerald's
attention to myself, I could not resist. "Tell Mr. Barnard, when he
calls," said I, "that only through Count Morton Devereux will he hear of
Don Diego d'Alvarez and the lady his daughter."
"I will, your honour," said the landlady; and then looking at me more
attentively, she added: "Bless me! now when you speak, there is a very
strong likeness between yourself and Mr. Barnard."
I recoiled as if an adder had stung me, and hurried into the coach to
support the patient, who was already placed there.
Now then my daily post was by the bed of disease and suffering: in the
chamber of death was my vow of love ratified; and in sadness and in
sorrow was it returned. But it is in such scenes that the deepest, the
most endearing, and the most holy species of the passion is engendered.
As I heard Isora's low voice tremble with the suspense of one who
watches over the hourly severing of the affection of Nature and of early
years; and as I saw her light step flit by the pillow which she
smoothed, and her cheek alternately flush and fade, in watching the
wants which she relieved; as I marked her mute, her unwearying
tenderness, breaking into a thousand nameless but mighty cares, and
pervading like an angel's vigilance every--yea, the minutest--course
into which it flowed,--did I not behold her in that sphere in which
woman is most lovely, and in which love itself consecrates its
admiration and purifies its most ardent desires? That was not a time
for our hearts to speak audibly to each other; but we felt that they
grew closer and closer, and we asked not for the poor eloquence of
words. But over this scene let me not linger.
One morning, as I was proceeding on foot to Isora's, I perceived on the
opposite side of the way Montreuil and Gerald: they were conversing
eagerly; they both saw me. Montreuil made a slight, quiet, and
dignified inclination of the head: Gerald coloured, and hesitated. I
thought he was about to leave his companion and address me; but, with a
haughty and severe air, I passed on, and Gerald, as if stung by my
demeanour, bit his lip vehemently and followed my example. A few
minutes afterwards I felt an inclination to regret that I had not
afforded him an opportunity of addressing me. "I might," thought I,
"have then taunted him with his persecution of Isora, and defied him to
execute those threats against me, in which it is evident, from her
apprehensions for my safety, that he indulged."
I had not, however, much leisure for these thoughts. When I arrived at
the lodgings of Alvarez, I found that a great change had taken place in
his condition; he had recovered speech, though imperfectly, and
testified a return to sense. I flew upstairs with a light step to
congratulate Isora: she met me at the door. "Hush!" she whispered: "my
father sleeps!" But she did not speak with the animation I had
anticipated.
"What is the matter, dearest?" said I, following her into another
apartment: "you seem sad, and your eyes are red with tears, which are
not, methinks, entirely the tears of joy at this happy change in your
father."
"I am marked out for suffering," returned Isora, more keenly than she
was wont to speak. I pressed her to explain her meaning; she hesitated
at first, but at length confessed that her father had always been
anxious for her marriage with this /soi-disant/ Barnard, and that his
first words on his recovery had been to press her to consent to his
wishes.
"My poor father," said she, weepingly, "speaks and thinks only for my
fancied good; but his senses as yet are only recovered in part, and he
cannot even understand me when I speak of you. 'I shall die,' he said,
'I shall die, and you will be left on the wide world!' I in vain
endeavoured to explain to him that I should have a protector: he fell
asleep muttering those words, and with tears in his eyes."
"Does he know as much of this Barnard as you do?" said I.
"Heavens, no!--or he would never have pressed me to marry one so
wicked."
"Does he know even who he is?"
"Yes!" said Isora, after a pause; "but he has not known it long."
Here the physician joined us, and taking me aside, informed me that, as
he had foreboded, sleep had been the harbinger of death, and that Don
Diego was no more. I broke the news as gently as I could to Isora: but
her grief was far more violent than I could have anticipated; and
nothing seemed to cut her so deeply to the heart as the thought that his
last wish had been one with which she had not complied, and could never
comply.
I pass over the first days of mourning: I come to the one after Don
Diego's funeral. I had been with Isora in the morning; I left her for a
few hours, and returned at the first dusk of evening with some books and
music, which I vainly hoped she might recur to for a momentary
abstraction from her grief. I dismissed my carriage, with the intention
of walking home, and addressing the woman-servant who admitted me,
inquired, as was my wont, after Isora. "She has been very ill," replied
the woman, "ever since the strange gentleman left her."
"The strange gentleman?"
Yes, he had forced his way upstairs, despite of the denial the servant
had been ordered to give to all strangers. He had entered Isora's room;
and the woman, in answer to my urgent inquiries, added that she had
heard his voice raised to a loud and harsh key in the apartment; he had
stayed there about a quarter of an hour, and had then hurried out,
seemingly in great disorder and agitation.
"What description of man was he?" I asked.
The woman answered that he was mantled from head to foot in his cloak,
which was richly laced, and his hat was looped with diamonds, but
slouched over that part of his face which the collar of his cloak did
not hide, so that she could not further describe him than as one of a
haughty and abrupt bearing, and evidently belonging to the higher ranks.
Convinced that Gerald had been the intruder, I hastened up the stairs to
Isora. She received me with a sickly and faint smile, and endeavoured
to conceal the traces of her tears.
"So!" said I, "this insolent persecutor of yours has discovered your
abode, and again insulted or intimidated you. He shall do so no more!
I will seek him to-morrow; and no affinity of blood shall prevent--"
"Morton, dear Morton!" cried Isora, in great alarm, and yet with a
certain determination stamped upon her features, "hear me! It is true
this man has been here; it is true that, fearful and terrible as he is,
he has agitated and alarmed me: but it was only for you, Morton,--by the
Holy Virgin, it was only for you! 'The moment,' said he, and his voice
ran shiveringly through my heart like a dagger, 'the moment Morton
Devereux discovers who is his rival, that moment his death-warrant is
irrevocably sealed!'"
"Arrogant boaster!" I cried, and my blood burned with the intense rage
which a much slighter cause would have kindled from the natural
fierceness of my temper. "Does he think my life is at his bidding, to
allow or to withhold? Unhand me, Isora, unhand me! I tell you I will
seek him this moment, and dare him to do his worst!"
"Do so," said Isora, calmly, and releasing her hold; "do so; but hear me
first: the moment you breathe to him your suspicions you place an
eternal barrier betwixt yourself and me! Pledge me your faith that you
will never, while I live at least, reveal to him--to any one whom you
suspect--your reproach, your defiance, your knowledge--nay, not even
your lightest suspicion--of his identity with my persecutor; promise me
this, Morton Devereux, or I, in my turn, before that crucifix, whose
sanctity we both acknowledge and adore,--that crucifix which has
descended to my race for three unbroken centuries,--which, for my
departed father, in the solemn vow, and in the death-agony, has still
been a witness, a consolation, and a pledge, between the soul and its
Creator,--by that crucifix which my dying mother clasped to her bosom
when she committed me, an infant, to the care of that Heaven which hears
and records forever our lightest word,--I swear that I will never be
yours!"
"Isora!" said I, awed and startled, yet struggling against the
impression her energy had made upon me, "you know not to what you pledge
yourself, nor what you require of me. If I do not seek out this man, if
I do not expose to him my knowledge of his pursuit and unhallowed
persecution of you, if I do not effectually prohibit and prevent their
continuance, think well, what security have I for your future peace of
mind,--nay, even for the safety of your honour or your life? A man thus
bold, daring and unbaffled in his pursuit, thus vigilant and skilful in
his selection of time and occasion,--so that, despite my constant and
anxious endeavour to meet him in your presence, I have never been able
to do so,--from a man, I say, thus pertinacious in resolution, thus
crafty in disguise, what may you not dread when you leave him utterly
fearless by the license of impunity? Think too, again, Isora, that the
mystery dishonours as much as the danger menaces. Is it meet that my
betrothed and my future bride should be subjected to these secret and
terrible visitations,--visitations of a man professing himself her
lover, and evincing the vehemence of his passion by that of his pursuit?
Isora--Isora--you have not weighed these things; you know not what you
demand of me."
"I do!" answered Isora; "I do know all that I demand of you; I demand of
you only to preserve your life."
"How," said I, impatiently, "cannot my hand preserve my life? and is it
for you, the daughter of a line of warriors, to ask your lover and your
husband to shrink from a single foe?"
"No, Morton," answered Isora. "Were you going to battle, I would gird
on your sword myself; were, too, this man other than he is, and you were
about to meet him in open contest, I would not wrong you, nor degrade
your betrothed, by a fear. But I know my persecutor well,--fierce,
unrelenting,--dreadful in his dark and ungovernable passions as he is,
he has not the courage to confront you: I fear not the open foe, but the
lurking and sure assassin. His very earnestness to avoid you, the
precautions he has taken, are alone sufficient to convince you that he
dreads personally to oppose your claim or to vindicate himself."
"Then what have I to fear?"
"Everything! Do you not know that from men, at once fierce, crafty, and
shrinking from bold violence, the stuff for assassins is always made?
And if I wanted surer proof of his designs than inference, his oath--it
rings in my ears now--is sufficient. 'The moment Morton Devereux
discovers who is his rival, that moment his death-warrant is irrevocably
sealed.' Morton, I demand your promise; or, though my heart break, I
will record my own vow."
"Stay--stay," I said, in anger, and in sorrow: "were I to promise this,
and for my own safety hazard yours, what could you deem me?"
"Fear not for me, Morton," answered Isora; "you have no cause. I tell
you that this man, villain as he is, ever leaves me humbled and abased.
Do not think that in all times, and all scenes, I am the foolish and
weak creature you behold me now. Remember that you said rightly I was
the daughter of a line of warriors; and I have that within me which will
not shame my descent."
"But, dearest, your resolution may avail you for a time; but it cannot
forever baffle the hardened nature of a man. I know my own sex, and I
know my own ferocity, were it once aroused."
"But, Morton, you do not know me," said Isora, proudly, and her face, as
she spoke, was set, and even stern: "I am only the coward when I think
of you; a word--a look of mine--can abash this man; or, if it could not,
I am never without a weapon to defend myself, or--or--" Isora's voice,
before firm and collected, now faltered, and a deep blush flowed over
the marble paleness of her face.
"Or what?" said I, anxiously.
"Or thee, Morton!" murmured Isora, tenderly, and withdrawing her eyes
from mine.
The tone, the look that accompanied these words, melted me at once. I
rose,--I clasped Isora to my heart.
"You are a strange compound, my own fairy queen; but these lips, this
cheek, those eyes, are not fit features for a heroine."
"Morton, if I had less determination in my heart, I could not love you
so well."
"But tell me," I whispered, with a smile, "where is this weapon on which
you rely so strongly?"
"Here!" answered Isora, blushingly; and, extricating herself from me,
she showed me a small two-edged dagger, which she wore carefully
concealed between the folds of her dress. I looked over the bright,
keen blade, with surprise, and yet with pleasure, at the latent
resolution of a character seemingly so soft. I say with pleasure, for
it suited well with my own fierce and wild temper. I returned the
weapon to her, with a smile and a jest.
"Ah!" said Isora, shrinking from my kiss, "I should not have been so
bold, if I only feared danger for myself."
But if, for a moment, we forgot, in the gushings of our affection, the
object of our converse and dispute, we soon returned to it again. Isora
was the first to recur to it. She reminded me of the promise she
required; and she spoke with a seriousness and a solemnity which I found
myself scarcely able to resist.
"But," I said, "if he ever molest you hereafter; if again I find that
bright cheek blanched, and those dear eyes dimmed with tears; and I know
that, in my own house, some one has dared thus to insult its queen,--am
I to be still torpid and inactive, lest a dastard and craven hand should
avenge my assertion of your honour and mine?"
"No, Morton; after our marriage, whenever that be, you will have nothing
to apprehend from him on the same ground as before; my fear for you,
too, will not be what it is now; your honour will be bound in mine, and
nothing shall induce me to hazard it,--no, not even your safety. I have
every reason to believe that, after that event, he will subject me no
longer to his insults: how, indeed, can he, under your perpetual
protection? or, for what cause should he attempt it, if he could? I
shall be then yours,--only and ever yours; what hope could, therefore,
then nerve his hardihood or instigate his intrusions? Trust to me at
that time, and suffer me to--nay, I repeat, promise me that I may--trust
in you now!"
What could I do? I still combated her wish and her request; but her
steadiness and rigidity of purpose made me, though reluctantly, yield to
them at last. So sincere, and so stern, indeed, appeared her
resolution, that I feared, by refusal, that she would take the rash oath
that would separate us forever. Added to this, I felt in her that
confidence which, I am apt to believe, is far more akin to the latter
stages of real love than jealousy and mistrust; and I could not believe
that either now, or, still less after our nuptials, she would risk aught
of honour, or the seemings of honour, from a visionary and superstitious
fear. In spite, therefore, of my deep and keen interest in the thorough
discovery of this mysterious persecution; and, still more, in the
prevention of all future designs from his audacity, I constrained myself
to promise her that I would on no account seek out the person I
suspected, or wilfully betray to him by word or deed my belief of his
identity with Barnard.
Though greatly dissatisfied with my self-compulsion, I strove to
reconcile myself to its idea. Indeed, there was much in the peculiar
circumstances of Isora, much in the freshness of her present affliction,
much in the unfriended and utter destitution of her situation, that,
while on the one hand, it called forth her pride, and made stubborn that
temper which was naturally so gentle and so soft; on the other hand,
made me yield even to wishes that I thought unreasonable, and consider
rather the delicacy and deference due to her condition, than insist upon
the sacrifices which, in more fortunate circumstances, I might have
imagined due to myself. Still more indisposed to resist her wish and
expose myself to its penalty was I, when I considered her desire was the
mere excess and caution of her love, and when I felt that she spoke
sincerely when she declared that it was only for me that she was the
coward. Nevertheless, and despite all these considerations, it was with
a secret discontent that I took my leave of her, and departed homeward.
I had just reached the end of the street where the house was situated,
when I saw there, very imperfectly, for the night was extremely dark,
the figure of a man entirely enveloped in a long cloak, such as was
commonly worn by gallants in affairs of secrecy or intrigue; and, in the
pale light of a single lamp near which he stood, something like the
brilliance of gems glittered on the large Spanish hat which overhung his
brow. I immediately recalled the description the woman had given me of
Barnard's dress, and the thought flashed across me that it was he whom I
beheld. "At all events," thought I, "I may confirm my doubts, if I may
not communicate them, and I may watch over her safety if I may not
avenge her injuries." I therefore took advantage of my knowledge of the
neighbourhood, passed the stranger with a quick step, and then, running
rapidly, returned by a circuitous route to the mouth of a narrow and
dark street, which was exactly opposite to Isora's house. Here I
concealed myself by a projecting porch, and I had not waited long before
I saw the dim form of the stranger walk slowly by the house. He passed
it three or four times, and each time I thought--though the darkness
might deceive me--that he looked up to the windows. He made, however,
no attempt at admission, and appeared as if he had no other object than
that of watching by the house. Wearied and impatient at last, I came
from my concealment. "I may /confirm/ my suspicions," I repeated,
recurring to my oath, and I walked straight towards the stranger.
"Sir," I said very calmly, "I am the last person in the world to
interfere with the amusements of any other gentleman; but I humbly opine
that no man can parade by this house upon so very cold a night, without
giving just ground for suspicion to the friends of its inhabitants. I
happen to be among that happy number; and I therefore, with all due
humility and respect, venture to request you to seek some other spot for
your nocturnal perambulations."
I made this speech purposely prolix, in order to have time fully to
reconnoitre the person of the one I addressed. The dusk of the night,
and the loose garb of the stranger, certainly forbade any decided
success to this scrutiny; but methought the figure seemed, despite of my
prepossessions, to want the stately height and grand proportions of
Gerald Devereux. I must own, however, that the necessary inexactitude
of my survey rendered this idea without just foundation, and did not by
any means diminish my firm impression that it was Gerald whom I beheld.
While I spoke, he retreated with a quick step, but made no answer. I
pressed upon him: he backed with a still quicker step; and when I had
ended, he fairly turned round, and made at full speed along the dark
street in which I had fixed my previous post of watch. I fled after
him, with a step as fleet as his own: his cloak encumbered his flight; I
gained upon him sensibly; he turned a sharp corner, threw me out, and
entered into a broad thoroughfare. As I sped after him, Bacchanalian
voices burst upon my ear, and presently a large band of those young men
who, under the name of Mohawks, were wont to scour the town nightly,
and, sword in hand, to exercise their love of riot under the disguise of
party zeal, became visible in the middle of the street. Through them my
fugitive dashed headlong, and, profiting by their surprise, escaped
unmolested. I attempted to follow with equal speed, but was less
successful. "Hallo!" cried the foremost of the group, placing himself
in my way.
"No such haste! Art Whig or Tory? Under which king, Bezonian? speak or
die!"
"Have a care, Sir," said I, fiercely, drawing my sword.
"Treason, treason!" cried the speaker, confronting me with equal
readiness. "Have a care, indeed! have /at thee/."
"Ha!" cried another, "'tis a Tory; 'tis the Secretary's popish friend,
Devereux: pike him, pike him."
I had already run my opponent through the sword arm, and was in hopes
that this act would intimidate the rest, and allow my escape; but at the
sound of my name and political bias, coupled with the drawn blood of
their confederate, the patriots rushed upon me with that amiable fury
generally characteristic of all true lovers of their country. Two
swords passed through my body simultaneously, and I fell bleeding and
insensible to the ground. When I recovered I was in my own apartments,
whither two of the gentler Mohawks had conveyed me: the surgeons were by
my bedside; I groaned audibly when I saw them. If there is a thing in
the world I hate, it is in any shape the disciples of Hermes; they
always remind me of that Indian people (the Padaei, I think) mentioned
by Herodotus, who sustained themselves by devouring the sick. "All is
well," said one, when my groan was heard. "He will not die," said
another. "At least not till we have had more fees," said a third, more
candid than the rest. And thereupon they seized me and began torturing
my wounds anew, till I fainted away with the pain. However, the next
day I was declared out of immediate danger; and the first proof I gave
of my convalescence was to make Desmarais discharge four surgeons out of
five: the remaining one I thought my youth and constitution might enable
me to endure.
That very evening, as I was turning restlessly in my bed, and muttering
with parched lips the name of "Isora," I saw by my side a figure covered
from head to foot in a long veil, and a voice, low, soft, but thrilling
through my heart like a new existence, murmured, "She is here!"
I forgot my wounds; I forgot my pain and my debility; I sprang upwards:
the stranger drew aside the veil from her countenance, and I beheld
Isora!
"Yes!" said she, in her own liquid and honeyed accents, which fell like
balm upon my wound and my spirit, "yes, she whom /you/ have hitherto
tended is come, in her turn, to render some slight but woman's services
to you. She has come to nurse, and to soothe, and to pray for you, and
to be, till you yourself discard her, your hand-maid and your slave!"
I would have answered, but raising her finger to her lips, she arose and
vanished; but from that hour my wound healed, my fever slaked, and
whenever I beheld her flitting round my bed, or watching over me, or
felt her cool fingers wiping the dew from my brow, or took from her hand
my medicine or my food, in those moments, the blood seemed to make a new
struggle through my veins, and I felt palpably within me a fresh and
delicious life--a life full of youth and passion and hope--replace the
vaguer and duller being which I had hitherto borne.
There are some extraordinary incongruities in that very mysterious thing
/sympathy/. One would imagine that, in a description of things most
generally interesting to all men, the most general interest would be
found; nevertheless, I believe few persons would hang breathless over
the progressive history of a sick-bed. Yet those gradual stages from
danger to recovery, how delightfully interesting they are to all who
have crawled from one to the other! and who, at some time or other in
his journey through that land of diseases--civilized life--has not taken
that gentle excursion? "I would be ill any day for the pleasure of
getting well," said Fontenelle to me one morning with his usual
/naivete/; but who would not be ill for the more pleasure of being ill,
if he could be tended by her whom he most loves?
I shall not therefore dwell upon that most delicious period of my
life,--my sick bed, and my recovery from it. I pass on to a certain
evening in which I heard from Isora's lips the whole of her history,
save what related to her knowledge of the real name of one whose
persecution constituted the little of romance which had yet mingled with
her innocent and pure life. That evening--how well I remember it!--we
were alone; still weak and reduced, I lay upon the sofa beside the
window, which was partially open, and the still air of an evening in the
first infancy of spring came fresh, and fraught as it were with a
prediction of the glowing woods and the reviving verdure, to my cheek.
The stars, one by one, kindled, as if born of Heaven and Twilight, into
their nightly being; and, through the vapour and thick ether of the
dense city, streamed their most silent light, holy and pure, and
resembling that which the Divine Mercy sheds upon the gross nature of
mankind. But, shadowy and calm, their rays fell full upon the face of
Isora, as she lay on the ground beside my couch, and with one hand
surrendered to my clasp, looked upward till, as she felt my gaze, she
turned her cheek blushingly away. There was quiet around and above us;
but beneath the window we heard at times the sounds of the common earth,
and then insensibly our hands knit into a closer clasp, and we felt them
thrill more palpably to our hearts; for those sounds reminded us both of
our existence and of our separation from the great herd of our race!
What is love but a division from the world, and a blending of two souls,
two immortalities divested of clay and ashes, into one? it is a severing
of a thousand ties from whatever is harsh and selfish, in order to knit
them into a single and sacred bond! Who loves hath attained the
anchorite's secret; and the hermitage has become dearer than the world.
O respite from the toil and the curse of our social and banded state, a
little interval art thou, suspended between two eternities,--the Past
and the Future,--a star that hovers between the morning and the night,
sending through the vast abyss one solitary ray from heaven, but too far
and faint to illumine, while it hallows the earth!
There was nothing in Isora's tale which the reader has not already
learned or conjectured. She had left her Andalusian home in her early
childhood, but she remembered it well, and lingeringly dwelt over it in
description. It was evident that little, in our colder and less genial
isle, had attracted her sympathy, or wound itself into her affection.
Nevertheless, I conceive that her naturally dreamy and abstracted
character had received from her residence and her trials here much of
the vigour and the heroism which it now possessed. Brought up alone,
music, and books--few, though not ill-chosen, for Shakspeare was one,
and the one which had made upon her the most permanent impression, and
perhaps had coloured her temperament with its latent but rich hues of
poetry--constituted her amusement and her studies.
But who knows not that a woman's heart finds its fullest occupation
within itself? There lies its real study, and within that narrow orbit,
the mirror of enchanted thought reflects the whole range of earth.
Loneliness and meditation nursed the mood which afterwards, with Isora,
became love itself. But I do not wish now so much to describe her
character as to abridge her brief history. The first English stranger
of the male sex whom her father admitted to her acquaintance was
Barnard. This man was, as I had surmised, connected with him in certain
political intrigues, the exact nature of which she did not know. I
continue to call him by a name which Isora acknowledged was fictitious.
He had not, at first, by actual declaration, betrayed to her his
affections: though, accompanied by a sort of fierceness which early
revolted her, they soon became visible. On the evening in which I had
found her stretched insensible in the garden, and had myself made my
first confession of love, I learned that he had divulged to her his
passion and real name; that her rejection had thrown him into a fierce
despair; that he had accompanied his disclosure with the most terrible
threats against me, for whom he supposed himself rejected, and against
the safety of her father, whom he said a word of his could betray; and
her knowledge of his power to injure us--/us/--yes, Isora then loved me,
and then trembled for my safety! had terrified and overcome her; and
that in the very moment in which my horse's hoofs were heard, and as the
alternative of her non-compliance, the rude suitor swore deadly and sore
vengeance against Alvarez and myself, she yielded to the oath he
prescribed to her,--an oath that she would never reveal the secret he
had betrayed to her, or suffer me to know who was my real rival.
This was all that I could gather from her guarded confidence; he heard
the oath and vanished, and she felt no more till she was in my arms;
then it was that she saw in the love and vengeance of my rival a barrier
against our union; and then it was that her generous fear for me
conquered her attachment, and she renounced me. Their departure from
the cottage so shortly afterwards was at her father's choice and at the
instigation of Barnard, for the furtherance of their political projects;
and it was from Barnard that the money came which repaid my loan to
Alvarez. The same person, no doubt, poisoned her father against me, for
henceforth Alvarez never spoke of me with that partiality he had
previously felt. They repaired to London: her father was often absent,
and often engaged with men whom she had never seen before; he was
absorbed and uncommunicative, and she was still ignorant of the nature
of his schemings and designs.
At length, after an absence of several weeks, Barnard reappeared, and
his visits became constant; he renewed his suit to her father as well as
herself. Then commenced that domestic persecution, so common in this
very tyrannical world, which makes us sicken to bear, and which, had
Isora been wholly a Spanish girl, she, in all probability, would never
have resisted: so much of custom is there in the very air of a climate.
But she did resist it, partly because she loved me,--and loved me more
and more for our separation,--and partly because she dreaded and
abhorred the ferocious and malignant passions of my rival, far beyond
any other misery with which fortune could threaten her. "Your father
then shall hang or starve!" said Barnard, one day in uncontrollable
frenzy, and left her. He did not appear again at the house. The
Spaniard's resources, fed, probably, alone by Barnard, failed. From
house to house they removed, till they were reduced to that humble one
in which I had found them. There, Barnard again sought them; there,
backed by the powerful advocate of want, he again pressed his suit, and
at that exact moment her father was struck with the numbing curse of his
disease. "There and then," said Isora, candidly, "I might have yielded
at last, for my poor father's sake, if you had not saved me."
Once only (I have before recorded the time) did Barnard visit her in the
new abode I had provided for her, and the day after our conversation on
that event Isora watched and watched for me, and I did not come. From
the woman of the house she at last learned the cause. "I forgot," she
said timidly,--and in conclusion, "I forgot womanhood, and modesty, and
reserve; I forgot the customs of your country, the decencies of my own;
I forgot everything in this world, but you,--you suffering and in
danger; my very sense of existence seemed to pass from me, and to be
supplied by a breathless, confused, and overwhelming sense of impatient
agony, which ceased not till I was in your chamber, and by your side!
And--now, Morton, do not despise me for not having considered more, and
loved you less."
"Despise you!" I murmured, and I threw my arms around her, and drew her
to my breast. I felt her heart beat against my own: those hearts spoke,
though our lips were silent, and in their language seemed to say, "We
are united now, and we will not part."
The starlight, shining with a mellow and deep stillness, was the only
light by which we beheld each other: it shone, the witness and the
sanction of that internal voice, which we owned, but heard not. Our
lips drew closer and closer together, till they met! and in that kiss
was the type and promise of the after ritual which knit two spirits into
one. Silence fell around us like a curtain, and the eternal Night, with
her fresh dews and unclouded stars, looked alone upon the compact of our
hearts,--an emblem of the eternity, the freshness, and the unearthly
though awful brightness of the love which it hallowed and beheld!
