CHAPTER V.
"_Volpone_. A little in a mist, but not dejected;
Never--but still myself."
BEN JONSON: _Volpone_.
"_Peregrine_. Am I enough disguised?
_Mer_. Ay. I warrant you.
_Per_. Save you, fair lady."--Ibid.
It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The ill wind that had blown
gout to Lord Lilburne had blown Lord Lilburne away from the injury he had
meditated against what he called "the object of his attachment." How
completely and entirely, indeed, the state of Lord Lilburne's feelings
depended on the state of his health, may be seen in the answer he gave to
his valet, when, the morning after the first attack of the gout, that
worthy person, by way of cheering his master, proposed to ascertain
something as to the movements of one with whom Lord Lilburne professed to
be so violently in love,--"Confound you, Dykeman!" exclaimed the
invalid,--"why do you trouble me about women when I'm in this condition?
I don't care if they were all at the bottom of the sea! Reach me the
colchicum! I must keep my mind calm."
Whenever tolerably well, Lord Lilburne was careless of his health; the
moment he was ill, Lord Lilburne paid himself the greatest possible
attention. Though a man of firm nerves, in youth of remarkable daring,
and still, though no longer rash, of sufficient personal courage, he was
by no means fond of the thought of death--that is, of his _own_ death.
Not that he was tormented by any religious apprehensions of the Dread
Unknown, but simply because the only life of which he had any experience
seemed to him a peculiarly pleasant thing. He had a sort of instinctive
persuasion that John Lord Lilburne would not be better off anywhere else.
Always disliking solitude, he disliked it more than ever when he was ill,
and he therefore welcomed the visit of his sister and the gentle hand of
his pretty niece. As for Beaufort, he bored the sufferer; and when that
gentleman, on his arrival, shutting out his wife and daughter, whispered
to Lilburne, "Any more news of that impostor?" Lilburne answered
peevishly, "I never talk about business when I have the gout! I have set
Sharp to keep a lookout for him, but he has learned nothing as yet. And
now go to your club. You are a worthy creature, but too solemn for my
spirits just at this moment. I have a few people coming to dine with me,
your wife will do the honors, and--_you_ can come in the evening."
Though Mr. Robert Beaufort's sense of importance swelled and chafed at
this very unceremonious _conge_, he forced a smile, and said:--
"Well, it is no wonder you are a little fretful with the gout. I have
plenty to do in town, and Mrs. Beaufort and Camilla can come back without
waiting for me."
"Why, as your cook is ill, and they can't dine at a club, you may as well
leave them here till I am a little better; not that I care, for I can
hire a better nurse than either of them."
"My dear Lilburne, don't talk of hiring nurses; certainly, I am too happy
if they can be of comfort to you."
"No! on second thoughts, you may take back your wife, she's always
talking of her own complaints, and leave me Camilla: you can't want her
for a few days."
"Just as you like. And you really think I have managed as well as I
could about this young man,--eh?"
"Yes--yes! And so you go to Beaufort Court in a few days?"
"I propose doing so. I wish you were well enough to come."
"Um! Chambers says that it would be a very good air for me--better than
Fernside; and as to my castle in the north, I would as soon go to
Siberia. Well, if I get better, I will pay you a visit, only you always
have such a stupid set of respectable people about you. I shock them,
and they oppress me."
"Why, as I hope soon to see Arthur, I shall make it as agreeable to him
as I can, and I shall be very much obliged to you if you would invite a
few of your own friends."
"Well, you are a good fellow, Beaufort, and I will take you at your word;
and, since one good turn deserves another, I have now no scruples in
telling you that I feel quite sure that you will have no further
annoyance from this troublesome witness-monger."
"In that case," said Beaufort, "I may pick up a better match for Camilla!
Good-bye, my dear Lilburne."
"Form and Ceremony of the world!" snarled the peer, as the door closed
on his brother-in-law, "ye make little men very moral, and not a bit the
better for being so."
It so happened that Vaudemont arrived before any of the other guests that
day, and during the half hour which Dr. Chambers assigned to his
illustrious patient, so that, when he entered, there were only Mrs.
Beaufort and Camilla in the drawing-room.
Vaudemont drew back involuntarily as he recognized in the faded
countenance of the elder lady, features associated with one of the dark
passages in his earlier life; but Mrs. Beaufort's gracious smile, and
urbane, though languid welcome, sufficed to assure him that the
recognition was not mutual. He advanced, and again stopped short, as his
eye fell upon that fair and still childlike form, which had once knelt by
his side and pleaded, with the orphan, for his brother. While he spoke
to her, many recollections, some dark and stern--but those, at least,
connected with Camilla, soft and gentle-thrilled through his heart.
Occupied as her own thoughts and feelings necessarily were with Sidney,
there was something in Vaudemont's appearance--his manner, his voice--
which forced upon Camilla a strange and undefined interest; and even Mrs.
Beaufort was roused from her customary apathy, as she glanced at that
dark and commanding face with something between admiration and fear.
Vaudemont had scarcely, however, spoken ten words, when some other guests
were announced, and Lord Lilburne was wheeled in upon his sofa shortly
afterwards. Vaudemont continued, however, seated next to Camilla, and
the embarrassment he had at first felt disappeared. He possessed, when
he pleased, that kind of eloquence which belongs to men who have seen
much and felt deeply, and whose talk has not been frittered down to the
commonplace jargon of the world. His very phraseology was distinct and
peculiar, and he had that rarest of all charms in polished life,
originality both of thought and of manner. Camilla blushed, when she
found at dinner that he placed himself by her side. That evening De
Vaudemont excused himself from playing, but the table was easily made
without him, and still he continued to converse with the daughter of the
man whom he held as his worst foe. By degrees, he turned the
conversation into a channel that might lead him to the knowledge he
sought.
"It was my fate," said he, "once to become acquainted with an intimate
friend of the late Mr. Beaufort. Will you pardon me if I venture to
fulfil a promise I made to him, and ask you to inform me what has become
of a--a--that is, of Sidney Morton?"
"Sidney Morton! I don't even remember the name. Oh, yes! I have heard
it," added Camilla, innocently, and with a candour that showed how little
she knew of the secrets of the family; "he was one of two poor boys in
whom my brother felt a deep interest--some relations to my uncle. Yes--
yes! I remember now. I never knew Sidney, but I once did see his
brother."
"Indeed! and you remember--"
"Yes! I was very young then. I scarcely recollect what passed, it was
all so confused and strange; but, I know that I made papa very angry, and
I was told never to mention the name of Morton again. I believe they
behaved very ill to papa."
"And you never learned--never!--the fate of either--of Sidney?"
"Never!"
"But your father must know?"
"I think not; but tell me,"--said Camilla, with girlish and unaffected
innocence, "I have always felt anxious to know,--what and who were those
poor boys?"
What and who were they? So deep, then, was the stain upon their name,
that the modest mother and the decorous father had never even said to
that young girl, "They are your cousins--the children of the man in whose
gold we revel!"
Philip bit his lip, and the spell of Camilla's presence seemed vanished.
He muttered some inaudible answer, turned away to the card-table, and
Liancourt took the chair he had left vacant.
"And how does Miss Beaufort like my friend Vaudemont? I assure you that
I have seldom seen him so alive to the fascination of female beauty!"
"Oh!" said Camilla, with her silver laugh, "your nation spoils us for our
own countrymen. You forget how little we are accustomed to flattery."
"Flattery! what truth could flatter on the lips of an exile? But you
don't answer my question--what think you of Vaudemont? Few are more
admired. He is handsome!"
"Is he?" said Camilla, and she glanced at Vaudemont, as he stood at a
little distance, thoughtful and abstracted. Every girl forms to herself
some untold dream of that which she considers fairest. And Vaudemont had
not the delicate and faultless beauty of Sidney. There was nothing that
corresponded to her ideal in his marked features and lordly shape! But
she owned, reluctantly to herself, that she had seldom seen, among the
trim gallants of everyday life, a form so striking and impressive. The
air, indeed, was professional--the most careless glance could detect the
soldier. But it seemed the soldier of an elder age or a wilder clime.
He recalled to her those heads which she had seen in the Beaufort Gallery
and other Collections yet more celebrated--portraits by Titian of those
warrior statesman who lived in the old Republics of Italy in a perpetual
struggle with their kind--images of dark, resolute, earnest men. Even
whatever was intellectual in his countenance spoke, as in those
portraits, of a mind sharpened rather in active than in studious life;--
intellectual, not from the pale hues, the worn exhaustion, and the sunken
cheek of the bookman and dreamer, but from its collected and stern
repose, the calm depth that lay beneath the fire of the eyes, and the
strong will that spoke in the close full lips, and the high but not
cloudless forehead.
And, as she gazed, Vaudemont turned round--her eyes fell beneath his, and
she felt angry with herself that she blushed. Vaudemont saw the downcast
eye, he saw the blush, and the attraction of Camilla's presence was
restored. He would have approached her, but at that moment Mr. Beaufort
himself entered, and his thoughts went again into a darker channel.
"Yes," said Liancourt, "you must allow Vaudemont looks what he is--a
noble fellow and a gallant soldier. Did you never hear of his battle
with the tigress? It made a noise in India. I must tell it you as I
have heard it."
And while Laincourt was narrating the adventure, whatever it was, to
which he referred, the card-table was broken up, and Lord Lilburne, still
reclining on his sofa, lazily introduced his brother-in-law to such of
the guests as were strangers to him--Vaudemont among the rest. Mr.
Beaufort had never seen Philip Morton more than three times; once at
Fernside, and the other times by an imperfect light, and when his
features were convulsed by passion, and his form disfigured by his dress.
Certainly, therefore, had Robert Beaufort even possessed that faculty of
memory which is supposed to belong peculiarly to kings and princes, and
which recalls every face once seen, it might have tasked the gift to the
utmost to have detected, in the bronzed and decorated foreigner to whom
he was now presented, the features of the wild and long-lost boy. But
still some dim and uneasy presentiment, or some struggling and painful
effort of recollection, was in his mind, as he spoke to Vaudemont, and
listened to the cold calm tone of his reply.
"Who do you say that Frenchman is?" he whispered to his brother-in-law,
as Vaudemont turned away.
"Oh! a cleverish sort of adventurer--a gentleman; he plays.--He has seen
a good deal of the world--he rather amuses me--different from other
people. I think of asking him to join our circle at Beaufort Court."
Mr. Beaufort coughed huskily, but not seeing any reasonable objection to
the proposal, and afraid of rousing the sleeping hyaena of Lord
Lilburne's sarcasm, he merely said:--
"Any one you like to invite:" and looking round for some one on whom to
vent his displeasure, perceived Camilla still listening to Liancourt. He
stalked up to her, and as Liancourt, seeing her rise, rose also and moved
away, he said peevishly, "You will never learn to conduct yourself
properly; you are to be left here to nurse and comfort your uncle, and
not to listen to the gibberish of every French adventurer. Well, Heaven
be praised, I have a son--girls are a great plague!"
"So they are, Mr. Beaufort," sighed his wife, who had just joined him,
and who was jealous of the preference Lilburne had given to her daughter.
"And so selfish," added Mrs. Beaufort; "they only care for their own
amusements, and never mind how uncomfortable their parents are for want
of them."
"Oh! dear mamma, don't say so--let me go home with you--I'll speak to my
uncle!"
"Nonsense, child! Come along, Mr. Beaufort;" and the affectionate
parents went out arm in arm. They did not perceive that Vaudemont had
been standing close behind them; but Camilla, now looking up with tears
in her eyes, again caught his gaze: he had heard all.
"And they ill-treat her," he muttered: "that divides her from them!--she
will be left here--I shall see her again." As he turned to depart,
Lilburne beckoned to him.
"You do not mean to desert our table?"
"No: but I am not very well to-night--to-morrow, if you will allow me."
"Ay, to-morrow; and if you can spare an hour in the morning it will be a
charity. You see," he added in a whisper, "I have a nurse, though I have
no children. D'ye think that's love? Bah! sir--a legacy! Good night."
"No--no--no!" said Vaudemont to himself, as he walked through the moonlit
streets. "No! though my heart burns,--poor murdered felon!--to avenge
thy wrongs and thy crimes, revenge cannot come from me--he is Fanny's
grandfather and--Camilla's uncle!"
And Camilla, when that uncle had dismissed her for the night, sat down
thoughtfully in her own room. The dark eyes of Vaudemont seemed still to
shine on her; his voice yet rung in her ear; the wild tales of daring and
danger with which Liancourt had associated his name yet haunted her
bewildered fancy--she started, frightened at her own thoughts. She took
from her bosom some lines that Sidney had addressed to her, and, as she
read and re-read, her spirit became calmed to its wonted and faithful
melancholy. Vaudemont was forgotten, and the name of Sidney yet murmured
on her lips, when sleep came to renew the image of the absent one, and
paint in dreams the fairy land of a happy Future!
