CHAPTER XXI.
"Heaven's airs amid the harpstrings dwell;
And we wish they ne'er may fade;
They cease; and the soul is a silent cell,
Where music never played.
Dream follows dream through the long night-hours."
WILSON: _The Past, a poem_.
The self-command which Philip had obtained for a while deserted him when
he was without the house. His mind felt broken up into chaos; he hurried
on, mechanically, on foot; he passed street upon street, now solitary and
deserted, as the lamps gleamed upon the thick snow. The city was left
behind him. He paused not, till, breathless, and exhausted in spirit if
not in frame, he reached the churchyard where Catherine's dust reposed.
The snow had ceased to fall, but it lay deep over the graves; the
yew-trees, clad in their white shrouds, gleamed ghost-like through the
dimness. Upon the rail that fenced the tomb yet hung a wreath that
Fanny's hand had placed there. But the flowers were hid; it was a wreath
of snow! Through the intervals of the huge and still clouds, there
gleamed a few melancholy stars. The very calm of the holy spot seemed
unutterably sad. The Death of the year overhung the Death of man. And
as Philip bent over the tomb, within and without all was ICE and NIGHT!
For hours he remained on that spot, alone with his grief and absorbed in
his prayer. Long past midnight Fanny heard his step on the stairs, and
the door of his chamber close with unwonted violence. She heard, too,
for some time, his heavy tread on the floor, till suddenly all was
silent. The next morning, when, at the usual hour, Sarah entered to
unclose the shutters and light the fire, she was startled by wild
exclamations and wilder laughter. The fever had mounted to the brain--
he was delirious.
For several weeks Philip Beaufort was in imminent danger; for a
considerable part of that time he was unconscious; and when the peril was
past, his recovery was slow and gradual. It was the only illness to
which his vigorous frame had ever been subjected: and the fever had
perhaps exhausted him more than it might have done one in whose
constitution the disease had encountered less resistance. His brother;
imagining he had gone abroad, was unacquainted with his danger. None
tended his sick-bed save the hireling nurse, the feed physician, and the
unpurchasable heart of the only being to whom the wealth and rank of the
Heir of Beaufort Court were as nothing. Here was reserved for him Fate's
crowning lesson, in the vanity of those human wishes which anchor in gold
and power. For how many years had the exile and the outcast pined
indignantly for his birthright?--Lo! it was won: and with it came the
crushed heart and the smitten frame. As he slowly recovered sense and
reasoning, these thoughts struck him forcibly. He felt as if he were
rightly punished in having disdained, during his earlier youth, the
enjoyments within his reach. Was there nothing in the glorious health
--the unconquerable hope--the heart, if wrung, and chafed, and sorely
tried, free at least from the direst anguish of the passions,
disappointed and jealous love? Though now certain, if spared to the
future, to be rich, powerful, righted in name and honour, might he not
from that sick-bed envy his earlier past? even when with his brother
orphan he wandered through the solitary fields, and felt with what
energies we are gifted when we have something to protect; or when, loving
and beloved, he saw life smile out to him in the eyes of Eugenie; or
when, after that melancholy loss, he wrestled boldly, and breast to
breast with Fortune, in a far land, for honour and independence? There
is something in severe illness, especially if it be in violent contrast
to the usual strength of the body, which has often the most salutary
effect upon the mind; which often, by the affliction of the frame,
roughly wins us from the too morbid pains of the heart! which makes us
feel that, in mere LIFE, enjoyed as the robust enjoy it, God's Great
Principle of Good breathes and moves. We rise thus from the sick-bed
softened and humbled, and more disposed to look around us for such
blessings as we may yet command.
The return of Philip, his danger, the necessity of exertion, of tending
him, had roused Fanny from a state which might otherwise have been
permanently dangerous to the intellect so lately ripened within her.
With what patience, with what fortitude, with what unutterable thought
and devotion, she fulfilled that best and holiest woman's duty--let the
man whose struggle with life and death has been blessed with the vigil
that wakes and saves, imagine to himself. And in all her anxiety and
terror, she had glimpses of a happiness which it seemed to her almost
criminal to acknowledge. For, even in his delirium, her voice seemed to
have some soothing influence over him, and he was calmer while she was
by. And when at last he was conscious, her face was the first he saw,
and her name the first which his lips uttered. As then he grew gradually
stronger, and the bed was deserted for the sofa, he took more than the
old pleasure in hearing her read to him; which she did with a feeling
that lecturers cannot teach. And once, in a pause from this occupation,
he spoke to her frankly,--he sketched his past history--his last
sacrifice. And Fanny, as she wept, learned that he was no more
another's!
It has been said that this man, naturally of an active and impatient
temperament, had been little accustomed to seek those resources which are
found in books. But somehow in that sick chamber--it was Fanny's voice--
the voice of her over whose mind he had once so haughtily lamented, that
taught him how much of aid and solace the Herd of Men derive from the
Everlasting Genius of the Few.
Gradually, and interval by interval, moment by moment, thus drawn
together, all thought beyond shut out (for, however crushing for the time
the blow that had stricken Philip from health and reason, he was not that
slave to a guilty fancy, that he could voluntarily indulge--that he would
not earnestly seek to shun--all sentiments 'chat yet turned with unholy
yearning towards the betrothed of his brother);--gradually, I say, and
slowly, came those progressive and delicious epochs which mark a
revolution in the affections:--unspeakable gratitude, brotherly
tenderness, the united strength of compassion and respect that he had
felt for Fanny seemed, as he gained health, to mellow into feelings yet
more exquisite and deep. He could no longer delude himself with a vain
and imperious belief that it was a defective mind that his heart
protected; he began again to be sensible to the rare beauty of that
tender face--more lovely, perhaps, for the paleness that had replaced its
bloom. The fancy that he had so imperiously checked before--before he
saw Camilla, returned to him, and neither pride nor honour had now the
right to chase the soft wings away. One evening, fancying himself alone,
he fell into a profound reverie; he awoke with a start, and the
exclamation, "was it true love that I ever felt for Camilla, or a
passion, a frenzy, a delusion?"
His exclamation was answered by a sound that seemed both of joy and
grief. He looked up, and saw Fanny before him; the light of the moon,
just risen, fell full on her form, but her hands were clasped before her
face; he heard her sob.
"Fanny, dear Fanny!" he cried, and sought to throw himself from the sofa
to her feet. But she drew herself away, and fled from the chamber silent
as a dream.
Philip rose, and, for the first time since his illness, walked, but with
feeble steps, to and fro the room. With what different emotions from
those in which last, in fierce and intolerable agony, he had paced that
narrow boundary! Returning health crept through his veins--a serene, a
kindly, a celestial joy circumfused his heart. Had the time yet come
when the old Florimel had melted into snow; when the new and the true
one, with its warm life, its tender beauty, its maiden wealth of love,
had risen before his hopes? He paused before the window; the spot within
seemed so confined, the night without so calm and lovely, that he forgot
his still-clinging malady, and unclosed the casement: the air came soft
and fresh upon his temples, and the church-tower and spire, for the first
time, did not seem to him to rise in gloom against the heavens. Even the
gravestone of Catherine, half in moonlight, half in shadow, appeared to
him to wear a smile. His mother's memory was become linked with the
living Fanny.
"Thou art vindicated--thy Sidney is happy," he murmured: "to her the
thanks!"
Fair hopes, and soft thoughts busy within him, he remained at the
casement till the increasing chill warned him of the danger he incurred.
The next day, when the physician visited him, he found the fever had
returned. For many days, Philip was again in danger--dull, unconscious
even of the step and voice of Fanny.
He woke at last as from a long and profound sleep; woke so refreshed, so
revived, that he felt at once that some great crisis had been passed, and
that at length he had struggled back to the sunny shores of Life.
By his bedside sat Liancourt, who, long alarmed at his disappearance, had
at last contrived, with the help of Mr. Barlow, to trace him to Gawtrey's
house, and had for several days taken share in the vigils of poor Fanny.
While he was yet explaining all this to Philip, and congratulating
him on his evident recovery, the physician entered to confirm the
congratulation. In a few days the invalid was able to quit his room, and
nothing but change of air seemed necessary for his convalescence. It was
then that Liancourt, who had for two days seemed impatient to unburden
himself of some communication, thus addressed him:--
"My--My dear friend, I have learned now your story from Barlow, who
called several times during your relapse; and who is the more anxious
about you, as the time for the decision of your case now draws near. The
sooner you quit this house the better."
"Quit this house! and why? Is there not one in this house to whom I owe
my fortune and my life?"
"Yes; and for that reason I say, 'Go hence:' it is the only return you
can make her."
"Pshaw!--speak intelligibly."
"I will," said Liancourt, gravely. "I have been a watcher with her by
your sick-bed, and I know what you must feel already:--nay, I must
confess that even the old servant has ventured to speak to me. You have
inspired that poor girl with feelings dangerous to her peace."
"Ha!" cried Philip, with such joy that Liancourt frowned, and said,
"Hitherto I have believed you too honourable to--"
"So you think she loves me?" interrupted Philip. "Yes; what then? You,
the heir of Beaufort Court, of a rental of L20,000. a year,--of an
historical name,--you cannot marry this poor girl?"
"Well!--I will consider what you say, and, at all events, I will leave
the house to attend the result of the trial. Let us talk no more on the
subject now."
Philip had the penetration to perceive that Liancourt, who was greatly
moved by the beauty, the innocence, and the unprotected position of
Fanny, had not confined caution to himself; that with his characteristic
well-meaning bluntness, and with the license of a man somewhat advanced
in years, he had spoken to Fanny herself: for Fanny now seemed to shun
Philip,--her eyes were heavy, her manner was embarrassed. He saw the
change, but it did not grieve him; he hailed the omens which he drew from
it.
And at last he and Liancourt went. He was absent three weeks, during
which time the formality of the friendly lawsuit was decided in the
plaintiff's favour; and the public were in ecstasies at the noble and
sublime conduct of Mr. Robert Beaufort: who, the moment he had discovered
a document which he might so easily have buried for ever in oblivion,
voluntarily agreed to dispossess himself of estates he had so long
enjoyed, preferring conscience to lucre. Some persons observed that it
was reported that Mr. Philip Beaufort had also been generous--that he had
agreed to give up the estates for his uncle's life, and was only in the
meanwhile to receive a fourth of the revenues. But the universal comment
was, "He could not have done less!" Mr. Robert Beaufort was, as Lord
Lilburne had once observed, a man who was born, made, and reared to be
spoken well of by the world; and it was a comfort to him now, poor man,
to feel that his character was so highly estimated. If Philip should
live to the age of one hundred, he will never become so respectable and
popular a man with the crowd as his worthy uncle. But does it much
matter? Philip returned to H---- the eve before the day fixed for the
marriage of his brother and Camilla.
