CHAPTER II.
QUID frustra simulacra fugacia captas?--
Quod petis est nusquam.*--OVID: _Met._ iii. 432.
* "Why, in vain, do you catch at fleeting shadows?
That which you seek is nowhere."
TO no clime dedicated to the indulgence of majestic griefs or to the soft
melancholy of regret--not to thy glaciers, or thy dark-blue lakes,
beautiful Switzerland, mother of many exiles; nor to thy fairer earth and
gentler heaven, sweet Italy,--fled the agonized Maltravers. Once, in his
wanderings, he had chanced to pass by a landscape so steeped in sullen
and desolate gloom, that it had made a powerful and uneffaced impression
upon his mind: it was amidst those swamps and morasses that formerly
surrounded the castle of Gil de Retz, the ambitious Lord, the dreaded
Necromancer, who perished at the stake, after a career of such power and
splendour as seemed almost to justify the dark belief in his
preternatural agencies.*
* See, for description of this scenery, and the fate of De Retz,
the high-wrought and glowing romance by Mr. Ritchie called
"The Magician."
Here, in a lonely and wretched inn, remote from other habitations,
Maltravers fixed himself. In gentler griefs there is a sort of luxury in
bodily discomfort; in his inexorable and unmitigated anguish, bodily
discomfort was not felt. There is a kind of magnetism in extreme woe, by
which the body itself seems laid asleep, and knows no distinction between
the bed of Damiens and the rose-couch of the Sybarite. He left his
carriage and servants at a post-house some miles distant. He came to
this dreary abode alone; and in that wintry season, and that most
disconsolate scene, his gloomy soul found something congenial, something
that did not mock him, in the frowns of the haggard and dismal Nature.
Vain would it be to describe what he then felt, what he then endured.
Suffice it that, through all, the diviner strength of man was not wholly
crushed, and that daily, nightly, hourly, he prayed to the Great
Comforter to assist him in wrestling against a guilty love. No man
struggles so honestly, so ardently as he did, utterly in vain; for in us
all, if we would but cherish it, there is a spirit that must rise at
last--a crowned, if bleeding conqueror--over Fate and all the Demons!
One day after a prolonged silence from Vargrave, whose letters all
breathed comfort and assurance in Evelyn's progressive recovery of spirit
and hope, his messenger returned from the post-town with a letter in the
hand of De Montaigne. It contained, in a blank envelope (De Montaigne's
silence told him how much he had lost in the esteem of his friend), the
communication of Lord Doltimore. It ran thus:--
MY DEAR SIR,--As I hear that your plans are likely to make you a long
resident on the Continent, may I again inquire if you would be induced to
dispose of Burleigh? I am willing to give more than its real value, and
would raise a mortgage on my own property sufficient to pay off, at once,
the whole purchase-money. Perhaps you may be the more induced to the
sale from the circumstance of having an example in the head of your
family, Colonel Maltravers, as I learn through Lord Vargrave, having
resolved to dispose of Lisle Court. Waiting your answer,
I am, dear Sir, truly yours,
DOLTIMORE.
"Ay," said Maltravers, bitterly, crushing the letter in his hand, "let
our name be blotted out from the land, and our hearths pass to the
stranger. How could I ever visit the place where I first saw _her_?"
He resolved at once,--he would write to England, and place the matter in
the hands of agents. This was but a short-lived diversion to his
thoughts, and their cloudy darkness soon gathered round him again.
What I am now about to relate may appear, to a hasty criticism, to savour
of the Supernatural; but it is easily accounted for by ordinary agencies,
and it is strictly to the letter of the truth.
In his sleep that night a dream appeared to Maltravers. He thought he
was alone in the old library at Burleigh, and gazing on the portrait of
his mother; as he so gazed, he fancied that a cold and awful tremor
seized upon him, that he in vain endeavoured to withdraw his eyes from
the canvas--his sight was chained there by an irresistible spell. Then
it seemed to him that the portrait gradually changed,--the features the
same, but the bloom vanished into a white and ghastly hue; the colours of
the dress faded, their fashion grew more large and flowing, but heavy and
rigid as if cut in stone,--the robes of the grave. But on the face there
was a soft and melancholy smile, that took from its livid aspect the
natural horror; the lips moved, and, it seemed as if without a sound, the
released soul spoke to that which the earth yet owned.
"Return," it said, "to thy native land, and thine own home. Leave not
the last relic of her who bore and yet watches over thee to stranger
hands. Thy good Angel shall meet thee at thy hearth!"
The voice ceased. With a violent effort Maltravers broke the spell that
had forbidden his utterance. He called aloud, and the dream vanished: he
was broad awake, his hair erect, the cold dews on his brow. The pallet,
rather than bed on which he lay, was opposite to the window, and the
wintry moonlight streamed wan and spectral into the cheerless room. But
between himself and the light there seemed to stand a shape, a shadow,
that into which the portrait had changed in his dream,--that which had
accosted and chilled his soul. He sprang forward, "My mother! even in
the grave canst thou bless thy wretched son! Oh, leave me not--say that
thou--" The delusion vanished, and Maltravers fell back insensible.
It was long in vain, when, in the healthful light of day, he revolved
this memorable dream, that Maltravers sought to convince himself that
dreams need no ministers from heaven or hell to bring the gliding
falsehoods along the paths of sleep; that the effect of that dream
itself, on his shattered nerves, his excited fancy, was the real and sole
raiser of the spectre he had thought to behold on waking. Long was it
before his judgment could gain the victory, and reason disown the empire
of a turbulent imagination; and even when at length reluctantly
convinced, the dream still haunted him, and he could not shake it from
his breast. He longed anxiously for the next night; it came, but it
brought neither dreams nor sleep, and the rain beat, and the winds
howled, against the casement. Another night, and the moon was again
bright; and he fell into a deep sleep; no vision disturbed or hallowed
it. He woke ashamed of his own expectation. But the event, such as it
was, by giving a new turn to his thoughts, had roused and relieved his
spirit, and misery sat upon him with a lighter load. Perhaps, too, to
that still haunting recollection was mainly owing a change in his former
purpose. He would still sell the old Hall; but he would first return,
and remove that holy portrait, with pious hands; he would garner up and
save all that had belonged to her whose death had been his birth. Ah,
never had she known for what trials the infant had been reserved!
