CHAPTER LVI.
BRINGETH THIS TRUE STORY TO AN END.
Ye who have traced the pilgrim to the scene Which is his last, if in your memories dwell A thought that once was his, if on ye swell A single recollection, not in vain He wore his sandal shoon and scallop-shell.
BYRON.
Having related the story of my life as it happened, incident byincident, and brought it down to that point at which stories are wont toend, I find that I have little to add respecting others. My narrativefrom first to last has been purely personal. The one love of my life wasHortense--the one friend of my life, Oscar Dalrymple. The catalogue ofmy acquaintances would scarcely number so many names as I have fingerson one hand. The two first are still mine; the latter, having beenbrought forward only in so far as they re-acted upon my feelings ormodified my experiences, have become, for the most part, mere memories,and so vanish, ghost-like, from the page. Franz Mueller is studying inRome, having carried off a prize at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, whichentitles him to three years at the Villa Medici, that Ultima Thule ofthe French art-student's ambition. I hear that he is as full of whim andjest as ever, and the very life of the Cafe Greco. May I some day hearhis pleasant laugh again! Dr. Cheron, I believe, is still practising inParis; and Monsieur de Simoncourt, I have no doubt, continues toexercise the profession of Chevalier d'Industrie, with such failures andsuccesses as are incidental to that career.
As for my early _amourettes_, they have disappeared from my path asutterly as though they had never crossed it. Of Madame de Marignan, Ihave neither heard, nor desired to hear, more. Even Josephine's prettyface is fast fading from my memory. It is ever thus with the transientpassions of _our premiere jeunesse._ We believe in them for the moment,and waste laughter and tears, chaplets and sackcloth, upon them.Presently the delusion passes; the earnest heart within us is awakened;and we know that till now we have been mere actors in "a masquerade ofdreams." The chaplets were woven of artificial flowers. The funeral wasa mock funeral--the banquet a stage feast of painted fruits and emptygoblets! Alas! we cannot undo that foolish past. We may only hope toblot it out with after records of high, and wise, and tender things.Thus it is that the young man's heart is like the precious palimpsest ofold. He first of all defiles it with idle anacreontics in praise of loveand wine; but, erasing these by-and-by with his own pious hand, hewrites it over afresh with chronicles of a pure and holy passion, anddedicates it to the fair saint of all his orisons.
Dalrymple and his wife are now settled in Italy, having purchased avilla in the neighborhood of Spezzia, where they live in greatretirement. In their choice of such retirement they are influenced bymore than one good reason. In the first place, the death of the Vicomtede Caylus was an event likely to be productive of many unpleasantconsequences to one who had deprived the French government of sodistinguished an officer. In the next, Dalrymple is a poor man, and hiswife is no longer rich; so that Italy agrees with their means as well aswith their tastes. Lastly, they love each other so well that they neverweary of their solitude, nor care to barter away their blue Italianskies and solemn pine-woods for the glittering unrest of society.
Fascinated by Dalrymple's description of his villa and the life he ledin it, Hortense and I made up our minds some few weeks after ourmarriage, to visit that part of Italy--perhaps, in case we were muchpleased with it, to settle there, for at least a few years. So Iprepared once more to leave my father's house; this time to let it, forI knew that I should never live in it again.
It took some weeks to clear the old place out. The thing was necessary;yet I felt as if it were a kind of sacrilege. To disturb the old dustupon the library-shelves and select such books as I cared to keep; tosort and destroy all kinds of hoarded papers; to ransack desks that hadnever been unlocked since the hands that last closed them were laid torest for ever, constituted my share of the work. Hortense superintendedthe rest. As for the household goods, we resolved to keep nothing, savea few old family portraits and my father's plate, some of which haddescended to us through two or three centuries.
While yet in this unsettled state, with the house all in confusion andthe time appointed for our journey drawing nearer and nearer day by day,a strange thing happened.
At the end of the garden, encroaching partly upon a corner of it, andopening into the lane that bounded it on the other side of the hedge,stood the stable belonging to the house.
It had been put to no use since my father's time, and was now sothoroughly out of repair that I resolved to have it pulled down andrebuilt before letting it to strangers. In the meantime, I went downthere one morning with a workman before the work of demolitionwas begun.
We had some difficulty to get in, for the lock and hinges were rusted,and the floor within was choked with fallen rubbish. At length weforced an entrance. I thought I had never seen a more dreary interior.My father's old chaise was yet standing there, with both wheels off. Themouldy harness was dropping to pieces on the walls. The beams werefestooned with cobwebs. The very ladder leading to the loft above was sorotten that I scarcely dared trust to it for a footing.
Having trusted to it, however, I found myself in a still more ruinousand dreary hole. The posts supporting the roof were insecure; the tileswere all displaced overhead; and the rafters showed black and bareagainst the sky in many places. In one corner lay a heap of mouldystraw, and at the farther end, seen dimly through the darkness, a pileof old lumber, and--by Heaven! the pagoda-canopy of many colors, and thelittle Chevalier's Conjuring Table!
I could scarcely believe my eyes. My poor Hortense! Here, at last, weresome relics of her father; but found in how strange a place, and by howstrange a chance!
I had them dragged out into the light, all mildewed and cob-webbed asthey were; whereupon an army of spiders rushed out in every direction, abat rose up, shrieking, and whirled in blind circles overhead. In acorner of the pagoda we found an empty bird's-nest. The table was small,and could be got out without much difficulty; so I helped the workman tocarry it down the ladder, and sending it on before me to the house,sauntered back through the glancing shadows of the acacia-leaves, musingupon the way in which these long-forgotten things had been brought tolight, and wondering how they came to be stored away in my own stable.
"Do you know anything about it, Collins?" I said, coming up suddenlybehind him in the hall.
"About what, sir?" asked that respectable servant, looking round withsome perplexity, as if in search of the nominative.
I pointed to the table, now being carried into the dismantleddining-room.
Collins smiled--he had a remarkably civil, apologetic way of smilingbehind his hand, as if it were a yawn or a liberty.
"Oh, sir," said he, "don't you remember? To be sure, you were quite ayoung gentleman at that time--but---"
"But what?" I interrupted, impatiently.
"Why, sir, that table once belonged to a poor little conjuring chap whocalled himself Almond Pudding, and died...."
I checked him with a gesture.
"I know all that," I said, hastily. "I remember it perfectly; but howcame the things into my stable?"
"Your respected father and my honored master, sir, had them conveyedthere when the Red Lion was sold off," said Collins, with a sidelongglance at the dining-room door. "He was of opinion, sir, that they mightsome day identify the poor man to his relatives, in case of inquiry."
I heard the sound of a suppressed sob, and, brushing past him withoutanother word, went in and closed the door.
"My own Hortense!" I said, taking her into my arms. "My wife!"
Pale and tearful, she lifted her face from my shoulder, and pointed tothe table.
"I know what it is," she faltered. "You need not tell me. My heart tellsme!"
I led her to a chair, and explained how and where it had been found. Ieven told her of the little empty nest from which the young birds hadlong since flown away. In this tiny incident there was somethingpathetic that soothed her; so, presently, when she left of
f weeping, weexamined the table together.
It was a quaint, fragile, ricketty thing, with slender twisted legs ofblack wood, and a cloth-covered top that had once been green, but nowretained no vestige of its original color. This cloth top was coveredwith slender slits of various shapes and sizes, round, square,sexagonal, and so forth, which, being pressed with the finger, fellinwards and disclosed little hiding-places sunk in the well of thetable; but which, as soon as the pressure was removed, flew up again bymeans of concealed springs, and closed as neatly as before.
"This is strange," said Hortense, peering into one of the recesses. "Ihave found something in the table! Look--it is a watch!"
I snatched it from her, and carried it to the window. Blackened anddiscolored as it was, I recognised it instantly.
It was my own watch--my own watch of which I was so boyishly vain yearsand years ago, and which I had lost so unaccountably on the night of theChevalier's performance! There were my initials engraved on the back,amid a forest of flourishes, and there on the dial was that identicallittle Cupid with the cornucopia of flowers, which I once thought such amiracle of workmanship! Alas! what a mighty march old Time had stolenupon me, while that little watch was standing still!
"Oh, Heaven!--oh, husband!"
Startled from my reverie more by the tone than the words, I turned andsaw Hortense with a packet of papers in her hand--old, yellow, dustypapers, tied together with a piece of black ribbon.
"I found them there--there--there!" she faltered, pointing to a drawerin the table which I now saw for the first time. "I chanced to pressthat little knob, and the drawer flew out. Oh, my dear father!--see,Basil, here are his patents of nobility--here is the certificate of mybirth--here are the title-deeds of the manor of Sainte Aulaire! Thisalone was wanted to complete our happiness!"
"We will keep the table, Hortense, all our lives!" I explained, when thefirst agitation was past.
"As sacredly," replied she, "as it kept this precious secret!"
* * * * *
My task is done. Here on my desk lies the piled-up manuscript which hasbeen my companion through so many pleasant hours. Those hours are overnow. I may lay down my pen, and put aside the whispering vine-leavesfrom my casement, and lean out into the sweet Italian afternoon, as idlyas though I wore to the climate and the manner born.
The world to-day is only half awake. The little white town, croucheddown by the "beached margent" of the bay, winks with its glitteringwindows and dozes in the sunshine. The very cicalas are silent. Thefishermen's barques, with their wing-like sails all folded to rest, rocklazily at anchor, like sea-birds asleep. The cork-trees nod languidly toeach other; and not even yonder far-away marble peaks are moremotionless than that cloud which hangs like a white banner in the sky.Hush! I can almost believe that I hear the drowsy washing of the tideagainst the ruined tower on the beach.
And this is the bay of Spezzia--the lovely, treacherous bay of Spezzia,where our English Shelley lost his gentle life! How blue those cruelwaters are to-day! Bluer, by Heaven! than the sky, with scarce a ripplesetting to the shore.
We are very happy in our remote Italian home. It stands high upon ahill-side, and looks down over a slope of silvery olives to the sea.Vineyard and orange grove, white town, blue bay, and amber sands liemapped out beneath our feet. Not a felucca "to Spezzia bound from CapeCircella" can sail past without our observation.
"Not a sun can die, nor yet be born, unseen By dwellers at my villa."
Nay, from this very window, one might almost pitch an orange into theempty vettura standing in the courtyard of the Croce di Malta!
Then we have a garden--a wild, uncultured place, where figs and lemons,olives "blackening sullen ripe," and prickly aloes flourish in rankprofusion, side by side; and a loggia, where we sit at twilight drinkingour Chianti wine and listening to the nightingales; and a study lookingout on the bay through a trellis of vine-leaves, where we read and writetogether, surrounded by our books. Here, also, just opposite my desk,hangs Mueller's copy of that portrait of the Marquise de Sainte Aulaire,which I once gave to Hortense, and which is now my own again. How oftenI pause upon the unturned page, how often lay my pen aside, to look fromthe painting to the dear, living face beneath it! For there she sits,day after day, my wife! my poet! with the side-light falling on herhair, and the warm sea-breezes stirring the soft folds of her dress.Sometimes she lifts her eyes, those wondrous eyes, luminous from within"with the light of the rising soul"--and then we talk awhile of ourwork, or of our love, believing ever that
"Our work shall still be better for our love, And still our love be sweeter for our work."
Perhaps the original of that same painting in the study may yet be ourssome day, with the old chateau in which it hangs, and all the broadlands belonging thereunto. Our claim has been put forward some time now,and our lawyers are confident of success. Shall we be happier, if thatsuccess is ours? Can rank add one grace, or wealth one pleasure, to alife which is already so perfect? I think not, and there are momentswhen I almost wish that we may never have it in our power to testthe question.
But stay! the hours fly past. The sun is low, and the tender Italiantwilight will soon close in. Then, when the moon rises, we shall sailout upon the bay in our own tiny felucca; or perhaps go down through thetown to that white villa gleaming out above the dark tops of yondercypresses, and spend some pleasant hours with Dalrymple and his wife.They, too, are very happy; but their happiness is of an older date thanours, and tends to other ends. They have bought lands in theneighborhood, which they cultivate; and they have children whom theyadore. To educate these little ones for the wide world lying beyond thatblue bay and the far-off mountains, is the one joy, the one care oftheir lives. Truly has it been said that
"A happy family Is but an earlier heaven."
THE END.
In the Days of My Youth: A Novel Page 49
