Thus reflecting, he entered the town, and walked on in search of the hotel. He presently found himself on a terrace, looking out on the deep blue lake, there divided by the promontory of Bellagio, into two branches, the magnificent mountain forms rising opposite to him. A little boat was crossing, and as it neared the landing-place, he saw that it contained a gentleman and lady, English--probably his cousins themselves. They looked up, and in another moment had waved their recognition. Gestures and faces were strangely familiar, like a bit of Hollywell transplanted into that Italian scene. He hastened to the landing-place, and was met by a hearty greeting from Guy, who seemed full of eagerness to claim their closer relationship, and ready to be congratulated.
'How d'ye do, Philip? I am glad we have caught you at last. Here she is.'
If he had wished to annoy Philip, he could hardly have done so more effectually than by behaving as if nothing was amiss, and disconcerting his preparations for a reconciliation. But the captain's ordinary manner was calculated to cover all such feelings; and as he shook hands, he felt much kindness for Amabel, as an unconscious victim, whose very smiles were melancholy, and plenty of them there were, for she rejoiced sincerely in the meeting, as Guy was pleased, and a home face was a welcome sight.
'I have your letters in my knapsack; I will unpack them as soon as we get to the hotel. I thought it safer not to send them in search of you again, as we were to meet so soon.'
'Certainly. Are there many?'
'One for each of you, both from Hollywell. I was very sorry to have engrossed them; but not knowing you were so near, I only gave my surname.'
'It was lucky for us,' said Guy, 'otherwise we could not have traced you. We saw your name at Altdorf, and have been trying to come up with you ever since.'
'I am glad we have met. What accounts have you from home?'
'Excellent,' said Amy; 'Charlie is uncommonly well, he has been out of doors a great deal, and has even dined out several times.'
'I am very glad.'
'You know he has been improving ever since his great illness.'
'You would be surprised to see how much better he moves,' said Guy; 'he helps himself so much more.'
'Can he set his foot to the ground?'
'No,' said Amy, 'there is no hope of that; but he is more active, because his general health is improved; he can sleep and eat more.'
'I always thought exertion would do more for him than anything else.'
Amabel was vexed, for she thought exertion depended more on health, than health on exertion; besides, she thought Philip ought to take some blame to himself for the disaster on the stairs. She made no answer, and Guy asked what Philip had been doing to-day.
'Walking over the hills from Como. Do you always travel in this fashion, "impedimentis relictis"?'
'Not exactly,' said Guy; 'the "impedimenta" are, some at Varenna, some at the inn with Arnaud.'
'So you have Arnaud with you?'
'Yes, and Anne Trower,' said Amy, for her maid was a Stylehurst person, who had lived at Hollywell ever since she had been fit for service. 'She was greatly pleased to hear we were going to meet the captain.'
'We amuse ourselves with thinking how she gets on with Arnaud,' said Guy. 'Their introduction took place only two days before we were married, since which, they have had one continued tete-a-tete, which must have been droll at first.'
'More so at last,' said Amy. 'At first Anne thought Mr. Arnaud so fine a gentleman, that she hardly dared to speak to him. I believe nothing awed her so much as his extreme courtesy; but lately he has been quite fatherly to her, and took her to dine at his sister's chalet, where I would have given something to see her. She tells me he wants her to admire the country, but she does not like the snow, and misses our beautiful clover-fields very much.'
'Stylehurst ought to have been better training for mountains,' said Philip.
They were fast losing the stiffness of first meeting. Philip could not but acknowledge to himself that Amy was looking very well, and so happy that Guy must be fulfilling the condition on which he was to be borne with. However, these were early days, and of course Guy must be kind to her at least in the honeymoon, before the wear and tear of life began. They both looked so young, that having advised them to wait four years, he was ready to charge them with youthfulness, if not as a fault, at least as a folly; indeed, the state of his own affairs made him inclined to think it a foible, almost a want of patience, in any one to marry before thirty. It was a conflict of feeling. Guy was so cordial and good-humoured, that he could not help being almost gained; but, on the other hand, he had always thought Guy's manners eminently agreeable; and as happiness always made people good-humoured, this was no reason for relying on him. Besides, the present ease and openness of manner might only result from security.
Other circumstances combined, more than the captain imagined, in what is popularly called putting him out. He had always been hitherto on equal terms with Guy; indeed, had rather the superiority at Hollywell, from his age and assumption of character, but here Sir Guy was somebody, the captain nobody, and even the advantage of age was lost, now that Guy was married and head of a family, while Philip was a stray young man and his guest. Far above such considerations as he thought himself, and deeming them only the tokens of the mammon worship of the time, Philip, nevertheless, did not like to be secondary to one to whom he had always been preferred; and this, and perhaps the being half ashamed of it, made him something more approaching to cross than ever before; but now and then, the persevering amiability of both would soften him, and restore him to his most gracious mood.
He gave them their letters when they reached the inn, feeling as if he had a better right than they, to one which was in Laura's writing, and when left in solitary possession of the sitting-room--a very pleasant one, with windows opening on the terrace just above the water--paced up and down, chafing at his own perplexity of feeling.
Presently they came back; Guy sat down to continue their joint journal- like letter to Charles, while Amabel made an orderly arrangement of their properties, making the most of their few books, and taking out her work as if she had been at home. Philip looked at the books.
'Have you a "Childe Harold" here?' said he. 'I want to look at something in it.'
'No, we have not.'
'Guy, you never forget poetry; I dare say you can help me out with those stanzas about the mists in the valley.'
'I have never read it,' said Guy. 'Don't you remember warning me against Byron?'
'You did not think that was for life! Besides,' he continued, feeling this reply inconsistent with his contempt for Guy's youth, 'that applied to his perversions of human passions, not to his descriptions of scenery.'
'I think,' said Guy, looking up from his letter, 'I should be more unwilling to take a man like that to interpret nature than anything else, except Scripture. It is more profane to attempt it.'
'I see what you mean,' said Amabel, thoughtfully.
'More than I do,' said Philip. 'I never supposed you would take my advice "au pied de la lettre",' he had almost added, 'perversely.'
'I have felt my obligations for that caution ever since I have come to some knowledge of what Byron was,' said Guy.
'The fascination of his "Giaour" heroes has an evil influence on some minds,' said Philip. 'I think you do well to avoid it. The half truth, resulting from its being the effect of self-contemplation, makes it more dangerous.'
'True,' said Guy, though he little knew how much he owed to having attended to that caution, for who could have told where the mastery might have been in the period of fearful conflict with his passions, if he had been feeding his imagination with the contemplation of revenge, dark hatred, and malice, and identifying himself with Byron's brooding and lowering heroes!
'But,' continued Philip, 'I cannot see why you should shun the fine descriptions which are almost classical--the Bridge of Sighs, the Gladiator.'
'He may describe the gladiator as much as he pleases,
' said Guy; 'indeed there is something noble in that indignant line--
Butchered to make a Roman holiday;
but that is not like his meddling with these mountains or the sea.'
'Fine description is the point in both. You are over-drawing.'
'My notion is this,' said Guy,--'there is danger in listening to a man who is sure to misunderstand the voice of nature,--danger, lest by filling our ears with the wrong voice we should close them to the true one. I should think there was a great chance of being led to stop short at the material beauty, or worse, to link human passions with the glories of nature, and so distort, defile, profane them.'
'You have never read the poem, so you cannot judge,' said Philip, thinking this extremely fanciful and ultra-fastidious. 'Your rule would exclude all descriptive poetry, unless it was written by angels, I suppose?'
'No; by men with minds in the right direction.'
'Very little you would leave us.'
'I don't think so,' said Amabel. 'Almost all the poetry we really care about was written by such men.'
'Shakspeare, for instance?'
'No one can doubt of the bent of his mind from the whole strain of his writings,' said Guy. 'So again with Spenser; and as to Milton, though his religion was not quite the right sort, no one can pretend to say he had it not. Wordsworth, Scott--'
'Scott?' said Philip.
'Including the descriptions of scenery in his novels,' said Amy, 'where, I am sure, there is the spirit and the beauty.'
'Or rather, the spirit is the beauty,' said Guy.
'There is a good deal in what you say,' answered Philip, who would not lay himself open to the accusation of being uncandid, 'but you will forgive me for thinking it rather too deep an explanation of the grounds of not making Childe Harold a hand-book for Italy, like other people.'
Amabel thought this so dogged and provoking, that she was out of patience; but Guy only laughed, and said, 'Rather so, considering that the fact was that we never thought of it.'
There were times when, as Philip had once said, good temper annoyed him more than anything, and perhaps he was unconsciously disappointed at having lost his old power of fretting and irritating Guy, and watching him champ the bit, so as to justify his own opinion of him. Every proceeding of his cousins seemed to give him annoyance, more especially their being at home together, and Guy's seeming to belong more to Hollywell than himself. He sat by, with a book, and watched them, as Guy asked for Laura's letter, and Amy came to look over his half- finished answer, laughing over it, and giving her commands and messages, looking so full of playfulness and happiness, as she stood with one hand on the back of her husband's chair, and the other holding the letter, and Guy watching her amused face, and answering her remarks with lively words and bright smiles. 'People who looked no deeper than the surface would, say, what a well-matched pair,' thought Philip; 'and no doubt they were very happy, poor young things, if it would but last.' Here Guy turned, and asked him a question about the line of perpetual snow, so much in his own style, that he was almost ready to accuse them of laughing at him. Next came what hurt him most of all, as they talked over Charles's letter, and a few words passed about Laura, and the admiration of some person she had met at Allonby. The whole world was welcome to admire her: nothing could injure his hold on her heart, and no joke of Charles could shake his confidence; but it was hard that he should be forced to hear such things, and ask no questions, for they evidently thought him occupied with his book, and did not intend him to listen. The next thing they said, however, obliged him to show that he was attending, for it was about her being better.
'Who? Laura!' he said, in a tone that, in spite of himself, had a startled sound. 'You did not say she had been ill?'
'No, she has not,' said Amy. 'Dr. Mayerne said there was nothing really the matter: but she has been worried and out of spirits lately; and mamma thought it would be good for her to go out more.'
Philip would not let himself sigh, in spite of the oppressing consciousness of having brought the cloud over her, and of his own inability to do aught but leave her to endure it in silence and patience. Alas! for how long! Obliged, meanwhile, to see these young creatures, placed, by the mere factitious circumstance of wealth, in possession of happiness which they had not had time either to earn or to appreciate. He thought it shallow, because of their mirth and gaiety, as if they were only seeking food for laughter, finding it in mistakes, for which he was ready to despise them.
Arnaud had brought rather antiquated notions to the renewal of his office as a courier: his mind had hardly opened to railroads and steamers, and changes had come over hotels since his time. Guy and Amabel, both young and healthy, caring little about bad dinners, and unwilling to tease the old man by complaints, or alterations of his arrangements, had troubled themselves little about the matter; took things as they found them, ate dry bread when the cookery was bad, walked if the road was 'shocking'; went away the sooner, if the inns were 'intolerable'; made merry over every inconvenience, and turned it into an excellent story for Charles. They did not even distress themselves about sights which they had missed seeing.
Philip thought all this very foolish and absurd, showing that they were unfit to take care of themselves, and that Guy was neglectful of his wife's comforts: in short, establishing his original opinion of their youth and folly.
So passed the first evening; perhaps the worst because, besides what he had heard about Laura, he had been somewhat over-fatigued by various hot days' walks.
Certain it is, that next morning he was not nearly so much inclined to be displeased with them for laughing, when, in speaking to Anne, he inadvertently called her mistress Miss Amabel.
'Never mind,' said Amy, as Anne departed--and he looked disconcerted, as a precise man always does when catching himself in a mistake--'Anne is used to it, Guy is always doing it, and puzzles poor Arnaud sorely by sending him for Miss Amabel's parasol.'
'And the other day,' said Guy, 'when Thorndale's brother, at Munich, inquired after Lady Morville, I had to consider who she was.'
'Oh! you saw Thorndale's brother, did you?'
'Yes; he was very obliging. Guy had to go to him about our passports: and when he found who we were, he brought his wife to call on us, and asked us to an evening party.'
'Did you go?'
'Guy thought we must, and it was very entertaining. We had a curious adventure there. In the morning, we had been looking at those beautiful windows of the great church, when I turned round, and saw a gentleman--an Englishman--gazing with all his might at Guy. We met again in the evening, and presently Mr. Thorndale came and told us it was Mr. Shene.'
'Shene, the painter?'
'Yes. He had been very much struck with Guy's face: it was exactly what he wanted for a picture he was about, and he wished of all things just to be allowed to make a sketch.'
'Did you submit?'
'Yes' said Guy; 'and we were rewarded. I never saw a more agreeable person, or one who gave so entirely the impression of genius. The next day he took us through the gallery, and showed us all that was worth admiring.'
'And in what character is he to make you appear?'
'That is the strange part of it,' said Amabel. 'Don't you remember how Guy once puzzled us by choosing Sir Galahad for his favourite hero? It is that very Sir Galahad, when he kneels to adore the Saint Greal.'
'Mr. Shene said he had long been dreaming over it, and at last, as he saw Guy's face looking upwards, it struck him that it was just what he wanted: it would be worth anything to him to catch the expression.'
'I wonder what I was looking like!' ejaculated Guy.
'Did he take you as yourself, or as Sir Galahad?'
'As myself, happily.'
'How did he succeed?'
'Amy likes it; but decidedly I should never have known myself.'
'Ah,' said his wife--
'Could some fay the giftie gie us, To see ourselves as others see us.'
'As far as the sun-bu
rnt visage is concerned, the glass does that every morning.'
'Yes, but you don't look at yourself exactly as you do at a painted window,' said Amy, in her demure way.
'I cannot think how you found time for sitting,' said Philip.
'0, it is quite a little thing, a mere sketch, done in two evenings and half an hour in the morning. He promises it to me when he has done with Sir Galahad,' said Amy.
'Two--three evenings. You must have been a long time at Munich.'
'A fortnight,' said Guy, 'there is a great deal to see there.'
Philip did not quite understand this, nor did he think it very satisfactory that they should thus have lingered in a gay town, but he meant to make the best of them to-day, and returned to his usual fashion of patronizing and laying down the law. They were so used to this that they did not care about it; indeed, they had reckoned on it as the most amiable conduct to be expected on his part.
The day was chiefly spent in an excursion on the lake, landing at the most beautiful spots, walking a little way and admiring, or while in the boat, smoothly moving over the deep blue waters, gaining lovely views of the banks, and talking over the book with which their acquaintance had begun, "I Promessi Sposi". Never did tourists spend a more serene and pleasant day.
On comparing notes as to their plans, it appeared that each party had about a week or ten days to spare; the captain before he must embark for Corfu, and Sir Guy and Lady Morville before the time they had fixed for returning home. Guy proposed to go together somewhere, spare the post-office further blunders, and get the Signor Capitano to be their interpreter. Philip thought it would be an excellent thing for his young cousins for him to take charge of them, and show them how people ought to travel; so out came his little pocket map, marked with his route, before he left Ireland, whereas they seemed to have no fixed object, but to be always going 'somewhere.' It appeared that they had thought of Venice, but were easily diverted from it by his design of coasting the eastern bank of the Lago di Como, and so across the Stelvio into the Tyrol, all together as far as Botzen, whence Philip would turn southward by the mountain paths, while they would proceed to Innsbruck on their return home.
The Heir of Redclyffe Page 46
