Authors: George W. M. Reynolds,James Malcolm Rymer
is impossible! Oh! if you knew
all, you would pity met But I dare not now reveal to you what I wish. A word
which this day dropped from your father's lips has banished all hope from my
mind. Now I am wandering again! In the name of heaven, take no notice of what I
say; I am mad - I am raving !"
"And what was it that my father said to annoy you?"
inquired Isabella timidly.
"Oh! nothing - nothing purposely," answered
Markham. "He himself was unaware that he fired the arrow from his
bow."
"Am I unworthy of your confidence in this
instance?" asked Isabella; "and may I not be made acquainted with the
nature of the annoyance which my father has thus unintentionally caused you to
experience?"
"Oh I why should I repeat words which would only lead to
a revelation of what It is now useless to reveal. Your father and mother bath
delivered the same sentiment - a sentiment that destroys all hope. But, oh I
you cannot understand the cause of my anxiety - my grief - my
disappointment!"
"And why not entrust me with that cause? I could
sympathise with you as a friend."
"As a friend! Alas, Isabella, is it useless for me now
to deplore the visions which I had conjured up, and which have been so cruelly
destroyed? You yourself know not what is in store for you - what plans your
father may have formed concerning you!"
"And are you acquainted with those plans?" asked
the beauteous Italian, in a tone of voice rendered almost inaudible by a
variety of emotions - for the heart of that innocent and charming being
fluttered like a bird in the net of the fowler.
"Do not question me on that head, Isabella! Let me
speak of myself - for it is sweet to be commiserated by such as you ! My life
for some time past has been a scene of almost unceasing misery. When I came of
age I found my vast property dissipated by him to whom it was entrusted. And
other circumstances gave a new and unpleasant aspect to those places which were
dear to me in my childhood. What wild hopes, in early life, had I there
indulged, - what dreams for the future had there visited my mind in its boyhoo!
- what vain wishes, what strong yearnings, what ambitious aspirations had there
first found existence! When I returned to those spots, after an absence of two
years, and thought of the feelings that there once agitated my bosom, and
contrasted them with those which had displaced them, - when I traced the
history of each hope from its inception there, and followed it through the
vista of years until its final extinction, - when I thought how differently my
course in life had been shaped from that career which I had there marked out,
and how vain and futile were all the efforts and strivings which I exerted
against the tide of events and the force of circumstances,- I awoke, as it were
from a long dream, - I opened my eyes upon the path which I should
thenceforth have to pursue, and judged of it by the one I had been pursuing ;-
I saw the nothingness of men's lives in general, and the utter vanity of the
main pursuits which engross their mind,, and waste their energies ;- and I then
felt convinced that I was indeed but an instrument in the hands of another, and
that the ends which I had obtained had not been those for which I bad striven,
but which the Almighty willed! - So is it with me now, Isabella. I had planned
a dream - a dream of Elysium, with which to cheer and bless the remainder of my
existence; and, behold! like all
the former hopes and aspirations of my life, this one is also suddenly
destroyed!"
"How know you that it is
destroyed?" inquired Isabella, casting down her eyes.
"Oh! I am unworthy of you, Isabella - I do not deserve
you; and yet it was to your hand that I aspired ;- you were the star that was
to irradiate the remainder of my existence! Oh! I could weep - I could weep,
Isabella, when I think of what I might have been, and what I am!"
"You say that you aspired to my hand," murmured the
lovely Italian maiden, casting down her large dark eyes and blushing deeply;
"you did me honour!"
"Silence, Isabella - silence!" interrupted Richard.
"I dare not now hear the words of hope from your lips! But I love
thee - I love thee - God only knows how sincerely I love thee!"
"And shall I conceal my own feelings with regard to you,
Richard?" said Isabella, approaching him and laying her delicate and
beautifully modelled hand lightly upon his wrist.
"She loves me in return - she loves me!" ejaculated
Markham, half wild with mingled joy and apprehensions ;- and, yielding to an
impulse which no mortal under such circumstances could have conquered, he
caught her in his arms.
He kissed her pure and chaste brow - he felt her fragrant
breath upon his cheek - her hair commingled with his own - and he murmured the
words, "You love me?"
A gentle voice breathed an affirmative in his ear; and he
pressed his lips to hers to ratify that covenant of two fond hearts.
Suddenly he recollected that Count Alteroni had declared that
no one against whom there was even a suspicion of crime should ever forum a
connection with his family. Markham's high sense of honour told him in a moment
that he had no right to secure the affections of a confiding and gentle girl
whose father would never yield an assent to their union: - his brain, already
excited, now became inflamed almost to madness ;-he abruptly turned aside from
her who had just avowed her attachment to him, he muttered some incoherent
words which she did not comprehend, and rushed out of the room.
He hurried to the garden at the back of the house, and walked
rapidly up and down a shady avenue of trees which ran along the wall that
bounded the enclosure on the side of the public road.
By degrees he grew calm and relaxed the speed of his pace. He
then fell into a long and profound meditation upon the occurrences of the last
half hour.
He was beloved by Isabella, it was true;- but never might he
aspire to her hand ;- never could it be accorded to him to lead her to the
altar where their attachment might be ratified and
his
happiness confirmed! An
inseparable barrier seemed to oppose itself to his wishes; and he felt that no
alternative remained to him but to put his former resolution into force, and
take his departure homewards on the ensuing morning.
Thus was it that be now reasoned.
The moon shone brightly; and the heavens were studded with
stars.
As Markham was about to turn for the twentieth time at that
end of the avenue which was the more remote from the house, the beams of the
moon suddenly disclosed to him a human face peering over the wall at him.
He started, and was about to utter an exclamation of alarm,
when a well-known voice fell upon his ears.
"Hush!" was the word first spoken; "I have
just one question to ask you, and then one thing to tell you; and the last will
just depend upon the first."
"Wretch - miscreant - murderer!" exclaimed
Richard; "nothing shall now prevent me from securing you on the behalf of
justice."
"Fool!" coolly returned the Resurrection Man - for
it was he; "who can catch me in the darkness and the open fields?"
"True!" cried Markham, stamping his foot with
vexation. "But God grant that the day of retribution may come!"
"Come, come - none of this nonsense, my dear boy,"
said the Resurrection Man, with diabolical irony. " Now, answer me - will
you give me a cool hundred and fifty? If not, then I will get the swag in spite
of you."
"Why do you thus molest and persecute me? I would
sooner handle the most venomous serpent, than enter into a compromise with a
fiend like you!"
"Then beware of the consequences!"
The moon shone full upon the cadaverous and unearthly
countenance of the Resurrection Maim, and revealed the expression of ferocious
rage which it wore as he uttered these words. That vile and foreboding face
then suddenly disappeared behind the wall.
"Who are you talking to, Markham?" cried the voice
of the count, who was now advancing down the avenue.
"Talking to?" repeated Richard, alarmed and
confused.
"Yes - I heard your voice, and another answering
you," said the count.
"It was a man in the road," answered Markham.
"I missed you from the drawing-room on my return; and
Bella said she thought you were unwell, and had gone to walk in the garden for
the fresh air. The news I have received from Castelcicala, through the Envoy's
secretary, are by no means favourable to my hopes of a speedy return to my
native land. You therefore see that I have done well to lay out my capital in
this. But we will not discuss matters of business now; for there is company up
stairs, and we must join them. Who do you think have just made their
appearance?"
"Mr. Armstrong and other friends?" said Markham
inquiringly.
"No - Armstrong is on the Continent. The visitors are
Sir Cherry Bounce and Captain Smilax Dapper; and I am by no means pleased with
their company. However, my house will always remain open to them in consequence
of the services rendered to me by their deceased relative."
Markham accompanied the count back to the drawing-room,
where Captain Smilax Dapper had seated himself next to the signora; and Sir
Cherry Bounce was endeavouring to divert the countess with an account, of their
journey that evening from London. They both coloured deeply and bowed very politely
when Richard entered the apartment.
"Well, ath I wath thaying," continued Sir Cherry,
"one of the twatheth bwoke at the bottom of the hill, and the hortheth
took to fwight. Thmilakth thwore like a twooper; but nothing could thwop the
thaithe till it wolled thlap down into a dwy dith. Dapper then woared like a
bull; and I — "
"And Cherry began to cry, strike me if he didn't!"
ejaculated the gallant hussar, caressing his moustache. "A countryman who
passed by asked him if his mamma knew he was out: Cherry thought that the
fellow was in earnest, and assured him that he had her permission to undertake
the journey. I never laughed so much in my life !"
"Oh! naughty Dapper to thay that I cwied! That really ith too cwuel.
Well, we got the thaithe lifted out of the dith, and the twathe mended."
"You are the heroes of an adventure," said the
count.
"I intend to put it into verse, strike me ugly if I
don't!" cried the young officer; "and perhaps the signora will allow
me to copy it into her
Album?
"
"Oh! I must read it first," said Isabella,
laughing. "But since you speak of my
Album
,
I must show you the additions I have received to its treasures."
"This is really a beautiful landscape," observed
Captain Dapper, as he turned over the leaves of the book which the beautiful
Italian presented to him. "The water flowing over the wheel of the mill is
quite natural, strike me! And - may I never know what fair woman's smiles are
again, if those trees don't seem actually to be growing out of the paper!"
"Thuperb? ejaculated Sir Cherry Bounce.
"The wiver litewally wollth along in the picthure. The cowth and the
theepe are walking in the gween fieldth. Pway who might have been the artitht
of thith mathleth producthion?"
"That is a secret," said the signora. "And
now read these lines."
"Read them yourself, Bella," said the count.
"No one can do justice to them but you."
Isabella accordingly read the following stanzas in a tone of
voice that added a new charm to the words themselves:-
LONDON.
Twas midnight - and the beam of Cynthia shone
In company with many a lovely star,
Steeping in silver the huge Babylon
Whose countless habitations stretch afar,
Plain, valley, hill, and river's bank upon,
And in whose mighty heart all interests jar!-
O sovereign city of a thousand towers,
What vice is cradled in thy princely bowers!
If thou would'st view fair London-town aright.
Survey her from the bridge of Waterloo;
And let the hour be at the morning's light.
When the sun's earliest rays have struggled through
The star-bespangled curtain of the night.
And when Aurora's locks are moist with dew
Then take thy stand upon that bridge, and see
London awake in all her majesty!
Then do her greatest features seem to crowd
Down to the river's brink :- then does she raise
From off her brow the everlasting cloud,
(Thus with her veil the coquette archly plays)
And for a moment shows her features, proud
To catch the Rembrandt light of the sun's rays:-
Then may the eye of the beholder dwell
On steeple, column, dome, and pinnacle.
Yes - he may reckon temple, mart, and tower-
The old historic sites - the halls of kings -
The seats of art - the fortalice of power-
The ships that waft our commerce on their wings;-
All these commingle in that dawning;
And each into one common focus brings
Some separate moral of life's scenes so true,
As all those objects form one point of view!