Paul Clifford — Complete
shilly-shally any longer. You have had your full swing; your years are
up, and you must die like a man! But I gives you my honour as a gemman,
that if you surrenders, I'll take you to the justice folks as tenderly
as if you were made of cotton.”
“Give way one moment,” said Clifford, “that I may plant the steps firmer
for you.”
Nabbem retreated to the ground; and Clifford, who had, good-naturedly
enough, been unwilling unnecessarily to damage so valuable a
functionary, lost not the opportunity now afforded him. Down thundered
the steps, clattering heavily among the other officers, and falling like
an avalanche on the shoulder of one of the arresters of Long Ned.
Meanwhile Clifford sprang after Tomlinson through the aperture, and
found himself--in the presence of four officers, conducted by the shrewd
MacGrawler. A blow from a bludgeon on the right cheek and temple of
Augustus felled that hero. But Clifford bounded over his comrade's
body, dodged from the stroke aimed at himself, caught the blow aimed
by another assailant in his open hand, wrested the bludgeon from the
officer, struck him to the ground with his own weapon, and darting
onward through the labyrinth of the wood, commenced his escape with a
step too fleet to allow the hope of a successful pursuit.
CHAPTER XXIX.
“In short, Isabella, I offer you myself!”
“Heavens!” cried Isabella, “what do I hear? You, my lord?”
Castle of Otranto.
A novel is like a weatherglass,--where the man appears out at one time,
the woman at another. Variable as the atmosphere, the changes of our
story now re-present Lucy to the reader.
That charming young person--who, it may be remarked, is (her father
excepted) the only unsophisticated and unsullied character in the pages
of a story in some measure designed to show, in the depravities of
character, the depravities of that social state wherein characters are
formed--was sitting alone in her apartment at the period in which we
return to her. As time, and that innate and insensible fund of healing,
which Nature has placed in the bosoms of the young in order that her
great law, the passing away of the old, may not leave too lasting and
keen a wound, had softened her first anguish at her father's death, the
remembrance of Clifford again resumed its ancient sway in her heart. The
loneliness of her life, the absence of amusement, even the sensitiveness
and languor which succeed to grief, conspired to invest the image of her
lover in a tenderer and more impressive guise. She recalled his words,
his actions, his letters, and employed herself whole hours, whole days
and nights, in endeavouring to decipher their mystery. Who that has been
loved will not acknowledge the singular and mighty force with which a
girl, innocent herself, clings to the belief of innocence in her lover?
In breasts young and unacquainted with the world, there is so pure a
credulity in the existence of unmixed good, so firm a reluctance to
think that where we love there can be that which we would not esteem, or
where we admire there can be that which we ought to blame, that one may
almost deem it an argument in favour of our natural power to attain
a greater eminence in virtue than the habits and arts of the existing
world will allow us to reach. Perhaps it is not paradoxical to say that
we could scarcely believe perfection in others, were not the germ of
perfectibility in our own minds! When a man has lived some years among
the actual contests of faction without imbibing the prejudice as well
as the experience, how wonderingly be smiles at his worship of former
idols, how different a colour does history wear to him, how cautious is
he now to praise, how slow to admire, how prone to cavil! Human nature
has become the human nature of art; and he estimates it not from what it
may be, but from what, in the corruptions of a semi-civilization, it is!
But in the same manner as the young student clings to the belief that
the sage or the minstrel, who has enlightened his reason or chained his
imagination, is in character as in genius elevated above the ordinary
herd, free from the passions, the frivolities, the little meannesses,
and the darkening vices which ordinary flesh is heir to, does a woman
who loves for the first time cling to the imagined excellence of him she
loves. When Evelina is so shocked at the idea of an occasional fit
of intoxication in her “noble, her unrivalled” lover, who does not
acknowledge how natural were her feelings? Had Evelina been married six
years, and the same lover, then her husband, been really guilty of what
she suspected, who does not feel that it would have been very unnatural
to have been shocked in the least at the occurrence? She would not have
loved him less, nor admired him less, nor would he have been less “the
noble and the unrivalled,”--he would have taken his glass too much, have
joked the next morning on the event, and the gentle Evelina would
have made him a cup of tea; but that which would have been a matter
of pleasantry in the husband would have been matter of damnation in a
lover. But to return to Lucy.
If it be so hard, so repellent, to believe a lover guilty even of a
trivial error, we may readily suppose that Lucy never for a moment
admitted the supposition that Clifford had been really guilty of gross
error or wilful crime. True that expressions in his letter were
more than suspicious; but there is always a charm in the candour of
self-condemnation. As it is difficult to believe the excellence of those
who praise themselves, so it is difficult to fancy those criminal who
condemn. What, too, is the process of a woman's reasoning? Alas! she is
too credulous a physiognomist. The turn of a throat, with her, is the
unerring token of nobleness of mind; and no one can be guilty of a sin
who is blessed with a beautiful forehead! How fondly, how fanatically
Lucy loved! She had gathered together a precious and secret hoard,--a
glove, a pen, a book, a withered rose-leaf,--treasures rendered
inestimable because he had touched them; but more than all, had she
the series of his letters,--from the first formal note written to her
father, meant for her, in which he answered an invitation, and requested
Miss Brandon's acceptance of the music she had wished to have, to the
last wild and, to her, inexplicable letter in which he had resigned her
forever. On these relics her eyes fed for hours; and as she pored
over them, and over thoughts too deep not only for tears but for all
utterance or conveyance, you might have almost literally watched the
fading of her rich cheek and the pining away of her rounded and elastic
form.
It was just in such a mood that she was buried when her uncle knocked at
her door for admittance. She hurried away her treasures, and hastened to
admit and greet him.
“I have come,” said he, smiling, “to beg the pleasure of your company
for an old friend who dines with us to-day. But, stay, Lucy, your hair
is ill-arranged. Do not let me disturb so important an occupation as
your toilette; dress yourself, my love, and join us.”
Lucy turned, with a suppressed sigh, to the glass. The uncle lingered
for a few moments, surveying her with mingled pride and doubt; he then
slowly left the chamber.
Lucy soon afterwards descended to the drawing-room, and beheld with a
little surprise (for she had not had sufficient curiosity to inquire
the name of the guest), the slender form and comely features of Lord
Mauleverer. The earl approached with the same grace which had in his
earlier youth rendered him almost irresistible, but which now, from the
contrast of years with manner, contained a slight mixture of the comic.
He paid his compliments, and in paying them declared that he must leave
it to his friend, Sir William, to explain all the danger he had dared,
for the sake of satisfying himself that Miss Brandon was no less lovely
than when he had last beheld her.
“Yes, indeed,” said Brandon, with a scarcely perceptible sneer, “Lord
Mauleverer has literally endured the moving accidents of flood and
field,--for he was nearly exterminated by a highwayman, and all but
drowned in a ditch!”
“Commend me to a friend for setting one off to the best advantage,”
said Mauleverer, gayly. “Instead of attracting your sympathy, you see,
Brandon would expose me to your ridicule; judge for yourself whether I
deserve it!” and Mauleverer proceeded to give, with all the animation
which belonged to his character, the particulars of that adventure with
which the reader is so well acquainted. He did not, we may be sure,
feel any scruple in representing himself and his prowess in the most
favourable colours.
The story was scarcely ended when dinner was announced. During that meal
Mauleverer exerted himself to be amiable with infinite address. Suiting
his conversation, more than he had hitherto deigned to do, to the temper
of Lucy, and more anxious to soften than to dazzle, he certainly never
before appeared to her so attractive. We are bound to add that the point
of attraction did not reach beyond the confession that he was a very
agreeable old man.
Perhaps, if there had not been a certain half-melancholy vein in
his conversation, possibly less uncongenial to his lordship from the
remembrance of his lost diamonds, and the impression that Sir William
Brandon's cook was considerably worse than his own, he might not have
been so successful in pleasing Lucy. As for himself, all the previous
impressions she had made on him returned in colours yet more vivid;
even the delicate and subdued cast of beauty which had succeeded to her
earlier brilliancy, was far more charming to his fastidious and courtly
taste than her former glow of spirits and health. He felt himself very
much in love during dinner; and after it was over, and Lucy had retired,
he told Brandon, with a passionate air, that he adored his niece to
distraction!
The wily judge affected to receive the intimation with indifference; but
knowing that too long an absence is injurious to a grande passion, he
did not keep Mauleverer very late over his wine.
The earl returned rapturously to the drawing-room, and besought Lucy,
in a voice in which affectation seemed swooning with delight, to indulge
him with a song. More and more enchanted by her assent, he drew the
music-stool to the harpsichord, placed a chair beside her, and presently
appeared lost in transport. Meanwhile Brandon, with his back to the
pair, covered his face with his handkerchief, and to all appearance
yielded to the voluptuousness of an after-dinner repose.
Lucy's song-book opened accidentally at a song which had been praised by
Clifford; and as she sang, her voice took a richer and more tender tone
than in Mauleverer's presence it had ever before assumed.
THE COMPLAINT OF THE VIOLETS WHICH LOSE THEIR SCENT IN MAY.
In the shadow that falls from the silent hill
We slept, in our green retreats
And the April showers were wont to fill
Our hearts with sweets.
And though we lay in a lowly bower,
Yet all things loved us well,
And the waking bee left her fairest flower,
With us to dwell.
But the warm May came in his pride to woo
The wealth of our honeyed store;
And our hearts just felt his breath, and knew
Their sweets no more!
And the summer reigns on the quiet spot
Where we dwell, and its suns and showers
Bring balm to our sisters' hearts, but not--
Ah! not to ours.
We live, we bloom, but forever o'er
Is the charm of the earth and sky;
To our life, ye heavens, that balm restore,
Or--bid us die!