The Last Man
flowery path, all gentle thoughts adorned it—your name, O Love, was not
spoken, but you stood the Genius of the Hour, veiled, and time, but no
mortal hand, might raise the curtain. Organs of articulate sound did
not proclaim the union of our hearts; for untoward circumstance allowed
no opportunity for the expression that hovered on our lips. Oh my pen!
haste thou to write what was, before the thought of what is, arrests
the hand that guides thee. If I lift up my eyes and see the desart
earth, and feel that those dear eyes have spent their mortal lustre,
and that those beauteous lips are silent, their “crimson leaves” faded,
for ever I am mute!
But you live, my Idris, even now you move before me! There was a glade,
O reader! a grassy opening in the wood; the retiring trees left its
velvet expanse as a temple for love; the silver Thames bounded it on
one side, and a willow bending down dipt in the water its Naiad hair,
dishevelled by the wind’s viewless hand. The oaks around were the home
of a tribe of nightingales—there am I now; Idris, in youth’s dear
prime, is by my side —remember, I am just twenty-two, and seventeen
summers have scarcely passed over the beloved of my heart. The river
swollen by autumnal rains, deluged the low lands, and Adrian in his
favourite boat is employed in the dangerous pastime of plucking the
topmost bough from a submerged oak. Are you weary of life, O Adrian,
that you thus play with danger?—
He has obtained his prize, and he pilots his boat through the flood;
our eyes were fixed on him fearfully, but the stream carried him away
from us; he was forced to land far lower down, and to make a
considerable circuit before he could join us. “He is safe!” said Idris,
as he leapt on shore, and waved the bough over his head in token of
success; “we will wait for him here.”
We were alone together; the sun had set; the song of the nightingales
began; the evening star shone distinct in the flood of light, which was
yet unfaded in the west. The blue eyes of my angelic girl were fixed on
this sweet emblem of herself: “How the light palpitates,” she said,
“which is that star’s life. Its vacillating effulgence seems to say
that its state, even like ours upon earth, is wavering and inconstant;
it fears, methinks, and it loves.”
“Gaze not on the star, dear, generous friend,” I cried, “read not love
in _its_ trembling rays; look not upon distant worlds; speak not of the
mere imagination of a sentiment. I have long been silent; long even to
sickness have I desired to speak to you, and submit my soul, my life,
my entire being to you. Look not on the star, dear love, or do, and let
that eternal spark plead for me; let it be my witness and my advocate,
silent as it shines—love is to me as light to the star; even so long as
that is uneclipsed by annihilation, so long shall I love you.”
Veiled for ever to the world’s callous eye must be the transport of
that moment. Still do I feel her graceful form press against my
full-fraught heart—still does sight, and pulse, and breath sicken and
fail, at the remembrance of that first kiss. Slowly and silently we
went to meet Adrian, whom we heard approaching.
I entreated Adrian to return to me after he had conducted his sister
home. And that same evening, walking among the moon-lit forest paths, I
poured forth my whole heart, its transport and its hope, to my friend.
For a moment he looked disturbed—“I might have foreseen this,” he said,
“what strife will now ensue! Pardon me, Lionel, nor wonder that the
expectation of contest with my mother should jar me, when else I should
delightedly confess that my best hopes are fulfilled, in confiding my
sister to your protection. If you do not already know it, you will soon
learn the deep hate my mother bears to the name Verney. I will converse
with Idris; then all that a friend can do, I will do; to her it must
belong to play the lover’s part, if she be capable of it.”
While the brother and sister were still hesitating in what manner they
could best attempt to bring their mother over to their party, she,
suspecting our meetings, taxed her children with them; taxed her fair
daughter with deceit, and an unbecoming attachment for one whose only
merit was being the son of the profligate favourite of her imprudent
father; and who was doubtless as worthless as he from whom he boasted
his descent. The eyes of Idris flashed at this accusation; she replied,
“I do not deny that I love Verney; prove to me that he is worthless;
and I will never see him more.”
“Dear Madam,” said Adrian, “let me entreat you to see him, to cultivate
his friendship. You will wonder then, as I do, at the extent of his
accomplishments, and the brilliancy of his talents.” (Pardon me, gentle
reader, this is not futile vanity;—not futile, since to know that
Adrian felt thus, brings joy even now to my lone heart).
“Mad and foolish boy!” exclaimed the angry lady, “you have chosen with
dreams and theories to overthrow my schemes for your own
aggrandizement; but you shall not do the same by those I have formed
for your sister. I but too well understand the fascination you both
labour under; since I had the same struggle with your father, to make
him cast off the parent of this youth, who hid his evil propensities
with the smoothness and subtlety of a viper. In those days how often
did I hear of his attractions, his wide spread conquests, his wit, his
refined manners. It is well when flies only are caught by such spiders’
webs; but is it for the high-born and powerful to bow their necks to
the flimsy yoke of these unmeaning pretensions? Were your sister indeed
the insignificant person she deserves to be, I would willingly leave
her to the fate, the wretched fate, of the wife of a man, whose very
person, resembling as it does his wretched father, ought to remind you
of the folly and vice it typifies—but remember, Lady Idris, it is not
alone the once royal blood of England that colours your veins, you are
a Princess of Austria, and every life-drop is akin to emperors and
kings. Are you then a fit mate for an uneducated shepherd-boy, whose
only inheritance is his father’s tarnished name?”
“I can make but one defence,” replied Idris, “the same offered by my
brother; see Lionel, converse with my shepherd-boy”—-The Countess
interrupted her indignantly—“Yours!”—she cried: and then, smoothing her
impassioned features to a disdainful smile, she continued—“We will talk
of this another time. All I now ask, all your mother, Idris, requests
is, that you will not see this upstart during the interval of one
month.”
“I dare not comply,” said Idris, “it would pain him too much. I have no
right to play with his feelings, to accept his proffered love, and then
sting him with neglect.”
“This is going too far,” her mother answered, with quivering lips, and
eyes again instinct by anger.
“Nay, Madam,” said Adrian, “unless my sister consent never to see him
again, it is surely an useless torment to separate them for a month.”
“Certainly,” replied the ex-queen, with bitter scorn, “his love, and
her love, and both their childish flutterings, are to be put in fit
comparison with my years of hope and anxiety, with the duties of the
offspring of kings, with the high and dignified conduct which one of
her descent ought to pursue. But it is unworthy of me to argue and
complain. Perhaps you will have the goodness to promise me not to marry
during that interval?”
This was asked only half ironically; and Idris wondered why her mother
should extort from her a solemn vow not to do, what she had never
dreamed of doing—but the promise was required and given.
All went on cheerfully now; we met as usual, and talked without dread
of our future plans. The Countess was so gentle, and even beyond her
wont, amiable with her children, that they began to entertain hopes of
her ultimate consent. She was too unlike them, too utterly alien to
their tastes, for them to find delight in her society, or in the
prospect of its continuance, but it gave them pleasure to see her
conciliating and kind. Once even, Adrian ventured to propose her
receiving me. She refused with a smile, reminding him that for the
present his sister had promised to be patient.
One day, after the lapse of nearly a month, Adrian received a letter
from a friend in London, requesting his immediate presence for the
furtherance of some important object. Guileless himself, Adrian feared
no deceit. I rode with him as far as Staines: he was in high spirits;
and, since I could not see Idris during his absence, he promised a
speedy return. His gaiety, which was extreme, had the strange effect of
awakening in me contrary feelings; a presentiment of evil hung over me;
I loitered on my return; I counted the hours that must elapse before I
saw Idris again. Wherefore should this be? What evil might not happen
in the mean time? Might not her mother take advantage of Adrian’s
absence to urge her beyond her sufferance, perhaps to entrap her? I
resolved, let what would befall, to see and converse with her the
following day. This determination soothed me. To-morrow, loveliest and
best, hope and joy of my life, to-morrow I will see thee—Fool, to dream
of a moment’s delay!
I went to rest. At past midnight I was awaked by a violent knocking. It
was now deep winter; it had snowed, and was still snowing; the wind
whistled in the leafless trees, despoiling them of the white flakes as
they fell; its drear moaning, and the continued knocking, mingled
wildly with my dreams— at length I was wide awake; hastily dressing
myself, I hurried to discover the cause of this disturbance, and to
open my door to the unexpected visitor. Pale as the snow that showered
about her, with clasped hands, Idris stood before me. “Save me!” she
exclaimed, and would have sunk to the ground had I not supported her.
In a moment however she revived, and, with energy, almost with
violence, entreated me to saddle horses, to take her away, away to
London—to her brother—at least to save her. I had no horses—she wrung
her hands. “What can I do?” she cried, “I am lost—we are both for ever
lost! But come—come with me, Lionel; here I must not stay,—we can get a
chaise at the nearest post-house; yet perhaps we have time! come, O
come with me to save and protect me!”
When I heard her piteous demands, while with disordered dress,
dishevelled hair, and aghast looks, she wrung her hands—the idea shot
across me is she also mad?—“Sweet one,” and I folded her to my heart,
“better repose than wander further;—rest—my beloved, I will make a
fire—you are chill.”
“Rest!” she cried, “repose! you rave, Lionel! If you delay we are lost;
come, I pray you, unless you would cast me off for ever.”
That Idris, the princely born, nursling of wealth and luxury, should
have come through the tempestuous winter-night from her regal abode,
and standing at my lowly door, conjure me to fly with her through
darkness and storm—was surely a dream—again her plaintive tones, the
sight of her loveliness assured me that it was no vision. Looking
timidly around, as if she feared to be overheard, she whispered: “I
have discovered—to-morrow —that is, to-day—already the to-morrow is
come—before dawn, foreigners, Austrians, my mother’s hirelings, are to
carry me off to Germany, to prison, to marriage—to anything, except you
and my brother —take me away, or soon they will be here!”
I was frightened by her vehemence, and imagined some mistake in her
incoherent tale; but I no longer hesitated to obey her. She had come by
herself from the Castle, three long miles, at midnight, through the
heavy snow; we must reach Englefield Green, a mile and a half further,
before we could obtain a chaise. She told me, that she had kept up her
strength and courage till her arrival at my cottage, and then both