Chapter 33

"Sweetest lips that ever were kissed, Brightest eyes that ever have shone, May sigh and whisper, and _he_ not list, Or look away, and never be missed Long or ever a month be gone."

It was a very curious _ménage_ that of the Forresters'. They were wonderfully happy, yet you could not call theirs _domestic_ felicity. They went out perpetually every where, and were scarcely ever alone together at home. Tho cold-water cure of matrimony had not been able to cool either down into the dignity and steadiness befitting that honorable state. As far as I could see, Charley flirted as much as ever; the only difference was, that he stole upon his victims now with a sort of protecting and paternal air, merging gradually, as the interest deepened, into the old confidential style. The whole effect was, if any thing, more seductive than before.

The fair Venetians admired him intensely. His bright, clear complexion and rich chestnut hair had the charm of novelty for them. Though without the faintest respect for grammar or idiom, he spoke their language with perfect composure, confidence, and self-satisfaction, and his tones were so well adapted to the slow, soft, languid tongue, that his blunders sounded better than other men's correctness of speech. _Mallem mehercule cum Platone errare_. When he said "_Si, Siora_," it seemed as if he were calling the lady by a pet name.

Isabel did a good deal of mischief too in her unassuming way, but I think she confined her depredations chiefly to her compatriots.

The best of it was, that neither objected in the least to the other's proceedings, appearing, indeed, to consider them rather creditable than otherwise. Perhaps it would be as well if this principle of reciprocal free agency were somewhat extended, though not quite to the latitude to which they carried it.

We can not send our wives about surrounded by a detachment of semiviri to keep the peace; our climate is too uncertain, and influenza too prevalent, for us to watch their windows ourselves, as they do at Cadiz. Fancy mounting guard in Eaton Square at 4 P.M., shrouded in a yellow fog, on the chance of surprising a forbidden morning visitor!

Supposing that we could adopt either of those methods, why should they prove more efficacious than they are said to be on their native soil? If the British husband will allow nothing for the principles, charitably supposed by others to be inherent in the wife of his bosom--nothing for the Damoclean damages hanging over the imaginary plotter against his peace--why should he depreciate his own merits and powers so completely as to consider himself out of the lists altogether? If he would only desist from making himself consistently disagreeable, I believe, in most cases, his substantial interest would be little endangered.

That poor Hephæstus! The net was an ingenious device, and a pretty piece of workmanship, but--it didn't answer.

In despite of Mrs. Ellis, there are women whose mission it is _not_ to be good housewives; they can't be useful if they would, any more than May-flies can spin silk. Like them, they can attract fish (and sometimes get snapped up if they go too close), that's all. If you marry them, you must accept them as they are, and take your chance. Be generous, then, and don't stop their waltzing. I believe there may be flirting without the most distant idea of criminality--fencing with wooden foils, where no blood is drawn.

A lady was asked the other day "what she did when an admirer became too lover-like." Her answer was, "I never had such a case." I think she spoke the truth; yet she was a coquette renowned through a good part of two hemispheres.

As for the doubts and fears of the other sex, the subject is too vast for me. To the end of time there will be Deianiras (with imaginary Ioles), Zaras, and Mrs. Caudles. Tragedy and comedy have tried in vain to frighten or to laugh them out of the indulgence of the fatal passion, that wreaks itself indiscriminately on the beat and the worst, the youngest and the oldest, the simplest and the most guileful of adult males. Let us not attempt to argue, then, but, wrapping ourselves in our virtue, endure as best we may the groundless reproaches and accusations of our ox-eyed Junos.

We _did_ Venice very severely, with the exception of Forrester, who, after strolling once through the Palace of the Doges (a pilgrimage interrupted by many halts and profuse lamentations), declined seeing any thing more than what he could view from his gondola. I never saw any one so completely at home in that most delicious of conveyances. His Venetian friends encouraged and sympathized with him in his laziness, and pitied him with eyes and words, forever being teased about it. Indeed, he was generally left alone; but one day we were landing to see a church of great repute, and Miss Devereux made a strong appeal to him to follow her. She was a handsome, clever girl, a great favorite of Charley's. I believe they used to quarrel and make it up again about six times in every twenty-four hours. We saw that it was hopeless, but she was obstinate enough to try and persuade him.

"Now, Captain Forrester, you must come. I have set my heart upon it."

He lifted his long eyelashes in a languid satisfaction. "Thank you very much; I like people to be interested about me; but you see it's simply impossible. Look at Rinaldo; there's a sensible example for you. He doesn't mean to stir till he is obliged to do so." The handsome gondolier had already couched, to enjoy a bask in the sun, which was blazing fiercely down on his brown face and magnificent black hair.

"There is the most perfect Titian," she persisted.

"No use. I should not appreciate it," he replied. "I have been through a gallery _with you_ before. It's a delusion and a snare. I never looked at a single picture. The canvas won't stand the comparison."

"I did not think you would have refused me," Miss Devereux went on, "particularly after last night, when you were so very--amusing." She hesitated out the last word with a blush. It evidently was not the adjective that ought to have closed the sentence.

"Amusing!" replied Charley, plaintively. "You need not say any more. I am crushed for the day. I meant to be especially touching and pathetic. Well, there's some good in every thing, though. I entertained an angel unawares."

"I shall know how far to believe you another time, at all events," she retorted, getting rather provoked.

"Don't be unjust," said Forrester, profoundly regardless of the fact that his wife was within three paces of them. "I said I was ready to die for you. So I am. You may fix the time, but I may choose the place. If you insist upon it, I'll make an end of it now--here." And he settled himself deeper into the pile of cushions.

We had no patience to listen to any more, but went off to perform our duty. Long before he had exhausted his arguments against moving, we had returned. Margaret Devereux missed seeing the church and its Titian, but she got a "great moral lesson." She never wasted her pretty pleadings in such a hopeless cause again.

I remember, when we mounted the Campanile, the solemn way in which he wished us _buon viaggio_. When we reached the top, we made out his figure reclining on many chairs in front of "Florian's."

He saw us, too, and lifted the glass before him to his lips with a wave of approval and encouragement, just as they do at Chamounix when the telescopes make out a few black specks on the white crests of the mountain. When we came down, he stopped us before we could say one word. "Yes, I know--it was magnificent. Bella, I see you are going to rave about the view. If you do, I'll shut you up for a week _en penitence_, and feed you on nothing but 'Bradshaw' and water."

We spent a very pleasant month in Venice. It did Guy good being with the Forresters. He had always been very fond of his cousin, and she seemed to suit him better than any one else now. She would sit by him for hours, talking in her low, caressing tones, that soothed him like a cool soft hand laid on a forehead fever-heated. Isabel was not afraid of him now, but a great awe mingled with her pity.

It is curious, and tells well perhaps for our human nature; neither pride of birth, nor complete success, nor profound wisdom, surrounds a man with such reverence as the being possessed with a great sorrow. At least no one can envy him; and so those who were his enemies once--like the gallant Frenchman when he saw his adversary's empty sleeve--bring their swords to the salute, and pass on.

At last we started for Rome, our party nearly filling two carriages. There are only two ways of traveling: in your own carriage, with courier and fourgon, like Russian or transatlantic noble, or with vetturino. This last mode, which was ours, is scarcely less pleasant, if you are not in a hurry. The charm of having, for a certain period, every care as to ways and means off your mind, compensates for the six-miles-an-hour pace. So we moved slowly southward through Verona, where one thinks more of the Avon than the Adige--where, in tombs poised like Mohammed's coffin, the mighty Scagliari sleep between earth and heaven, as if not quite fit for either--where are the cypresses in the trim old garden, soaring skyward till the eyes that follow grow dizzy, the trees that were green and luxuriant years before the world was redeemed. So through Mantua and Bologna down to Florence, where, I think, the spirits of Catharine and Cosmo linger yet, the women and the men all so soft-toned, and silky, and sinful, and cruel. We did not stay long there, for we had all visited it before once or twice, but kept on our way, by the upper road, to Rome, till we reached our last halting-place--Civita Castellana.

We were gathered round the wood fire after dinner (for the October evenings grew chilly as they closed in); I don't know how it was that Forrester began telling us about their flight.

"You ought to have seen Bella's baggage," he said, at last; "it was so compact. You can't fancy any thing so tiny as the _sac de nuit_. A courier's moneybag would make two of it. Then a vast cloak, and that's all. Quite in light marching order."

"I wonder you are not ashamed to talk about baggage," his wife retorted. "When we got to Dover, there was his servant with four immense portmanteaus and a dressing-case nearly as large, waiting for us. Was it not romantic?"

"Bah!" Charley said. "A man must have his comforts, even if he is eloping. I am sure I arranged every thing superbly. I don't know how I did it--an undeveloped talent for intrigue, I suppose."

"Was it not kind of him to take so much trouble?" Isabel asked, quite innocently, and in perfect good faith, I am sure; but her husband pinched the little pink ear that was within his reach.

"She means to be sarcastic," he said. "You've spoiled her, Guy. If I had had time to deliberate, though, I don't think I should ever have come to the post. I wonder how any one stands the training."

"I'll tell you what would have suited you exactly," Livingstone remarked--"to have been one of those men in the Arabian Nights, who wake and find themselves at a strange city's gate, 10,000 leagues from home, to whom there comes up a venerable vizier, saying, 'My son, heaven has blessed me with one daughter, a very pearl of beauty; many have sought her in marriage, but in vain. Your appearance pleases me, and I would have you for my son-in-law.'"

"Exactly," said Forrester. "I should not have minded turning out somebody else's child eventually--(they all did that, didn't they?)--for such a piece of luck as to be taken in and done for off-hand, without the trouble of thinking about it."

Instead of looking vexed, Isabel laughed merrily, and her eyes glittered as they rested on him, full of a proud, loving happiness.

"The best of it was," Charley went on, "she was in the most dreadful state of alarm and excitement all the way to Dover, looking out at every station, under the impression that she should see the bridegroom there, 'dangling his bonnet and plume' (though how he was to have got ahead of us, unless he came by electric telegraph, does not appear). What sport it would have been! I should have liked so to have seen the 'laggard in love' once more."

"He was not quite _that_," Isabel interrupted, rather mischievously.

"Ah! I dare say you kept him up to the traces," her husband remarked, languidly. "You have a talent that way. What 'passages,' as Varney called them, there must have been, eh! Guy? We won't hear your confession now, Puss. In pity to Mademoiselle Agläe's eyes (which are very fine), if not to your own (which are very useful), I think you had better go to bed. That ferocious vetturino will have us up at unholy hours, and is not to be mitigated."

We sat talking for a little while after Isabel left us; then Forrester rose and strolled to the window. The flood of light that poured in when he drew the curtain was quite startling, making the three beaked oil lamps look smoky and dim.

"I shall smoke my last cigar _al fresco_," Charley said; "I suppose it's the correct thing to do, with such a moon as that. Won't you come, Guy? I must not tempt you out into the night air, Hammond."

"Not to-night," Livingstone answered. "I am not in the humor for admiring any thing. I should be rather in your way."

One of his gloomy fits was coming over him, at which times he always chose to be alone.

"Well, I shall go and consume the 'humble, but not wholly heart-broken weed of every-day life,' as Tyrrell used to say. (Don't you remember his double-barreled adjectives?) If you hear any one singing _very_ sweetly, don't be alarmed; you'll know it is the harmless lunatic who now addresses you; the fit won't last more than an hour. We shall be in Rome to-morrow. The only thing on my mind now is whether I shall find any thing there to carry me across the Campagna. K---- has a very fair pack, I understand, and no end of foxes."

Have you ever watched the completion of a photograph, when the nitrate of silver (or whatever the last lotion may be) is applied? First one feature comes out, that you may indulgently mistake for a tree, or a gable-end, or a mountain top; then another, till the whole picture stands out in clear, brilliant relief.

Just so when I recall that scene--little heed as I took at the time of them--every gesture, and look, and tone of Forrester's becomes as distinct as if he stood in the body before me now. I can see him standing in the shadow of the doorway, the red glare from the blazing wood with which he was lighting his cigar falling over his delicate features and bright chestnut hair--I can hear his kind soft voice as he speaks these last two words, "_Al rivederci_."

Whether that wish will be accomplished hereafter, God alone can tell; if so, it must be beyond the grave. In life we never saw him any more.