CHAPTER LV.--IS DECIDEDLY ORIGINAL, AS IT DISPLAYS MATRIMONY IN A MORE

FAVOURABLE LIGHT THAN COURTSHIP.

The Honourable Charles Leicester was, take him all in all, about as easy-tempered a fellow as ever breathed; but when old Antonelli informed him that his young and pretty wife was closeted with a mysterious stranger, at the same time positively refusing to allow him to enter the apartment in which they were shut up together, even he considered that it was time to exert himself; so seizing the old man by the arm and swinging him round with a degree of energy which greatly discomposed that worthy cicerone, he threw open the door, and staring with an angry and bewildered gaze into the dimly-lighted room, discovered, to his horror and disgust, Laura quietly sitting with her hand clasped in that of a handsome young Italian, for such did Lewis at first sight appear. The period which had elapsed since Leicester had last seen him had produced so marked a change in his appearance, that meeting him for the first time under circumstances so utterly disconnected with all former associations, he might well deem he was addressing a total stranger. Lewis’s pale features had regained in a great degree their look of health, and exposure to a southern sun had converted the delicate complexion into a manly brown, while, having allowed his moustaches and even a short curly beard to grow, the lower part of his face was enveloped in a mass of glossy black hair; this, and the stern, thoughtful expression of his countenance, caused him to look at least five years older than he really was. He rose as Leicester entered and advanced a step towards him; then, seeing that the other did not in the slightest degree recognise him, he paused and exchanged a smiling glance with Laura as he marked Charley’s puzzled, angry expression.

Laura, entering thoroughly into the absurdity of the situation, determined to improve it to the uttermost; returning Lewis’s glance with a look into which she contrived to throw an amount of tenderness that by no means soothed her husband’s irritation, she began--

“Ah, Charles, let me introduce you; you will be delighted to hear that Signore Luigi has kindly promised to dine with us to-morrow.”

“The deuce he has!” muttered Leicester to himself; “he might have waited till I had asked him, I think;” then acknowledging the introduction by a freezing little bow, he continued aloud--

“Now, my dear Laura, we must really be going;” then crossing to the place where his wife was seated, he held out his arm with the evident intention of linking hers with it and walking her off forthwith.

But Laura clearly disapproved of such precipitation; for without showing the slightest disposition to move, she replied--

“Restrain your impatience a few minutes longer, Mr. Leicester. Having formed so agreeable an acquaintance,” she continued, glancing at Lewis, “you really must allow me time to prosecute it.”

It was not in Charles Leicester’s nature to be angry with any one for five minutes consecutively; with his wife, whom he idolised, it was utterly impossible; so, making up his mind that Luigi was a kind of lion, to be regarded in the light of an exhibition, and stared at and fed accordingly, and that Laura’s sudden fancy for him was only an instance of womanly caprice--“women always went mad about celebrities,” he knew--he made a short, penitent, civil speech, and then flung himself lazily into a chair, with a look of half-bored, half-sulky resignation, which, under the circumstances, was perfectly irresistible.

That his two companions found it so was evidenced by their simultaneously bursting into a hearty fit of laughter, increased to an alarming degree by the look of blank astonishment that came over Leicester’s face at their incomprehensible conduct.

As soon as Laura could recover breath she began, “Why, Charley, you dear, good-natured, stupid old thing! don’t you see who it is yet?”

At the same moment the Mysterious One approached him, saying, “Have you quite forgotten the existence of Lewis Arundel?”

For a moment Charley gazed in half-sceptical astonishment, and then seizing his hand, and shaking it as if he were anxious to make up for his dulness by dislocating his friend’s shoulder, he exclaimed, “My dear fellow, I’m delighted to see you--I really am quite ashamed of myself--but, ’pon my word, you’ve made yourself look so particularly unlike yourself, and the whole thing altogether is so very strange and unexpected, and more like an incident in a novel than a real _bona-fide_ transaction of every-day life, that you must hold me excused. My dear Laura, I began to think you were gone out of your senses, and that I should have to procure a keeper for you. Why, Arundel, then you’ve turned out a genius after all, a second Michael Angelo, eh! I prophesied you would, if you remember, that day when you painted the cow?”

As he spoke he stooped to pick up his cane and gloves, which in the excitement of the discovery he had allowed to drop; consequently he did not perceive the effect his words had produced upon Lewis. _Did_ he remember the incident to which Leicester had alluded? Would to heaven he could forget that which was branded on his memory as with a red-hot iron, the fact that on the day in question he had for the first time beheld Annie Grant! He turned pale--the blood seemed to rush back upon his heart, and oppress him with a feeling of suffocation--he was forced to lean against a table for support.

These signs of emotion were not lost upon Laura’s quick eye, and rising at the moment to divert her husband’s attention, she observed, “Now I have at length succeeded in enlightening your understanding, Charley dear, I am quite at your service.”

“Come along then,” was the reply; “you’ll dine with us to-morrow without fail, Signore Luigi, _alias_ Arundel, you polyglot mystery. ’Pon my word, it’s the oddest coincidence I ever knew, exactly like a thing in a play, where everybody turns out to be somebody else. Come along, Laura; I must try and conciliate your old friend the cicerone, too, for I swung him round in my wrath most viciously; I hope I have not dislocated any of his venerable joints; I got the steam up to no end of a height, I can tell you, when I fancied I had lost my love. By-by, _al piacer di rivederla, Signore_.” Thus running on, Charley Leicester tucked his wife under his arm, and having handsomely rewarded Antonelli, departed.

In the course of their walk home, Laura, after her husband had again and again expressed his astonishment at the denouement which had just taken place, inquired, “You never clearly made out the reason why Mr. Arundel quitted Broadhurst, did you, Charley?”

“No! Bellefield hinted in his way, which gives one an impression without one’s exactly knowing what grounds one has for taking it up, that Arundel had misconducted himself in some manner; but the General’s letter quite contradicted such an idea, and spoke of him in the very highest terms. I thought nothing of what Bellefield said, for they never liked one another, and _entre nous_, I consider Belle behaved shamefully to him on one or two occasions.”

Laura paused for a minute in thought, and then inquired, “What did the remark you made about sketching a cow refer to?”

“Oh! did I never tell you that?” returned Charles, laughing; “the incident occurred on the occasion of his first introduction to the Grant family;” and then he proceeded to give her a full, true, and particular account of the interesting adventure, with which the reader is already acquainted. As he concluded, Laura observed--

“In fact, then, he beheld for the first time Annie Grant. Now I can guess why he turned pale when you referred to it: Charley, you must be very careful how you say anything about the Broadhurst party before him.”

“Eh! and wherefore, oh wise little woman, endowed with an unlimited power of seeing into milestones?” was the bantering reply.

“Well, if I tell you, you must promise never to mention the idea, for it is only an idea, to anybody till I give you leave,” returned Laura.

Charley compressed his lips, and went through a pantomimic representation of sewing them together.

“Nay, but I’m serious,” resumed Laura; “if I tell you, you must be careful, and not blunder it out in any of your absent fits; do you promise?”

“I’ll do more than promise,” returned her husband energetically; “I’ll swear by all

The heathen gods and goddesses,

Without skirts and bodices,

never to reveal to mortal ear the fatal secret--so let us have it!”

“Well then, if you must know, I suspect Mr. Arundel to have had better taste than you, and not to have escaped with a whole heart from the fascinations of Annie Grant.”

“Phew--!” replied Leicester, giving vent to a prolonged whistle indicative of intense surprise; “that is the state of the case, eh? then my allusion to the cow was just about the most unlucky topic I could have hit upon. I certainly have a genius for putting my foot in it, whenever circumstances afford an aperture for the insertion of that extremity. I should not wonder if that idea of yours, always supposing it to be correct, might explain his sudden departure from Broadhurst, and account for this strange freak of expatriating himself and starting as a second-hand modern Michael Angelo. I say, Laura, suppose the fancy should happen to be mutual, Bellefield may have had more cause for disliking Arundel than people were aware of.”

“She would never have accepted your brother if she knew that another loved her, and felt that she returned his affection; Annie is too good and true-hearted for that,” returned Laura warmly.

“Time will show,” replied Leicester. “I only hope it may not be so; for between Arundel and Belle I should not know how to act. Belle is my brother, and to Arundel’s good advice I shall always consider I am in great measure indebted for a certain plague of my life--(without whose plaguing the said life wouldn’t be worth having, all the same);--the only course I can take, if our suspicions prove true, will be to preserve a strict neutrality.”

“And how would you wish me to act, Charley dear?” inquired Laura, taking her husband’s fingers caressingly between her own soft, white little hands. “You know I can’t recommend Annie to marry your brother if she does not love him.”

“Follow the dictates of your own good sense and kind heart, darling, and you will be sure to do rightly. I have the most perfect confidence in you, and would not influence you one way or another, if I could.”

The tears rose to Laura’s eyes at this fresh proof of her husband’s affection; and as she reflected on what he had said in regard to Lewis’s share in bringing them together, she inwardly vowed that if ever it lay in her power to do him a similar good turn, she would not be slothful in advancing his interests.

True to his promise, Lewis dined with them the next day; by mutual consent all reference to the past was avoided, and no allusion made to any of the Broadhurst party. As soon as Lewis found this to be the case, a certain proud embarrassment observable in his manner disappeared; and yielding to the delight of again finding himself in congenial society, he unconsciously displayed his brilliant conversational powers--relating, with playful wit, or forcible and striking illustration, the adventures which had befallen him, and the scenery he had beheld in his late pedestrian tour, till Charles and Laura, who had only been acquainted with him when the cloud of his dependent position at Broadhurst hung over him and concealed his natural character beneath a veil of proud reserve, were equally delighted and astonished; and when, late in the evening, he took his departure, they vied with each other in performing a duet to his praise.

“He talks so well!” exclaimed Charley.

“He knows so much!” cried Laura.

“He has been everywhere,” continued the former.

“And done everything,” resumed the latter.

“He is so clever and epigrammatic,” urged the gentleman.

“And his descriptions of scenery are so poetical,” put in the lady.

“His figure is so striking,” said the master.

“And his face so handsome,” rejoined the mistress.

“What a pair of eyes he has!”

“And such a smile!”

“Then his moustaches and whiskers are irreproachable.”

“And his hands whiter than mine.”

“In fact, he is a stunner!” declared the baritone.

“Though I detest slang, I must confess that he is,” chimed in the soprano.

“If I were a woman I should be over head and ears in love with him,” suggested Charley.

“I am both the one and the other,” responded his wife, casting an arch glance at her spouse, as much as to say, “How do you like that?” which rebellious speech her lord and master punished by stopping her mouth with--the only remedy we believe ever to have been found effectual in such a case.

From that time forth Lewis became a constant visitor at the Palazzo Grassini, and at last completed his triumph over Laura’s affections by asking, as a favour, to be allowed to take a sketch of “Tarley”; “he wanted a study of a child’s head so much.” Then the sketch was pronounced so successful that nothing would serve but that it must be perpetuated in oils, and as the possibility of making “Tarley” sit still long enough for such a purpose did not exist unless Laura sat also, Lewis consented to paint them together, although he had hitherto steadily refused to take a portrait, in spite of large sums which had been offered him to do so.

Laura received a second epistle from Annie Grant postponing their visit for another fortnight. Her father had all along expected Miss Livingstone would accompany them as a matter of course; but when it came to the point that redoubtable spinster broke into open revolt, asserted her independence, nailed her colours to the mast, and determined upon death or victory. So resolute was she, that after a most obstinate engagement with sharp tongues, which followed upon two days of sulky silence, the General was forced to make terms and yield his own will to that of a woman; so Minerva remained behind to garrison Broadhurst. As, however, the General by no means approved of his daughter travelling without some female companion, the journey was very nearly being given up, when, at the last moment, a lady, the wife of an Austrian officer quartered at Venice, was discovered, who, seeking for an escort to enable her to join her husband, was only too happy to be allowed to accompany the Grant party. These delays, however, would necessarily retard their arrival for at least a fortnight. Days passed away; the picture (and a very pretty one it was) of the fair young mother and her little, rosy, merry child, advanced towards completion, and Lewis began to look forward with a feeling almost akin to regret, to the time when the sittings, and the agreeable, friendly conversations to which they gave rise, would be at an end.

Since he had quitted England his thoughts and feelings had undergone various and considerable changes; at first he had striven, in the excitement of active adventure, to banish recollection, and after a time he succeeded so far as to take a lively interest in all he saw. The revolutionary spirit, which has since produced such changes in modern Europe, was then beginning to show itself, and he witnessed the outbreak of a rather serious _émeute_ in one of the German States, in which he contrived to get mixed up, and by these means he came in for a couple of day’s hard fighting, and a week of intense fatigue and excitement. This, paradoxical as it may appear, was of the greatest psychological assistance to him; it roused him effectually, and took him completely out of himself. The excitement was kept up for some little time longer, for, owing to the part which his old student associations had led him to take in the affair, he brought upon himself the suspicions of the Prussian government, and the next event of his tour was in fact a flight to save himself from arrest. During this period he was accompanied by a young German, who, much more deeply implicated in the affair than Lewis had been, dreaded that his capture might lead to his execution; and unwilling to atone for his patriotism with his life, he and his companion hurried from the scene of their exploits, experiencing innumerable dangers, difficulties, and hairbreadth escapes, ere they arrived at that sanctuary for political refugees, the city of the Sultan. Having by these means regained his energy and vigour of mind, Lewis applied himself heart and soul to the study of his new profession, and in the interest of the pursuit kept his powers, mental and bodily, so fully employed as to hold memory at bay, and to require neither society nor sympathy. But now a change had again come o’er him; he had in great measure mastered the difficulties of his art, he had solved the problem whether by his talent he could secure a competency for himself and those belonging to him; constant and indefatigable labour was no longer an obligation, and ere the Leicesters discovered him he had begun to feel, though he would scarcely acknowledge it even to himself, the want of those social ties from which, in his first frenzy of grief, he had voluntarily separated himself. In the society of the Leicesters he obtained exactly the amount of relaxation which he required--Laura appreciated and understood him, Charles, without understanding, liked him; while on his part, the lady’s society interested and soothed him, and that of her husband afforded him amusement and companionship.

As the day approached on which the Broadhurst party were expected to arrive, Laura became considerably perplexed as to how she might best break the matter to Lewis: she had once, by way of experiment, mentioned to her husband, in Lewis’s presence, the fact that she had received a letter from Broadhurst, and the start he gave at the name, the death-like paleness which overspread his countenance, the quivering lip, and clenched hand, told of such deep mental suffering, that, frightened at the effects she had produced, Laura immediately changed the subject and had never again ventured to allude to it.

The last sitting for the picture chanced to be fixed for the very morning before that on which the Grants were expected to arrive. Laura consulted her husband as to the affair: Charley stroked his chin, caressed his whiskers, gazed vacantly at himself in the chimney-glass, and then, putting on a look of sapient self-confidence, in regard to the reality whereof it was clear he entertained the strongest misgivings, he began in a thorough master-of-the-family tone--

“Why, it seems to me, my love, that the present is exactly one of those emergencies in which a woman’s tact is the very thing required. I should advise you to feel your way with great caution, very great caution, and when by this means you have ascertained the best method of breaking it to him, I should speak at once without any further hesitation, and--and----”

“I think you had better undertake the business yourself, Charley dear, as you seem to have such a clearly defined idea how to set about it,” interrupted Laura with a roguish smile.

“Not at all; by no means, my dear,” replied Charley, speaking with unwonted energy. “A--in fact, so strongly do I feel that a _woman’s_ tact is the thing required, and that any interference of mine might ruin the whole affair, and, in short, bring about something very disagreeable, that I have made arrangements which will keep me from home during the whole morning, so as to leave you a clear field.”

“Oh, you dreadfully transparent old impostor! a child of five years old could see through you,” exclaimed Laura, laughing heartily at the detected look which instantly stole over her husband’s visage. “Now, if you don’t honestly confess that you have not an idea how to get over the difficulty,” she continued, “that you dread a scene with a true degree of masculine horror, and yet have not the most remote notion how to avoid one, I’ll ‘make arrangements which will take _me_ from home all the morning,’ and leave you to flounder through the affair as best you can.”

“There is a vixen for you,” exclaimed Charley, appealing to society at large. “Poor Socrates! I always had a deep commiseration for his domestic annoyances when I read of them at school, but I little dreamed that I should live to have personal experience of the miseries of possessing a Xantippe;” then throwing himself into a mock-tragic attitude, he ejaculated, “Ungrateful woman! I leave you to your fate,” and shaking his fist at her, pressed his hand to his forehead, and rushed distractedly out of the room--in less than two minutes he lounged in again, drawing on his gloves. “What a bore tight gloves are!” he murmured feebly--“here, Laura!” so saying, he seated himself by his wife’s side, languidly holding out his hand, while with the most helpless air imaginable he allowed her to pull on the refractory gloves for him, which she did with a most amusing display of energy and perseverance.

“_Voilà_, Monsieur!” she said; “that herculean feat is accomplished. Have you aught else to command your slave?”

Charley regarded her with a look of affection as he replied, “What a blessing it is to have a good, clever little wife to do all the horrid things for one! Good-bye, my own! When you have done victimising Arundel with your alarming intelligence, ask him to dine with us to-day; I want particularly to talk to him. He knows the people here better than I do; but it strikes me the politics of the place are getting into a fix.”

So saying, he imprinted a kiss upon her brow, admired his hand in the new, well-fitting glove, and sauntered out of the apartment as listlessly as though he were walking in his sleep.

Punctual to his appointment, Lewis arrived, looking so handsome and animated that Laura felt doubly grieved at having to make a communication which she was persuaded would tend to renew the memory of a grief against which he appeared to have struggled with some degree of success. Her task was rendered the more difficult from the conviction that Lewis’s intercourse with her husband and herself had been of great service to him, by insensibly overcoming his misanthropic distaste to society. This intercourse, she feared, the tidings she was about to impart to him would effectually interrupt.

“Where is ‘Tarley’?” inquired Lewis, after exchanging salutations with “_La Madre_.”

“In the nursery, adorning for the sacrifice of his personal freedom during the period you may require him to remain _en position_.” answered Laura; “shall I ring for him?”

“May I fetch him myself? I promised him a ride on my back for good conduct at the last sitting, and he must not be disappointed,” urged Lewis in reply.

“Agreed--always promising that you take great care not to tumble the clean frock,” returned Laura with a gratified smile. “Who could believe that man was the same creature who used to look so stern, and cold, and proud?” she added mentally, as Lewis departed on his mission; “he has as much tenderness of nature as any woman. If he really does love Annie, and she can prefer Lord Bellefield, she deserves all the unhappiness such a choice will inevitably bring upon her; her greatest enemy can wish her nothing worse. Well, ‘Tarley,’ are you going to sit still and be good?” she continued, as that self-willed juvenile entered, seated in triumph upon Lewis’s shoulder, and grasping a lock of his horse’s ebon mane the better to preserve his balance.

“Tarley” having signified in the very smallest broken English his intention to keep the peace to the best of his little ability, the sitting began in good earnest, and terminated, as far as that young gentleman was concerned, in less than an hour, during which period, as he only tore his mamma’s gown once, made a hole in the sofa-cover, and had one violent fit of kicking, he may comparatively be considered (all things are comparative) to have kept his word. A few finishing touches still remained to complete Laura’s portrait, and these Lewis hastened to add. The conversation (originating in “Tarley’s” _escapades_) turned on education.

“The theory which I hold to be the true one is simple enough,” remarked Lewis; “the first thing to inculcate is--oblige me by turning a little more to the light--implicit obedience; that once acquired--rather more still--you may, as the mind develops, occasionally give a reason for your commands--you see my object is to get a clearer light on the left eye-brow--thank you; don’t move.”

“But that obedience, to be of much avail, should be founded on other feelings than mere fear of punishment,” returned Laura; “for that in sturdy minds produces obstinacy, in weak ones deceit and falsehood, and in both cases necessarily loses its effect as the pupil advances towards maturity. It always appears to me that in our conduct towards children we should strive to imitate (with reverence be it spoken) God’s dealings towards ourselves. We should teach them to love and trust us, and obedience based on affection and faith will surely never fail for time or for eternity. Then,” she continued, as Lewis, bending over his work, failed to reply, “I should endeavour to make their punishments appear as much as possible the natural consequences of their faults; for instance, I should allow them to experience to the uttermost the mental suffering caused by pride and anger, and in their cooler moments point out to them that it may be wise, as well as right, to suffer even injustice mildly, rather than bear the distress of mind a contrary line of conduct is sure to entail. I should impress upon them the evil of coveting by denying them the thing they so eagerly sought. In fact,” she added hastily, fancying from her companion’s silence that for some reason her conversation was distasteful to him, “I have a great many sapient, theoretical ideas in regard to education, but how they may turn out when I come to put them in practice remains to be proved.”

Lewis, who during the conclusion of this speech had been painting away as zealously as if his life depended upon his exertions, though a close observer might have remarked, by his downcast eye and quivering lip, the effect Laura’s words produced on him, replied earnestly--

“Would to Heaven all mothers felt as truly and wisely as you do about education; were children taught such principles of self-government as you propose, there would be fewer aching hearts among us.”

Having uttered these words and sighed deeply, he spoke no more until he had finished Laura’s portrait.

“There,” he said, “I need detain you no longer; with the exception of a few touches to the drapery, which I can do at my own rooms, the picture is completed.”

Laura approached and duly admired it, declaring the likeness of “Tarley” to be perfect, but feeling quite certain Lewis had flattered her terribly, at which little touch of woman’s nature the young artist smiled as he denied the accusation. And now the moment had arrived when Laura must break her intelligence to him as best she might. Her straightforward, simple nature disdained all subterfuge, and she began accordingly.

“There is a topic which, from a fear, perhaps uncalled for, of giving you pain, Charles and I have avoided, but which I am now compelled to mention to you. You asked me at our first meeting whether we were alone; after to-day we shall be so no longer, and the guests we expect are none other than your former pupil Walter, General Grant, and his daughter.” Laura had purposely placed herself in such a position that she could not see her companion’s features as she made this communication, and the only sign of agitation which met her ear was the sound of his quick and laboured breathing.

After a moment’s pause he said in a hurried, stem tone of voice, “I cannot meet them! it is impossible, I must leave this place directly.”

“Nay, that surely is unnecessary, no one here knows you but ourselves; you have only to resume your incognito, and in Signore Luigi, the Venetian painter, no one will recognise Lewis Arundel. We will keep your secret inviolably.”

“Can I rely on the discretion of Mr. Leicester?”

“Perfectly; if he knows you consider the matter important, he will remain silent as the grave.”

“Be it so then,” returned Lewis after a pause. Having paced up and down the room, he threw himself on a sofa, and covering his eyes with his hand, remained buried in painful thought.

Laura watched him with deep interest, till at length she could restrain the expression of her sympathy no longer.

“I _must_ speak that which is in my mind,” she said earnestly. “I know that you are good and true-hearted, you _can_ have done no wrong that you have cause to be ashamed of, why then do you fear to meet these people?”

Lewis started, raised his head, and flinging back his dark hair, exclaimed almost fiercely, “Did you say fear? I fear no living being! There is no man who can accuse me of evil-doing; my name is as spotless as your own pure soul.”

“Then why refuse to meet them?”

“Because I fear my own heart,” was the vehement reply, “because I have sworn never to meet her again till I have learned to look upon her with the indifference her weak fickleness deserves, and that,” he added bitterly, “will not be till grey hairs bring insensibility to woman’s love and such-like gilded toys, or till she has crushed out the last germs of my lingering madness by marrying the heartless scoundrel to whom she is engaged.” He paused, and then continued more calmly, “You ask me why I refuse to meet these people; hear the truth, and then judge for yourself whether I can meet them; nay, judge for me also if you will, for I am half-frenzied by the anguish I have suffered, and am as incapable to decide for myself in this affair as a child, such puppets are we to our loves and hates;” and then in eager, hurried accent he told her of his love for Annie Grant, his struggle for self-conquest, his signal failure, his fearful hope that she returned his affection, the parting, his confession to the General, the strange tidings he had learned in London, and then the cruel paralysing blow of Annie’s engagement, renewed the very day after he had left Broadhurst, believing on no slight grounds that she loved him and him only. All the burning sorrow, pent for two long years within his secret soul, he poured forth before her; and Laura listened with glowing cheeks and tearful eyes, and a growing resolve in her brave, pure heart to set aside all conventionalisms and every hollow form of society, and if Annie should but prove worthy of him, to labour with all the energy of her earnest nature to bring these young, sad, loving hearts together again.