Chapter 59

ON THE ROAD.

Before Lord Chetwynde left Lausanne the doctor told him all about the poison and the antidote. He enlarged with great enthusiasm upon Lady Chetwynde's devotion and foresight; but his information caused Lord Chetwynde to meditate deeply upon this thing. Hilda found out that the doctor had said this, and gave her explanation. She said that the valet had described the symptoms; that she had asked a London doctor, who suspected poison, and gave her an antidote. She herself, she said, did not know what to think of it, but had naturally suspected the valet. She had charged him with it on her arrival. He had looked very much confused, and had immediately fled from the place. His guilt, in her opinion, had been confirmed by his flight. To her opinion Lord Chetwynde assented, and concluded that his valet wished to plunder him. He now recalled many suspicious circumstances about him, and remembered that he had taken the man without asking any one about him, satisfied with the letters of recommendation which he had brought, and which he had not taken the trouble to verify. He now believed that these letters were all no better than forgeries, and that he had well-nigh fallen a victim to one of the worst of villains. In his mind this revelation of the doctor only gave a new claim upon his gratitude toward the woman who had rescued him.

Shortly after he started for Italy. Hilda went with him. His position was embarrassing. Here was a woman to whom he lay under the deepest obligations, whose tender and devoted love was manifested in every word and action, and yet he was utterly incapable of reciprocating that love. She was beautiful, but her beauty did not affect him; she was, as he thought, his wife, yet he could never be a husband to her. Her piteous appeal bad moved his heart, and forced him to take her with him, yet he was looking forward impatiently for some opportunity of leaving her. He could think of India only as the place which was likely to give him this opportunity, and concluded that after a short stay in Florence he would leave for the East, and resume his old duties. Before leaving Lausanne he wrote to the authorities in England, and applied to be reinstated in some position in the Indian service, which he had not yet quitted, or, if possible, to go back to his old place. A return to India was now his only hope, and the only way by which he could escape from the very peculiar difficulties of his situation.

It was a trying position, but he took refuge in a certain lofty courtesy which well became him, and which might pass very well for that warmer feeling of which he was destitute. His natural kindliness of disposition softened his manner toward Hilda, and his sense of obligation made him tenderly considerate. If Hilda could have been content with any thing except positive love, she would have found happiness in that gentle and kindly and chivalrous courtesy which she received at the hands of Lord Chetwynde. Content with this she was not. It was something different from this that she desired; yet, after all, it was an immense advance on the old state of things. It gave her the chance of making herself known to Lord Chetwynde, a chance which had been denied to her before. Conversation was no longer impossible. At Chetwynde Castle there had been nothing but the most formal remarks; now there were things which approximated almost to an interchange of confidence. By her devotion, and by her confession of her feelings, she had presented herself to him in a new light, and that memorable confession of hers could not be forgotten. It was while traveling together that the new state of things was most manifest to her. She sat next to him in the carriage; she touched him; her arm was close to his. That touch thrilled through her, even though she knew too well that he was cold and calm-and indifferent. But this was, at least, a better thing than that abhorrence and repugnance which he had formerly manifested; and the friendly smile and the genial remark which he often directed to her were received by her with joy, and treasured up in the depths of her soul as something precious.

Traveling thus together through scenes of grandeur and of beauty, seated side by side, it was impossible to avoid a closer intimacy than common. In spite of Lord Chetwynde's coolness, the very fact that he was thus thrown into constant contact with a woman who was at once beautiful and clever, and who at the same time had made an open confession of her devotion to him, was of itself sufficient to inspire something like kindliness of sentiment at least in his heart, even though that heart were the coldest and the least susceptible that ever beat. The scenes through which they passed were of themselves calculated in the highest degree to excite a communion of soul. Hilda was clever and well-read, with a deep love for the beautiful, and a familiar acquaintance with all modern literature. There was not a beautiful spot on the road which had been sung by poets or celebrated in fiction of which she was ignorant. Ferney, sacred to Voltaire; Geneva, the birth-place of Rousseau; the Jura Alps, sung by Byron; the thousand places of lesser note embalmed by French or German writers in song and story, were all greeted by her with a delight that was girlish in its enthusiastic demonstrativeness. Lord Chetwynde, himself intellectual, recognized and respected the brilliant intellect of his companion. He saw that the woman who had saved his life at the risk of her own, who had dropped down senseless at his bedside, overworn with duties self-imposed through love for him--the woman who had overwhelmed him with obligations of gratitude--could also dazzle him with her intellectual brilliancy, and surpass him in familiarity with the greatest geniuses of modern times.

Another circumstance had contributed toward the formation of a closer association between these two. Hilda had no maid with her, but was traveling unattended. On leaving Lausanne she found that Gretchen was unwilling to go to Italy, and had, therefore, parted with her with many kind words, and the bestowal of presents sufficiently valuable to make the kind-hearted German maid keep in her memory for many years to come the recollection of that gentle suffering English lady, whose devotion to her husband had been shown so signally, and almost at the cost of her own life. Hilda took no maid with her. Either she could not obtain one in so small a place as Lausanne, or else she did not choose to employ one. Whatever the cause may have been, the result was to throw her more upon the care of Lord Chetwynde, who was forced, if not from gratitude at least from common politeness, to show her many of those little attentions which are demanded by a lady from a gentleman. Traveling together as they did, those attentions were required more frequently than under ordinary circumstances; and although they seemed to Lord Chetwynde the most ordinary commonplaces, yet to Hilda every separate act of attention or of common politeness carried with it a joy which was felt through all her being. If she had reasoned about that joy, she might perhaps have seen how unfounded it was. But she did not reason about it; it was enough to her that he was by her side, and that acts like these came from him to her. In her mind all the past and all the future were forgotten, and there was nothing but an enjoyment of the present.

Their journey lay through regions which presented every thing that could charm the taste or awaken admiration. At first there was the grandeur of Alpine scenery. From this they emerged into the softer beauty of the Italian clime. It was the Simplon Road which they traversed, that gigantic monument to the genius of Napoleon, which is more enduring than even the fame of Marengo or Austerlitz; and this road, with its alternating scenes of grandeur and of beauty, of glory and of gloom, had elicited the utmost admiration from each. At length, one day, as they were descending this road on the slope nearest Italy, on leaving Domo d'Ossola, they came to a place where the boundless plains of Lombardy lay stretched before them. There the verdurous fields stretched away beneath their eyes--an expanse of living green; seeming like the abode of perpetual summer to those who looked down from the habitation of winter. Far away spread the plains to the distant horizon, where the purple Apennines arose bounding the view. Nearer was the Lago Maggiore with its wondrous islands, the Isola Hella and the Isola Madre, covered with their hanging gardens, whose green foliage rose over the dark blue waters of the lake beneath; while beyond that lake lay towns and villages and hamlets, whose far white walls gleamed brightly amidst the vivid green of the surrounding plain; and vineyards also, and groves and orchards and forests of olive and chestnut trees. It was a scene which no other on earth can surpass, if it can equal, and one which, to travelers descending the Alps, has in every age brought a resistless charm.

This was the first time that Hilda had seen this glorious land. Lord Chetwynde had visited Naples, but to him the prospect that lay beneath was as striking as though he had never seen any of the beauties of Italy. Hilda, however, felt its power most. Both gazed long and with deep admiration upon this matchless scene without uttering one word to express their emotions; viewing it in silence, as though to break that silence would break the spell which had been thrown over them by the first sight of this wondrous land. At last Hilda broke that spell. Carried away by the excitement of the moment she started to her feet, and stood erect in the carriage, and then burst forth into that noble paraphrase which Byron has made of the glorious sonnet of Filicaja:

"Italia! O Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty, which became A funeral dower of present woes and past, On thy sweet brow is sorrow plowed by shame, And annals graven in characters of flame. O God! that thou wert in thy nakedness Less lovely, or more powerful, and couldst claim Thy right, and awe the robbers back, who press To shed thy blood and drink the tears of thy distress."

She stood like a Sibyl, inspired by the scene before her. Pale, yet lovely, with all her intellectual beauty refined by the sorrows through which she had passed, she herself might have been taken for an image of that Italy which she thus invoked. Lord Chetwynde looked at her, and amidst his surprise at such an outburst of enthusiasm he had some such thoughts as these. But suddenly, from some unknown cause, Hilda sank back into her seat, and burst into tears. At the display of such emotion Lord Chetwynde looked on deeply disturbed. What possible connection there could be between these words and her agitation he could not see. But he was full of pity for her, and he did what was most natural. He took her hand, and spoke kind words to her, and tried to soothe her. At his touch her agitation subsided. She smiled through her tears, and looked at him with a glance that spoke unutterable things. It was the first time that Lord Chetwynde had shown toward her any thing approaching to tenderness.

On that same day another incident occurred.

A few miles beyond Domo d'Ossola there was an inn where they had stopped to change horses. They waited here for a time till the horses were ready, and then resumed their journey. The road went on before them for miles, winding along gently in easy curves and with a gradual descent toward those smiling vales which lay beneath them. As they drove onward each turn in the road seemed to bring some new view before them, and to disclose some fresh glimpse to their eyes of that voluptuous Italian beauty which they were now beholding, and which appeared all the lovelier from the contrast which it presented to that sublime Alpine scenery--the gloom of awful gorges, the grandeur of snow-capped heights through which they had been journeying.

Inside the carriage were Lord Chetwynde and Hilda. Outside was the driver. Hilda was just pointing out to Lord Chetwynde some peculiar tint in the purple of the distant Apennines when suddenly the carriage gave a lurch, and with a wild bound, the horses started off at full speed down the road. Something had happened. Either the harness had given way or the horses were frightened; at any rate, they were running away at a fearful pace, and the driver, erect on his seat, was striving with all his might to hold in the maddened animals. His efforts were all to no purpose. On they went, like the wind, and the carriage, tossed from side to side at their wild springs seemed sometimes to leap into the air. The road before them wound on down a spur of the mountains, with deep ravines on one side--a place full of danger for such a race as this.

It was a fearful moment. For a time Hilda said not a word; she sat motionless, like one paralyzed by terror; and then, as the carriage gave a wilder lurch than usual, she gave utterance to a loud cry of fear, and flung her arms around Lord Chetwynde.

"Save me! oh, save me!" she exclaimed.

She clung to him desperately, as though in thus clinging to him she had some assurance of safety. Lord Chetwynde sat erect, looking out upon the road before him, down which they were dashing, and saying not a word. Mechanically he put his arm around this panic-stricken woman, who clung to him so tightly, as though by that silent gesture he meant to show that he would protect her as far as possible. But in so perilous a race all possibility of protection was out of the question.

At last the horses, in their onward career, came to a curve in the road, where, on one side, there was a hill, and on the other a declivity. It was a sharp turn. Their impetus was too swift to be readily stayed. Dashing onward, the carriage was whirled around after them, and was thrown off the road down the declivity. For a few paces the horses dragged it onward as it Iay on its side, and then the weight of the carriage was too much for them. They stopped, then staggered, then backed, and then, with a heavy-plunge, both carriage and horses went down into the gully beneath.

It was not more than thirty feet of a descent, and the bottom was the dry bed of a mountain torrent. The horses struggled and strove to free themselves. The driver jumped off uninjured, and sprang at them to stop them. This he succeeded in doing, at the cost of some severe bruises.

Meanwhile the occupants of the carriage had felt the full consciousness of the danger. As the carriage went down Hilda clung more closely to Lord Chetwynde. He, on his part, said not a word, but braced himself for the fall. The carriage rolled over and over in its descent, and at last stopped. Lord Chetwynde, with Hilda in his arms, was thrown violently down. As soon as he could he raised himself and drew Hilda out from the wreck of the carriage.

She was senseless.

He laid her down upon the grass. Her eyes were closed, her hair was all disordered, her face was as white as the face of a corpse. A stream of blood trickled down over her marble forehead from a wound in her head. It was a piteous sight.

Lord Chetwynde took her in his arms and carried her off a little distance, to a place where there was some water in the bed of the brook. With this he sought to restore her to consciousness. For a long time his efforts were unavailing.

At last he called to the driver.

"Tie up one of the horses and get on the other," he said, "and ride for your life to the nearest house. Bring help. The lady is stunned, and must be taken away as soon as possible. Get them to knock up a litter, and bring a couple of stout fellows back to help us carry her. Make haste--for your life."

The driver at once comprehended the whole situation. He did as he was bid, and in a few minutes the sound of his horse's hoofs died away in the distance.

Lord Chetwynde was left alone with Hilda.

She lay in his arms, her beautiful face on his shoulder, tenderly supported; that face white, and the lips bloodless, the eyes closed, and blood trickling from the wound on her head. It was not a sight upon which any one might look unmoved.

And Lord Chetwynde was moved to his inmost soul by that sight.

Who was this woman? His wife! the one who stood between him and his desires.

Ah, true! But she was something more.

And now, as he looked at her thus lying in his arms, there came to him the thought of all that she had been to him--the thought of her undying love--her matchless devotion. That pale face, those closed eyes, those mute lips, that beautiful head, stained with oozing blood, all spoke to him with an eloquence which awakened a response within him.

Was this the end of all that love and that devotion? Was this the fulfillment of his promise to General Pomeroy? Was he doing by this woman as she had done by him? Had she not made more than the fullest atonement for the offenses and follies of the past? Had she not followed him through Europe to seek him and to snatch him from the grasp of a villain? Had she not saved his life at the risk of her own? Had she not stood by his side till she fell lifeless at his feet in her unparalleled self-devotion?

These were the questions that came to him.

He loved her not; but if he wished for love, could he ever find any equal to this? That poor, frail, slender frame pleaded piteously; that white face, as it lay upturned, was itself a prayer.

Involuntarily he stooped down, and in his deep pity he pressed his lips to that icy brow. Then once more he looked at her. Once more he touched her, and this time his lips met hers.

"My God!" he groaned; "what can I do? Why did I ever see--that other one?"

An hour passed and the driver returned. Four men came with him, carrying a rude litter. On this Hilda's senseless form was placed. And thus they carried her to the nearest house, while Lord Chetwynde followed in silence and in deep thought.