CHAPTER XII.

"Lake Leman woos me with its crystal face, The mirror where the stars and mountains view The stillness of their aspect in each trace Its clear depth yields of their far height and hue." _Childe Harold._

"And can you rend, by doubting still, A heart so much your own?"--_Moore._

"What a delightful evening this is!" said Lady Arranmore to Ellen Ravensworth, as their boat, whose wing-like sails not a breath filled, was rowed slowly up clear Leman by the measured splash of the oars, over which bent two stout Switzers. "How exquisite is every tint of mountain, lake, and cloud! it was surely on a sister evening to this that Lord Byron penned those beautiful lines in Childe Harold? Listen, Miss Ravensworth," continued the young Marchioness, as she opened a handsomely bound pocket edition of that poem, and in a sweet clear voice read the following stanza:--

"It is the hush of night, and all between Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear, Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen, Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear Precipitously steep; and drawing near, There breathes a living fragrance, from the shore, Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear Drops the light drip of the suspended oar, Or chirps the grasshopper one good-night carol more." _Childe Harold_, Canto iii., Stanza lxxxvi.

Ellen listened abstractedly without reply, as if her mind was too filled with beauty to speak, and preferred silent adoration. The slight felucca-like craft, in which our young friends glided over the glassy surface of the dark-blue lake, was now some miles from Geneva, whose white palaces rose clearly above the waters, and were doubled in apparent height by their perfect reflection below. To the left frowned the black chain of Jura, and on the right beyond the Salève--dear to Ellen from its wonderful resemblance to the Salisbury crags of modern Athens--rose, cloud-like, "the monarch of mountains," throned high above the many aiguilles that stood like courtiers around their king. The summits of these Alps were distinctly reflected in the indigo depths beneath their boat, though a distance of fifty miles severed the admirers from their mirror.

The sun had already set, the evening star shone silvery over the west glowing with the lingering daylight; the valleys lay already robed in gloom; the lake shadowed; but the far heights of Mont Blanc still showed sunny peaks, and presented a strange contrast to "darkened Jura." Not a zephyr was awake--not a flaw disturbed the serenity of the waters, broken only by the dip of the oar which, as it touched the dark surface, made the waters flash with a blue light inconceivable to those who have never viewed this lake. The useless sails of the picturesque little craft resembled the wings of a sea-gull, or some other bird, calmly suspended a moment ere closed to rest. Towards the upper end of the lake the Alps descending rise more perpendicularly from the surface, and looked like grim sentinels watching over a fairy fountain. As the lake is crescent-shaped this part was of course hidden; but from behind the slight eminence that sloped down to the right bank, the sails of a similar craft were visible, and from them the clear notes of the silver bugle, mellowed into softness by the distance, rose with an indescribable sweetness, and died away in soft decay along the tranquil waters. There is something peculiarly delicious in music on the waters, and as the strains rose or fell in softest cadence our heroine listened with an earnestness as if it was the minstrelsy of angels. The musician was probably English if we might judge by the song he selected:--"There is no place like Home." Whilst it lasted the very boatmen, as if loath to lose one note, bent over their suspended oars, and the young friends looked at each other but spoke not. At last the dying fall grew fainter and fainter, till it entirely ceased, but was once more taken up and echoed among the vocal hills ere silence again brooded.

"Ah, how true that is, Lady Arranmore," said Ellen; "is it not? Beautiful as this land is, it is not home; and whilst our lips may say there is no scene like this in the land of our birth, yet our heart belies our words, and whispers, 'There is no place like home.'"

"True, Miss Ravensworth; yet you must remember we are here for our own pleasure, we are not like the exile, or the emigrant, unable to return;--we can hasten back when we please, and find the smiles of friends all the brighter after a slight absence. I fear you are unhappy, and look on the shady instead of the sunny side of life, and bend your eye rather toward yonder dark-browed Jura, than to the sunlit crest of Mont Blanc."

"And yet, Lady Arranmore, how cold is that peak of snow!--rosy though it be it only reflects the light and warmth it cannot feel. I have sometimes thought my heart was like that snowy height; in all perhaps except the imperishable pureness of its tint. To my mind there is something melancholy, almost distressing, in an evening like this; the last loveliness, the dying glory which lingers a few moments ere darkness lowers. It seems to tell us not to trust the smile of fortune, but to recollect how a night, whose darkness passeth not away, comes after."

"Now, on the contrary, I look on the evening as a pledge of a brighter morrow, and as I view the sinking sun I think how he will rise again more gloriously."

"Perhaps you take the right view; but what can you know of sorrow, Lady Arranmore? wedded to the man you love, gifted with all the blessings of life, the world as it were at your feet, beauty, rank, youth, health, and riches all yours; your cup is surely full?"

"And in what do you differ, Miss Ravensworth? are you not also beautiful, more beautiful than I am, at least I know one who thinks so; if you are not so rich, if you own not so proud a name, it only remains for you to court and gain them; and remember to be rich is not to be happy, to be great is not to be joyful."

"And know you not that it is in the heart, and nowhere else that happiness must be found in order to enjoy life? if the heart is sad, what shall make its bearer smile?"

"Then it is some cross in love, some blighted affection that makes you so melancholy, so unlike the Ellen I met last Christmas? Tell me your woe as a friend, let me sympathize with your grief. It is not good to bear it alone. Come, Miss Ravensworth,--come, Ellen, let me so call you,--tell me as you would tell your friend."

For some moments Ellen was silent--the hour had come at last--could she only summon courage and unburden her heart, could she make a confidante of the sister of him she loved?

"No!" she exclaimed, at last. "No, dear Lady Arranmore, do not think me unfriendly, but it may not be; let me bear my cross alone; One far higher than I will support me--why should I not?"

"Nay, Ellen," said the Marchioness, deeply interested in her young friend. "Nay, you mistake, even He confided His sorrows to His disciples."

"If you love me, Lady Arranmore, desist; if you knew how every word pierces my heart like an arrow, you would not speak so! Let us change the subject; tell me about Naples, and the blue Mediterranean; tell me," she continued, mastering her feelings, "when the second happy event is to take place; when the Earl, your brother's marriage with Lady Alice is to be celebrated?"

Though she strove to ask this question in a careless manner, as though it concerned her not, her voice so quivered and faltered towards the end of the sentence, that Lady Arranmore rather guessed than heard the concluding words.

"My brother's marriage--what do you mean, dear? why, this is news to me."

"Gracious heavens!" exclaimed Ellen, with a start; "do not pretend ignorance, his marriage with--with Lady Alice Claremont."

"My goodness, Ellen! Wentworth marry Lady Alice! Do you not know Alice's age? why she is barely fourteen years old. Then you too saw that absurd paragraph, and did you not see its refutation? But what is the matter? Are you ill?"

There was reason for the Marchioness's question; pale as alabaster Ellen clasped together her hands, and looking to the sky faltered:

"I thank thee, my God! I thank thee,--then it was untrue; he may be faithful still; how could I doubt him?" and apparently overcome with the intenseness of her feelings she sank back on the seat exhausted.

"What is untrue?--who may be faithful still?--whom did you doubt?" were the lady's hurried questions. "This is a riddle, Ellen--tell me what it all means? Do, dearest, do.--There, is not that pleasant?" pouring some Eau-de-Cologne on her broidered kerchief which she held to Ellen as a restorative,--"you feel better now? Ah, your colour is coming back--don't be in a hurry, but tell me as you can what all this means,--hide nothing."

After a few minutes, Ellen was sufficiently recovered to relate the whole history of her attachment to Lord Wentworth,--how he had given her the ring inscribed with the words "Hope on," and how, reading the fatal paragraph, and fancying him false, had so wrought on her mind as to bring on the dreadful fever, from whose ravages she was not yet wholly recovered.

"This passes fiction,--this is the romance of true, real life," said the Marchioness, stooping down and kissing her friend--"and he did give you the ring which so wonderfully snapt?"

"He did, he did!" exclaimed Ellen--"and here it is," drawing out a small packet, and giving it to Lady Arranmore.

"Then be sure my brother is too noble to raise hopes only to quench them,--and I admire his choice in choosing you, my own dear, beautiful Ellen! and let it be my task to have this little ring re-united. Give it me, Ellen, till it is again fit to circle your finger. But, Ellen, whilst I now regard you as a sister, and bid you follow its invitation and 'Hope on,' let me caution you not to be too sanguine yet. I mean do not be impatient, dearest,"--for the Marchioness began to think she was raising her friend's hopes too high, ere she was herself assured of their certainty;--"have patience, wait, and all will turn out right. I know Wentworth well; he will do nothing in a hurry; he will wait till he knows your character; and now all depends on you; at least, Ellen, he will now know he has a faithful love! But what puzzles me not a little, is how the denial of that foolish report, which no one can guess the origin of, did not reach you, and how the kind letters of inquiry my brother sent, did not reassure you? I thought then he certainly stretched a point in polite solicitude; now I know the reason why."

Our readers must not be ignorant of the answers to these natural questions of Lady Arranmore. In the first place it was a diabolic plot of the Captain's to insert the fatal paragraph, and when he saw how well it took effect, his next concern was to prevent the paper containing its refutation from reaching Mr. Ravensworth. However, in the confusion occasioned by Ellen's illness, all sight of papers would have been lost, even if the postman had not been bribed to withhold that journal. Had they dared they would also have intercepted the Earl's letters to her father, but these he received, though he forbore showing them to Ellen for fear he should again raise false hopes, and as he regarded them only as the offspring of a polite and friendly nature, he feared he would only again tear open a healing wound if he showed them.

"Oh, Lady Arranmore--dearest Edith, as you ask me now to call you," said Ellen, as their boat neared Geneva and the Isle de Jean Jacques Rousseau, "how happy I feel! I feel so bright now, like yonder height still lingering in sunshine, whilst darkness wraps the whole face of nature! How different are the feelings with which I stepped into this boat, and those with which I step out again!"

"Be assured I rejoice with your joy, but remember, Ellen, be patient and tranquil; I will write to Wentworth this very evening, and we shall have his answer before we leave for Paris."

The two friends agreed to keep their secret till the answer arrived, which came on the very day they were to start. Lord Wentworth said much to his sister which of course Ellen did not hear, but she did hear that he sent fondest love to her, and this dispelled the last shadow of doubt from her mind. Mr. Ravensworth was astonished by the wonderful change for the better in Ellen's looks, which he falsely attributed to the change of air, delightful weather, and charming scenery she had found abroad; but in reality the very happy news did more for her in a few days than all the tours or doctors living could have done in as many months, and she became the same merry-hearted girl she was, full of good spirits to a degree her father could not understand, till he became sharer too of the glad tidings, which made him rejoice with all the fulness of a father's love. Lord and Lady Arranmore were also on their homeward way, and it was determined they should travel in company as far as Paris. The Marquis was in fact beginning to sigh for home comforts, and professed himself sick of the acid French wines; so he was not sorry to find himself in his own comfortable carriage bowling northwards. Mr. Ravensworth and Ellen travelled behind in their post carriage; and very often the stout Marquis was turned out of his nest, to make room for Ellen, by Edith, whilst he had to content himself with the more lumbering vehicle of the country in which Mr. Ravensworth travelled; and after expending his wrath by cursing the jolting carriage and springs, generally made himself very comfortable with hock or champagne, for, we are grieved to say, wine was the Marquis' delight, and drinking his besetting sin! At Paris, the friends parted with the near prospect of a happy meeting ere long in Scotland, whither the noble couple were to proceed after a week at Paris, in order to pay their first visit at Dun Edin Towers.

In ten days more, Ellen was welcomed back, after a long absence, by her brother and sister, who received her home with rapturous joy, and were full of the kindness shown them by the Earl since his return to the Towers.

"Do you know, Nelly, we have spent every Saturday there, and he so often inquired after you?" said Johnny.

Mr. Lennox was one of the earliest to welcome our heroine back, and congratulate her on her improved health: he came avowedly to hear all about her tour, but one would have rather thought he had come to boast of his "good luck," as he called it, in being asked to spend a week at the Towers, where the Earl was about to entertain a select circle for a short time. "Among which," said the proud man, "are my cousins on my father's side, the Duke of Richmond and Lord George Lennox; and if I mistake not, Miss Ravensworth, both you and your father will also have the distinguished honour of accompanying me thither."