Ernest Maltravers Part 15

"Ferrers," said he, "if you care for me, breathe not a word disrespectful to Madame de Ventadour: she is an angel!"

"But why leave Naples?"

"Trouble me no more."

"Good day, sir," said Ferrers, highly offended, and he stalked out of the chamber; nor did Ernest see him again before his departure.

It was late that evening when Maltravers found himself alone in his carriage, pursuing by starlight the ancient and melancholy road to Mola di Gaeta.

His solitude was a luxury to Maltravers; he felt an inexpressible sense of relief to be freed from Ferrers. The hard sense, the unpliant, though humorous imperiousness, the animal sensuality of his companion would have been torture to him in his present state of mind.

The next morning, when he rose, the orange blossoms of Mola di Gaeta were sweet beneath the window of the inn where he rested. It was now the early spring, and the freshness of the odour, the breathing health of earth and air, it is impossible to describe. Italy itself boasts few spots more lovely than that same Mola di Gaeta--nor does that halcyon sea wear, even at Naples or Sorrento, a more bland and enchanting smile.

So, after a hasty and scarcely-tasted breakfast, Maltravers strolled through the orange groves, and gained the beach; and there, stretched at idle length by the murmuring waves, he resigned himself to thought, and endeavoured, for the first time since his parting with Valerie, to collect and examine the state of his mind and feelings. Maltravers, to his own surprise, did not find himself so unhappy as he had expected. On the contrary, a soft and almost delicious sentiment, which he could not well define, floated over all his memories of the beautiful Frenchwoman.

Perhaps the secret was, that while his pride was not mortified, his conscience was not galled--perhaps, also, he had not loved Valerie so deeply as he had imagined. The confession and the separation had happily come before her presence had grown--_the want of a life_. As it was, he felt as if, by some holy and mystic sacrifice, he had been made reconciled to himself and mankind. He woke to a juster and higher appreciation of human nature, and of woman's nature in especial. He had found honesty and truth where he might least have expected it--in a woman of a court--in a woman surrounded by vicious and frivolous circles--in a woman who had nothing in the opinion of her friends, her country, her own husband, the social system in which she moved, to keep her from the concessions of frailty--in a woman of the world--a woman of Paris!--yes, it was his very disappointment that drove away the fogs and vapours that, arising from the marshes of the great world, had gradually settled round his soul. Valerie de Ventadour had taught him not to despise her s.e.x, not to judge by appearances, not to sicken of a low and a hypocritical world. He looked in his heart for the love of Valerie, and he found there the love of virtue. Thus, as he turned his eyes inward, did he gradually awaken to a sense of the true impressions engraved there. And he felt the bitterest drop of the fountains was not sorrow for himself, but for her. What pangs must that high spirit have endured ere it could have submitted to the avowal it had made! Yet, even in this affliction he found at last a solace. A mind so strong could support and heal the weakness of the heart. He felt that Valerie de Ventadour was not a woman to pine away in the unresisted indulgence of morbid and unholy emotions. He could not flatter himself that she would not seek to eradicate a love she repented; and he sighed with a natural selfishness, when he owned also that sooner or later she would succeed.

"But be it so," said he, half aloud--"I will prepare my heart to rejoice when I learn that she remembers me only as a friend. Next to the bliss of her love is the pride of her esteem."

Such was the sentiment with which his reveries closed--and with every league that bore him further from the south, the sentiment grew strengthened and confirmed.

Ernest Maltravers felt there is in the affections themselves so much to purify and exalt, that even an erring love, conceived without a cold design, and (when its nature is fairly understood) wrestled against with a n.o.ble spirit, leaves the heart more tolerant and tender, and the mind more settled and enlarged. The philosophy limited to the reason puts into motion the automata of the closet--but to those who have the world for a stage, and who find their hearts are the great actors, experience and wisdom must be wrought from the Philosophy of the Pa.s.sions.

BOOK III.

"Not to all men Apollo shows himself-- Who sees him--_he_ is great!"

CALLIM. _Ex Hymno in Apollinon_.

CHAPTER I.

"Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears--soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony."

SHAKESPEARE.

BOAT SONG ON THE LAKE OF COMO.

I.

The Beautiful Clime!--the Clime of Love!

Thou beautiful Italy!

Like a mother's eyes, the earnest skies Ever have smiles for thee!

Not a flower that blows, not a beam that glows, But what is in love with thee!

II.

The beautiful lake, the Larian lake!*

Soft lake like a silver sea, The Huntress Queen, with her nymphs of sheen, Never had bath like thee.

See, the Lady of night and her maids of light, Even now are mid-deep in thee!

* The ancient name of Como.

III.

Beautiful child of the lonely hills, Ever blest may thy slumbers be!

No mourner should tread by thy dreamy bed, No life bring a care to thee-- Nay, soft to thy bed, let the mourner tread-- And life be a dream like thee!

Such, though uttered in the soft Italian tongue, and now imperfectly translated--such were the notes that floated one lovely evening in summer along the lake of Como. The boat, from which came the song, drifted gently down the sparkling waters, towards the mossy banks of a lawn, whence on a little eminence gleamed the white walls of a villa, backed by vineyards. On that lawn stood a young and handsome woman, leaning on the arm of her husband, and listening to the song. But her delight was soon deepened into one of more personal interest, as the boatmen, nearing the banks, changed their measure, and she felt that the minstrelsy was in honour of herself.

SERENADE TO THE SONGSTRESS.

I.

CHORUS.

Softly--oh, soft! let us rest on the oar, And vex not a billow that sighs to the sh.o.r.e:-- For sacred the spot where the starry waves meet With the beach, where the breath of the citron is sweet.

There's a spell on the waves that now waft us along To the last of our Muses, the Spirit of Song.

RECITATIVE.

The Eagle of old renown, And the Lombard's iron crown And Milan's mighty name are ours no more; But by this gla.s.sy water, Harmonia's youngest daughter, Still from the lightning saves one laurel to our sh.o.r.e.

II.

CHORUS.

They heard thee, Teresa, the Teuton, the Gaul, Who have raised the rude thrones of the North on our fall; They heard thee, and bow'd to the might of thy song; Like love went thy steps o'er the hearts of the strong; As the moon to the air, as the soul to the clay, To the void of this earth was the breath of thy lay.

RECITATIVE.

Honour for aye to her The bright interpreter Of Art's great mysteries to the enchanted throng; While tyrants heard thy strains, Sad Rome forgot her chains; The world the sword had lost was conquer'd back by song!

"Thou repentest, my Teresa, that thou hast renounced thy dazzling career for a dull home, and a husband old enough to be thy father," said the husband to the wife, with a smile that spoke confidence in the answer.

"Ah, no! even this homage would have no music to me if thou didst not hear it."

She was a celebrated personage in Italy--the Signora Cesarini, now Madame de Montaigne. Her earlier youth had been spent upon the stage, and her promise of vocal excellence had been most brilliant. But after a brief though splendid career, she married a French gentleman of good birth and fortune, retired from the stage, and spent her life alternately in the gay saloons of Paris and upon the banks of the dreamy Como, on which her husband had purchased a small but beautiful villa.

She still, however, exercised in private her fascinating art; to which--for she was a woman of singular accomplishment and talent--she added the gift of the improvvisatrice. She had just returned for the summer to this lovely retreat, and a party of enthusiastic youths from Milan had sought the lake of Como to welcome her arrival with the suitable homage of song and music. It is a charming relic, that custom of the brighter days of Italy; and I myself have listened, on the still waters of the same lake, to a similar greeting to a greater genius--the queenlike and unrivalled Pasta--the Semiramis of Song! And while my boat paused, and I caught something of the enthusiasm of the serenaders, the boatman touched me, and, pointing to a part of the lake on which the setting sun shed its rosiest smile, he said, "There, Signor, was drowned one of your countrymen 'bellissimo uomo! che fu bello!'"--yes, there, in the pride of his promising youth, of his n.o.ble and almost G.o.dlike beauty, before the very windows--the very eyes--of his bride--the waves without a frown had swept over the idol of many hearts--the graceful and gallant Locke.* And above his grave was the voluptuous sky, and over it floated the triumphant music. It was as the moral of the Roman poets--calling the living to a holiday over the oblivion of the dead.

* Captain William Locke of the Life Guards (the only son of the accomplished Mr. Locke of Norbury Park), distinguished by a character the most amiable, and by a personal beauty that certainly equalled, perhaps surpa.s.sed, the highest masterpiece of Grecian sculpture. He was returning in a boat from the town of Como to his villa on the banks of the lake, when the boat was upset by one of the mysterious under-currents to which the lake is dangerously subjected; and he was drowned in sight of his bride, who was watching his return from the terrace or balcony of their home.

As the boat now touched the bank, Madame de Montaigne accosted the musicians, thanked them with a sweet and unaffected earnestness for the compliment so delicately offered, and invited them ash.o.r.e. The Milanese, who were six in number, accepted the invitation, and moored their boat to the jutting sh.o.r.e. It was then that Monsieur de Montaigne pointed out to the notice of his wife a boat, that had lingered under the shadow of a bank, tenanted by a young man, who had seemed to listen with rapt attention to the music, and who had once joined in the chorus (as it was twice repeated), with a voice so exquisitely attuned, and so rich in its deep power, that it had awakened the admiration even of the serenaders themselves.

"Does not that gentleman belong to your party?" De Montaigne asked of the Milanese.