A Rent In A Cloud

CHAPTER XI. THE LIFE AT THE VILLA

THE curtains were undrawn, and the candles were lighted. All within looked just as he had so often seen it. The sick girl lay on her sofa, with her small spaniel at her feet Miss Grainger was working at a table, and Emily sat near her sister, bending over the end of the sofa, and talking to her. “Let me see that letter again, Florry,” she said, taking a letter from the passive fingers of the sick girl. “Yes, he is sure it must have been Calvert. He says, that though the Swiss papers give the name Colnart, he is sure it was Calvert, and you remember his last words here as he went away that evening?”

“Poor fellow!” said Florence, “I am sure I have no right to bear him good will, but I am sorry for him – really sorry. I suppose, by this time, it is all over?”

“The wound was through, the throat, it is said,” said Miss Grainger. “But how confused the whole story is. Who is Barnard, and why did Calvert fight to save Barnard’s honour?”

“No, aunt. It was to rescue Mr. Graham’s, the man who was about to marry Sophia Calvert.”

“Not at all, Milly. It was Graham who shot Barnard; and then poor Calvert, horrified at his friend’s fate – ”

Calvert never waited for more. He saw that there was that amount of mistake and misunderstanding, which required no aid on his part, and now nothing remained but to present himself suddenly before them as a fugitive from justice seeking shelter and protection. The rest he was content to leave to hazard.

A sharp ring at the door-bell was scarcely answered by the servant, when the man came to the drawing-room door, and made a sign to Miss Grainger.

“What is it, Giacomo? What do you mean?” she cried.

“Just one moment, signora; half a minute here,” he said.

Well accustomed to the tone of secrecy assumed by Italians on occasions the least important, Miss Grainger followed him outside, and there, under the glare of the hall-lamp, stood Calvert, pale, his hair dishevelled, his cravat loosened, and his coat-sleeve torn. “Save me! hide me!” said he, in a low whisper. “Can you – will you save me?”

She was one not unfitted to meet a sudden change; and, although secretly shocked, she rallied quickly, and led him into a room beside the hall “I know all,” said she. “We all knew it was your name.”

“Can you conceal me here for a day – two days at furthest?”

“A week, if you need it.”

“And the servant – can he be trusted?”

“To the death. I’ll answer for him.”

“How can you keep the secret from the girls?”

“I need not; they must know everything.”

“But Florence; can she – has she forgiven me?”

“Yes, thoroughly. She scarcely knows about what she quarrelled with you. She sometimes fears that she wronged you; and Milly defends you always.”

“You have heard – you know what has happened to me?”

“In a fashion: that is, we only know there has been a duel. We feared you had been wounded; and, indeed we heard severely wounded.”

“The story is too long to tell you now; enough, if I say it was all about Sophy. You remember Sophy, and a fellow who was to have married her, and who jilted her, and not only this but boasted of the injury he had done her, and the insult he had thrown on us. A friend of mine, Barnard, a brother officer, heard him – but why go on with this detail? – there was a quarrel and a challenge, and it was by merest accident I heard of it, and reached Basle in time. Of course, I was not going to leave to Barnard what of right belonged to me. There were, as you can imagine, innumerable complications in the matter. Rochefort, the other man’s friend, and a French fellow, insisted on having a finger in the pie. The end of it was, I shot Graham and somebody else – I believe Rochefort – put a bullet into Barnard. The Swiss laws in some cantons are severe, and we only learned too late that we had fought in the very worst of them; so I ran, I don’t know how, or in what direction. I lost my head for a while, and wandered about the Voralberg and the Splugen for a week or two. How I find myself now here is quite a mystery to me.”

There was a haggard wildness in his look that fully accorded with all he said, and the old lady felt the most honest pity for his sufferings.

“I don’t know if I’m perfectly safe here,” said he, looking fearfully around him. “Are you sure you can conceal me, if need be?”

“Quite sure; have no fear about that. I’ll tell the girls that your safety requires the greatest caution and secrecy, and you’ll see how careful they will be.”

“Girls will talk, though,” said he, doubtingly.

“There is the double security here – they have no one to talk to,” she said, with a faint smile.

“Very true. I was forgetting how retired your life was here. Now for the next point. What are you to tell them – I mean, how much are they to know?”

The old lady looked puzzled; she felt she might easily have replied, “If they only know no more than I can tell them, your secret will certainly be safe;” but, as she looked at his haggard cheek and feverish eye, she shrunk from renewing a theme full of distress and suffering. “Leave it to me to say something – anything which shall show them that you are in a serious trouble, and require all their secrecy and sympathy.”

“Yes, that may do – at least for the present. It will do at least with Emily, who bears me no ill will.”

“You wrong Florence if you imagine that she does. It was only the other day, when, in a letter from Loyd, she read that you had left the army, she said how sorry she was you had quitted the career so suited to your abilities.”

“Indeed! I scarce hoped for so much of interest in me.”

“Oh, she talks continually about you; and always as of one, who only needs the guidance of some true friend to be a man of mark and distinction yet.”

“It is very good, very kind of her,” he said; and, for an instant, seemed lost in thought.

“I’ll go back now,” said Miss Grainger, “and prepare them for your coming. They’ll wonder what has detained me all this while. Wait one moment for me here.”

Calvert, apparently, was too much engaged with his own thoughts to hear her, and suffered her to go without a word. She was quickly back again, and beckoning him to follow her, led the way to the drawing-room.

Scarcely had Calvert passed the doorway, when the two girls met him, and each taking a hand, conducted him without a word to a sofa. Indeed, his sickly look, and the air of downright misery in his countenance, called or all their sympathy and kindness.

“I have scarcely strength to thank you!” he said to them, in a faint voice. Though the words were addressed to both, the glance he gave towards Florence sent the blood to her pale cheeks, and made her turn away in some confusion.

“You’ll have some tea and rest yourself, and when you feel once quiet and undisturbed here you’ll soon regain your strength,” said Emily, as she turned towards the tea-table. While Florence, after a few moments’ hesitation, seated herself on the sofa beside him.

“Has she told you what has befallen me?” whispered he to her.

“In part – that is, something of it. As much as she could in a word or two; but do not speak of it now.”

“If I do not now, Florence, I can never have the courage again.”

“Then be it so,” she said eagerly. “I am more anxious to see you strong and well again, than to hear how you became wretched and unhappy.”

“But if you do not hear the story from myself, Florence, and if you should hear the tale that others may tell of me – if you never know how I have been tried and tempted – ”

“There, there – don’t agitate yourself, or I must leave you; and, sec, Milly is remarking our whispering together.”

“Does she grudge me this much of your kindness?”

“No; but – there – here she comes with your tea.” She drew a little table in front of him, and tried to persuade him to eat.

“Your sister has just made me a very generous promise, Emily,” said he. “She has pledged herself – even without hearing my exculpation – to believe me innocent; and although I have told her that the charges that others will make against me may need some refutation on my part, she says she’ll not listen to them. Is not that very noble – is it not truly generous?”

“It is what I should expect from Florence.”

“And what of Florence’s sister?” said he, with a half furtive glance towards her.

“I hope, nothing less generous.”

“Then I am content,” said he, with a faint sigh. “When a man is as thoroughly ruined as I am, it might be thought he would be indifferent to opinion in every shape – and so I am, beyond the four walls of this room; but here,” and he looked at each in turn, “are the arbiters of my fate; if you will but be to me dear sisters – kind, compassionate, forgiving sisters – you will do more for this crushed and wounded heart, than all the sympathy of the whole world beside.”

“We only ask to be such to you,” cried Florence, eagerly: “and we feel how proud we could be of such a brother; but, above all, do not distress yourself now, by a theme so painful to touch on. Let the unhappy events of the last few weeks lie, if not forgotten, at least unmentioned, till you are calm and quiet enough to talk of them as old memories.”

“Yes! but how can I bear the thought of what others may say of me – meanwhile?”

“Who are these others – we see no one, we go into no society?”

“Have you not scores of dear friends, writing by every post to ask if this atrocious duellist be ‘your’ Mr. Calvert, and giving such a narrative, besides, of his doings, that a galley-slave would shrink from contact with such a man? Do I not know well how tenderly people deal with the vices that are not their own? How severe the miser can be on the spendthrift, and how mercilessly the coward condemns the hot blood that resents an injury, and how gladly they would involve in shame the character that would not brook dishonour?”

“Believe me, we have very few ‘dear friends’ at all,” said Florence, smiling, “and not one, no, not a single one of the stamp you speak of.”

“If you were only to read our humdrum letters,” chimed in Emily, “you’d see how they never treat of anything but little domestic details of people who live as obscurely as ourselves. How Uncle Tom’s boy has got into the Charterhouse; or Mary’s baby taken the chicken-pox.”

“But Loyd writes to you – and not in this strain?”

“I suspect Joseph cares little to fill his pages with what is called news,” said Emily, with a laughing glance at her sister, who had turned away her head in some confusion.

“Nor would he be one likely to judge you harshly,” said Florence, recovering herself. “I believe you have few friends who rate you more highly than he does.”

“It is very generous of him!” said Calvert, haughtily; and then, catching in the proud glance of Florry’s eyes a daring challenge of his words, he added, in a quieter tone, “I mean, it is generous of him to overlook how unjust I have been to him. It is not easy for men so different to measure each other, and I certainly formed an unfair estimate of him.”

“Oh! may I tell him that you said so?” cried she, taking his hand with warmth.

“I mean to do it for myself dearest sister. It is a debt I cannot permit another to acquit for me.”

“Don’t you think you are forgetting our guest’s late fatigues, and what need he has of rest and quietness, girls?” said Miss Grainger, coming over to where they sat.

“I was forgetting everything in my joy, aunt,” cried Florence. “He is going to write to Joseph like a dear, dear brother as he is, and we shall all be so happy, and so united.”

“A brother? Mr. Calvert a brother?” said the old lady, in consternation at such a liberty with one of that mighty house, in which she had once lived as an humble dependant.

“Yes,” cried he. “It is a favour I have begged, and they have not denied me.”

The old lady’s face flushed, and pride and shame glowed together on her cheeks.

“So we must say good-night,” said Calvert, rising; “but we shall have a long day’s talk together, to-morrow. Who is it that defines an aunt as a creature that always sends one to bed?” whispered he to Florence.

“What made you laugh, dear?” said her sister, after Calvert had left the room.

“I forget – I didn’t know I laughed – he is a strange incomprehensible fellow – sometimes I like him greatly, and sometimes I feel a sort of dread of him that amounts to terror.”

“If I were Joseph, I should not be quite unconcerned about that jumbled estimation.”

“He has no need to be. They are unlike in every way,” said she, gravely; and then, taking up her book, went on, or affected to go on reading.

“I wish Aunt Grainger would not make so much of him. It is a sort of adulation that makes our position regarding him perfectly false,” said Emily. “Don’t you think so, dear?”

Florence, however, made no reply, and no more passed that evening between them.

Few of us have not had occasion to remark the wondrous change produced in some quiet household, where the work of domesticity goes on in routine fashion, by the presence of an agreeable and accomplished guest. It is not alone that he contributes by qualities of his own to the common stock of amusement, but that he excites those around him to efforts, which develop resources they had not, perhaps, felt conscious of possessing. The necessity, too, of wearing one’s company face, which the presence of a stranger exacts, has more advantages than many wot of. The small details whose discussion forms the staple of daily talk – the little household cares and worries – have to be shelved. One can scarcely entertain their friends with stories of the cook’s impertinence, or the coachman’s neglect, and one has to see, as they do see, that the restraint of a guest does not in reality affect the discipline of a household, though it suppress the debates and arrest the discussion.

It has been often remarked that the custom of appearing in parliament – as it was once observed – in court-dress, imposed a degree of courtesy and deference in debate, of which men in wide-awake hats and paletots are not always observant; and, unquestionably, in the little ceremonial observances imposed by the stranger’s presence, may be seen the social benefits of a good breeding not marred by over-familiarity. It was thus Calvert made his presence felt at the villa. It was true he had many companionable qualities, and he had, or at least affected to have, very wide sympathies. He was ever ready to read aloud, to row, to walk, to work in the flower-garden, to sketch, or to copy music, as though each was an especial pleasure to him. If he was not as high spirited and light hearted as they once had seen him, it did not detract from, but rather added to the interest he excited. He was in misfortune – a calamity not the less to be compassionated that none could accurately define it; some dreadful event had occurred, some terrible consequence impended, and each felt the necessity of lighten ing the load of his sorrow, and helping him to bear his affliction. They were so glad when they could cheer him up, and so happy when they saw him take even a passing pleasure in the pursuits their own days were spent in.

They had now been long enough in Italy not to feel depressed by its dreamy and monotonous quietude, but to feel the inexpressible charm of that soft existence, begotten of air, and climate, and scenery. They had arrived at that stage – and it is a stage – in which the olive is not dusky, nor the mountain arid: when the dry course of the torrent suggests no wish for water. Life – mere life – has a sense of luxury about it, unfelt in northern lands. With an eager joy, therefore, did they perceive that Calvert seemed to have arrived at the same sentiment, and the same appreciation as themselves. He seemed to ask for nothing better than to stroll through orange groves, or lie under some spreading fig-tree, drowsily soothed by the song of the vine-dresser, or the unwearied chirp of the cicala. How much of good there must be surely in a nature pleased with such tranquil simple pleasures! thought they. See how he likes to watch the children at their play, and with what courtesy he talked to that old priest. It is clear dissipation may have damaged, but has not destroyed that fine temperament – his heart has not lost its power to feel. It was thus that each thought of him, though there was less of confidence between the sisters than heretofore.

A very few words will suffice to explain this: When Florence recovered from the shock Calvert had occasioned her on the memorable night of his visit, she had nothing but the very vaguest recollection of what had occurred. That some terrible tidings had been told her – some disastrous news in which Loyd and Calvert were mixed up: that she had blamed Calvert for rashness or indiscretion; that he had either shown a letter he ought never to have shown, or not produced one which might have averted a misfortune; and, last of all, that she herself had done or said something which a calmer judgment could not justify – all these were in some vague and shadowy shape before her, and all rendered her anxious and uneasy. On the other hand, Emily, seeing with some satisfaction that her sister never recurred to the events of that unhappy night, gladly availed herself of this silence to let them sleep undisturbed. She was greatly shocked, it is true, by the picture Calvert’s representation presented of Loyd. He had never been a great favourite of her own; she recognised many good and amiable traits in his nature, but she deemed him gloomy, depressed, and a dreamer – and a dreamer, above all, she regarded as unfit to be the husband of Florence, whose ill health had only tended to exaggerate a painful and imaginative disposition. She saw, or fancied she saw, that Loyd’s temperament, calm and gentle though it was, deemed to depress her sister. His views of life were very sombre, and no effort ever enabled him to look forward in a sanguine or hopeful spirit If, however, to these feelings an absolute fault of character were to be added – the want of personal courage – her feelings for him could no longer be even the qualified esteem she had hitherto experienced. She also knew that nothing could be such a shock to Florence, as to believe that the man she loved was a coward; nor could any station, or charm, or ability, however great, compensate for such a defect As a matter, therefore, for grave after-thought, but not thoroughly “proven,” she retained this charge in her mind, nor did she by any accident drop a hint or a word that could revive the memory of that evening.

As for Miss Grainger, only too happy to see that Florence seemed to retain no trace of that distressing scene, she never went back to it, and thus every event of the night was consigned to silence, if not oblivion. Still, there grew out of that reserve a degree of estrangement between the sisters, which each, unconscious of in herself, could detect in the other. “I think Milly has grown colder to me of late, aunt She is not less kind or attentive, but there is a something of constraint about her I cannot fathom,” would Florence say to her aunt While the other whispered, “I wonder why Florry is so silent when we are alone together? She that used to tell me all her thoughts, and speak for hours of what she hoped and wished, now only alludes to some commonplace topic – the book she has just read, or the walk we took yesterday.”

The distance between them was not the less wide that each had secretly confided to Calvert her misgivings about the other. Indeed, it would have been, for girls so young and inexperienced in life, strange not to have accorded him their confidence. He possessed a large share of that quality which very young people regard as sagacity. I am not sure that the gift has got a special name, but we have all of us heard of some one “with such a good head,” “so safe an adviser,” “such a rare counsellor in a difficulty,” “knowing life and mankind so well,” and “such an aptitude to take the right road in a moment of embarrassment.” The phoenix is not usually a man of bright or showy qualities; he is, on the contrary, one that the world at large has failed to recognise. If, however, by any chance he should prove to be smart, ready-witted, and a successful talker, his sway is a perfect despotism. Such was Calvert; at least such was he to the eyes of these sisters. Now Emily had confided to him that she thought Loyd totally unworthy of Florence. His good qualities were undeniable, but he had few attractive or graceful ones; and then there was a despondent, depressed tone about him that must prove deeply injurious to one whose nature required bright and cheery companionship. Calvert agreed with every word of this.