CHAPTER VI.
_In Which Captain Armine Pays His First Visit to Ducie_.
YES! it is the morning. Is it possible? Shall he again behold her? Thatform of surpassing beauty: that bright, that dazzling countenance; againare they to bless his entranced vision? Shall he speak to her again?That musical and thrilling voice, shall it again sound and echo in hisenraptured ear?
Ferdinand had reached Armine so many days before his calculated arrival,that he did not expect his family and the Grandisons to arrive for atleast a week. What a respite did he not now feel this delay! if ever hecould venture to think of the subject at all. He drove it indeedfrom his thoughts; the fascinating present completely engrossed hisexistence. He waited until the post arrived; it brought no letters,letters now so dreaded! He jumped upon his horse and galloped towardsDucie.
Mr. Temple was the younger son of a younger branch of a noble family.Inheriting no patrimony, he had been educated for the diplomaticservice, and the influence of his family had early obtained himdistinguished appointments. He was envoy to a German court when a changeof ministry occasioned his recall, and he retired, after a long careerof able and assiduous service, comforted by a pension and glorified by aprivy-councillorship. He was an acute and accomplished man, practisedin the world, with great self-control, yet devoted to his daughter, theonly offspring of a wife whom he had lost early and loved much.
Deprived at a tender age of that parent of whom she would have becomepeculiarly the charge, Henrietta Temple found in the devotion of herfather all that consolation of which her forlorn state was susceptible.She was not delivered over to the custody of a governess, or to the evenless sympathetic supervision of relations. Mr. Temple never permittedhis daughter to be separated from him; he cherished her life, and hedirected her education. Resident in a city which arrogates to itself,not without justice, the title of the German Athens, his pupil availedherself of all those advantages which were offered to her by theinstruction of the most skilful professors. Few persons were moreaccomplished than Henrietta Temple even at an early age; but her rareaccomplishments were not her most remarkable characteristics. Nature,which had accorded to her that extraordinary beauty we have attemptedto describe, had endowed her with great talents and a soul of sublimetemper.
It was often remarked of Henrietta Temple (and the circumstance maydoubtless be in some degree accounted for by the little interferenceand influence of women in her education) that she never was a girl. Sheexpanded at once from a charming child into a magnificent woman. She hadentered life very early, and had presided at her father's table for ayear before his recall from his mission. Few women in so short a periodhad received so much homage; but she listened to compliments with acareless though courteous ear, and received more ardent aspirations witha smile. The men, who were puzzled, voted her cold and heartless;but men should remember that fineness of taste, as well as apathy oftemperament, may account for an unsuccessful suit. Assuredly HenriettaTemple was not deficient in feeling; she entertained for her fathersentiments almost of idolatry, and those more intimate or dependentacquaintances best qualified to form an opinion of her character spokeof her always as a soul of infinite tenderness.
Notwithstanding their mutual devotion to each other, there were notmany points of resemblance between the characters of Mr. Temple andhis daughter; she was remarkable for a frankness of demeanour and asimplicity yet strength of thought which contrasted with the artificialmanners and the conventional opinions and conversation of her sire. Amind at once thoughtful and energetic permitted Henrietta Temple to formher own judgments; and an artless candour, which her father never coulderadicate from her habit, generally impelled her to express them. Itwas indeed impossible even for him long to find fault with theseebullitions, however the diplomatist might deplore them; for Nature hadso imbued the existence of this being with that indefinable charm whichwe call grace, that it was not in your power to behold her a momentwithout being enchanted. A glance, a movement, a sunny smile, a word ofthrilling music, and all that was left to you was to adore. There wasindeed in Henrietta Temple that rare and extraordinary combination ofintellectual strength and physical softness which marks out the womancapable of exercising an irresistible influence over mankind. In thegood old days she might have occasioned a siege of Troy or a battle ofActium. She was one of those women who make nations mad, and for whom aman of genius would willingly peril the empire of the world.
So at least deemed Ferdinand Armine, as he cantered through the park,talking to himself, apostrophising the woods, and shouting his passionto the winds. It was scarcely noon when he reached Ducie Bower. This wasa Palladian pavilion, situated in the midst of beautiful gardens, andsurrounded by green hills. The sun shone brightly, the sky was withouta cloud; it appeared to him that he had never beheld a more gracefulscene. It was a temple worthy of the divinity it enshrined. A facade offour Ionic columns fronted an octagon hall, adorned with statues, whichled into a salon of considerable size and fine proportion. Ferdinandthought that he had never in his life entered so brilliant a chamber.The lofty walls were covered with an Indian paper of vivid fancy, andadorned with several pictures which his practised eye assured him wereof great merit. The room, without being inconveniently crowded, wasamply stored with furniture, every article of which bespoke a refinedand luxurious taste: easy chairs of all descriptions, most invitingcouches, cabinets of choice inlay, and grotesque tables covered witharticles of vertu; all those charming infinite nothings, which a personof taste might some time back have easily collected during a longresidence on the continent. A large lamp of Dresden china was suspendedfrom the painted and gilded ceiling. The three tall windows opened onthe gardens, and admitted a perfume so rich and various, that Ferdinandcould easily believe the fair mistress, as she told him, was indeed alover of flowers. A light bridge in the distant wood, that bounded thefurthest lawn, indicated that a stream was at hand. What with the beautyof the chamber, the richness of the exterior scene, and the brightsun that painted every object with its magical colouring, and madeeverything appear even more fair and brilliant, Ferdinand stood for somemoments quite entranced. A door opened, and Mr. Temple came forward andwelcomed him with cordiality.
After they had passed a half-hour in looking at the pictures andin conversation to which they gave rise, Mr. Temple, proposing anadjournment to luncheon, conducted Ferdinand into a dining-room, ofwhich the suitable decorations wonderfully pleased his taste. A subduedtint pervaded every part of the chamber: the ceiling was painted ingrey tinted frescoes of a classical and festive character, and the sidetable, which stood in a recess supported by four magnificent columns,was adorned with choice Etruscan vases. The air of repose andstillness which distinguished this apartment was heightened by the vastconservatory into which it led, blazing with light and beauty, groupsof exotic trees, plants of radiant tint, the sound of a fountain, andgorgeous forms of tropic birds.
'How beautiful!' exclaimed Ferdinand.
''Tis pretty,' said Mr. Temple, carving a pasty, 'but we are very humblepeople, and cannot vie with the lords of Gothic castles.'
'It appears to me,' said Ferdinand, 'that Ducie Bower is the mostexquisite place I ever beheld.'
'If you had seen it two years ago you would have thought differently,'said Mr. Temple; 'I assure you I dreaded becoming its tenant. Henriettais entitled to all the praise, as she took upon herself the wholeresponsibility. There is not on the banks of the Brenta a more dingy anddesolate villa than Ducie appeared when we first came; and as for thegardens, they were a perfect wilderness. She made everything. It wasone vast, desolate, and neglected lawn, used as a sheep-walk when wearrived. As for the ceilings, I was almost tempted to whitewash them,and yet you see they have cleaned wonderfully; and, after all, it onlyrequired a little taste and labour. I have not laid out much money here.I built the conservatory, to be sure. Henrietta could not live without aconservatory.'
'Miss Temple is quite right,' pronounced Ferdinand. 'It is impossible tolive without a c
onservatory.'
At this moment the heroine of their conversation entered the room, andFerdinand turned pale. She extended to him her hand with a gracefulsmile; as he touched it, he trembled from head to foot.
'You were not fatigued, I hope, by your ride, Miss Temple?' at length hecontrived to say.
'Not in the least! I am an experienced horsewoman. Papa and I take verylong rides together.'
As for eating, with Henrietta Temple in the room, Ferdinand foundthat quite impossible. The moment she appeared, his appetite vanished.Anxious to speak, yet deprived of his accustomed fluency, he began topraise Ducie.
'You must see it,' said Miss Temple: 'shall we walk round the grounds?'
'My dear Henrietta,' said her father, 'I dare say Captain Armine is atthis moment sufficiently tired; besides, when he moves, he will likeperhaps to take his gun; you forget he is a sportsman, and that hecannot waste his morning in talking to ladies and picking flowers.'
'Indeed, sir, I assure you,' said Ferdinand, 'there is nothing I like somuch as talking to ladies and picking flowers; that is to say, whenthe ladies have as fine taste as Miss Temple, and the flowers are asbeautiful as those at Ducie.'
'Well, you shall see my conservatory, Captain Armine,' said Miss Temple,'and you shall go and kill partridges afterwards.' So saying, sheentered the conservatory, and Ferdinand followed her, leaving Mr. Templeto his pasty.
'These orange groves remind me of Palmero,' said Ferdinand.
'Ah!' said Miss Temple, 'I have never been in the sweet south.'
'You seem to me a person born to live in a Sicilian palace,' saidFerdinand, 'to wander in perfumed groves, and to glance in a moonlightwarmer than this sun.'
'I see you pay compliments,' said Miss Temple, looking at him archly,and meeting a glance serious and soft.
'Believe me, not to you.'
'What do you think of this flower?' said Miss Temple, turning awayrather quickly and pointing to a strange plant. 'It is the most singularthing in the world: but if it be tended by any other person than myselfit withers. Is it not droll?'
'I think not,' said Ferdinand.
'I excuse you for your incredulity; no one does believe it; no one can;and yet it is quite true. Our gardener gave it up in despair. I wonderwhat it can be.'
'I think it must be some enchanted prince,' said Ferdinand.
'If I thought so, how I should long for a wand to emancipate him!' saidMiss Temple.
'I would break your wand, if you had one,' said Ferdinand.
'Why?' said Miss Temple.
'Oh! I don't know,' said Ferdinand; 'I suppose because I believe you aresufficiently enchanting without one.'
'I am bound to consider that most excellent logic,' said Miss Temple.
'Do you admire my fountain and my birds?' she continued, after a shortpause. 'After Armine, Ducie appears a little tawdry toy.'
'Ducie is Paradise,' said Ferdinand. 'I should like to pass my life inthis conservatory.'
'As an enchanted prince, I suppose?' said Miss Temple.
'Exactly,' said Captain Armine; 'I would willingly this instant become aflower, if I were sure that Miss Temple would cherish my existence.'
'Cut off your tendrils and drown you with a watering-pot,' said MissTemple; 'you really are very Sicilian in your conversation, CaptainArmine.'
'Come,' said Mr. Temple, who now joined them, 'if you really should liketo take a stroll round the grounds, I will order the keeper to meet usat the cottage.'
'A very good proposition,' said Miss Temple.
'But you must get a bonnet, Henrietta; I must forbid your going outuncovered.'
'No, papa, this will do,' said Miss Temple, taking a handkerchief,twisting it round her head, and tying it under her chin.
'You look like an old woman, Henrietta,' said her father, smiling.
'I shall not say what you look like, Miss Temple,' said Captain Armine,with a glance of admiration, 'lest you should think that I was this timeeven talking Sicilian.'
'I reward you for your forbearance with a rose,' said Miss Temple,plucking a flower. 'It is a return for your beautiful present ofyesterday.'
Ferdinand pressed the gift to his lips.
They went forth; they stepped into a Paradise, where the sweetestflowers seemed grouped in every combination of the choicest forms;baskets, and vases, and beds of infinite fancy. A thousand bees andbutterflies filled the air with their glancing shapes and cheerfulmusic, and the birds from the neighbouring groves joined in the chorusof melody. The wood walks through which they now rambled admitted atintervals glimpses of the ornate landscape, and occasionally the viewextended beyond the enclosed limits, and exhibited the clustering andembowered roofs of the neighbouring village, or some woody hill studdedwith a farmhouse, or a distant spire. As for Ferdinand, he strolledalong, full of beautiful thoughts and thrilling fancies, in a dreamystate which had banished all recollection or consciousness but of thepresent. He was happy; positively, perfectly, supremely happy. He washappy for the first time in his life, He had no conception that lifecould afford such bliss as now filled his being. What a chain ofmiserable, tame, factitious sensations seemed the whole course of hispast existence. Even the joys of yesterday were nothing to these;Armine was associated with too much of the commonplace and the gloomyto realise the ideal in which he now revelled. But now all circumstancescontributed to enchant him. The novelty, the beauty of the scene,harmoniously blended with his passion. The sun seemed to him a morebrilliant sun than the orb that illumined Armine; the sky more clear,more pure, more odorous. There seemed a magic sympathy in the trees, andevery flower reminded him of his mistress. And then he looked around andbeheld her. Was he positively awake? Was he in England? Was he in thesame globe in which he had hitherto moved and acted? What was thisentrancing form that moved before him? Was it indeed a woman?
_O dea certe!_
That voice, too, now wilder than the wildest bird, now low and hushed,yet always sweet; where was he, what did he listen to, what did hebehold, what did he feel? The presence of her father alone restrainedhim from falling on his knees and expressing to her his adoration.
At length our friends arrived at a picturesque and ivy-grown cottage,where the keeper, with their guns and dogs, awaited Mr. Temple and hisguest. Ferdinand, although a keen sportsman, beheld the spectacle withdismay. He execrated, at the same time, the existence of partridges andthe invention of gunpowder. To resist his fate, however, was impossible;he took his gun and turned to bid his hostess adieu.
'I do not like to quit Paradise at all,' he said in a low voice: 'must Igo?'
'Oh! certainly,' said Miss Temple. 'It will do you a great deal ofgood.'
Never did anyone at first shoot more wildly. In time, however, Ferdinandsufficiently rallied to recover his reputation with the keeper, who,from his first observation, began to wink his eye to his son, anattendant bush-beater, and occasionally even thrust his tongue insidehis cheek, a significant gesture perfectly understood by the imp. 'Forthe life of me, Sam,' he afterwards profoundly observed, 'I couldn'tmake out this here Captain by no manner of means whatsomever. At firstI thought as how he was going to put the muzzle to his shoulder. Hang meif ever I see sich a gentleman. He missed everything; and at last if hedidn't hit the longest flying shots without taking aim. Hang me if everI see sich a gentleman. He hit everything. That ere Captain puzzled me,surely.'
The party at dinner was increased by a neighbouring squire and his wife,and the rector of the parish. Ferdinand was placed at the right hand ofMiss Temple. The more he beheld her the more beautiful she seemed. Hedetected every moment some charm before unobserved. It seemed to himthat he never was in such agreeable society, though, sooth to say, theconversation was not of a very brilliant character. Mr. Temple recountedthe sport of the morning to the squire, whose ears kindled at acongenial subject, and every preserve in the county was then discussed,with some episodes on poaching. The rector, an old gentleman, who haddined in old days at Armine Place, reminded Ferdinand of th
e agreeablecircumstance, sanguine perhaps that the invitation might lead to arenewal of his acquaintance with that hospitable board. He was painfullyprofuse in his description of the public days of the famous SirFerdinand. From the service of plate to the thirty servants in livery,nothing was omitted.
'Our friend deals in Arabian tales,' whispered Ferdinand to Miss Temple;'you can be a witness that we live quietly enough now.'
'I shall certainly never forget my visit to Armine,' replied MissTemple; 'it was one of the agreeable days of life.'
'And that is saying a great deal, for I think your life must haveabounded in agreeable days.'
'I cannot indeed lay any claim to that misery which makes many peopleinteresting,' said Miss Temple; 'I am a very commonplace person, for Ihave been always happy.'
When the ladies withdrew there appeared but little inclination on thepart of the squire and the rector to follow their example; and CaptainArmine, therefore, soon left Mr. Temple to his fate, and escaped tothe drawing-room. He glided to a seat on an ottoman, by the side ofhis hostess, and listened in silence to the conversation. What aconversation! At any other time, under any other circumstances,Ferdinand would have been teased and wearied with its commonplacecurrent: all the dull detail of county tattle, in which the squire'slady was a proficient, and with which Miss Temple was too highly brednot to appear to sympathise; and yet the conversation, to Ferdinand,appeared quite charming. Every accent of Henrietta's sounded likewit; and when she bent her head in assent to her companion's obviousdeductions, there was about each movement a grace so ineffable, thatFerdinand could have sat in silence and listened, entranced, for ever:and occasionally, too, she turned to Captain Armine, and appealed onsome point to his knowledge or his taste. It seemed to him that he hadnever listened to sounds so sweetly thrilling as her voice. It was abirdlike burst of music, that well became the sparkling sunshine of herviolet eyes.
His late companions entered. Ferdinand rose from his seat; the windowsof the salon were open; he stepped forth into the garden. He felt thenecessity of being a moment alone. He proceeded a few paces beyond theken of man, and then leaning on a statue, and burying his face in hisarm, he gave way to irresistible emotion. What wild thoughts dashedthrough his impetuous soul at that instant, it is difficult toconjecture. Perhaps it was passion that inspired that convulsivereverie; perchance it might have been remorse. Did he abandon himselfto those novel sentiments which in a few brief hours had changed all hisaspirations and coloured his whole existence; or was he tortured by thatdark and perplexing future, from which his imagination in vain struggledto extricate him?
He was roused from his reverie, brief but tumultuous, by the note ofmusic, and then by the sound of a human voice. The stag detecting thehuntsman's horn could not have started with more wild emotion. But onefair organ could send forth that voice. He approached, he listened; thevoice of Henrietta Temple floated to him on the air, breathing with athousand odours. In a moment he was at her side, the squire's lady wasstanding by her; the gentlemen, for a moment arrested from a politicaldiscussion, formed a group in a distant part of the room, the rectoroccasionally venturing in a practised whisper to enforce a disturbedargument. Ferdinand glided in unobserved by the fair performer. MissTemple not only possessed a voice of rare tone and compass, butthis delightful gift of nature had been cultivated with refined art.Ferdinand, himself a musician, and passionately devoted to vocal melody,listened with unexaggerated rapture.
'Oh! beautiful!' exclaimed he, as the songstress ceased.
'Captain Armine!' cried Miss Temple, looking round with a wild,bewitching smile. 'I thought you were meditating in the twilight.'
'Your voice summoned me.'
'You care for music?'
'For little else.'
'You sing?'
'I hum.'
'Try this.'
'With you?'
Ferdinand Armine was not unworthy of singing with Henrietta Temple. Hismother had been his able instructress in the art even in his childhood,and his frequent residence at Naples and other parts of the south hadafforded him ample opportunities of perfecting a talent thus earlycultivated. But to-night the love of something beyond his art inspiredthe voice of Ferdinand. Singing with Henrietta Temple, he poured forthto her in safety all the passion which raged in his soul. The squire'slady looked confused; Henrietta herself grew pale; the politiciansceased even to whisper, and advanced from their corner to theinstrument; and when the duet was terminated, Mr. Temple offered hissincere congratulations to his guest. Henrietta also turned withsome words of commendation to Ferdinand; but the words were faintand confused, and finally requesting Captain Armine to favour them bysinging alone, she rose and vacated her seat.
Ferdinand took up the guitar, and accompanied himself to a Neapolitanair. It was gay and festive, a _Ritornella_ which might summon yourmistress to dance in the moonlight. And then, amid many congratulations,he offered the guitar to Miss Temple.
'No one will listen to a simple melody after anything so brilliant,'said Miss Temple, as she touched a string, and, after a slight prelude,sang these words:--
THE DESERTED.
I.
Yes, weeping is madness, Away with this tear, Let no sign of sadness Betray the wild anguish I fear. When we meet him to-night, Be mute then my heart! And my smile be as bright, As if we were never to part.
II.
Girl! give me the mirror That said I was fair; Alas! fatal error, This picture reveals my despair. Smiles no longer can pass O'er this faded brow, And I shiver this glass, Like his love and his fragile vow!
'The music,' said Ferdinand, full of enthusiasm, 'is-----'
'Henrietta's,' replied her father.
'And the words?'
'Were found in my canary's cage,' said Henrietta Temple, rising andputting an end to the conversation.