CHAPTER VII.
The moment that the wife of Marmion Herbert re-entered her saloon, shesent for her courier and ordered horses to her carriage instantly.Until they were announced as ready, Lady Annabel walked up and downthe room with an impatient step, but was as completely silent as themiserable Venetia, who remained weeping on the sofa. The confusion andcuriosity of Mistress Pauncefort were extraordinary. She still had alurking suspicion that the gentleman was Lord Cadurcis and she seizedthe first opportunity of leaving the room, and flouncing into that ofthe stranger, as if by mistake, determined to catch a glimpse of him;but all her notable skill was baffled, for she had scarcely opened thedoor before she was met by the Italian lady, who received MistressPauncefort's ready-made apology, and bowed her away. The faithfulattendant then hurried downstairs to crossexamine the waiter, but,though she gained considerable information from that functionary, itwas of a perplexing nature; for from him she only learnt that thestranger lived at Arqua. 'The German gentleman!' soliloquised MistressPauncefort; 'and what could he have to say to Miss Venetia! and amarried man, too! Well, to be sure, there is nothing like travellingfor adventures! And I must say, considering all that I know, and howI have held my tongue for nearly twenty years, I think it is verystrange indeed of my lady to have any secrets from me. Secrets,indeed! Poh!' and Mistress Pauncefort flounced again into LadyAnnabel's room, with a face of offended pride, knocking the booksabout, dashing down writing cases, tossing about work, and making asmuch noise and disturbance as if she had a separate quarrel with everysingle article under her superintendence.
In the meantime the carriage was prepared, to which they were obligedalmost to carry Venetia, feeble and stupefied with grief. Uncertainof her course, but anxious, in the present state of her daughter, forrest and quiet, Lady Annabel ordered the courier to proceed to Padua,at which city they arrived late at night, scarcely a word having beeninterchanged during the whole journey between Lady Annabel and herchild, though infinite were the soft and soothing attentions which themother lavished upon her. Night, however, brought no rest to Venetia;and the next day, her state appeared so alarming to Lady Annabel, thatshe would have instantly summoned medical assistance, had it not beenfor Venetia's strong objections. 'Indeed, dear mother,' she said,'it is not physicians that I require. They cannot cure me. Let me bequiet.'
The same cause, indeed, which during the last five years had atintervals so seriously menaced the existence of this unhappy girl, wasnow at work with renovated and even irresistible influence. Her framecould no longer endure the fatal action of her over-excited nerves.Her first illness, however alarming, had been baffled by time, skill,and principally by the vigour of an extremely youthful frame, then astranger to any serious indisposition. At a later period, the changeof life induced by their residence at Weymouth had permitted her againto rally. She had quitted England with renewed symptoms of her formerattack, but a still more powerful change, not only of scene, but ofclimate and country, and the regular and peaceful life she had led onthe Lago Maggiore, had again reassured the mind of her anxious mother.This last adventure at Rovigo, however, prostrated her. The strangesurprise, the violent development of feeling, the agonising doubts andhopes, the terrible suspense the profound and bitter and overwhelmingdisappointment, all combined to shake her mind to its veryfoundations. She felt for the first time, that she could no longerbear up against the torture of her singular position. Her energy wasentirely exhausted; she was no longer capable of making the slightestexertion; she took refuge in that torpid resignation that results fromutter hopelessness.
Lying on her sofa with her eyes fixed in listless abstraction, thescene at Rovigo flitted unceasingly before her languid vision. Atlength she had seen that father, that unknown and mysterious father,whose idea had haunted her infancy as if by inspiration; to gainthe slightest knowledge of whom had cost her many long and acutesuffering; and round whose image for so many years every thought ofher intelligence, and every feeling of her heart, had clustered likespirits round some dim and mystical altar, At length she had beheldhim; she had gazed on that spiritual countenance; she had listened tothe tender accents of that musical voice; within his arms she had beenfolded with rapture, and pressed to a heart that seemed to beatonly for her felicity. The blessing of her father, uttered by hislong-loved lips, had descended on her brow, and been sealed with hispassionate embrace.
The entrance of her mother, that terrible contest of her laceratedheart, when her two parents, as it were, appealed to her love, whichthey would not share; the inspiration of her despair, that so suddenlyhad removed the barriers of long years, before whose irresistiblepathos her father had bent a penitent, and her mother's inexorablepride had melted; the ravishing bliss that for a moment had thrilledthrough her, being experienced too for the first time, when she feltthat her parents were again united and bound by the sweet tie of hernow happy existence; this was the drama acted before her with analmost ceaseless repetition of its transporting incidents; and whenshe looked round, and beheld her mother sitting alone, and watchingher with a countenance almost of anguish, it was indeed with extremedifficulty that Venetia could persuade herself that all had not been areverie; and she was only convinced of the contrary by that heavinessof the heart which too quickly assures us of the reality of thosesorrows of which fancy for a moment may cheat us into scepticism.
And indeed her mother was scarcely less miserable. The sight ofHerbert, so changed from the form that she remembered; those tones ofheart-rending sincerity, in which he had mournfully appealed to theinfluence of time and sorrow on his life, still greatly affected her.She had indulged for a moment in a dream of domestic love, she hadcast to the winds the inexorable determination of a life, and hadmingled her tears with those of her husband and her child. And howhad she been repaid? By a degrading catastrophe, from whose revoltingassociations her mind recoiled with indignation and disgust. But herlingering feeling for her husband, her own mortification, were asnothing compared with the harrowing anxiety she now entertained forher daughter. To converse with Venetia on the recent occurrence wasimpossible. It was a subject which admitted of no discussion. Theyhad passed a week at Padua, and the slightest allusion to what hadhappened had never been made by either Lady Annabel or her child. Itwas only by her lavish testimonies of affection that Lady Annabelconveyed to Venetia how deeply she sympathised with her, and howunhappy she was herself. She had, indeed, never quitted for a momentthe side of her daughter, and witnessed each day, with renewedanguish, her deplorable condition; for Venetia continued in a statewhich, to those unacquainted with her, might have been mistaken forinsensibility, but her mother knew too well that it was despair.She never moved, she never sighed, nor wept; she took no notice ofanything that occurred; she sought relief in no resources. Books, anddrawings, and music, were quite forgotten by her; nothing amused, andnothing annoyed her; she was not even fretful; she had, apparently,no physical ailment; she remained pale and silent, plunged in anabsorbing paroxysm of overwhelming woe.
The unhappy Lady Annabel, at a loss how to act, at length thought itmight be advisable to cross over to Venice. She felt assured now, thatit would be a long time, if ever, before her child could again endurethe fatigue of travel; and she thought that for every reason, whetherfor domestic comfort or medical advice, or those multifariousconsiderations which interest the invalid, a capital was by far themost desirable residence for them. There was a time when a visit tothe city that had given her a name had been a favourite dream ofVenetia; she had often sighed to be within
The sea-born city's walls; the graceful towers Loved by the bard.
Those lines of her father had long echoed in her ear; but now theproposition called no light to her glazed eye, nor summoned for aninstant the colour back to her cheek. She listened to her mother'ssuggestion, and expressed her willingness to do whatever she desired.Venice to her was now only a name; for, without the presence and theunited love of both her parents, no spot on earth could interest, andno combination of circumstan
ces affect her. To Venice, however, theydeparted, having previously taken care that every arrangement shouldbe made for their reception. The English ambassador at the Ducal courtwas a relative of Lady Annabel, and therefore no means or exertionswere spared to study and secure the convenience and accommodation ofthe invalid. The barge of the ambassador met them at Fusina; and whenVenetia beheld the towers and cupolas of Venice, suffused with agolden light and rising out of the bright blue waters, for a momenther spirit seemed to lighten. It is indeed a spectacle as beautiful asrare, and one to which the world offers few, if any, rivals. Glidingover the great Lagune, the buildings, with which the pictures atCherbury had already made her familiar, gradually rose up before her:the mosque-like Church of St. Marc, the tall Campanile red in the sun,the Moresco Palace of the Doges, the deadly Bridge of Sighs, and thedark structure to which it leads.
Venice had not then fallen. The gorgeous standards of the sovereignrepublic, and its tributary kingdoms, still waved in the Place of St.Marc; the Bucentaur was not rotting in the Arsenal, and the warlikegalleys of the state cruised without the Lagune; a busy andpicturesque population swarmed in all directions; and the Venetiannoble, the haughtiest of men, might still be seen proudly moving fromthe council of state, or stepping into a gondola amid a bowing crowd.All was stirring life, yet all was silent; the fantastic architecture,the glowing sky, the flitting gondolas, and the brilliant crowdgliding about with noiseless step, this city without sound, it seemeda dream!