CHAPTER VIII
The ambassador had engaged for Lady Annabel a palace on the GrandCanal, belonging to Count Manfrini. It was a structure of great sizeand magnificence, and rose out of the water with a flight of marblesteps. Within was a vast gallery, lined with statues and busts on tallpedestals; suites of spacious apartments, with marble floors andhung with satin; ceilings painted by Tintoretto and full of Turkishtrophies; furniture alike sumptuous and massy; the gilding, althoughof two hundred years' duration, as bright and burnished as if ithad but yesterday been touched with the brush; sequin gold, asthe Venetians tell you to this day with pride. But even their oldfurniture will soon not be left to them, as palaces are now dailybroken up like old ships, and their colossal spoils consigned toHanway Yard and Bond Street, whence, re-burnished and vamped up, theirTitantic proportions in time appropriately figure in the boudoirs ofMay Fair and the miniature saloons of St. James'. Many a fine lady nowsits in a doge's chair, and many a dandy listens to his doom from acouch that has already witnessed the less inexorable decrees of theCouncil of Ten.
Amid all this splendour, however, one mournful idea alone pervaded thetortured consciousness of Lady Annabel Herbert. Daily the dark truthstole upon her with increased conviction, that Venetia had come hitheronly to die. There seemed to the agitated ear of this distractedmother a terrible omen even in the very name of her child; and shecould not resist the persuasion that her final destiny would, in somedegree, be connected with her fanciful appellation. The physicians,for hopeless as Lady Annabel could not resist esteeming theirinterference, Venetia was now surrounded with physicians, shook theirheads, prescribed different remedies and gave contrary opinions; eachday, however, their patient became more languid, thinner and morethin, until she seemed like a beautiful spirit gliding into thesaloon, leaning on her mother's arm, and followed by Pauncefort, whohad now learnt the fatal secret from, her mistress, and whose heartwas indeed almost broken at the prospect of the calamity that wasimpending over them.
At Padua, Lady Annabel, in her mortified reveries, outraged as sheconceived by her husband, and anxious about her daughter, had schooledherself into visiting her fresh calamities on the head of the unhappyHerbert, to whose intrusion and irresistible influence she ascribedall the illness of her child; but, as the indisposition of Venetiagradually, but surely, increased, until at length it assumed soalarming an aspect that Lady Annabel, in the distraction of her mind,could no longer refrain from contemplating the most fatal result, shehad taught herself bitterly to regret the failure of that approachingreconciliation which now she could not but believe would, at least,have secured her the life of Venetia. Whatever might be the riskof again uniting herself with her husband, whatever might be themortification and misery which it might ultimately, or even speedily,entail upon her, there was no unhappiness that she could herselfexperience, which for one moment she could put in competition with theexistence of her child. When that was the question, every feelingthat had hitherto impelled her conduct assumed a totally differentcomplexion. That conduct, in her view, had been a systematic sacrificeof self to secure the happiness of her daughter; and the result of allher exertions was, that not only her happiness was destroyed, but herlife was fast vanishing away. To save Venetia, it now appeared to LadyAnnabel that there was no extremity which she would not endure; and ifit came to a question, whether Venetia should survive, or whethershe should even be separated from her mother, her maternal heart nowassured her that she would not for an instant hesitate in preferringan eternal separation to the death of her child. Her terror now workedto such a degree upon her character, that she even, at times, halfresolved to speak to Venetia upon the subject, and contrive somemethod of communicating her wishes to her father; but pride, thehabitual repugnance of so many years to converse upon the topic,mingled also, as should be confessed, with an indefinite apprehensionof the ill consequences of a conversation of such a character on thenervous temperament of her daughter, restrained her.
'My love!' said Lady Annabel, one day to her daughter, 'do you thinkyou could go out? The physicians think it of great importance that youshould attempt to exert yourself, however slightly.'
'Dear mother, if anything could annoy me from your lips, it wouldbe to hear you quote these physicians,' said Venetia. 'Their dailypresence and inquiries irritate me. Let me be at peace. I wish to seeno one but you.'
'But Venetia,' said Lady Annabel, in a voice of great emotion,'Venetia--,' and here she paused; 'think of my anxiety.'
'Dear mother, it would be ungrateful for me ever to forget that. Butyou, and you alone, know that my state, whatever it may be, and towhatever it may be I am reconciled, is not produced by causes overwhich these physicians have any control, over which no one hascontrol--now,' added Venetia, in a tone of great mournfulness.
For here we must remark that so inexperienced was Venetia in thefeelings of others, and so completely did she judge of the strengthand purity of their emotions from her own, that reflection, since theterrible adventure of Rovigo, had only convinced her that it was nolonger in her mother's power to unite herself again with her otherparent. She had taught herself to look upon her father's burst offeeling towards Lady Annabel as the momentary and inevitable result ofa meeting so unexpected and overpowering, but she did not doubt thatthe stranger whose presence had ultimately so fatally clouded thatinterview of promise, possessed claims upon Marmion Herbert which hewould neither break, nor, upon reflection, be desirous to question. Itwas then the conviction that a reconciliation between her parents wasnow impossible, in which her despair originated, and she pictured toherself her father once more at Arqua disturbed, perhaps, for a dayor two, as he naturally must be, by an interview so sudden and soharassing; shedding a tear, perhaps, in secret to the wife whom he hadinjured, and the child whom he had scarcely seen; but relapsing, alikefrom the force of habit and inclination, into those previous andconfirmed feelings, under whose influence, she was herself a witness,his life had been so serene, and even so laudable. She was confirmedin these opinions by the circumstance of their never having heardsince from him. Placed in his situation, if indeed an irresistibleinfluence were not controlling him, would he have hesitated for amoment to have prevented even their departure, or to have pursuedthem; to have sought at any rate some means of communicating withthem? He was plainly reconciled to his present position, and felt thatunder these circumstances silence on his part was alike kindest andmost discreet. Venetia had ceased, therefore, to question the justiceor the expediency, or even the abstract propriety, of her mother'sconduct. She viewed their condition now as the result of sternnecessity. She pitied her mother, and for herself she had no hope.
There was then much meaning in that little monosyllable with whichVenetia concluded her reply to her mother. She had no hope 'now.' LadyAnnabel, however, ascribed it to a very different meaning; she onlybelieved that her daughter was of opinion that nothing would induceher now to listen to the overtures of her father. Prepared for anysacrifice of self, Lady Annabel replied, 'But there is hope, Venetia;when your life is in question, there is nothing that should not bedone.'
'Nothing can be done,' said Venetia, who, of course, could not dreamof what was passing in her mother's mind.
Lady Annabel rose from her seat and walked to the window; apparentlyher eye watched only the passing gondolas, but indeed she saw themnot; she saw only her child stretched perhaps on the couch of death.
'We quitted, perhaps, Rovigo too hastily,' said Lady Annabel, in achoking voice, and with a face of scarlet. It was a terrible struggle,but the words were uttered.
'No, mother,' said Venetia, to Lady Annabel's inexpressible surprise,'we did right to go.'
'Even my child, even Venetia, with all her devotion to him, feels theabsolute necessity of my conduct,' thought Lady Annabel. Her pridereturned; she felt the impossibility of making an overture to Herbert;she looked upon their daughter as the last victim of his fatal career.