Francesca Carrara/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
"Look on this picture, and on this—
The counterfeit presentment of two brothers."
Hamlet.
It is wonderful how some words ever were invented, for they express what does not exist—confidence is among the number; confidence is what no human being ever really had in another. Robert Evelyn felt his heart swell, and the tears swim in his eyes, at the touching tenderness with which his father received him; and yet he could not force himself to rely on that tenderness as a guarantee for consent to a marriage—now the horizon which bounded his future of happiness. He shrank from mentioning his pledge to Francesca. It is a painful thing both to parent and child, when the one must own, and the other must hear, the avowal of a love which is dearer than all old ties, and all former affection. There was as much delicacy as distrust in his hesitation. He wandered thoughtfully in the plaisance adjoining the house, planning, as we all plan, circumstances which never arrive; and framing speeches which, when the time comes, we never make. His musings were interrupted by a summons from Sir Robert, whom he found seated in a small oratory that had been his mother's favourite room. It was panelled in black oak, but on each panel the arms of the family were painted in bright colours. The mantel-piece was of great rarity, being pure white marble, like an arch wreathed around with palm branches; and above it was a Venetian mirror, set in a silver frame, and surmounted by a dove with outspread wings. A large picture hung opposite the fire-place; it represented Sir Robert and Lady Evelyn, and had been painted soon after their marriage. He was dressed in a rich suit of purple velvet, a short cloak laced with gold, and his hair flowing down in waving curls, with a brow open as the morning; a firm, compressed lip, and an eye full of spirit and intelligence. The robe of the lady was of pearl-white satin, and her bright golden tresses played in small corkscrew ringlets round her face. Her hands, remarkable for their delicate size and colour, were filled with flowers, her fondness for which amounted to a passion—if that feverish word may be applied to a love so gentle and innocent. The portrait was far more like the young cavalier just entering the chamber than the original who sat opposite, watching his once resemblance with a fixed and mournful gaze.
"My youth is renewed," said the old man, taking his son's hand; "but draw near your seat, for my voice is weak, and I have yet much to say." Robert placed a low stool beside, but his heart was too full to speak; for daylight showed more forcibly than ever the alteration in his parent. "Your brother is my last and my greatest sorrow. He was to have joined you in Germany, but he loitered at Paris, and my first letter from my forgetful child was a confession of heavy debts incurred at the gaming-table. My remittance and my remonstrance were alike unanswered; and I heard no more of Francis, till some prisoners, dragoons in Goring's regiment, were brought hither—he was one of them. Great God! but that my arm was then disabled, we should have met face to face in the battle; and who may say on whose head the sin of blood might have rested? With some difficulty I obtained a pardon; but, weary of the restraint which circumstances rendered inevitable, he again left my roof; and at this moment I know not how to find my wilful child, even though the summons were to my death-bed."
Robert's first impulse was to frame excuses for his brother; but what could he say, he who from childhood had so well known his reckless and selfish temper? We talk of the influence of education—in what does it consist? Here were two with the same blood flowing in their veins, born under the same roof, nursed by the same mother, play-mates in the same nursery, surrounded by the same scenes, pursuing the same studies, subject to the same rules, rewarded by the same indulgences—never till the age of eighteen having been parted for a day; and yet were these two as opposite as if they had never known one circumstance in common. Robert was grave, thoughtful, and affectionate; with the shyness always attendant on deep feeling, and the sensitiveness which is ever the best guard against wounding that of others—such have known the suffering too well to inflict it;—enthusiastic in his admirations, imaginative in his tastes, and therefore solitary in his habits.
Frank had made love to all the pretty girls in the neighbourhood, while Robert was dreaming, in the summer glades of the New Forest, of the ideal mistress, whose perfection was poetry. High toned in all his sentiments, from native generosity of disposition; he was strict in principle, from habit; he was too good and too honourable himself not to appreciate the uprightness and sincerity of his father. Francis, on the contrary, was lively, false, and uncertain; his own pleasure, interest, or even ease, were ever uppermost in his mind. It was not that he would not be kind, but it seldom came into his head to be so. That certain sign of intense selfishness—he never gave any one credit for a good motive, for he believed no one better than himself. He had an exaggerated opinion of his own talents; but his idea of ability was deceit. As there are some naturally deficient in the power of computation, others in an ear for harmony, so Francis Evelyn was utterly devoid of truth—he neither understood its moral beauty nor its actual utility. He felt no shame at detection—he only envied the discoverer's shrewdness, or his luck in finding a clew. He would neglect your wishes, wound your feelings,—partly, though, from very ignorance of their existence; while he would do even mean things to win a momentary applause. Robert was proud, but of extraneous circumstances—of his ancient lineage, his noble father; while the vanity of Francis centred in himself—he was vain of his person, his dress, or any thing that was his. He would have felt none of his brother's sensitiveness in revealing the dearest and deepest secret of his heart; none of his remorseful fear of giving pain to his father.
Who has not observed in the daily intercourse of domestic life, that the very subject we have been striving to avoid, or planning to disclose, is sure to defeat our best-laid scheme, and start up before us when least expected? Thus it happened in the present case.
"I had hoped," said Sir Robert, turning suddenly from the window which commanded one of those wide panoramic views where hill and dale, dwelling, heath, and road, mingle together, "to have drawn our old alliance with yonder house yet closer; but individual hatreds are the legacies left by civil war—strange how public can be stronger than private feeling! The playmate of my boyhood, the companion of my first campaign in the Low Countries, he who wedded with my sister, is now worse than a stranger; we meet in the highway, and each passes on the other side. The present is embittered, not softened, by the memories of the past. Lord Maltravers has maintained an ostensibly neutral position; but all his predilections are in favour of the cavaliers. The consciousness that he has not himself acted upon his principles, must create an invidious sentiment towards those who have. Alas, what slight cause will suffice to break up the friendship of years! First came the disputed opinion, next the angry, then the cold word. Gradually we sought to avoid meeting, silence became habitual, and the epithets 'fanatic' and 'malignant' took the place of friend and brother. Yet, though the faces of his children are turned away when we meet, I see how very fair they are. I never look to the turrets of Avonleigh Abbey without somewhat of the kindliness of former days; and I yet cling, Robert, to the thought of a union between one of those blue-eyed girls, and yourself."
"Not so, my father," replied the youth; and he hurriedly commenced his avowal. His voice grew firmer as he proceeded, he remembered the worthiness of the Italian maiden, and was encouraged by the affectionate interest with which his father listened to the narrative, which was only interrupted by a gentle sign of attention, or a kind look. A feeling of disappointment might arise in Sir Robert's mind as he heard this unexpected confession, but he was not one to weigh ambition against affection. He knew how, in his own case, the united heart had made the happy home; and he was sufficiently aware of the strength and depth of his son's character to know that his would be no transitory attachment. What, then, remained but pardon and approval? both of which were instantly given.
"I lament that your Francesca should be a Catholic, chiefly from the circumstances which surround us. I have long since known that it is the faith, not the creed, which imports in religious belief. But in these days of fanaticism, that harsh and violent spirit is abroad, when men clothe their own angry passions in the garb of righteousness, and call persecution vindicating the honour of God. Alas! what must be their idea of the Almighty power, when they deem it needs assistance from the arm of flesh?"
But his son was too happy to heed aught but the present: to a naturally sincere person, the oppression of concealment is in tolerable.
"My dearest father, you then forgive me?"
"What, my sage brother suing for forgiveness?—the very time for me to plead as well." And a young cavalier, who had entered unperceived, dropt on one knee beside.
"Francis!" they both exclaimed in equal surprise at the change in, and the suddenness of, his appearance. He had ever affected great gaiety and richness of apparel, to mark his disdain of the Roundheads, whose custom was the reverse; and his bright auburn hair had been carefully trained in long love-locks. Now he wore a sad-coloured cloak and a dark-grey suit, and his hair clipped close to the head, still, however, showing a most unorthodox tendency to curl; but his whole attire and bearing was in strict conformity with the severe and grave fashion of the period.
"Nay, I will increase your wonder," said he, laughing at their evident surprise; "I come from Whitehall, and trust, my dear father, you will approve of my conversion as much as if it had been your own work instead of Sir Harry Vane's, with whom I came over from Paris. He desired me to greet you well in the name of the Lord," added he, in a snuffling tone.
"I understand this disguise, for such I cannot but consider it, as little as I approve of this mockery."
"Nay, dearest father," returned the youth, caressingly, "blame me not that I have seen the folly of leaguing with your enemies, and that a little experience has taught me the necessity of conforming to general usage; and surely to my partial parent I may indulge in the relief of a laugh at the solemn sanctity which I know he himself holds but lightly. You drew your sword for higher motives than that hats should be worn without feathers, and sermons preached without surplices."
Sir Robert might have said, that if there be one habit more than another the dry-rot of all that is high and generous in youth, it is the habit of ridicule. The lip ever ready with the sneer, the eye ever on the watch for the ludicrous, must always dwell upon the external; and most of what is good and great ever lies below the surface. But, rejoiced at his child's return, he had little inclination to moralise; he was now again under his own roof, and he trusted, as affection ever trusts, that the future would make him all he could wish. Ah, the future! the dreaming, the deceiving future, which promises everything, and performs nothing—what would the present be without it?