Francesca Carrara/Chapter 53
CHAPTER XXVI.
"What vanity in the empty bustle of common life!"
"I gaze upon the beautiful, and my mind responds to the Inspiration; for my thoughts are lovely as my visions."
Contarini Fleming.
That stroll in the forest was Guido's last. The moistened ground, on which he had walked after the falling rain, had given him cold, and his illness increased rapidly and fearfully; but his sense of his danger only showed itself in a gentler patience and a deeper tenderness.
Alas for poor Francesca! to watch the sole being on earth that loved her thus dying day by day! She would sit by him for hours, holding his hand in hers, and gazing, till she could no longer bear to meet those affectionate eyes which would so soon be closed for ever. She would leave him, to weep those tears of passionate regret with which she could not bear to harass him; and when she came back, he would mark the scarcely dried tears, and draw her tenderly to his side; but even he dared not attempt consolation. Too feeble for exercise, his only enjoyment now was to sit in an arbour, reached with difficulty, that had been formed on a rising part of the ground. An old ash-tree extended its boughs overhead; and those which had been trained downwards, were latticed by a luxuriant honeysuckle, whose fairy trumpets hung in fragrant profusion. It was one of those thoroughly English gardens, still to be found in some of the old-fashioned parts of the country, where a mistaken taste has not severed la belle alliance between the useful and the agreeable.
I know nothing more pleasant than the half kitchen-, half flower-garden;—the few trees that extend a light shade—either the apple, with its spring shower of fair blossoms, tinted with the faintest crimson, and its summer show of fruit, reddening every day; or the cherry, with its scarlet multitude—berries more numerous than leaves. Below, long rows of peas put forth their white-winged flowers, tempting the small butterflies to flutter round their inanimate likenesses; or else of beans, whose fresh, sweet odour, when in bloom, might challenge competition with the sea gales of the spice islands. Then the deep glossy green of the gooseberry is so well relieved by the paler shade of the currant-bush; and alongside, spreading the verdant length of the strawberry-bed, so beautiful in its first wealth of white blossoms—pale omens of the blushing fruit, which so soon hides beneath its large and graceful leaves. The strawberry is among fruits what the violet is among flowers.
Then, I do so like the one or two principal walks, neatly edged with box, cut with most precise regularity, keeping guard over favourite plants:—columbines, bending on their slender stems; rose-bushes, covered with buds enough to furnish roses for months; pinks, with their dark eyes; and the orient glow of the marigold. And there are the neat plots planted with thyme, so sweet in its crushed fragrance; the sage, with that touch of hoar frost on its leaves, which, perhaps, has gained for it its popular name of wisdom; the sprig of lavender, with its dim and deep blue blossom, so lastingly sweet; and the emerald patches of the rapidly springing mustard and cress. I would not give a common garden like this, with the free air tossing its boughs, and the sun laughing upon its flowers, for all that glass and gardener ever brought from a hot-house.
Many a quiet hour did Guido pass in that honeysuckled arbour, lulled by the murmuring bees, whose hives stood in the covert of a large old beech, the only tree not a fruit-tree in the chosen patch of ground. Every sun that set in long shadows and rosy light received from him a more solemn and tender farewell. Every evening wind that passed brought a deeper music:—already the presence of his future and spiritual existence was upon him, and the result was peace, perfect and unutterable.
One evening, he had leant against the entrance of his leafy tent, watching the ebbing crimson that gradually faded on the purple air,-—the serenity of his soul was glassed in his clear bright eyes, while all the warm colours of life seemed to have vanished from that pure and marble countenance. Suddenly, he felt that Francesca withdrew her hand from his—it was to dash aside her tears before he remarked them; and then, for the first time he spoke of that grave upon whose brink he stood.
"Weep not, sweetest sister mine!" said he, kissing away the warm and heavy tears; "if you knew the sorrow from which death spares me! There are some natures which seem sent into this world but for a brief and bitter trial; and such a nature is mine. I have not strength for the struggle. From my earliest youth, I felt despondency steal over my highest moods and my gayest moments. I now believe it was the unconscious omen of my early death. The weight of an unfulfilled destiny has been for ever upon me, though then I knew it not. And yet, Francesca, when I look within my own heart, and feel how true and high have been its impulses,—when I think how my mind has revelled in its own beautiful imaginings, which asked but time for development, I cannot deem that such things were given in vain. I believe that they have been here tried and nourished for another sphere. I feel a strong and increasing consciousness that my world is beyond the tomb."
"And mine," exclaimed Francesca, in an agony of grief she could no more repress, "is still this lonely, this dreary life! Oh, my God! have mercy on me, and let me die too!"
"Francesca," said Guido, in a low, earnest voice, "there is something within me which tells me it will not be for long. Sorrow and early death have been busy in our line. My doom is fixed,—and your fragile life will be a frail barrier to an inexorable fate!"