Montalbert/Chapter 20

WHILE Montalbert felt himself highly gratified and obligated by the care his friend had taken to provide every thing in their new abode that could render it convenient and agreeable to Rosalie, she was never weary with contemplating the beauty of the scenery around her. A garden, which even the false Italian taste could not spoil, arose behind the house, and its orange trees fringed the foot of a hill, which would in England have been called a mountain. Even the verdure of England was in some measure enjoyed here amid the glowing suns of Italy; for the higher lands are refreshed by dews, which prevent their being parched like the plains. Beyond the enclosure, shrubs, which are carefully cultivated in Engalnd, grew spontaneously, and formed a natural wilderness of the gayest colours and lightest foliage. From hence the most glorious view presented itself that imagination could picture: the sea, and the opposite coast of Calabria; the Lipari islands; Strombolo, marked by a black wreath of curling smoke staining the mild and clear sky; innumerable vessels scattered about the blue expanse of water; and the faro of Messina giving to the whole a new and singular feature, connecting the varieties of an extensive sea view with a port, seemed almost to unite the island to the opposite continent.

Divested of every care that related to the past, save only her solicitude for Mrs. Vyvian, Rosalie would have fancied herself in Paradise, had not Montalbert been reminded by the Count of the necessity of their immediately departing together for Naples.

This zealous friend had forborne to visit them till some days after their being settled in their new habitation. He appeared to feel for Rosalie all that respecful admiration which beauty and sweetness, like hers, naturally inspired. Her manner of speaking Italian was particularly interesting to the Count, who seemed to be delighted to instruct her: he lamented to her the cruel but necessary representations that he thought himself obliged to make to Montalbert, that he must either determine to go back to Naples, or give up the plan of concealment which had already cost him so much trouble. Rosalie, in her ingenuous and interesting manner, confessed their obligations to him, but sighed, and with difficulty restrained from tears; while acknowledging the truth of his observation, she trembled at the necessity of yielding to them.

Montalbert, with whom reason and love were at variance with each other, became every day more gloomy, pensive, and uneasy. Sometimes he determined to hazard every thing rather than leave her. "After all, (said he, as he entered into these arguments with himself)&mdash;after all, what is it that I am contending for?&mdash;for what is it that I am sacrificing those hours that will return no more?&mdash;for money which I may never enjoy&mdash;for high prosperity which is not, that I know of, conducive to real happiness. Is it not true, that a day, an hour, at this season of my life, is worth half an age toward its close?&mdash;yet I am throwing away these precious hours of youth and health, in hopes of being a very rich man hereafter."

These arguments, however, whatever might be their solidity, if tried by the maxims of Epicurean Philosophy, sometimes yielded to other considerations.&mdash;He was not devoid of amibition; but could he wholly divest himself of that sort of attachment toward his mother, which, though it had more of fear than of love in it, had become a sort of principal from habit.

His frequent fits of silence, his melacholy looks, and long solitary walks by the sea side, the evident irresolution and deep depression he laboured under gave to Rosalie the most poignant uneasiness. She sometimes was afraid of increasing these symptoms of a mind, ill at ease by appearing to notice them; at other times she ventured gently to remonstrate with him. At length, after a conference of some hours with Alozzi, he suddenly took a resolution to depart the next day; Alozzi was returning to Naples, and they were to embark together.

This resolution he seemed to have adopted in consequence of having reflected, that, if he did not soon go, he might not return time enough for the hour so dreaded, yet so desired, when Rosalie might give birth to another being only less dear to him than herself. This was to be expected now within two months. To be absent at such a time was infinitely more formidable to his imagination than leaving her now; and, as if this had never occured to him before, he now resolutely determined to tear himself away.

Rosalie saw him depart with anguish of heart, which she endeavoured to stifle, that what he felt might not be increased; but when Alozzi had carried him off, almost by force, so dreadful did it seem to him to say adieu!&mdash;she was so much affected, that she could not remain at the window till they were out of sight; but, shutting herself in her own apartment, she gave herself up to tears.

The remonstrances, however, of her Italian woman, who was already much attached to her, and the care which under such circumstances she owed to her own health, even for his sake, whose absence she lamented, roused her at length from this indulgence of useless regret. She now sought to amuse her mind by contemplating anew the scenes around her; but their charms were in a great measure lost. Montalbert was no loger with her to point out the beauties that every where surrounded their abode, or to enjoy them with her. There was an aweful sublimity in the great outline of Etna; its deep forest, and magnificent features, which afforded a kind of melacholy pleasure. Not in a situation to explore the scenes it offered more minutely, yet feeling infinite curiosity, she endeavoured to amuse her mind with the prospect of future days, Montalbert would return to her; she should be blessed in beholding his tenderness for his child; she should again listen to his animated description of a country replete with wonders, or be able, perhaps, to visit it with him. In the mean time she determined to pass the heavy, heavy hours in cultivating the talents he loved. She took up her pencils, and, strolling into the garden, placed herself on the seat where, as they often sat together, he had pointed out to her some points of view which were particularly favourable to the painter; she would have sketched them, but her efforts were faint and uncertain. In spite of all her exertions, dark presentiments of future evil hung upon her spirits. Their depression she imputed to her personal sufferings; the period, to which it was so natural for her to look forward with dread, was now near. She had heard, indeed, that in the climate of Sicily infinitely less was to be apprehended than in England; but this she only knew from the report of persons who might say it to appease her fears and reassure her spirits. Perhaps it was her destiny to be snatched from Montalbert, to realease him from his embarrassment, and to make room for the Roman lady, to whom his mother was so desirous of uniting him.&mdash;While these thoughts passed through her mind, in gloomy succession, she repeated, from the little, simple ballad of Gay&mdash;&mdash;

"'Thou'lt meet an happier maiden, 'But none that loves thee so!'"

At length, however slowly, the tedious hours wore away. Montalbert returned; he returned apparently more enamoured than before this absence of nine weeks, and Rosalie forgot that she had ever been unhappy.

When, the first joy of their meeting being a little subdued, Rosalie spoke to her husband of his mother, she fancied that though he declined conversation on the subject, that he was in reality less anxious about the future consequences of his marriage than she had ever yet seen him. When he could not wholly evade speaking on the subject, he affected an indifference, which made Rosalie believe he was himself at ease; for, little skilled herself in dissimulation, she did not for a moment imagine that this tranquility was artificial.

At length the hour arrived when real joy succeeded to this external calm. Rosalie brought into the world a lovely boy, and her own health was so soon re-established, that, in a very few weeks, her beauty appeared more brilliant than before her confinement. More attached to her than ever, Montalbert could hardly bear to have her a moment out of his sight; yet the time was come, when, if he followed the dictate of that prudence to which he had already made so many sacrifices, he must return to Naples.

Alozzi, whose friendship for him appeared to be undiminished, failed not to remind Montalbert of the necessity of this return; but his remonstrances, however reasonable and gentle, were always received with uneasiness, and sometimes with impatience and ill-humour. The visits of Alozzi had not been more frequent than formerly; on the contrary, he had been more rarely their visitor than during his former stay at Messina; though he returned thither before Montalbert, he never appeared at the residence of Rosalie till his friend arrived there. Notwithstanding these precautions, however, the fault of Montalbert's temper found food to nourish itself in the looks of Alozzi, whom he fancied regarded Rosalie with too much admiration, and sometimes fixed on her eyes in which passion and hope were too evidently expressed. This idea having once seized the imagination of Montalbert, became a source of inexpressible torment, and when he reflected, that he must soon leave his wife in the house of this friend, who was, he persuaded himself, in love with her, neither her virtues, nor her attachment to him, neither the honour of his friend, nor the confidence he ought to have had in Rosalie, were sufficient to quiet his apprehensions, though he felt them to be alike injurious to his own peace, and to that of those whom he most loved.

Sometimes he gazed on Rosalie as she sat with his boy sleeping in her arms, and tried to persuade himself, that if once his mother could see these interesting creatures, she would not only pardon him, but receive them to her protection and tenderness. Then, recollecting what had passed during his last visit to this violent and impracticable parent, he felt that all such hopes were delusive: he became ashamed of what often appeared to him an unpardonable meanness, and resolved, at whatever pecuniary risk, to throw off a yoke which degraded him in his own eyes; to produce his wife and his child, and abide the consequences of his mother's displeasure.

While Montablert was thus deliberating, and every hour forming and abandoning projects for the future, a letter he received from Naples, compelled him to adopt the measure of immediately going thither. It was from a female relation, who usually resided with his mother; and who now informed him, that she was extremely ill, and it was absolutely necessary for him to see her as immediately as possible.

Wretched is the policy which too often puts at variance the best feelings of human nature; which sets the parent against the child, because expences either affect his ease, or are painful to his avarice; which estrange the brother from the sister, and make enemies of the amiable and lovely group, who, but a few, a very few years before, were happy associates in the innocent, thoughtless hours of childhood.&mdash;Ah! wretched is the policy which makes the son, too, often rejoice, when she who bore him and nourished him mingles with the dust; when those eyes are closed which have so often been filled with tears of tender anxiety as they gazed on him!&mdash;and yet all the contrivances, which cunning and caution have invented for the security of property, have a direct tendency to occasion all this, while mistaken views of happiness, unfortunate mistakes in the head, or deficiency of feeling in the heart, do the rest, and occasion more than half the miseries of life.

Montalbert, on receiving the letter that gave him notice of his mother's danger, felt, for a moment, that he was her son; but almost as soon as this sense of filial duty and affection was lost in an involuntary recollection of the release which her death would give him from the pain of concealing a clandestine marriage, or reducing himself and his posterity to indigence if he betrayed it.

He had no sooner felt this sentiment arise in his mind than he was shocked at and resisted it; but again it arose, and he found all his affection for his mother weak, when opposed to the idea of the advantages he might derive from her quitting the world where she alone was the barrier between him and happiness with the woman he adored.

It was not, however, a time to investigate these sentiments deeply, but to act in pursuance of the letter. He hastened, therefore, to inform his wife of its contents, who agreed with him entirely as to the urgency of his immediate departure, yet wept and hung about him as if impressed with some unusual apprehension of future sorrow; and, as she kissed her child, she almost drowned it with her tears.

Montalbert, who felt none of this violent grief at an absence, the duration of which would, as he thought, depend on himself, consoled her with views of future prosperity and uninterrupted happiness.

Alozzi had a few days before left Messina, and was gone to Agrigentum, where he intended to remain for some time. Montablert, therefore, who had no doubt but that he should return within five or six weeks, felt no uneasiness at the thoughts of leaving to frequent interviews with his wife, in his absence, a man whom all his reason did not enable him to see with her, in his presence, without pain.

The letter Montalbert had received was written in such pressing terms, that there was no time to be lost, and he determined to begin his journey on the next day.

Rosalie, far from feeling even the usual tranquility, saw the moment of his bidding her adieu arrive with agonies of sorrow, for which she knew not how to account&mdash;yet could not stifle or command. Nothing new had occurred in her situation to make this absence more dreadful than the two preceding ones; indeed it should have been otherwise, for the presence of her infant, on which she doted with all the fondness of a first maternal affection, was what was most likely to console her in this temporary parting from its father: nor had she to say, with the unhappy Dido&mdash;&mdash;

"'Si quis mihi parvulus aula 'Luderet Æneas, qui te tatem ore referret; 'Non equidam omnino capta aut dferta viderer.' VIRGIL'S ÆNEID."

The servants about her were the same as those with whom she had formerly reasoned to be satisfied. The situation around her offered all that the most lovely scenes of nature could do to assuage the pain inflicted by her husband's involuntary and short absence. All this she urged to appease the tumult of her spirits; she owned the justice of it all, but nothing gave her any consolation, and, when she at last allowed him to tear himself away, the resolution to see him depart was acquired by an effort so painful, that he was hardly out of sight before her senses forsook her, and it was many hours before the remonstrances of Zulietta, her Italian maid, and of an older woman who assisted in the care of her infant boy, so far roused her from the despondence into which she fell, as to engage her to attend to the care of her own health, on which depended that of the child she nourished at her breast.

By degrees, however, she became more composed; she received cheerful letters from Montalbert, sent by a vessel which passed them at sea. It mentioned, that they were becalmed, but that he was perfectly well, and had no doubt of writing to her the next day from Naples. Ashamed of fears and of despondence, which seemed, as soon as she could reason upon it, to have so little foundation, she returned once more to the the amusements which used to beguile the hours of her husband's absence, and all that were not dedicated to the care of her child, whom she attended to herself, she passed in cultivating those talents which Montalbert loved, and in which he had assisted and marked her progress with such exquisite delight.

CHAP.