Page:Once a Week Volume 7.djvu/319

. 13, 1862.] inadequacy of the means to the great cause they propose to themselves, obliges them to be somewhat unscrupulous, in the use of them. In my lonely life I had cherished dreams such as all Italians cherish. The independence of Italy, its restoration to its place in the scale of nations, its social regenerations, were watch-words to me. I listened to him with avidity, and with an ardour which delighted him. I worked at his bidding for the cause to which he had devoted himself. I laboured in a manner which surprised him. We were always together. I confess, to my shame, that between the care of his child, ministering to his own helplessness, and assisting in the arduous correspondence, plans, designs, &c., which occupied him, I saw little or nothing of the Chanoinesse. I neglected a clear, plain duty for a Quixotic one imposed by myself; but the self-indulgence which thus veiled itself in an appearance of self-sacrifice, was punished as it deserved.

“Rupert had a dramatic facility in assuming any character which answered to the ideal formed in his own mind, of what he ought to be on any given occasion. This differed according to his mood or his purpose. He could be all that was gentle, refined, and tender, or all that was hard, cynical, I might almost say brutal; but the griffe du tigre was not at once perceived by me sous la patte de velours.

“Nothing at first, however, could be gentler, more like a brother in his relations with a loved and trusted sister. Such an influx of affection as I drew, first from Ida and then from her father, was a boon which to me, who had led hitherto so isolated and unloved a life, seemed inestimable. I was lifted at once into a region of warmth and light out of frozen darkness. The injudicious affections of women are often blamed. Blindness, and a moral perversity of choice, are imputed to us, when our love is fixed on an unworthy object. This may be true in the sense of love proper; there, a personal instinct ought to adjust the moral balance, but in a maternal or sisterly love the rule fails. We love the creatures God has placed near us, and the love itself is such a noble expansion of our whole being, that the merits of the being so loved are transfigured. As the poet says—

Who cares to see the fountain’s very shape,

And whether it be a Triton’s or a Nymph’s

That pours the foam, makes rainbows all around?

So was it with me. My love for Ida seemed to be increased by my love for her father; my love for Rupert flowed into and exalted my love for his child. I was the companion of both, and towards both I felt a mother’s yearning. It was the purest, sweetest, most unselfish feeling of my life. With what joy I found the gift in myself, the capacity for such a love. A man who possesses what he has supposed hitherto to be a barren estate, when he sees the first glimmering of the ore which proclaims a gold mine, may have a similar feeling. It seemed almost fabulous that such a felicity should be mine. I, who was childless, had a child—I, who was brotherless, had found a brother.

‘Santa,’ said Rupert to me one day, ‘if this life could only continue, what great things we should do. Two such forces, (is not mind a force?) acting in union, might move a world.’

‘Why should it not continue?’ I asked.

“He scrutinised my countenance keenly.

‘How totally unlike your sex you are in everything! Above it or below it?’ He muttered the last question, but I heard it.

‘Above it by all means,’ I answered, laughingly.

‘Have you never loved, Santa? Has love never knocked at that self-sustained heart?’

‘Love never knocks at a door which is closed. It must be open for him to seek to enter.’

“My answer was a quotation from a favourite book.

‘Never! Shall you never love?’

“I shrunk back.

‘I would have loved my husband; as it is, I seek nothing henceforth in life, but a friend’s hand to hold—a child’s brow to kiss.’ I stooped to Ida, who was standing near me, and clasped her in my arms.

“Another day he asked me if I did not regret my gay life in Vienna.

‘Regret? when all my nature there was dormant, and here is developed. I have exchanged emptiness for fulness—barrenness for wealth. A friend, a child, whose love can fill my heart—a noble cause to serve—what need I more?’

“Again the same searching look met mine, and seemed to read my heart.

“What a golden friendship I dreamed of! so secure did I feel, that the insurmountable obstacles which divided us would give stability and security to our affection, and place it on a height above all the fever and transitoriness of passion. I dreamed of being the friend of Rupert here and hereafter;—of loving his wife, should he ever marry again, of cherishing Ida as mine, of following from my retirement his brilliant and successful career, of receiving occasional visits from him and his, in the far future years, which would be the Sabbaths of my life, and give him repose after the fatigues and labours of his. Fool, fool, that I was! His heart was too cold—his principles too wavering, to be capable of steadfast feeling or enduring affection.

“His nature ignored all affections but one. He could enjoy a kind of ‘camaraderie’ with many, but this was all inspired and enjoyed by the head, the heart was capable but of one sentiment. Madame Serrano, my brother’s first love, whose beauty and witchery had increased with every year, had inspired him with the only emotion of which he was capable. A sentiment which she irritated in every way; fed, but did not satisfy; encouraged, but did not return. It was to be near her that he came to us. She had taken a house in our neighbourhood. She was the most accomplished coquette in the world, with a soft suggestive manner which every man could interpret as he liked best. She was not deceitful, but she had that sympathetic organisation, and that strong inherent love of pleasing, which gave her power to invest herself, at the moment, with the character which was most attractive to the one whom she wished