Читать книгу LODORE - Mary Shelley - Страница 13

Table of Contents

Who then to frail mortality shall trust.

But limns the water, or but writes in dust.

Bacon.

They arrived in Berkeley-square. Lady Lodore alighted, and perceived with something of a beating heart, that her husband followed her, as she passed on to the inner drawing-room. Lady Santerre was not there. Taking a letter from the table, so to give herself the appearance of an excuse for having entered a room she was about immediately to quit, she was going, when Lodore, who stood hesitating, evidently desirous of addressing her, and yet uncertain how to begin, stopped her by speaking her name, “Cornelia!”

She turned — she was annoyed; her conscience whispered what was in all probability the subject to which her attention was to be called. Her meditations in the drawing-room of the Russian Ambassador, convinced her that she had, to use the phrase of the day, flirted too much with Count Casimir, and she had inwardly resolved to do so no more. It was particularly disagreeable therefore, that her husband should use authority, as she feared that he was about to do, and exact from his wife’s obedience, what she was willing to concede to her own sense of propriety. She was resolved to hear as little as she could on the subject, and stood as if in haste to go. His faltering voice betrayed how much he felt, and once or twice it refused to frame the words he desired to utter: how different was their import from that expected by his impatient auditress!

“Cornelia,” said he, at length, “can you immediately, and at once — this very night — prepare to quit England?”

“Quit England! Why? — whither?” she exclaimed.

“I scarcely know,” replied Lodore, “nor is it of the slightest import. The world is wide, a shelter, a refuge can be purchased any where — and that is all I seek.”

The gaming table, the turf, loss of fortune, were the ideas naturally conveyed into the lady’s mind by this reply. “Is all — every thing gone — lost?” she asked.

“My honour is,” he answered, with an effort, “and the rest is of little worth.”

He paused, and then continued in a low but distinct voice, as if every word cost him a struggle, yet as if he wished each one to be fraught with its entire meaning to his hearer; “I cannot well explain to you the motives of my sudden determination, nor will I complain of the part you have had in bringing on this catastrophe. It is over now. No power on earth — no heavenly power can erase the past, nor change one iota of what, but an hour ago, did not exist, but which now exists; altering all things to both of us for ever; I am a dishonoured man.”

“Speak without more comment,” cried Lady Lodore; “for Heaven’s sake explain — I must know what you mean.”

“I have insulted a gentleman,” replied her husband, “and I will yield no reparation. I have disgraced a nobleman by a blow, and I will offer no apology, could one be accepted — and it could not; nor will I give satisfaction.”

Lady Lodore remained silent. Her thoughts speedily ran over the dire objects which her husband’s speech presented. A quarrel — she too readily guessed with whom — a blow, a duel; her cheek blanched — yet not so; for Lodore refused to fight. In spite of the terror with which an anticipated rencontre had filled her, the idea of cowardice in her husband, or the mere accusation of it, brought the colour back to her face. She felt that her heedlessness had given rise to all this harm; but again she felt insulted that doubts of her sentiments or conduct should be the occasion of a scene of violence. Both remained silent. Lodore stood leaning on the mantelpiece, his cheek flushed, agitation betraying itself in each gesture, mixed with a resolve to command himself. Cornelia had advanced from the door to the middle of the room; she stood irresolute, too indignant and too fearful to ask further explanation, yet anxious to receive it. Still he hesitated. He was desirous of finding some form of words which might convey all the information that it was necessary she should receive, and yet conceal all that he desired should remain untold.

At last he spoke. “It is unnecessary to allude to the irretrievable past. The future is not less unalterable for me. I will not fight with, nor apologize to, the boy I have insulted I must therefore fly — fly my country and the face of man; go where the name of Lodore will not be synonymous with infamy — to an island in the east — to the desert wilds of America — it matters not whither. The simple question is, whether you are prepared on a sudden to accompany me? I would not ask this of your generosity, but that, married as we are, our destinies are linked, far beyond any power we possess to sunder them. Miserable as my future fortunes will be, far other than those which I invited you but four years ago to share, you are better off incurring the worst with me, than you could be, struggling alone for a separate existence.”

“Pardon me, Lodore,” said Cornelia, somewhat subdued by the magnitude of the crisis brought about, she believed, however involuntarily by herself, and by the sadness that, as he spoke, filled the dark eyes of her companion with an expression more melancholy than tears; “pardon me, if I seek for further explanation. Your antagonist” (they neither of them ventured to speak a name, which hung on the lips of both) “is a mere boy. Your refusal to fight with him results of course from this consideration; while angry, and if I must allude to so distasteful a falsehood, while unjust suspicion prevent your making him fitting and most due concessions. Were the occasion less terrible, I might disdain to assert my own innocence; but as it is, I do most solemnly declare, that Count Casimir — ” “I ask no question on that point, but simply wish to know whether you will accompany me,” interrupted Lodore, hastily; “the rest I am sorry for — but it is over. You, my poor girl, though in some measure the occasion, and altogether the victim, of this disaster, can exercise no controul over it. No foreign noble would accept the most humiliating submissions as compensation for a blow, and this urchin shall never receive from me the shadow of any.”

“Is there no other way?” asked Cornelia.

“Not any,” replied Lodore, while his agitation increased, and his voice grew tremulous; “No consideration on earth could arm me against his life. One other mode there is. I might present myself as a mark for his vengeance, with a design of not returning his fire, but I am shut out even from this resource. And this,” continued Lodore, losing as he spoke, all self-command, carried away by the ungovernable passions he had hitherto suppressed, and regardless, as he strode up and down the room, of Cornelia, who half terrified had sunk into a chair; “this — these are the result of my crimes — such, from their consequences, I now term, what by courtesy I have hitherto named my follies — this is the end! Bringing into frightful collision those who are bound by sacred ties — changing natural love into unnatural, deep-rooted, unspeakable hate — arming blood against kindred blood — and making the innocent a parricide. O Theodora, what have you not to answer for!”

Lady Lodore started. The image he presented was too detestable. She repressed her emotions, and assuming that air of disdain, which we are so apt to adopt to colour more painful feelings, she said, “This sounds very like a German tragedy, being at once disagreeable and inexplicable.”

“It is a tragedy,” he replied; “a tragedy brought now to its last dark catastrophe. Casimir is my son. We may neither of us murder the other; nor will I, if again brought into contact with him, do other than chastise the insolent boy. The tiger is roused within me. You have a part in this.”

A flash of anger glanced from Cornelia’s eyes. She did not reply — she rose — she quitted the room — she passed on with apparent composure, till reaching the door of her mother’s chamber, she rushed impetuously in. Overcome with indignation, panting, choked, she threw herself into her arms, saying, “Save me!” A violent fit of hysterics followed.

At first Lady Lodore could only speak of the injury and insult she had herself suffered; and Lady Santerre, who by no means wished to encourage feelings, which might lead to violence in action, tried to soothe her irritation. But when allusions to Lodore’s intention of quitting England and the civilized world for ever, mingled with Cornelia’s exclamations, the affair asumed a new aspect in the wary lady’s eyes. The barbarity of such an idea excited her utmost resentment. At once she saw the full extent of the intended mischief, and the risk she incurred of losing the reward of years of suffering and labour. When an instantaneous departure was mentioned, an endless, desolate journey, which it was doubtful whether she should be admitted to share, to be commenced that very night, she perceived that her measures to prevent it must be promptly adopted. The chariot was still waiting which was to have conveyed Lord and Lady Lodore to their assembly; dressed as she was for this, without preparation, she hurried her daughter into the carriage, and bade the coachman drive to a villa they rented at Twickenham; leaving, in explanation, these few lines addressed to her son-in-law.

“The scene of this evening has had an alarming effect upon Cornelia. Time will soften the violence of her feelings, but some immediate step was necessary to save, I verily believe, her life. I take her to Twickenham, and will endeavour to calm her: until I shall have in some measure succeeded, I think you had better not follow us; but let us hear from you; for althogh my attention is so painfully engrossed by my daughter’s sufferings, I am distressed on your account also, and shall continue very uneasy until I hear from you.

“Friday Evening.”

Lady Santerre and her daughter reached Twickenham. Lady Lodore went to bed, and assisted by a strong composing draught, administered by her mother, her wrongs and her anger were soon hushed in profound sleep. Night, or rather morning, was far spent before this occurred, so that it was late in the afternoon of the ensuing day before she awoke, and recalled to her memory the various conflicting sentiments which had occupied her previous to her repose.

During the morning, Lady Santerre had despatched a servant to Berkeley-square, to summon her daughter’s peculiar attendants. He now brought back the intelligence that Lord Lodore had departed for the continent, about three hours after his wife had quitted his house. But to this he added tidings of another circumstance, for which both ladies were totally unprepared. Cornelia had entered the carriage the preceding night, without spending one thought on the sleeping cherub in the nursery. What was her surprise and indignation, when she heard that her child and its attendant formed a part of his lordship’s travelling suite. The mother’s first impulse was to follow her offspring; but this was speedily exchanged for a bitter sense of wrong, aversion to her husband, and a resolve not to yield one point, in the open warfare thus declared by him.