Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume I. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ as we arrived at our journey’s end. Here, however, every kindness and attention awaited us; and I soon had the happiness of seeing my poor friend in his bed, and sleeping with all the ease and tranquillity of a child.

      From that hour every other thought was merged in my fears for him. I watched with an agonizing intensity every change of his malady; I scanned with an aching heart every symptom day by day. How many times has the false bloom of hectic shed happiness over me! How often in my secret walks have I offered up my prayer of thankfulness, as the deceitful glow of fever colored his wan cheek, and lent a more than natural brilliancy to his sunk and filmy eye! The world to me was all nothing, save as it influenced him. Every cloud that moved above, each breeze that rustled, I thought of for him; and when I slept, his image was still before me, and his voice seemed to call me oftentimes in the silence of the night, and when I awoke and saw him sleeping, I knew not which was the reality.

      His debility increased rapidly; and although the mild air of summer and the shelter of the deep valley seemed to have relieved his cough, his weakness grew daily more and more. His character, too, seemed to have undergone a change as great and as striking as that in his health. The high and chivalrous ambition, the soldierlike heroism, the ardent spirit of patriotism that at first marked him, had given way to a low and tender melancholy, – an almost womanish tenderness, – that made him love to have the little children of the cabin near him, to hear their innocent prattle and watch their infant gambols. He talked, too, of home; of the old château in Provence, where he was born, and described to me its antiquated terraces and quaint, old-fashioned alleys, where as a boy he wandered with his sister.

      “Pauvre Marie!” said he, as a deep blush covered his pale cheek, “how have I deserted you!” The thought seemed full of anguish for him, and for the remainder of the day he scarcely spoke.

      Some days after his first mention of his sister, we were sitting together in front of the cabin, enjoying the shade of a large chestnut-tree, which already had put forth its early leaves, and tempered if it did not exclude the rays of the sun.

      “You heard me speak of my sister,” said he, in a low and broken voice. “She is all that I have on earth near to me. We were brought up together as children; learned the same plays, had the same masters, spent not one hour in the long day asunder, and at night we pressed each other’s hands as we sunk to sleep. She was to me all that I ever dreamed of girlish loveliness, of woman’s happiest nature; and I was her ideal of boyish daring, of youthful boldness, and manly enterprise. We loved each other, – like those who felt they had no need of other affection, save such as sprang from our cradles, and tracked us on through life. Hers was a heart that seemed made for all that human nature can taste of happiness; her eye, her lip, her blooming cheek knew no other expression than a smile; her very step was buoyancy; her laugh rang through your heart as joy-bells fill the air; and yet, – and yet! I brought that heart to sorrow, and that cheek I made pale, and hollow, and sunken as you see my own. My cursed ambition, that rested not content with my own path in life, threw its baleful shadow across hers. The story is a short one, and I may tell it to you.

      “When I left Provence to join the army of the South, I was obliged to leave Marie under the care of an old and distant relative, who resided some two leagues from us on the Loire. The chevalier was a widower, with one son about my own age, of whom I knew nothing save that he had never left his father’s house; had been educated completely at home; and had obtained the reputation of being a sombre, retired bookworm, who avoided the world, and preferred the lonely solitude of a provincial château to the gay dissipations of Paris.

      “My only fear in intrusting my poor sister in such hands was the dire stupidity of the séjour; but as I bid her goodby, I said, laughingly, ‘Prenez garde, Marie, don’t fall in love with Claude de Lauzan.’

      “‘Poor Claude!’ said she, bursting into a fit of laughter; ‘what a sad affair that would be for him!’ So saying, we parted.

      “I made the campaign of Italy, where, as I have perhaps too often told you, I had some opportunities of distinguishing myself, and was promoted to a squadron on the field of Arcole. Great as my boyish exultation was at my success, I believe its highest pleasure arose from the anticipation of Marie’s delight when she received my letter with the news. I wrote to her nearly every week, and heard from her as frequently. At the time I did not mark, as I have since done, the altered tone of her letters to me: how, gradually, the high ambitious daring that animated her early answers became tamed down into half regretful fears of a soldier’s career; her sorrows for those whose conquered countries were laid waste by fire and sword; her implied censure of a war whose injustice she more than hinted at; and, lastly, her avowed preference for those peaceful paths in life that were devoted to the happiness of one’s fellows, and the worship of Him who deserved all our affection. I did not mark, I say, this change, – the bustle of the camp, the din of arms, the crash of mounted squadrons, are poor aids to reflection, and I thought of Marie but as I left her.

      “It was after a few months of absence I returned to Provence, – the croix d’honneur on my bosom, the sabre I won at Lodi by my side. I rushed into the room bursting with impatience to clasp my sister in my arms, and burning to tell her all my deeds and all my dangers. She met me with her old affection; but how altered in its form! Her gay and girlish lightness, the very soul of buoyant pleasure, was gone; and in its place a mild, sad smile played upon her lip, and a deep, thoughtful look was in her dark brown eye. She looked not less beautiful, – no, far from it; her loveliness was increased tenfold. But the disappointment smote heavily on my heart. I looked about me like one seeking for some explanation; and there stood Claude – pale, still, and motionless – before me: the very look she wore reflected in his calm features; her very smile was on his lips. In an instant the whole truth flashed across me: she loved him.

      “There are thoughts which rend us, as lightning does the rock, opening new surfaces that lay hid since the Creation, and tearing our fast-knit sympathies asunder like the rent granite: mine was such. From that hour I hated him; the very virtues that had, under happier circumstances, made us like brothers, but added fuel to the flame. My rival, he had robbed me of my sister; – he had left me without that one great prize I owned on earth; and all that I had dared and won seemed poor, and barren, and worthless, since she no longer valued it.

      “That very night I wrote a letter to the First Consul. I knew the ardent desire he possessed to attach to Josephine’s suite such members of the old aristocracy as could be induced to join it. He had more than once hinted to me that the fame of my sister’s beauty had reached the Tuileries; that with such pretensions as hers, the seclusion of a château in Provence was ill suited to her. I stated at once my wish that she might be received as one of the Ladies of the Court, avowing my intention to afford her any sum that might be deemed suitable to maintain her in so exalted a sphere. This, you are not aware, is the mode by which the members of a family express to the consul that they surrender all right and guardianship in the individual given, tendering to him full power to dispose of her in marriage, exactly as though he were her own father.

      “Before day broke my letter was on its way to Paris; in less than a week came the answer, accepting my proposal in the most flattering terms, and commanding me to repair to the Tuileries with my sister, and take command of a regiment d’ elite then preparing for service.

      “I may not dwell on the scene that followed; the very memory of it is too much for my weak and failing spirits. Claude flung himself at my feet, and confessed his love. He declared his willingness to submit to any or everything I should dictate: he would join the army; he would volunteer for Egypt. Poor fellow! his trembling accents and bloodless lip comported ill with the heroism of his words. Only promise that in the end Marie should be his, and there was no danger he would not dare, no course in life, however unsuited to him, he would not follow at my bidding. I know not whether my heart could have withstood such an appeal as this, had I been free to act; but now the die was cast. I handed him the First Consul’s letter. He opened it with a hand trembling like palsy, and read it over; he leaned СКАЧАТЬ