Henrietta Temple, Benjamin Disraeli [free ereaders .TXT] 📗

chair, and covered his face and wept.

'I would that deed or labour of mine could restore you both to peace,' said Glastonbury, with streaming eyes.

'So innocent, so truly virtuous!' continued Ferdinand. 'It seemed to me I never knew what virtue was till I knew her. So frank, so generous! I think I see her now, with that dear smile of hers that never more may welcome me!'

'My child, I know not what to say; I know not what advice to give; I know not what even to wish. Your situation is so complicated, so mysterious, that it passes my comprehension. There are others whose claims, whose feelings should be considered. You are not, of course, married?'

Ferdinand shook his head.

'Does Miss Grandison know all?'

'Nothing.'

'Your family?'

Ferdinand shook his head again.

'What do you yourself wish? What object are you aiming at? What game have you yourself been playing? I speak not in harshness; but I really do not understand what you have been about. If you have your grandfather's passions, you have his brain too. I did not ever suppose that you were "infirm of purpose."'

'I have only one wish, only one object. Since I first saw Henrietta, my heart and resolution have never for an instant faltered; and if I do not now succeed in them I am determined not to live.'

'The God of all goodness have mercy on this distracted house!' exclaimed Glastonbury, as he piously lifted his hands to heaven.

'You went to Bath to communicate this great change to your father,' he continued. 'Why did you not? Painful as the explanation must be to Miss Grandison, the injustice of your conduct towards her is aggravated by delay.'

'There were reasons,' said Ferdinand, 'reasons which I never intended anyone to know; but now I have no secrets. Dear Glastonbury, even amid all this overwhelming misery, my cheek burns when I confess to you that I have, and have had for years, private cares of my own of no slight nature.'

'Debts?' enquired Glastonbury.

'Debts,' replied Ferdinand, 'and considerable ones.'

'Poor child!' exclaimed Glastonbury. 'And this drove you to the marriage?'

'To that every worldly consideration impelled me: my heart was free then; in fact, I did not know I had a heart; and I thought the marriage would make all happy. But now, so far as I am myself concerned, oh! I would sooner be the commonest peasant in this county, with Henrietta Temple for the partner of my life, than live at Armine with all the splendour of my ancestors.'

'Honour be to them; they were great men,' exclaimed Glastonbury.

'I am their victim,' replied Ferdinand. 'I owe my ancestors nothing, nay, worse than nothing; I owe them------'

'Hush! hush!' said Glastonbury. 'If only for my sake, Ferdinand, be silent.'

'For yours, then, not for theirs.'

'But why did you remain at Bath?' enquired Glastonbury.

'I had not been there more than a day or two, when my principal creditor came down from town and menaced me. He had a power of attorney from an usurer at Malta, and talked of applying to the Horse Guards. The report that I was going to marry an heiress had kept these fellows quiet, but the delay and my absence from Bath had excited his suspicion. Instead, therefore, of coming to an immediate explanation with Katherine, brought about as I had intended by my coldness and neglect, I was obliged to be constantly seen with her in public, to prevent myself from being arrested. Yet I wrote to Ducie daily. I had confidence in my energy and skill. I thought that Henrietta might be for a moment annoyed or suspicious; I thought, however, she would be supported by the fervour of my love. I anticipated no other evil. Who could have supposed that these infernal visitors would have come at such a moment to this retired spot?'

'And now, is all known now?' enquired Glastonbury.

'Nothing,' replied Ferdinand; 'the difficulty of my position was so great that I was about to cut the knot, by quitting Bath and leaving a letter addressed to Katherine, confessing all. But the sudden silence of Henrietta drove me mad. Day after day elapsed; two, three, four, five, six days, and I heard nothing. The moon was bright; the mail was just going off. I yielded to an irresistible impulse. I bid adieu to no one. I jumped in. I was in London only ten minutes. I dashed to Ducie. It was deserted. An old woman told me the family had gone, had utterly departed; she knew not where, but she thought for foreign parts. I sank down; I tottered to a seat in that hall where I had been so happy. Then it flashed across my mind that I might discover their course and pursue them. I hurried to the nearest posting town. I found out their route. I lost it for ever at the next stage. The clue was gone; it was market-day, and in a great city, where horses are changed every minute, there is so much confusion that my enquiries were utterly baffled. And here I am, Mr. Glastonbury,' added Ferdinand, with a kind of mad smile. 'I have travelled four days, I have not slept a wink, I have tasted no food; but I have drunk, I have drunk well. Here I am, and I have half a mind to set fire to that accursed pile called Armine Castle for my funeral pyre.'

'Ferdinand, you are not well,' said Mr. Glastonbury, grasping his hand. 'You need rest. You must retire; indeed you must. I must be obeyed. My bed is yours.'

'No! let me go to my own room,' murmured Ferdinand, in a faint voice. 'That room where my mother said the day would come--oh! what did my mother say? Would there were only mother's love, and then I should not be here or thus.'

'I pray you, my child, rest here.'

'No! let us to the Place, for an hour; I shall not sleep more than an hour. I am off again directly the storm is over. If it had not been for this cursed rain I should have caught them. And yet, perhaps, they are in countries where there is no rain. Ah! who would believe what happens in this world? Not I, for one. Now, give me your arm. Good Glastonbury! you are always the same. You seem to me the only thing in the world that is unchanged.'

Glastonbury, with an air of great tenderness and anxiety, led his former pupil down the stairs. The weather was more calm. There were some dark blue rifts in the black sky which revealed a star or two. Ferdinand said nothing in their progress to the Place except once, when he looked up to the sky, and said, as it were to himself, 'She loved the stars.'

Glastonbury had some difficulty in rousing the man and his wife, who were the inmates of the Place; but it was not very late, and, fortunately, they had not retired for the night. Lights were brought into Lady Armine's drawing-room. Glastonbury led Ferdinand to a sofa, on which he rather permitted others to place him than seated himself. He took no notice of anything that was going on, but remained with his eyes open, gazing feebly with a rather vacant air.

Then the good Glastonbury looked to the arrangement of his sleeping-room, drawing the curtains, seeing that the bed was well aired and warmed, and himself adding blocks to the wood fire which soon kindled. Nor did he forget to prepare, with the aid of the good woman, some hot potion that might soothe and comfort his stricken and exhausted charge, who in this moment of distress and desolation had come, as it were, and thrown himself on the bosom of his earliest friend. When all was arranged Glastonbury descended to Ferdinand, whom he found in exactly the same position as that in which he left him. He offered no resistance to the invitation of Glastonbury to retire to his chamber. He neither moved nor spoke, and yet seemed aware of all they were doing. Glastonbury and the stout serving-man bore him to his chamber, relieved him from his wet garments, and placed him in his earliest bed. When Glastonbury bade him good night, Ferdinand faintly pressed his hand, but did not speak; and it was remarkable, that while he passively submitted to their undressing him, and seemed incapable of affording them the slightest aid, yet he thrust forth his hand to guard a lock of dark hair that was placed next to his heart.


CHAPTER IX.


_In Which Glastonbury Finds That a Serene Temper Does Not
Always Bring a Serene Life_.


THOSE quiet slumbers, that the regular life and innocent heart of the good Glastonbury generally ensured, were sadly broken this night, as he lay awake meditating over the distracted fortunes of the of Armine house. They seemed now to be most turbulent and clouded; and that brilliant and happy future, in which of late he had so fondly indulged, offered nothing but gloom and disquietude. Nor was it the menaced disruption of those ties whose consummation was to restore the greatness and splendour of the family, and all the pain and disappointment and mortification and misery that must be its consequence, that alone made him sorrowful. Glastonbury had a reverence for that passion which sheds such a lustre over existence, and is the pure and prolific source of much of our better conduct; the time had been when he, too, had loved, and with a religious sanctity worthy of his character and office; he had been for a long life the silent and hopeless votary of a passion almost ideal, yet happy, though 'he never told his love;' and, indeed, although the unconscious mistress of his affections had been long removed from that world where his fidelity was almost her only comfort, that passion had not waned, and the feelings that had been inspired by her presence were now cherished by her memory. His tender and romantic nature, which his venerable grey hairs had neither dulled nor hardened, made him deeply sympathise with his unhappy pupil; the radiant image of Henrietta Temple, too, vividly impressed on his memory as it was, rose up before him; he recollected his joy that the chosen partner of his Ferdinand's bosom should be worthy of her destiny; he thought of this fair creature, perchance in solitude and sickness, a prey to the most mortifying and miserable emotions, with all her fine and generous feelings thrown back upon herself; deeming herself deceived, deserted, outraged, where she had looked for nothing but fidelity, and fondness, and support; losing all confidence in the world and the world's ways; but recently so lively with expectation and airy with enjoyment, and now aimless, hopeless, wretched, perhaps broken-hearted. The tears trickled down the pale cheek of Glastonbury as he revolved in his mind these mournful thoughts; and almost unconsciously he wrung his hands as he felt his utter want of power to remedy these sad and piteous circumstances. Yet he was not absolutely hopeless. There was ever open to the pious Glastonbury one perennial source of trust and consolation. This was a fountain that was ever fresh and sweet, and he took refuge from the world's harsh courses and exhausting cares in its salutary flow and its refreshing shade, when, kneeling before his crucifix, he commended the unhappy Ferdinand and his family to the superintending care of a merciful Omnipotence.

The morning brought fresh anxieties. Glastonbury was at the Place at an early hour, and found Ferdinand