Venetia, Benjamin Disraeli [good non fiction books to read txt] 📗

Cadurcis' poems. You cannot conceive how uneasy it makes me. I am quite annoyed that he was asked here to-day. Why ask him?'

'Oh! there is no harm,' said Masham; 'you must forget the past. By all accounts, Cadurcis is not a marrying man. Indeed, as I understood, marriage with him is at present quite out of the question. And as for Venetia, she rejected him before, and she will, if necessary, reject him again. He has been a brother to her, and after that he can be no more. Girls never fall in love with those with whom they are bred up.'

'I hope, I believe there is no occasion for apprehension,' replied Lady Annabel; 'indeed, it has scarcely entered my head. The very charms he once admired in Venetia can have no sway over him, as I should think, now. I should believe him as little capable of appreciating Venetia now, as he was when last at Cherbury, of anticipating the change in his own character.'

'You mean opinions, my dear lady, for characters never change. Believe me, Cadurcis is radically the same as in old days. Circumstances have only developed his latent predisposition.'

'Not changed, my dear lord! what, that innocent, sweet-tempered, docile child--'

'Hush! here he comes.'

The Earl and his guests entered the room; a circle was formed round Lady Annabel; some evening visitors arrived; there was singing. It had not been the intention of Lord Cadurcis to return to the drawing-room after his rebuff by Lady Annabel; he had meditated making his peace at Monteagle House; but when the moment of his projected departure had arrived, he could not resist the temptation of again seeing Venetia. He entered the room last, and some moments after his companions. Lady Annabel, who watched the general entrance, concluded he had gone, and her attention was now fully engaged. Lord Cadurcis remained at the end of the room alone, apparently abstracted, and looking far from amiable; but his eye, in reality, was watching Venetia. Suddenly her aunt approached her, and invited the lady who was conversing with Miss Herbert to sing; Lord Cadurcis immediately advanced, and took her seat. Venetia was surprised that for the first time in her life with Plantagenet she felt embarrassed. She had met his look when he approached her, and had welcomed, or, at least, intended to welcome him with a smile, but she was at a loss for words; she was haunted with the recollection of her mother's behaviour to him at dinner, and she looked down on the ground, far from being at ease.

'Venetia!' said Lord Cadurcis.

She started.

'We are alone,' he said; 'let me call you Venetia when we are alone.'

She did not, she could not reply; she felt confused; the blood rose to her cheek.

'How changed is everything!' continued Cadurcis. 'To think the day should ever arrive when I should have to beg your permission to call you Venetia!'

She looked up; she met his glance. It was mournful; nay, his eyes were suffused with tears. She saw at her side the gentle and melancholy Plantagenet of her childhood.

'I cannot speak; I am agitated at meeting you,' she said with her native frankness. 'It is so long since we have been alone; and, as you say, all is so changed.'

'But are you changed, Venetia?' he said in a voice of emotion; 'for all other change is nothing.'

'I meet you with pleasure,' she replied; 'I hear of your fame with pride. You cannot suppose that it is possible I should cease to be interested in your welfare.'

'Your mother does not meet me with pleasure; she hears of nothing that has occurred to me with pride; your mother has ceased to take an interest in my welfare; and why should you be unchanged?'

'You mistake my mother.'

'No, no,' replied Cadurcis, shaking his head, 'I have read her inmost soul to-day. Your mother hates me; me, whom she once styled her son. She was a mother once to me, and you were my sister. If I have lost her heart, why have I not lost yours?'

'My heart, if you care for it, is unchanged,' said Venetia.

'O Venetia, whatever you may think, I never wanted the solace of a sister's love more than I do at this moment.'

'I pledged my affection to you when we were children,' replied Venetia; 'you have done nothing to forfeit it, and it is yours still.'

'When we were children,' said Cadurcis, musingly; 'when we were innocent; when we were happy. You, at least, are innocent still; are you happy, Venetia?'

'Life has brought sorrows even to me, Plantagenet.'

The blood deserted his heart when she called him Plantagenet; he breathed with difficulty.

'When I last returned to Cherbury,' he said, 'you told me you were changed, Venetia; you revealed to me on another occasion the secret cause of your affliction. I was a boy then, a foolish ignorant boy. Instead of sympathising with your heartfelt anxiety, my silly vanity was offended by feelings I should have shared, and soothed, and honoured. Ah, Venetia! well had it been for one of us that I had conducted myself more kindly, more wisely.'

'Nay, Plantagenet, believe me, I remember that interview only to regret it. The recollection of it has always occasioned me great grief. We were both to blame; but we were both children then. We must pardon each other's faults.'

'You will hear, that is, if you care to listen, Venetia, much of my conduct and opinions,' continued Lord Cadurcis, 'that may induce you to believe me headstrong and capricious. Perhaps I am less of both in all things than the world imagines. But of this be certain, that my feelings towards you have never changed, whatever you may permit them to be; and if some of my boyish judgments have, as was but natural, undergone some transformation, be you, my sweet friend, in some degree consoled for the inconsistency, since I have at length learned duly to appreciate one of whom we then alike knew little, but whom a natural inspiration taught you, at least, justly to appreciate: I need not say I mean the illustrious father of your being.'

Venetia could not restrain her tears; she endeavoured to conceal her agitated countenance behind the fan with which she was fortunately provided.

'To me a forbidden subject,' said Venetia, 'at least with them I could alone converse upon it, but one that my mind never deserts.'

'O Venetia!' exclaimed Lord Cadurcis with a sigh, 'would we were both with him!'

'A wild thought,' she murmured, 'and one I must not dwell upon.'

'We shall meet, I hope,' said Lord Cadurcis; 'we must meet, meet often. I called upon your mother to-day, fruitlessly. You must attempt to conciliate her. Why should we be parted? We, at least, are friends, and more than friends. I cannot exist unless we meet, and meet with the frankness of old days.'

'I think you mistake mamma; I think you may, indeed. Remember how lately she has met you, and after how long an interval! A little time, and she will resume her former feelings, and believe that you have never forfeited yours. Besides, we have friends, mutual friends. My aunt admires you, and here I naturally must be a great deal. And the Bishop, he still loves you; that I am sure he does: and your cousin, mamma likes your cousin. I am sure if you can manage only to be patient, if you will only attempt to conciliate a little, all will be as before. Remember, too, how changed your position is,' Venetia added with a smile; 'you allow me to forget you are a great man, but mamma is naturally restrained by all this wonderful revolution. When she finds that you really are the Lord Cadurcis whom she knew such a very little boy, the Lord Cadurcis who, without her aid, would never have been able even to write his fine poems, oh! she must love you again. How can she help it?'

Cadurcis smiled. 'We shall see,' he said. 'In the meantime do not you desert me, Venetia.'

'That is impossible,' she replied; 'the happiest of my days have been passed with you. You remember the inscription on the jewel? I shall keep to my vows.'

'That was a very good inscription so far as it went,' said Cadurcis; and then, as if a little alarmed at his temerity, he changed the subject.

'Do you know,' said Venetia, after a pause, 'I am treating you all this time as a poet, merely in deference to public opinion. Not a line have I been permitted to read; but I am resolved to rebel, and you must arrange it all.'

'Ah!' said the enraptured Cadurcis; 'this is fame!'

At this moment the Countess approached them, and told Venetia that her mother wished to speak to her. Lady Annabel had discovered the tete-a-tete, and resolved instantly to terminate it. Lord Cadurcis, however, who was quick as lightning, read all that was necessary in Venetia's look. Instead of instantly retiring, he remained some little time longer, talked to the Countess, who was perfectly enchanted with him, even sauntered up to the singers, and complimented them, and did not make his bow until he had convinced at least the mistress of the mansion, if not her sister-in-law, that it was not Venetia Herbert who was his principal attraction in this agreeable society.


CHAPTER XI.

The moment he had quitted Venetia, Lord Cadurcis returned home. He could not endure the usual routine of gaiety after her society; and his coachman, often waiting until five o'clock in the morning at Monteagle House, could scarcely assure himself of his good fortune in this exception to his accustomed trial of patience. The vis-a-vis stopped, and Lord Cadurcis bounded out with a light step and a lighter heart. His table was covered with letters. The first one that caught his eye was a missive from Lady Monteagle. Cadurcis seized it like a wild animal darting on its prey, tore it in half without opening it, and, grasping the poker, crammed it with great energy into the fire. This exploit being achieved, Cadurcis began walking up and down the room; and indeed he paced it for nearly a couple of hours in a deep reverie, and evidently under a considerable degree of excitement, for his gestures were violent, and his voice often audible. At length, about an hour after midnight, he rang for his valet, tore off his cravat, and hurled it to one corner of the apartment, called for his robe de chambre, soda water, and more lights, seated himself, and began pouring forth, faster almost than his pen could trace the words, the poem that he had been meditating ever since he had quitted the roof where he had met Venetia. She had expressed a wish to read his poems; he had resolved instantly to compose one for her solitary perusal Thus he relieved his heart:


I.

Within a cloistered pile, whose Gothic towers
Rose by the margin of a sedgy lake,
Embosomed in a valley of green bowers,
And girt by many a grove and ferny brake
Loved by the antlered deer, a tender youth
Whom Time to childhood's gentle sway of love
Still spared; yet innocent as is the dove,
Nor mounded yet by Care's relentless tooth;
Stood musing, of that fair antique domain
The orphan lord! And