Books: The Master Christian

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His voice,--the most fascinating quality attached to his
personality,--rose and fell in this little speech with an exquisite
cadence, half sad, half sweet,--and Sylvie, impressionable creature
as she was, with her innate love of romance and poetry, was
unconsciously moved by it to a faint sigh. There was nothing to sigh
for, really,--it was just a mere melodious noise of words, in the
making of which Florian Varillo was an adept. He had not an atom of
serious thought in his remark, any more than in the dainty verses he
was wont to append to his pictures--verses which he turned out with
the lightest and swiftest ease, and which read like his spoken
sentences, as if there were a meaning in them, when truly there was
none. But Sylvie was just then in a curious state of mind, and
slight things easily impressed her. She was in love--and yet she was
not in love. The handsome face and figure of the Marquis Fontenelle,
together with many of his undoubted good and even fine qualities,
attracted her and held her in thrall, much more than the
consciousness of his admiration and pursuit of her,--but--and this
was a very interfering "but" indeed,--she was reluctantly compelled
to admit to herself that there was no glozing over the fact that he
was an incorrigibly "fast", otherwise bad man. His life was a long
record of LIAISONS with women,--an exact counterpart of the life of
the famous actor Miraudin. And though there is a saying that a
reformed rake makes the best husband, Sylvie was scarcely sure of
being willing to try this test,--besides, the Marquis had not
offered himself in that capacity, but only as a lover. In Paris,--
within reach of him, surrounded by his gracious and graceful
courtesies everywhere, the pretty and sensitive Comtesse had
sometimes felt her courage oozing out at her finger's ends,--and the
longing to be loved became so strong and overwhelming in her soul
that she had felt she must perforce one day yield to her persistent
admirer's amorous solicitations, come what would of it in the end.
Her safety had been in flight; and here in Rome, she had found
herself, like a long-tossed little ship, suddenly brought up to firm
anchorage. The vast peace and melancholy grandeur of the slowly
dying "Mother of Nations", enveloped her as with a sheltering cloak
from the tempest of her own heart and senses, and being of an
exquisitely refined and dainty nature in herself, she had, while
employing her time in beautifying, furnishing and arranging her
apartments in the casa D'Angeli, righted her mind, so to speak, and
cleared it from the mists of illusion which had begun to envelop it,
so that she could now think of Fontenelle quietly and with something
of a tender compassion,--she could pray for him and wish him all
things good,--but she could not be quite sure that she loved him.
And this was well. For we should all be very sure indeed that we do
love, before we crucify ourselves to the cross of sacrifice.
Inasmuch as if the love in us be truly Love, we shall not feel the
nails, we shall be unconscious of the blood that flows, and the
thorns that prick and sting,--we shall but see the great light of
Resurrection springing glorious out of death! But if we only THINK
we love,--when our feeling is the mere attraction of the senses and
the lighter impulses--then our crucifixion is in vain, and our death
is death indeed. Some such thoughts as these had given Sylvie a new
charm of manner since her arrival in Rome--she was less mirthful,
but more sympathetic--less RIANTE, but infinitely prettier and more
fascinating. Florian Varillo studied her appreciatively in this
regard after he had uttered his little meaningless melody of
sentiment, and thought within himself--"A week or two and I could
completely conquer that woman!" He was mistaken--men who think these
sort of things often are. But the thought satisfied him, and gave
bold lustre to his eyes and brightness to his smile when he rose to
take his leave. He had been one of the guests at a small and early
dinner-party given by the Comtesse that evening,--and with the
privilege of an old acquaintance, he had lingered thus long after
all the others had gone to their respective homes.

"I will bid you now the felicissima notte, cara e bella contessa!"
he said caressingly, raising her small white hand to his lips, and
kissing it with a lingering pressure of what he considered a
peculiarly becoming moustache--"When Angela arrives to-morrow night
I shall be often at the Palazzo Sovrani--shall I see you there?"

"Of course you will see me there," replied Sylvie, a little
impatiently, "Am I not one of Angela's closest friends?"

"True! And for the sake of la mia dolcezza, you will also be a
friend to me?"

"'la mia dolcezza'", repeated Sylvie, "Is that what you call her?"

"Yes--but I fear it is not original!" said Varillo smiling, "One
Ariosto called his lady thus."

"Yes?" and Sylvie's eyes darkened and grew humid with a sudden
tenderness of thought, "It is a pretty phrase!"

"It should be used to YOU always, by every man who has my present
privilege!" said Varillo, gallantly, kissing her hand once more,
"You will be my friend?"

Sylvie disengaged her hand from his.

"You must not depend upon me, Signor," she said with sudden
coldness, "To be perfectly frank with you I am not sure that I like
you. You are very charming and very clever--but I doubt your
sincerity."

"Ah, che sono infelice!" murmured varillo softly, "you are right,
bellissima madama! I am not myself with many people--but with you--
you are one of the few who understand me . . . I am the very soul of
candour!"

He fixed his eyes full upon her with an open and straight regard,
adding, "Can you doubt me?" in a touching tone of wounded feeling.

The Comtesse laughed, and her face flushed.

"Well, I do not know!" she said, with a light gesture of her hands
as though she threw something unpleasant away from her, "I shall
fudge of you by the happiness--or sorrow--of Angela!"

A slight frown contracted his brows--but it passed quickly, and the
candid smile illumined his mobile face once more.

"Ebben! Buona notte, bela capricciosa!" and bowing low he turned
towards the door, "Thank you a thousand times for a very happy
evening! Even when you are unkind to me you are still charming!
Addio!"

She murmured an "addio" in response, and when he had gone, and the
echo of his footfall down the great marble stairs had completely
died away, she went out once more to the balcony and leaned among
the sculptured angels, a dainty, slender, white figure, with her
soft flower-like face turned up to the solemn sky, where the large
moon marched like an Amazon through space, attended by her legions
and battalions of stars. So slight, so fragile and sweet a woman!--
with a precious world of love pent up in her heart . . . yet alone--
quite alone on this night of splendid luminousness and majestic
suggestions of infinity,--an infinity so monstrous and solitary to
the one delicate creature, whose whole soul craved for a perfect
love. Alas, for this "perfect love," of which all the dearest women
dream! Where shall they find it?--and how shall they win it? Too
often it comes when they may not have it; the cup of nectar is
offered to lips that are forbidden to drink of it, because the
world's convention stands between and turns the honey to gall. One
of the many vague problems of a future life, offered for our
consideration, is the one concerning the righteous satisfaction of
love. Will not those who have been bound fast as prisoners in the
bonds of matrimony without love, find those whose spirits are
naturally one with theirs, but whom they have somehow missed in this
life? For Byron's fine lines are eternally true,--

"Few--none--find what they love or could have loved,--
Though accident, blind contact, and the strong
Necessity of loving, have removed
Antipathies--but to recur ere long
Envenom'd with irrevocable wrong."

And the "blind contact" is the worst of all influences brought to
bear upon the mind and heart,--the most pernicious, and the most
deeply weighted with responsibility. In this regard, Sylvie
Hermenstein had acted wisely by removing herself from association,
or "blind contact" with her would-be lover,--and yet, though she was
aware that her doing so had caused a certain dispersal of the
atmosphere which almost veered towards complete disillusion, she
found nevertheless, that Rome as she had said, was "dull"; her heart
was empty, and longing for she knew not what. And that deep longing
she felt could not have been completely gratified by the brief
ardours of Fontenelle. And so she sat thinking wearily,--wondering
what was to become of her life. She had riches in plenty, a fine
estate and castle in Hungary,--servants at her beck and call--and
yet with all her wealth and beauty and brilliancy, she felt that she
was only loved by two persons in the world, her old butler, and
Madame Bozier, who had been her first governess, and who now lived
with her, as a sort of dame d'honneur surrounded with every comfort
and luxury, and who certainly served her former pupil with a
faithful worship that would not have changed, even if the direst
poverty instead of riches had been the portion of her beloved
patroness. This elderly lady it was who entered now with a soft and
hesitating step, and raising her glasses to her eyes, peered
anxiously through the lighted room towards the dark balcony where
Sylvie stood, like a fairy fallen out of the moon, and who presently
ventured to advance and call softly,

"Sylvie!"

The pretty Comtesse turned and smiled.

"Is it you, Katrine? Will you come out here? It is not cold, and
there is a lace wrap on the chair,--put it round your dear old head
and come and be romantic with me!" and she laughed as the worthy
Bozier obeyed her, and came cautiously out among the angels'
sculptured wings. "Ah, dear Katrine! The happy days are gone when a
dark-eyed Roman lover would come strolling down a street like this
to strike the chords of his mandoline, and sing the dear old song,

"'Ti voglio bene assai, E tu non pensi a me!'"

Without thinking about it, she sang this refrain suddenly in her
sweet mezzo-soprano, every note ringing clear on the silence of the
night, and as she did so a man of slim figure and medium height,
stepped out of the dark shadows and looked up. His half laughing
eyes, piercing in their regard, met the dreamy soft ones of the
pretty woman sitting among the angels' heads above him--and pausing
a moment he hesitated--then lifted his hat. His face was excessively
delicate in outline and very pale, but a half mischievous smile
softened and sweetened the firm lines of his mouth and chin, and as
the moonbeams played caressingly on his close curling crop of fair
hair, he looked different enough to most of the men in Rome to be
considered singular as well as handsome. Sylvie, hidden as she was
among the shadows, blushed and drew back, a little vexed with
herself,--the worthy Madame Bozier was very properly scandalised.

"My dear child!" she murmured, "Remember--we are in Rome. People
judge things so strangely! What an unfortunate error!--"

But Sylvie became suddenly unmanageable. Her love of coquetry and
mischief got the better of her, and she thrust out her pretty head
over the balcony once more.

"Be quiet, Katrine!" she whispered, "I was longing for a romance,
and here is one!" And detaching a rose from her dress she tossed it
lightly to the stranger below. He caught it--then looked up once
more.

"Till we meet," he said softly in English,--and moving on among the
shadows, disappeared.

"Now, who do you suppose HE was?" enquired Sylvie, leaning back
against the edge of the balcony, with an arch glance at her
gouvernante, "It was someone unlike anyone else here, I am sure! It
was somebody with very bright eyes,--laughing eyes,--audacious eyes,
because they laughed at me! They sparkled at me like stars on a
frosty night! Katrine, have you ever been for a sleigh-ride in
America? No, I did not take you there,--I forgot! You would have had
the rheumatism, poor dear! Well, when you are in America during the
winter, you go for rides over the snow in a big sleigh, with
tinkling bells fastened to the horses, and you see the stars flash
as you pass--like the eyes of that interesting gentleman just now.
His face was like a cameo--I wonder who he is! I shall find out! I
must do something desperate for Rome is so terribly dull! But I feel
better now! I like that man's eyes. They are SUCH a contrast to the
sleepy tiger eyes of the Marquis Fontenelle!"

"My dear Sylvie!" remonstrated Madame Bozier, "How can you run on in
this way? Do you want to break any more hearts? You are like a lamp
for unfortunate moths to burn themselves in!"

"Oh no, not I," said Sylvie, shaking her head with a touch of half
melancholy scorn, "I am not a 'professional' beauty! The Prince of
Wales does not select me for his admiration,--hence it follows that
I cannot possibly be an attraction in Europe. I have not the large
frame, the large hands, and the still larger feet of the beautiful
English ladies, who rule royal hearts and millionaires' pockets! Men
scarcely notice me till they come to know me--and then, pouf!--away
go their brains!--and they grovel at my small feet instead of the
large ones of the English ladies!" She laughed. "Now how is that,
Katrine?"

"C'est du charme--toujurs du charme!" murmured Madame Bozier,
studying with a wistful affection the dainty lines of Sylvie's
slight figure, "And that is an even more fatal gift than beauty,
chere petite!"

"Du charme! You think that is it? Yes?--and so the men grow stupid
and wild!--some want me, and some want my fortune--and some do not
know what they want!--but one thing is certain, that they all
quarrel together about me, and bore me to extinction!--Even the
stranger with the bright stars of an American winter for eyes, might
possibly bore me if I knew him!"

She gave a short sigh of complete dissatisfaction.

"To be loved, Katrine--really loved! What a delicious thing that
would be! Have you ever felt it?"

The poor lady trembled a little, and gave a somewhat mournful smile.

"No, you dear romantic child! I cannot say with truth that I have! I
married when I was very young, and my husband was many years older
than myself. He was afflicted with chronic rheumatism and gout, and
to be quite honest, I could never flatter myself that he thought of
me more than the gout. There! I knew that would amuse you!"--this,
as Sylvie's pretty tender laugh rippled out again on the air, "And
though it sounds as if it were a jest, it is perfectly true. Poor
Monsieur Bozier! He was the drawing master at the school where I was
assistant governess,--and he was very lonely; he wanted someone to
attend to him when the gouty paroxysms came on, and he thought I
should do as well, perhaps better than anyone else. And I--I had no
time to think about myself at all, or to fall in love--I was very
glad to be free of the school, and to have a home of my own. So I
married him, and did my best to be a good nurse to him,--but he did
not live long, poor man--you see he always would eat things that did
not agree with him, and if he could not get them at home he went out
and bought them on the sly. There was no romance there, my dear! And
of course he died. And he left me nothing at all,--even our little
home was sold up to pay our debts. Then I had to work again for my
living,--and it was by answering an advertisement in the Times,
which applied for an English governess to go to a family in
Budapest, that I first came to know you."

"And that is all your history!" said Sylvie, "Poor dear Bozier! How
uneventful!"

"Yes, it is," and the worthy lady sighed also, but hers, was a sigh
of placid arid philosophical comfort. "Still, my dear, I am not at
all sorry to be uninteresting! I have rather a terror of lives that
arrange themselves into grand dramas, with terrible love affairs as
the central motives."

"Have you? I have not!" said Sylvie thoughtfully,--"With all my
heart I admire a 'grande passion.' Sometimes I think it is the only
thing that makes history. One does not hear nearly so much of the
feuds in which Dante was concerned, as of his love for Beatrice. It
is always so, only few people are capable of the strength and
patience and devotion needed for this great consummation of life.
Now I--"

Madame Bozier smiled, and with tender fingers arranged one of the
stray knots of pearls with which Sylvie's white gown was adorned.

"You dear child! You were made for sweetness and caresses,--not
suffering . . ."

"You mistake!" said Sylvie, with sudden decision, "You, in your
fondness for me, and because you have seen me grow up from
childhood, sometimes still view me as a child, and think that I am
best amused with frivolities, and have not the soul in me that would
endure disaster. But for love's sake I would do anything--yes!
. . . anything!"

"My child!"

"Yes," repeated Sylvie, her eyes darkening and lightening quickly in
their own fascinating way, "I would consent to shock the stupid old
world!--though one can scarcely ever shock it nowadays, because it
has itself become so shocking! But then the man for whom I would
sacrifice myself, must love ME as ardently as I would love HIM! That
is the difficulty, Katrine. For men do not love--they only desire."

She raised her face to the sky, and the moonbeams shed a golden halo
round her.

"That," she said slowly, "is the reason why I have come here to
avoid the Marquis Fontenelle. He does not love me!"

"He is a villain!" said Madame Bozier with asperity.

"Helas! There are so many villains!" sighed Sylvie, still looking up
at the brilliant heavens, "And sometimes if a villain really loves
anybody he half redeems his villainy. But the Marquis loves himself
best of anyone in the world . . . and I--I do not intend to be second in
anyone's affections! So . . ." she paused, "Do you see that star,
Katrine? It is as bright as if it were shining on a frosty night in
America. And do you not notice the resemblance to the eyes of the
stranger who has my rose? I daresay he will put it under his pillow
to-night, and dream!" She laughed,--"Let us go in!"

Madame Bozier followed her as she stepped back into the lighted
salon, where she was suddenly met by her little Arab page, carrying
a large cluster of exquisite red and white roses. A card was
attached to the flowers, bearing the words, "These many unworthy
blossoms in return for one beyond all worth."

The Comtesse read and passed it in silence to Madame Bozier. A smile
was on her face, and a light in her eyes.

"I think Rome is not so dull after all!" she said, as she set the
flowers carefully in a tall vase of Etruscan ware, "Do you know, I
am beginning to find it interesting!"

XVIII.

Aubrey Leigh was a man who had chosen his own way of life, and, as a
natural consequence of this, had made for himself an independent and
original career. Born in the New World of America he had been very
highly educated,--not only under the care of a strict father, and an
idolising mother, but also with all the advantages one of the finest
colleges in the States could give him. Always a brilliant scholar,
and attaining his successes by leaps and bounds rather than by close
and painstaking study, the day came,--as it comes to all finely-
tempered spirits,--when an overpowering weariness or body and soul
took possession of him,--when the very attainment of knowledge
seemed absurd,--and all things, both in nature and art, took on a
sombre colouring, and the majestic pageant of the world's progress
appeared no more than a shadow too vain and futile to be worth while
watching as it passed. Into a Slough of Despond, such as Solomon
experienced when he wrote his famous "Ecclesiastes," Aubrey sank
unconsciously, and,--to do him justice,--most unwillingly. His was
naturally a bright, vivacious, healthy nature--but he was over-
sensitively organised,--his nerves did not resemble iron so much as
finely-tempered steel, which could not but suffer from the damp and
rust in the world's conventionalities. And some "little rift within
the lute" chanced to him, as it often chances to many, so that the
subtle music of his soul jarred into discord with the things of
life, making harsh sounds in place of melody. There was no adequate
cause for this,--neither disappointed love nor balked ambition
shadowed his days;--it was something altogether indefinable--a
delicate, vague discontent which, had he known it, was merely the
first stirring of an embryo genius destined one day to move the
world. He did not know what ailed him,--but he grew tired--tired of
books--tired of music--tired of sifting the perplexing yet
enchanting riddles of science--tired of even his home and his
mother's anxious eyes of love that watched his moods too closely for
his peace,--and one day, out of the merest boyish impulse, he joined
a company of travelling actors and left America. Why he did this he
could never tell, save that he was a student and lover of
Shakespeare. Much to his own surprise, and somewhat to his disgust,
he distinguished himself with exceptional brilliancy on the stage,--
his voice, his manner, his physique and his bearing were all
exceptional, and told highly in his favour,--but unfortunately his
scholarly acumen and knowledge of literature went against him with
his manager. This personage, who was densely ignorant, and who yet
had all the ineffable conceit of ignorance, took him severely to
task for knowing Shakespeare's meanings better than he did,--and
high words resulted in mutual severance. Aubrey was hardly sorry
when his theatrical career came thus untimely to an end. At first he
had imagined it possible to become supreme in histrionic art,--one
who should sway the emotions of thousands by a word, a look or a
gesture,--he had meant to be the greatest Shakespearean actor of his
day; and with his knowledge of French, which was as perfect as his
knowledge of English, he had even foreseen the possibility of taking
the French stage as well as the English by storm. But when he
gradually came to discover the mean tricks and miserable treacheries
used by his fellow-actors to keep a rising comrade down,--when he
felt to the core of his soul the sordidness and uncleanness of his
surroundings,--when he shudderingly repulsed the would-be attentions
of the painted drabs called "ladies of the stage",--and above all,
when he thought of the peace and refinement of the home he had, for
a mere freak, forsaken,--the high tone of thought and feeling
maintained there, the exquisite gracefulness and charm of womanhood,
of which his mother had been, and was still a perfect embodiment,
some new and far stronger spirit rose up within him, crying--"What
is this folly? Am I to sink to the level of those whom I know and
see are beneath me? With what I have of brain and heart and feeling,
are these unworthy souls to drag me down? Shall I not try to feel my
wings, and make one bold dash for higher liberty? And if I do so,
whither shall I fly?"

He had come to England at this period,--and in the small provincial
town where his final rupture with the illiterate theatrical manager
had taken place, there was a curious, silent contest going on
between the inhabitants and their vicar. The vicar was an extremely
unpopular person,--and the people were striving against him, and
fighting him at every possible point of discussion. For so small a
community the struggle was grim,--and Aubrey for some time could not
understand it, till one day an explanation was offered him by a man
engaged in stitching leather, in a dirty evil-smelling little hole
of a shop under a dark archway.

"You see, sir, it's this way," he said, "Bessie Morton,--she wor as
good a girl as ever stepped--bright and buxom and kind hearted--yes,
that was Bessie, till some black scoundrel got her love at a soft
moment, and took the better of her. Well!--I suppose some good
Christian folk would say she wor a bad 'un--but I'll warrant she
worn't bad at heart, but only just soft-like--and she an orphan,
with no one to look after her, or say she done ill or well. And
there was a little child born--the prettiest little creature ye ever
saw--Bessie's own copy--all blue eyes and chestnut hair--and it just
lived a matter of fower year, and then it took sick and died. Bessie
went nigh raving mad; that she did. And now, what do you think, sir?
The passon refused to bury that there little child in consecrated
ground, cos'twas born out of wedlock! What d'ye think of that for a
follower of Jesus with the loving heart? What d'ye think of that?"

"Think!" said Aubrey indignantly, with an involuntary clenching of
his hand, "Why, that it is abominable--disgraceful! I should like to
thrash the brute!"

"So would a many," said his informant with an approving chuckle, "So
would a many! But that's not all--there's more behind--and worse
too--"