Devereux — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (ebook offline txt) 📗

the perfect features of Isora. She remained silent for some moments, and then murmured, “My oath forbids me even that single answer: tempt me no more; now, and forever, I am mute upon this subject.”

Perhaps some slight and momentary anger, or doubt, or suspicion, betrayed itself upon my countenance; for Isora, after looking upon me long and mournfully, said, in a quiet but melancholy tone, “I see your thoughts, and I do not reproach you for them—it is natural that you should think ill of one whom this mystery surrounds,—one too placed under such circumstances of humiliation and distrust. I have lived long in your country: I have seen, for the last few months, much of its inhabitants; I have studied too the works which profess to unfold its national and peculiar character: I know that you have a distrust of the people of other climates; I know that you are cautious and full of suspicious vigilance, even in your commerce with each other; I know, too [and Isora’s heart swelled visibly as she spoke], that poverty itself, in the eyes of your commercial countrymen, is a crime, and that they rarely feel confidence or place faith in those who are unhappy;—why, Count Devereux, why should I require more of you than of the rest of your nation? Why should you think better of the penniless and friendless girl, the degraded exile, the victim of doubt,—which is so often the disguise of guilt,—than any other, any one even among my own people, would think of one so mercilessly deprived of all the decent and appropriate barriers by which a maiden should be surrounded? No—no: leave me as you found me; leave my poor father where you see him; any place will do for us to die in.”

“Isora!” I said, clasping her in my arms, “you do not know me yet: had I found you in prosperity, and in the world’s honour; had I wooed you in your father’s halls, and girt around with the friends and kinsmen of your race,—I might have pressed for more than you will now tell me; I might have indulged suspicion where I perceived mystery, and I might not have loved as I love you now! Now, Isora, in misfortune, in destitution, I place without reserve my whole heart—its trust, its zeal, its devotion—in your keeping; come evil or good, storm or sunshine, I am yours, wholly and forever. Reject me if you will, I will return to you again; and never, never—save from my own eyes or your own lips—will I receive a single evidence detracting from your purity, or, Isora,—mine own, own Isora,—may I not add also—from your love?”

“Too, too generous!” murmured Isora, struggling passionately with her tears, “may Heaven forsake me if ever I am ungrateful to thee; and believe—believe, that if love more fond, more true, more devoted than woman ever felt before can repay you, you shall be repaid!”

Why, at that moment, did my heart leap so joyously within me?—why did I say inly,—“The treasure I have so long yearned for is found at last: we have met, and through the waste of years, we will work together, and never part again”? Why, at that moment of bliss, did I not rather feel a foretaste of the coming woe? Oh, blind and capricious Fate, that gives us a presentiment at one while and withholds it at an other! Knowledge, and Prudence, and calculating Foresight, what are ye?—warnings unto others, not ourselves. Reason is a lamp which sheddeth afar a glorious and general light, but leaveth all that is around it in darkness and in gloom. We foresee and foretell the destiny of others: we march credulous and benighted to our own; and like Laocoon, from the very altars by which we stand as the soothsayer and the priest, creep forth, unsuspected and undreamt of, the serpents which are fated to destroy us!

That very day, then, Alvarez was removed to a lodging more worthy of his birth, and more calculated to afford hope of his recovery. He bore the removal without any evident signs of fatigue; but his dreadful malady had taken away both speech and sense, and he was already more than half the property of the grave. I sent, however, for the best medical advice which London could afford. They met, prescribed, and left the patient just as they found him. I know not, in the progress of science, what physicians may be to posterity, but in my time they are false witnesses subpoenaed against death, whose testimony always tells less in favour of the plaintiff than the defendant.

Before we left the poor Spaniard’s former lodging, and when I was on the point of giving some instructions to the landlady respecting the place to which the few articles of property belonging to Don Diego and Isora were to be moved, Isora made me a sign to be silent, which I obeyed. “Pardon me,” said she afterwards; “but I confess that I am anxious our next residence should not be known,—should not be subject to the intrusion of—of this—”

“Barnard, as you call him. I understand you; be it so!” and accordingly I enjoined the goods to be sent to my own house, whence they were removed to Don Diego’s new abode and I took especial care to leave with the good lady no clew to discover Alvarez and his daughter, otherwise than through me. The pleasure afforded me of directing Gerald’s attention to myself, I could not resist. “Tell Mr. Barnard, when he calls,” said I, “that only through Count Morton Devereux will he hear of Don Diego d’Alvarez and the lady his daughter.”

“I will, your honour,” said the landlady; and then looking at me more attentively, she added: “Bless me! now when you speak, there is a very strong likeness between yourself and Mr. Barnard.”

I recoiled as if an adder had stung me, and hurried into the coach to support the patient, who was already placed there.

Now then my daily post was by the bed of disease and suffering: in the chamber of death was my vow of love ratified; and in sadness and in sorrow was it returned. But it is in such scenes that the deepest, the most endearing, and the most holy species of the passion is engendered. As I heard Isora’s low voice tremble with the suspense of one who watches over the hourly severing of the affection of Nature and of early years; and as I saw her light step flit by the pillow which she smoothed, and her cheek alternately flush and fade, in watching the wants which she relieved; as I marked her mute, her unwearying tenderness, breaking into a thousand nameless but mighty cares, and pervading like an angel’s vigilance every—yea, the minutest—course into which it flowed,—did I not behold her in that sphere in which woman is most lovely, and in which love itself consecrates its admiration and purifies its most ardent desires? That was not a time for our hearts to speak audibly to each other; but we felt that they grew closer and closer, and we asked not for the poor eloquence of words. But over this scene let me not linger.

One morning, as I was proceeding on foot to Isora’s, I perceived on the opposite side of the way Montreuil and Gerald: they were conversing eagerly; they both saw me. Montreuil made a slight, quiet, and dignified inclination of the head: Gerald coloured, and hesitated. I thought he was about to leave his companion and address me; but, with a haughty and severe air, I passed on, and Gerald, as if stung by my demeanour, bit his lip vehemently and followed my example. A few minutes afterwards I felt an inclination to regret that I had not afforded him an opportunity of addressing me. “I might,” thought I, “have then taunted him with his persecution of Isora, and defied him to execute those threats against me, in which it is evident, from her apprehensions for my safety, that he