Part 76 (1/2)
Now this is good teaching: it is indeed my Philosopher's object--his purpose--to work out this distinction; and all I wish is that it were good for my market. What the Philosopher means, is to plant in the reader's path a staring contrast between my pet Emilia and his puppet Wilfrid. It would be very commendable and serviceable if a novel were what he thinks it: but all attestation favours the critical dictum, that a novel is to give us copious sugar and no cane. I, myself, as a reader, consider concomitant cane an adulteration of the qualities of sugar. My Philosopher's error is to deem the sugar, born of the cane, inseparable from it. The which is naturally resented, and away flies my book back at the heads of the librarians, hitting me behind them a far more grievous blow.
Such is the construction of my story, however, that to entirely deny the Philosopher the privilege he stipulated for when with his a.s.sistance I conceived it, would render our performance unintelligible to that acute and honourable minority which consents to be thwacked with aphorisms and sentences and a fantastic delivery of the verities. While my Play goes on, I must permit him to come forward occasionally. We are indeed in a sort of partners.h.i.+p, and it is useless for me to tell him that he is not popular and destroys my chance.
CHAPTER LII
”Don't blame yourself, my Wilfrid.”
Emilia spoke thus, full of pity for him, and in her adorable, deep-fluted tones, after the effective stop he had come to.
The 'my Wilfrid' made the owner of the name quiver with satisfaction. He breathed: ”You have forgiven me?”
”That I have. And there was indeed no blame. My voice has gone. Yes, but I do not think it your fault.”
”It was! it is!” groaned Wilfrid. ”But, has your voice gone?” He leaned nearer to her, drawing largely on the claim his incredulity had to inspect her sweet features accurately. ”You speak just as--more deliciously than ever! I can't think you have lost it. Ah! forgive me!
forgive me!”
Emilia was about to put her hand over to him, but the prompt impulse was checked by a simultaneous feminine warning within. She smiled, saying: ”'I forgive' seems such a strange thing for me to say;” and to convey any further meaning that might comfort him, better than words could do, she held on her smile. The smile was of the acceptedly feigned, conventional character; a polished Surface: belonging to the pa.s.sage of the discourse, and not to the emotions. Wilfrid's swelling pa.s.sion slipped on it. Sensitively he discerned an ease in its formation and disappearance that shot a first doubt through him, whether he really maintained his empire in her heart. If he did not reign there, why had she sent for him? He attributed the unheated smile to a defect in her manner, that was always chargeable with something, as he remembered.
He began systematically to account for his acts: but the man was so const.i.tuted that as he laid them out for pardon, he himself condemned them most; and looking back at his weakness and double play, he broke through his phrases to cry without premeditation: ”Can you have loved me then?”
Emilia's cheeks tingled: ”Don't speak of that night in Devon,” she replied.
”Ah!” sighed he. ”I did not mean then. Then you must have hated me.”
”No; for, what did I say? I said that you would come to me--nothing more. I hated that woman. You? Oh, no!”
”You loved me, then?”
”Did I not offer to work for you, if you were poor? And--I can't remember what I said. Please, do not speak of that night.”
”Emilia! as a man of honour, I was bound--”
She lifted her hands: ”Oh! be silent, and let that night die.”
”I may speak of that night when you drove home from Penarvon Castle, and a robber? You have forgotten him, perhaps! What did he steal? not what he came for, but something dearer to him than anything he possesses. How can I say--? Dear to me? If it were dipped in my heart's blood!--”
Emilia was far from being carried away by the recollection of the scene; but remembering what her emotion had then been, she wondered at her coolness now.
”I may speak of Wilming Weir?” he insinuated.
Her bosom rose softly and heavily. As if throwing off some cloak of enchantment that clogged her spirit! ”I was telling you of this dress,”
she said: ”I mean, of Countess Branciani. She thought her husband was the Austrian spy who had betrayed them, and she said, 'He is not worthy to live.' Everybody knew that she had loved him. I have seen his portrait and hers. I never saw faces that looked so fond of life.
She had that Italian beauty which is to any other like the difference between velvet and silk.”
”Oh! do I require to be told the difference?” Wilfrid's heart throbbed.
”She,” pursued Emilia, ”she loved him still, I believe, but her country was her religion. There was known to be a great conspiracy, and no one knew the leader of it. All true Italians trusted Countess Branciani, though she visited the Austrian Governor's house--a General with some name on the teeth. One night she said to him, 'You have a spy who betrays you.' The General never suspected Countess Branciani. Women are devils of cleverness sometimes.
”But he did suspect it must be her husband--thinking, I suppose, 'How otherwise would she have known he was my spy?' He gave Count Branciani secret work and high pay. Then he set a watch on him. Count Branciani was to find out who was this unknown leader. He said to the Austrian Governor, 'You shall know him in ten days.' This was repeated to Countess Branciani, and she said to herself, 'My husband! you shall perish, though I should have to stab you myself.'”
Emilia's sympathetic hand twitched. Wilfrid's seized it, but it proved no soft melting prize. She begged to be allowed to continue.