LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 181, 7 January 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

LADY ARABELLA,

( Continued .)

Munich was next reached. Six hours after the Lady Arabella was in her hotel there, the Marquis arrived. Away to Prague went she; but the Marquis was on her track. She went several days’ journey down the Danube, disguised as a peasant, with poor old Mocourt transformed into a spetcacled market-woman, the maid’s existence tortured by an unbecoming dress, and John and James attired as huntsmen. To support the character properly, the men drank more beer than was wise, and told thew h ile story to some Englishspeaking Germans on board. A boat passed as Lady Arabella sat on deck, looking in her humble attire like one of the disguised princesses of fairy tales. She beheld the Marquis tranquilly smoking his cigar. He lifted his travelling cap courteously at sight of her; but she was too weary to enjoy the absurd side of the encounter. Instead of going on to the town where she had intended to stay, she halted at a wretched little village, in which there was no place to sleep, nothing to eat, and no post-horses to carry her forward. The next morning she was informed that steeds were provided and waited in readiness. Away she dashed; and at the end of the day learned she had been travelling at the Marquis’s expense! He had sent the horses and paid the bills. Lady Arabella actually cried with vexation.

.She got to Milan, but de Cheryille was there before her. The story of the f i-,ht and pursuit had spread, and every tongue wagged in eager recitation. As she passed through the station, worn out, dusty, miserable, with her more miserable train, half the idle people in the town were collected to stare at her.

Give in she would not. The Marquis should be killed with fatigue and worry, though she made a cripple or an idiot of herself in the work. By rail to Bologna, Ancona, Borne. The Marquis enriched the telegraph by the occupation he afforded it, and saved his laziness a tiresome journey. He went to Genoa, dropped down to Civita Vecchia by steamer, and met her in the Eternal City, looking as amiable and elegant as if he had just strolled out of his club on the Boulevard des Italiens. The stories followed and grew, but Lady Arabella did not know that the imaginative Romans were adding fresh romance to the chronicle. It was said, and believed, that there had been love passage between the two ; that she had shot him in the Highlands from jealousy. Her train heard all this, but even old Mocourt did not venture to tell her ladyship. She received frequent letters from her pursuer; encountered him wherever she turned ; on the Pincio ; in picture-galleries ; everywhere. If she took a box at the opera, he was visible in one opposite. Worse than all, he adopted the plan of doing every sort of courteous thing by her ? and she began to understand that, for the first time in her life, she had met more than her match. It annoyed her beyond measure to discover that he was wonderfully handsome. Hot a day passed without her hearing of words and deeds which proved him possessed of a good head and heart. Altogether she had to fight hard with herself in order to hate him as bitterly as was desirable. She went to Naples—sailed to Sicily. He confronted her on the Via Toledo, and bowed to her in the shadow of Etna, having made her inland journey easy for her, and nearly driven her out of his senses by his kindness. The very flowers she admired in her room were placed there by his orders. All she could do was to fling them out of the window, and then be ashamed of displaying such weakness before so profound a generalship. It was more than a year from the luckless Tuesday on which Lady Arabella _ and the Irish mare slew Fauvette and maimed the Marquis, that the damsel found herself in Florence. Now, Florence is one of the most bewitching places on this side Paradise. Everybody does what he pleases there, and everybody else talks about it, not in a censorious way, but with frank approval. The world there imputes the most atrocious motives to all actions, thinking it no harm to commit the sins so openly canvassed. The Marquis arrived. He took rooms in face of Lady Arabella’s apartments; sent her boquets; followed her carriage on horseback; quarrelled with a man for nearly being run over by her coachman; and watched her in her loge at the Pergola. Florence caught up the romantic side of the story, believed it, and discussed it—with additions.

There had been a secret marriage ; an unscrupulous rival had made trouble at the very altar, by some proof- attested tale of the Marquis’s treachery. Lady Arabella fled in

wrath, after a terrible scene, which the story-tellers elaborated with great talent. She had renounced him for ever, rent her wedding-veil, flung the nuptial ring at his feet, and rushed from the sacred edifio*,.&g: calling down the vengeance of hearWrlipoo her newly-plighted lord. The Marquis wanted an opportunity to clear hin«eU,ltom the ingeniously concocted plot, and t^riftir-, soever she journeyed he pursued, her with entreaties and prayers : she would not listen,

But this narrative, interesting ai speedily palled on the jaded appi Florentine gossips. They require®* thing more : and so they reversed taw dents in the melodrama. It was Laly bella who had been denounced in the ig Some fiend of a woman, whom the Ipl had slighted, hired a villain to trouble peace; and he succeeded so well til Marquis burst away with frightful ffb Since that evil hour he had scoured Bi to escape his bride; but she follow*# Hun everywhere, hoping against hope, that time and perseverance might cliurup the mystery, or soften the Marquis mb belief in her protestations. 5 This version of the chronicle old Mocourt at length, and her last glitiujfier of sense and reason gave way. She was worn to a shadow by these endless pilgrimages over land and sea; her nerves had grown frailer than thread paper; and her religion a dumb fatalism, which let in no ray of light. But this was the crowning blow. She lay down on her bed, determined to die. Lady Arabella was disturbed by her gasps and sobs, and ran in to ask what had happened. At sight of her, Mocourt went off into spasms. Evidently, the first thing to be done was to restore the poor thing to composure. After Arabella had spilled a great bottle of aromatic vinegar over her sheets, scorched the pillow-case with ammonia, and dosed her with red ink, which she mistook for lavender, Mocourt was able to sit up, wring her hands, and weep like a fountain. Which did her good. * What on earth is the matter ?’ cried Lady Arabella. ‘ls it your chest, or your heart ? 1

‘ Oh, don’t laugh ! ’ shivered the old lady. * I’d as soon see you laugh at your own funeral. ’

‘ I only wanted to cheer you up a little, my poor old dear,’ said her pupil. ‘ You are completely worn out. The least thing upsets your nerves. ’ * It’s not my nerves ! ’ moaned the patient. ‘Oh, what will the Earl say? I shall be blamed. The whole family will believe it to be my fault. They’ll all pounce on me : I know they will! ’ ‘ Let me see them try it! ’ flashed Lady Arabella in her chivalry. ‘ But what is it they will think your fault! ’ ‘ The whole story ! Oh, nothing so dreadful ever happened to anybody in the world. My poor, dear girl—my own love 1* ‘But you must tell it me.’ In a series of jerky squeaks, interspersed with much red-lavender drinking, the old lady related the slanders in their full atrocity. Her listener quailed for the first time. It occurred to her that she was paying rather dearly for gratifying her obstinacy, her love of wayward freaks. But she had self-control enough left to hide the full extent of her dismay from poor Mocourt. ‘lt does not matter what the Florentines say,’ she averred. ‘They are noted for never telling the truth. And the English and French, sojourning here, are w r orse than the natives. ’

‘ Slander is always believed everywhere, ’ groaned Mocourt. *lt always will be, on this side heaven.’

There was so much truth in th assertion, that Lady Arabella, staggered for an instant, could not speak. * Slander flies about of itself,’ sobbed Mocourt in her anguish. ‘ The winds carry it; the birds of the air repeat it; just remember your Virgil! Remember how it always is,’ she continued trembling between the effects of her own eloquence and her dread of rousing her friend’s auger. ‘ Look at history ; no, don’t; they’re not fit Oh, oh, my dear, if you would only have listened to me! ’

‘ What can I do ? ’ asked Lady Arabella, almost humbly. * For Heaven’s sake, pay the man, and go straight back to England,’ urged Mrs Mocourt. *lt must be the price of his horse that he wants.’

‘Go back to be badgered by the whole tribe ? That I never will. ’

‘The Frenchman ought to be killed,’ sobbed Mocourt. ‘ These stories all come from him, lam sure. Hideous man !’ ‘ Don’t slander his personal appearance,’ interjected Lady Arabella. ‘He is very handsome ! ’

‘I never look at him. I turn my head always, and we meet him so often that I feel like a te-totum.’

‘I have a dozen of his photographs,’ replied Lady Arabella. ‘He sent me so many I got tired of tearing them up. But, come, you must go to sleep now. ’ ‘ I shall never sleep again, ’ replied the governess, in a tone as despairing as Macbeth’s. ‘lf we stayed here a twelvemonth, 1 should not doze during the whole time ! ’ But Lady Arabella secretly vowed that she should slumber tranquilly within two hours. She administered a dose of morphine in the lavender, and at last Mocourt buried her tear-stained face in the pillows, and slept in spite of herself. Lady Arabella bent over her, and kissed the wrinkled forehead. She was filled with remorse when she saw how sorely her kind old friend had aged during the past weary year. Stealing softly out of the room to visit the maid, who was ill in bed with a feverish cold, she found only new troubles, and fled in haste. James met her, respectful, but full of grievances; and John’s voice rose from below stairs, crooning a dismal chant.

The old palace seemed turned into a dungeon, in which'she could not breathe another instant. She ordered James to bid a groom take her saddle horse outside the San Gallo Gate. Arraying herself in her habit, she put on a thick veil, drove outside the town in her carriage; and there mounted her horse. She would not let the groom follow. The carriage could go up to Fiesole, and wait for her there : he could wait with it.

So she rode up the winding road; and by the time she reached the quaint old town, it was almost sunset. Beyond, stretched a road where she could have a good gallop. But first she reined in her horse, and sat looking down upon the beautiful scene spread out beneath her, though it was halfdidden from her eyes by an unaccustomed rush of tears.

To be continued.