LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 396, 18 September 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

PHYLLIS AND CORYDON. By Julia Ravanagii. Continued. She threw up her arms almost wildly. Unhappy! she had been wretched, utterly wretched since they had parted. And suddenly laying her head on his shoulder, she began to weep. He did his best to comfort her, but the task was not an easy one. ‘ Would he love her—was he sure he would love her—would - he never repent having married her ?’ she asked with sobs and tears, almost impetuously, and scarcely giving him time to answer. If her distress had not been so great, the Count would have felt provoked at these questions. And yet, strange to say, there was something in his heart something deep and far away, which almost justified them. On seeing this girf’s blooming face, his first feelings had been amazement, as if he were gazing on a stranger ; then joy, the natural delight of a young man at finding a handsome bride instead of a plain one had followed; but his third and last feeling, which deepened as it went on, had been one of dull, heavy disappointment. This Phyllis was very lovely, but then she no longer seemed the same pale little Phyllis whom he had dreamed of for five years, and that one it was whom he had loved, remembered, and come back to Aved ; forgetting that the child had become a woman. He looked at the beautiful face which lay so near his, and wondered that he felt so cold. With an impulse which he kneAV later to have been a last despairing effort to save his drowning love, he suddenly stooped to press his lips on that little mole which had once Avorked such wonders. But .either its magic was gone, or the perverse fate which delights in thwarting lovers had resolved to vex the Count, for Phyllis, on seeing his intentions, drew back Avith a sudden cry, Avhilst a Amice behind them said, angrily: ‘ Go to your room at once, Mademoiselle. As for you, sir, you may put off that kiss till to-morroAV.’ Poor Phyllis turned to the nearest door, and vanished in a twinkling ; whilst the Count, blushing like a girl, stammered an apology. The Marquise Avould hear of none: she Avas a lady of the strictest decorum, but scolded him so sharply that the poor Marquis began to Aveep, and the Count was glad to be gone. And glad surely Philip de Saint Brice ought to have been as he rode home. But, alas for the frailty of the human heart! the golden glory of the day had fled, the songs of birds were as dirges for the fading year, and the breeze no longer bIeAV from fairyland, but came laden with ihe chill breath of Avinter. The cruel ordeal Avas over; Phyllis was far more beautiful than his fondest dreams had ever pictured her to be; she Avas to be his on the morrow, and the Count felt the most miserable of men. Alas! for the rash vows of youth. Alas ! for his rash faith in the truth of his own heart—ho no longer loved her. He tried to doubt it, but could not. He had loved a dream all these years. And noAV that he had reached the fulness of his desires, now that he had stood on the eve of their accomplishment, they were cold and dead. ‘This is the last day of my liberty,’ he thought, as he reached his home, and Avent up the winding turret staircase. ‘ I must not repine, I must not complain ; I have willed it so. The man must abide by the boy’s folly. Oh ! Phyllis, my little Phyllis, whom I carried up these A r ery stairs eleven years ago, you shall never knoAV Avhat a change these years have wrought in your boyish lover’s heart. You shall never be made to feel that what you had then is gone for ever for us both. You have lost the love, and I, the greater bankrupt of the tAvo, my Phyllis, I have lost the poAver of loving. You are bright and beautiful as the day, but never again can I love you as when I acted Corydon with you ; never agnin can I feel as I felt when I met you, and, taking you in my arms, a poor, pale child, Avhose cheeks were sunk with grief, and Avhose eyes Avere red with weeping, voAved that you, and you alone, should be my wife. ’ The Count sighed as the Avord Avife recalled him from these fond dreams of the past to the reality of the morroAV. He had reached the upper room in Avhich Phyllis and he had spent an hour once. He looked again on a vast sea ; he saAv a stormy sky. He thought of his blooming bride, Avho would soon survey that sea and sky Avith him, standing by his side Avith her hand clasped in his, her head resting tenderly on his shoulder ; and he tried to feel a kwer's transports. He tried, but could not; love was dead in his heart, dead and buried, and even beauty could not Avaken it back to life, or give it a second birth. So the Count de Saint Brice set his teeth and knit his brows. ‘ Love is dead,’ he thought,- ‘ but honour does not die. Honour must and shall do instead of love.’ The sun was going doAvn, throned in purple clouds. The Count watched its setting till it had vanished in the deep, dark sea, above Avhich a ruddy light lingered awhile, but awhile only. The night was moonless and starless. Huge clouds spreading from the south-west soon covered the Avhole of the sky ; a stormy wind rose and moaned along the shore, and the tide came up the beach, filling the dark night with its loud, angry roaring. ‘ My Phyllis Avill have but a stormy welcome to-morrow,’ sighed the Count, as he turned from the window and called for a light. ‘ Well, poor Phyllis, this is a rude home for her ; but maybe she will find a way to make it pleasant. ’ * I shall spend the night here, ’ he said to the old servant, who brought him a lamp. « Let me have some supper and a bottle of the old Burgundy.’ Gertrude stared; there was no bed in the room: nothing save an old arm-chair ; but already the Count’s servants had learned that to hear and to obey was their lot; so she withdreAV without uttering a word. She soon came back Avith a cold pasty, and a square bottle of Burgundy, covered Avith the dust and cobwebs of half a century. The Count looked at it moodily. ‘ That Avine was bottled when my grandfather married my grandmother, after she had had the small-pox,’ he thought, with a sigh; ‘she offered to set him free, but he was a proud man, and he Avould marry her all the same, only he never loved her again, and it is said the poor lady did well to die when any father Avas born. Yours shall never be so hard a lot, my Phyllis, never. ’ And pouring himself out a glass of the rich red Avine, the Count drank to the happiness of his bride, even though his oavu should be the cost. When his glass was empty he filled it again; when his bottle Avas drained he called

for another; and the pasty, with its crust like brown gold, and its rich, savoury viands, remained untouched. Trouble was with the Count of Saint Brice on the eve of his wedding day. He was not hungry, and even the generous vintage which had ripened on Burgundian hills could not deaden, or make him forget his strange desolation. A torpor did, indeed, come over him ; he sat by the table, his elbows resting on it, his cheeks in the palms of his hands, his eyes staring moodily at his empty glass, and ho knew that he had a grief, though what that grief was he no longer remembered. Thus he remained till ho sank back in his chair and slept, a long, dreamless sleep, during which he was conscious of a moaning wind, and of rain beaming against the window panes. ‘ 1 told her to wait below, but she would come up. A little forward thing,’ said a (querulous voice in his ear. The young Count woke up with a start. Gertrude stood before him with a sour look on her face, and by her side stood a slender girl, whose garments were heavy with rain. Whilst the Count brooded over his troubles, Gertrude and the other servants were gathered round the kitchen lire, listening to the wind and rain, and to the moaning of the sea. They speculated on the next day’s weather, and on their future mistress’s temper. Would the sun shine a bright welcome on the bride, and would the young Countess be a pretty butterfly like the rest, all for pastorals and idylls, and wisely allowing her servants to have their own way ; or would she be like her predecessor, the poor lady who had had the small-pox, and whose sharp tongue and shrill voice were still remembered by Gertrude ?’ ‘There were no cards and no plays in those days, I can tell you,’ said Gertrude, nodding severely at two idle damsels who were playing at pigeon-vole in the corner. ‘ It was all spinning and cooking and sewing-’ Here the kitchen door was gently pushed open; a young, pale girl, in a long cloak and little black hat, stepped in, then stood still in the bright ruddy glow of the kitchen fire. ‘ Please,’ she said softly, ‘ I want to speak to the Count of Saint Brice. They all stared at her in amazement, which, with Gertrude, would have turned into downright anger if she had not remembered that the seamstress from the town was to send one of her workwomen to sew on the lace for the young bride’s quilt. So, whilst the two girls in the corner left off their pigeon-vole to look open-mouthed at this girl, so pale, so fair, and with unpowdered hair, which clustered like rings of gold around her graceful neck, Gertrude lit a candle, and with a sharp, ‘Come this way,’ showed the stranger upstairs. She took her to the rooms which had once belonged to the Count’s mother, and which he had fitted up at heavy expense and in much haste for his bride. The silken hangings, splendid mirrors, and rich carpets looked very gorgeous even by the dull flickering light which Gertrude held. ‘ Well,’ she said, standing still by a lofty bed all blue and silvery, ‘ make haste hoav and sew on the lace. I shall hold the light for you. But a pretty thing your unstress did to wait till this time of the night to finish the quilt, and the Count getting married to-morrow.’ The stranger started back. ‘ I bring no lace,’ she said. ‘ I come to speak to the Count on pressing business.’ Gertrude stared, then tossed up her head. And what pressing business, she should like to know, could a girl of her years want with the Count on the eve of his wedding day ? ‘ It is because this is the eve of the Count’s wedding day that I have business with him,’ composedly replied the stranger. ‘ Make haste ; this is a pressing matter, I tell you, and I have a long way before me.’ ‘ I knew the girls would all be after my master,’ muttered Gertrude, but she did not dare to keep back the Count’s visitor ; so she went up the turret stairs, followed, ’spite her protests, by the stranger, and thus it was that they both came into the Count’s presence. He rose, surprised and doubtful. The young girl turned to Gertrude. ‘Leavens,’ she said, quietly, ‘my business with your master is private.’ ‘ Business, indeed ! Pretty business to come stealing up after me when I told you to wait below.’ ‘ Leave us,’ interrupted the Count ; and this time the order was obeyed, though not without some grumbling about forward demoiselles and the time of the night. The stranger quietly shut the door after Gertrude, then taking up the lamp from the table, and holding it so that its light fell full on her face, she said, calmly: ‘ Do you know me ?’ Oh, heavens ! did he know her ? —did he know the lost love of his boyhood ? —did he know the radiant eyes that had looked up at him so tenderly, when, taking her in his arms, a poor, pale child, he had vowed to love and cherish her as his own dear wife ? Five years had given her the charm and the bloom of maiden youth, but there she stood before him, with the light of the lamp shining on her sweet fair face and on her clustering golden hair, his darling Phyllis still. Pie could not move, he could not speak, he could scarcely breathe ; he could only look at her with silent delighted eyes. “You know me,’ she said, putting down the lamp. * Few words will do. The past which you have set aside was very dear to me. It has brought me here through wind and rain, and at heavy risk, to save you from a great sin. Whilst I have your promise and your mother’s wedding ring, how can you marry another woman ? From the one I release you, and the other I restore. Here it is ; take it, and give it to your wife tomorrow if it so please you. You are free now, and there is not a creature breathing, not one, who can say that there is a stain on your honor.’ She put the ring on the table and looked at him, sadly and proudly, with dim eyes and a pale quivering lip. But he did not take up the pledge she thus relinquished; he had neither heard nor heeded her words. The first amazement of his joy had gone by, and, taking her in his arms, he gave way to the rapture of his heart. ‘ Oh, my love, ray dear heart!’ he cried, in the language of the day; ‘ have I got you back ? Were you lost, and have I you back, never more to let you go—never, never,’ said he, kissing the golden hair on which rain drops still shone. Then he gently put her a little away from him, but only the better to look down into her silent wondering face. ‘Phyllis,’ he said, eagerly, ‘to-morrow was to have been the darkest day in my life, aut you have come back to make it the brightest. Now that you have entered this house you must never leave it again, unless

as its mistress. It is ready for you, Phyllis, ready and waiting. And lis'en, that is thunder ; look, that is lightning !’ he added, as a broad bright flash filled the room. ‘ Providence sent you, and Providence will not let you leave me again. How can yon doubt ? What need you fear? Have we not been pledged years, and has not your father consented to my ma nage with his daughter? Oh, my Phyllis, say yes, and lot us not run the risk of being again separated.’ He ceased, and rousing herself from her long amazement, she untwined his arms from around her, left his side, then suddenly coming back to him, she put her two hands on his shoulders and looked deep into his eyes with a searching glance, ‘Phillip,’ she said, ‘ whom were you going to marry to-morrow? For whom did you get those rooms prepared which I have just seen below ?

‘ For my Phyllis,’ he replied, smiling fondly. * I got that cage ready for my darling bird who now stands there, shy and mistrustful, before me, who looks and will not come in.’ So he had been true all the time. So, unless by taking the name of his little pale Phyllis, Manon’s brilliant beauty could not have lured him. So he had been true, though so nearly cheated out of his love and liberty by that false Florimel. She did not change her attitude or remove her look. Still standing with her two hands resting lightly on his shoulders, and her eyes raised to his, she said sadly, but though she did not mean it, very tenderly: ‘Do you know what you are doing ? Do you know that if you marry me you take me as I am, with these clothes for my only dowry ? Do you know that my poor father no longer knows his child, that I was" a prisoner in his house, and that I could not have escaped to-night if my step-mother had not been too much engaged with the nuptials of her niece to-morrow to watch me ? Do you know that if you cast off Manon du Mesnil for me, you make two keen and bitter enemies, and must prepare for long, maybe for life-long trouble ?’ He looked down, smiling, with grave fondness in her face, and he answered; ‘ Do you know that the first moment I saw you, when we were both children, I loved you ! Do you know that when I met you five years ago, when you were still but a child in looks and in years, I felt, ‘ This girl I will marry, and none other ?’ Do you know that if I had found you as sickly, as pale, and as unlovely as I left you, instead of being the beautiful and blooming girl now befote me, I should have loved you still as I love you now ; infinitely, my Phyllis, and for ever, with a love which neither sickness nor sorrow nor death itself shall ever remove from my heart ?’ He ceased unable to say more ; and she remained silent unable to answer. He who spoke believed every word he uttered, and she who listened believed it no less. Do not wonder then that he prevailed, and do not think poor lonely Phyllis indiscreet if, having come through the rain and storm to save her lover’s honor, she remained in the fond, warm shelter of his faithful home and heart, rather than venture out again in the bleak wild night, and return to the house which had become her prison. Hoav the marriage ceremony went off in the chapel of the old feudal castle, there is no record to tell; but it is asserted that the suddenness of the whole affair nearly sent Gertrude into a fit, and that on her recovery she was heard to exclaim : ‘ I knew the girls would all be running after our young master when he came back so handsome, but I never expected anything like that. ’ At ten of the morning the Count was to fetch his bride, but by eight he stood at the gates of the chateau —two hours’ impatience is no doubt natural in a bridegroom—and asked to see its mistress. Madame de la Faille had quarrelled that very morning with her waiting-maid, who seized the opportunity for a sly bit of revenge. So she took the Count upstairs at once, and perfidiously throwing a door open, she showed him in, without warning, to the dressing-room where her mistress, with brush in hand, was endeavouring to put a mole on the cheek of the beautiful Manon. The two ladies started back apart on seeing him, and Madame de la Faille, running up to the Count, put her two hands on his shoulders and tried to push him out, saying playfully, * Hot yet, sir, not yet: you come too soon;’ but the Count did not stir, and looking sorrowfully at the young lady, who had turned her blushing face away, he said, gravely: * I do not come too early for my purpose, Madame, which is to tell you that I was married to your step daughter, Mademoiselle deTa Faille, last night.’ The Marquise remained thunder-struck, but the young lady uttered a faint cry, and sank down on a chair, like one overcome with shame and grief. The Marquise set her teeth and clenched her hands, giving her blue taffetas morning wrapper a great dab of black paint from the brush which she still held. ‘Well, sir,’ she said, ‘is that what your boasted honour and constancy come to ? Was it all meant to insult my daughter ; or have you really been deceived by some artful impostor; and do you come here, unconscious of the cheat that has been practised upon you ?’ ‘Attempted,’ corrected the Count, and looking sadly at Manon, who was weeping, he said, gently: * Allow mo to regret that gifts so precious and so rare as youth and perfect beauty should be thus wasted.’ Mademoiselle du Mesnil wept more than ever, but her aunt, seizing the Count by the arm, said, imperiously, ‘ Come to my hus band, sir, come and account for this insult to his daughter.’ * Madame,’ said the Count, coldly, ‘ not to your husband only, but to the whole world, will I answer for what I have done. ’ ‘ Come to my husband, sir,’ repeated the lady, exasperated at his coolness. She pushed a door open, and they stood together in a stately bedroom. It was darkened, yet the Count could see the poor Marquis sit ting in his bed, propped up by pillows, with the flush from the crimson curtains on his pallid face. ‘ Marquis !’ said the enraged lady, ‘ this is the Count of Saint Brice, the son of the foolish little Countess who used to act so badly, you know. Well, then, this is her son, Marquis, who has been stealing your daughter from you, do you hear ? He has lured her to his house, and disgraced you and her. Do you hear, I say, do you hear ?’ She took his arm and shook it, in the violence of her wrath. Her fury woke the palsied man back to life. ‘ls it fire ?’ he gasped, ‘is it for murder ? He tried to rise, but could not, and, with a wild look of horror and a convulsive groan, he sank back—dead !

The Marquise screamed, the Count called for help; but when help came it availed not. The shock had proved mortal to the poor, enfeebled body. ‘ You have killed him!’ cried the Marquise, when she realised that she was a widow. ‘ Leave the house, sir. ’ ‘ Madame,’ gravely replied the Count, ‘ this house belongs now to my dear wife, the Marquis’s daughter, and I shall stay here to guard her rights till she can come her elf and make them good.’ The Marquise, on hearing this, raved like one demented. Decency and respect for that poor dead man, who lay cold and white beneath his crimson dais, had no power to restrain her. The Count was shocked, and, to avoid the unseemly quarrel, he left the room. But he still remained in the chateau, whence he dispatched a messenger with a letter for Phyllis, whom he bade come to him at once. We cannot quarrel with the dead; all our wrath spends itself in vain upon them : they lie beyond our reach, in their solemn silence. The Marquise grew hushed at once, when the Count left her; she,.too, soon forsook her dead husband, and went to seek her niece. The servants heard the two ladies talking loud and angrily for some time, then they grew suddenly silent, and a great hush, the hush of death, fell over the whole of the stately mansion. The Count sat alone in the large salon, feeling the cloud which death had cast over his new-born happiness, and waiting for his Phyllis. But time passed; it was noon now, and Phyllis came not. The Count paced the salon up and down, in a fever of unrest, at the bottom of which lurked secret fears —those shadows which darken our sunniest hours, and throw their gloom upon the brightness of our lives. At length, when another hour had gone by, he could bear the suspense no longer. He went down to the stable, took out his horse himself, and rode off, without saying a word to anyone. The Count remained two hours away, when he came galloping back to the gates of the chateau, he was pale as death, and his panting horse was covered with foam. ‘ My wife ! —where is my wife ?’ he cried. ‘ Phyllis, Phyllis !’ But no Phyllis answered him ; not a soul appeared at his call. He alighted, he hastened up the broad staircase, he went through the rooms and saw no one. The whole of that great house was deserted. Death had entered it, he had set up his grim throne there, and now reigned alone. Everyone had fled; the Marquise with the plate and family jewels ; the upper servants with such plunder as they could lay their hand on. The dead chamber alone had not been ransacked ; there the Marquis slept his last sleep, with his old dog, who had crept up to him and was now lying at his feet. Like one distrusted, the Count went through the whole house, seeking his Phyllis. Once his heart throbbed with joy as he heard a step, but when he pushed open a door, he only saw an old woman, who shook her head at all his questions, and said, in a quavering voice : ‘ Deaf, sir, deaf; stone deaf,’ and, putting a slip of paper in his hand, went away muttering. Mechanically the Count look at the paper, and read: ‘ Because for half an hour you loved me with the only true love that ever has been, or ever will be, felt for the unhappy Manon, I will serve you. Watch over your love, and beware of Thetis.’ ‘ Beware of Thetis !’ thought the amazed Count. Then suddenly he uttered a cry, ‘Oh Heaven!’ The Thetis was one of the King’s ships in the harbour. It might be ordered for Pondichery; it might be going away the next day, that very night—it might be gone by this. Tbe Count was a brave man, but no coward’s cheek ever grew whiter with fear than his, as he stood with the fatal paper in his hand. There are evils too strong for the strongest man, and this was one. The Count knew that he could avenge his wife —he did not know if he could save her'. He could hunt her ravishers to the very confines of the earth, and wring their heart’s blood from them; he could make them rot in prison, and rue, by bitterness to which that of death is naught, that they had ever laid a profane finger on the treasure of his love; but could their shame, could their dishonour, could their years of darkness and sorrow, atone to him for his loss ? Could their chastisement give back to her —his young wife of eighteen, whom he had pressed to his heart so fondly on their first parting—could they give her back the happiness which had but just dawned over her sad youth ?

Phyllis had left Saint Brice four hours : that he knew, that and no more. What if she had been waylaid, kidnapped, and been already taken on board the Thetis ? Drops of fear and anguish gathered on his forehead at the thought, and for a moment he stood motionless and powerless with that fatal warning in his hand, the blood flowing feebly and cold round his heart. That portion of his Majesty’s ships which lay in the neighbouring harbour was then under the rule of Chevalier de Blangy, an easy old sailor, who listened to every complaint, gave every one a fair hearing, and thought himself a martyr to duty. ‘lam a victim,’ he often said, ‘ a perfect victim. ’ To walk up and down the port, smoking in the sun, was one of the few pleasures this victim enjoyed, and whilst he was thus engaged it was well known that he would heed no complaint, and receive no petitions. Accordingly, when a young man with a blanched face and white lips suddenly stepped before him this afternoon and barred his way, the Chevalier pettishly put his fingers in his ears, and said angrily: ‘ Not now, sir; in an hour’s time I will hear all you have to say, but not now. ’ But the young man, seizing both the Chevalier’s arms, compelled his fingers to leave his ears, and with a stern voice and a sterner look, he said : ‘I am the Count of Saint Brice. I was married last night to Mademoiselle de la Faille, and this morning my wife was carried off by two Gardes du Pavillion, and forcibly conveyed on board the Thhetis, where she is now. I ask to search the ship, and, living or dead, to get my wife back. ’ The poor Chevalier’s pipe fell from his lips, and was broken on the Hags as he heard this. A Countess, not a tradesman’s wife or daughter, had been abducted by those terrible youths! ‘Sir,’ he said, looking bewildered, ‘this cannot be. It is impossible.’ The Count turned to Gertrude, who stood behind him. ‘ This woman has been our servant fifty years. With her own eyes she saw my wife carried away on her way to me; with her own ears she heard her shrieks for help. I ask to search the Thetis and get her back. ’ ‘ But the lady may not be on board the Thetis, cried the Chevalier, more and more distressed, {To becoi.il/lued.')