Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (distant reading .txt) 📖

should never have given itself to me! Ay, young Colonna, many a night has my boat been moored beneath the starlit Sorgia that washes her proud father’s halls, and my voice awaked the stillness of the waving sedges with a soldier’s serenade. Sweet memories! bitter fruit!”

“Why bitter? ye love each other still.”

“But I am vowed to celibacy, and Adeline de Courval is leman where she should be wedded dame. Methinks I fret at that thought even more than she,—dear Adeline!”

“Your lady, as all would guess, is then nobly born?”

“She is,” answered Montreal, with a deep and evident feeling which, save in love, rarely, if ever, crossed his hardy breast. “She is! our tale is a brief one:—we loved each other as children: Her family was wealthier than mine: We were separated. I was given to understand that she abandoned me. I despaired, and in despair I took the cross of St. John. Chance threw us again together. I learned that her love was undecayed. Poor child!—she was even then, sir, but a child! I, wild,—reckless—and not unskilled, perhaps, in the arts that woo and win. She could not resist my suit or her own affection!—We fled. In those words you see the thread of my after history. My sword and my Adeline were all my fortune. Society frowned on us. The Church threatened my soul. The Grand Master my life. I became a knight of fortune. Fate and my right hand favoured me. I have made those who scorned me tremble at my name. That name shall yet blaze, a star or a meteor, in the front of troubled nations, and I may yet win by force from the Pontiff the dispensation refused to my prayers. On the same day, I may offer Adeline the diadem and the ring.—Eno’ of this;—you marked Adeline’s cheek!—Seems it not delicate? I like not that changeful flush,—and she moves languidly,—her step that was so blithe!”

“Change of scene and the mild south will soon restore her health,” said Adrian; “and in your peculiar life she is so little brought in contact with others, especially of her own sex, that I trust she is but seldom made aware of whatever is painful in her situation. And woman’s love, Montreal, as we both have learned, is a robe that wraps her from many a storm!”

“You speak kindly,” returned the Knight; “but you know not all our cause of grief. Adeline’s father, a proud sieur, died,—they said of a broken heart,—but old men die of many another disease than that! The mother, a dame who boasted her descent from princes, bore the matter more sternly than the sire; clamoured for revenge,—which was odd, for she is as religious as a Dominican, and revenge is not Christian in a woman, though it is knightly in a man!—Well, my Lord, we had one boy, our only child; he was Adeline’s solace in my absence,—his pretty ways were worth the world to her! She loved him so, that, but he had her eyes and looked like her when he slept, I should have been jealous! He grew up in our wild life, strong and comely; the young rogue, he would have been a brave knight! My evil stars led me to Milan, where I had business with the Visconti. One bright morning in June, our boy was stolen; verily that June was like a December to us!”

“Stolen!—how?—by whom?”

“The first question is answered easily,—the boy was with his nurse in the courtyard, the idle wench left him for but a minute or two—so she avers—fetch him some childish toy; when she returned he was gone; not a trace left, save his pretty cap with the plume in it! Poor Adeline, many a time have I found her kissing that relic till it was wet with tears!”

“A strange fortune, in truth. But what interest could—”

“I will tell you,” interrupted Montreal, “the only conjecture I could form;—Adeline’s mother, on learning we had a son, sent to Adeline a letter, that well nigh broke her heart, reproaching her for her love to me, and so forth, as if that had made her the vilest of the sex. She bade her take compassion on her child, and not bring him up to a robber’s life,—so was she pleased to style the bold career of Walter de Montreal. She offered to rear the child in her own dull halls, and fit him, no doubt, for a shaven pate and a monk’s cowl. She chafed much that a mother would not part with her treasure! She alone, partly in revenge, partly in silly compassion for Adeline’s child, partly, it may be, from some pious fanaticism, could, it so seemed to me, have robbed us of our boy. On inquiry, I learned from the nurse—who, but that she was of the same sex as Adeline, should have tasted my dagger,—that in their walks, a woman of advanced years, but seemingly of humble rank, (that might be disguise!) had often stopped, and caressed and admired the child. I repaired at once to France, sought the old Castle of De Courval;—it had passed to the next heir, and the old widow was go on, none knew whither, but, it was conjectured, to take the veil in some remote convent.”

“And you never saw her since?”

“Yes, at Rome,” answered Montreal, turning pale; “when last there I chanced suddenly upon her; and then at length I learned my boy’s fate, and the truth of my own surmise; she confessed to the theft—and my child was dead! I have not dared to tell Adeline of this; it seems to me as if it would be like plucking the shaft from the wounded side—and she would die at once, bereft of the uncertainty that rankles within her. She has still a hope—it comforts her; though my heart bleeds when I think on its vanity. Let this pass, my Colonna.”

And Montreal started to his feet as if he strove, by a strong effort, to shake off the weakness that had crept over him in his narration.

“Think no more of it. Life is short—its thorns are many—let us not neglect any of its flowers. This is piety and wisdom too; Nature that meant me to struggle and to toil, gave me, happily, the sanguine heart and the elastic soul of France; and I have lived long enough to own that to die young is not an evil. Come, Lord Adrian, let us join my lady ere you part, if part you must; the moon will be up soon, and Fondi is but a short journey hence. You know that though I admire not your Petrarch, you with more courtesy laud our Provencal ballads, and you must hear Adeline sing one that you may prize them the more. The race of the Troubadours is dead, but the minstrelsy survives the minstrel!”

Adrian, who scarce knew what comfort to administer to the affliction of his companion, was somewhat relieved by the change in his mood, though his more grave and sensitive nature was a little startled at its suddenness. But, as we have before seen, Montreal’s spirit (and this made perhaps its fascination) was as a varying and changeful sky; the gayest sunshine, and the fiercest storm swept over it in rapid alternation; and elements of singular might and grandeur, which, properly directed and concentrated, would have made him the blessing and glory of his time, were wielded with a boyish levity, roused into war and desolation, or lulled into repose and smoothness, with all the suddenness of chance, and all the fickleness of caprice.

Sauntering down to the beach, the music of Adeline’s lute sounded more distinctly in their ears, and involuntarily they hushed their steps upon the rich and odorous turf, as