1.7. CHAPTER VII.
HAVING seen our friend properly installed in his new
office, we turned our eyes towards Windsor. The
nearness of this place to London was such, as to take
away the idea of painful separation, when we quitted
Raymond and Perdita. We took leave of them in the
Protectoral Palace. It was pretty enough to see my
sister enter as it were into the spirit of the drama,
and endeavour to fill her station with becoming
dignity. Her internal pride and humility of manner were
now more than ever at war. Her timidity was not
artificial, but arose from that fear of not being
properly appreciated, that slight estimation of the
neglect of the world,
which also characterized Raymond.
But then Perdita thought more constantly of others than
he; and part of her bashfulness arose from a wish to
take from those around her a sense of inferiority; a
feeling which never crossed her mind. From the
circumstances of her birth and education, Idris would
have been better fitted for the formulae of ceremony;
but the very ease which accompanied such actions with
her, arising from habit, rendered them tedious; while,
with every drawback, Perdita evidently enjoyed her
situation. She was too full of new ideas to feel much
pain when we departed; she took an affectionate leave
of us, and promised to visit us soon; but she did not
regret the circumstances that caused our separation.
The spirits of Raymond were unbounded; he did not know
what to do with his new got power; his head was full of
plans; he had as yet decided on none—but he promised
himself, his friends, and the world, that the aera of
his Protectorship should be signalized by some act of
surpassing glory.
Thus, we talked of them, and moralized, as with
diminished numbers we returned to Windsor Castle. We
felt extreme delight at our escape from political
turmoil, and sought our solitude with redoubled zest.
We did not want for occupation; but my eager
disposition was now turned to the field of intellectual
exertion only; and hard study I found to be an
excellent medicine to allay a fever of spirit with
which in indolence, I should doubtless have been
assailed. Perdita had permitted us to take Clara back
with us to Windsor; and she and my two lovely infants
were perpetual sources of interest and amusement.
The only circumstance that disturbed our peace, was the
health of Adrian. It evidently declined, without any
symptom which could lead us to suspect his disease,
unless indeed his brightened eyes, animated look, and
flustering cheeks, made us dread consumption; but he
was without pain or fear. He betook himself to books
with ardour, and reposed from study in
the society he
best loved, that of his sister and myself. Sometimes he
went up to London to visit Raymond, and watch the
progress of events. Clara often accompanied him in
these excursions; partly that she might see her
parents, partly because Adrian delighted in the
prattle, and intelligent looks of this lovely child.
Meanwhile all went on well in London. The new elections
were finished; parliament met, and Raymond was occupied
in a thousand beneficial schemes. Canals, aqueducts,
bridges, stately buildings, and various edifices for
public utility, were entered upon; he was continually
surrounded by projectors and projects, which were to
render England one scene of fertility and
magnificence; the state of poverty was to be abolished;
men were to be transported from place to place almost
with the same facility as the Princes Houssain, Ali,
and Ahmed, in the Arabian Nights. The physical state of
man would soon not yield to the beatitude of angels;
disease was to be banished; labour lightened of its
heaviest burden.
Nor did this seem extravagant. The
arts of life, and the discoveries of science had
augmented in a ratio which left all calculation behind;
food sprung up, so to say, spontaneously—machines
existed to supply with facility every want of the
population. An evil direction still survived; and men
were not happy, not because they could not, but because
they would not rouse themselves to vanquish self-raised
obstacles. Raymond was to inspire them with his
beneficial will, and the mechanism of society, once
systematised according to faultless rules, would never
again swerve into disorder. For these hopes he
abandoned his long-cherished ambition of being
enregistered in the annals of nations as a successful
warrior; laying aside his sword, peace and its enduring
glories became his aim—the title he coveted was that
of the benefactor of his country.
Among other works of art in which he was engaged, he
had projected the erection of a national gallery for
statues and pictures. He
possessed many himself, which
he designed to present to the Republic; and, as the
edifice was to be the great ornament of his
Protectorship, he was very fastidious in his choice of
the plan on which it would be built. Hundreds were
brought to him and rejected. He sent even to Italy and
Greece for drawings; but, as the design was to be
characterized by originality as well as by perfect
beauty, his endeavours were for a time without avail.
At length a drawing came, with an address where
communications might be sent, and no artist's name
affixed. The design was new and elegant, but faulty; so
faulty, that although drawn with the hand and eye of
taste, it was evidently the work of one who was not an
architect. Raymond contemplated it with delight; the
more he gazed, the more pleased he was; and yet the
errors multiplied under inspection. He wrote to the
address given, desiring to see the draughtsman, that
such alterations might be
made, as should be suggested
in a consultation between him and the original
conceiver.
A Greek came. A middle-aged man, with some intelligence
of manner, but with so common-place a physiognomy, that
Raymond could scarcely believe that he was the
designer. He acknowledged that he was not an architect;
but the idea of the building had struck him, though he
had sent it without the smallest hope of its being
accepted. He was a man of few words. Raymond questioned
him; but his reserved answers soon made him turn from
the man to the drawing. He pointed out the errors, and
the alterations that he wished to be made; he offered
the Greek a pencil that he might correct the sketch on
the spot; this was refused by his visitor, who said
that he perfectly understood, and would work at it at
home. At length Raymond suffered him to depart.
The next day he returned. The design had been re-drawn;
but many defects still remained,
and several of the
instructions given had been misunderstood. "Come," said
Raymond, "I yielded to you yesterday, now comply with
my request—take the pencil."
The Greek took it, but he handled it in no artist-like
way; at length he said: "I must confess to you, my
Lord, that I did not make this drawing. It is
impossible for you to see the real designer; your
instructions must pass through me. Condescend therefore
to have patience with my ignorance, and to explain your
wishes to me; in time I am certain that you will be
satisfied."
Raymond questioned vainly; the mysterious Greek would
say no more. Would an architect be permitted to see the
artist? This also was refused. Raymond repeated his
instructions, and the visitor retired. Our friend
resolved however not to be foiled in his wish. He
suspected, that unaccustomed poverty was the cause of
the mystery, and that the artist was unwilling to be
seen in the garb and abode
of want. Raymond was only
the more excited by this consideration to discover him;
impelled by the interest he took in obscure talent, he
therefore ordered a person skilled in such matters, to
follow the Greek the next time he came, and observe the
house in which he should enter. His emissary obeyed,
and brought the desired intelligence. He had traced the
man to one of the most penurious streets in the
metropolis. Raymond did not wonder, that, thus
situated, the artist had shrunk from notice, but he did
not for this alter his resolve.
On the same evening, he went alone to the house named
to him. Poverty, dirt, and squalid misery characterized
its appearance. Alas! thought Raymond, I have much to
do before England becomes a Paradise. He knocked; the
door was opened by a string from above—the broken,
wretched staircase was immediately before him, but no
person appeared; he knocked again, vainly—and then,
impatient of further delay, he ascended the dark,
creaking
stairs. His main wish, more particularly now
that he witnessed the abject dwelling of the artist,
was to relieve one, possessed of talent, but depressed
by want. He pictured to himself a youth, whose eyes
sparkled with genius, whose person was attenuated by
famine. He half feared to displease him; but he trusted
that his generous kindness would be administered so
delicately, as not to excite repulse. What human heart
is shut to kindness? and though poverty, in its excess,
might render the sufferer unapt to submit to the
supposed degradation of a benefit, the zeal of the
benefactor must at last relax him into thankfulness.
These thoughts encouraged Raymond, as he stood at the
door of the highest room of the house. After trying
vainly to enter the other apartments, he perceived just
within the threshold of this one, a pair of small
Turkish slippers; the door was ajar, but all was silent
within. It was probable that the inmate was absent, but
secure that he had found the right person, our
adventurous
Protector was tempted to enter, to leave a
purse on the table, and silently depart. In pursuance
of this idea, he pushed open the door gently—but the
room was inhabited.
Raymond had never visited the dwellings of want, and
the scene that now presented itself struck him to the
heart. The floor was sunk in many places; the walls
ragged and bare—the ceiling weather-stained—a
tattered bed stood in the corner; there were but two
chairs in the room, and a rough broken table, on which
was a light in a tin candlestick;—yet in the midst of
such drear and heart sickening poverty, there was an
air of order and cleanliness that surprised him. The
thought was fleeting; for his attention was instantly
drawn towards the inhabitant of this wretched abode. It
was a female. She sat at the table; one small hand
shaded her eyes from the candle; the other held a
pencil; her looks were fixed on a drawing before her,
which Raymond recognized as the design presented to
him. Her whole appearance awakened his
deepest
interest. Her dark hair was braided and twined in thick
knots like the head-dress of a Grecian statue; her garb
was mean, but her attitude might have been selected as
a model of grace. Raymond had a confused remembrance
that he had seen such a form before; he walked across
the room; she did not raise her eyes, merely asking in
Romaic, who is there? "A friend," replied Raymond in
the same dialect. She looked up wondering, and he saw
that it was Evadne Zaimi. Evadne, once the idol of
Adrian's affections; and who, for the sake of her
present visitor, had disdained the noble youth, and
then, neglected by him she loved, with crushed hopes
and a stinging sense of misery, had returned to her
native Greece. What revolution of fortune could have
brought her to England, and housed her thus?
Raymond recognized her; and his manner changed from
polite beneficence to the warmest protestations of
kindness and sympathy. The sight of her, in her present
situation, passed like
an arrow into his soul. He sat
by her, he took her hand, and said a thousand things
which breathed the deepest spirit of compassion and
affection. Evadne did not answer; her large dark eyes
were cast down, at length a tear glimmered on the
lashes. "Thus," she cried, "kindness can do, what no
want, no misery ever effected; I weep." She shed indeed
many tears; her head sunk unconsciously on the shoulder
of Raymond; he held her hand: he kissed her sunken
tear-stained cheek. He told her, that her sufferings
were now over: no one possessed the art of consoling
like Raymond; he did not reason or declaim, but his
look shone with sympathy; he brought pleasant images
before the sufferer; his caresses excited no distrust,
for they arose purely from the feeling which leads a
mother to kiss her wounded child; a desire to
demonstrate in every possible way the truth of his
feelings, and the keenness of his wish to pour balm
into the lacerated mind of the unfortunate.
As Evadne regained her composure, his manner became
even gay; he sported with the idea of her poverty.
Something told him that it was not its real evils that
lay heavily at her heart, but the debasement and
disgrace attendant on it; as he talked, he
divested it of these; sometimes speaking of her
fortitude with energetic praise; then, alluding to her
past state, he called her his Princess in disguise. He
made her warm offers of service; she was too much
occupied by more engrossing thoughts, either to accept
or reject them; at length he left her, making a promise
to repeat his visit the next day. He returned home,
full of mingled feelings, of pain excited by Evadne's
wretchedness, and pleasure at the prospect of relieving
it. Some motive for which he did not account, even to
himself, prevented him from relating his
adventure to Perdita.
The next day he threw such disguise over his person as
a cloak afforded, and revisited Evadne. As he went, he
bought a basket of
costly fruits, such as were natives
of her own country, and throwing over these various
beautiful flowers, bore it himself to the miserable
garret of his friend. "Behold," cried he, as he
entered, "what bird's food I have brought for my
sparrow on the house-top."
Evadne now related the tale of her misfortunes. Her
father, though of high rank, had in the end dissipated
his fortune, and even destroyed his reputation and
influence through a course of dissolute indulgence. His
health was impaired beyond hope of cure; and it became
his earnest wish, before he died, to preserve his
daughter from the poverty which would be the portion of
her orphan state. He therefore accepted for her, and
persuaded her to accede to, a proposal of marriage,
from a wealthy Greek merchant settled at
Constantinople. She quitted her native Greece; her
father died; by degrees she was cut off from all the
companions and ties of her youth.
The war, which about a year before the present
time had
broken out between Greece and Turkey, brought about
many reverses of fortune. Her husband became bankrupt,
and then in a tumult and threatened massacre on the
part of the Turks, they were obliged to fly at
midnight, and reached in an open boat an English vessel
under sail, which brought them immediately to this
island. The few jewels they had saved, supported them
awhile. The whole strength of Evadne's mind was exerted
to support the failing spirits of her husband. Loss of
property, hopelessness as to his future prospects, the
inoccupation to which poverty condemned him, combined
to reduce him to a state bordering on insanity. Five
months after their arrival in England, he committed
suicide.
"You will ask me," continued Evadne, "what I have done
since; why I have not applied for succour to the rich
Greeks resident here; why I have not returned to my
native country? My answer to these questions must needs
appear to you unsatisfactory, yet they
have sufficed to
lead me on, day after day, enduring every
wretchedness, rather than by such means to seek relief.
Shall the daughter of the noble, though prodigal Zaimi,
appear a beggar before her compeers or
inferiors—superiors she had none. Shall I bow my head
before them, and with servile gesture sell my
nobility for life? Had I a child, or any tie to bind me
to existence, I might descend to this—but, as it
is—the world has been to me a harsh step-mother; fain
would I leave the abode she seems to grudge, and in the
grave forget my pride, my struggles, my despair. The
time will soon come; grief and famine have already
sapped the foundations of my being; a very short time,
and I shall have passed away; unstained by the crime of
self-destruction, unstung by the memory of degradation,
my spirit will throw aside the miserable coil, and find
such recompense as fortitude and resignation may
deserve. This may seem madness to you, yet you also
have pride and resolution; do not then
wonder that my
pride is tameless, my resolution unalterable."
Having thus finished her tale, and given such an
account as she deemed fit, of the motives of her
abstaining from all endeavour to obtain aid from her
countrymen, Evadne paused; yet she seemed to have more
to say, to which she was unable to give words. In the
mean time Raymond was eloquent. His desire of restoring
his lovely friend to her rank in society, and to her
lost prosperity, animated him, and he poured forth with
energy, all his wishes and intentions on that subject.
But he was checked; Evadne exacted a promise, that he
should conceal from all her friends her existence in
England. "The relatives of the Earl of Windsor," said
she haughtily, "doubtless think that I injured him;
perhaps the Earl himself would be the first to acquit
me, but probably I do not deserve acquittal. I acted
then, as I ever must, from impulse. This abode of
penury may at least prove the disinterestedness of my
conduct. No
matter: I do not wish to plead my cause
before any of them, not even before your Lordship, had
you not first discovered me. The tenor of my actions
will prove that I had rather die, than be a mark for
scorn—behold the proud Evadne in her tatters! look on
the beggar-princess! There is aspic venom in the
thought—promise me that my secret shall not be
violated by you."
Raymond promised; but then a new discussion ensued.
Evadne required another engagement on his part, that he
would not without her concurrence enter into any
project for her benefit, nor himself offer relief. "Do
not degrade me in my own eyes," she said; "poverty has
long been my nurse; hard-visaged she is, but honest. If
dishonour, or what I conceive to be dishonour, come
near me, I am lost." Raymond adduced many arguments and
fervent persuasions to overcome her feeling, but she
remained unconvinced; and, agitated by the discussion,
she wildly and passionately made a solemn
vow, to fly
and hide herself where he never could discover her,
where famine would soon bring death to conclude her
woes, if he persisted in his to her disgracing offers.
She could support herself, she said. And then she
shewed him how, by executing various designs and
paintings, she earned a pittance for her support.
Raymond yielded for the present. He felt assured, after
he had for awhile humoured her self-will, that in the
end friendship and reason would gain the day.
But the feelings that actuated Evadne were rooted in
the depths of her being, and were such in their growth
as he had no means of understanding. Evadne loved
Raymond. He was the hero of her imagination, the image
carved by love in the unchanged texture of her heart.
Seven years ago, in her youthful prime, she had become
attached to him; he had served her country against the
Turks; he had in her own land acquired that military
glory peculiarly dear to the Greeks, since they were
still obliged
inch by inch to fight for their security.
Yet when he returned thence, and first appeared in
public life in England, her love did not purchase his,
which then vacillated between Perdita and a crown.
While he was yet undecided, she had quitted England;
the news of his marriage reached her, and her hopes,
poorly nurtured blossoms, withered and fell. The glory
of life was gone for her; the roseate halo of love,
which had imbued every object with its own colour,
faded;—she was content to take life as it was, and to
make the best of leaden-coloured reality. She married;
and, carrying her restless energy of character with her
into new scenes, she turned her thoughts to ambition,
and aimed at the title and power of Princess of
Wallachia; while her patriotic feelings were soothed by
the idea of the good she might do her country, when her
husband should be chief of this principality. She lived
to find ambition, as unreal a delusion as love. Her
intrigues with Russia for the furtherance of her
object, excited the jealousy of the Porte, and the
animosity of the Greek government. She was considered a
traitor by both, the ruin of her husband followed; they
avoided death by a timely flight, and she fell from the
height of her desires to penury in England. Much of
this tale she concealed from Raymond; nor did she
confess, that repulse and denial, as to a criminal
convicted of the worst of crimes, that of bringing the
scythe of foreign despotism to cut away the new
springing liberties of her country, would have followed
her application to any among the Greeks.
She knew that she was the cause of her husband's utter
ruin; and she strung herself to bear the consequences.
The reproaches which agony extorted; or worse,
cureless, uncomplaining depression, when his mind was
sunk in a torpor, not the less painful because it was
silent and moveless. She reproached herself with the
crime of his death; guilt and its punishments appeared
to
surround her; in vain she endeavoured to allay
remorse by the memory of her real integrity; the rest
of the world, and she among them, judged of her
actions, by their consequences. She prayed for her
husband's soul; she conjured the Supreme to place on
her head the crime of his self-destruction—she vowed
to live to expiate his fault.
In the midst of such wretchedness as must soon have
destroyed her, one thought only was matter of
consolation. She lived in the same country, breathed
the same air as Raymond. His name as Protector was the
burthen of every tongue; his achievements, projects,
and magnificence, the argument of every story. Nothing
is so precious to a woman's heart as the glory and
excellence of him she loves; thus in every horror
Evadne revelled in his fame and prosperity. While her
husband lived, this feeling was
regarded by her as a crime, repressed, repented of.
When he died, the tide of love
resumed its ancient
flow, it deluged her soul with its tumultuous waves,
and she gave herself up a prey to its uncontrollable
power.
But never, O, never, should he see her in her degraded
state. Never should he behold her fallen, as she
deemed, from her pride of beauty, the poverty-stricken
inhabitant of a garret, with a name which had become a
reproach, and a weight of guilt on her soul. But though
impenetrably veiled from him, his public office
permitted her to become acquainted with all his
actions, his daily course of life, even his
conversation. She allowed herself one luxury, she saw
the newspapers every day, and feasted on the praise and
actions of the Protector. Not that this indulgence was
devoid of accompanying grief. Perdita's name was for
ever joined with his; their conjugal felicity was
celebrated even by the authentic testimony of facts.
They were continually together, nor could the
unfortunate Evadne read the monosyllable that
designated his name, without, at the same time, being
presented
with the image of her who was the faithful
companion of all his labours and pleasures.
They,
their Excellencies, met her eyes in each line,
mingling an evil potion that poisoned her very blood.
It was in the newspaper that she saw the advertisement
for the design for a national gallery. Combining with
taste her remembrance of the edifices which she had
seen in the east, and by an effort of genius enduing
them with unity of design, she executed the plan which
had been sent to the Protector. She triumphed in the
idea of bestowing, unknown and forgotten as she was, a
benefit upon him she loved; and with enthusiastic pride
looked forward to the accomplishment of a work of hers,
which, immortalized in stone, would go down to
posterity stamped with the name of Raymond. She awaited
with eagerness the return of her messenger from the
palace; she listened insatiate to his account of each
word, each look of the Protector; she felt bliss in
this communication with her beloved,
although he knew
not to whom he addressed his instructions. The drawing
itself became ineffably dear to her. He had seen it,
and praised it; it was again retouched by her, each
stroke of her pencil was as a chord of thrilling music,
and bore to her the idea of a temple raised to
celebrate the deepest and most unutterable emotions of
her soul. These contemplations engaged her, when the
voice of Raymond first struck her ear, a voice, once
heard, never to be forgotten; she mastered her gush of
feelings, and welcomed him with quiet gentleness.
Pride and tenderness now struggled, and at length made
a compromise together. She would see Raymond, since
destiny had led him to her, and her constancy and
devotion must merit his friendship. But her rights with
regard to him, and her cherished independence, should
not be injured by the idea of interest, or the
intervention of the complicated feelings attendant on
pecuniary obligation, and the relative situations of
the benefactor, and benefited.
Her mind was of uncommon
strength; she could subdue her sensible wants to her
mental wishes, and suffer cold, hunger and misery,
rather than concede to fortune a contested point. Alas!
that in human nature such a pitch of mental discipline,
and disdainful negligence of nature itself, should not
have been allied to the extreme of moral excellence!
But the resolution that permitted her to resist the
pains of privation, sprung from the too great energy of
her passions; and the concentrated self-will of which
this was a sign, was destined to destroy even the very
idol, to preserve whose respect she submitted to this
detail of wretchedness.
Their intercourse continued. By degrees Evadne related
to her friend the whole of her story, the stain her
name had received in Greece, the weight of sin which
had accrued to her from the death of her husband. When
Raymond offered to clear her reputation, and
demonstrate to the world her real patriotism, she
declared that it was only through her present
sufferings
that she hoped for any relief to the stings
of conscience; that, in her state of mind, diseased as
he might think it, the necessity of occupation was
salutary medicine; she ended by extorting a promise
that for the space of one month he would refrain from
the discussion of her interests, engaging after that
time to yield in part to his wishes. She could not
disguise to herself that any change would separate her
from him; now she saw him each day. His connection with
Adrian and Perdita was never mentioned; he was to her a
meteor, a companionless star, which at its appointed
hour rose in her hemisphere, whose appearance brought
felicity, and which, although it set, was never
eclipsed. He came each day to her abode of penury, and
his presence transformed it to a temple redolent with
sweets, radiant with heaven's own light; he partook of
her delirium. "They built a wall between them and the
world"—Without, a thousand harpies raved, remorse and
misery, expecting the destined moment for
their
invasion. Within, was the peace as of innocence,
reckless blindless, deluding joy, hope, whose still
anchor rested on placid but unconstant water.
Thus, while Raymond had been wrapt in visions of power
and fame, while he looked forward to entire dominion
over the elements and the mind of man, the territory of
his own heart escaped his notice; and from that
unthought of source arose the mighty torrent that
overwhelmed his will, and carried to the oblivious sea,
fame, hope, and happiness.