 | CHAPTER III. Southward ho! |  |
3. CHAPTER III.
His return to Tarquinia was hailed with delight by every
member of his family but one. This was a younger brother,
whose position had been greatly improved by the absence and
supposed death of Cœlius. He cursed in the bitterness of his
heart the fate which had thus restored, as from the grave, the
shadow which had darkened his own prospects; and, though
he concealed his mortification under the guise of a joy as lively
as that of any other member of the household, he was torn with
secret hate and the most fiendish jealousy. At first, however, as
these feelings were quite aimless, he strove naturally to subdue
them. There was no profitable object in their indulgence, and
he was one of those, cunning beyond his years, who entertain
no moods, and commit no crime, unless with the distinct hope of
acquisition. It required but a little time, however, to ripen
other feelings in his soul, by which the former were rather
strengthened than diminished, and by which all his first, and
perhaps feeble, efforts to subdue them were rendered fruitless.
In the first bitter mood in which he beheld the return of his
brother, the deep disappointment which he felt, with the necessity
of concealing his chagrin from every eye, prevented him
from bestowing that attention upon the wife of Cœlius which her
beauty, had his thoughts been free, must inevitably have commanded.
With his return to composure, however, he soon made
the discovery of her charms, and learned to love them with a
passion scarcely less warm than that which was felt by her husband.
Hence followed a double motive for hating the latter,
and denouncing his better fortune. Aruns — the name of the
younger brother — was, like Cœlius, a man of great talent and
ingenuity; but his talent, informed rather by his passions than
by his tastes, was addressed to much humbler objects. While
the one was creative and gentle in his character, the other was
violent and destructive; while the one worshipped beauty for its
Cœlius was frank and generous in his temper, Aruns
reserved, suspicious and contracted. The one had no disguises,
the other dwelt within them, even as a spider girdled by his
web, and lying secret in the crevice at its bottom. Hitherto,
his cunning had been chiefly exercised in concealing itself, in
assuming the port of frankness, in appearing, so far as he might,
the thing that he was not. It was now to be exercised for his
more certain profit, in schemes hostile to the peace of others.
To cloak these designs he betrayed more than usual joy at the
restoration of his brother. His, indeed, seemed the most elated
spirit of the household, and the confiding and unsuspecting
Cœlius at once took him to his heart, with all the warmth and
sincerity of boyhood. It gave him pleasure to perceive that
Aurelia, his wife, received him as a brother, and he regarded with
delight the appearance of affection that subsisted between them.
The three soon became more and more united in their sympathies
and objects, and the devotion of Aruns to the Roman wife
of Cœlius was productive of a gratification to the latter, which
he did not endeavor to conceal. It was grateful to him that his
brother did not leave his wife to that solitude in her foreign
home, which might sometimes have followed his own too intense
devotion to the arts which he so passionately loved; and, without
a fear that his faith might be misplaced, he left to Aruns the
duty which no husband might prudently devolve upon any man,
of ministering to those tastes and affections, the most delicate
and sacred, which make of every family circle a temple in which
the father, and the husband, and the master, should alone be the
officiating priest.
Some time had passed in this manner, and at length it struck
our Lucumo that there was less cordiality between his brother
and his wife than had pleased him so much at first. Aurelia
now no longer spoke of Aruns — his name never escaped her
lips, unless when she was unavoidably forced to speak it in
reply. His approaches to her were marked by a timidity not
usual with him, and by a hauteur in her countenance which was
shown to no other person. It was a proof of the superior love of
Cœlius for his wife that he reproached her for this seeming dislike.
She baffled his inquiry, met his reproaches with renewed
his labors on the beautiful, with perhaps too little regard to what
was going on around him. Meanwhile, the expression in the
face of Aurelia had been gradually deepening into gravity. Care
was clouding her brow, and an air of anxiety manifested itself
upon her cheek — a look of apprehension — as if some danger
were impending — some great fear threatening in her heart.
This continued for some time, when she became conscious that
the eye of her husband began to be fixed inquiringly upon her,
and with the look of one dissatisfied, if not doubtful — disturbed
if not suspicious — and with certain sensibilities rendered acute
and watchful, which had been equally confiding and affectionate
before. These signs increased her disquiet, deepened her anxiety.
But she was silent. The glances of her husband were full
of appeal, but she gave them no response. She could but retire
from his presence, and sigh to herself in solitude. There
was evidently a mystery in this conduct, and the daily increasing
anxieties of the husband betrayed his doubts lest it might
prove a humiliating one at the solution. But he, too, was silent.
His pride forbade that he should declare himself when he could
only speak of vague surmises and perhaps degrading suspicions.
He was silent, but not at ease. His pleasant labors of the studio
were abandoned. Was it for relief from his own thoughts that
he was now so frequently in company with Aruns, or did he
hope to obtain from the latter any clue to the mystery which
disturbed his household? It was not in the art of Aurelia so to
mould the expression of her countenance as to hide from others
the anxiety which she felt in the increasing and secret communion
of the brothers. She watched their departure with dread,
and witnessed their return together with agitation. She saw, or
fancied she saw, in the looks of the younger, a malignant exultation
which even his habitual cunning did not suffer him entirely
to conceal.
| CHAPTER III. Southward ho! | |