Cecil

“ In vain Cecil strives to comfort; no thought comes to her but a mad craving for the busy day.
At last it comes, slowly, sweetly. The gray dawn deepens into rose, the sun flings abroad its young and chilly beams upon the earth. It is the opening of a glorious morn. How often have we noticed in our hours of direst grief how it is then Nature chooses to deck herself in all her fairest and best, as though to mock us with the very gayety and splendor of her charms! ”

“ Deep in her imagination dwelt an ideal Cecil, a superb and lovable creature upon whom Oxford had never breathed her blight, [85] with whom fads had never tampered, who was serious only when in love, and who would descend upon her like a god and bear her off to the abbey of his fathers. She never regretted the utter absence of sentiment and tenderness in Cecil’s letters; it would have accorded ill with Cecil in the present trying stages of his development. Cecil, as a man of the world, was to be all that ever sprang from the fertile brain of a romanticist. ”

“ All I can say is, Cecil, don’t let my blundering way of speaking for him prejudice you against the poor fellow, for he really is head over ears in love with you. Sometimes I think you don’t appreciate him properly, but remember, he has waited patiently for two whole years, and only refrained from speaking out of pure consideration for you, lest you should be compromised in your new position. You have never shown him any special encouragement, always laughing at him and teasing him as you do, but he has never wavered, so if you can find it in your heart to say yes, do be kind to the poor boy. ”

“ Perhaps I was wrong in the means I adopted; but I longed for an honest name, and it occurred to me that Sir Robert Cecil could be frightened, if not persuaded, into procuring my pardon. God is my judge that I was weary of my reckless habits, and panted for active but legal employment. A blasted oak will tumble to the earth, if struck by a thunderbolt,—like a withy. Then my child! I knew that Lady Cecil cared for her, though, good lady, she little thought, when she first saw the poor baby, that it was the child of a Buccaneer. ”

“ Now he saw that between him and the marquis sat a lady; and Lord Cecil, as his senses woke to the fact of her presence, was guilty of an astonished stare.
It is not given to every one to meet in one day the two [Pg 31] most beautiful women he had ever seen, but this was Lord Cecil’s fate. The lady was young, with a fair and perfectly-tinted face, with dark-brown eyes, and hair that shone like raw silk under the mellow light that fell from the candelabra above.
Her presence was so unexpected that Lord Cecil might be pardoned for expressing in his gaze something of the surprise he felt. ”

“ The agitation of Cecil seemed to increase instead of subsiding, and she felt—why she could not tell—a strange trembling curiosity to see the face of that corpse. With a rough motion. Gaunt tore the napkin from the head, it rolls heavily to one side, and towards Cecil, but—oh God! what a face! did human being ever present such a one before? Never! ”

“ He reached the bed, and Cecil heard the wild beatings of his heart as he stood for an instant preparing to reach forth his arms, throw himself upon the bed, and then make sure of his victim. Ah! he finds he is baffled when he thought the very moment of possession had arrived. With an imprecation too dreadful to repeat, he was about to turn from the bed, when gathering the remains of her strength and energy, Cecil darts like a spectre from the apartment. ”

“ I may be miserable; we may be brought to beggary; my child may want every necessary—oh! I have not shut my eyes to that terrible prospect! I have seen it; it has wrung my heart, but I cannot—would not, if I could—leave him who is all my happiness. Cecil is more than my husband: he is all that I hold dearest in life: he is the father of that child whose future you so gloomily foresee; shall that child—shall my child not smile upon its father? You do not know what you ask. ”

“ Cecil played on; and as he saw the sovereigns disappear in spite of his famous martingale, his heart sank within him, and the gloom of despair seemed to paralyse his mind. Suffering horrible agony from the intense excitement of each coup, he yet played mechanically, almost listlessly, he lost, and won, and lost again, with fearful alternation of sick despair and dull joy. ”

“ I am lost!' cried Cecil, leaping from the table and buckling on his sword, as he looked hurriedly around him for concealment, defence, or escape.
His evident emotion and admission that he had pursuers renewed at once the inborn mistrust of the Servian household, who all shrank from him. Despite his uniform and the gold cross of Takovo, they imagined he must be a culprit, and felt neither disposed to conceal nor defend him. Even the gentle hostess eyed him now with horror, mistrust and affright. ”

“ When sense came completely back to Cecil, he knew not where he was, nor for some hours thereafter did he exactly comprehend all that had lately happened to him and passed around him; he had lost so much blood, and been thereby so giddy, weak, drowsy, and insensible.
His first recollections were of the battle—of supporting the field-battery, and the charges he had led ere he fell; then the night in the woody hollow—his thirst and the kites hovering over him! ”

“ Even if Cecil discovered the instinct of the pioneer in him he would not listen to it, for he is very proud and very ambitious. When a man towers in an isolated field like Mr. Rhodes, every man who plants his heels in the same field in the same epoch is a moon to Jupiter. And no two men in a century will ever have all the gifts of the Empire-maker united in one brain. Cecil is highly gifted, and he has enormous energy, but his gifts are on the old conservative lines. ”

“ Away rearward from the field, out of all range of musketry and cannon, Cecil's maddened horse—maddened by the agony of a mighty wound—swept at a furious rate, while he—blinded with equal agony and unable to guide or control it—clung to his holsters or the pommel of the saddle, as it bore him on he knew not whither; but it rushed in its wild career down a wooded valley, actually treading on its own entrails by the way, till it fell heavily with its rider in the depth of a coppice, and there both lay, to all appearance, dying, unseen by mortal eyes. ”

“ The moaning of the night-wind in the giant pines was heard at times; but it brought no sound, save the snarling voices of the beasts of prey, busy perhaps elsewhere. The flow from his wound had stopped; he must have perished otherwise; a species of bloody paste had sealed up the wound for a time; but Cecil's mind had become a chaos now, and he could remember nothing but the agony in his chest and the intensity of his thirst—an intensity to which the murmur of the cool runnel close by added tantalisation. ”

“ Crushed, poor and ruined as he is, he is dearer to me than ever. Cecil—Cecil—come to me, Cecil!' she added hysterically, and hid her face in the bosom of Annabelle, who was weeping freely too, and no doubt thinking of the woman with the veil, as she said:
'How unfortunate we are, dearest Mary, to have both become involved with men whose lives are enveloped in some cruel or degrading mystery.'
'Oh, do not say so—so far as poor Cecil is concerned,' replied Mary, with something of indignation in her tone. ”

“ There was just that suggestion of a trap for inaccuracy in her tone that always scared Cecil, and Rose hastily answered for him.
“Only once, wasn’t it, Cecil?”
“Then why does he say ‘always’?” said Lady Aviolet.
She had long ago told Rose that they must be very particular never to let any mis-statement from Cecil pass unchallenged. It was their one hope, she explained, of inculcating the habit of truthfulness. Cecil now looked confused and alarmed, and as his grandmother fixed her eyes upon him severely he said: “I meant once, Grandmama.” ”

“ The contrast between his appearance at that moment, and the last time Cecil had seen him, when in the final stage of seediness, he had gambled away even his dinner, so amazed Cecil, that he rubbed his eyes as one awaking from a dream.
"Ah! Cis, my boy, how are you?" said Frank, grasping him by the hand. "Why, you're quite a stranger.—I am so glad to see you. Flourishing now, damn my whiskers! flourishing, Cis, as you perceive. ”

“ Cecil was vain and ambitious, and from his boyhood upwards had been desirous of creating for himself a reputation equal if not surpassing those whose names he heard sounded in every society. But, although he was very clever and unusually accomplished, he had as yet taken no serious steps towards that lofty object. He wanted that energetic will which must nerve every man who attempts to do great things; "to scorn delights and live laborious days." ”

“ Had Cecil known the real story it might have made him pause; but he only knew what he had seen, and fancy supplied the rest.
Like a tempting fiend did this image of the winner pursue him—seductive, irritating; he tried to banish it by thinking of his constant ill-luck, but it would return, and his present discouragement made the temptation stronger. By art he could not live. The age was too material; the country too commercial. Why should he struggle and starve when the gaming-table offered its facile resources?
"Frank," said he, "I wish you would take me again to Jermyn-street." ”

“ The latter, who wore a short, brown shell-jacket, with a rolling collar laced with gold, and crimson overalls, was smoking a huge pipe and seated at a table littered with papers and printed journals, from which he started up as Cecil entered, and, drawing himself up to the full height of his short pudgy figure, while all his short, stubbly hair seemed to bristle, and his wiry moustaches to stick out like those of a cat, he eyed him with considerable sternness, indignation, and surprise, mingled in a face that was never at any time a very handsome one. ”

“ From the latter, the amiable Hew took his departure on the instant, and it is very unlikely that he will ever cross the path of Cecil again.
Dreams are usually independent of all details and coherency; but Cecil, as he dozed on, seemed to become gradually aware of the dear and familiar face, of one who smiled gently upon him, as she bent over him—her very life—her treasure, and delicious was the thrill the dream gave him. ”

“ And Cecil found it impossible to deny, even to himself, the knowledge and certainty that this woman, so dazzlingly fair that few women ever saw her without jealousy, and fewer men without admiration or passion, had been ready—and was now ready—to risk shame, suffering or danger, and fly with him, seeking obscurity and exile in Bulgaria or anywhere else.
'Was ever man more tempted!' thought he, as he saw—with satisfaction—the gilded vanes and cupolas of Palenka glittering in the sunshine above the green-wooded bank of the Morava, and he reined up his horse to bid her farewell. ”

“ Cecil was a man whose designs were always finer than his productions, his sketches gave a promise which his execution never realized. In this little trait we may see the whole man. It might serve as a description of his character. With a certain freshness, delicacy, and even grandeur in his conceptions, he wanted strength, energy, and mastery, to endow them with vitality. Who can wonder that he raved about "genius," and scorned the "mechanical labour" of mere technical execution? ”

“ From the darkness, where the scores of gray horses were tethered, Cecil's eyes were riveted on it. There were none near to see him; had there been, they would have seen an agony in his eyes that no physical misery, no torture of the battlefield, had brought there. His face was bloodless, and his gaze strained through the gleam on to the fire-lit group with a passionate intensity of yearning—he was well used to pain, well used to self-control, well used to self-restraint, but for the first time in his exile the bitterness of a struggle almost vanquished him. ”

“ Cecil smiled a little, despite himself.
“Rake, you will do for no service, I am afraid; you are terribly insubordinate!”
He had not the heart to say more; the man's fidelity was too true to be returned with rebuke; and stronger than all surprise and annoyance was a strange mingling of pain and pleasure in him to think that the horse he loved so well was still so near him, the comrade of his adversity as he had been the companion of his happiest hours. ”

“ He will, on the contrary, look upon Cecil as a lover of books, not for the sake of the numerous panegyrical dedications to himself, which he must have so satisfactorily perused, but for the sake of the good to be derived from useful and ingenious works. With one hand, this great man may be said to have wielded the courageous spirit, and political virtue, of his country—and with the other, to have directed the operations of science and literature. ”

“ Perhaps only those upon whose own heads the hands of ordination have been laid can enter into or understand it.
The charge was earnest, but it was not needed, for Cecil’s ardent enthusiasm went far beyond all that the speaker urged upon him. As he listened, pausing as it were on the threshold of an unknown future, he wondered if he should ever hear a sermon again,—he, so soon to be swallowed by darkness, swept, self-yielded, into the abyss of savagery. ”

“ By that time Cecil had begun to trim his sails to a different breeze. He was in secret communication with Elizabeth before Mary died, and from the first the new queen relied on Cecil as she relied on no one else. Her confidence was not misplaced; Cecil was exactly the kind of minister England then required. Personal experience had ripened his rare natural gift for avoiding dangers. It was no time for brilliant initiative or adventurous politics; the need was to avoid Scylla and Charybdis, and a via media had to be found in church and state, at home and abroad. Cecil was not a political genius ”