THE CONFESSION.

“What a strange position this of mine!” thought I, a few mornings after the events detailed in the last chapter. “How very fascinating in some respects, how full of all the charm of romance, and how confoundly difficult to see one’s way through!”

To understand my cogitation right, figurez-vous, my dear reader, a large and splendidly furnished drawing-room, from one end of which an orangery in full blossom opens; from the other is seen a delicious little boudoir, where books, bronzes, pictures and statues, in all the artistique disorder of a lady’s sanctum, are bathed in a deep purple light from a stained glass window of the seventeenth century.

On a small table beside the wood fire, whose mellow light is flirting with the sunbeams upon the carpet, stands an antique silver breakfast-service, which none but the hand of Benvenuto could have chiselled; beside it sits a girl, young and beautiful; her dark eyes, beaming beneath their long lashes, are fixed with an expression of watchful interest upon a pale and sickly youth, who, lounging upon a sofa opposite, is carelessly turning over the leaves of a new journal, or gazing steadfastly on the fretted gothic of the ceiling, while his thoughts are travelling many a mile away. The lady being the Senhora Inez; the nonchalant invalid, your unworthy acquaintance, Charles O’Malley.

What a very strange position to be sure.

“Then you are not equal to this ball to-night?” said she, after a pause of some minutes.

I turned as she spoke; her words had struck audibly upon my ear, but, lost in my revery, I could but repeat my own fixed thought,—how strange to be so situated!

“You are really very tiresome, Signor; I assure you, you are. I have been giving you a most elegant description of the Casino fÊte, and the beautiful costume of our Lisbon belles, but I can get nothing from you but this muttered something, which may be very shocking for aught I know. I’m sure your friend, Major Power, would be much more attentive to me; that is,” added she, archly, “if Miss Dashwood were not present.”

“What! why! You don’t mean that there is anything there—that Tower is paying attention to—”

“Madre divina, how that seems to interest you, and how red you are! If it were not that you never met her before, and that your acquaintance did not seem to make rapid progress, then I should say you are in love with her yourself.”

I had to laugh at this, but felt my face flushing more. “And so,” said I, affecting a careless and indifferent tone, “the gay Fred Power is smitten at last!”

“Was it so very difficult a thing to accomplish?” said she, slyly.

“He seems to say so, at least. And the lady, how does she appear to receive his attentions?”

“Oh, I should say with evident pleasure and satisfaction, as all girls do the advances of men they don’t care for, nor intend to care for.”

“Indeed,” said I, slowly, “indeed, Senhora?” looking into her eyes as I spoke, as if to read if the lesson were destined for my benefit.

“There, don’t stare so!—every one knows that.”

“So you don’t think, then, that Lucy,—I mean Miss Dashwood—Why are you laughing so?”

“How can I help it; your calling her Lucy is so good, I wish she heard it; she’s the very proudest girl I ever knew.”

“But to come back; you really think she does not care for him?”

“Not more than for you; and I may be pardoned for the simile, having seen your meeting. But let me give you the news of our own fÊte. Saturday is the day fixed; and you must be quite well,—I insist upon it. Miss Dashwood has promised to come,—no small concession; for after all she has never once been here since the day you frightened her. I can’t help laughing at my blunder,—the two people I had promised myself should fall desperately in love with each other, and who will scarcely meet.”

“But I trusted,” said I, pettishly, “that you were not disposed to resign your own interest in me?”

“Neither was I,” said she, with an easy smile, “except that I have so many admirers. I might even spare to my friends; though after all I should be sorry to lose you, I like you.”

“Yes,” said I half bitterly, “as girls do those they never intend to care for; is it not so?”

“Perhaps, yes, and perhaps—But is it going to rain? How provoking! and I have ordered my horse. Well, Signor Carlos, I leave you to your delightful newspaper, and all the magnificent descriptions of battles and sieges and skirmishes of which you seem doomed to pine without ceasing. There, don’t kiss my hand twice; that’s not right.”

“Well, let me begin again—”

“I shall not breakfast with you any more. But tell me, am I to order a costume for you in Lisbon; or will you arrange all that yourself? You must come to the fÊte, you know.”

“If you would be so very kind.”

“I will, then, be so very kind; and once more, adios.” So saying, and with a slight motion of her hand, she smiled a good-by, and left me.

“What a lovely girl!” thought I, as I rose and walked to the window, muttering to myself Othello’s line, and—

In fact, it was the perfect expression of my feeling; the only solution to all the difficulties surrounding me, being to fall desperately, irretrievably in love with the fair senhora, which, all things considered, was not a very desperate resource for a gentleman in trouble. As I thought over the hopelessness of one attachment, I turned calmly to consider all the favorable points of the other. She was truly beautiful, attractive in every sense; her manner most fascinating, and her disposition, so far as I could pronounce, perfectly amiable. I felt already something more than interest about her; how very easy would be the transition to a stronger feeling! There was an Éclat, too, about being her accepted lover that had its charm. She was the belle par excellence of Lisbon; and then a sense of pique crossed my mind as I reflected what would Lucy say of him whom she had slighted and insulted, when he became the husband of the beautiful millionnaire Senhora Inez?

As my meditations had reached thus far, the door opened stealthily, and Catherine appeared, her finger upon her lips, and her gesture indicating caution. She carried on her arm a mass of drapery covered by a large mantle, which throwing off as she entered, she displayed before me a rich blue domino with silver embroidery. It was large and loose in its folds, so as thoroughly to conceal the figure of any wearer. This she held up before me for an instant without speaking; when at length, seeing my curiosity fully excited, she said,—

“This is the senhora’s domino. I should be ruined if she knew I showed it; but I promised—that is, I told—”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” relieving her embarrassment about the source of her civilities; “go on.”

“Well, there are several others like it, but with this small difference, instead of a carnation, which all the others have embroidered upon the cuff, I have made it a rose,—you perceive? La Senhora knows nothing of this,—none save yourself knows it. I’m sure I may trust you with the secret.”

“Fear not in the least, Catherine; you have rendered me a great service. Let me look at it once more; ah, there’s no difficulty in detecting it. And you are certain she is unaware of it?”

“Perfectly so; she has several other costumes, but in this one I know she intends some surprise, so be upon your guard.”

With these words, carefully once more concealing the rich dress beneath the mantle, she withdrew; while I strolled forth to wonder what mystery might lie beneath this scheme, and speculate how far I myself was included in the plot she spoke of.

For the few days which succeeded, I passed my time much alone. The senhora was but seldom at home; and I remarked that Power rarely came to see me. A strange feeling of half-coolness had latterly grown between us, and instead of the open confidence we formerly indulged in when together, we appeared now rather to chat over things of mere every-day interest than of our own immediate plans and prospects. There was a kind of pre-occupation, too, in his manner that struck me; his mind seemed ever straying from the topics he talked of to something remote, and altogether, he was no longer the frank and reckless dragoon I had ever known him. What could be the meaning of this change? Had he found out by any accident that I was to blame in my conduct towards Lucy; had any erroneous impression of my interview with her reached his ears? This was most improbable; besides, there was nothing in that to draw down his censure or condemnation, however represented; and was it that he was himself in love with her, that, devoted heart and soul to Lucy, he regarded me as a successful rival, preferred before him! Oh, how could I have so long blinded myself to the fact! This was the true solution of the whole difficulty. I had more than once suspected this to be so; now all the circumstances of proof poured in upon me. I called to mind his agitated manner the night of my arrival in Lisbon, his thousand questions concerning the reasons of my furlough; and then, lately, the look of unfeigned pleasure with which he heard me resolve to join my regiment the moment I was sufficiently recovered. I remembered also how assiduously he pressed his intimacy with the senhora, Lucy’s dearest friend here; his continual visits at the villa; those long walks in the garden, where his very look betokened some confidential mission of the heart. Yes, there was no doubt of it, he loved Lucy Dashwood! Alas, there seemed to be no end to the complication of my misfortunes; one by one I appeared fated to lose whatever had a hold upon my affections, and to stand alone, unloved and uncared for in the world. My thoughts turned towards the senhora, but I could not deceive myself into any hope there. My own feelings were untouched, and hers I felt to be equally so. Young as I was, there was no mistaking the easy smile of coquetry, the merry laugh of flattered vanity, for a deeper and holier feeling. And then I did not wish it otherwise. One only had taught me to feel how ennobling, how elevating in all its impulses can be a deep-rooted passion for a young and beautiful girl! From her eyes alone had I caught the inspiration that made me pant for glory and distinction. I could not transfer the allegiance of my heart, since it had taught that very heart to beat high and proudly. Lucy, lost to me forever as she must be, was still more than any other woman ever could be; all the past clung to her memory, all the prestige of the future must point to it also.

And Power, why had he not trusted, why had he not confided in me? Was this like my old and tried friend? Alas! I was forgetting that in his eye I was the favored rival, and not the despised, rejected suitor.

“It is past now,” thought I, as I rose and walked into the garden; “the dream that made life a fairy tale is dispelled; the cold reality of the world is before me, and my path lies a lonely and solitary one.” My first resolution was to see Power, and relieve his mind of any uneasiness as regarded my pretentions; they existed no longer. As for me, I was no obstacle to his happiness; it was, then, but fair and honorable that I should tell him so; this done, I should leave Lisbon at once. The cavalry had for the most part been ordered to the rear; still there was always something going forward at the outposts.

The idea of active service, the excitement of a campaigning life, cheered me, and I advanced along the dark alley of the garden with a lighter and a freer heart. My resolves were not destined to meet delay; as I turned the angle of a walk, Power was before me. He was leaning against a tree, his hands crossed upon his bosom, his head bowed forward, and his whole air and attitude betokening deep reflection.

He started as I came up, and seemed almost to change color.

“Well, Charley,” said he, after a moment’s pause, “you look better this morning. How goes the arm?”

“The arm is ready for service again, and its owner most anxious for it. Do you know, Fred, I’m thoroughly weary of this life.”

“They’re little better, however, at the lines. The French are in position, but never adventure a movement; and except some few affairs at the pickets, there is really nothing to do.”

“No matter, remaining here can never serve one’s interests, and besides, I have accomplished what I came for—”

I was about to add, “the restoration of my health,” when he suddenly interrupted me, eying me fixedly as he spoke.

“Indeed! indeed! Is that so?”

“Yes,” said I, half puzzled at the tone and manner of the speech; “I can join now when I please; meanwhile, Fred, I have been thinking of you. Yes, don’t be surprised, at the very moment we met you were in my thoughts.”

I took his arm as I said this, and led him down the alley.

“We are too old and, I trust, too true friends, Fred, to have secrets from each other, and yet we have been playing this silly game for some weeks past. Now, my dear fellow, I have yours, and it is only fair justice you should have mine, and, faith, I feel you’d have discovered it long since, had your thoughts been as free as I have known them to be. Fred, you are in love; there, don’t wince, man, I know it; but hear me out. You believe me to be so also; nay, more, you think that my chances of success are better, stronger than your own; learn, then, that I have none,—absolutely none. Don’t interrupt me now, for this avowal cuts me deeply; my own heart alone knows what I suffer as I record my wrecked fortunes; but I repeat it, my hopes are at end forever; but, Fred, my boy, I cannot lose my friend too. If I have been the obstacle to your path, I am so no more. Ask me not why; it is enough that I speak in all truth and sincerity. Ere three days I shall leave this, and with it all the hopes that once beamed upon my fortunes, and all the happiness,—nay, not all, my boy, for I feel some thrill at my heart yet, as I think that I have been true to you.”

I know not what more I spoke nor how he replied to me. I felt the warm grasp of his hand, I saw his delighted smile; the words of grateful acknowledgment his lips uttered conveyed but an imperfect meaning to my ear, and I remembered no more.

The courage which sustained me for the moment sank gradually as I meditated over my avowal, and I could scarce help accusing Power of a breach of friendship for exacting a confession which, in reality, I had volunteered to give him. How Lucy herself would think of my conduct was ever occurring to my thoughts, and I felt, as I ruminated upon the conjectures it might give rise to, how much more likely a favorable opinion might now be formed of me, than when such an estimation could have crowned me with delight.

“Yes,” thought I, “she will at last learn to know him who loved her with truth and with devoted affection; and when the blight of all his hopes is accomplished, the fair fame of his fidelity will be proved. The march, the bivouac, the battle-field, are now all to me; and the campaign alone presents a prospect which may fill up the aching void that disappointed and ruined hopes have left behind them.”

How I longed for the loud call of the trumpet, the clash of the steel, the tramp of the war-horse; though the proud distinction of a soldier’s life were less to me in the distance than the mad and whirlwind passion of a charge, and the loud din of the rolling artillery.

It was only some hours after, as I sat alone in my chamber, that all the circumstances of our meeting came back clearly to my memory, and I could not help muttering to myself,—

“It is indeed a hard lot, that to cheer the heart of my friend, I must bear witness to the despair that shed darkness on my own.”