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EUGENE ARAM
“Of caution! you alarm me, Walter; speak, has aught happened to him? I saw him as lately as yourself. Does aught
threaten him? Speak, I implore you, — quick?”
“I know ofno danger to him!” replied Walter, stung to
perceive the breathless anxiety with which Madeline spoke;
“but pause, my cousin, may there be no danger to you from
this man?”
“Walter!”
“I grant him wise, learned, gentle, — nay, more than all,
bearing about him a spell, a fascination, by which he softens,
or awes at will, and which even I cannot resist. But yet his abstracted mood, his gloomy life, certain words that have broken from him unawares, — certain tell-tale emotions, which
words ofmine, heedlessly said, have fi ercely aroused, all united, inspire me, — shall I say it, — with fear and distrust. I cannot think him altogether the calm and pure being he appears.
Madeline, I have asked myself again and again, is this suspicion the effect ofjealousy? do I scan his bearing with the jaundiced eye ofdisappointed rivalship? And I have satisfi ed my
conscience that my judgment is not thus biassed. Stay! listen
yet a little while! You have a high — a thoughtful mind. Exert it now. Consider your whole happiness rests on one step!
Pause, examine, compare! Remember, you have not ofAram,
as ofthose whom you have hitherto mixed with, the eye-witness ofa life! You can know but little ofhis real temper, his
secret qualities; still less ofthe tenor ofhis former life. I only
ask ofyou, for your own sake, for my sake, your sister’s sake,
and your good father’s, not to judge too rashly! Love him, if you
will; but observe him!”
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EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
“Have you done?” said Madeline, who had hitherto with
diffi culty contained herself; “then hear me. Was it I? was it
Madeline Lester whom you asked to play the watch, to enact
the spy upon the man whom she exults in loving? Was it not
enough that you should descend to mark down each incautious look — to chronicle every heedless word — to draw dark
deductions from the unsuspecting confi dence ofmy father’s
friend — to lie in wait — to hang with a foe’s malignity upon
the unbendings offamiliar intercourse — to extort anger from
gentleness itself, that you might wrest the anger into crime!
Shame, shame upon you, for the meanness! And must you also
suppose that I, to whose trust he has given his noble heart, will
receive it only to play the eavesdropper to its secrets? Away!”
The generous blood crimsoned the cheek and brow ofthis
high-spirited girl as she uttered her galling reproof; her eyes
sparkled, her lip quivered, her whole frame seemed to have
grown larger with the majesty ofi ndignant love.
“Cruel, unjust, ungrateful!” ejaculated Walter, pale with
rage, and trembling under the confl ict ofhis roused and
wounded feelings. “Is it thus you answer the warning oftoo
disinterested and self-forgetful a love?”
“Love!” exclaimed Madeline. “Grant me patience! — Love!
It was but now I thought myself honoured by the affection
you said you bore me. At this instant, I blush to have called
forth a single sentiment in one who knows so little what love
is! Love! — methought that word denoted all that was high
and noble in human nature — confi dence, hope, devotion,
sacrifi ce ofall thought ofself! but you would make it the type
and concentration ofall that lowers and debases! — suspi-
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EUGENE ARAM
cion — cavil — fear — selfi shness in all its shapes! Out on
you — love!”
“Enough, enough! Say no more, Madeline, say no more.
We part not as I had hoped; but be it so. You are changed indeed, if your conscience smite you not hereafter for this injustice. Farewell, and may you never regret, not only the heart you
have rejected, but the friendship you have belied.” With these
words, and choked by his emotions, Walter hastily strode away.
He hurried into the house, and into a little room adjoining the chamber in which he slept, and which had been also
appropriated solely to his use. It was now spread with boxes
and trunks, some half packed, some corded, and inscribed with
the address to which they were to be sent in London. All these
mute tokens ofhis approaching departure struck upon his excited feelings with a suddenness that overpowered him.
“And it is thus — thus,” said he aloud, “that I am to leave,
for the fi rst time, my childhood’s home.”
He threw himself on his chair, and covering his face with
his hands, burst, fairly subdued and unmanned, into a paroxysm oftears.
When this emotion was over, he felt as if his love for Madeline had also disappeared; a sore and insulted feeling was all
that her image now recalled to him. This idea gave him some
consolation. “Thank God!” he muttered, “thank God, I am
cured at last!”
The thanksgiving was scarcely over, before the door
opened softly, and Ellinor, not perceiving him where he sat,
entered the room, and laid on the table a purse which she had
153
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
long promised to knit him, and which seemed now designed
as a parting gift.
She sighed heavily as she laid it down, and he observed
that her eyes seemed red as with weeping.
He did not move, and Ellinor left the room without discovering him; but he remained there till dark, musing on her apparition, and before he went down-stairs, he took up the little
purse, kissed it, and put it carefully into his bosom.
He sate next to Ellinor at supper that evening, and
though he did not say much, his last words were more to her
than words had ever been before. When he took leave ofher
for the night, he whispered, as he kissed her cheek; “God
bless you, dearest Ellinor, and till I return, take care ofyourself, for the sake ofone, who loves you now, better than any
thing on earth.”
Lester had just left the room to write some letters for
Walter; and Madeline, who had hitherto sat absorbed and
silent by the window, now approached Walter, and offered
him her hand.
“Forgive me, my dear cousin,” she said, in her softest
voice. “I feel that I was hasty, and to blame. Believe me, I am
now at least grateful, warmly grateful, for the kindness ofyour motives.”
“Not so,” said Walter, bitterly, “the advice ofa friend is only
meanness.”
“Come, come, forgive me; pray, do not let us part unkindly. When did we ever quarrel before? I was wrong, grievously
wrong — I will perform any penance you may enjoin.”
“Agreed then, follow my admonitions.”
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EUGENE ARAM
“Ah! any thing else,” said Madeline, gravely, and colouring
deeply.
Walter said no more; he pressed her hand lightly and
turned away.
“Is all forgiven?” said she, in so bewitching a tone, and
with so bright a smile, that Walter, against his conscience, answered, “Yes.”
The sisters left the room. I know not which ofthe two received his last glance.
Lester now returned with the letters. “There is one charge,
my dear boy,” said he, in concluding the moral injunctions and
experienced suggestions with which the young generally leave
the ancestral home (whether practically benefi ted or not by
the legacy, may be matter ofquestion) — “there is one charge
which I need not entrust to your ingenuity and zeal. You know
my strong conviction, that your father, my poor brother, still
lives. Is it necessary for me to tell you to exert yourself by all
ways and in all means to discover some clue to his fate? Who
knows,” added Lester, with a smile, “but that you may fi nd him
a rich nabob. I confess that I should feel but little surprise if it
were so; but at all events you will make every possible inquiry.
I have written down in this paper the few particulars concerning him which I have been enabled to glean since he left his
home; the places where he was last seen, the false names he
assumed, I shall watch with great anxiety for any fuller success to your researches.”
“You needed not, my dear uncle,” said Walter seriously, “to
have spoken to me on this subject. No one, not even yourself,
can have felt what I have; can have cherished the same anxiety,
155
EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
nursed the same hope, indulged the same conjecture. I have
not, it is true, often ofl ate years spoken to you on a matter so
near to us both, but I have spent whole hours in guesses at my
father’s fate, and in dreams that for me was reserved the proud
task to discover it. I will not say indeed that it makes at this
moment the chief motive for my desire to travel, but in travel it will become my chief object. Perhaps I may fi nd him not
only rich, — that for my part is but a minor wish, — but sobered and reformed from the errors and wildness ofhis earlier manhood. Oh, what should be his gratitude to you for all
the care with which you have supplied to the forsaken child
the father’s place; and not the least, that you have, in softening
the colours ofhis conduct, taught me still to prize and seek for
a father’s love!”
“You have a kind heart, Walter,” said the good old man,
pressing his nephew’s hand, “and that has more than repaid
me for the little I have done for you; it is better to sow a good
heart with kindness, than a fi eld with corn, for the heart’s harvest is perpetual.”
Many, keen, and earnest were that night the meditations ofWalter Lester. He was about to quit the home in which
youth had been passed, in which fi rst love had been formed
and blighted: the world was before him; but there was something more grave than pleasure, more steady than enterprise,
that beckoned him to its paths. The deep mystery that for so
many years had hung over the fate ofhis parent, it might indeed be his lot to pierce; and with a common waywardness in
our nature, the restless son felt his interest in that parent
the livelier from the very circumstance ofremembering noth-
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EUGENE ARAM
ing ofhis person. Affection had been nursed by curiosity and
imagination, and the bad father was thus more fortunate in
winning the heart ofthe son, than had he perhaps, by the tenderness ofyears, deserved that affection.
Oppressed and feverish, Walter opened the lattice ofhis room, and looked forth on the night. The broad harvestmoon was in the heavens, and fi lled the air as with a softer
and holier day. At a distance its light just gave the dark outline ofAram’s house, and beneath the window it lay bright and
steady on the green, still church-yard that adjoined the house.
The air and the light allayed the fi tfulness at the young man’s
heart, but served to solemnize the project and desire with
which it beat. Still leaning from the casement, with his eyes
fi xed upon the tranquil scene below, he poured forth a prayer,
that to his hands might the discovery ofhis lost sire be granted. The prayer seemed to lift the oppression from his breast;
he felt cheerful and relieved, and fl inging himself on his bed,
soon fell into the sound and healthful sleep ofyouth. And oh!
let Youth cherish that happiest ofearthly boons while yet it
is at its command; — for there cometh the day to all, when
“neither the voice ofthe lute or the birds”
3
shall bring back
the sweet slumbers that fell on their young eyes, as unbidden
as the dews. It is a dark epoch in a man’s life when Sleep forsakes him; when he tosses to and fro, and Thought will not be
silenced; when the drug and draught are the courters ofstupefaction, not sleep; when the down pillow is as a knotted log;
when the eyelids close but with an effort, and there is a drag
and a weight, and a dizziness in the eyes at morn. Desire and
3
Quotation from Horace.
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EDWARD BULWER LYTTON
Grief, and Love, these are the young man’s torments, but they
are the creatures ofTime; Time removes them as it brings, and
the vigils we keep, “while the evil days come not,” if weary,
are brief and few. But Memory, and Care, and Ambition, and
Avarice, these are the demon-gods that defy the Time that
fathered them. The worldlier passions are the growth ofmature years, and their grave is dug but in our own. As the dark
Spirits in the Northern tale, that watch against the coming ofone ofa brighter and holier race, lest if he seize them
unawares, he bind them prisoners in his chain, they keep
ward at night over the entrance ofthat deep cave — the human heart — and scare away the angel Sleep!
BOOK II
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