The health of the baroness had for some time been declining; she had now been married ten years, and of that period she had known a few months perhaps of visionary happiness, two or three years of calm, unmurmuring tranquillity, and six or seven of anguish and sorrow. Her little girl, Louisa, was now nine years of age, the image of her mother in everything--features, complexion, disposition; there was the difference, of course, between the woman and the child, but still there was the same small, taper hand, the same beautiful foot, the same brilliant complexion, the same open, clear forehead, the same thoughtful but ingenuous smile. She was with her mother constantly or with me, and it was she who even at that age first discovered the progress of illness in the being she best loved, and pointed out to me the flushed cheek, the bright and glittering eye, the pale lips, and the features daily becoming sharp.
"Do you not think, Henry," she said to me one day, "That mamma looks ill?" And then she went on to say in what particular it appeared to her that it was so, showing that she had watched her mother's countenance in a way most strange for a child of her age.
When my attention was thus called to the subject, I remarked the change also, and I and Louisa used to watch with care and anxiety the progress of disease. We neither of us knew, we neither of us fully comprehended to what it all tended. It was not exactly fear that we entertained, but it was grief; we grieved to see her suffer, we grieved to see the languor and weakness that crept over her frame.
At length the baron returned, but his return contributed very little to the restoration of his wife's health. He brought with him many gay and riotous companions; the castle was filled with revelry and merriment: he was absent at the chase or in the city during the greater part of each day; and the night went down in songs, and mirth, and drinking. He soon went away again to the capital, and his wife continued withering slowly, like a flower, whose day of brightness is over.
Such was the course of events for some years till I reached the age of twenty, when the health of the baroness so completely and rapidly gave way, that messengers were sent off in all haste to call her husband to the side of her deathbed. He came, and, though he came unwillingly, yet he was evidently pained and struck at the sight of the ruin and decay which he now beheld. He was gloomy and sorrowful, and it might be some consolation to his dying wife to find that, when all was irrevocable, and neither tears nor regrets could recall the past, he mourned for the approaching loss of one whose worth he had not sufficiently estimated, and felt feelings of affection towards her which he had not known till it was too late.
The Lady of Blancford died, and the grief of all, good and bad alike, followed her to the grave; for there was a sweetness, and a gentleness, and a kindness in her nature which touched the heart even of the selfish and the vicious, and made them mourn for her as soon as her virtues were no longer a living reproach to their errors.
At the time of her death, her daughter and eldest child was little more than twelve years old, the two boys somewhat younger than eleven and ten; and well might the father, when he looked round upon their young faces, feel that his hearth was left desolate: well might he regret, in the bitterness of his heart, that he had not sufficiently valued the blessing he had possessed.
That he felt such sensations I am perfectly sure, but he felt them with a degree of sullenness as well as sorrow. Conscience lashed him, but he bore its chastisement with obdurate pride, and murmured at the smart.
I did not see him for several days after the funeral of his wife, and, indeed, since his return he had taken scarcely any notice of me, seeming not even to see me. But, soon after, I saw his eyes fix upon me, from time to time, with a dull and frowning aspect; and to bear such cold unkindness had by this time become a burden to me, which I was resolved to cast off. The one whom, of all others, I had loved best from my early days, was now gone; and, though I loved all her children, and especially Louisa, who now clung to me as her only prop and stay in her overpowering grief for her mother, yet I felt that I could not endure any longer the proud coldness of my cousin, since the tie between him and me, which his wife's care and tenderness had afforded, was broken for ever.
"I have at least my father's sword," I thought; "With that he gained his living, and with it will I gain mine."
But there was much to be thought of, there was much to be done. "What course," I asked myself, "shall I choose what plans shall I pursue?" And much I meditated even these matters, but meditated always alone: for there was none whom I could consult, none in whom I could confide. To Monsieur la Tour, who loved me as his own son, I would not speak of the matter at all, for I knew that he would oppose my going; and my cousin himself, of course, I did not choose to consult; for the proud air of contempt with which he had long treated me, made me feel that his advice could not be such as I could follow without pain; and any assistance that he offered could only be an indignity to receive. I was utterly ignorant of the world, and of the world's ways; and though, perhaps, I was not deficient in natural acuteness, yet life was to me an unknown country, full of thick woods and tangled paths, without a map to show me the road or a guide to direct my footsteps aright.
Although it was now the winter-time, and the sere leaves had fallen from the trees, leaving the woods thin and naked, yet it was in the forest which came near to the chateau that I loved to take my way and dream of my future prospects.
An event, however, occurred one day, which deranged all these plans for the time, and suspended their execution for more than two years. I had gone out, as usual, on foot, and wandered a considerable way into the wood, when suddenly, as I was walking up and down, gazing upon the icy bondage of the stream, and the feathery frost upon the rushes and other water plants, I heard what seemed a loud but distant cry of distress.
It struck me instantly that the voice was a familiar one; and, crossing the stream, I rushed on like lightning to the spot whence it seemed to proceed. There I found the eldest of my cousin's sons, Charles, a noble and high-spirited, but somewhat weakly boy, thrown down upon the ground by an immense wolf, whose fangs were fixed in his shoulder. The animal, it seems, had sprung at his throat, and knocked him down by the force of its attack; but, even in falling, the boy, with noble presence of mind, had struck the animal with his dagger, and prevented it from taking the fatal grasp which it sought, and which certainly would have terminated his existence before I arrived.
A loud shout which I gave as I came up, to scare the beast as fast as possible from his prey, made the wolf instantly turn upon me, with its peculiar, fierce, low howl. I had been accustomed, however, to hunt such beasts in these woods for many years; and, as he rushed upon me, I struck him a violent blow with my sword across the eyes, which almost blinded him, and dashed him down to my feet at once. But, mad with hunger and pain, the beast, even in falling, seized my leg in his fangs, and never let go his hold till he was quite dead. I killed and threw him off as quickly as possible; and then, running to my young cousin, carried him home to the castle without the pause of a moment, although the wound I had received in my leg was extremely painful, and the blood marked my track all the way to the gates.
The boy was but little hurt, and from his wound no serious consequence arose; mine also was of little importance, though it left me lame for several weeks. My cousin, however, on the following morning, thought fit to thank me for the service I had rendered his son; and at the same time he presented me with some trinkets and jewels, which, he said, his wife had requested might be given to me, as remembrances of her. There was much coldness and constraint in his manner while he spoke, and the purpose which I had entertained for some time now broke forth.
"My lord," I said, "I thank you for these things, which I shall always keep and value highly in memory of one from whom I have never received anything but benefits and kindness."
The baron was turning away, but I added, "Stay, my lord; I have yet more to say. It is not often that I trouble you with words, and now shall not make them very lengthy."
The baron turned round towards me with evident surprise at my tone and manner, and with some sternness, but without the slightest touch of scorn, demanding, "What is it you wish to say?"
"Merely this, sir," I replied; "I have been somewhat too long a burden to you.