# Francesca Carrara/Chapter 78

CHAPTER XIX.
"Bring flowers, pale flowers, o'er the bier to shed;
A crown for the brow of the early dead."
The next morning Francesca was seated at one of the windows with her father, occasionally talking in the hope of amusing him, but often allowing her attention to be drawn to the scene before her. It was the atmosphere and heaven of summer redeeming the winter spread over the earth—just one of those glad and genial days with which November sometimes delights to mock itself. The sky was of that deep rich blue which is brought out so vividly by the few scattered white clouds, whose vapours are soft as if dew, not rain, were gathered in those snowy masses. Beneath, the grass of the park was of the brightest emerald, while the sunbeams chased on another over the undulating herbage, as if rejoicing in their prolonged dominion, and unwilling to waste one ​moment of their brief and brilliant empire. The lake lay before them sparkling and silvery, and the eye could just catch the swans, outlined in light, not shadow, in their graceful progress over their own domain. The majority of the trees were leafless, but many yet wore a cheerful array of green. The holly upreared its shining leaves—the ivy drooped from the older stems, a dream of their once lovely youth—and the mistletoe crept round many of the oaks—that pleasant parasite, whose associations belong rather to the hearth and lighted hall than to its native branches. The gay singing of the birds came wakened by the soft west wind; and immediately before the window, a robin, with its scarlet plumage and dear soft eye, was picking up the crumbs which Francesca had flung from the breakfast-table.
Nor did the scene lack human life and human action. In the fore ground Albert was trying the mettle of a horse that had been a recent purchase. The eye of father and sister alike forgot every other object while watching the evolutions of the young and graceful boy, who realised the descriptions of romance as, his golden curls dancing on the wind, his cheek flushed with exercise, and his large blue eyes dilated and flashing with triumph, he ruled the snow-white palfrey by a wave of the ​hand and an imperceptible pressure of the knee. It seemed as if the docile creature intuitively divined his will. Francesca looked from the youth to the fair domain which was his portion: it was but a moment, and her attention again fixed upon him, but it was mingled now with many sad questionings of fate. Never before had she seemed to feel so keenly the inequalities of human allotment. "Why should Guido have perished in his youth?" she inwardly exclaimed. "Why should Robert Evelyn be an exile from the home of his fathers?—and why should I be doomed to waste the best years of my life, and the deepest feelings of my heart, in anxiety and neglect, while fortune lavishes every gift upon a favourite? Albert has never known a real care nor a real sorrow; and every earthly advantage conspires to the promise of his future. Alas! how much is there in life of which he little dreams!—and God forbid that its bitterest lessons should ever come within his experience! May that brow long wear its present glad openness, and those clear eyes long remain unshadowed! Methinks they are their own omen."
While this train of thoughts was passing in her mind a favourite greyhound was seen coursing rapidly through the park. Catching at once a sight of his master, the dog came bounding forwards, ​and sprung up at the horse's side. The palfrey was startled, and dashed off at full gallop.
"How gallantly he sits!" exclaimed Lord Avonleigh, as the agile figure of his son cut through the air, till the eye was dazzled with the rapidity of the motion. A moment after, a cry broke from the lips of both. The horse rushes under the drooping boughs of an old oak—the young rider reels in his seat—the bridle falls from his grasp—his arms extend helplessly—and the next bound flings him to the earth. Neither Francesca nor Lord Avonleigh dared to exchange glances, but both sprang forwards and ran to the place, where the palfrey, panting and trembling as if with some mysterious instinct of evil, stood beside the prostrate corse—for corse it was! In one short instant the hope of youth had been laid low—and the beautiful temple, where a parent had garnered up all that made life previous, was dust and ashes. There he lay, his face turned towards them, pale as a statue, but sweet as sleep. The sudden summons had assuredly been unfelt—the only sign was a slight wound on the fair forehead, whence trickled a small stream of blood, which had already reddened the bright ringlets and the green grass. Lord Avonleigh stood as if the same blow had struck him also—conscious ​that a weight of horror was upon him, but stunned by an agony too great to bear. Francesca sunk on her knees, and raised the inanimate head in her arms. At first she did not believe the worst; but she looked on those white set features and knew there was an end of all!
The servants now crowded round, and carried the body to the house. Lord Avonleigh followed mechanically; but he staggered, and his daughter offered to support him. Almost fiercely he repulsed her aid, and walked on with a hurried and uncertain step. Poor Francesca!—the bitterness which swelled in her heart!—"He is no father in his love towards me!"
The leech was summoned when they reached the Castle. He could but give one look at the piteous spectacle and turn away: the father needed his skill—the son no more.
"Let the horse and the hound be destroyed at once!" were Lord Avonleigh's only words; and that order given, he sought the chamber where they had laid his child, and throwing himself on the bed, gave way to the wildest expressions of despair. Francesca knelt—she wept at his feet, and implored him to have pity on his own soul; but it was in vain. About midnight he slept, exhausted with his own violence—slept beside the extended corse!
​ It was a fearful vigil that Francesca kept, for the office of watching in the chamber of death she had taken upon herself. How often, during her young life, had she looked upon the face of the dead!—it was now almost more familiar than the living. Again she marked the still repose, the calm, cold hue, the superhuman beauty, the look which is not of this world, here strongly contrasted by the troubled countenance of Lord Avonleigh. Sleep lacked the quiet of death. The veins were swollen on his temples—the dew rose on his knit brow—his cheek was livid, not pale—and the inward struggle convulsed every feature. The torches flung round their long and fantastic shadows, while the wind howled amid the battlements—a wild, shrieking wind, like a great cry of nature's agony. Yet there the young Italian waited and watched alone, dreading her ghastly solitude, but dreading still more the despair of her father's awakening. And terrible indeed was that awakening: it was the desperate grief of the prosperous, who have not dreamed that the arrows of calamity can be pointed at them—whose sky has been sunshine, and whose pathway over flowers, till the ordinary lot of mankind seems to them an injustice. They look not to drink of that cup which is measured unto all—to others they apply the ​rule, and to themselves the exception. But, alas for the graceful and noble boy, on whom nature and fortune had lavished every gift but to make a richer prize for death! How many lofty hopes, how many generous emotions, how many joyous aspirings, were quenched in that unfulfilled destiny! That young heart had had no time to harden—that young soul no time to chill; warm and fresh, true and kindling, they went down to the grave, all trace of paradise not worn away in the brief career.
"Whom the gods love die young," is one of the truths taught by the old Greek poets, those poets half sage, half seer. And methinks, that though tears are shed abundantly when the coffin-lid presses down some fair and bright head, we were wiser did we keep those tears for the living. Let the young perish in their hour of promise—how much will they be spared!—passion, that kindles but to consume the heart, and leaves either vacancy or regret, a ruin or a desert; ambition, that only reaches its goal to find it worthless when gained, or but the starting-place for another feverish race, doomed again to end in disappointment; enemies that cross us at every step; friends that deceive—and what friends do not?—the blighted hope, the embittered feeling, the wasted powers, the ​remorse, and the despair, all these are spared by the merciful, the early grave.
The week passed, with its days, like ghosts, flitting by in silence and awe, till at length came the evening when Albert Lord Stukeley was to be laid to the long last sleep of his ancestry. The red glare of the tapers flung a strange unnatural hue on the painted windows of the little Gothic chapel, where none slept save the noble of name, and the high of blood—purple and crimson, the colours mingled together in fantastic combinations, till the rainbow-hued figures seemed to move with supernatural life. The banners hung from the roof, frail and faded memorials of a glory which now formed the archives of a house instead of the history of a nation. Tablet and escutcheon were suspended from the walls; and below were the sculptured tombs, each with, its marble effigy. Here was the armed knight, his head upon his shield, his foot on his hound,—the image having long survived the original; the one yet gave a stern likeness of humanity, the other was now but a handful of dust, ready to be dispersed by the first breath of air that might penetrate its carved sepulchre. How much of empty distinction above mocked the nothingness below! Here was the storied trophy, the blazoned arms, the ​name, with its array of titles—the inscription with its long flattery; and there was only the mouldering bones, and the dank vapour. God of heaven! how mortality mocks itself!—how far extends the solemnity of its foolishness, the vain-gloriousness of its delusion! The living console themselves by the honours which they pay to the dead; and yet this self-deceit is not all in vain. Every feeling that looks to the future elevates human nature; for life is never so low or so little as when it concentrates itself on the present. The miserable wants, the small desires, and the petty pleasures of daily existence have nothing in common with those mighty dreams which, looking forward for action and action's reward, redeem the earth over which they walk with steps like those of an angel, beneath which spring up glorious and immortal flowers. The imagination is man's noblest and most spiritual faculty; and that ever dwells on the to-come.
But to return to the Gothic chapel, and its mournful solemnities. A strain of music reverberated along the arches as a gloomy train entered, faces and shapes alike hidden in their black and sweeping garments. In the midst was the coffin, covered with a white velvet pall, on which was embroidered a golden border of the arms of ​the house of Avonleigh. The lid was closed—human eye had looked its last on that young and beloved face. That glance would dwell on the memory for ever,--pale, calm, and unearthly. Well that it should be so; for who could bear to have their midnight haunted by the vision of corruption? The music ceased; slowly the bearers deposited their burden before the altar; and the deep melodious voice of Charles Aubyn was heard repeating the holy words which sanctify the act that restores the corse to its mother earth. Lord Avonleigh sat at the head of the coffin, and, in the negligence of sorrow, his cloak had fallen to the ground, and his countenance, fixed and rigid with despair, was fully given to view. It was awful—for suffering in its extreme is awful—to mark how a few days had changed him. Francesca knelt at his side, but he turned not towards her; and mute and motionless she listened to the service—only an occasional large bright drop falling through her closed hands told that she was weeping. The voice of the reader paused for a moment. Again the bearers took up the coffin, and cold and damp the subterranean air came from the opened vault. The tapers were lowered, and shed a ghastly light on the rows of piled coffins, and the moisture glittering on the walls. A ​shudder ran through the assembly as all looked towards that drear receptacle.
"One moment!" said Lord Avonleigh, in a low hoarse whisper: "that boy perished for my sin,—I feel, I know that his death was a judgment upon me. Let him be the inanimate witness of an atonement that comes too late. Francesca Stukeley, I here entreat your forgiveness of the wrong which I have done you, prompted by my dear love for him who is no more. Cruelly has Providence visited it upon me. In the presence of the dead and the living, I acknowledge you as my only lawful child!"
A murmur of astonishment ran through the chapel. It was hushed instantly, for, at a sign from Lord Avonleigh, the coffin was carried into the vault; and again the voice of the priest was the only sound, breathing the last and solemn benediction of the mournful obsequies.