Chapter 12

Though saved from immediate death, Falkner could hardly be called convalescent. His wound did not heal healthily, and the intermitting fever, returning again and again, laid him prostrate after he had acquired a little strength. After a winter full of danger, it was pronounced that the heats of a southern summer would probably prove fatal to him, and that he must be removed without delay to the bracing air of his native country.

Towards the end of the month of April they took their passage to Leghorn. It was a sad departure; the more so that they were obliged to part with their Greek servant, on whose attachment Elizabeth so much depended. Vasili had entered into Falkner’s service at the instigation of the Protokleft, or chief of his clan; when the Englishman was obliged to abandon the cause of Greece, and return to his own country, Vasili, though loath and weeping, went back to his native master. The young girl, being left without any attendant on whom she could wholly rely, felt singularly desolate; for as her father lay on the deck, weak from the exertion of being removed, she felt that his life hung by a very slender thread, and she shrank half affrighted from what might ensue to her, friendless and alone.

Her presence of mind and apparent cheerfulness was never, however, diminished by these secret misgivings; and she sat by her father’s low couch, and placed her hands in his, speaking encouragingly, while her eyes filled with tears as the rocky shores of Zante became indistinct and vanished.

Their voyage was without any ill accident, except that the warm southeast wind, which favoured their navigation, sensibly weakened the patient; and Elizabeth grew more and more eager to proceed northward. At Leghorn they were detained by a long and vexatious quarantine. The summer had commenced early, with great heats; and the detention of several weeks in the lazaretto nearly brought about what they had left Greece to escape. Falkner grew worse. The seabreezes a little mitigated his sufferings; but life was worn away by repeated struggles, and the most frightful debility threatened his frame with speedy dissolution. How could it be otherwise? He had wished to die. He sought death where it lurked insidiously in the balmy airs of Greece, or met it openly armed against him on the field of battle. Death wielded many weapons; and he was struck by many, and the most dangerous. Elizabeth hoped, in spite of despair; yet, if called away from him, her heart throbbed wildly as she re-entered his apartment; there was no moment when the fear did not assail her, that she might, on a sudden, hear and see that all was over.

An incident happened at this period, to which Elizabeth paid little attention at the time, engrossed as she was by mortal fears. They had been in quarantine about a fortnight, when, one day, there entered the gloomy precincts of the lazaretto a tribe of English people. Such a horde of men, women, and children, as gives foreigners a lively belief that we islanders are all mad, to migrate in this way, with the young and helpless, from comfortable homes, in search of the dangerous and comfortless. This roving band consisted of the eldest son of an English nobleman and his wife—four children, the eldest being six years old—a governess—three nursery-maids, two lady’s maids, and a sufficient appendage of men-servants. They had all just arrived from viewing the pyramids of Egypt. The noise and bustle—the servants insisting on making everybody comfortable, where comfort was not—the spreading out of all their own camp apparatus—joined to the seeming indifference of the parties chiefly concerned, and the unconstrained astonishment of the Italians—was very amusing. Lord Cecil, a tall, thin, plain, quiet, aristocratic-looking man of middle age, dropped into the first chair—called for his writing-case—began a letter, and saw and heard nothing that was going on. Lady Cecil—who was not pretty, but lively and elegant—was surrounded by her children—they seemed so many little angels, with blooming cheeks and golden hair—the youngest cherub slept profoundly amid the din; the others were looking eagerly out for their dinner.

Elizabeth had seen their entrance—she saw them walking in the garden of the lazaretto—one figure, the governess, though disguised by a green shade over her eyes, she recognised—it was Miss Jervis. Desolate and sad as the poor girl was, a familiar face and voice was a cordial drop to comfort her; and Miss Jervis was infinitely delighted to meet her former pupil. She usually looked on those intrusted to her care as a part of the machinery that supported her life; but Elizabeth had become dear to her from the irresistible attraction that hovered round her—arising from her carelessness of self, and her touching sensibility to the sufferings of all around. She had often regretted having left her, and she now expressed this, and even her silence grew into something like talkativeness upon the unexpected meeting. “I am very unlucky,” she said; “I would rather, if I could with propriety, live in the meanest lodging in London, than in the grandest tumbledown palace of the East, which people are pleased to call so fine—I am sure they are always dirty and out of order. Lady Glenfell recommended me to Lady Cecil—and, certainly, a more generous and sweet-tempered woman does not exist—and I was very comfortable, living at the Earl of G——’s seat in Hampshire, and having almost all my time to myself. One day, to my misfortune, Lady Cecil made a scheme to travel—to get out of her father-in-law’s way, I believe—he is rather a tiresome old man. Lord Cecil does anything she likes. All was arranged, and I really thought I should leave them—I so hated the idea of going abroad again; but Lady Cecil said that I should be quite a treasure, having been everywhere, and knowing so many languages, and that she should have never thought of going, but from my being with her; so, in short, she was very generous, and I could not say no: accordingly, we set out on our travels, and went first to Portugal—where I had never been—and do not know a word of Portuguese; and then through Spain—and Spanish is Greek to me—and worse—for I do know a good deal of Romaic. I am sure I do not know scarcely where we went—but our last journey was to see the pyramids of Egypt—only, unfortunately, I caught the ophthalmia the moment we got to Alexandria, and could never bear to see a ray of light the whole time we were in that country.”

As they talked, Lady Cecil came to join her children. She was struck by Elizabeth’s beaming and noble countenance, which bore the impress of high thought and elevated sentiments. Her figure, too, had sprung up into womanhood—tall and graceful—there was an elasticity joined to much majesty in all her appearance; not the majesty of assumption, but the stamp of natural grandeur of soul, refined by education, and softened by sympathetic kindness for the meanest thing that breathed. Her dignity did not spring in the slightest degree from self-worship, but simply from a reliance on her own powers and a forgetfulness of every triviality which haunts the petty-minded. No one could chance to see her, without stopping to gaze; and her peculiar circumstances—the affectionate and anxious daughter of a dying man—without friend or support, except her own courage and patience—never daunted, yet always fearfully alive to his danger—rendered her infinitely interesting to one of her own sex. Lady Cecil was introduced to her by Miss Jervis, and was eager to show her kindness. She offered that they should travel together; but as Elizabeth’s quarantine was out long before that of the new comers, and she was anxious to reach a more temperate climate, she refused; yet she was thankful, and charmed by the sweetness and cordiality of her new acquaintance.