Judah Azavédo was the only son of a rich Jewish merchant, settled in London. His grandfather, a native and resident of Portugal, having witnessed the fearful proceedings of the Inquisition on some of his relations and friends, secretly followers of Israel, as himself, fled to Holland, bearing with him no inconsiderable property. This, through successful commerce, swelled into wealth; and when, on his death, his son, with his wife and child, removed to England, and settled in the metropolis, they were considered, alike in birth, education and riches, one of the very highest families of the proud and aristocratic Portuguese.
But the situation of the Jews in England, some eighty or ninety years ago, was very different to their situation now. Riches, nay, even moral and mental dignity, were not then the passport to society and friendliness. Lingering prejudice, still predominant in the hearts of the English, and pride and nationality equally strong in the Hebrew, kept both parties aloof, so that no advance could be made on either side, and each remained profoundly ignorant of the other, not alone on the subject of opposing creeds, but of actual character.
This, though certainly a social evil, was, in some respects, as concerned the Israelites, a national good. It drew them more closely, more kindly together; aliens and strangers to the children of other lands, the true followers of their persecuted creed were as brothers. Rich or poor, it mattered not. Hebrews and Portuguese were the ties in common, and the joy or grief of one family was the joy or grief of all. Fashion was little thought of. Heartlessness and that false pride which forswears relation to or connection with poverty were unknown. Faults, no doubt they had; but a more kindly, noble-hearted set of men, in their own sphere, than the Spanish and Portuguese Jews, nearly a hundred years ago, never had existence.
The restlessness and over-sensitiveness of Judah Azavédo was a subject of as much surprise to his nation as of regret to his father. Sole heir to immense wealth—unencumbered with business—nothing to occupy him but his own pleasure—gifted with unusual mental powers—dignified in figure—a kindly and most winning manner, when he chose to exert it; yet was his whole life embittered by the morbid sensitiveness with which he regarded his most unfortunate lack of all attraction in face and feature. He was absolutely and disagreeably plain; we would say ugly, did we not so exceedingly dislike the word. Yet there were times when the glow of mind, or still more warmth of heart, would throw such a soft and gentle expression over the almost deformed features, that their natural disfigurement ceased to be remembered. Those who knew him never felt any difference between him and his fellow-men, save in his superior heart and mind; but Azavédo himself always imagined that, wherever he went he must be an object of derision or dislike. He shrunk from all society, particularly from that of females, who, he was convinced, would be terrified even to look at him. Entreaties, commands, and remonstrances were vain. Could he have known more, mingled more with the world at large, these morbid feelings would, in time, have been rubbed off; but in his very limited circle of familiar friends this was impossible, and the evil, in consequence, each year increased.
To the Israelites of ninety years ago, the idea of travelling for pleasure was incomprehensible; they were too happy, too grateful to the land which gave them rest and peace, to think of quitting it for any other. That Judah Azavédo should restlessly desire to leave England, and seek excitement in foreign lands, was in accordance with all his other extraordinary feelings; but that his father, the wise, sedate, contented old man, whose every hope and affection were centred in this son, should give his consent, was more extraordinary still; and many, in kindness, sought to dissuade him from it. But Azavédo loved his son too well to permit old habits and prejudices to interfere with the only indulgence Judah had ever asked: he gave him his blessing and carte blanche with regard to gold, and the young man forthwith departed.
He was absent three years, having travelled as far as the East, and visited every scene endeared to him as one of that favoured race for whom the sea itself had been divided. He had looked on misery, in so many varied forms, as the portion of his nation, that he felt reproached and ashamed at his own repinings. He learnt that only sin and crime could authorize the misery he had endured; that he was an immortal being, and one whose earthly lot was blessed so much above thousands of his brethren, that he only marvelled his sin of discontent had not called down on him the wrath of God. His soul seemed suddenly free from fetters, and he moved among his fellow-men fearless and unabashed.
Notwithstanding the danger of such a route—for, if known, or even suspected as a Hebrew, he would inevitably have perished—Judah chose to return home through Spain and Portugal, making himself known to some friends of his family still dwelling in the latter kingdom. With them he remained some few months, and then it was that a new emotion awoke within him, chaining him effectually, ere aware of its existence. From his earliest youth Judah had dreaded, and so forsworn love, feeling it next to impossible for him ever to be loved in return; but Love laughs at such forswearers. Before he could analyse why that bitterness against his unhappy ugliness should return, when he had thought it so successfully conquered, he loved with the full passionate fervour of his race and his own peculiar disposition, and loved one of whom he could learn nothing, trace nothing, know nothing, save that she was so surpassingly lovely, that though he had seen her but three times, never near, and only once without her veil, her beauty both of face and form lingered on his memory as indelibly engraved as if it had lain there for years, and then had been called into existence by some strangely awakening flash. She was as unknown to his friends as to himself; only at the Opera had she been visible; no inquiry, no search could elicit information. Once only he had heard the sound of her voice, and it breathed music as thrilling and transporting as the beauty of her face. Yet was she neither saintlike nor angelic; it was an arch witchery, a shadowless glee, infused with the nameless, descriptionless, but convincing charm of mind.
Judah Azavédo returned home an altered man, yet still no one could understand him. He no longer morbidly shunned society, nor even cared to eschew the company of females, seeming as wholly careless and insensible to the effects of his presence as he had before thought too much about it. Some said he was scornfully proud; others, that it was impenetrable reserve: all agreed that he was changed, but only his most intimate friends could perceive that he was unhappy, and from some deep-seated sorrow essentially distinct from the feelings engrossing him when he left England, and that this one feeling it was which rendered him so totally indifferent to everything else.
Three, nearly four years elapsed, and Azavédo, in character and habits, remained the same. His father was dead, leaving him immense wealth, which he used nobly and generously, winning “golden opinions” from every class and condition of men, who, at the same time, wished that they could quite understand him; and so we must leave him to waft our readers over the salt seas, and introduce them to a more southern land and a very different person.
In a luxuriously furnished apartment of a beautiful little villa, a few miles from Lisbon, was seated a lady of that extraordinary beauty which ever fastens on the memory as by some strange spell. Not more than three or four and twenty, all the freshness of girlhood was so united to the more mature graces of woman, that it was often difficult to say to which of these two periods of life she belonged. Her large, lustrous, jet-black eye, and the small, pouting mouth, alike expressed at will either the mischievous glee of a mirth-loving girl or the high-souled intellectuality of maturer woman. Hair of that deep, dark brown, only to be distinguished from black when the sunshine falls upon it, lay in rich masses and braids around the beautifully shaped head, and giving, from the contrast, yet more dazzling fairness to the pure complexion of face and throat which it shaded; the brow, so “thought-thronged” when at rest, yet lit up, when eye and mouth so willed, with such arch, laughter-loving glee; but we must pause, for the pen can never do beauty justice, and even if it did, would be accused of exaggeration, although there yet remains those who, from personal acquaintance, can still bear witness to its truth.
A gentleman was standing near her as she sat on her sofa, in the busy idleness of embroidery; and as part of their conversation may elucidate our tale, we will record it briefly as may be.
“Then you refused him?”
“Can you ask?” and the lightning flash of the lady’s dark eye betrayed unwonted indignation. “He who would have so tempted a helpless girl of seventeen—I was then no more, though I had been married nearly a year—under such specious reasoning, that I dreamed not his drift till the words of actual insult came; sought to sow suspicion and distrust in my heart against my husband, his own brother, to serve his vile purposes: and you ask me if I refused him, when, being once more free to wed, he dared pollute me with his abhorred addresses! Julian, my fair cousin, have you so forgotten Inez?”
“If I had, that indignant burst would have recalled her; but of insult, remember, I knew nothing. You were married when so young, to a man so much older than yourself, that when I heard of his death, three years ago, I fancied, as you know is often the case with us, you would have married his younger brother, so much more suitable in point of qualities and years.”
“More suitable! Wrong again, cousin mine. If I did not love my husband, I respected, honoured him—yes, loved him too as a father; but as for Don Pedro, as men call him, Julian, I would rather have trusted the tender mercies of the Inquisition than I would him, and so I told him.”
“You could not have been so mad!”
“In sober truth, I was feeling too thoroughly indignant to weigh my words. It matters not, he dare not work me harm, for the secret on which alone he can, involves his safety as well as mine.”
“I wish I could think so; there are many to say that he is in truth what he appears to be, and therefore one most dangerous to offend.”
“I fear him as little as I scorn him much. I have heard this report before, but heed it not at all. Our holy cause loses little in the apostasy of such a member.”
“It may be so, Inez; but he holds the lives of others in his keeping, and therefore revenge is easily obtained.”
“You will not frighten me, Julian, try as you may. They say Pedro Benito is ill, almost to death—I am sorry for him, for I know no one more unfit to die; but I have far too much pride to fear him, believe me. Better he should injure me, than I my own soul in uniting it with his. See,” she continued, laughing, as she pointed to the portly figure of a Dominican priest pushing his mule up the steep ascent leading to the villa, in such evident haste and trepidation as to occasion some amusement to his beholders; “there is more fear there than I shall ever feel. What can the poor priest need? Do you know him, Julian? comes he to you or me?”
“I trust to neither, Inez, for such hot haste bodes little good.”
“Why, now, what a craven you have grown! I will disown you for my cousin if you pluck not up more spirit, man!”
Julian Alvarez tried to give as jesting a reply, but succeeded badly, his spirits feeling strangely anxious and oppressed. He was spared further rallying on the part of Inez, by the sudden reappearance of the priest (whom they had lost sight of by a curve in the ascent), without his mule, at the private entrance of Inez’s own garden, and without ceremony or question neared the window. Inez addressed him courteously, though with evident surprise; the priest seemed not to heed her words, but laying his hand on her arm, said, in a deep, low tone—
“Donna Inez, this is no time for courtesy or form. Daughter, fly! even now the bloodhounds are on the track. The scent has been given; a dying man proclaimed you a Jewess in hearing of others besides his confessor, else had you been still safe and free. Ere two hours, nay, in less time, they will be here. Away! pause not for thought; seek to save nothing but life, too precious for such sacrifice. A vessel lies moored below, which a brisk hour’s walk will reach. She sails for England the moment the wind shifts; secure a passage in her, and trust in the God of Israel for the rest.”
“And who are you who thus can care for me, knowing that which I am?” answered the lady, in accents low as the supposed priest’s, but far less faltering, and only evincing the shock she had sustained by the sudden whiteness of cheek and lip.
“Men call me—think me, Padre José, my child; but were I such you had not seen me here. That which you are am I, and because I thought Pedro Benito the same, I stood beside his death-bed. Vengeance and apostasy went hand in hand. Ask no more, but hence at once; how may those fragile limbs bear the rack—the flames? Senor Alvarez, shake off this stupor, or it will be too late!”
Julian did indeed stand as paralysed, so suddenly and fearfully were his worst fears confirmed. Fly! and from all, home, friends, luxury, to be poor and dependent in a strange land! It was even so; the voice of vengeance had betrayed the fatal secret of race and faith, the very first whisper of which consigned to the Inquisition—but another word for torture and death. In two short hours, part of which had already gone, Inez had to find the vessel, be received on board, and leave no trace whatever of her way. Her very domestics must suspect nothing, or discovery would inevitably ensue. And yet, in the midst of all this sudden accumulation of misfortune, Inez but once betrayed emotion.
“Julian, Julian, my boy!” she exclaimed, her sole answer to the reiterated entreaties of her companions for her to depart at once; “what will they not do to him?”
“Nothing, lady; he shall be with me till he can rejoin you. Who will suspect Padre José of harbouring an Israelite save to convert him to the Holy Faith?”
Inez caught the old man’s hand, her lip and eyelids quivering convulsively; but even the passion of choking tears was conquered by the power of mind. In less than half an hour she was walking, at a brisk pace, through the shrubberies, in the direction of the river, enveloped in ma............