CHAPTER I
Absent or dead, still let a friend be dear,
A sigh the absent claims, the dead a tear.
POPE.
In the flattest and least agreeable part of the county of Essex, about
five miles from the sea, is situated a village or small town, which may
be known in these pages by the name of Longfield. Longfield is distant
eight miles from any market town, but the simple inhabitants, limiting
their desires to their means of satisfying them, are scarcely aware of
the kind of desert in which they are placed. Although only fifty miles
from London, few among them have ever seen the metropolis. Some claim
that distinction from having visited cousins in Lothbury and viewed the
lions in the tower. There is a mansion belonging to a wealthy nobleman
within four miles, never inhabited, except when a parliamentary election
is going forward. No one of any pretension to consequence resided in
this secluded nook, except the honourable Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry; she
ought to have been the shining star of the place, and she was only its
better angel. Benevolent, gentle, and unassuming, this fair sprig of
nobility had lived from youth to age in the abode of her forefathers,
making a part of this busy world, only through the kindliness of her
disposition, and her constant affection for one who was far away.
The mansion of the Fitzhenry family, which looked upon the village
green, was wholly incommensurate to our humblest ideas of what belongs
to nobility; yet it stood in solitary splendour, the Great House of
Longfield. From time immemorial, its possessors had been the magnates of
the village; half of it belonged to them, and the whole voted according
to their wishes. Cut off from the rest of the world, they claimed here a
consideration and a deference, which, with the moderate income of
fifteen hundred a-year, they would have vainly sought elsewhere.
There was a family tradition, that a Fitzhenry had sat in parliament;
but the time arrived, when they were to rise to greater distinction. The
father of the lady, whose name has been already introduced, enjoyed all
the privileges attendant on being an only child. Extraordinary efforts
were made for his education. He was placed with a clergyman near
Harwich, and imbibed in that neighbourhood so passionate a love for the
sea, that, though tardily and with regret, his parents at last permitted
him to pursue a naval career. He became a brave, a clever, and a lucky
officer. In a contested election, his father was the means of insuring
the success of the government candidate, and the promotion of his son
followed. Those were the glorious days of the English navy, towards the
close of the American war; and when that war terminated, and the
admiral, now advanced considerably beyond middle life, returned to the
Sabine farm, of which he had, by course of descent, become proprietor,
he returned adorned with the rank of a peer of the realm, and with
sufficient wealth to support respectably the dignity of the baronial
title.
Yet an obscure fate pursued the house of Fitzhenry, even in its ennobled
condition. The new lord was proud of his elevation, as a merited reward;
but next to the deck of his ship, he loved the tranquil precincts of his
paternal mansion, and here he spent his latter days in peace. Midway in
life, he had married the daughter of the rector of Longfield. Various
fates had attended the offspring of this union; several died, and at the
time of his being created a peer, Lord Lodore found himself a widower, with two
children. Elizabeth, who had been born twelve years before, and Henry,
whose recent birth had cost the life of his hapless and lamented mother.
But those days were long since passed away; and the first Lord Lodore, with
most of his generation, was gathered to his ancestors. To the new-sprung
race that filled up the vacant ranks, his daughter Elizabeth appeared a
somewhat ancient but most amiable maiden, whose gentle melancholy was
not (according to innumerable precedents in the traditions regarding
unmarried ladies) attributed to an ill-fated attachment, but to the
disasters that had visited her house, and still clouded the fortunes of
her family. What these misfortunes originated from, or even in what they
consisted, was not exactly known; especially at Longfield, whose
inhabitants were no adepts in the gossip of the metropolis. It was
believed that Mrs. Elizabeth's brother still lived; that some very
strange circumstances had attended his career in life, was known; but
conjecture fell lame when it tried to proceed beyond these simple facts:
it was whispered, as a wonder and a secret, that though Lord Lodore was
far away, no one knew where, his lady (as the Morning Post testified in
its lists of fashionable arrivals and fashionable parties) was a
frequent visitor to London. Once or twice the bolder gossips, male or
female, had resolved to sound (as they called it) Mrs. Elizabeth on the
subject. But the fair spinster, though innoffensive to a proverb, and
gentle beyond the wont of her gentle sex, was yet gifted with a certain
dignity of manner, and a quiet reserve, that checked these good people
at their very outset.
Henry Fitzhenry was spoken of by a few of the last generation, as having
been a fine, bold, handsome boy--generous, proud, and daring; he was
remembered, when as a youth he departed for the continent, as riding
fearlessly the best hunter in the field, and attracting the admiration
of the village maidens at church by his tall elegant figure and dark
eyes; or, when he chanced to accost them, by a nameless fascination of
manner, joined to a voice whose thrilling silver tones stirred the
listener's heart unaware. He left them like a dream, nor appeared again
till after his father's death, when he paid his sister a brief visit.
There was then something singularly grave and abstracted about him. When
he rode, it was not among the hunters, though it was soft February
weather, but in the solitary lanes, or with lightning speed over the
moors, when the sun was setting and shadows gathered round the
landscape.
Again, some years after, he had appeared among them. He was then married,
and Lady Lodore accompanied him. They stayed but three days. There was
something of fiction in the way in which the appearance of the lady was
recorded. An angel bright with celestial hues, breathing heaven, and
spreading a halo of calm and light around, as it winged swift way amidst
the dusky children of earth: such ideas seemed to appertain to the
beautiful apparition, remembered as Lord Lodore's wife. She was so
young, that time played with her as a favourite child; so etherial in
look, that the language of flowers could alone express the delicate
fairness of her skin, or the tints that sat upon her cheek: so light in
motion, and so graceful. To talk of eye or lip, of height or form, or
even of the colour of her hair, the villagers could not, for they had
been dazzled by an assemblage of charms before undreamt of by them. Her
voice won adoration, and her smile was as the sudden withdrawing of a
curtain displaying paradise upon earth. Her lord's tall, manly figure,
was recollected but as a back-ground--a fitting one--and that was all
they would allow to him--for this resplendent image. Nor was it
remembered that any excessive attachment was exhibited between them. She
had appeared indeed but as a vision--a creature from another sphere,
hastily gazing on an unknown world, and lost before they could mark more
than that void came again, and she was gone.
Since that time, Lord Lodore had been lost to Longfield. Some few months
after Mrs. Elizabeth visited London on occasion of a christening, and then
after a long interval, it was observed, that she never mentioned her
brother, and that the name of his wife acted as a spell, to bring an
expression of pain over her sedate features. Much talk circulated, and
many blundering rumours went their course through the village, and then
faded like smoke in the clear air. Some mystery there was--Lodore was
gone--his place vacant: he lived; yet his name, like those of the dead,
haunted only the memories of men, and was allied to no act or
circumstance of present existence. He was forgotten, and the inhabitants
of Longfield, returning to their obscurity, proceeded in their daily
course, almost as happy as if they had had their lord among them, to
vary the incidents of their quiet existence with the proceedings of the
"Great House."
Yet his sister remembered him. In her heart his image was traced
indelibly--limned in the colours of life. His form visited her dreams,
and was the unseen, yet not mute, companion of her solitary musings.
Years stole on, casting their clouding shadows on her cheek, and
stealing the colour from her hair, but Henry, but Lodore, was before her in
bright youth--her brother--her pride--her hope. To muse on the
possibility of his return, to read the few letters that reached her from
him, till their brief sentences seemed to imply volumes of meaning, was
the employment that made winter nights short, summer days swift in their
progress. This dreamy kind of existence, added to the old-fashioned
habits which a recluse who lives in a state of singleness is sure to
acquire, made her singularly unlike the rest of the world--causing her
to be a child in its ways, and inexpert to detect the craftiness of
others.
Lodore, in exile and obscurity, was in her eyes, the first of human beings;
she looked forward to the hour, when he would blaze upon the world with
renewed effulgence, as to a religious promise. How well did she
remember, how in grace of person, how in expression of countenance, and
dignity of manner, he transcended all those whom she saw during her
visit to London, on occasion of the memorable christening: that from
year to year this return was deferred, did not tire her patience, nor
diminish her regrets. He never grew old to her--never lost the lustre of
early manhood; and when the boyish caprice which kept him afar was
sobered, so she framed her thoughts, by the wisdom of time, he would
return again to bless her and to adorn the world. The lapse of twelve
years did not change this notion, nor the fact that, if she had cast up
an easy sum in arithmetic, the parish register would have testified, her
brother had now reached the mature age of fifty.
CHAPTER II
Settled in some secret nest,
In calm leisure let me rest;
And far off the public stage.
Pass away my silent age.
SENECA. Marvell's Trans.
Twelve years previous to the opening of this tale, an English gentleman,
advanced to middle age, accompanied by an infant daughter, and her
attendant, arrived at a settlement in the district of the Illinois in
North America. It was at the time when this part of the country first
began to be cleared, and a new comer, with some show of property, was
considered a welcome acquisition. Still the settlement was too young,
and the people were too busy in securing for themselves the necessaries
of life, for much attention to be paid to any thing but the "overt acts"
of the stranger--the number of acres which he bought, which were few,
the extent of his clearings, and the number of workmen that he employed,
both of which were, proportionately to his possession in land, on a far
larger scale than that of any of his fellow colonists. Like magic, a
commodious house was raised on a small height that embanked the swift
river--every vestige of forest disappeared from its immediate vicinity,
replaced by agricultural cultivation, and a garden bloomed in the
wilderness. His labourers were many, and golden harvests shone in his
fields, while the dark forest, or untilled plain, seemed yet to set at
defiance the efforts of his fellow settlers; and at the same time
comforts of so civilized a description, that the Americans termed them
luxuries, appeared in the abode and reigned in the domestic arrangements
of the Englishman, although to his eye every thing was regulated by the
strictest regard to republican plainness and simplicity.
He did not mingle much in the affairs of the colony, yet his advice was
always to be commanded, and his assistance was readily afforded. He
superintended the operations carried on on his own land; and it was
observed that they differed often both from American and English modes
of agriculture. When questioned, he detailed practices in Poland and
Hungary, and gave his reasons why he thought them applicable to the soil
in question. Many of these experiments of course failed; others were
eminently successful. He did not shun labour of any sort. He joined the
hunting parties, and made one on expeditions that went out to explore
the neighbouring wilds, and the haunts of the native Indians. He gave
money for the carrying on any necessary public work, and came forward
willingly when called upon for any useful purpose. In any time of
difficulty or sorrow--on the overflowing of the stream, or the failure
of a crop, he was earnest in his endeavours to aid and to console. But
with all this, there was an insurmountable barrier between him and the
other inhabitants of the colony. He never made one at their feasts, nor
mingled in the familiar communications of daily life; his dwelling,
situated at the distance of a full mile from the village, removed him
from out of the very hearing of their festivities and assemblies. He
might labour in common with others, but his pleasures were all solitary,
and he preserved the utmost independence as far as regarded the sacred
privacy of his abode, and the silence he kept in all concerns regarding
himself alone.
At first the settlement had to struggle with all the difficulties
attendant on colonization. It grew rapidly, however, and bid fair to
become a busy and large town, when it met with a sudden check. A new
spot was discovered, a few miles distant, possessing peculiar advantages
for commercial purposes. An active, enterprising man engaged himself in
the task of establishing a town there on a larger scale and with greater
pretensions. He succeeded, and its predecessor sunk at once into
insignificance. It was matter of conjecture among them whether Mr.
Fitzhenry (so was named the English stranger) would remove to the
vicinity of the more considerable town, but no such idea seemed to have
occurred to him. Probably he rejoiced in an accident that tended to
render his abode so entirely secluded. At first the former town rapidly
declined, and many a log hut fell to ruin; but at last, having sunk into
the appearance and name of a village, it continued to exist, bearing few
marks of that busy enterprising stir which usually characterizes a new
settlement in America. The ambitious and scheming had deserted it--it
was left to those who courted tranquillity, and desired the necessaries
of life without the hope of great future gain. It acquired an almost
old-fashioned appearance. The houses began to look weatherworn, and none
with fresh faces sprung up to shame them. Extensive clearings, suddenly
checked, gave entrance to the forests, without the appendages of a
manufacture or a farm. The sound of the axe was seldom heard, and
primeval quiet again took possession of the wild. Meanwhile Mr.
Fitzhenry continued to adorn his dwelling with imported conveniences,
the result of European art, and to spend much time and labour in making
his surrounding land assume somewhat of the appearance of
pleasure-ground.
He lived in peace and solitude, and seemed to enjoy the unchanging tenor
of his life. It had not always been so. During the first three or four
years of his arrival in America, he had evidently been unquiet in his
mind, and dissatisfied with the scene around him. He gave directions to
his workmen, but did not overlook their execution. He took great pains
to secure a horse, whose fiery spirit and beautiful form might satisfy a
fastidious connoisseur. Having with much trouble and expense got several
animals of English breed together, he was perpetually seen mounted and
forcing his way amid the forest land, or galloping over the unincumbered
country. Sadness sat on his brow, and dwelt in eyes, whose dark large
orbs were peculiarly expressive of tenderness and melancholy,
"Pietosi a riguardare, a mover parchi."
Often, when in conversation on uninteresting topics, some keen sensation
would pierce his heart, his voice faltered, and an expression of
unspeakable wretchedness was imprinted on his countenance, mastered
after a momentary struggle, yet astounding to the person he might be
addressing. Generally on such occasions he would seize an immediate
opportunity to break away and to remain alone. He had been seen,
believing himself unseen, making passionate gestures, and heard uttering
some wild exclamations. Once or twice he had wandered away into the
woods, and not returned for several days, to the exceeding terror of his
little household. He evidently sought loneliness, there to combat
unobserved with the fierce enemy that dwelt within his breast. On such
occasions, when intruded upon and disturbed, he was irritated to fury.
His resentment was expressed in terms ill-adapted to republican
equality--and no one could doubt that in his own country he had filled a
high station in society, and been educated in habits of command, so that
he involuntarily looked upon himself as of a distinct and superior race
to the human beings that each day crossed his path. In general, however,
this was only shown by a certain loftiness of demeanour and cold
abstraction, which might annoy, but could not be resented. Any
ebullition of temper he was not backward to atone for by apology, and to
compensate by gifts.
There was no tinge of misanthropy in Fitzhenry's disposition. Even while
he shrunk from familiar communication with the rude and unlettered, he
took an interest in their welfare. His benevolence was active, his
compassion readily afforded. It was quickness of feeling, and not
apathy, that made him shy and retired. Sensibility checked and crushed,
an ardent thirst for sympathy which could not be allayed in the
wildernesses of America, begot a certain appearance of coldness,
altogether deceptive. He concealed his sufferings--he abhorred that they
should be pryed into; but this reserve was not natural to him, and it
added to the misery which his state of banishment occasioned.
"Quiet to quick bosoms is a hell."
And so was it with him. His passions were
powerful, and had been ungoverned. He writhed beneath the dominion of
sameness; and tranquillity, allied to loneliness, possessed no charms.
He groaned beneath the chains that fettered him to the spot, where he
was withering in inaction. They caused unutterable throes and paroxysms
of despair. Ennui, the dmon, waited at the threshold of his noiseless
refuge, and drove away the stirring hopes and enlivening expectations,
which form the better part of life. Sensibility in such a situation is a
curse: men become "cannibals of their own hearts;" remorse, regret, and
restless impatience usurp the place of more wholesome feeling: every
thing seems better than that which is; and solitude becomes a sort of
tangible enemy, the more dangerous, because it dwells within the citadel
itself. Borne down by such emotions, Fitzhenry was often about to yield
to the yearnings of his soul, and to fly from repose into action,
however accompanied by strife and wretchedness; to leave America, to
return to Europe, and to face at once all the evils which he had
journeyed so far to escape. He did not--he remained. His motives for
flight returned on him with full power after any such paroxysm, and held
him back. He despised himself for his hesitation. He had made his
choice, and would abide by it. He was not so devoid of manliness as to
be destitute of fortitude, or so dependent a wretch as not to have
resources in himself. He would cultivate these, and obtain that peace
which it had been his boast that he should experience.
It came at last. Time and custom accomplished their task, and he became
reconciled to his present mode of existence. He grew to love his home in
the wilderness. It was all his own creation, and the pains and thought
he continued to bestow upon it, rendered it doubly his. The murmur of
the neighbouring river became the voice of a friend; it welcomed him on
his return from any expedition; and he hailed the first echo of it that
struck upon his ear from afar, with a thrill of joy.
Peace descended upon his soul. He became enamoured of the independence
of solitude, and the sublime operations of surrounding nature. All
further attempts at cultivation having ceased in his neighbourhood, from
year to year nothing changed, except at the bidding of the months, in
obedience to the varying seasons;--nothing changed, except that the moss
grew thicker and greener upon the logs that supported his roof, that the
plants he cultivated increased in strength and beauty, and that the
fruit-trees yielded their sweet produce in greater abundance. The
improvements he had set on foot displayed in their progress the taste
and ingenuity of their projector; and as the landscape became more
familiar, so did a thousand associations twine themselves with its
varied appearances, till the forests and glades became as friends and
companions.
As he learnt to be contented with his lot, the inequalities of humour,
and singularities of conduct, which had at first attended him, died
away. He had grown familiar with the persons of his fellow-colonists,
and their various fortunes interested him. Though he could find no
friend, tempered like him, like him nursed in the delicacies and
fastidiousness of the societies of the old world;--though he, a china
vase, dreaded too near a collision with the brazen ones around; yet,
though he could not give his confidence, or unburthen the treasure of
his soul, he could approve of, and even feel affection for several among
them. Personal courage, honesty, and frankness, were to be found among
the men; simplicity and kindness among the women. He saw instances of
love and devotion in members of families, that made him sigh to be one
of them; and the strong sense and shrewd observations of many of the
elder settlers exercised his understanding. They opened, by their
reasonings and conversation, a new source of amusement, and presented
him with another opiate for his too busy memory.
Fitzhenry had been a patron of the fine arts; and thus he had loved
books, poetry, and the elegant philosophy of the ancients. But he had
not been a student. His mind was now in a fit state to find solace in
reading, and excitement in the pursuit of knowledge. At first he sent
for a few books, such as he wished immediately to consult, from New
York, and made slight additions to the small library of classical
literature he had originally brought with him on his emigration. But
when once the desire to instruct himself was fully aroused in his mind,
he became aware how slight and inadequate his present library was, even
for the use of one man. Now each quarter brought chests of a commodity
he began to deem the most precious upon earth. Beings with human forms
and human feelings he had around him; but, as if made of coarser,
half-kneaded clay, they wanted the divine spark of mind and the polish
of taste. He had pined for these, and now they were presented to him.
Books became his friends: they, when rightly questioned, could answer to
his thoughts. Plato could elevate, Epictetus calm, his soul. He could
revel with Ovid in the imagery presented by a graceful, though
voluptuous imagination; and hang enchanted over the majesty and elegance
of Virgil. Homer was as a dear and revered friend--Horace a pleasant
companion. English, Italian, German, and French, all yielded their
stores in turn; and the abstruse sciences were often a relaxation to a
mind, whose chief bane was its dwelling too entirely upon one idea. He
made a study, also, of the things peculiarly befitting his present
situation; and he rose in the estimation of those around, as they became
aware of his talents and his knowledge.
Study and occupation restored to his heart self-complacency, which is an
ingredient so necessary to the composition of human happiness. He felt
himself to be useful, and knew himself to be honoured. He no longer
asked himself, "Why do I live?" or looked on the dark, rapid waves, and
longed for the repose that was in their gift. The blood flowed equably
in his veins; a healthy temperance regulated his hopes and wishes. He
could again bless God for the boon of existence, and look forward to
future years, if not with eager anticipation, yet with a calm reliance
upon the power of good, wholly remote from despair.
CHAPTER III
Miranda.--Alack! what trouble
Was I then to you!
Prospero.--O, a cherubim
Thou wast, that did preserve me!
THE TEMPEST.
Such was the Englishman who had taken refuge in the furthest wilds of an
almost untenanted portion of the globe. Like a Corinthian column, left
single amidst the ruder forms of the forest oaks, standing in alien
beauty, a type of civilization and the arts, among the rougher, though
perhaps not less valuable, growth of Nature's own. Refined to
fastidiousness, sensitive to morbidity, the stranger was respected
without being understood, and loved though the intimate of none.
Many circumstances have been mentioned as tending to reconcile Fitzhenry
to his lot; and yet one has been omitted, chiefest of all;--the growth
and development of his child was an inexhaustible source of delight and
occupation. She was scarcely three years old when her parent first came
to the Illinois. She was then a plaything and an object of solicitude to
him, and nothing more. Much as her father loved her, he had not then
learned to discover the germ of the soul just nascent in her infant
form; nor to watch the formation, gradual to imperceptibility, of her
childish ideas. He would watch over her as she slept, and gaze on her as
she sported in the garden, with ardent and unquiet fondness; and, from
time to time, instil some portion of knowledge into her opening mind:
but this was all done by snatches, and at intervals. His affection for
her was the passion of his soul; but her society was not an occupation
for his thoughts. He would have knelt to kiss her footsteps as she
bounded across the grass, and tears glistened in his eyes as she
embraced his knees on his return from any excursion; but her prattle
often wearied him, and her very presence was sometimes the source of
intense pain.
He did not know himself how much he loved her, till she became old
enough to share his excursions and be a companion. This occurred at a
far earlier age than would have been the case had she been in England,
living in a nursery with other children. There is a peculiarity in the
education of a daughter, brought up by a father only, which tends to
develop early a thousand of those portions of mind, which are folded up,
and often destroyed, under mere feminine tuition. He made her fearless,
by making her the associate of his rides; yet his incessant care and
watchfulness, the observant tenderness of his manner, almost reverential
on many points, springing from the differences of sex, tended to soften
her mind, and make her spirit ductile and dependent. He taught her to
scorn pain, but to shrink with excessive timidity from any thing that
intrenched on the barrier of womanly reserve which he raised about her.
Nothing was dreaded, indeed, by her, except his disapprobation; and a
word or look from him made her, with all her childish vivacity and
thoughtlessness, turn as with a silken string, and bend at once to his
will.
There was an affectionateness of disposition kneaded up in the very
texture of her soul, which gave it its "very form and pressure." It
accompanied every word and action; it revealed itself in her voice, and
hung like light over the expression of her countenance.
Her earliest feeling was love of her father. She would sit to watch him,
guess at his thoughts, and creep close, or recede away, as she read
encouragement, or the contrary, in his eyes and gestures. Except him,
her only companion was her servant; and very soon she distinguished
between them, and felt proud and elate when she quitted her for her
father's side. Soon, she almost never quitted it. Her gentle and docile
disposition rendered her unobtrusive, while her inexhaustible spirits
were a source of delightful amusement. The goodness of her heart
endeared her still more; and when it was called forth by any demand made
on it by him, it was attended by such a display of excessive
sensibility, as at once caused him to tremble for her future happiness,
and love her ten thousand times more. She grew into the image on which
his eye doated, and for whose presence his heart perpetually yearned.
Was he reading, or otherwise occupied, he was restless, if yet she were
not in the room; and she would remain in silence for hours, occupied by
some little feminine work, and all the while watching him, catching his
first glance towards her, and obeying the expression of his countenance,
before he could form his wish into words. When he left her for any of
his longer excursions, her little heart would heave, and almost burst
with sorrow. On his return, she was always on the watch to see, to fly
into his arms, and to load him with infantine caresses.
There was something in her face, that at this early age gave token of
truth and affection, and asked for sympathy. Her large brown eyes, such
as are called hazel, full of tenderness and sweetness, possessed within
their depths an expression and a latent fire, which stirred the heart.
It is difficult to describe, or by words to call before another's mind,
the picture so palpable to our own. The moulding of her cheek, full just
below the eyes, and ending in a soft oval, gave a peculiar expression,
at once beseeching and tender, and yet radiant with vivacity and
gladness. Frankness and truth were reflected on her brow, like flowers
in the clearest pool; the thousand nameless lines and mouldings, which
create expression, were replete with beaming innocence and irresistible
attraction. Her small chiselled nose, her mouth so delicately curved,
gave token of taste. In the whole was harmony, and the upper part of the
countenance seemed to reign over the lower and to ennoble it, making her
usual placid expression thoughtful and earnest; so that not until she
smiled and spoke, did the gaiety of her guileless heart display itself,
and the vivacity of her disposition give change and relief to the
picture. Her figure was light and airy, tall at an early age, and
slender. Her rides and rambles gave elasticity to her limbs, and her
step was like that of the antelope, springy and true. She had no fears,
no deceit, no untold thought within her. Her matchless sweetness of
temper prevented any cloud from ever dimming her pure loveliness: her
voice cheered the heart, and her laugh rang so true and joyous on the
ear, that it gave token in itself of the sympathizing and buoyant spirit
which was her great charm. Nothing with her centred in self; she was
always ready to give her soul away: to please her father was the
unsleeping law of all her actions, while his approbation imparted a
sense of such pure but entire happiness, that every other feeling faded
into insignificance in the comparison.
In the first year of exile and despair, Fitzhenry looked forward to the
long drawn succession of future years, with an impatience of woe
difficult to be borne. He was surprised to find, as he proceeded in the
quiet path of life which he had selected, that instead of an increase of
unhappiness, a thousand pleasures smiled around him. He had looked on it
as a bitter task to forget that he had a name and country, both
abandoned for ever; now, the thought of these seldom recurred to his
memory. His forest home became all in all to him. Wherever he went, his
child was by his side, to cheer and enliven him. When he looked on her,
and reflected that within her frame dwelt spotless innocence and filial
piety, that within that lovely "bower of flesh," not one thought or
feeling resided that was not akin to heaven in its purity and sweetness,
he, as by infection, acquired a portion of the calm enjoyment, which she
in her taintless youth naturally possessed.
Even when any distant excursion forced him to absent himself, her idea
followed him to light him cheerily on his way. He knew that he should
find her on his return busied in little preparations for his welcome. In
summer time, the bower in the garden would be adorned; in the inclement
season of winter the logs would blaze on the hearth, his chair be drawn
towards the fire, the stool for Ethel at his feet, with nothing to
remind him of the past, save her dear presence, which drew its greatest
charm, not from that, but from the present. Fitzhenry forgot the
thousand delights of civilization, for which formerly his heart had
painfully yearned. He forgot ambition, and the enticements of gay
vanity; peace and security appeared the greatest blessings of life, and
he had them here.
Ethel herself was happy beyond the knowledge of her own happiness. She
regretted nothing in the old country. She grew up among the grandest
objects of nature, and they were the sweet influences to excite her to
love and to a sense of pleasure. She had come to the Illinois attended
by a black woman and her daughter, whom her father had engaged to attend
her at New York, and had been sedulously kept away from communication
with the settlers--an arrangement which it would have been difficult to
bring about elsewhere, but in this secluded and almost deserted spot the
usual characteristics of the Americans were scarcely to be found. Most
of the inhabitants were emigrants from Scotland, a peaceable,
hard-working population.
Ethel lived alone in their lonely dwelling. Had she been of a more
advanced age when taken from England, her curiosity might have been
excited by the singularity of her position; but we rarely reason about
that which has remained unchanged since infancy; taking it as a part of
the immutable order of things, we yield without a question to its
controul. Ethel did not know that she was alone. Her attendants she was
attached to, and she idolized her father; his image filled all her
little heart. Playmate she had none, save a fawn and a kid, a dog grown
old in her service, and a succession of minor favourites of the animal
species.
It was Fitzhenry's wish to educate his daughter to all the perfection of
which the feminine character is susceptible. As the first step, he cut
her off from familiar communication with the unrefined, and, watching
over her with the fondest care, kept her far aloof from the very
knowledge of what might, by its baseness or folly, contaminate the
celestial beauty of her nature. He resolved to make her all that woman
can be of generous, soft, and devoted; to purge away every alloy of
vanity and petty passion--to fill her with honour, and yet to mould her
to the sweetest gentleness: to cultivate her tastes and enlarge her
mind, yet so to controul her acquirements, as to render her ever pliant
to his will. She was to be lifted above every idea of artifice or guile,
or the caballing spirit of the worldling--she was to be single-hearted,
yet mild. A creature half poetry, half love--one whose pure lips had
never been tainted by an untruth--an enthusiastic being, who could give
her life away for the sake of another, and yet who honoured herself as a
consecrated thing reserved for one worship alone. She was taught that no
misfortune should penetrate her soul, except such as visited her
affections, or her sense of right; and that, set apart from the vulgar
uses of the world, she was connected with the mass only through
another--that other, now her father and only friend--hereafter,
whosoever her heart might select as her guide and head. Fitzhenry drew
his chief ideas from Milton's Eve, and adding to this the romance of
chivalry, he satisfied himself that his daughter would be the embodied
ideal of all that is adorable and estimable in her sex.
The instructor can scarcely give sensibility where it is essentially
wanting, nor talent to the unpercipient block. But he can cultivate and
detect the affections of the pupil, who puts forth, as a parasite,
tendrils by which to cling, not knowing to what--to a supporter or a
destroyer. The careful rearer of the ductile human plant can instil his
own religion, and surround the soul by such a moral atmosphere, as shall
become to its latest day the air it breathes. Ethel, from her delicate
organization and quick parts, was sufficiently plastic in her father's
hands. When not with him, she was the playmate of nature. Her birds and
pet animals--her untaught but most kind nurse, were her associates: she
had her flowers to watch over, her music, her drawings, and her books.
Nature, wild, interminable, sublime, was around her. The ceaseless flow
of the brawling stream, the wide-spread forest, the changes of the sky,
the career of the wide-winged clouds, when the winds drove them athwart
the atmosphere, or the repose of the still, and stirless summer air, the
stormy war of the elements, and the sense of trust and security amidst
their loudest disturbances, were all circumstances to mould her even
unconsciously to an admiration of all that is grand and beautiful.
A lofty sense of independence is, in man, the best privilege of his
nature. It cannot be doubted, but that it were for the happiness of the
other sex that she were taught more to rely on and act for herself. But
in the cultivation of this feeling, the education of Fitzhenry was
lamentably deficient. Ethel was taught to know herself dependent; the
support of another was to be as necessary to her as her daily food. She
leant on her father as a prop that could not fail, and she was wholly
satisfied with her condition. Her peculiar disposition of course tinged
Fitzhenry's theories with colours not always their own, and her entire
want of experience in intercourse with her fellow-creatures, gave a more
decided tone to her sense of dependence than she could have acquired, if
the circumstances of her daily life had brought her into perpetual
collision with others. She was habitually cheerful even to gaiety; yet
her character was not devoid of petulence, which might become rashness
or self-will if left to herself. She had a clear and upright spirit, and
suspicion or unkindness roused her to indignation, or sunk her into the
depths of sorrow. Place her in danger, and tell her she must encounter
it, and she called up all her courage and became a heroine; but on less
occasions, difficulties dismayed and annoyed her, and she longed to
escape from them into that dreamy existence, for which her solitary mode
of life had given her a taste: active in person, in mind she was too
often indolent, and apt to think that while she was docile to the
injunctions of her parent, all her duties were fulfilled. She seldom
thought, and never acted, for herself.
With all this she was so caressingly affectionate, so cheerful and
obedient, that she inspired her father with more than a father's
fondness. He lived but for her and in her. Away, she was present to his
imagination, the loadstone to draw him home, and to fill that home with
pleasure. He exalted her in his fancy into angelic perfection, and
nothing occurred to blot the fair idea. He in prospect gave up his whole
life to the warding off every evil from her dear and sacred head. He
knew, or rather believed, that while we possess one real, devoted, and
perfect friend, we cannot be truly miserable. He said to himself--though
he did not love to dwell on the thought--that of course cares and
afflictions might hereafter befal her; but he was to stand the shield to
blunt the arrows of sorrow--the shelter in which she might find refuge
from every evil ministration. The worst ills of life, penury and
desertion, she could never know; and surely he, who would stand so fast
by her through all--whose nightly dream and waking thought was for her
good, would even, when led to form other connexions in life, so command
her affections as to be able to influence her happiness.
Not being able to judge by comparison, Ethel was unaware of the
peculiarity of her good fortune in possessing such a father. But she
loved him entirely; looked up to him, and saw in him the reward of every
exertion, the object of each day's employment. In early youth we have no
true notion of what the realities of life are formed, and when we look
forward it is without any correct estimate of the chances of existence.
Ethel's visionary ideas were all full of peace, seclusion, and her
father. America, or rather the little village of the Illinois which she
inhabited, was all the world to her; and she had no idea that nearly
every thing that connected her to society existed beyond the far
Atlantic, in that tiny isle which made so small a show upon her maps.
Fitzhenry never mentioned these things to his daughter. She arrived at
the age of fifteen without forming a hope that should lead her beyond
the pale which had hitherto enclosed her, or having imagined that any
train of circumstances might suddenly transplant her from the lonely
wilderness to the thronged resorts of mankind.
CHAPTER IV
Les deserts sont faits pour les amants, mais l'amour
ne se fait pas aux deserts.
LE BARBIER DE PARIS.
Twelve years had led Ethel from infancy to childhood; and from child's
estate to the blooming season of girlhood. It had brought her father
from the prime of a man's life, to the period when it began to decline.
Our feelings probably are not less strong at fifty than they were ten or
fifteen years before; but they have changed their objects, and dwell on
far different prospects. At five-and-thirty a man thinks of what his own
existence is; when the maturity of age has grown into its autumn, he is
wrapt up in that of others. The loss of wife or child then becomes more
deplorable, as being impossible to repair; for no fresh connexion can
give us back the companion of our earlier years, nor a "new sprung race"
compensate for that, whose career we hoped to see run. Fitzhenry had
been a man of violent passions; they had visited his life with hurricane
and desolation;--were these dead within him? The complacency that now
distinguished his physiognomy seemed to vouch for internal peace. But
there was an abstracted melancholy in his dark eyes--a look that went
beyond the objects immediately before him, that seemed to say that he
often anxiously questioned fate, and meditated with roused fears on the
secrets of futurity.
Educating his child, and various other employments, had occupied and
diverted him. He had been content; he asked for no change, but he
dreaded it. Often when packets arrived from England he hesitated to open
them. He could not account for his new-born anxieties. Was change
approaching? "How long will you be at peace?" Such warning voice
startled him in the solitude of the forests: he looked round, but no
human being was near, yet the voice had spoken audibly to his sense; and
when a transient air swept the dead leaves near, he shrunk as if a
spirit passed, invisible to sight, and yet felt by the subtle
atmosphere, as it gave articulation and motion to it.
"How long shall I be at peace?" A thrill ran through his veins. "Am I
then now at peace? Do love, and hate, and despair, no longer wage their
accustomed war in my heart? and is it true that gently flowing as my
days have lately been, that during their course I have not felt those
mortal throes that once made life so intolerable a burthen? It is so. I
am at peace; strange state for suffering mortality! And this is not to
last? My daughter! there only am I vulnerable; yet have I surrounded her
with a sevenfold shield. My own sweet Ethel! how can I avert from your
dear head the dark approaching storm?
"But this is folly. These waking dreams are the curse of inaction and
solitude. Yesterday I refused to accompany the exploring party. I will
go--I am not old; fatigue, as yet, does not seem a burthen; but I shall
sink into premature age, if I allow this indolence to overpower me. I
will set out on this expedition, and thus I shall no longer be at
peace." Fitzhenry smiled as if thus he were cheating destiny.
The proposed journey was one to be made by a party of his
fellow-settlers, to trace the route between their town and a large one,
two hundred miles off, to discover the best mode of communication. There
was nothing very arduous in the undertaking. It was September, and
hunting would diversify the tediousness of their way. Fitzhenry left his
daughter under the charge of her attendants, to amuse herself with her
books, her music, her gardening, her needle, and, more than all, her new
and very favourite study of drawing and sketching. Hitherto the pencil
had scarcely been one of her occupations; but an accident gave scope to
her acquiring in it that improvement for which she found that she had
prodigious inclination, and she was assured, no inconsiderable talent.
The occasion that had given rise to this new employment was this. Three
or four months before, a traveller arrived for the purpose of settling,
who claimed a rather higher intellectual rank than those around him. He
was the son of an honest tradesman of the city of London. He displayed
early signs of talent, and parental fondness gave him opportunities of
cultivating it. The means of his family were small, but some of the
boy's drawings having attracted the attention of an artist, he entered
upon the profession of a painter, with sanguine hopes of becoming
hereafter an ornament to it.
Two obstacles were in the way of his success. He wanted that intense
love of his art--that enthusiastic perseverance in labour, which
distinguishes the man of genius from the man of talent merely. He
regarded it as a means, not an end. Probably therefore he did not feel
that capacity in himself for attaining first-rate excellence, which had
been attributed to him. He had a taste also for social pleasures and
vulgar indulgencies, incompatible with industry and with that refinement
of mind which is so necessary an adjunct to the cultivation of the
imaginative arts. Whitelock had none of all this; but he was quick,
clever, and was looked on among his associates as a spirited, agreeable
fellow. The death of his parents left him in possession of their little
wealth: depending for the future on the resources which his talent
promised him, he dissipated the two or three hundred pounds which formed
his inheritance: debt, difficulties, with consequent abstraction from
his profession, completed his ruin. He arrived at the Illinois in search
of an uncle, on whose kindness he intended to depend, with six dollars
in his purse. His uncle had long before disappeared from that part of
the country. Whitelock found himself destitute. Neither his person,
which was diminutive, nor his constitution, which was delicate, fitted
him for manual labour; nor was he acquainted with any mechanic art. What
could he do in America? He began to feel very deeply the inroads of
despair, when hearing of the superior wealth of Mr. Fitzhenry, and that
he was an Englishman, he paid him a visit, feeling secure that he could
interest him in his favour.
The emigrant's calculations were just. His distinguished countryman
exerted himself to enable the young man to obtain a subsistence. He
established him in a school, and gave him his best counsels how to
proceed. Whitelock thanked him; commenced the most odious task of
initiating the young Americans in the rudiments of knowledge, and sought
meanwhile to amuse himself to the best of his power. Fitzhenry's house
he first made his resort. He was not to be baffled by the reserved
courtesy of his host. The comfort and English appearance of the exile's
dwelling were charming to him; and while he could hear himself talk, he
fancied that every one about him must be satisfied. Fitzhenry was
excessively annoyed. There was an innate vulgarity in his visitant, and
an unlicensed familiarity that jarred painfully with the refined habits
of his sensitive nature. Still, in America he had been forced to
tolerate even worse than this, and he bore Whitelock's intrusions as
well as he could, seeking only to put such obstacles in the way of his
too frequent visits, as would best serve to curtail them. Whitelock's
chief merit was his talent; he had a real eye for the outward forms of
nature, for the tints in which she loves to robe herself, and the beauty
in which she is for ever invested. He occupied himself by sketching the
surrounding scenery, and gave life and interest to many a savage glade
and solitary nook, which, till he came, had not been discovered to be
picturesque. Ethel regarded his drawings with wonder and delight, and
easily obtained permission from her father to take lessons in the
captivating art. Fitzhenry thought that of all occupations, that of the
pencil, if pursued earnestly and with real taste, most conduced to the
student's happiness. Its scope is not personal display, as is the case
most usually with music, and yet it has a visible result which satisfies
the mind that something has been done. It does not fatigue the attention
like the study of languages, yet it suffices to call forth the powers,
and to fill the mind with pleasurable sensations. It is a most feminine
occupation, well replacing, on a more liberal and rational scale, the
tapestry of our grandmothers. Ethel had already shown a great
inclination for design, and her father was glad of so favourable an
opportunity for cultivating it. A few difficulties presented themselves.
Whitelock had brought his own materials with him, but he possessed no
superfluity--and they were not to be procured at the settlement. The
artist offered to transfer them all for Ethel's convenience to her own
abode, so that he might have free leave to occupy himself there also.
Fitzhenry saw all the annoyances consequent on this plan, and it was
finally arranged that his daughter should, three or four times a week,
visit the school-house, and in a little room, built apart for her
especial use, pursue her study.
The habit of seeing and instructing his lovely pupil awoke new ideas in
Whitelock's fruitful brain. Who was Mr. Fitzhenry? What did he in the
Illinois? Whitelock sounded him carefully, but gathered no information,
except that this gentleman showed no intention of ever quitting the
settlement. But this was much. He was evidently in easy
circumstances--Ethel was his only child. She was here a garden-rose
amidst briars, and Whitelock flattered himself that his position was not
materially different. Could he succeed in the scheme that all these
considerations suggested to him, his fortune was made, or, at least, he
should bid adieu for ever to blockhead boys and the dull labours of
instruction. As these views opened upon him, he took more pains to
ingratiate himself with Fitzhenry. He became humble; he respectfully
sought his advice--and while he contrived a thousand modes of throwing
himself in his way, he appeared less intrusive than before--and yet he
felt that he did not get on. Fitzhenry was kind to him, as a countryman
in need of assistance; he admired his talent as an artist, but he shrunk
from the smallest approach to intimacy. Whitelock hoped that he was only
shy, but he feared that he was proud; he tried to break through the
barrier of reserve opposed to him, and he became a considerable
annoyance to the recluse. He waylaid him during his walks with his
daughter--forced his company upon them, and forging a thousand obliging
excuses for entering their dwelling, he destroyed the charm of their
quiet evenings, and yet tempered his manners with such shows of humility
and gratitude as Fitzhenry could not resist.
Whitelock next tried his battery on the young lady herself. Her passion
for her new acquirement afforded scope for his enterprizing disposition.
She was really glad to see him whenever he came; questioned him about
the pictures which existed in the old world, and, with a mixture of
wonder and curiosity, began to think that there was magic in an art,
that produced the effects which he described. With all the enthusiasm of
youth, she tried to improve herself, and the alacrity with which she
welcomed her master, or hurried to his school, looked almost
like--Whitelock could not exactly tell what, but here was ground to work
upon.
When Fitzhenry went on the expedition already mentioned, Ethel gave up
all her time, with renewed ardour, to her favourite pursuit. Early in
the morning she was seen tripping down to the school-house, accompanied
by her faithful negro woman. The attendant used her distaff and spindle,
Ethel her brush, and the hours flew unheeded. Whitelock would have been
glad that her eyes had not always been so intently fixed on the paper
before her. He proposed sketching from nature. They made studies from
trees, and contemplated the changing hues of earth and sky together.
While talking of tints, and tones of colour spread over the celestial
hemisphere and the earth beneath, were it not an easy transition to
speak of those which glistened in a lady's eye, or warmed her cheek? In
the solitude of his chamber, thus our adventurer reasoned; and wondered
each night why he hesitated to begin. Whitelock was short and ill-made.
His face was not of an agreeable cast: it was impossible to see him
without being impressed with the idea that he was a man of talent; but
he was otherwise decidedly ugly. This disadvantage was counterbalanced
by an overweening vanity, which is often to be remarked in those whose
personal defects place them a step below their fellows. He knew the
value of an appearance of devotion, and the power which an
acknowledgment of entire thraldom exercises over the feminine
imagination. He had succeeded ill with the father; but, after all, the
surest way was to captivate the daughter: the affection of her parent
would induce him to ratify any step necessary to her happiness; and the
chance afforded by this parent's absence for putting his plan into
execution, might never again occur--why then delay?
It was, perhaps, strange that Fitzhenry, alive to the smallest evil that
might approach his darling child, and devoted to her sole guardianship,
should have been blind to the sort of danger which she ran during his
absence. But the paternal protection is never entirely efficient. A
father avenges an insult; but he has seldom watchfulness enough to
prevent it. In the present instance, the extreme youth of Ethel might
well serve as an excuse. She was scarcely fifteen; and, light-hearted
and blithe, none but childish ideas had found place in her unruffled
mind. Her father yet regarded her as he had done when she was wont to
climb his knee, or to gambol before him: he still looked forward to her
womanhood as to a distant event, which would necessitate an entire
change in his mode of living, but which need not for several years enter
into his calculations. Thus, when he departed, he felt glad to get rid,
for a time, of Whitelock's disagreeable society; but it never crossed
his imagination that his angelic girl could be annoyed or injured,
meanwhile, by the presumptuous advances of a man whom he despised.
Ethel knew nothing of the language of love. She had read of it in her
favourite poets; but she was yet too young and guileless to apply any of
its feelings to herself. Love had always appeared to her blended with
the highest imaginative beauty and heroism, and thus was in her eyes, at
once awful and lovely. Nothing had vulgarized it to her. The greatest
men were its slaves, and according as their choice fell on the worthy or
unworthy, they were elevated or disgraced by passion. It was the part of
a woman so to refine and educate her mind, as to be the cause of good
alone to him whose fate depended on her smile. There was something of
the Orondates' vein in her ideas; but they were too vague and general to
influence her actions. Brought up in American solitude, with all the
refinement attendant on European society, she was aristocratic, both as
regarded rank and sex; but all these were as yet undeveloped
feelings--seeds planted by the careful paternal hand, not yet called
into life or growth.
Whitelock began his operations, and was obliged to be explicit to be at
all understood. He spoke of misery and despair; he urged no plea, sought
no favour, except to be allowed to speak of his wretchedness. Ethel
listened--Eve listened to the serpent, and since then, her daughters
have been accused of an aptitude to give ear to forbidden discourse. He
spoke well, too, for he was a man of unquestioned talent. It is a
strange feeling for a girl, when first she finds the power put into her
hand of influencing the destiny of another to happiness or misery. She
is like a magician holding for the first time a fairy wand, not having
yet had experience of its potency. Ethel had read of the power of love;
but a doubt had often suggested itself, of how far she herself should
hereafter exercise the influence which is the attribute of her sex.
Whitelock dispelled that doubt. He impressed on her mind the idea that
he lived or died through her fiat.
For one instant, vanity awoke in her young heart; and she tripped back
to her home with a smile of triumph on her lips. The feeling was
short-lived. She entered her father's library; and his image appeared to
rise before her, to regulate and purify her thoughts. If he had been
there, what could she have said to him--she who never concealed a
thought?--or how would he have received the information she had to give?
What had happened, had not been the work of a day; Whitelock had for a
week or two proceeded in an occult and mysterious manner: but this day
he had withdrawn the veil; and she understood much that had appeared
strange in him before. The dark, expressive eyes of her father she
fancied to be before her, penetrating the depths of her soul,
discovering her frivolity, and censuring her lowly vanity; and, even
though alone, she felt abashed. Our faults are apt to assume giant and
exaggerated forms to our eyes in youth, and Ethel felt degraded and
humiliated; and remorse sprung up in her gentle heart, substituting
itself for the former pleasurable emotion.
The young are always in extremes. Ethel put away her drawings and
paintings. She secluded herself in her home; and arranged so well, that
notwithstanding the freedom of American manners, Whitelock contrived to
catch but a distant glimpse of her during the one other week that
intervened before her father's return. Troubled at this behaviour, he
felt his bravery ooze out. To have offended Fitzhenry, was an unwise
proceeding, at best; but when he remembered the haughty and reserved
demeanour of the man, he recoiled, trembling, from the prospect of
encountering him.
Ethel was very concise in the expressions she used, to make her father,
on his return, understand what had happened during his absence.
Fitzhenry heard her with indignation and bitter self-reproach. The
natural impetuosity of his disposition returned on him, like a stream
which had been checked in its progress, but which had gathered strength
from the delay. On a sudden, the future, with all its difficulties and
trials, presented itself to his eyes; and he was determined to go out to
meet them, rather than to await their advent in his seclusion. His
resolution formed and he put it into immediate execution: he would
instantly quit the Illinois. The world was before him; and while he
paused on the western shores of the Atlantic, he could decide upon his
future path. But he would not remain where he was another season. The
present, the calm, placid present, had fled like morning mist before the
new risen breeze: all appeared dark and turbid to his heated
imagination. Change alone could appease the sense of danger that had
risen within him. Change of place, of circumstances,--of all that for
the last twelve years had formed his life. "How long am I to remain at
peace?"--the prophetic voice heard in the silence of the forests,
recurred to his memory, and thrilled through his frame. "Peace! was I
ever at peace? Was this unquiet heart ever still, as, one by one, the
troubled thoughts which are its essence, have risen and broken against
the barriers that embank them? Peace! My own Ethel!--all I have
done--all I would do--is to gift thee with that blessing which has for
ever fled the thirsting lips of thy unhappy parent." And thus, governed
by a fevered fancy and untamed passions, Fitzhenry forgot the tranquil
lot which he had learnt to value and enjoy; and quitting the haven he
had sought, as if it had never been a place of shelter to him,
unthankful for the many happy hours which had blessed him there, he
hastened to reach the stormier seas of life, whose breakers and whose
winds were ready to visit him with shipwreck and destruction.
CHAPTER V
"The boy is father of the man."
WORDSWORTH.
Fitzhenry having formed his resolution, acted upon it immediately: and
yet, while hastening every preparation for his departure, he felt return
upon him that inquietude and intolerable sense of suffering, which of
late years had subsided in his soul. Now and then it struck him as
madness to quit his house, his garden, the trees of his planting, the
quiet abode which he had reared in the wilderness. He gave his orders,
but he was unable to command himself to attend to any of the minuti of
circumstance connected with his removal. As when he first arrived, again
he sought relief in exercise and the open air. He felt each ministration
of nature to be his friend, and man, in every guise, to be his enemy. He
was about to plunge among them again. What would be the result?
Yet this was no abode for the opening bloom of Ethel. For her good his
beloved and safe seclusion must be sacrificed, and that he was acting
for her benefit, and not his own, served to calm his mind. She
contemplated their migration with something akin to joy. We could almost
believe that we are destined by Providence to an unsettled position on
the globe, so invariably is a love of change implanted in the young. It
seems as if the eternal Lawgiver intended that, at a certain age, man
should leave father, mother, and the dwelling of his infancy, to seek
his fortunes over the wide world. A few natural tears Ethel shed--they
were not many. She, usually so resigned and quiet in her feelings, was
now in a state of excitement: dreamy, shadowy visions floated before her
of what would result from her journey, and curiosity and hope gave life
and a bright colouring to the prospect.
The day came at last. On the previous Sunday she had knelt for the last
time in church on the little hassock which had been her's from infancy,
and walked along the accustomed pathway towards her home for the last
time. During the afternoon, she visited the village to bid adieu to her
few acquaintances. The sensitive refinement of Fitzhenry had caused him
to guard his daughter jealously from familiar intercourse with their
fellow settlers, even as a child. But she had been accustomed to enter
the poorer cottages, to assist the distressed, and now and then to
partake of tea drinking with the minister. This personage, however, was
not stationary. At one time they had had a venerable old man whom Ethel
had begun to love; but latterly, the pastor had not been a person to
engage her liking, and this had loosened her only tie with her fellow
colonists.
The day came. The father and daughter, with three attendants, entered
their carriage, and wound along the scarcely formed road. One by one
they passed, and lost sight of objects, that for many years had been
woven in with the texture of their lives. Fitzhenry was sad. Ethel wept,
unconstrainedly, plentiful showery tears, which cost so much less to the
heart, than the few sorrowful drops which, in after life, we expend upon
our woes. Still as they proceeded the objects that met their eyes became
less familiar and less endeared. They began to converse, and when they
arrived at their lodging for the night, Ethel was cheerful, and her
father, mastering the unquiet feelings which disturbed him, exerted
himself to converse with her on such topics as would serve to introduce
her most pleasantly to the new scenes which she was about to visit.
There was one object, however, which lay nearest to the emigrant's
heart, to which he had not yet acquired courage to allude; his own
position in the world, his former fortunes, and the circumstances that
had driven him from Europe, to seek peace and obscurity in the
wilderness. It was a strange tale; replete with such incidents as could
scarcely be made intelligible to the nursling of solitude--one difficult
for a father to disclose to his daughter; involving besides a
consideration of his future conduct, to which he did not desire to make
her a party. Thus they talked of the cities they might see, and the
strange sights she would behold, and but once did her father refer to
their own position. After a long silence, on his part sombre and
abstracted--as Prospero asked the ever sweet Miranda, so did Fitzhenry
inquire of his daughter, if she had memory of aught preceding their
residence in the Illinois? And Ethel, as readily as Miranda, replied in
the affirmative.
"And what, my love, do you remember? Gold-laced liveries and spacious
apartments?"
Ethel shook her head. "It may be the memory of a dream that haunts me,"
she replied, "and not a reality; but I have frequently the image before
me, of having been kissed and caressed by a beautiful lady, very richly
dressed."
Fitzhenry actually started at this reply. "I have often conjectured,"
continued Ethel, "that that lovely vision was my dear mother; and that
when--when you lost her, you despised all the rest of the world, and
exiled yourself to America."
Ethel looked inquiringly at her father as she made this leading remark;
but he in a sharp and tremulous accent repeated the words, "Lost her!"
"Yes," said Ethel, "I mean, is she not lost--did she not die?"
Fitzhenry sighed heavily, and turning his head towards the window on his
side, became absorbed in thought, and Ethel feared to disturb him by
continuing the conversation.
It has not been difficult all along for the reader to imagine, that the
lamented brother of the honourable Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry and the
exile of the Illinois are one; and while father and daughter are
proceeding on their way towards New York, it will be necessary, for the
interpretation of the ensuing pages, to dilate somewhat on the previous
history of the father of our lovely heroine.
It may be remembered, that Henry Fitzhenry was the only son of Admiral
Lord Lodore. He was, from infancy, the pride of his father and the idol of
his sister; and the lives of both were devoted to exertions for his
happiness and well-being. The boy soon became aware of their extravagant
fondness, and could not do less in consequence than fancy himself a
person of considerable importance. The distinction that Lord Lodore's
title and residence bestowed upon Longfield made his son and heir a
demigod among the villagers. As he rode through it on his pony, every
one smiled on him and bowed to him; and the habit of regarding himself
superior to all the world, became too much an habit to afford triumph,
though any circumstances that had lessened his consequence in his own
eyes would have been matter of astonishment and indignation. His
personal beauty was the delight of the women, his agility and hardihood
the topic of the men of the village. For although essentially spoiled,
he was not pampered in luxury. His father, with all his fondness, would
have despised him heartily had he not been inured to hardship, and
rendered careless of it. Rousseau might have passed his approbation upon
his physical education, while his moral nurture was the most
perniciously indulgent. Thus, at the same time, his passions were
fostered, and he possessed none of those habits of effeminacy, which
sometimes stand in the gap, preventing our young self-indulged
aristocracy from rebelling against the restraints of society. Still
generous and brave as was his father, benevolent and pious as was his
sister, Henry Fitzhenry was naturally led to love their virtues, and to
seek their approbation by imitating them. He would not wantonly have
inflicted a pang upon a human being; yet he exerted any power he might
possess to quell the smallest resistance to his desires; and unless when
they were manifested in the most intelligible manner, he scarcely knew
that his fellow-creatures had any feelings at all, except pride and
gladness in serving him, and gratitude when he showed them kindness. Any
poor family visited by rough adversity, any unfortunate child enduring
unjust oppression, he assisted earnestly and with all his heart. He was
courageous as a lion, and, upon occasion, soft-hearted and pitiful; but
once roused to anger by opposition, his eyes darted fire, his little
form swelled, his boyish voice grew big, nor could he be pacified except
by the most entire submission on the part of his antagonist.
Unfortunately for him, submission usually followed any stand made
against his authority, for it was always a contest with an inferior, and
he was never brought into wholesome struggle with an equal.
At the age of thirteen he went to Eton, and here every thing wore an
altered and unpleasing aspect. Here were no servile menials nor humble
friends. He stood one among many--equals, superiors, inferiors, all full
of a sense of their own rights, their own powers; he desired to lead,
and he had no followers; he wished to stand aloof, and his dignity, even
his privacy, was perpetually invaded. His schoolfellows soon discovered
his weakness--it became a bye-word among them, and was the object of
such practical jokes, as seemed to the self-idolizing boy, at once
frightful and disgusting. He had no resource. Did he lay his length
under some favourite tree to dream of home and independence, his
tormentors were at hand with some new invention to rouse and molest him.
He fixed his large dark eyes on them, and he curled his lips in scorn,
trying to awe them by haughtiness and frowns, and shouts of laughter
replied to the concentrated passion of his soul. He poured forth
vehement invective, and hootings were the answer. He had one other
resource, and that in the end proved successful:--a pitched battle or
two elevated him in the eyes of his fellows, and as they began to
respect him, so he grew in better humour with them and with himself. His
good-nature procured him friends, and the sun once more shone unclouded
upon him.
Yet this was not all. He put himself foremost among a troop of wild and
uncivilized school-boys; but he was not of them. His tastes, fostered in
solitude, were at once more manly and dangerous than theirs. He could
not distinguish the nice line drawn by the customs of the place between
a pardonable resistance, or rather evasion of authority, and rebellion
against it; and above all, he could not submit to practise equivocation
and deceit. His first contests were with his school-fellows, his next
were with his masters. He would not stoop to shows of humility, nor tame
a nature accustomed to take pride in daring and independence. He
resented injustice wherever he encountered or fancied it; he equally
spurned it when practised on himself, or defended others when they were
its object--freedom was the watchword of his heart. Freedom from all
trammels, except those of which he was wholly unconscious, imposed on
him by his passions and pride. His good-nature led him to side with the
weak; and he was indignant that his mere fiat did not suffice to raise
them to his own level, or that his representations did not serve to open
the eyes of all around him to the true merits of any disputed question.
He had a friend at school. A youth whose slender frame, fair, effeminate
countenance, and gentle habits, rendered him ridiculous to his fellows,
while an unhappy incapacity to learn his allotted tasks made him in
perpetual disgrace with his masters. The boy was unlike the rest; he had
wild fancies and strange inexplicable ideas. He said he was a mystery to
himself--he was at once so wise and foolish. The mere aspect of a
grammar inspired him with horror, and a kind of delirious stupidity
seized him in the classes; and yet he could discourse with eloquence,
and pored with unceasing delight over books of the abstrusest
philosophy. He seemed incapable of feeling the motives and impulses of
other boys: when they jeered him, he would answer gravely with some
story of a ghastly spectre, and tell wild legends of weird beings, who
roamed through the dark fields by night, or sat wailing by the banks of
streams: was he struck, he smiled and turned away; he would not fag; he
never refused to learn, but could not; he was the scoff, and butt, and
victim, of the whole school.
Fitzhenry stood forward in his behalf, and the face of things was
changed. He insisted that his friend should have the same respect paid
him as himself, and the boys left off tormenting him. When they ceased
to injure, they began to like him, and he had soon a set of friends whom
he solaced with his wild stories and mysterious notions. But his
powerful advocate was unable to advance his cause with his masters, and
the cruelty exercised on him revolted Fitzhenry's generous soul. One
day, he stood forth to expostulate, and to show wherefore Derham should
not be punished for a defect, that was not his fault. He was ordered to
be silent, and he retorted the command with fierceness. As he saw the
slender, bending form of his friend seized to be led to punishment, he
sprang forward to rescue him. This open rebellion astounded every one; a
kind of consternation, which feared to show the gladness it felt,
possessed the boyish subjects of the tyro kingdom. Force conquered;
Fitzhenry was led away; and the masters deliberated what sentence to
pass on him. He saved them from coming to a conclusion by flight.
He hid himself during the day in Windsor Forest, and at night he entered
Eton, and scaling a wall, tapped at the bedroom window of his friend.
"Come," said he, "come with me. Leave these tyrants to eat their own
hearts with rage--my home shall be your home."
Derham embraced him, but would not consent. "My mother," he said, "I
have promised my mother to bear all;" and tears gushed from his large
light blue eyes; "but for her, the green grass of this spring were
growing on my grave. I dare not pain her."
"Be it so," said Fitzhenry; "nevertheless, before the end of a month,
you shall be free. I am leaving this wretched place, where men rule
because they are strong, for my father's house. I never yet asked for a
thing that I ought to have, that it was not granted me. I am a boy here,
there I am a man--and can do as men do. Representations shall be made to
your parents; you shall be taken from school; we shall be free and happy
together this summer at Longfield. Good night; I have far to walk, for
the stage coachmen would be shy of me near Eton; but I shall get to
London on foot, and sleep to-morrow in my father's house. Keep up your
heart, Derham, be a man--this shall not last long; we shall triumph
yet."
CHAPTER VI
What is youth? a dancing billow,
Winds behind, and rocks before!
WORDSWORTH.
This exploit terminated Fitzhenry's career at Eton. A private tutor was
engaged, who resided with the family, for the purpose of preparing him
for college, and at the age of seventeen he was entered at Oxford. He
still continued to cultivate the friendship of Derham. This youth was
the younger son of a rich and aristocratic family, whose hopes and cares
centred in their heir, and who cared little for the comfort of the
younger. Derham had been destined for the sea, and scarcely did his
delicate health, and timid, nervous disposition exempt him from the
common fate of a boy, whose parents did not know what to do with him.
The next idea was to place him in the church; and at last, at his
earnest entreaty, he was permitted to go abroad, to study at one of the
German universities, so to prepare himself, by a familiarity with modern
languages, for diplomacy.
It was singular how well Fitzhenry and his sensitive friend agreed;--the
one looked up with unfeigned admiration--the other felt attracted by a
mingled compassion and respect, that flattered his vanity, and yet
served as excitement and amusement. From Derham, Fitzhenry imbibed in
theory much of that contempt of the world's opinion, and carelessness of
consequences, which was inherent in the one, but was an extraneous graft
on the proud and imperious spirit of the other. Derham looked with calm
yet shy superiority on his fellow-creatures. Yet superiority is not the
word, since he did not feel himself superior to, but different
from--incapable of sympathizing or extracting sympathy, he turned away
with a smile, and pursued his lonely path, thronged with visions and
fancies--while his friend, when he met check or rebuff, would fire up,
his eyes sparkling, his bosom heaving with intolerable indignation.
After two years spent at Oxford, instead of remaining to take his
degree, Fitzhenry made an earnest request to be permitted to visit his
friend, who was then at Jena. It was but anticipating the period for his
travels, and upon his promise to pursue his studies abroad, he won a
somewhat reluctant consent from his father. Once on the continent, the
mania of travelling seized him. He visited Italy, Poland, and Russia: he
bent his wayward steps from north to south, as the whim seized him. He
became of age, and his father earnestly desired his return: but again
and again he solicited permission to remain, from autumn till spring,
and from spring till autumn, until the very flower of his youth seemed
destined to be wasted in aimless rambles, and an intercourse with
foreigners, that must tend to unnationalize him, and to render him unfit
for a career in his own country. Growing accustomed to regulate his own
actions, he changed the tone of request into that of announcing his
intentions. At length, he was summoned home to attend the death-bed of
his father. He paid the last duties to his remains, provided for the
comfortable establishment of his sister in the family mansion at
Longfield, and then informed her of his determination of returning
immediately to Vienna.
During this visit he had appeared to live rather in a dream than in the
actual world. He had mourned for his father; he paid the most
affectionate attentions to his sister; but this formed, as it were, the
surface of things; a mightier impulse ruled his inner mind. His life
seemed to depend upon certain letters which he received; and when the
day had been occupied by business, he passed the night in writing
answers. He was often agitated in the highest degree, almost always
abstracted in reverie. The outward man--the case of Lodore was in
England--his passionate and undisciplined soul was far away, evidently in
the keeping of another.
Elizabeth, sorrowing for the loss of her father, was doubly afflicted
when she heard that it was her brother's intention to quit England
immediately. She had fondly hoped that he would, adorned by his
newly-inherited title, and endowed with the gifts of fortune, step upon
the stage of the world, and shine forth the hero of his age and country.
Her affections, her future prospects, her ambition, were all centred in
him; and it was a bitter pang to feel that the glory of these was to be
eclipsed by the obscurity and distant residence which he preferred.
Accustomed to obedience, and to regard the resolutions of the men about
her, as laws with which she had no right to interfere, she did not
remonstrate, she only wept. Moved by her tears, Lord Lodore made the
immense sacrifice of one month to gratify her, which he spent in reading
and writing letters at Longfield, in pacing the rooms or avenues absorbed
in reverie, or in riding over the most solitary districts, with no object
apparently in view, except that of avoiding his fellow-creatures.
Elizabeth had the happiness of seeing the top of his head as he leant
over his desk in the library, from a little hillock in the garden, which
she sought for the purpose of beholding that blessed vision. She enjoyed
also the pleasure of hearing him pace his room during the greater part
of the night. Sometimes he conversed with her, and then how like a god
he seemed! His extensive acquaintance with men and things, the novel but
choice language in which he clothed his ideas; his vivid descriptions,
his melodious voice, and the exquisite grace of his manner, made him
rise like the planet of day upon her. Too soon her sun set. If ever she
hinted at the prolongation of his stay, he grew moody, and she
discovered with tearful anguish that his favourite ride was towards the
sea, often to the very shore: "I seem half free when I only look upon
the waves," he said; "they remind me that the period of liberty is at
hand, when I shall leave this dull land for----"
A sob from his sister checked his speech, and he repented his
ingratitude. Yet when the promised month had elapsed, he did not defer
his journey a single day: already had he engaged his passage at Harwich.
A fair wind favoured his immediate departure. Elizabeth accompanied him
on board, almost she wished to be asked to sail with him. No word but
that of a kind adieu was uttered by him. She returned to shore, and
watched his lessening sail. Wherefore did he leave his native country?
Wherefore return to reside in lands, whose language, manners, and
religion, were all at variance with his own? These questions occupied
the gentle spinster's thoughts; she had little except such meditations
to vary the hours, as years stole on unobserved, and she continued to
spend her blameless tranquil days in her native village.
The new Lord Lodore was one of those men, not unfrequently met with in the
world, whose early youth is replete with mighty promise; who, as they
advance in life, continue to excite the expectation, the curiosity, and
even the enthusiasm of all around them; but as the sun on a stormy day
now and then glimmers forth, giving us hopes of conquering brightness,
and yet slips down to its evening eclipse without redeeming the pledge;
so do these men present every appearance of one day making a conspicuous
figure, and yet to the end, as it were, they only gild the edges of the
clouds in which they hide themselves, and arrive at the term of life,
the promise of its dawn unfulfilled. Passion, and the consequent
engrossing occupations, usurped the place of laudable ambition and
useful exertion. He wasted his nobler energies upon pursuits which were
mysteries to the world, yet which formed the sum of his existence. It
was not that he was destitute of loftier aspirations. Ambition was the
darling growth of his soul--but weeds and parasites, an unregulated and
unpruned overgrowth, twisted itself around the healthier plant, and
threatened its destruction.
Sometimes he appeared among the English in the capital towns of the
continent, and was always welcomed with delight. His manners were highly
engaging, a little reserved with men, unless they were intimates,
attentive to women, and to them a subject of interest, they scarcely
knew why. A mysterious fair one was spoken of as the cynosure of his
destiny, and some desired to discover his secret, while others would
have been glad to break the spell that bound him to this hidden star.
Often for months he disappeared altogether, and was spoken of as having
secluded himself in some unattainable district of northern Germany,
Poland, or Courland. Yet all these erratic movements were certainly
governed by one law, and that was love;--love unchangeable and intense,
else wherefore was he cold to the attractions of his fair countrywomen?
And why, though he gazed with admiration and interest on the families of
lovely girls, whose successive visitations on the continent strike the
natives with such wonder, why did he not select some distinguished
beauty, with blue eyes, and auburn locks, as the object of his exclusive
admiration? He had often conversed with such with seeming delight; but
he could withdraw from the fascination unharmed and free. Sometimes a
very kind and agreeable mamma contrived half to domesticate him; but
after lounging, and turning over music-books, and teaching steps for a
week, he was gone--a farewell card probably the only token of regret.
Yet he was universally liked, and the ladies were never weary of
auguring the time to be not far off, when he would desire to break the
chains that bound him;--and then--he must marry. He was so quiet, so
domestic, so gentle, that he would make, doubtless, a kind and
affectionate husband. Among Englishmen, he had a friend or two, by
courtesy so called, who were eager for him to return to his native
country, and to enter upon public life. He lent a willing ear to these
persuasions, and appeared annoyed at some secret necessity that
prevented his yielding to them. Once or twice he had said, that his
present mode of life should not last for ever, and that he would come
among them at no distant day. And yet years stole on, and mystery and
obscurity clouded him. He grew grave, almost sombre, and then almost
discontented. Any one habituated to him might have discovered struggles
beneath the additional seriousness of his demeanour--struggles that
promised final emancipation from his long-drawn thraldom.
CHAPTER VII
Men oftentimes prepare a lot,
Which ere it finds them, is not what
Suits with their genuine station.
SHELLEY.
At the age of thirty-two, Lord Lodore returned to England. It was subject
of discussion among his friends, whether this was to be a merely temporary
visit, or whether he was about to establish himself finally in his own
country. Meanwhile, he became the lion of the day. As the reputed slave
of the fair sex, he found favour in their gentle eyes. Even blooming
fifteen saw all that was romantic and winning in his subdued and
graceful manners, and in the melancholy which dwelt in his dark eyes.
The chief fault found with him was, that he was rather taciturn, and
that, from whatever cause, woman had apparently ceased to influence his
soul to love. He avoided intimacies among them, and seemed to regard
them from afar, with observant but passionless eyes. Some spoke of a
spent volcano--others of a fertile valley ravaged by storms, and turned
into a desert; while many cherished the hope of renewing the flame, or
of replanting flowers on the arid soil.
Lord Lodore had just emancipated himself from an influence, which had
become the most grievous slavery, from the moment it had ceased to be a
voluntary servitude. He had broken the ties that had so long held him;
but this had not been done without such difficulties and struggles, as
made freedom less delightful, from the languor and regret that
accompanied victory. Lodore had formed but one resolve, which was not to
entangle himself again in unlawful pursuits, where the better energies
of his mind were to be spent in forging deceptions, and tranquillizing
the mind of a jealous and unhappy woman. He entertained a vague wish to
marry, and to marry one whom his judgment, rather than his love, should
select;--an unwise purpose, good in theory, but very defective in
practice. Besides this new idea of marrying, which he buried as a
profound secret in his own bosom, he wished to accustom himself to the
manners and customs of his own country, so as to enable him to enter
upon public life. He was fond of the country in England, and entered
with zeal upon the pleasures of the chace. He liked the life led at the
seats of the great, and endeavoured to do his part in amusing those
around him.
Yet he did not feel one of them. Above all, he did not feel within him
the charm of life, the glad spirit that looks on each returning day as a
blessing; and which, gilding every common object with its own
brightness, requires no lustre unborrowed from itself. All things palled
upon Lodore. The light laughter and gentle voices of women were vacant of
attraction; his sympathy was not excited by the discussions or pursuits
of men. After striving for a whole year to awaken in himself an interest
for some one person or thing, and finding all to be "vanity,"--towards
the close of a season in town, of extreme brilliancy and variety to
common eyes--of dulness and sameness to his morbid sense, he suddenly
withdrew himself from the haunts of men, and plunging into solitude,
tried to renovate his soul by self-communings, and an intercourse with
silent, but most eloquent, Nature.
Youth wasted; affections sown on sand, barren of return; wealth and
station flung as weeds upon the rocks; a name, whose "gold" was
"o'erdusted" by the inertness of its wearer;--such were the
retrospections that haunted his troubled mind. He envied the ploughboy,
who whistled as he went; and the laborious cottager, who each Saturday
bestowed upon his family the hard-won and scanty earnings of the week.
He pined for an aim in life--a bourne--a necessity, to give zest to his
palled appetite, and excitement to his satiated soul. It seemed to him
that he could hail poverty and care as blessings; and that the dearest
gifts of fortune--youth, health, rank, and riches--were disguised
curses. All these he possessed, and despised. Gnawing discontent;
energy, rebuked and tamed into mere disquietude, for want of a proper
object, preyed upon his soul. Where could a remedy be found? No "green
spot" of delight soothed his memory; no cheering prospect appeared in
view; all was arid, gloomy, unsunned upon.
He had wandered into Wales. He was charmed with the scenery and solitude
about Rhyaider Gowy, in Radnorshire, which lies amidst romantic
mountains, and in immediate vicinity to a cataract of the Wye. He fixed
himself for some months in a convenient mansion, which he found to let,
at a few miles from that place. Here he was secure from unwelcome
visitors, or any communication with the throng he had left. He
corresponded with no one, read no newspapers. He passed his day,
loitering beside waterfalls, clambering the steep mountains, or making
longer excursions on horseback, always directing his course away from
high roads or towns. His past life had been sufficiently interesting to
afford scope for reverie; and as he watched the sunbeams as they climbed
the hills at evening, or the shadows of the clouds as they careered
across the valleys, his heart by turns mourned or rejoiced over its
freedom, and the change that had come over it and stilled its warring
passions.
The only circumstance that in the least entrenched upon his feeling of
entire seclusion, was the mention, not unfrequently made to him, by his
servants, of the "ladies at the farm." The idea of these "ladies" at
first annoyed him; but the humble habitation which they had
chosen--humble to poverty--impressed him with the belief that, however
the "ladies" might awe-strike the Welsh peasantry, he should find in
them nothing that would impress him with the idea of station. Two or
three times, at the distant sight of a bonnet, instead of the Welsh hat,
he had altered his course to avoid the wearer. Once he had suddenly come
on one of these wonders of the mountains: she might have passed for a
very civilized kind of abigail; but, of course, she was one of the
"ladies."
As Lodore was neither a poet nor a student, he began at last to tire of
loneliness. He was a little ashamed when he remembered that he had taken
his present abode for a year: however, he satisfied his conscience by a
resolve to return to it; and began seriously to plan crossing the
country, to visit his sister in Essex. He was, during one of his rides,
deliberating on putting this resolve into execution on the very next
morning, when suddenly he was overtaken by a storm. The valley, through
which his path wound, was narrow, and the gathering clouds over head
made it dark as night; the lightning flashed with peculiar brightness;
and the thunder, loud and bellowing, was re-echoed by the hills, and
reverberated along the sky in terrific pealings. It was more like a
continental storm than any which Lodore had ever witnessed in England,
and imparted to him a sensation of thrilling pleasure; till, as the rain
came down in torrents, he began to think of seeking some shelter, at
least for his horse. Looking round for this, he all at once perceived a
vision of white muslin beneath a ledge of rock, which could but half
protect the gentle wearer: frightened she was, too, as a slight shriek
testified, when a bright flash, succeeded instantaneously by a loud peal
of thunder, bespoke the presence of something like danger. Lodore's
habitual tenderness of nature rendered it no second thought with him to
alight and offer his services; and he was fully repaid when he saw her,
who hailed with gladness a protector, though too frightened to smile, or
scarcely to speak. She was very young, and more beautiful, Lodore was at
once assured, than any thing he had ever before beheld. Her fairness,
increased by the paleness of terror, was even snowy; her hair, scarcely
dark enough for chesnut, too dark for auburn, clustered in rich curls on
her brow; her eyes were dark grey, long, and full of expression, as they
beamed from beneath their deeply-fringed lids. But such description says
little; it was not the form of eye or the brow's arch, correct and
beautiful as these were, in this lovely girl, that imparted her peculiar
attraction; beyond these, there was a radiance, a softness, an angel
look, that rendered her countenance singular in its fascination; an
expression of innocence and sweetness; a pleading gentleness that
desired protection; a glance that subdued, because it renounced all
victory; and this, now animated by fear, quickly excited, in Lodore, the
most ardent desire to re-assure and serve her. She leant, as she stood,
against the rock--now hiding her face with her hands--now turning her
eyes to her stranger companion, as if in appeal or disbelief; while he
again and again protested that there was no danger, and strove to guard
her from the rain, which still descended with violence. The thunder died
away, and the lightning soon ceased to flash, but this continued; and
while the colour revisited the young girl's cheek, and her smiles,
displaying a thousand dimples, lighted up new charms, a fresh uneasiness
sprung up in her of how she could get home. Her chaussure, ill-fitted
even for the mountains, could not protect her for a moment from the wet.
Lodore offered his horse, and pledged himself for its quietness, and his
care, if she could contrive to sit in the saddle. He lifted her light
form on to it; but the high-bred animal, beginning a little to prance,
she threw herself off into the arms of her new friend, in a transport of
terror, which Lodore could by no means assuage. What was to be done? He
felt, light as she was, that he could carry her the short half-mile to
her home; but this could not be offered. The rain was now over; and her
only resource was to brave the humid soil in kid slippers. With
considerable difficulty, half the journey was accomplished, when they
met the "lady" whom Lodore had before seen;--really the maid in
attendance, who had come out to seek her young mistress, and to declare
that "my lady" was beside herself with anxiety on her account.
Lodore still insisted on conducting his young charge to her home; and the
next day it was but matter of politeness to call to express his hope that
she had not suffered from her exposure to the weather. He found the lovely
girl, fresh as the morning, with looks all light and sweetness, seated
besides her mother, a lady whose appearance was not so prepossessing,
though adorned with more than the remains of beauty. She at once struck
Lodore as disagreeable and forbidding. Still she was cordial in her
welcome, grateful for his kindness, and so perfectly engrossed by the
thought of, and love for, her child, that Lodore felt his respect and
interest awakened.
An acquaintance, thus begun between the noble recluse and the "ladies of
the farm," proceeded prosperously. A month ago, would not have believed
that he should feel glad at finding two fair off-shoots of London
fashion dwelling so near his retreat; but even if solitude had not
rendered him tolerant, the loveliness of the daughter might well perform
a greater miracle. In the mother, he found good breeding, good nature,
and good sense. He soon became almost domesticated in their rustic
habitation.
Lady Santerre was of humble birth, the daughter of a solicitor of a
country town. She was handsome, and won the heart of Mr. Santerre, then
a minor, who was assisted by her father in the laudable endeavour to
obtain more money than his father allowed him. The young gentleman saw,
loved, and married. His parents were furiously angry, and tried to
illegalize the match; but he confirmed it when he came of age, and a
reconciliation with his family never took place. Mr. Santerre sold
reversions, turned expectations into money, and lived in the world. For
six years, his wife bloomed in the gay parterre of fashionable society,
when her husband's father died. Prosperity was to dawn on this event:
the new Sir John went down to attend his father's funeral; thence to
return to town, to be immersed in recoveries, settlements, and law. He
never returned. Riding across the country to a neighbour, his horse
shyed, reared, and threw him. His head struck against a fragment of
stone: a concussion of the brain ensued; and a fortnight afterwards, he
was enclosed beside his father, in the ancestral vault.
His widow was the mother of a daughter only; and her hopes and prospects
died with her husband. His brother, and heir, might have treated her
better in the sequel; but he was excessively irritated by the variety of
debts, and incumbrances, and lawsuits, he had to deal with. He chose to
consider the wife most to blame, and she and her child were treated as
aliens. He allowed them two hundred a year, and called himself generous.
This was all (for her father was not rich, and had a large family) that
poor Lady Santerre had to depend upon. She struggled on for some little
time, trying to keep up her connexions in the gay world; but poverty is
a tyrant, whose laws are more terrible than those of Draco. Lady
Santerre yielded, retired to Bath, and fixed her hopes on her daughter,
whom she resolved should hereafter make a splendid match. Her excessive
beauty promised to render this scheme feasible; and now that she was
nearly sixteen, her mother began to look forward anxiously. She had
retired to Wales this summer, that, by living with yet stricter economy,
she might be enabled, during the winter, to put her plans into execution
with greater ease.
Lord Lodore became intimate with the mother and daughter, and his
imagination speedily painted both in the most attractive colours. Here was
the very being his heart had pined for--a girl radiant in innocence and
youth, the nursling, so he fancied, of mountains, waterfalls, and solitude;
yet endowed with all the softness and refinement of civilized society. Long
forgotten emotions awoke in his heart, and he gave himself up to the
bewildering feelings that beset him. Every thing was calculated to
excite his interest. The desolate situation of the mother, devoted to
her daughter only, and that daughter fairer than imagination could
paint, young, gentle, blameless, knowing nothing beyond obedience to her
parent, and untaught in the guile of mankind. It was impossible to see
that intelligent and sweet face, and not feel that to be the first to
impress love in the heart which it mirrored, was a destiny which angles
might envy. How proud a part was his, to gift her with rank, fortune,
and all earthly blessings, and to receive in return, gratitude,
tenderness, and unquestioning submission! If love did not, as thus he
reasoned, show itself in the tyrant guise it had formerly assumed in the
heart of Lodore, it was the more welcome a guest. It spoke not of the
miseries of passion, but offered a bright view of lengthened days of
peace and contentedness. He was not a slave at the feet of his mistress,
but he could watch each gesture and catch each sound of her voice, and
say, goodness and beauty are there, and I shall be happy.
He found the lovely girl somewhat ignorant; but white paper to be
written upon at will, is a favourite metaphor among those men who have
described the ideal of a wife. That she had talent beyond what he had
usually found in women, he was delighted to remark. At first she was
reserved and shy. Little accustomed to society, she sat beside her
mother in something of a company attitude; her eyes cast down, her lips
closed. She was never to be found alone, and a jeune personne in France
could scarcely be more retired and tranquil. This accorded better with
Lodore's continental experience, than the ease of English fashionable
girls, and he was pleased. He conversed little with Cornelia until he had
formed his determination, and solicited her mother's consent to their
union. Then they were allowed to walk together, and she gained on him,
as their intimacy increased. She was very lively, witty, and full of
playful fancy. Aware of her own deficiencies in education, she was the
first to laugh at herself, and to make such remarks as showed an
understanding worth all the accomplishments in the world. Lodore now
really found himself in love, and blessed the day that led him from
among the fair daughters of fashion to this child of nature. His wayward
feelings were to change no more--his destiny was fixed. At thirty-four
to marry, to settle into the father of a family, his hopes and wishes
concentrated in a home, adorned by one whose beauty was that of angels,
was a prospect that he dwelt upon each day with renewed satisfaction.
Nothing in after years could disturb his felicity, and the very security
with which he contemplated the future, imparted a calm delight, at once
new and grateful to a heart, weary of storms and struggles, and which,
in finding peace, believed that it possessed the consummation of human
happiness.
CHAPTER VIII
Hopes, what are they? beads of morning
Strung on slender blades of grass,
Or a spider's web adorning,
In a strait and treacherous pass.
WORDSWORTH.
The months of July, August, and September had passed away. Lord Lodore
enjoyed, during the two last, a singularly complacent state of mind. He had
come to Wales with worn-out spirits, a victim to that darker species of
ennui, which colours with gloomy tints the future as well as the
present, and is the ministering angel of evil to the rich and
prosperous. He despised himself, contemned his pursuits, and called all
vanity beneath the vivifying sun of heaven. Real misfortunes have worn
the guise of blessings to men so afflicted, but he was withdrawn from
this position, by a being who wore the outward semblance of an angel,
and from whom he felt assured nothing but good could flow.
Cornelia Santerre was lovely, vivacious, witty, and good-humoured; yet
strange to say, her new lover was not rendered happy so much by the
presence of these qualities, as by the promise which they gave for the
future. He loved her; he believed that she would be to the end of his
life a blessing and a delight; yet passion was scarcely roused in his
heart; it was "a sober certainty of waking bliss," and a reasonable
belief in the continuance of this state, that made him, while he loved
her, regard her rather as a benefactress than a mistress.
Benefactress is a strange word to use, especially as her extreme youth
was probably the cause that more intimate sympathies did not unite them,
and why passion entered so slightly into their intercourse. It is
possible, so great was the discrepancy of their age, and consequently of
their feelings and views of life, that Lodore would never have thought of
marrying Cornelia, but that Lady Santerre was at hand to direct the
machinery of the drama. She inspired him with the wish to gift her
angelic child with the worldly advantages which his wife must possess;
to play a god-like part, and to lift into prosperity and happiness, one
who seemed destined by fortune to struggle with adversity. Lady Santerre
was a worldly woman and an oily flatterer; Lodore had been accustomed to
feminine controul, and he yielded with docility to her silken fetters.
The ninth of October was Cornelia's sixteenth birthday, and on it she
became the wife of Lord Lodore. This event took place in the parish church
of Rhyaider Gowy, and it was communicated to "the world" in the newspapers.
Many discussions then arose as to who Miss Santerre could be. "The only
daughter of the late Sir John." The only late Sir John Santerre
remembered, was, in fact, the grandfather of the bride, and the hiatus
in her genealogy, caused by her father's death before he had been known
as a baronet, puzzled every fashionable gossip. The whole affair,
however, had been forgotten, when curiosity was again awakened in the
ensuing month of March, by an announcement in the Morning Post, of the
arrival of the noble pair at Mivart's. Lord Lodore had always rented a
box at the King's Theatre. It had been newly decorated at the beginning
of the season, and on the first Saturday in April all eyes turned
towards it as he entered, having the loveliest, fairest, and most
sylph-like girl, that ever trod dark earth, leaning on his arm. There
was a child-like innocence, a fascinating simplicity, joined to an
expression of vivacity and happiness, in Lady Lodore's countenance,
which impressed at first sight, as being the completion of feminine
beauty. She looked as if no time could touch, no ill stain her; artless
affection and amiable dependence spoke in each graceful gesture. Others
might be beautiful, but there was that in her, which seemed allied to
celestial loveliness.
Such was the prize Lord Lodore had won. The new-married pair took up their
residence in Berkeley-square, and here Lady Santerre joined them, and
took possession of the apartments appropriated to her use, under her
daughter's roof. All appeared bright on the outside, and each seemed
happy in each other. Yet had any one cared to remark, they had perceived
that Lodore looked even more abstracted than before his marriage. They
had seen, that, in the domestic coterie, mother and daughter were
familiar friends, sharing each thought and wish, but that Lodore was one
apart, banished, or exiling himself from the dearest blessings of
friendship and love. There might be no concealment, but also there was
no frankness between the pair. Neither practised disguise, but
there was no outpouring of the heart--no "touch of nature,"
which, passing like an electric shock, made their souls one.
An insurmountable barrier stood between Lodore and his happiness--between
his love and his wife's confidence; that this obstacle was a
shadow--undefined--formless--nothing--yet every thing, made it trebly
hateful, and rendered it utterly impossible that it should be removed.
The magician who had raised this ominous phantom, was Lady Santerre. She
was a clever though uneducated woman: perfectly selfish, soured with the
world, yet clinging to it. To make good her second entrance on its
stage, she believed it necessary to preserve unlimited sway over the
plastic mind of her daughter. If she had acted with integrity, her end
had been equally well secured; but unfortunately, she was by nature
framed to prefer the zig-zag to the straight line; added to which, she
was imperious, and could not bear a rival near her throne. From the
first, therefore, she exerted herself to secure her empire over
Cornelia; she spared neither flattery nor artifice; and, well acquainted
as she was with every habit and turn of her daughter's mind, her task
was comparatively easy.
The fair girl had been brought up (ah! how different from the sentiments
which Lodore had thought to find the natural inheritance of the mountain
child!) to view society as the glass by which she was to set her
feelings, and to which to adapt her conduct. She was ignorant,
accustomed to the most frivolous employments, shrinking from any mental
exercise, so that although her natural abilities were great, they lay
dormant, producing neither bud nor blossom, unless such might be called
the elegance of her appearance, and the charm of the softest and most
ingenuous manners in the world. When her husband would have educated her
mind, and withdrawn her from the dangers of dissipation, she looked on
his conduct as tyrannical and cruel. She retreated from his manly
guidance, to the pernicious guardianship of Lady Santerre, and she
sheltered herself at her side, from any effort Lodore might make for her
improvement.
Those who have never experienced a situation of this kind, cannot
understand it; the details appear trivial: there seems wanting but one
effort to push away the flimsy web, which, after all, is rather an
imaginary than real bondage. But the slightest description will bring it
home to those who have known it, and groaned beneath a despotism the more
intolerable, as it could be less defined. Lord Lodore found that he had no
home, no dear single-hearted bosom where he could find sympathy and to
which to impart pleasure. When he entered his drawing-room with gaiety
of spirit to impart some agreeable tidings, to ask his wife's advice, or
to propose some plan, Lady Santerre was ever by her side, with her hard
features and canting falsetto voice, checking at once the kindling
kindness of his soul, and he felt that all that he should say would be
turned from its right road, by some insidious remark, and the words he
was about to speak died upon his lips. When he looked forward through
the day, and would have given the world to have had his wife to himself,
and to have sought, in some drive or excursion, for the pleasant
unreserved converse he sighed for, Lady Santerre must be consulted; and
though she never opposed him, she always carried her point in opposition
to his. His wishes were made light of, and he was left to amuse himself,
and to know that his wife was imbibing the lessons of one, whom he had
learnt to despise and hate.
Lord Lodore cherished an ideal of what he thought a woman ought to be; but
he had no lofty opinion of woman as he had usually found her. He had
believed that the germ of all the excellencies which he esteemed was to
be found in Cornelia, and he found himself mistaken. He had expected to
find truth, clearness of spirit, and complying gentleness, the adorning
qualities of the unsophisticated girl, and he found her the willing
disciple of one whose selfish and artful character was in direct
contradiction to his own. Once or twice at the beginning, he had
attempted to withdraw his wife from this sinister influence, but Lady
Lodore highly resented any effort of this kind, and saw in it an
endeavour to make her neglect her first and dearest duties. Lodore,
angry that the wishes of another should be preferred to his, drew back
with disappointed pride; he disdained to enforce by authority, that
which he thought ought to be yielded to love. The bitter sense of
wounded affections was not to be appeased by knowing that, if he chose,
he could command that, which was worthless in his eyes, except as a
voluntary gift.
And here his error began; he had married one so young, that her
education, even if its foundation had been good, required finishing, and
who as it was, had every thing to learn. During the days of courtship he
had looked forward with pleasure to playing the tutor to his fair
mistress: but a tutor can do nothing without authority, either open or
concealed--a tutor must sacrifice his own pursuits and immediate
pleasures, to study and adapt himself to the disposition of his pupil.
As has been said of those who would acquire power in the state--they
must in some degree follow, if they would lead, and it is by adapting
themselves to the humour of those they would command, that they
establish the law of their own will, or of an apparent necessity. But
Lodore understood nothing of all this. He had been accustomed to be managed
by his mistress; he had been yielding, but it was because she contrived to
make his will her own; otherwise he was imperious: opposition startled
and disconcerted him, and he saw heartlessness in the want of
accommodation and compliance he met at home. He had expected from
Cornelia a girl's clinging fondness, but that was given to her mother;
nor did she feel the womanly tenderness, which sees in her husband the
safeguard from the ills of life, the shield to stand between her and the
world, to ward off its cruelties; a shelter from adversity, a refuge
when tempests were abroad. How could she feel this, who, proud in youth
and triumphant beauty, knew nothing of, and disbelieved the tales which
sages and old women tell of the perils of life? The world looked to her
a velvet strewn walk, canopied from every storm--her husband alone, who
endeavoured to reveal the reality of things to her, and to disturb her
visions, was the source of any sorrow or discomfort. She was buoyed up
by the supercilious arrogance of youth; and while inexperience rendered
her incapable of entering into the feelings of her husband, she
displayed towards him none of that deference, and yielding submission,
which might reasonably have been expected from her youth, but that her
mother was there to claim them for herself, and to inculcate, as far as
she could, that while she was her natural friend, Lodore was her natural
enemy.
He, with strong pride and crushed affections, gave himself up for a
disappointed man. He disdained to struggle with the sinister influence
of his mother-in-law; he did not endeavour to discipline and invigorate
the facile disposition of his bride. He had expected devotion,
attention, love; and he scorned to complain or to war against the
estrangement that grew up between them. If at any time he was impelled
by an overflowing heart to seek his fair wife's side, the eternal
presence of Lady Santerre chilled him at once; and to withdraw her from
this was a task difficult indeed to one who could not forgive the
competition admitted between them. At first he made one or two
endeavours to separate them; but the reception his efforts met with
galled his haughty soul; and while he cherished a deep and passionate
hatred for the cause, he grew to despise the victim of her arts. He
thought that he perceived duplicity, low-thoughted pride, and coldness
of heart, the native growth of the daughter of such a mother. He yielded
her up at once to the world and her parent, and resolved to seek, not
happiness, but occupation elsewhere. He felt the wound deeply, but he
sought no cure; and pride taught him to mask his soreness of spirit by a
studied mildness of manner, which, being joined to cold indifference,
and frequent contradiction, soon begot a considerable degree of
resentment, and even dislike on her part. Her mother's well-applied
flatteries and the adulation of her friends were contrasted with his
half-disguised contempt. The system of society tended to increase their
mutual estrangement. She embarked at once on the stream of fashion; and
her whole time was given up to the engagements and amusements that
flowed in on her on all sides; while he--one other regret added to many
previous ones--one other disappointment in addition to those which
already corroded his heart--bade adieu to every hope of domestic
felicity, and tried to create new interests for himself, seeking, in
public affairs, for food for a mind eager for excitement.
CHAPTER IX
What are fears, but voices airy
Whisp'ring harm, where harm is not?
And deluding the unwary.
Till the fatal bolt is shot?
WORDSWORTH.
Lord Lodore was disgusted at the very threshold of his new purpose. His
long residence abroad prevented his ever acquiring the habit of public
speaking; nor had he the respect for human nature, nor the enthusiasm
for a party or a cause, which is necessary for one who would make a
figure as a statesman. His sensitive disposition, his pride, which, when
excited, verged into arrogance; his uncompromising integrity, his
disdain of most of his associates, his incapacity of yielding obedience,
rendered his short political career one of struggle and mortification.
"And this is life!" he said; "abroad, to mingle with the senseless and
the vulgar; and at home, to find a--wife, who prefers the admiration of
fools, to the love of an honest heart!"
Within a year after her marriage, Lady Lodore gave birth to a daughter.
This circumstance, which naturally tends to draw the parents nearer,
unfortunately in this instance set them further apart. Lady Santerre had
been near, with so many restrictions and so much interference, which
though probably necessary, considering Cornelia's extreme youth, yet
seemed vexatious and impertinent to Lodore. All things appeared to be
permitted, except those which he proposed. A drive, a ride, even a walk
with him, was to be considered fatal; while, at the same time, Lady
Lodore was spending whole nights in heated rooms, and even dancing. Her
confinement was followed by a long illness; the child was nursed by a
stranger, secluded in a distant part of the house; and during her slow
recovery, the young mother seemed scarcely to remember that it existed.
The love for children is a passion often developed most fully in the
second stage of life. Lodore idolized his little offspring, and felt
hurt and angry when his wife, after it had been in her room a minute or
two, on the first approach it made to a squall, ordered it to be taken
away. At the time, in truth, she was reduced to the lowest ebb of
weakness; but Lodore, as men are apt to do, was slow to discern her
physical suffering, while his cheeks burnt with indignation, as she
peevishly repeated the command that his child should go.
When she grew better this was not mended. She was ordered into the
country for air, at a time when the little girl was suffering from some
infantine disorder, and could not be moved. It was left with its nurses,
but Lodore remained also, and rather suffered his wife to travel without
him, so to demonstrate openly, that he thought her treatment of her baby
unmotherly; not that he expressed this sentiment, nor did Lady Lodore
guess at it; she saw only his usual spirit of contradiction and neglect,
in his desertion of her at this period.
The mother pressed with careless lips the downy cheek of the little
cherub, and departed; while Lodore passed most of his time in the child's
apartment, or, turning his library into a nursery, it was continually
with him there. "Here," he thought, "I have something to live for,
something to love. And even though I am not loved in return, my heart's
sacrifice will not be repaid with insolence and contempt." But when the
infant began to show tokens of recognition and affection, when it smiled
and stretched out its little hands on seeing him, and crowed with
innocent pleasure; and still more, when the lisped paternal name fell
from its roseate lips--the father repeated more emphatically, "Here is
something that makes it worth while to have been born--to live!" An
illness of the child overwhelmed him with anxiety and despair. She
recovered; and he thanked God, with a lively emotion of joy, to which he
had long been a stranger.
His affection for his child augmented the annoyance which he derived
from his domestic circle. He had been hitherto sullenly yielding on any
contest; but whatever whim, or whatever plan, he formed with regard to
his daughter, he abided by unmoved, and took pleasure in manifesting his
partiality for her. Lodore was by nature a man of violent and dangerous
passions, add to which, his temper was susceptible to irritability. He
disdained to cope with the undue influence exercised by Lady Santerre
over his wife. He beheld in the latter, a frivolous, childish puppet,
endowed with the usual feminine infirmities--
"The love of pleasure, and the love of sway;"
and destitute of that tact and tenderness of nature which should teach
her where to yield and how to reign. He left her therefore to her own
devices, resolved only that he would not give up a single point relative
to his child, and consequently, according to the weakness of human
nature, ever ready to find fault with and prohibit all her wishes on the
subject.
Cornelia, accustomed to be guided by her mother's watchful artifices,
and to submit to a tyranny which assumed the guise of servitude, felt
only with the feelings implanted by her parent. She was not, like Lady
Santerre, heartless; but cherished pride, the effect of perpetual
misrepresentation, painted her as such. She looked on her husband as a
man essentially selfish--one who, worn out by passion, had married her
to beguile his hours during a visitation of ennui, and incapable of the
softness of love or the kindness of friendship. On occasion of his new
conduct with regard to her child, her haughty soul was in arms against
him, and something almost akin to hatred sprung up within her. She
resented his interference; she believed that his object was to deprive
her of the consolation of her daughter's love, and that his chief aim
was to annoy and insult her. She was jealous of her daughter with her
husband, of her husband with her daughter. If by some chance a word or
look passed that might have softened the mutual sentiment of distrust,
the evil genius of the scene was there to freeze again the genial
current; and any approach to kindness, by an inexplicable but certain
result, only tended to place them further apart than before.
Three winters had passed since their marriage, and the third spring was
merging into summer, while they continued in this state of warlike
neutrality. Any slight incident might have destroyed the fictitious
barriers erected by ill-will and guile between them; or, so precarious
was their state, any new event might change petty disagreements into
violent resentment, and prevent their ever entertaining towards each
other those feelings which, but for one fatal influence, would naturally
have had root between them. The third summer was come. They were
spending the commencement of it in London, when circumstances occurred,
unanticipated by either, which changed materially the course of their
domestic arrangements.
Lord Lodore returned home one evening at a little after eleven, from a
dinner-party, and found, as usual, his drawing-room deserted--Lady
Lodore had gone to a ball. He had returned in that humour to moralize,
which we so often bring from society into solitude; and he paced the
empty apartments with impatient step. "Home!--yes, this is my home! I
had hoped that gentle peace and smiling love would be its inmates, that
returning as now, from those who excite my spleen and contempt, one eye
would have lighted up to welcome me, a dear voice have thanked me for my
return. Home! a Tartar beneath his tent--a wild Indian in his hut, may
speak of home--I have none. Where shall I spend the rest of this dull,
deserted evening?"--for it may be supposed that, sharing London habits,
eleven o'clock was to him but an evening hour.
He went into his dressing-room, and casting his eyes on the table, a
revulsion came over him, a sudden shock--for there lay a vision, which
made his breath come thick, and caused the blood to recede to his
heart--a like vision has had the same effect on many, though it took but
the unobtrusive form of a little note--a note, whose fold, whose seal,
whose superscription, were all once so familiar, and now so strange.
Time sensibly rolled back; each event of the last few years was broken
off, as it were, from his life, leaving it as it had been ten years ago.
He seized the note, and then threw it from him. "It is a mere mistake,"
he said aloud, while he felt, even to the marrow of his bones, the
thrill and shudder as of an occurrence beyond the bounds of nature. Yet
still the note lay there, and half as if to undeceive himself, and to
set witchcraft at nought, he again took it up--this time in a less
agitated mood, so that when the well-known impression of a little
foreign coronet on the seal met his eye, he became aware that however
unexpected such a sight might be, it was in the moral course of things,
and he hastily tore open the epistle: it was written in French, and was
very concise. "I arrived in town last night," the writer said; "I and my
son are about to join my husband in Paris. I hear that you are married;
I hope to see you and your lady before I leave London."
After reading these few lines, Lord Lodore remained for a considerable time
lost in thought. He tried to consider what he should do, but his ideas
wandered, as they sadly traced the past, and pictured to him the
present. Never did life appear so vain, so contemptible, so odious a
thing as now, that he was reminded of the passions and sufferings of
former days, which, strewed at his feet like broken glass, might still
wound him, though their charm and their delight could never be renewed.
He did not go out that night; indeed it seemed as if but a minute had
passed, when, lo! morning was pouring her golden summer beams into his
room--when Lady Lodore's carriage drove up; and early sounds in the
streets told him that night was gone and the morrow come.
That same day Lord Lodore requested Cornelia to call with him on a Polish
lady of rank, with whom he had formerly been acquainted, to whom he was
under obligations. They went. And what Lodore felt when he stood with his
lovely wife before her, who for many by-gone years had commanded his
fate, had wound him to her will, through the force of love and woman's
wiles--who he knew could read every latent sentiment of his soul, and
yet towards whom he was resolved now, and for ever in future, to adopt
the reserved manners of a mere acquaintance--what of tremor or pain all
this brought to Lodore's bosom was veiled, at least beyond Cornelia's
penetration, who seldom truly observed him, and who was now occupied by
her new acquaintance.
The lady had passed the bloom of youth, and even mid life; she was
verging on fifty, but she had every appearance of having been
transcendently beautiful. Her dark full oriental eyes still gleamed from
beneath her finely-arched brows, and her black hair, untinged by any
grizzly change, was gathered round her head in such tresses as bespoke
an admirable profusion. Her person was tall and commanding: her manners
were singular, for she mingled so strangely, stateliness and affability,
disdain and sweetness, that she seemed like a princess dispensing the
favour of her smile, or the terror of her frown on her submissive
subjects; her sweetest smiles were for Cornelia, who yet turned from her
to another object, who attracted her more peculiar attention. It was her
son; a youth inheriting all his mother's beauty, added to the
fascination of early manhood, and a frank and ingenuous address, which
his parent could never have possessed.
The party separated, apparently well pleased with each other. Lady Lodore
offered her services, which were frankly accepted; and after an hour
spent together, they appointed to meet again the next day, when the
ladies should drive out together to shop and see sights.
They became not exactly intimate, yet upon familiar terms. There was a
dignity and even a constraint in the Countess Lyzinski's manner that was
a bar to cordiality; but they met daily, and Lady Lodore introduced her new
friend everywhere. The Countess said that motives of curiosity had
induced her to take this country in her way to Paris. Her wealth was
immense, and her rank among the first in her own country. The Russian
ambassador treated her with distinction, so that she gained facile and
agreeable entrance into the highest society. The young Count Casimir was
an universal favourite, but his dearest pleasure was to attend upon Lady
Lodore, who readily offered to school him on his entrance into the
English world. They were pretty exactly the same age; Casimir was
somewhat the junior, yet he looked the elder, while the lady, accustomed
to greater independence, took the lead in their intercourse, and acted
the monitress to her docile scholar.
Lord Lodore looked on, or took a part, in what was passing around him, with
a caprice perfectly unintelligible. With the Countess he was always gentle
and obliging, but reserved. While she treated him with a coldness
resembling disdain, yet whose chiefest demonstration was silence. Lodore
never altered towards her; it was with regard to her son that he
displayed his susceptible temper. He took pains to procure for him every
proper acquaintance; he was forward in directing him; he watched over
his mode of passing his time, he appeared to be interested in every
thing he did, and yet to hate him. His demeanour towards him was morose,
almost insulting. Lodore, usually so forbearing and courteous, would
contradict and silence him, as if he had been a child or a menial. It
required all Casimir's deference for one considerably his senior, to
prevent him from resenting openly this style of treatment; it required
all the fascination of Lady Lodore to persuade him to encounter it a
second time. Once he had complained to her, and she remonstrated with
her husband. His answer was to reprimand her for listening to the
impertinence of the stripling. She coloured angrily, but did not reply.
Cold and polite to each other, the noble pair were not in the habit of
disputing. Lady Santerre guarded against that. Any thing as familiar as
a quarrel might have produced a reconciliation, and with that a better
understanding of each other's real disposition. The disdain that rose in
Cornelia's bosom on this taunt, fostered by conscious innocence, and a
sense of injustice, displayed itself in a scornful smile, and by an
augmentation of kindness towards Casimir. He was now almost domesticated
at her house; he attended her in the morning, hovered round her during
the evening; and she, given up to the desire of pleasing, did not
regard, did not even see, the painful earnestness with which Lord Lodore
regarded them. His apparent jealousy, if she at all remarked it, was but
a new form of selfishness, to which she was not disposed to give
quarter. Yet any unconcerned spectator might have started to observe
how, from an obscure corner of the room, Lodore watched every step they
took, every change of expression of face during their conversation; and
then approaching and interrupting them, endeavoured to carry Count
Casimir away with him; and when thwarted in this, dart glances of such
indignation on the youth, and of scorn upon his wife, as might have
awoke a sense of danger, had either chanced to see the fierce,
lightning-like passions written in those moments on his countenance, as
letters of fire and menace traced upon the prophetic wall.
The Countess appeared to observe him indeed, and sometimes it seemed as
if she regarded the angry workings of his heart with malicious pleasure.
Once or twice she had drawn near, and said a few words in her native
language, on which he endeavoured to stifle each appearance of passion,
answering with a smile, in a low calm voice, and retiring, left, as it
were, the field to her. Lady Santerre also had remarked his glances of
suspicion or fury; they were interpreted into new sins against her
daughter, and made with her the subject of ridicule or bitter reproach.
Lord Lodore was entirely alone. To no one human being could he speak a word
that in the least expressed the violence of his feelings. Perhaps the
only person with whom he felt the least inclined to overflow in
confidence, was the Countess Lyzinski. But he feared her: he feared the
knowledge she possessed of his character, and the power she had once
exercised to rule him absolutely; the barrier between them must be
insuperable, or the worst results would follow: he redoubled his own
cautious reserve, and bore patiently the proud contempt which she
exhibited, resolved not to yield one inch in the war he waged with his
own heart, with regard to her. But he was alone, and the solitude of
sympathy in which he lived, gave force and keenness to all his feelings.
Had they evaporated in words, half their power to wound had been lost;
as it was, there was danger in his meditations, and each one in
collision with him had occasion to dread that any sudden overflow of
stormy rage would be the more violent for having been repressed so long.
One day the whole party, with the exception of Lady Santerre, dined at the
house of the Russian ambassador. As Lord and Lady Lodore proceeded towards
their destination, he, with pointed sarcasm of manner, requested her to
be less marked in her attentions to Count Casimir. The unfounded
suspicions of a lover may please as a proof of love, but those of a
husband, who thus claims affections which he has ceased to endeavour to
win, are never received except as an impertinence and an insult. Those
of Lord Lodore appeared to his haughty wife but a new form of
cold-hearted despotism, checking her pleasures whencesoever they might
arise. She replied by a bitter smile, and afterwards still more
insultingly, by the display of kindness and partiality towards the
object of her husband's dislike. Her complete sense of innocence, roused
to indignation, by the injury she deemed offered to it, led her thus to
sport with feelings, which, had she deigned to remark, she might have
seen working with volcano-power in the breast of Lodore.
The ladies retired after dinner. They gathered together in groups in the
drawing-room, while Lady Lodore, strange to say, sat apart from all. She
placed herself on a distant sopha, apparently occupied by examining
various specimens of bijouterie, nic-nacs of all kinds, which she took
up one after the other, from the table near her. One hand shaded her
eyes as she continued thus to amuse herself. She was not apt to be so
abstracted; as now, that intent on self-examination, or self-reproach,
or on thoughts that wandered to another, she forgot where she was, and
by whom surrounded. She did not observe the early entrance of several
gentlemen from the dining-room, nor remark a kind of embarrassment which
sat upon their features, spreading a sort of uncomfortable wonder among
the guests. The first words that roused her, were addressed to her by
her husband: "Your carriage waits, Cornelia; will you come?"
"So early?" she asked.
"I particularly wish it," he replied.
"You can go, and send them back for me--and yet it is not worth while,
we shall see most of the people here at Lady C----'s to night."
She glanced round the room, Casimir was not there; as she passed the
Countess Lyzinski, she was about to ask her whether they should meet
again that evening, when she caught the lady's eye fixed on her husband,
meeting and returning a look of his. Alarm and disdain were painted on
her face, and added to this, a trace of feeling so peculiar, so full of
mutual understanding, that Lady Lodore was filled with no agreeable emotion
of surprise. She entered the carriage, and the reiterated "Home!" of Lord
Lodore, prevented her intended directions. Both were silent during their
short drive. She sat absorbed in a variety of thoughts, not one of which
led her to enter into conversation with her companion; they were rather
fixed on her mother, on the observations she should make to, and the
conjectures she should share with, her. She became anxious to reach
home, and resolved at once to seek Lady Santerre's advice and directions
by which to regulate her conduct on this occasion.
CHAPTER X
Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
But limns the water, or but writes in dust.
BACON.
They arrived in Berkeley-square. Lady Lodore alighted, and perceived with
something of a beating heart, that her husband followed her, as she
passed on to the inner drawing-room. Lady Santerre was not there. Taking
a letter from the table, so to give herself the appearance of an excuse
for having entered a room she was about immediately to quit, she was
going, when Lodore, who stood hesitating, evidently desirous of
addressing her, and yet uncertain how to begin, stopped her by speaking
her name, "Cornelia!"
She turned--she was annoyed; her conscience whispered what was in all
probability the subject to which her attention was to be called. Her
meditations in the drawing-room of the Russian Ambassador, convinced her
that she had, to use the phrase of the day, flirted too much with Count
Casimir, and she had inwardly resolved to do so no more. It was
particularly disagreeable therefore, that her husband should use
authority, as she feared that he was about to do, and exact from his
wife's obedience, what she was willing to concede to her own sense of
propriety. She was resolved to hear as little as she could on the
subject, and stood as if in haste to go. His faltering voice betrayed
how much he felt, and once or twice it refused to frame the words he
desired to utter: how different was their import from that expected by
his impatient auditress!
"Cornelia," said he, at length, "can you immediately, and at once--this
very night--prepare to quit England?"
"Quit England! Why?--whither?" she exclaimed.
"I scarcely know," replied Lodore, "nor is it of the slightest import. The
world is wide, a shelter, a refuge can be purchased any where--and that
is all I seek."
The gaming table, the turf, loss of fortune, were the ideas naturally
conveyed into the lady's mind by this reply. "Is all--every thing
gone--lost?" she asked.
"My honour is," he answered, with an effort, "and the rest is of little
worth."
He paused, and then continued in a low but distinct voice, as if every
word cost him a struggle, yet as if he wished each one to be fraught
with its entire meaning to his hearer; "I cannot well explain to you the
motives of my sudden determination, nor will I complain of the part you
have had in bringing on this catastrophe. It is over now. No power on
earth--no heavenly power can erase the past, nor change one iota of
what, but an hour ago, did not exist, but which now exists; altering all
things to both of us for ever; I am a dishonoured man."
"Speak without more comment," cried Lady Lodore; "for Heaven's sake
explain--I must know what you mean."
"I have insulted a gentleman," replied her husband, "and I will yield no
reparation. I have disgraced a nobleman by a blow, and I will offer no
apology, could one be accepted--and it could not; nor will I give
satisfaction."
Lady Lodore remained silent. Her thoughts speedily ran over the dire
objects which her husband's speech presented. A quarrel--she too readily
guessed with whom--a blow, a duel; her cheek blanched--yet not so; for
Lodore refused to fight. In spite of the terror with which an anticipated
rencontre had filled her, the idea of cowardice in her husband, or the
mere accusation of it, brought the colour back to her face. She felt
that her heedlessness had given rise to all this harm; but again she
felt insulted that doubts of her sentiments or conduct should be the
occasion of a scene of violence. Both remained silent. Lodore stood
leaning on the mantelpiece, his cheek flushed, agitation betraying
itself in each gesture, mixed with a resolve to command himself.
Cornelia had advanced from the door to the middle of the room; she stood
irresolute, too indignant and too fearful to ask further explanation,
yet anxious to receive it. Still he hesitated. He was desirous of
finding some form of words which might convey all the information that
it was necessary she should receive, and yet conceal all that he desired
should remain untold.
At last he spoke. "It is unnecessary to allude to the irretrievable
past. The future is not less unalterable for me. I will not fight with,
nor apologize to, the boy I have insulted I must therefore fly--fly my
country and the face of man; go where the name of Lodore will not be
synonymous with infamy--to an island in the east--to the desert wilds of
America--it matters not whither. The simple question is, whether you are
prepared on a sudden to accompany me? I would not ask this of your
generosity, but that, married as we are, our destinies are linked, far
beyond any power we possess to sunder them. Miserable as my future
fortunes will be, far other than those which I invited you but four
years ago to share, you are better off incurring the worst with me, than
you could be, struggling alone for a separate existence."
"Pardon me, Lodore," said Cornelia, somewhat subdued by the magnitude of
the crisis brought about, she believed, however involuntarily by herself,
and by the sadness that, as he spoke, filled the dark eyes of her
companion with an expression more melancholy than tears; "pardon me, if
I seek for further explanation. Your antagonist" (they neither of them
ventured to speak a name, which hung on the lips of both) "is a mere
boy. Your refusal to fight with him results of course from this
consideration; while angry, and if I must allude to so distasteful a
falsehood, while unjust suspicion prevent your making him fitting and
most due concessions. Were the occasion less terrible, I might disdain
to assert my own innocence; but as it is, I do most solemnly declare,
that Count Casimir----"
"I ask no question on that point, but simply wish
to know whether you will accompany me," interrupted Lodore, hastily;
"the rest I am sorry for--but it is over. You, my poor girl, though in
some measure the occasion, and altogether the victim, of this disaster,
can exercise no controul over it. No foreign noble would accept the most
humiliating submissions as compensation for a blow, and this urchin
shall never receive from me the shadow of any."
"Is there no other way?" asked Cornelia.
"Not any," replied Lodore, while his agitation increased, and his voice
grew tremulous; "No consideration on earth could arm me against his life.
One other mode there is. I might present myself as a mark for his
vengeance, with a design of not returning his fire, but I am shut out even
from this resource. And this," continued Lodore, losing as he spoke, all
self-command, carried away by the ungovernable passions he had hitherto
suppressed, and regardless, as he strode up and down the room, of
Cornelia, who half terrified had sunk into a chair; "this--these are the
result of my crimes--such, from their consequences, I now term, what by
courtesy I have hitherto named my follies--this is the end! Bringing
into frightful collision those who are bound by sacred ties--changing
natural love into unnatural, deep-rooted, unspeakable hate--arming blood
against kindred blood--and making the innocent a parricide. O Theodora,
what have you not to answer for!"
Lady Lodore started. The image he presented was too detestable. She
repressed her emotions, and assuming that air of disdain, which we are so
apt to adopt to colour more painful feelings, she said, "This sounds very
like a German tragedy, being at once disagreeable and inexplicable."
"It is a tragedy," he replied; "a tragedy brought now to its last dark
catastrophe. Casimir is my son. We may neither of us murder the other;
nor will I, if again brought into contact with him, do other than
chastise the insolent boy. The tiger is roused within me. You have a
part in this."
A flash of anger glanced from Cornelia's eyes. She did not reply--she
rose--she quitted the room--she passed on with apparent composure, till
reaching the door of her mother's chamber, she rushed impetuously in.
Overcome with indignation, panting, choked, she threw herself into her
arms, saying, "Save me!" A violent fit of hysterics followed.
At first Lady Lodore could only speak of the injury and insult she had
herself suffered; and Lady Santerre, who by no means wished to encourage
feelings, which might lead to violence in action, tried to soothe her
irritation. But when allusions to Lodore's intention of quitting England
and the civilized world for ever, mingled with Cornelia's exclamations,
the affair assumed a new aspect in the wary lady's eyes. The barbarity of
such an idea excited her utmost resentment. At once she saw the full
extent of the intended mischief, and the risk she incurred of losing the
reward of years of suffering and labour. When an instantaneous departure
was mentioned, an endless, desolate journey, which it was doubtful
whether she should be admitted to share, to be commenced that very
night, she perceived that her measures to prevent it must be promptly
adopted. The chariot was still waiting which was to have conveyed Lord
and Lady Lodore to their assembly; dressed as she was for this, without
preparation, she hurried her daughter into the carriage, and bade the
coachman drive to a villa they rented at Twickenham; leaving, in
explanation, these few lines addressed to her son-in-law.
"The scene of this evening has had an alarming effect upon Cornelia.
Time will soften the violence of her feelings, but some immediate step
was necessary to save, I verily believe, her life. I take her to
Twickenham, and will endeavour to calm her: until I shall have in some
measure succeeded, I think you had better not follow us; but let us hear
from you; for although my attention is so painfully engrossed by my
daughter's sufferings, I am distressed on your account also, and shall
continue very uneasy until I hear from you.
"Friday Evening."
Lady Santerre and her daughter reached Twickenham. Lady Lodore went to bed,
and assisted by a strong composing draught, administered by her mother, her
wrongs and her anger were soon hushed in profound sleep. Night, or
rather morning, was far spent before this occurred, so that it was late
in the afternoon of the ensuing day before she awoke, and recalled to
her memory the various conflicting sentiments which had occupied her
previous to her repose.
During the morning, Lady Santerre had despatched a servant to
Berkeley-square, to summon her daughter's peculiar attendants. He now
brought back the intelligence that Lord Lodore had departed for the
continent, about three hours after his wife had quitted his house. But to
this he added tidings of another circumstance, for which both ladies were
totally unprepared. Cornelia had entered the carriage the preceding
night, without spending one thought on the sleeping cherub in the
nursery. What was her surprise and indignation, when she heard that her
child and its attendant formed a part of his lordship's travelling
suite. The mother's first impulse was to follow her offspring; but this
was speedily exchanged for a bitter sense of wrong, aversion to her
husband, and a resolve not to yield one point, in the open warfare thus
declared by him.
CHAPTER XI
Amid two seas, on one small point of land,
Wearied, uncertain, and amazed, we stand;
On either side our thoughts incessant turn,
Forward we dread, and looking back we mourn.
PRIOR.
Accustomed to obey the more obvious laws of necessity, those whose
situation in life obliges them to earn their daily bread, are already
broken in to the yoke of fate. But the rich and great are vanquished
more slowly. Their time is their own; as fancy bids them, they can go
east, west, north, or south; they wish, and accomplish their wishes; and
cloyed by the too easy attainment of the necessaries, and even of the
pleasures of life, they fly to the tortures of passion, and to the
labour of overcoming the obstacles that stand in the way of their
forbidden desires, as resources against ennui and satiety. Reason is
lost in the appetite for excitement, and a kind of unnatural pleasure
springs from their severest pains, because thus alone are they roused to
a full sense of their faculties; thus alone is existence and its
purposes brought home to them.
In the midst of this, their thoughtless career, the eternal law which
links ill to ill, is at hand to rebuke and tame the rebel spirit; and
such a tissue of pain and evil is woven from their holiday pastime, as
checks them midcourse, and makes them feel that they are slaves. The
young are scarcely aware of this; they delight to contend with Fate, and
laugh as she clanks their chains. But there is a period--sooner or later
comes to all--when the links envelop them, the bolts are shot, the
rivets fixed, the iron enters the flesh, the soul is subdued, and they
fly to religion or proud philosophy, to seek for an alleviation, which
the crushed spirit can no longer draw from its own resources.
This hour! this fatal hour! How many can point to the shadow on the
dial, and say, "Then it was that I felt the whole weight of my humanity,
and knew myself to be the subject of an unvanquishable power!" This dark
moment had arrived for Lodore. He had spent his youth in passion, and
exhausted his better nature in a struggle for, and in the enjoyment of,
pleasure. He found disappointment, and desired change. It came at his
beck. He married. He was not satisfied; but still he felt that it was
because he did not rouse himself, that the bonds sate so heavily upon
him. He was enervated. He sickened at the idea of the struggle it would
require to cast off his fetters, and he preferred adapting his nature to
endure their weight. But he believed that it was only because he did not
raise his hand, nor determine on one true effort, that he was thus
enslaved. And now his hand was raised--the effort made; but no change
ensued; and he felt that there was no escape from the inextricable bonds
that fastened him to misery.
He had believed that he did right in introducing his wife to the
Countess Lyzinski. He felt that he could not neglect this lady; and such
was her rank, that any affectation of a separate acquaintance would
invite those observations which he deprecated. It was, after all, matter
of trivial import that he should be the person to bring them acquainted.
Moving in the same circles, they must meet--they might clash: it was
better that they should be on friendly terms. He did not foresee the
intimacy that ensued; and still less, that his own violent passions
would be called into action. That they were so, was, to the end, a
mystery even to himself. He no longer loved the Countess; and, in the
solitude of his chamber, he often felt his heart yearn towards the noble
youth, her son; but when they met--when Cornelia spent her blandest
smiles upon him, and when the exquisitely beautiful countenance of
Casimir became lighted up with gladness and gratitude, a fire of rage
was kindled in his heart, and he could no more command himself, than can
the soaring flames of a conflagration bend earthward. He felt ashamed;
but new fury sprung from this very sensation. For worlds, he would not
have his frenzy pried into by another; and yet he had no power to
controul its manifestation. His wife expostulated with him concerning
Casimir, and laughed his rebuke to scorn. But she did not read the
tumult of unutterable jealousy and hate, that slept within his breast,
like an earthquake beneath the soil, the day before a city falls.
All tended to add fuel to this unnatural flame. His own exertions to
subdue its fierceness but kindled it anew. Often he entered the same
room with the young Count, believing that he had given his suspicions to
the winds--that he could love him as a son, and rejoice with a father's
pride in the graces of his figure and the noble qualities of his mind.
For a few seconds the fiction endured: he felt a pang--it was
nothing--gone; it would not return again:--another! was he for ever to
be thus tortured? And then a word a look, an appearance of slighting him
on the part of Casimir, an indiscreet smile on Cornelia's lips, would at
once set a-light the whole devastating blaze. The Countess alone had any
power over him; but though he yielded to her influence, he was the more
enraged that she should behold his weakness; and that while he succeeded
in maintaining an elevated impassibility with regard to herself, his
heart, with all its flaws and poverty of purpose, should, through the
ill-timed interference of this boy, be placed once more naked in her
hand.
Such a state of feeling, where passion combated passion, while reason
was forgotten in the strife, was necessarily pregnant with ruin. The only
safety was in flight;--and Lodore would have flown--he would have absented
himself until the cause of his sufferings had departed--but that, more
and more, jealousy entered into his feelings--a jealousy, wound up by
the peculiarity of his situation, into a sensitiveness that bordered on
insanity, which saw guilt in a smile, and overwhelming, hopeless ruin,
in the simplest expression of kindness. Cornelia herself was disinclined
to quit London, and tenacious pride rendered him averse to proposing it,
since he could frame no plausible pretext for his change of purpose, and
it had been previously arranged that they should remain till the end of
July. The presence of the Countess Lyzinski was a tie to keep her; and
to have pleaded his feelings with regard to Casimir, could he have
brought himself so to do, would probably have roused her at once into
rebellion. There was no resource; he must bear, and also he must
forbear;--but the last was beyond his power, and his attempt at the
first brought with it destruction. In the last instance, at the Russian
Ambassador's, irritated by Cornelia's tone of defiance, and subsequent
levity, he levelled a scornful remark at the guiltless and unconscious
offender. Casimir had endured his arrogance and injustice long. He knew
of no tie, no respect due, beyond that which youth owes to maturer
years; yet the natural sweetness of his disposition inclined him to
forbearance, until now, that surrounded by his own countrymen and by
Russians, it became necessary that he should assert himself. He replied
with haughtiness; Lodore rejoined with added insult;--and when again
Casimir retorted, he struck him. The young noble's eyes flashed fire:
several gentlemen interposed between them;--and yielding to the
expediency of the moment, the Pole, with admirable temper, withdrew.
Humiliated and dismayed, but still burning with fury, Lodore saw at once
the consequences of his angry transport. With all the impetuosity of his
fiery spirit, he resolved to quit at once the scene in which he had
played his part so ill. There was no other alternative. The most
frightful crimes blocked up every other outlet: this was his sole
escape, and he must seize on it without delay. Lady Lodore had not even
deigned to answer his request that she should accompany him; and her
mother's note appeared the very refinement of insolence. They abandoned
him. They left the roof from which he was about to exile himself, even
before he had quitted it, as if in fear of contamination during his
brief delay. Thus he construed their retreat; and worked up, as he was,
almost to madness, he considered their departure as the commencement of
that universal ban, which for ever, hereafter, was to accompany his
name. It opened anew the wound his honour had sustained; and he poured
forth a vow never more to ally himself in bonds of love or amity with
one among his kind.
His purpose was settled, and he did not postpone its execution.
Post-horses were ordered, and hasty preparations made, for his
departure. Alone, abandoned, disgraced, in another hour he was to quit
his home, his wife, all that endears existence, for ever: yet the short
interval that preceded his departure hung like a long-drawn day upon him;
and time seemed to make a full stop, at a period when he would have
rejoiced had it leaped many years to come. The heart's prayer in agony
did not avail: he was still kept lingering, when a knocking at the door
announced a visitor, who, at that late hour, could come for one purpose
only. Lord Lodore ordered himself to be denied, and Count Casimir's second
departed to seek him elsewhere. Cold dew-drops stood on Lodore's brow as
he heard this gentleman parley in a foreign accent with the servant;
trying, doubtless, to make out where it was likely that he should meet
with him: the door closed at last, and he listened to the departing
steps of his visitor, who could scarcely have left the square, before
his travelling chariot drove up. And now, while final arrangements were
making, with a heart heavy from bitter self-condemnation, he visited the
couch of his sleeping daughter, once more to gaze on her sweet face, and
for the last time to bestow a father's blessing on her. The early summer
morning was abroad in the sky; and as he opened her curtains, the first
sun-beam played upon her features. He stooped to kiss her little rosy
lips:--"And I leave this spotless being to the blighting influence of
that woman!" His murmurs disturbed the child's slumbers: she woke, and
smiled to see her father; and then insisted upon rising, as he was up,
and it was day.
"But I am come to say good-bye, sweet," he said; "I am going a long
journey."
"O take me with you!" cried the little girl, springing up, and fastening
her arms round his neck. He felt her soft cheek prest to his; her hands
trying to hold fast, and to resist his endeavours to disengage them. His
heart warmed within him. "For a short distance I may indulge myself," he
said, and he thought how her prattle would solace his darker cares,
during his road to Southampton. So, causing her attendant to make speedy
preparation, he took her in the carriage with him; and her infantine
delight so occupied him, that he scarcely remembered his situation, or
what exactly he was doing, as he drove for the last time through the
lightsome and deserted streets of the metropolis.
And now he had quitted these; and the country, in all its summer beauty,
opened around him--meadows and fields with their hedge-rows, tufted
groves crowning the uplands, and "the blue sky bent over all." "From
these they cannot banish me," he thought; "in spite of dishonour and
infamy, the loveliness of nature, and the freedom of my will, still are
mine:--and is this all?"--his child had sunk to sleep, nestled close in
his arms; "Ah! what will these be to me, when I have lost this treasure,
dearest of all?--yet why lose her?" This question, when it first
presented itself to him, he put aside as one that answered itself--to
deprive a mother of her child were barbarity beyond that of
savages;--but again and again it came across him, and he began to reason
with it, and to convince himself that he should be unjust towards
himself in relinquishing this last remaining blessing. His arguments
were false, his conclusions rash and selfish; but of this he was not
aware. Our several minds, in reflecting to our judgments the occurrences
of life, are like mirrors of various shapes and hues, so that we none of
us perceive passing objects with exactly similar optics; and while all
pretend to regulate themselves by the quadrant of justice, the deceptive
medium through which the reality is viewed, causes our ideas of it to be
at once various and false. This is the case in immaterial points; how
much more so, when self-love magnifies, and passion obscures, the glass
through which we look upon others and ourselves. The chief task of the
philosopher is to purify and correct the intellectual prism;--but Lodore
was the reverse of a philosopher; and the more he gazed and considered, the
more imperfect and distorted became his perception.
To act justly by ourselves and others, is the aim of every
well-conditioned mind: for the sight of pain in our fellow-creatures,
and the sense of self-condemnation within ourselves, is fraught with a
pang from which we would willingly escape; and every heart not formed of
the coarsest materials is keenly alive to such emotions. Lodore resolved to
judge calmly, and he reviewed coolly, and weighed (he believed)
impartially, the various merits of the question. He thought of Lady
Santerre's worldliness, her vulgar ambition, her low-born contempt for
all that is noble and elevating in human nature. He thought of
Cornelia's docility to her mother's lessons, her careless disregard of
the nobler duties of life, of her frivolity and unfeeling nature:--then,
almost against his will, his own many excellencies rose before him;--his
lofty aspirations, his self-sacrifice for the good of others, the
affectionateness of his disposition, his mildness, his desire to be just
and kind to all, his willingness to devote every hour of the day, and
every thought of his mind, to the well-bringing-up of his daughter: a
person must be strangely blind who did not perceive that, as far as the
child was concerned, she would be far better off with him.
And then, in another point of view: Lady Lodore had her mother--and she had
the world. She had not only beauty, rank, and wealth; but she had a taste
for enjoying the advantages yielded by these on the common soil of daily
life. He cared for nothing in the wide world--he loved nothing but this
little child. He would willingly exchange for her the far greater
portion of his fortune, which Lady Lodore should enjoy; reserving for
himself such a pittance merely as would suffice for his own and his
daughter's support. He had neither home, nor friends, nor youth, nor
taintless reputation; nor any of all the blessings of life, of which
Cornelia possessed a superabundance. Her child was as nothing in the
midst of these. She had left her without a sigh, even without a thought;
while but to imagine the moment of parting was a dagger to her father's
heart. What a fool he had been to hesitate so long--to hesitate at all!
There she was, this angel of comfort; her little form was cradled in his
arms, he felt her soft breath upon his hand, and the regular heaving of
her bosom responded to the beatings of his own heart; her golden, glossy
hair, her crimsoned cheek, her soft, round limbs;--all this matchless
"bower of flesh," that held in the budding soul, and already expanding
affections of this earthly cherub, was with him. And had he imagined
that he could part with her? Rather would he return to Lady Lodore, to
dishonour, to scenes of hate and of the world's contempt, so that thus
he preserved her: it could not be required of him; but if Cornelia's
heart was animated by a tithe of the fondness that warmed his, she would
not hesitate in her choice; but, discarding every unworthy feeling,
follow her child into the distant and solitary abode he was about to
select.
Thus pacifying his conscience, Lodore came to the conclusion of making his
daughter the partner of his exile. Soon after mid-day, they arrived at
Southampton; a small vessel was on the point of sailing for Havre, and
on board this he hurried. Before he went he gave one hasty retrospective
view to those he was leaving behind--his wife, his sister, the filial
antagonist from whom he was flying; he could readily address himself to
the first of these, when landed on the opposite coast; but as he wished
to keep his destination a secret from the latter, and to prevent, if
possible, his being followed and defied by him, an event still to be
feared, he employed the few remaining minutes, before quitting his
country for ever, in writing a brief letter to the Countess Lyzinski,
which he gave in charge to a servant whom he dismissed, and sent back to
town. And thus he now addressed her, who, in his early life, had been as
the moon to raise the tide of passion, incapable, alas! of controlling
its waves when at the full.
"It is all over: I have fulfilled my part--the rest remains with you. To
prevent the ruin which my folly has brought down, from crushing any but
myself, I quit country, home, good name--all that is dear to man. I do
not complain, nor will I repine. But let the evil, I entreat you, stop
here. Casimir must not follow me; he must not know whither I am gone;
and while he brands his antagonist with the name of coward, he must not
guess that for his sake I endure this stain. I leave it to your prudence
and sagacity to calm or to mislead him, to prevent his suspecting the
truth, or rashly seeking my life. I sacrifice more, far more, than my
heart's blood on his account--let that satisfy even your vengeance.
"I would not write harshly. The dream of life has long been over for me;
it matters not how or where the last sands flow out. I do not blame you
even for this ill-omened journey to England, which could avail you
nothing. Once before we parted for ever, Theodora; but that separation
was as the pastime of children in comparison with the tragic scene we
now enact. A thousand dangers yawn between us, and we shall neither dare
to repass the gulf that divides us. Forget me;--be happy, and forget me!
May Casimir be a blessing to you, and while you glory in his perfections
and prosperity, cast into oblivion every thought of him, who now bids
you an eternal adieu."
CHAPTER XII
Her virtue, like our own, was built
Too much on that indignant fuss,
Hypocrite pride stirs up in us,
To bully out another's guilt.
SHELLEY.
The fifth day after Lord Lodore's departure brought Cornelia a letter from
him. She had spent the interval at Twickenham, surrendering her sorrows
and their consolation to her mother's care; and inspired by her with
deep resentment and angry disdain. The letter she received was dated
Havre: the substance of it was as follows.
"Believe me I am actuated by no selfish considerations, when I ask you
once again to reflect before the Atlantic divides us--probably for ever.
It is for your own sake, your own happiness only, that I ask you to
hesitate. I will not urge your duty to me; the dishonour that has fallen
on me I am most ready to bear alone; mine towards you, as far as present
circumstances permit, I am desirous to fulfil, and this feeling dictates
my present address.
"Consider the solitary years you will pass alone, even though in a
crowd, divided from your husband and your child--your home
desolate--calumny and ill-nature at watch around you--not one protecting
arm stretched over you. Your mother's presence, it is true, will suffice
to prevent your position from being in the least equivocal; but the time
will soon come when you will discover your mistake in her, and find how
unworthy she is of your exclusive affection. I will not urge the
temptations and dangers that will beset you; your pride will, I doubt
not, preserve you from these, yet they will be near you in their worst
shape: you will feel their approaches; you will shudder at their
menaces, you will desire my death, and the faith pledged to me at the
altar will become a chain and a torture to you.
"I can only offer such affection as your sacrifice will deserve to adorn
a lonely and obscure home; rank, society, flatterers, the luxuries of
civilization--all these blessings you must forego. Your lot will be cast
in solitude. The wide forest, the uninhabited plain, will shelter us.
Your husband, your child; in us alone you must view the sum and aim of
your life. I will not use the language of persuasion, but in inviting
you to share my privations, I renew, yet more solemnly, the vows we once
interchanged; and it shall be my care to endeavour to fulfil mine with
more satisfaction to both of us than has until now been the case.
"It is useless to attempt to veil the truth, that hitherto our hearts
have been alienated from each other. The cause is not in ourselves, and
must never again be permitted to influence either of us. If amidst the
avocations of society, the presence of a third person has been
sufficient to place division between us;--if, on the flowery path of our
prosperous life, one fatal interference has strewn thorns and burning
ashes beneath our feet, how much more keenly would this intervention be
felt in the retirement in which we are hereafter to spend our days.--In
the lonely spot to which it will be necessary to contract all our
thoughts and hopes, love must alone reign; or hell itself would be but
pastime in comparison to our ever-renewing and sleepless torments. The
spirit of worldliness, of discord, of paltry pride, must not enter the
paling which is to surround our simple dwelling. Come, attended by
affection, by open-hearted confidence;--come to me--to your child!--you
will find with us peace and mutual love, the true secret of life. All
that can make your mother happy in England, shall be provided with no
niggard hand:--but come alone, Cornelia, my wife!--come, to take
possession of the hearts that are truly yours, and to learn a new
lesson, in a new world, from him who will dedicate himself entirely to
you.
"Alas! I fear that I speak an unknown language, and one that you will
never deign to understand. Still I again implore you to reflect before
you decide. On one point I am firm--I feel that I am in the right--that
every thing depends upon it. Our daughter's guileless heart shall never
be tainted by all that I abhor and despise. For her sake, for yours,
more than for my own, I am as rock upon one question. Do not strive to
move me--it will be useless! Come alone! and ten thousand welcomes and
blessings shall hail your arrival!
"A vessel, in which I have engaged a passage, sails for New York, from
this place, in five days time. You must not delay your decision; but
hasten, if such be your gracious resolve, to join me here.
"If you decide to sacrifice yourself to one who will never repay that
sacrifice, and to the world,--that dreary, pain-haunted jungle,--at
least you shall receive from me all that can render your situation there
prosperous. You shall not complain of want of generosity on my part. I
shall, in my new course of life, require little myself; the remainder of
my fortune shall be at your disposal.
"I need not recommend secrecy to you as to the real motive of my
exile--your own sense of delicacy will dictate reserve and silence. This
letter will be delivered to you by Fenton: he will attend you back here,
or bring me your negative--the seal, I feel assured, of your future
misery. God grant that you choose wisely and well! Adieu."
The heart of Lady Lodore burnt within her bosom as she read these lines.
Haughty and proud, was she to be dictated to thus? and to follow, an
obedient slave, the master that deigned to recall her to his presence,
after he had (so she termed his abrupt departure) deserted her? Her
mother sate by, looking at her with an anxious and inquiring glance, as
she read the letter. She saw the changes of her countenance, as it
expressed anger, scorn, and bitter indignation. She finished--she was
still silent;--how could she show this insulting address to her parent?
Again she seemed to study its contents--to ponder.
Lady Santerre rose--gently she was taking the paper from Cornelia's
hand. "You must not read it," she cried;--"and yet you must;--and thus
one other wrong is heaped upon the many."
Lady Santerre read the letter; silently she perused it--folded
it--placed it on the table. Cornelia looked up at her. "I do not fear
your decision," she said; "you will not abandon a parent, who has
devoted herself to you from your cradle--who lives but for you."
The unhappy girl, unable to resist her mother's appeal, threw herself
into her arms. Even the cold Lady Santerre was moved--tears flowed from
her eyes:--"My dear child!" she exclaimed.
"My dear child!"--the words found an echo in Lady Lodore's bosom;--"I am
never to see my child more!"
"Such is his threat," said her mother, "knowing thus the power he has
over you; but do not fear that it will be accomplished. Lord Lodore's
conduct is guided by no principle--by no deference to the opinion of the
world--by no just or sober motives. He is as full of passion as a
madman, and more vacillating. This is his fancy now--to quit England for
the wilderness, and to torture you into following him. You are as lost
as he, if you yield. A little patience, and all will be right again. He
will soon grow tired of playing the tragic hero on a stage surrounded by
no spectators; he will discover the folly of his conduct; he will
return, and plead for forgiveness, and feel that he is too fortunate in
a wife, who has preserved her own conduct free from censure and remark,
while he has made himself a laughing stock to all. Do not permit
yourself, dear Cornelia, to be baffled in this war of passion with
reason; of jealousy, selfishness, and tyranny, with natural affection, a
child's duty, and the respect you owe to yourself. Even if he remain
away, he will quickly become weary of being accompanied by an infant and
its nurse, and too glad to find that you will still be willing to act
the mother towards his child. Firmness and discretion are the arms you
must use against folly and violence. Yield, and you are the victim of a
despotism without parallel, the slave of a task-master, whose first
commands are gentle, soft, and easy injunctions to desert your mother:
to exile yourself from your country, and to bury yourself alive in some
unheard-of desert, whose name even he does not deign to communicate. All
this would be only too silly and too wild, were it not too wicked and
too cruel. Believe me, my love, trust yourself to my guidance, and all
will be well; Lodore himself will thank, if such thanks be of value, the
prudence and generosity you will display."
Cornelia listened, and was persuaded. Above all, Lady Santerre tried to
impress upon her mind, that Lodore, finding her firm, would give up his
rash schemes, and remain in Europe; that even he had, probably, never
really contemplated crossing the Atlantic. At all events, that she must not
be guided by the resolves, changeable as the moon, of a man governed by no
sane purpose; but that, by showing herself determined, he would be
brought to bend to her will. In this spirit Lady Lodore replied to her
husband's letter. Fenton, Lord Lodore's valet, who had been the bearer,
had left it, and proceeded to London. He returned the day following, to
receive his lady's orders. Cornelia saw him and questioned him. She
heard that Lord Lodore was to dismiss him and all his English servants
before embarking for America, with the exception of the child's nurse,
whom he had promised to send back on his arrival at New York. He had
engaged his passage, and fitted up cabins for his convenience, so that
there could be no doubt of his having finally resolved to emigrate. This
was all he knew; Cornelia gave him her letter, and he departed on the
instant for Southampton.
In giving his wife so short an interval in which to form her
determination, Lodore conceived that her first impulse would be to join her
child, that she would act upon it, and at least come as far as Havre,
though perhaps her mother would accompany her, to claim her daughter,
even if she did not besides foster a hope of changing his resolves.
Lodore had an unacknowledged reserve in his own mind, that if she would
give up her mother, and for a time the world, he would leave the choice
of their exile to her, and relinquish the dreary scheme of emigrating to
America. With these thoughts in his mind, he anxiously awaited each day
the arrival of the packets from England. Each day he hoped to see
Cornelia disembark from one of them; and even though accompanied by Lady
Santerre, he felt that his heart would welcome her. During this
interval, his thoughts had recurred to his home; and imagination had
already begun to paint the memory of that home, in brighter colours than
the reality. Lady Lodore had not been all coldness and alienation; in
spite of dissension, she had been his; her form, graceful as a nymph's,
had met his eyes each morning; her smile, her voice, her light cheering
laugh, had animated and embellished, how many hours during the long
days, grown vacant without her. Cherishing a hope of seeing her again,
he forgot her petulance--her self-will--her love of pleasure; and
remembering only her beauty and her grace, he began, in a lover-like
fashion, to impart to this charming image, a soul in accordance to his
wishes, rather than to the reality. Each day he attended less carefully
to the preparations of his long voyage. Each day he expected her; a
chill came over his heart at each evening's still recurring
disappointment, till hope awoke on the ensuing morning. More than once
he had been on the eve of sailing to England to meet and escort her; a
thousand times he reproached himself for not having made Southampton the
place of meeting, and he was withheld from proceeding thither only by
the fear of missing her. Giving way to these sentiments, the tide of
affection, swelling into passion, rose in his breast. He doubted not
that, ere long, she would arrive, and taxed himself for modes to show
his gratitude and love.
The American vessel was on the point of sailing--it might have gone
without him, he cared not; when on the sixth day Fenton arrived, and put
into his hand Cornelia's letter. This then was the end of his
expectation, this little paper coldly closed in the destruction of his
hopes; yet might it not merely contain a request for delay? There was
something in the servant's manner, that looked not like that; but still,
as soon as the idea crossed him, he tore open the seal. The words were
few, they were conceived in all the spirit of resentment.
"You add insult to cruelty," it said, "but I scorn to complain. The very
condition you make displays the hollowness and deceit of your
proceeding. You well know that I cannot, that I will not, desert my
mother; but by calling on me for this dereliction of all duty and
virtuous affection, you contrive to throw on me the odium of refusing to
accompany you; this is a worthy design, and it is successful.
"I demand my child--restore her to me. It is cruelty beyond compare, to
separate one so young from maternal tenderness and fosterage. By what
right--through what plea, do you rob me of her? The tyranny and dark
jealousy of your vindictive nature display themselves in this act of
unprincipled violence, as well as in your insulting treatment of my
mother. You alone must reign, be feared, be thought of; all others are
to be sacrificed, living victims, at the shrine of your self-love. What
have you done to merit so much devotion? Ask your heart--if it be not
turned to stone, ask it what you have done to compare with the long
years of affection, kindness, and never-ceasing care that my beloved
parent has bestowed on me. I am your wife, Lodore; I bear your name; I will
be true to the vows I have made you, nor will I number the tears you force
me to shed; but my mother's are sacred, and not one falls in vain for
me.
"Give me my child--let the rest be yours--depart in peace! If Heaven
have blessings for the coldly egotistical, the unfeeling despot, may
these blessings be yours; but do not dare to interfere with emotions too
pure, too disinterested for you ever to understand. Give me my child,
and fear neither my interference nor resentment. I am content to be as
dead to you--quite content never to see you more."
CHAPTER XIII
And so farewell; for we will henceforth be
As we had never seen, ne'er more shall see.
HEYWOOD.
Lodore had passed many days upon the sea, on his voyage to America, before
he could in the least calm the bitter emotions to which Cornelia's violent
letter had given birth. He was on the wide Atlantic; the turbid ocean
swelled and roared around him, and heaven, the mansion of the winds,
showed on its horizon an extent of water only. He was cut off from
England, from Europe, for ever; and the vast continents he quitted
dwindled into a span; but still the images of those he left behind dwelt
in his soul, engrossing and filling it. They could no longer personally
taunt nor injure him; but the thought of them, of all that they might
say or do, haunted his mind; it was like an unreal strife of gigantic
shadows beneath dark night, which, when you approach, dwindles into thin
air, but which, contemplated at a distance, fills the hemisphere with
star-reaching heads, and steps that scale mountains. There was a
sleepless tumult in Lodore's heart; it was a waking dream of the most
painful description. Again and again Cornelia assailed him with
reproaches, and Lady Santerre poured out curses upon him; his fancy lent
them words and looks full of menace, hate, and violence. Sometimes the
sighing of the breeze in the shrouds assumed a tone that mocked their
voices; his sleep was disturbed by dreams more painful than his daylight
fancies; and the sense which they imparted of suffering and oppression,
was prolonged throughout the day.
He occasionally felt that he might become mad, and at such moments, the
presence of his child brought consolation and calm; her caresses, her
lisped expressions of affection, her playfulness, her smiles, were
spells to drive away the fantastic reveries that tortured him. He looked
upon her cherub face, and the world, late so full of wretchedness and
ill, assumed brighter hues; the storm was allayed, the dark clouds fled,
sunshine poured forth its beams; by degrees, tender and gentle
sensations crept over his heart; he forgot the angry contentions in
which, in imagination, he had been engaged, and he felt, that alone on
the sea, with this earthly angel of peace near him, he was divided from
every evil, to dwell with tranquillity and love.
To part with her had become impossible. She was all that rendered him
human--that plucked the thorn from his pillow, and poured one mitigating
drop into the bitter draught administered to him.
Cornelia, Casimir, Theodora, his mother-in-law, these were all various
names and shapes of the spirit of evil, sent upon earth to torture him:
but this heavenly sprite could set at nought their machinations and
restore him to the calm and hopes of childhood. Extreme in all things,
Lodore began more than ever to doat upon her and to bind up his life in
her. Yet sometimes his heart softened at the recollection of his wife, of
her extreme youth, and of the natural pang she must feel at being deprived
of her daughter. He figured her pining, and in tears--he remembered that
he had vowed to protect and love her for ever; and that deprived of him,
never more could the soft attentions and sweet language of love soothe
her heart or meet her ear, unattended with a sense of guilt and
degradation. He knew that hereafter she might feel this--hereafter, when
passion might be roused, and he could afford no remedy. Influenced by
such ideas, he wrote to her; many letters he wrote during his voyage,
destroying them one after another, dictated by the varying feelings that
alternately ruled him. Reason and persuasion, authority and tenderness,
reigned by turns in these epistles; they were written with all the
fervour of his ardent soul, and breathed irresistible power. Had some of
these papers met Cornelia's eye, she had assuredly been vanquished; but
fate ordained it otherwise: fate that blindly weaves our web of life,
culling her materials at will, and often wholly refusing to make use of
our own desires and intentions, as forming a part of our destiny.
Lodore arrived at New York, and found, by some chance, letters already
waiting for him there. He had concluded one to his wife full of affection
and kindness, when a letter with the superscription written by Lady
Santerre was delivered to him. It spoke of law proceedings, of eternal
separation, and announced her daughter's resolve to receive no
communication, to read no address, that was not prefaced by the
restoration of her child; it referred him to a solicitor as the medium
of future intercourse. With a bitter laugh Lodore tore to pieces the
eloquent and heart-felt appeal he had been on the point of sending; he
gave up his thoughts to business only; he wrote to his agent, he
arranged for his intended journey; in less than a month he was on his
road to the Illinois.
Thus ended all hope of reconciliation, and Lady Santerre won the day.
She had worked on the least amiable of her daughter's feelings, and
exalted anger into hatred, disapprobation into contempt and aversion.
Soon after Cornelia had dismissed the servant, she felt that she had
acted with too little reflection. Her heart died within her at the idea,
that too truly Lodore might sail away with her child, and leave her widowed
and solitary for ever. Her proud heart knew, on this account, no relenting
towards her husband, the author of these painful feelings, but she
formed the resolve not to lose all without a struggle. She announced her
intention of proceeding to Havre to obtain her daughter. Lady Santerre
could not oppose so natural a proceeding, especially as her
companionship was solicited as in the highest degree necessary. They
arrived at Southampton; the day was tempestuous, the wind contrary. Lady
Santerre was afraid of the water, and their voyage was deferred. On the
evening of the following day, Fenton arrived from Havre. Lord Lodore had
sailed, the stormy waves of the Atlantic were between him and the shores
of England; pursuit were vain; it would be an acknowledgment of defeat
to follow him to America. Cornelia returned to Twickenham, maternal
sorrow contending in her heart with mortified pride, and a keen
resentful sense of injury.
Lady Lodore was nineteen; an age when youth is most arrogant, and most
heedless of the feelings of others. Her beauty and the admiration it
acquired, sate her on the throne of the world, and, to her own imagination,
she looked down like an eastern princess, upon slaves only: her sway she
had believed to be absolute; it was happiness for others to obey. Exalted
by adulation, it was natural that all that lowered her elevation in her own
eyes, should appear impertinent and hateful. She had not learned to feel
with or for others. To act in contradiction to her wishes was a crime
beyond compare, and her soul was in arms to resent the insolence which
thus assailed her majesty of will. The act of Lodore, stepping beyond
common-place opposition into injury and wrong, found no mitigating
excuses in her heart. No gentle return of love, no compassion for the
unhappy exile--no generous desire to diminish the sufferings of one, who
was the victim of the wildest and most tormenting passions, softened her
bosom. She was injured, insulted, despised, and her swelling soul was
incapable of any second emotion to the scorn and hate with which she
visited the author of her degradation. She was to become the theme of
the world's discourse, of its ill-natured censure or mortifying pity. In
whatever light she viewed her present position, it was full of annoyance
and humiliation; her path was traced through a maze of pointed angles,
that pained her at every turn, and her reflections magnifying the
imprudence of which she accused herself, suggested no excuse for her
husband, but caused her wounds to fester and burn. Cornelia was not of a
lachrymose disposition; she was a woman who in Sparta had formed an
heroine; who in periods of war and revolution, would unflinchingly have
met calamity, sustaining and leading her own sex. But through the bad
education she had received, and her extreme youth, elevation of feeling
degenerated into mere personal pride, and heroism was turned into
obstinacy; she had been capable of the most admirable self-sacrifice,
had she been taught the right shrine at which to devote herself; but her
mind was narrowed by the mode of her bringing up, and her loftiest ideas
were centered in worldly advantages the most worthless and pitiable. To
defraud her of these, was to deprive her of all that rendered life worth
preserving.
Lady Santerre soothed, flattered, and directed her. She poured the balm
of gratified vanity upon injured pride. She bade her expect speedy
repentance from her husband, and impressed her with the idea, that if
she were firm, he must yield. His present blustering prognosticated a
speedy calm, when he would regret all that he had done, and seek, by
entire submission, to win back his wife. Any appearance of concession on
her part would spoil all. Cornelia's eyes flashed fire at the word.
Concession! and to whom? To him who had wronged and insulted her? She
readily gave into her mother's hands the management of all future
intercourse with him, reserving alone, for her own satisfaction, an
absolute resolve never to forgive.
The correspondence that ensued, carried on across the Atlantic, and soon
with many miles of continent added to the space, only produced an
interchange of letters written with cool insolence on one side, with
heart-burning and impatience on the other. Each served to widen the
breach. When Cornelia was not awakened to resent for herself, she took up
arms on her mother's account. When Lodore blamed her for being the puppet
of one incapable of any generous feeling, one dedicated to the vulgar
worship of Mammon, she repelled the taunt, and denied the servitude of
soul of which she was accused; she declared that every virtue was
enlisted on her mother's side, and that she would abide by her for ever.
In truth, she loved her the more for Lodore's hatred, and Lady Santerre
spared no pains to impress her with the belief, that she was wholly
devoted to her.
Thus years passed away. At first Lady Lodore had lived in some degree of
retirement, but persuaded again to emerge, she soon entered into the
very thickest maze of society. Her fortune was sufficient to command a
respectable station, her beauty gained her partizans, her untainted
reputation secured her position in the world. Attractive as she was, she
was so entirely and proudly correct, that even the women were not afraid
of her. All her intimate associates were people whose rank gave weight
and brilliancy to her situation, but who were conspicuous for their
domestic virtues. She was looked upon as an injured and deserted wife,
whose propriety of conduct was the more admirable from the difficulties
with which she was surrounded; she became more than ever the fashion,
and years glided on, as from season to season she shone a bright star
among many luminaries, improving in charms and grace, as knowledge of
the world and the desire of pleasing were added to her natural
attractions.
The stories at first in circulation on Lodore's departure, all sufficiently
wide from the truth, were half forgotten, and served merely as an
obscure substratum for Cornelia's bright reputation. He was gone: he
could no longer injure nor benefit any, and was therefore no longer an
object of fear or love. The most charitable construction put upon his
conduct was, that he was mad, and it was piously observed, that his
removal from this world would be a blessing. Lady Santerre triumphed.
Withering away in unhonoured age, still she appeared in the halls of the
great, and played the part of Cerberus in her daughter's drawing-room.
Lady Lodore, beautiful and admired, intoxicated with this sort of
prosperity, untouched by passion, unharmed by the temptations that
surrounded her, believed that life was spent most worthily in following
the routine observed by those about her, and securing the privilege of
being exclusive. She was the glass of fashion--the imitated by a vast
sect of imitators. The deprivation of her child was the sole cloud that
came between her and the sun. In despite of herself, she never saw a
little cherub with rosy cheeks and golden hair, but her heart was
visited by a pang; and in her dreams she often beheld, instead of the
image of the gay saloons in which she spent her evenings, a desert
wild--a solitary home--and tiny footsteps on the dewy grass, guiding her
to her baby daughter, whose soft cooings, remembered during absence,
were agonizing to her. She awoke, and vowed her soul to hatred of the
author of her sufferings--the cruel-hearted, insolent Lodore; and then
fled to pleasure as the means of banishing these sad and disturbing
emotions. She never again saw Casimir. Long before she re-appeared in
the world, he and his mother had quitted England. Taught by the slight
tinge of weakness that had mingled with her intercourse with him, she
sedulously avoided like trials in future; and placing her happiness in
universal applause, love saw her set his power at nought, and pride
become a more impenetrable shield than wisdom.
CHAPTER XIV
Time and Change together take their flight.
L. E. L.
Fitzhenry and his daughter travelled for many days in rain and sunshine,
across the vast plains of America. Conversation beguiled the way, and
Ethel, delighted by the novelty and variety of all she saw, often felt
as if springing from her seat with a new sense of excitement and
gladness. So much do the young love change, that we have often thought
it the dispensation of the Creator, to show that we are formed, at a
certain age, to quit the parental roof, like the patriarch, to seek some
new abode where to pitch our tents, and pasture our flocks. The clear
soft eyes of the fair girl glistened with pleasure at each picturesque
view, each change of earth and sky, each new aspect of civilization and
its results, as they were presented to her.
Fitzhenry--or as he approaches the old world, so long deserted by him, he
may resume his title--Lord Lodore had quitted his abode in the Illinois
upon the spur of the moment; he had left his peaceful dwelling impatiently,
and in haste, giving himself no time for second thoughts--scarcely for
recollection. As the fever of his mind subsided, he saw no cause to
repent his proceeding, and yet he began to look forward with an anxious
and foreboding mind. He had become aware that the village of the
Illinois was not the scene fitted for the development of his daughter's
first social feelings, and that he ought to take her among the educated
and refined, to give her a chance for happiness. A Gertrude or an
Haide, brought up in the wilds, innocent and free, and bestowing the
treasure of their hearts on some accomplished stranger, brought on
purpose to realize the ideal of their dreamy existences, is a picture of
beauty, that requires a miracle to change into an actual event in life;
and that one so pure, so guileless, and so inexperienced as Ethel,
should, in sheer ignorance, give her affections away unworthily, was a
danger to be avoided beyond all others. Whitelock had performed the part
of the wandering stranger, but he was ill-fitted for it; and Lodore's
first idea was to hurry his daughter away before she should invest him,
or any other, with attributes of glory, drawn from her own imagination
and sensibility, wholly beyond his merits.
This was done. Father and daughter were on their way to New York, having
bid an eternal adieu to the savannas and forests of the west. For a time,
Lodore's thoughts were haunted by the image of the home they had left.
The murmuring of its stream was in his ears, the shape of each distant
hill, the grouping of the trees, surrounding the wide-spread prairie,
the winding pathway and trellised arbour were before his eyes, and he
thought of the changes that the seasons would operate around, and of his
future plans unfulfilled, as any home-bred farmer might, when his lease
was out, and he was forced to remove to another county.
As their steps drew near the city which was their destination, these
recollections became fainter, and, except in discourse with Ethel, when
their talk usually recurred to the prairie, and their late home, he
began to anticipate the future, and to reflect upon the results of his
present journey.
Whither was he about to go? To England? What reception should he there
meet? and under what auspices introduce his child to her native country?
There was a stain upon his reputation that no future conduct could
efface. The name of Lodore was a by-word and a mark for scorn; it was
introduced with a sneer, followed by calumny and rebuke. It could not
even be forgotten. His wife had remained to keep alive the censure or
derision attached to it. He, it is true, might have ceased to live in
the memories of any. He did not imagine that his idea ever recurred to
the thoughtless throng, whose very name and identity were changed by the
lapse of twelve years. But when it was mentioned, when he should awaken
the forgotten sound by his presence, the echo of shame linked to it
would awaken also; the love of a sensation so rife among the wealthy and
idle, must swell the sound, and Ethel would be led on the world's stage
by one who was the object of its opprobrium.
What then should he do? Solicit Lady Lodore to receive and bring out her
daughter? Deprive himself of her society; and after having guarded her
unassailed infancy, desert her side at the moment when dangers grew
thick, and her mother's example would operate most detrimentally on her?
He thought of his sister, with whom he kept up a regular though
infrequent correspondence. She was ill fitted to guide a young beauty on
a path which she had never trod. He thought of France, Italy, and
Germany, and how he might travel about with her during the two or three
succeeding years, enlarging and storing her mind, and protracting the
happy light-hearted years of youth. His own experience on the continent
would facilitate this plan; and though it presented, even on this very
account, a variety of objections, it was that to which he felt most
attracted.
There was yet another--another image and another prospect to which he
turned with a kind of gasping sensation, which was now a shrinking
aversion to--now an ardent desire for, its fulfilment. This was the
project of a reconciliation with Cornelia, and that they should
henceforth unite in their labours to render each other and their child
happy.
Twelve years had passed since their separation: twelve years, which had
led him from the prime of life to its decline--which forced Cornelia to
number, instead of nineteen, more than thirty years--bringing her from
crude youth to fullest maturity. What changes might not time have
operated in her mind! Latterly no intercourse had passed between them,
they were as dead to each other; and yet the fact of the existence of
either was a paramount law with both, ruling their actions and
preventing them from forming any new tie. Cornelia might be tired of
independence, have discovered the hollowness of her mother's system, and
desire, but that pride prevented her, a reunion with her long-exiled
husband. Her understanding was good; intercourse with the world had
probably operated to cultivate and enlarge it--maternal love might reign
in full force, causing her heart to yearn towards the blooming Ethel,
and a thousand untold sorrows might make her regard the affection of her
child's father, as the prop, the shelter, the haven, where to find
peace, if not happiness.
And yet Cornelia was still young, still beautiful, still admired: he was
on the wane--a healthy life had preserved the uprightness of his form
and the spring of his limbs; but his countenance, how changed from the
Lodore who pledged his faith to her in the rustic church at Rhyaider Gowy!
The melting softness of his dark eyes was altered to mere sadness--his
brow, from which the hair had retreated, was delved by a thousand lines;
grey sprinkled his black hair,--a wintry morning stealing drearily upon
night--each year had left its trace, and with no Praxitelean hand,
engraven lines upon the rounded cheek, and sunk and diminished the full
eye. Twelve years had scarcely operated so great a change as here
described; but thus he painted it to himself, exaggerating and deforming
the image his mirror presented--and where others had only marked the
indications of a thoughtful mind, and the traces of over-wrought
sensibility, he beheld careful furrows and age-worn wrinkles.
And was he thus to claim the beautiful, the courted--she who still
reigned supreme on Love's own throne? and to whom, so had he been told,
time had brought increased charms as its gift, strewing roses and
fragrance on her lovely head, so proving that neither grief nor passion
had disturbed the proud serenity of her heart.
Lodore had lived many years the life of a recluse, having given up
ambition, hope, almost life itself, inasmuch as that existence is scarcely
to be termed life, which does not bring us into intimate connexion with our
fellow-creatures, nor develope in its progress some plan of present
action or anticipation for the future. He was roused from his lethargy
as he approached peopled cities; a desire to mingle again in human
affairs was awakened, together with an impatience under the obscurity to
which he had condemned himself. He grew at last to despise his
supineness, which had prevented him from struggling with and vanquishing
his adverse fortunes. He resolved no longer to be weighed down by the
fear of obloquy, while he was conscious of the bravery and determination
of his soul, and with what lofty indignation he was prepared to sweep
away the stigma attached to him, and to assert the brightness of his
honour. This, for his daughter's sake, as well as for his own, he
determined to do.
He had no wish, however, to enter upon the task in America. His native
country must be the scene of his exertions, as to re-assert himself
among his countrymen was their object. He felt, also, that, from the
beginning, he must take no false step; and it behoved him fully to
understand the state of things in England as regarded him, before he
presented himself. He delayed his voyage, therefore, till he had
exchanged letters with Europe. He wrote to his sister, immediately on
arriving at New York, asking for intelligence concerning Lady Lodore; and
communicating his intention to return immediately, and, if possible, to
effect a reconciliation with his estranged wife. He besought an
immediate reply, as he did not wish to defer his voyage beyond the
spring months.
Having sent this letter, he gave himself up to the society of his
daughter. He occupied himself by endeavouring to form her for the new
scenes on which she was about to enter, and to divest her of the first
raw astonishment excited by the contrast formed by the busy, commercial
eastern, with the majestic tranquillity of the western portion of the
new world. He wished to accustom her to mingle with her fellow-creatures
with ease and dignity; and he sought to enlarge her mind, and to excite
her curiosity, by introducing her to the effects of civilization. He
would willingly have formed acquaintances for her sake, but that such a
circumstance might interfere with the incognito he meant to preserve
while away from his native country. We can never divest ourselves of our
identity and consciousness, and are apt to fancy that others are equally
alive to our peculiar individuality. It was not probable that the name
of Lodore, or of Fitzhenry, should be known in New York; but as the title
had been bestowed as a reward for victories obtained over the Americans, he
who bore it was less to be blamed for fancying that they had heard with
pleasure the story of his disgrace, and would be ready to visit his
fault with malignant severity.
An accident, however, brought him into contact with an English lady, and
he gladly availed himself of this opportunity to bring Ethel into the
society of her country people. One day he received an elegant little
note, such as are written in London by the fashionable and the fair,
which, with many apologies, contained a request. The writer had heard
that he was about to return to England with his daughter. Would he
refuse to take under his charge a young lady, who was desirous of
returning thither? The distance from their native land drew English
people together, and usually made them kindly disposed towards each
other. The circumstances under which this request was made were
peculiar; and if he would call to hear them explained, his interest
would be excited, and he would not refuse a favour which would lay the
writer under the deepest obligation.
Lodore answered this application in person. He found an English family
residing in one of the best streets of New York, and was introduced to the
lady who had addressed him. Her story, the occasion of her request, was
detailed without reserve. Her husband's family had formerly been
American royalists, refugees in England, where they had lived poor and
forgotten. A brother of his father had remained behind in the new
country, and acquired a large fortune. He had lived to extreme old age;
and dying childless, left his wealth to his English nephew, upon
condition that he settled in America. This had caused their emigration.
While in England, they had lived at Bath, and been intimate with a
clergyman, who resided near. This clergyman was a singular man--a
recluse, and a student--a man of ardent soul, held down by a timid,
nervous disposition. He was an outcast from his family, which was
wealthy and of good station, on account of having formed a mes-alliance.
How indeed he could have married his unequal partner was matter of
excessive wonder. She was illiterate and vulgar--coarse-minded, though
good-natured. This ill-matched pair had two daughters;--one, the
younger, now about fourteen years old, was the person whom it was
desired to commit to Lodore's protection.
The lady continued:--She had a large family of boys, and but one girl,
of the age of Fanny Derham;--they had been for some years companions and
friends. When about to emigrate, she believed that she should benefit
equally her daughter and her friend, if she made the latter a companion
in their emigration. With great reluctance, Mr. Derham had consented to
part with his child: he had thought it for her good, and he had let her
go. Fanny obeyed her father. She manifested no disinclination to the
plan; and it seemed as if the benevolent wishes of Mrs. Greville were
fulfilled for the benefit of all. They had been in America nearly a
year, and now Fanny was to return. She herself had borne her absence
from her father with fortitude: yet it required an exertion of fortitude
to bear it, which was destroying the natural vivacity of her
disposition. Gloom gathered over her mind; she fled society; she sought
solitude; and spent day after day in reverie. Mrs. Greville strove to
rouse her, and Fanny lent herself with good grace to any exertion
demanded of her; yet it was plain, that even when she gave herself most
up to her desire to please her hostess, her thoughts were far away, her
eye was tracing the invisible outline of objects divided from her by the
ocean; and her inmost sense was absorbed by the recollection of one far
distant; while her ear and voice were abstractedly lent to those
immediately around her. Mrs. Greville endeavoured vainly to amuse and
distract her thoughts. The only pleasure which attracted her young mind
was study--a deep and unremitted application to those profound
acquirements, to the knowledge of which her father had introduced her.
"When you know my young friend," continued Mrs. Greville, "you will
understand the force of character which renders her unlike every other
child. Fanny never was a child. Mrs. Derham and her daughter Sarah
bustled through the business of life--of the farm and the house; while
it devolved on Fanny to attend to, to wait upon, her father. She was his
pupil--he her care. The relation of parent and child subsisted between
them, on a different footing than in ordinary cases. Fanny nursed her
father, watched over his health and humours, with the tenderness and
indulgence of a mother; while he instructed her in the dead languages,
and other sorts of abstruse learning, which seldom make a part of a
girl's education. Fanny, to use her own singular language, loves
philosophy, and pants after knowledge, and indulges in a thousand
Platonic dreams, which I know nothing about; and this mysterious and
fanciful learning she has dwelt upon with tenfold fervour since her
arrival in America.
"The contrast," continued Mrs. Greville, "between this wonderful, but
strange girl, and her parent, is apparent in nothing more than the
incident that made me have recourse to your kindness. Fanny pined for
home, and her father. The very air of America was distasteful to her--we
were not congenial companions. But she never expressed discontent. As
much as she could, she shut herself up in the world of her own mind; but
outwardly, she was cheerful and uncomplaining. A week ago we had letters
from her parents, requesting her immediate return. Mr. Derham wasted
away without her; his health was seriously injured by what, in feminine
dialect, is called fretting; and both he and her mother have implored me
to send her back to them without delay."
Lord Lodore listened with breathless interest, asking now and then such
questions as drew on Mrs. Greville to further explanation. He soon
became convinced that he was called upon to do this act of kindness for
the daughter of his former school-fellow--for Francis Derham, whom he
had not known nor seen since they had exchanged the visions of boyhood
for the disappointing realities of maturer age. And this was Derham's
fate!--poor, mis-matched, destroyed by a morbid sensibility, an object
of pity to his own young child, yet adored by her as the gentlest and
wisest of men. How different--and yet how similar--the destinies of
both! It warmed the heart of Lodore to think that he should renew his
boyish intimacy. Derham would not reject him--would not participate in
the world's blind scorn: in his bosom no harsh nor unjust feeling could
have place; his simple, warm heart would yearn towards him as of yore;
and the school-fellows become again all the world to each other.
After this explanation, Mrs. Greville introduced her young friend. Her
resemblance to her father was at first sight remarkable, and awoke with
greater keenness the roused sensibility of Lodore. She was pale and fair;
her light, golden hair clustered in short ringlets over her small,
well-formed head, leaving unshaded a high forehead, clear as opening
day. Her blue eyes were remarkably light and penetrating, with defined
and straight brows. Intelligence, or rather understanding, reigned in
every feature; independence of thought, and firmness, spoke in every
gesture. She was a mere child in form and mien--even in her expressions;
but within her was discernible an embryo of power, and a grandeur of
soul, not to be mistaken. Simplicity and equability of temper were her
characteristics: these smoothed the ruggedness which the singularity of
her character might otherwise have engendered.
Lodore rejoiced in the strange accident that gave such a companion to his
daughter. Nothing could be in stronger contrast than these two
girls;--the fairy form, the romantic and yielding sweetness of Ethel,
whose clinging affections formed her whole world,--with the studious and
abstracted disciple of ancient learning. Notwithstanding this want of
similarity, they soon became mutually attached. Lodore was a link
between them. He excited Ethel to admire the concentrated and
independent spirit of her new friend; and entered into conversation with
Fanny on ancient philosophy, which was unintelligible and mysterious to
Ethel. The three became inseparable: they prolonged their excursions in
the neighbouring country; while each enjoyed peculiar pleasures in the
friendship and sympathy of their companions.
This addition to their society, and an intimacy cultivated with Mrs.
Greville, whose husband was absent at Washington, formed, as it were, a
weaning time for Lodore, from the seclusion of the Illinois. There he had
lived, cut off from the past and the future, existing in the present
only. He had been happy there; cured of the wounds which had penetrated
his heart so deeply, through the ministration of all-healing nature. He
felt the gliding of the hours as a blessing; and the occupations of each
day were replete with calm enjoyment. He thought of England, as a seaman
newly saved from a wreck would of the tempestuous ocean, with fear and
loathing, and with heart-felt gladness that he was no longer the sport
of its waves. He cultivated such a philosophic turn of mind as often
brought a smile of self-pity on his lips, at the recollection of scenes
which, during their passage, had provoked bitter and burning sensations.
What was all this strife of passion, this eager struggle for something,
he knew not what, to him now? The healthy labours of his farm, the
tranquillity of his library, the endearing caresses of his child, were
worth all the vanities of life.
Thus he had felt in the Illinois; and now again he looked back to his
undisturbed life there, wondering how he had endured its monotonous
loneliness. A desire for action, for mingling with his fellow-men, had
arisen in his heart. He felt like a strong swimmer, who longs to battle
with the waves. He desired to feel and to exert his powers, to fill a
space in the eyes of others, to re-assert himself in their esteem, or to
resent their scorn. He could no longer regard the past with
imperturbability. Again his passions were roused, as he thought of his
mother-in-law, of his wife, and of the strange scenes which had preceded
and caused his flight from England. These ideas had long occupied his
mind, without occasioning any emotion. But now again they were full of
interest; and pain and struggle again resulted from the recollection. At
such times he was glad that Ethel had a companion, that he might leave
her and wander alone. He became a prey to the same violence of passion,
the same sense of injury and stinging hurry of thought, which for twelve
years had ceased to torture him. But no tincture of cowardice entered
into his sensations. His soul was set upon victory over the evil fortune
to which he had so long submitted. When he thought of returning to
England, from which he had fled with dishonour, his cheek tingled as a
thousand images of insult and contumely passed rapidly through his mind,
as likely to visit him. His heart swelled within him--his very soul grew
faint; but instead of desiring to fly the anticipated opprobrium, he
longed to meet it and to wash out shame, if need were, with his life's
blood; and, by resolution and daring, to silence his enemies, and redeem
his name from obloquy.
One day, occupied by such thoughts, he stood watching that vast and
celebrated cataract, whose everlasting and impetuous flow mirrored the
dauntless but rash energy of his own soul. A vague desire of plunging
into the whirl of waters agitated him. His existence appeared to be a
blot in the creation; his hopes, and fears, and resolves, a worthless
web of ill-assorted ideas, best swept away at once from the creation.
Suddenly his eye caught the little figure of Fanny Derham, standing on a
rock not far distant, her meaning eyes fixed on him. The thunder of the
waters prevented speech; but as he drew near her, he saw that she had a
paper in her hand. She held it out to him; a blush mantled over her
usually pale countenance as he took it; and she sprung away up the rocky
pathway.
Lodore cast his eyes on the open letter, and his own name, half forgotten
by him, presented itself on the written page. The letter was from Fanny's
father--from Derham, his friend and school-fellow. His heart beat fast
as he read the words traced by one formerly so dear. "The beloved name
of Fitzhenry"--thus Derham had written--"awakens a strange conjecture.
Is not your kind protector, the friend and companion of my boyish days?
Is it not the long absent Lodore, who has stretched out a paternal hand
to my darling child, and who is about to add to his former generous
acts, the dearer one of restoring my Fanny to me? Ask him this
question;--extract this secret from him. Tell him how my chilled heart
warms with pleasure at the prospect of a renewal of our friendship. He
was a god-like boy; daring, generous, and brave. The remembrance of him
has been the bright spot which, except yourself, is all of cheering that
has chequered my gloomy existence. Ask him whether he remembers him
whose life he saved--whom he rescued from oppression and misery. I am an
old man now, weighed down by sorrow and infirmity. Adversity has also
visited him; but he will have withstood the shocks of fate, as gallantly
as a mighty ship stems the waves of ocean: while I, a weather-worn
skiff, am battered and wrecked by the tempest. From all you say, he must
be Lodore. Mark him, Fanny: if you see one lofty in his mien, yet
gracious in all his acts; his person adorned by the noblest attributes
of rank; full of dignity, yet devoid of pride; impatient of all that is
base and insolent, but with a heart open as a woman's to
compassion;--one whose slightest word possesses a charm to attract and
enchain the affections:--if such be your new friend, put this letter
into his hand; he will remember Francis Derham, and love you for my
sake, as well as for your own."
CHAPTER XV
It is our will
That thus enchains us to permitted ill.
SHELLEY.
This was a new inducement to bring back Lodore from the wilds of America,
to the remembrance of former days. The flattering expressions in Derham's
letter soothed his wounded pride, and inspired a desire of associating
once more with men who could appreciate his worth, and sympathize with
his feelings. His spirits became exhilarated; he talked of Europe and
his return thither, with all the animation of sanguine youth. It is one
of the necessary attributes of our nature, always to love what we have
once loved; and though new objects and change in former ones may chill
our affections for a time, we are filled with renewed fervour after
every fresh disappointment, and feel an impatient longing to return to
the cherishing warmth of our early attachments; happy if we do not find
emptiness and desolation, where we left life and hope.
Ethel had never been as happy as at the present time, and her affection
for her father gathered strength from the confidence which existed
between them. He was the passion of her soul, the engrossing attachment
of her loving heart. When she saw a cloud on his brow, she would stand
by him with silent but pleading tenderness, as if to ask whether any
exertion of hers could dissipate his inquietude. She hung upon his
discourse as a heavenly oracle, and welcomed him with gladdened looks of
love, when he returned after any short absence. Her heart was bent upon
pleasing him, she had no thought or pursuit which was not linked with
his participation.
There is perhaps in the list of human sensations, no one so pure, so
perfect, and yet so impassioned, as the affection of a child for its
parent, during that brief interval when they are leaving childhood, and
have not yet felt love. There is something so awful in a father. His
words are laws, and to obey them happiness. Reverence and a desire to
serve, are mingled with gratitude; and duty, without a flaw or question,
so second the instinct of the heart, as to render it imperative.
Afterwards we may love, in spite of the faults of the object of our
attachment; but during the interval alluded to, we have not yet learnt
to tolerate, but also, we have not learned to detect faults. All that a
parent does, appears an emanation from a diviner world; while we fear to
offend, we believe we have no right to be offended; eager to please, we
seek in return approval only, and are too humble to demand a reciprocity
of attention; it is enough that we are permitted to demonstrate our
devotion. Ethel's heart overflowed with love, reverence, worship of her
father. He had stood in the wilds of America a solitary specimen of all
that is graceful, cultivated, and wise among men; she knew of nothing
that might compare to him; and the world without him, was what the earth
might be uninformed by light: he was its sun, its ruling luminary. All
this intensity of feeling existed in her, without her being aware
scarcely of its existence, without her questioning the cause, or
reasoning on the effect. To love her father was the first law of nature,
the chief duty of a child, and she fulfilled it unconsciously, but more
completely than she could have done had she been associated with others,
who might have shared and weakened the concentrated sensibility of her
nature.
At length the packet arrived which brought letters from England. Before
his eyes lay the closed letter pregnant with fate. He was not of a
disposition to recoil from certainty; and yet for a few moments he
hesitated to break the seals--appalled by the magnitude of the crisis
which he believed to be at hand.
Latterly the idea of a reconciliation with Cornelia had been a favourite
in his thoughts. The world was a painful and hard-tasking school. She
must have suffered various disappointments, and endured much disgust,
and so be prepared to lend a willing ear to his overture. She was so
very young when they parted, and since then, had lived entirely under
the influence of Lady Santerre. But what had at one time proved
injurious, might, in course of years, have opened her eyes to the vanity of
the course which she was pursuing. Lodore felt persuaded, that there were
better things to be expected from his wife, than a love of fashion and
an adherence to the prejudices of society. He had failed to bring her
good qualities to light, but time and events might have played the tutor
better, and it merely required perhaps a seasonable interference, a
fortunate circumstance, to prove the truth of his opinion, and to show
Lady Lodore as generous, magnanimous, and devoted, as before she had
appeared proud, selfish, and cold.
How few there are possessed of any sensibility, who mingle with, and are
crushed by the jostling interests of the world, who do not ever and anon
exclaim with the Psalmist, "O for the wings of a dove, that I might flee
away and be at rest!" If such an aspiration was ever breathed by
Cornelia, how gladly, how fondly would her husband welcome the weary
flutterer, open his bosom for her refuge, and study to make her forget
all the disquietudes and follies of headstrong youth!
This was a mere dream. Lodore sighed to think that his position would not
permit him to afford her a shelter from the poisoned arrows of the
world. She must come to him prepared to suffer much. It required not
only the absence of the vulgar worldliness of Lady Santerre, but great
strength of mind to forgive the past, and strong affection to endure the
present. He could only invite her to share the lot of a dishonoured man,
to become a partner in the struggle which he was prepared to enter upon,
to regain his lost reputation. This was no cheering prospect. Pride and
generosity equally forbad his endeavouring to persuade his wife to quit
a course of life she liked, to enter upon a scene of trials and sorrows
with one for whom she did not care.
All these conjectures had long occupied him, but here was certainty--the
letter in his hand. It was sealed with black, and a tremulous shudder
ran through his frame as he tore it open. He soon satisfied
himself--Cornelia lived: he breathed freely again, and proceeded more
calmly to make himself master of the intelligence which the paper he
held contained.
Cornelia lived; but his sister announced a death which he believed would
change the colour of his life. Lady Santerre was no more!
Yes, Cornelia was alive; the bride that had stood beside him at the
altar--whose hand he had held while he pronounced his vows--with whom he
had domesticated for years--the mother of his child still lived. The
cold consuming grave did not wrap her lovely form. The idea of her
death, which the appearance of the black seal conveyed suddenly to his
imagination, had been appalling beyond words. For the last few weeks his
mind had been filled with her image; his thoughts had fed upon the hope
that they should meet once more. Had she died while he was living in
inactive seclusion in the Illinois, he might have been less moved; his
vivid fancy, his passionate heart, could not spare her now, without a
pang of agony. It passed away, and his mind reverted to the actual
situation in which they were placed by the death of his mother-in-law.
Reconciliation had become easy by the removal of that fatal barrier. He
felt assured that he could acquire Cornelia's confidence, win her love,
and administer to her happiness; he determined to leave nothing untried
to bring about so desirable a conclusion to their long and dreary
alienation. The one insuperable obstacle was gone; their daughter, that
loveliest link, that soft silken tie remained: Cornelia must welcome
with maternal delight this better portion of herself.
He glanced over his sister Elizabeth's letter, announcing the death of
Lady Santerre, and then read the one enclosed from Lady Lodore to her
sister-in-law. It was cold, but very decisive. She thanked her first for
the inquiries she had made, and then proceeded to say, that she took
this opportunity, the only one likely to present itself, of expressing
what her own feelings were on this melancholy occasion. "I am afraid,"
she said, "that your brother will look on the death of my dearest mother
as opening the door to our re-union. Some words in your letter seem
indeed to intimate this, or I should have hoped that I was entirely
forgotten. I trust that I am mistaken. My earnest desire is, that my
natural grief, and the tranquillity which I try to secure for myself,
may not be disturbed by fruitless endeavours to bring about what can
never be. My determination may be supposed to arise from pride and
implacable resentment: perhaps it does, but I feel it impossible that we
should ever be any thing but strangers to each other. I will not
complain, and I wish to avoid harsh allusions, but respect for her I
have lost, and a sense of undeserved wrong, are paramount with me. I
shall never intrude upon him. Persuade him that it will be unmanly
cruelty to force himself, even by a letter, on me."
From this violent declaration of an unforgiving heart, Lodore turned to
Elizabeth's letter. This excellent lady, to whom the names of
dissipation and the metropolis were synonymous, and who knew as much of
the world as Parson Adams, assured her brother, that Cornelia, far from
feeling deeply the blow of her mother's death, was pursuing her giddy
course with greater pertinacity than ever. Surrounded by flatterers,
given up to pleasure, she naturally shrunk from being reminded of her
exiled husband and her forgotten child. Her letter showed how ill she
deserved the tenderness and interest which Lodore had expressed. She was
a second Lady Santerre, without being gifted with that maternal
affection, which had in some degree dignified that person's character.
Elizabeth lamented that his wife's hardness of heart might prevent his
proposed visit to England. She did not like to urge it--it might seem
selfish: hitherto she had let herself and her sorrows go for nothing;
could she think of her own gratification, while her brother was
suffering so much calamity? She was growing old--indeed she was old--she
had no kin around her--early friends were dead or lost to her--she had
nothing to live on but the recollection of her brother; she should think
herself blest could she see him once more before she died.
"O my dear brother Henry," continued the kind-hearted lady, "if you
would but say the word--the sea is nothing; people older than I--and I
am not at all infirm--make the voyage. Let me come to America--let me
embrace my niece, and see you once again--let me share your dear home in
the Illinois, which I see every night in my dreams. I should grieve to
be a burthen to you, but it would be my endeavour to prove a comfort and
a help."
Lodore read both of these letters, one after the other, again and again. He
resolved on going to England immediately. Either Cornelia was entirely
callous and worthless, and so to be discarded from his heart for ever,
or after her first bitter feelings on her mother's death were over, she
would soften towards her child, or there was some dread secret feeling
that influenced her, and he must save her from calamity and
wretchedness. One of those changes of feeling to which the character of
Lodore was peculiarly subject, came over him. Lady Santerre was
dead--Cornelia was alone. A thousand dangers surrounded her. It appeared
to him that his first imperious duty was to offer himself to guard and
watch over her. He resolved to leave nothing untried to make her happy.
He would give up Ethel to her--he would gratify every wish she could
frame--pour out benefits lavishly before her--force her to see in him a
benefactor and a friend; and at last, his heart whispered, induce her to
assume again the duties of a wife.
CHAPTER XVI
What is peace? When life is over,
And love ceases to rebel,
Let the last faint sigh discover,
Which precedes the passing knell.
WORDSWORTH.
Lodore was henceforth animated by a new spirit of hope. His projects and
resolves gave him something to live for. He looked forward with
pleasure; feeling, on his expected return to his native country, as the
fabled voyager, who knew that he ought to be contented in the fair
island where chance had thrown him, and yet who hailed with rapture the
approach of the sail that was to bear him back to the miseries of social
life. He reflected that he had in all probability many years before him,
and he was earnest that the decline of his life should, by a display of
prudence and virtuous exertion, cause the errors of his earlier manhood
to be forgotten.
This inspiriting tone of mind was very congenial to Ethel. The prospects
that occupied her father had a definite horizon: all was vague and misty
to her eyes, yet beautiful and alluring. Lodore gave no outline of his
plans: he never named her mother. Uncertain himself, he was unwilling to
excite feelings in Ethel's mind, to be afterwards checked and disappointed.
He painted the future in gay colours, but left it in all the dimness most
favourable for an ardent imagination to exercise itself upon.
In a very few days they were to sail for England. Their passage was
engaged. Lodore had written to his sister to announce his return. He spoke
of Longfield, and of her kind and gentle aunt to Ethel, and she, who, like
Miranda, had known no relative or intimate except her father, warmed
with pleasure to find new ties bind her to her fellow-creatures. She
questioned her father, and he, excited by his own newly-awakened
emotions, dilated eloquently on the joys of his young days, and pleased
Fanny, as well as his own daughter, by a detail of boyish pranks and
adventures which his favourite school-fellow shared. The freedom he
enjoyed in his paternal home, the worship that waited on him there, the
large space which in early youth he appeared to fill in all men's eyes,
the buoyancy and innocence associated with those unshadowed days,
painted them to his memory cloudless and bright. It would be to renew
them to see Longfield again,--to clasp once more the hand of Francis
Derham.
A kind of holiday and festal feeling was diffused through Ethel's mind
by the vivid descriptions and frank communications of her father. She
felt as if about to enter Paradise. America grew dim and sombre in her
eyes; its forests, lakes, and wilds, were empty and silent, while
England swarmed with a thousand lovely forms of pleasure. Her father
strewed a downy velvet path for her, which she trod with light, girlish
steps, happy in the present hour, happier in the anticipated future.
A few days before the party were to sail, Lodore and his daughter dined
with Mrs. Greville. As if they held the reins, and could curb the course
of, fate, each and all were filled with hilarity. Lodore had forgotten
Theodora and her son--had cast from his recollection the long train of
misery, injury, and final ruin, which for so long had occupied his whole
thoughts. He was in his own eyes no longer the branded exile. A strange
distortion of vision blinded this unfortunate man to the truth, which
experience so perpetually teaches us, that the consequences of our
actions never die: that repentance and time may paint them to us in
different shapes; but though we shut our eyes, they are still beside us,
helping the inexorable destinies to spin the fatal thread, and
sharpening the implement which is to cut it asunder.
Lodore lived the morning of that day, (it was the first of May, realizing
by its brilliancy and sweets, the favourite months of the poets,) as if
many a morning throughout the changeful seasons was to be his. Some time
he spent on board the vessel in which he was to sail; seeing that all
the arrangements which he had ordered for Ethel and Fanny's comfort were
perfected; then father and daughter rode out together. Often did Ethel
try to remember every word of the conversation held during that ride. It
concerned the fair fields of England, the splendours of Italy, the
refinements and pleasures of Europe. "When we are in London,"--"When we
shall visit Naples,"--such phrases perpetually occurred. It was Lodore's
plan to induce Cornelia to travel with him, and to invite Mr. Derham and
Fanny to be their companions; a warmer climate would benefit his
friend's health. "And for worlds," he said, "I would not lose Derham. It
is the joy of my life to think that by my return to my native country I
secure to myself the society of this excellent and oppressed man."
At six o'clock Lodore and Ethel repaired to Mrs. Greville's house. It had
been intended that no other persons should be invited, but the unexpected
arrival of some friends from Washington, about to sail to England, had
obliged the lady to alter this arrangement. The new guests consisted of
an English gentleman and his wife, and one other, an American, who had
filled a diplomatic situation in London. Annoyed by the sight of
strangers, Lodore kept apart, conversing with Ethel and Fanny.
At dinner he sat opposite to the American. There was something in this
man's physiognomy peculiarly disagreeable to him. He was not a
pleasing-looking man, but that was not all. Lodore fancied that he must
have seen him before under very painful circumstances. He felt inclined to
quarrel with him--he knew not why; and was disturbed and dissatisfied
with himself and every body. The first words which the man spoke were as
an electric shock to him. Twelve long years rolled back--the past became
the present once again. This very American had sat opposite to him at
the memorable dinner at the Russian Ambassador's. At the moment when he
had been hurried away by the fury of his passion against Casimir, he
remembered to have seen a sarcastic sneer on his face, as the republican
marked the arrogance of the English noble. Lodore had been ready then to
turn the fire of his resentment on the insolent observer; but when the
occasion passed away he had entirely forgotten him, till now he rose
like a ghost to remind him of former pains and crimes.
The lapse of years had scarcely altered this person. His hair was
grizzled, but it crowned his head in the same rough abundance as
formerly. His face, which looked as if carved out of wood, strongly and
deeply lined, showed no tokens of a more advanced age. He was then
elderly-looking for a middle-aged man; he was now young-looking for an
elderly man. Nature had disdained to change an aspect which showed so
little of her divinity, and which no wrinkles nor withering could mar.
Lodore, turning from this apparition, caught the reflection of himself in
an opposite mirror. Association of ideas had made him unconsciously expect
to behold the jealous husband of Cornelia. How changed, how passion-worn
and tarnished was the countenance that met his eyes. He recovered his
self-possession as he became persuaded that this chance visitant, who
had seen him but once, would be totally unable to recognize him.
This unwelcome guest had been attached to the American embassy in
England, and had but lately returned to New York. He was full of dislike
of the English. Contempt for them, and pride in his countrymen, being
the cherished feelings of his mind; the latter he held up to admiration
from prejudiced views; a natural propensity to envy and depreciation led
him to detract from the former. He was, in short, a most disagreeable
person; and his insulting observations on his country moved Lodore's
spleen, while his mind was shaken from its balance by the sight of one who
reminded him of his past errors and ruin. He was fast advancing to a
state of irritability, when he should lose all command over himself. He
felt this, and tried to subdue the impetuous rush of bitterness which
agitated him; he remembered that he must expect many trials like this,
and that, rightly considered, this was a good school wherein he might
tutor himself to self-possession and firmness. He went to another
extreme, and addressing himself to, and arguing with, the object of his
dislike, endeavoured to gloss over to himself the rising violence of his
impassioned temper.
The ladies retired, and the gentlemen entered upon a political
discussion on some event passing in Europe. The English guest took his
departure early, and Lodore and the other continued to converse. Some
mention was made of newspapers newly arrived, and the American proposed
that they should repair to the coffee-house to see them. Lodore agreed: he
thought that this would be a good opportunity to shake off his
distasteful companion.
The coffee-room contained nearly twenty persons. They were in loud
discussion upon a question of European politics, and reviling England and
her manners in the most contemptuous terms. This was not balm for Lodore's
sore feelings. His heart swelled indignantly at the sarcasms which these
strangers levelled against his native country; he felt as if he was
acting a coward's part while he listened tamely. His companion soon
entered with vehemence into the conversation; and the noble, who was
longing to quarrel with him, now drew himself up with forced composure,
fixing his full meaning eyes upon the speaker, hoping by his quiescence
to entice him into expressions which he would insist on being retracted.
His temper by this time entirely mastered him. In a calmer moment he
would have despised himself for being influenced by such a man, to any
sentiment except contempt; but the tempest was abroad, and all sobriety
of feeling was swept away like chaff before the wind.
Mr. Hatfield,--such was the American's name,--perceiving that he was
listened to, entered with great delight on his favourite topic, a
furious and insolent philippic against England, in mass and in detail.
Lodore still listened; there was a dry sneer in the tones of the speaker's
voice, that thrilled him with hate and rage. At length, by some chance
reverting to the successful struggle America had made for her
independence, and ridiculing the resistance of the English on the
occasion, Hatfield named Lodore.
"Lodore!" cried one of the by-standers; "Fitzhenry was the name of the man
who took the Oronooko."
"Aye, Fitzhenry it was," said Hatfield, "Lodore is his nickname. King
George's bit of gilt gingerbread, which mightily pleased the sapient
mariner. An Englishman thinks himself honoured when he changes one name for
another. Admiral Fitzhenry was the scum of the earth--Lord Lodore a pillar
of state. Pity that infamy should so soon have blackened the glorious
title!"
Lodore's pale cheek suddenly flushed at these words, and then blanched
again, as with compressed lips he resolved to hear yet more, till the
insult should no longer be equivocal. The word "infamy" was echoed from
various lips. Hatfield found that he had insured a hearing, and, glad of an
audience, he went on to relate his story--it was of the dinner at the
Russian Ambassador's--of the intemperate violence of Lodore--and the
youthful Lyzinski's wrongs. "I saw the blow given," continued the
narrator, "and I would have caned the fellow on the spot, had I not
thought that a bullet would do his business better. But when it came to
that, London was regaled by an event which could not have happened here,
for we have no such cowards among us. My lord was not to be found--he
had absconded--sneaked off like a mean-spirited, pitiful scoundrel!"
The words were still on the man's lips when a blow, sudden and
unexpected, extended him on the floor. After this swiftly-executed act
of retaliation, Lodore folded his arms, and as his antagonist rose, foaming
with rage, said, "You, at least, shall have no cause to complain of not
receiving satisfaction for your injuries at my hands. I am ready to give
it, even in this room. I am Lord Lodore!"
Duels, that sad relic of feudal barbarism, were more frequent then than
now in America; at all times they are more fatal and more openly carried
on there than in this country. The nature of the quarrel in the present
instance admitted of no delay; and it was resolved, that the antagonists
should immediately repair to an open place near the city, to terminate,
by the death of one, the insults they had mutually inflicted.
Lodore saw himself surrounded by Americans, all strangers to him; nor was
he acquainted with one person in New York whom he could ask to be his
second. This was matter of slight import: the idea of vindicating his
reputation, and of avenging the bitter mortifications received from
society, filled him with unnatural gladness; and he was hastening to the
meeting, totally regardless of any arrangement for his security.
There was a gentleman, seated at a distant part of the coffee-room, who
had been occupied by reading; nor seemed at all to give ear to what was
going on, till the name of Lodore occurred: he then rose, and when the blow
was given, drew nearer the group; though he still stood aloof, while, with
raised and angry voices, they assailed Lodore, and he, replying in his
deep, subdued voice, agreed to the meeting which they tumultuously
demanded. Now, as they were hastening away, and Lodore was following
them, confessedly unbefriended, this gentleman approached, and putting
his card into the nobleman's hand, said, "I am an Englishman, and should
be very glad if you would accept my services on this painful occasion."
Lodore looked at the card, on which was simply engraved the name of "Mr.
Edward Villiers," and then at him who addressed him. He was a young
man--certainly not more than three-and-twenty. An air of London fashion,
to which Lodore had been so long unused, was combined with a most
prepossessing countenance. He was light-haired and blue-eyed;
ingenuousness and sincerity marked his physiognomy. The few words he had
spoken were enforced by a graceful cordiality of manner, and a
silver-toned voice, that won the heart. Lodore was struck by his
prepossessing exterior, and replied with warm thanks; adding, that his
services would be most acceptable on certain conditions,--which were
merely that he should put no obstacle to the immediate termination of
the quarrel, in any mode, however desperate, which his adversary might
propose. "Otherwise," Lodore added, "I must entirely decline your
interference. All this is to me matter of far higher import than mere
life and death, and I can submit to no controul."
"Then my services must be limited to securing fair play for you," said
Mr. Villiers.
During this brief parley, they were in the street, proceeding towards
the place of meeting. Day had declined, and the crescent moon was high
in the heavens: each instant its beams grew more refulgent, as twilight
yielded to night.
"We shall have no difficulty in seeing each other," said Lodore, in a
cheerful voice. He felt cheerful: a burthen was lifted from his heart. How
much must a brave man suffer under the accusation of cowardice, and how
joyous when an opportunity is granted of proving his courage! Lodore was
brave to rashness: at this crisis he felt as if about to be born again
to all the earthly blessings of which he had been deprived so long. He
did not think of the dread baptism of blood which was to occasion his
regeneration--still less of personal danger; he thought only of good
name restored--of his reputation for courage vindicated--of the
insolence of this ill-spoken fellow signally chastised.
"Have you weapons?" asked his companion.
"They will procure pistols, I suppose," replied Lodore: "we should lose
much time by going to the hotel for mine."
"We are passing that where I am," said Mr. Villiers. "If you will wait
one moment I will fetch mine;--or will you go up with me?"
They entered the house, and the apartments of Mr. Villiers. At such
moments slight causes operate changes on the human heart; and as various
impulses sweep like winds over its chords, that subtle instrument gives
forth various tones. A moment ago, Lodore seemed to raise his proud head to
the stars: he felt as if escaping from a dim, intricate cavern, into the
blessed light of day. The strong excitement permitted no second
thought--no second image. With a lighter step than Mr. Villiers, he
followed that gentleman up-stairs. For a moment, as he went into an
inner apartment for the pistols, Lodore was alone: a desk was open on
the table; and paper, unwritten on, upon the desk. Scarcely knowing what
he did, Lodore took the pen, and wrote--"Ethel, my child! my life's
dearest blessing! be virtuous, be useful, be happy!--farewell, for
ever!"--and under this he wrote Mrs. Greville's address. The first words
were written with a firm hand; but the recollection of all that might
occur, made his fingers tremble as he continued, and the direction was
nearly illegible. "If any thing happens to me," said he to Mr. Villiers,
"you will add to your kindness immeasurably by going there,"--pointing
to the address,--"and taking precaution that my daughter may hear of her
disaster in as tender a manner as possible."
"Is there any thing else?" asked his companion. "Command me freely, I
beseech you; I will obey your injunctions to the letter."
"It is too late now," replied the noble; "and we must not keep these
gentlemen waiting. The little I have to say we will talk of as we walk."
"I feel," continued Lodore, after they were again in the street, "that if
this meeting end fatally, I have no power to enforce my wishes and designs
beyond the grave. The providence which has so strangely conducted the
drama of my life, will proceed in its own way after the final
catastrophe. I commit my daughter to a higher power than mine, secure
that so much innocence and goodness must receive blessings, even in this
ill-grained state of existence. You will see Mrs. Greville: she is a
kind-hearted, humane woman, and will exert herself to console my child.
Ethel--Miss Fitzhenry, I mean--must, as soon as is practicable, return
to England. She will be received there by my sister, and remain with her
till--till her fate be otherwise decided. We were on the point of
sailing;--I have fitted up a cabin for her;--she might make the voyage
in that very vessel. You, perhaps, will consult--though what claim have
I on you?"
"A claim most paramount," interrupted Villiers eagerly,--"that of a
countryman in a foreign land--of a gentleman vindicating his honour at
the probable expense of life."
"Thank you!" replied Lodore;--"my heart thanks you--for my own sake, and
for my daughter's--if indeed you will kindly render her such services as
her sudden loss may make sadly necessary."
"Depend upon me;--though God grant she need them not!"
"For her sake, I say Amen!" said Lodore; "for my own--life is a worn-out
garment--few tears will be shed upon my grave, except by Ethel."
"There is yet another," said Villiers with visible hesitation: "pardon
me, if I appear impertinent; but at such a moment, may I not name Lady
Lodore?"
"For her, indeed," answered the peer, "the event of this evening, if
fatal to me, will prove fortunate: she will be delivered from a heavy
chain. May she be happy in another choice! Are you acquainted with her?"
"I am, slightly--that is, not very intimately."
"If you meet her on your return to England," continued the noble;--"if
you ever see Lady Lodore, tell her that I invoked a blessing on her with my
latest breath--that I forgive her, and ask her forgiveness. But we are
arrived. Remember Ethel."
"Yet one moment," cried Villiers;--"one moment of reflection, of calm!
Is there no way of preventing this encounter?"
"None!--fail me not, I intreat you, in this one thing;--interpose no
obstacle--be as eager and as firm as I myself am. Our friends have
chosen a rising ground: we shall be excellent marks for one another.
Pray do not lose time."
The American and his second stood in dark relief against the moon-lit
sky. As the rays fell upon the English noble, Hatfield observed to his
companion, that he now perfectly recognized him, and wondered at his
previous blindness. Perhaps he felt some compunction for the insult he
had offered; but he said nothing, and no attempt was made on either side
at amicable explanation. They proceeded at once, with a kind of savage
indifference, to execute the murderous designs which caused them to
disturb the still and lovely night.
It was indeed a night, that love, and hope, and all the softer emotions
of the soul, would have felt congenial to them. A balmy, western breeze
lifted the hair lightly from Lodore's brow, and played upon his cheek; the
trees were bathed in yellow moonshine; a glowworm stealing along the
grass scarce showed its light; and sweet odours were wafted from grove
and field. Lodore stood, with folded arms, gazing upon the scene in
silence, while the seconds were arranging preliminaries, and loading the
firearms. None can tell what thoughts then passed through his mind. Did
he rejoice in his honour redeemed, or grieve for the human being at
whose breast he was about to aim?--or were his last thoughts spent upon
the account he might so speedily be called on to render before his
Creator's throne? When at last he took his weapon from the hand of
Villiers, his countenance was serene, though solemn; and his voice firm
and calm. "Remember me to Ethel," he said; "and tell her to thank
you;--I cannot sufficiently; yet I do so from my heart. If I live--then
more of this."
The antagonists were placed: they were both perfectly
self-possessed--bent, with hardness and cruelty of purpose, on
fulfilling the tragic act. As they stood face to face--a few brief paces
only intervening--on the moon-lit hill--neither had ever been more
alive, more full of conscious power, of moral and physical energy, than
at that moment. Villiers saw them standing beneath the silver moonbeams,
each in the pride of life, of strength, of resolution. A ray glanced from
the barrel of Lodore's pistol, as he raised and held it out with a steady
hand--a flash--the reports--and then he staggered two steps, fell, and
lay on the earth, making no sign of life. Villiers rushed to him: the
wound was unapparent--no blood flowed, but the bullet had entered his
heart. His friend raised his head in his arms; his eyes opened; his lips
moved, but no sound issued from them;--a shadow crossed his face--the
body slipped from Villiers's support to the ground--all was over--Lodore
was dead!
CHAPTER XVII
En cor gentil, amor per mort no passa.
AUSIAS MARCH, TROUBADOUR.
We return to Longfield and to Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry. The glory of
summer invested the world with light, cheerfulness, and beauty, when the
sorrowing sister of Lodore visited London, to receive her orphan niece from
the hands of the friend of Mrs. Greville, under whose protection she had
made the voyage. The good lady folded poor Ethel in her arms, overcome
by the likeness she saw to her beloved brother Henry, in his youthful
days, before passion had worn and misfortune saddened him. Her soft,
brown, lamp-like eyes, beamed with the same sensibility. Yet when she
examined her more closely, Mrs Elizabeth lost somewhat of the likeness;
for the lower part of her face resembled her mother: her hair was
lighter and her complexion much fairer than Lodore; besides that the
expression of her countenance was peculiar to herself, and possessed
that individuality which is so sweet to behold, but impossible to
describe.
They lingered but a few days in London. Fanny Derham, who accompanied
her on her voyage, had already returned to her father, and there was
nothing to detain them from Longfield. Ethel had no adieus to make that
touched her heart. Her aunt was more to her than any other living being,
and her strongest desire now was, to visit the scenes once hallowed by
her father's presence. The future was a chaos of dark regret and
loneliness; her whole life, she thought, would be composed of one long
memory.
One memory, and one fatal image. Ethel had not only consecrated her
heart to her father, but his society was a habit with her, and, until
now, she had never even thought how she could endure existence without
the supporting influence of his affection. His conversation, so full of
a kind penetration into her thoughts, was calculated to develop and
adorn them; his manly sense and paternal solicitude, had all fostered a
filial love, the most tender and strong. Add to this, his sudden and
awful death. Already had they schemed their future life in a world new
to Ethel: he had excited her enthusiasm by descriptions of the wonders
of art in the old countries, and raised her curiosity while promising to
satisfy it; and she had eagerly looked forward to the time when she
should see the magical works of man, and mingle with a system of
society, of which, except by books, he alone presented any ensample to
her. Their voyage was fixed, and on the other side of their watery way
she had figured a very Elysium of wonders and pleasures. The late change
in their mode of life had served to endear him doubly to her. It had
been the occupation of her life to think of her father, to communicate
all her thoughts to him, and in the unreflecting confidence of youth,
she had looked forward to no termination of a state of existence, that
had began from her cradle. He propped her entire world; the foundations
must moulder and crumble away without him--and he was gone--where then
was she?
Mr. Villiers had, as soon as he was able, hurried to Mrs. Greville's
house. By some strange chance, the fatal tidings had preceded him, and he
found the daughter of the unfortunate Lodore bewildered and maddened by her
frightful calamity. Her first desire was to see all that was left of her
parent--she could not believe that he was indeed dead--she was certain
that care and skill might revive him--she insisted on being led to his
side; her friends strove to restrain her, but she rushed into the
street, she knew not whither, to ask for, to find her father. The
timidity of her temper was overborne by the wild expectation of yet
being able to recall him from among the dead. Villiers followed her,
and, yielding to her wishes, guided her towards the hotel whither the
remains of Lodore had been carried. He judged that the exertion of
walking thither, and the time that must elapse before she arrived, would
calm and subdue her. He talked to her of her father as they went
along--he endeavoured to awaken the source of tears--but she was
silent--absorbed--brooding darkly on her hopes. Pity for herself had not
yet arisen, nor the frightful certainty of bereavement. To see those
dear lineaments--to touch his hand--the very hand that had so often
caressed her, clay-cold and incapable of motion! Could it be!
She did not answer Villiers, she only hurried forward; she feared
obstruction to her wishes; her soul was set on one thought only. Had
Villiers endeavoured to deceive her, it would have been in vain. Arrived
at the hotel, as by instinct, she sprung up the stairs, and reached the
door of the room. It was darkened, in useless but decent respect for the
death within; there lay a figure covered by a sheet, and already
chilling the atmosphere around it. The imagination is slow to act upon
the feelings in comparison with the quick operation of the senses. Ethel
now knew that her father was dead. Mortal strength could support no
more--the energy of hope deserting her, she sunk lifeless on the ground.
For a long time she was passive in the hands of others. A violent
illness confined her to her bed, and physical suffering subdued the
excess of mental agony. Villiers left her among kind friends. It was
resolved that she and Fanny Derham should proceed to England, under the
protection of the friends of Mrs. Greville about to return thither; he
was himself obliged to return to England without delay.
Ethel's destiny was as yet quite uncertain. It was decided by the
opening of her father's will. This had been made twelve years before on
his first arrival at New York, and breathed the spirit of resentment, and
even revenge, against his wife. Lodore had indeed not much wealth to leave.
His income chiefly consisted in a grant from the crown, entailed on
heirs male, which in default of these, reverted back, and in a sinecure
which expired with him. His paternal estate at Longfield, and a sum
under twenty thousand pounds, the savings of twelve years, formed all
his possessions. The income arising from the former was absorbed by Lady
Lodore's jointure of a thousand a year, and five hundred a year settled
on his sister, together with permission to occupy the family mansion
during her life. The remaining sum was disposed of in a way most
singular. Without referring to the amount of what he could leave, he
bequeathed the additional sum of six hundred a year to Lady Lodore, on
the express condition, that she should not interfere with, nor even see,
her child; upon her failing in this condition, this sum was to be left
to accumulate till Ethel was of age. Ethel was ultimately to inherit
every thing; but while her mother and aunt lived, her fortune consisted
of little more than five thousand pounds; and even in this, she was
limited to the use of the interest only until she was of age; a previous
marriage would have no influence on the disposition of her property.
Mrs. Elizabeth was left her guardian.
This will was in absolute contradiction to the wishes and feelings in
which Lord Lodore died; so true had his prognostic been, that he had no
power beyond the grave. He had probably forgotten the existence of this
will, or imagined that it had been destroyed: he had determined to make a
new one on his arrival in England. Meanwhile it was safely deposited with
his solicitor in London, and Mrs. Elizabeth, with mistaken zeal,
hastened to put it into force, and showed herself eager to obey her
brother's wishes with scrupulous exactitude. The contents of it were
communicated to Lady Lodore. She made no comment--returned no answer.
She was suddenly reduced from comparative affluence (for her husband's
allowance had consisted of several thousands) to a bare sixteen hundred
a year. Whether she would be willing to diminish this her scanty income
one third, and take on herself, besides, the care of her daughter, was
not known. She remained inactive and silent, and Ethel was placed at
once under the guardianship of her aunt.
These two ladies left London in the old lumbering chariot which had
belonged to the Admiral. Now, indeed, Ethel found herself in a new
country, with new friends around her, speaking a new language, and each
change of scene made more manifest the complete revolution of her
fortunes. She looked on all with languid eyes, and a heart dead to every
pleasure. Her aunt, who bore a slight resemblance of her father, won
some degree of interest; and the sole consolation offered her, was to
trace a similarity of voice and feature, and thus to bring the lost Lodore
more vividly before her. The journey to Longfield was therefore not wholly
without a melancholy charm. Mrs. Elizabeth longed to obtain more minute
information concerning her brother, her pride and her delight, than had
been contained in his short and infrequent letters. She hazarded a few
questions. Grief loves to feed upon itself, and to surround itself with
multiplications of its own image; like a bee, it will find sweets in the
poison flower, and nestle within its own creations, although they pierce
the heart that cherishes them. Ethel felt a fascination in dwelling for
ever on the past. She asked for nothing better than to live her life
over again, while narrating its simple details, and to bring her father
back from his grave to dwell with her, by discoursing perpetually
concerning him. She was unwearied in her descriptions, her anecdotes,
her praises. The Illinois rose before the eyes of her aunt, like a
taintless paradise, inhabited by an angel. Love and good dwelt together
there in blameless union; the sky was brighter; the earth fairer,
fresher, younger, more magnificent, and more wonderful, than in the old
world. The good lady called to mind, with surprise, the melancholy and
despairing letters she had received from her brother, while inhabiting
this Eden. It was matter of mortification to his mourning daughter to
hear, as from himself, as it were, that any sorrows had visited his
heart while with her. When we love one to whom we have devoted our lives
with undivided affection, the idea that the beloved object suffered any
grief while with us, jars with our sacred sorrow. We delight to make the
difference between the possession of their society, and our subsequent
bereavement, entire in its contrasted happiness and misery; we wish to
have engrossed their whole souls, as they do ours, at the period of
regret, and it is like the most cruel theft, to know that we have been
deprived of any of the power we believed that we possessed, to influence
their entire being. But then again, forgetting her aunt's interruptions.
Ethel returned to the story of their occupations, their amusements,
their fond and unsullied intercourse, her eyes streamed with tears as
she spoke, while yet her heart felt relief in the indulgence of her woe.
When the ladies returned to Longfield, it became Mrs. Elizabeth's turn
to narrate. She had lived many years feeding silently on the memory of
by-gone time. During her brother's exile, she had seldom spoken his
name, for she felt little inclined to satisfy the inquisitiveness of the
good people of Longfield. But now her long-stored anecdotes, her sacred
relics, the spots made dear by his presence, all were a treasure poured
out bounteously before Ethel. Nothing appeared so natural to the
unfortunate girl as that another should, like herself, worship the
recollection of her adored father. To love him while he lived, to see
nothing in the world that had lost him, except his shadow cast upon its
benighted state, appeared the only existence that could follow his
extinction. Some people, when they die, leave but a foot of ground
vacant, which the eager pressing ranks of their fellow-creatures fill up
immediately, walking on their grave, as on common earth; others leave a
gap, a chasm, a fathomless gulf, beside which the survivor sits for ever
hopeless. Both Ethel and her aunt, in their several ways, in youth and
age, were similarly situated. Both were cut off from the great family of
their species; wedded to one single being, and he was gone. Both made
the dead Lodore the focus to concentrate, and the mirror to reflect, all
their sensations and experience. He visited their dreams by night, his name
was their study, their pastime, their sole untiring society.
Mrs. Elizabeth, the gentlest visionary that had ever outlived hope,
without arriving at its fruition, having reached those years when memory
is the natural food of the human mind, found this fare exceedingly well
adapted to her constitution. She had pined a little while cut off from
all heart-felt communication with her fellow-creatures, but the presence
of Ethel fulfilled her soul's desire; she found sympathy, and an
auditress, into whose ever-attentive ear she could pour those reveries
which she had so long nourished in secret. Whoso had heard the good lady
talk of endless tears and mourning for the loss of Lodore, of life not
worth having when he was gone, of the sad desolation of their position, and
looked at her face, beaming with satisfaction, with only so much
sensibility painted there as to render it expressive of all that is kind
and compassionate, good-humour in her frequent smile, and sleek content
in her plump person, might have laughed at the contrast; and yet have
pondered on the strange riddle we human beings present, and how
contradictions accord in our singular machinery. This good aunt was
incapable of affectation, and all was true and real that she said. She
lived upon the idea of her brother; he was all in all to her, but they
had been divided so long, that his death scarcely increased the
separation; and she could talk of meeting him in heaven, with as firm
and cheerful a faith, as a few months before she had anticipated his
return to England. Though sincere in her regret for his death, habit had
turned lamentation into a healthy nutriment, so that she throve upon the
tears she shed, and grew fat and cheerful upon her sighs. She would lead
the agonized girl to the vault which contained the remains of her
brother, and hover near it, as a Catholic beside the shrine of a
favourite saint--the visible image giving substance and form to her
reverie; for hitherto, her dreamy life had wanted the touch of reality,
which the presence of her niece, and the sad memorial of her lost
brother, afforded.
The home-felt sensations of the mourning orphan, were in entire contrast
to this holiday woe. While her aunt brooded over her sorrow "to keep it
warm," it wrapped Ethel's soul as with a fiery torture. Every cheerful
thought lay buried with her father, and the tears she shed near his
grave were accompanied by a wrenching of her being, and a consequent
exhaustion, that destroyed the elasticity of the spirit of youth. The
memory of Lodore, which soothed his sister, haunted his child like a sad
beckoning, yet fatal vision; she yearned to reach the shore where his
pale ghost perpetually wandered--the earth seemed a dark prison, and
liberty and light dwelt with the dead beyond the grave. Eternally
conversant with the image of death, she was brought into too near
communion with the grim enemy of life. She wasted and grew pale: nor did
any voice speak to her of the unreasonableness of her grief; her father
was not near to teach her fortitude, and there appeared a virtue and a
filial piety in the excess of her regret, which blinded her aunt to the
fatal consequences of its indulgence.
While summer lasted, and the late autumn protracted its serenity almost
into winter, Ethel wandered in the lanes and fields; and in spite of
wasting grief, the free air of heaven, which swept her cheek, preserved
its healthy hue and braced her limbs. But when dreary inclement winter
arrived, and the dull fireside of aunt Bessy became the order of the
day, without occupation to amuse, or society to distract her thoughts,
given up to grief, and growing into a monument of woe, it became evident
that the springs of life were becoming poisoned, and that health and
existence itself were giving way before the destructive influences at
work within. Appetite first, then sleep, deserted her. A slight cold
became a cough, and then changed into a preying fever. She grew so thin
that her large eyes, shining with unnatural lustre, appeared to occupy
too much of her face, and her brow was streaked with ghastly hues. Poor
Mrs. Elizabeth, when she found that neither arrow-root nor chicken-broth
restored her, grew frightened--the village practitioner exhausted his
skill without avail. Ethel herself firmly believed that she was going to
die, and fondly cherished the hope of rejoining her father. She was in
love with death, which alone could reunite her to the being, apart from
whom she believed it impossible to exist.
But limits were now placed to Mrs. Elizabeth's romance. The danger of
Ethel was a frightful reality that awoke every natural feeling. Ethel,
the representative of her brother, the last of their nearly extinct
race, the sole relation she possessed, the only creature whom she could
entirely love, was dear to her beyond expression; and the dread of
losing her gave activity to her slothful resolves. Having seldom, during
the whole course of her life, been called upon to put any plan or wish
of her's into actual execution, what another would have immediately and
easily done, was an event to call forth all her energies, and to require
all her courage; luckily she possessed sufficient to meet the present
exigency. She wrote up to London to her single correspondent there, her
brother's solicitor. A house was taken, and the first warm days of
spring found the ladies established in the metropolis. A physician had
been called in, and he pronounced the mind only to be sick. "Amuse her,"
he said, "occupy her--prevent her from dwelling on those thoughts which
have preyed upon her health; let her see new faces, new places, every
thing new--and youth, and a good constitution, will do the rest."
There seemed so much truth in this advice, that all dangerous symptoms
disappeared from the moment of Ethel's leaving Essex. Her strength
returned--her face resumed its former loveliness; and aunt Bessy,
overjoyed at the change, occupied herself earnestly in discovering
amusements for her niece in the numerous, wide-spread, and very busy
congregation of human beings, which forms the western portion of London.
CHAPTER XVIII
You are now
In London, that great sea, whose ebb and flow,
At once is deaf and loud.
SHELLEY.
There is no uninhabited desart so dreary as the peopled streets of
London, to those who have no ties with its inhabitants, nor any pursuits
in common with its busy crowds. A drop of water in the ocean is no
symbol of the situation of an isolated individual thrown upon the stream
of metropolitan life; that amalgamates with its kindred element; but the
solitary being finds no pole of attraction to cause a union with its
fellows, and bastilled by the laws of society, it is condemned to
incommunicative solitude.
Ethel was thrown completely upon her aunt, and her aunt was a cypher in
the world. She had not a single acquaintance in London, and was wholly
inexperienced in its ways. She dragged Ethel about to see sights, and
Ethel was amused for a time. The playhouses were a great source of
entertainment to her, and all kinds of exhibitions, panoramas, and
shows, served to fill up her day. Still the great want of all shed an
air of dulness over every thing--the absence of human intercourse, and
of the conversation and sympathy of her species. Ethel, as she drove
through the mazy streets, and mingled with the equipages in the park,
could not help thinking what pleasant people might be found among the
many she saw, and how strange it was that her aunt did not speak even to
one among them. This solitude, joined to a sense of exclusion, became
very painful. Again and again she sighed for the Illinois; that was
inhabited by human beings, humble and uncultivated as they might be. She
knew their wants, and could interest herself in their goings on. All the
moving crowd of men and women now around her seemed so many automata:
she started when she heard them address each other, and express any
feeling or intention that distinguished them from the shadows of a
phantasmagoria.
Where were the boasted delights of European intercourse which Lodore had
vaunted?--the elegancies, and the wit, or the improvement to be derived
from its society?--the men and women of talent, of refinement, and
taste, who by their conversation awaken the soul to new powers, and
exhilarate the spirits with a purer madness than wine--who with
alternate gaiety and wisdom, humour and sagacity, amuse while they
teach; accompanying their lessons with that spirit of sympathy, that
speaking to the eye and ear, as well as to the mind, which books can so
poorly imitate? "Here, doubtless, I should find all these," thought
Ethel, as she surveyed the audience at the theatres, or the daily
congregations she met in her drives; "yet I live here as if not only I
inhabited a land whose language was unknown to me, for then I might
converse by signs,--but as if I had fallen among beings of another
species, with whom I have no affinity: I should almost say that I walked
among them invisible, did they not condescend sometimes to gaze at me,
proving that at least I am seen."
Time sped on very quickly, meanwhile, in spite of these repinings; for
her days were past in the utmost monotony,--so that though the hours a
little lagged, yet she wondered where they were when they were gone: and
they had spent more than a month in town, though it seemed but a few
days. Ethel had entirely recovered her health, and more than her former
beauty. She was nearly seventeen: she was rather tall and slim; but
there was a bending elegance in her form, joined to an elastic step,
which was singularly graceful. No man could see her without a wish to
draw near to afford protection and support; and the soft expression of
her full eyes added to the charm. Her deep mourning dress, the
simplicity of her appearance, her face so prettily shaded by her bright
ringlets, often caused her to be remarked, and people asked one another
who she was. None knew; and the old-fashioned appearance of Mrs.
Elizabeth Fitzhenry, and the want of style which characterized all her
arrangements, prevented our very aristocratic gentry from paying as much
attention to her as they otherwise would.
One day, this gentle, solitary pair attended a morning concert. Ethel
had not been to the Opera, and now heard Pasta for the first time. Her
father had cultivated her taste for Italian music; for without
cultivation--without in some degree understanding and being familiar
with an art, it is rare that we admire even the most perfect specimens
of it. Ethel listened with wrapt attention; her heart beat quick, and
her eyes became suffused with tears which she could not suppress;--so
she leant forward, shading her face as much as she could with her veil,
and trying to forget the throng of strangers about her. They were in the
pit; and having come in late, sat at the end of one of the forms.
Pasta's air was concluded; and she still turned aside, being too much
agitated to wish to speak, when she heard her aunt addressing some one
as an old acquaintance. She called her friend "Captain Markham,"
expressed infinite pleasure at seeing him, and whispered her niece that
here was an old friend of her father's. Ethel turned and beheld Mr.
Villiers. His face lighted up with pleasure, and he expressed his joy at
the chance which had produced the meeting; but the poor girl was unable
to reply. All colour deserted her cheeks; marble pale and cold, her
voice failed, and her heart seemed to die within her. The room where
last she saw the lifeless remains of her father rose before her; and the
appearance of Mr. Villiers was as a vision from another world, speaking
of the dead. Mrs. Elizabeth, considerably surprised, asked her how she
came to know Captain Markham. Ethel would have said, "Let us go!" but
her voice died away, and she felt that tears would follow any attempt at
explanation. Ashamed of the very possibility of occasioning a scene, and
yet too disturbed to know well what she was about, she suddenly rose,
and though the commencement of a new air was commanding silence and
attention; she hastily quitted the room, and found herself alone,
outside the door, before her aunt was well aware that she was gone. She
claimed Captain Markham's assistance to follow the fugitive; and,
attended by him, at length discovered her chariot, to which Ethel had
been led by the servant, and in which she was sitting, weeping bitterly.
Mrs. Elizabeth felt inclined to ask her whether she was mad; but she
also was struck dumb; for her Captain Markham had said--"I am very sorry
to have distressed Miss Fitzhenry. My name is Villiers. I cannot wonder
at her agitation; but it would give me much pleasure if she would permit
me to call on her, when she can see me with more composure."
With these words, he assisted the good lady into the carriage, bowed,
and disappeared. He was not Captain Markham! How could she have been so
stupid as to imagine that he was? He looked, upon the whole, rather
younger than Captain Markham had done, when she formed acquaintance with
him, during her expedition to London on the occasion of Ethel's
christening. He was taller, too, and not quite so stout; yet he was so
like--the same frank, open countenance, the same ingenuous manner, and
the same clear blue eyes. Certainly Captain Markham was not so
handsome;--and what a fool Mr. Villiers must think her, for having
mistaken him for a person who resembled him sixteen years ago; quite
forgetting that Mr. Villiers was ignorant who her former friend was, and
when she had seen him. All these perplexing thoughts passed through Mrs.
Fitzhenry's brain, tinging her aged cheek with a blush of shame; while
Ethel, having recovered herself, was shocked to remember how foolishly
and rudely she had behaved; and longed to apologize, yet knew not how;
and fancied that it was very unlikely that she should ever see Mr.
Villiers again. Her aunt, engaged by her own distress, quite forgot the
intention he had expressed of calling, and could only exclaim and lament
over her folly. The rest of the day was spent with great discomfort to
both; for the sight of Mr. Villiers renewed all Ethel's sorrows; and
again and again she bestowed the tribute of showers of tears to her dear
father's memory.
The following day, much to Ethel's delight, and the annoyance of Mrs.
Elizabeth, who could not get over her sense of shame, Mr. Villiers
presented himself in their drawing-room. Villiers, however, was a man
speedily to overcome even any prejudice formed against him; far more
easily, therefore, could he obviate the good aunt's confusion, and put
her at her ease. His was one of those sunny countenances that spoke a
heart ready to give itself away in kindness;--a cheering voice, whose
tones echoed the frankness and cordiality of his nature. Blest with a
buoyant, and even careless spirit, as far as regarded himself, he had a
softness, a delicacy, and a gentleness, with respect to others, which
animated his manners with irresistible fascination. His heart was open
to pity--his soul the noblest and clearest ever fashioned by nature in
her happiest mood. He had been educated in the world--he lived for the
world, for he had not genius to raise himself above the habits and
pursuits of his countrymen: yet he took only the better part of their
practices; and shed a grace over them, so alien to their essence, that
any one might have been deceived, and have fancied that he proceeded on
a system and principles of his own.
He had travelled a good deal, and was somewhat inclined, when pleased
with his company, to narrate his adventures and experiences. Ethel was
naturally rather taciturn; and Mrs. Elizabeth was too much absorbed in
the pleasure of listening, to interrupt their visitor. He felt himself
peculiarly happy and satisfied between the two, and his visit was
excessively long; nor did he go away before he had appointed to call the
next day, and opened a long vista of future visits for himself, assisted
by the catalogue of all that the ladies had not seen, and all that they
desired to see, in London.
Villiers had been animated while with them, but he left the house full
of thought. The name of Fitzhenry, or rather that of Lodore, was familiar
to him; and the strange chance that had caused him to act as second to the
lamented noble who bore this title, and which brought him in contact
with his orphan and solitary daughter, appeared to him like the
enchantment of fairy land. From the presence of Ethel, he proceeded to
Lady Lodore's house, which was still shut up; yet he knocked, and
inquired of the servant whether she had returned to England. She was
still at Baden, he was told, and not expected for a month or two; and
this answer involved him in deeper thought than before.
END OF VOL. I.

CHAPTER I

Excellent creature! whose perfections make
Even sorrow lovely!

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.


Mr. Villiers now became the constant visitor of Mrs. Elizabeth and her
niece; and all discontent, all sadness, all listlessness, vanished in
his presence. There was in his mind a constant spring of vivacity, which
did not display itself in mere gaiety, but in being perfectly alive at
every moment, and continually ready to lend himself to the comfort and
solace of his companions. Sitting in their dingy London house, the
spirit of dulness had drawn a curtain between them and the sun; and
neither thought nor event had penetrated the fortification of silence
and neglect which environed them. Edward Villiers came; and as mist
flies before the wind, so did all Ethel's depression disappear when his
voice only met her ear: his step on the stairs announced happiness; and
when he was indeed before her, light and day displaced every remnant of
cheerless obscurity.

The abstracted, wounded, yet lofty spirit of Lodore was totally dissimilar
to the airy brightness of Villiers' disposition. Lodore had outlived a
storm, and shown himself majestic in ruin. No ill had tarnished the
nature of Villiers: he enjoyed life, he was in good-humour with the
world, and thought well of mankind. Lodore had endangered his peace from
the violence of passion, and reaped misery from the pride of his soul.
Villiers was imprudent from his belief in the goodness of his
fellow-creatures, and imparted happiness from the store that his warm
heart insured to himself. The one had never been a boy--the other had
not yet learned to be a man.

Ethel's heart had been filled by her father; and all affection, all
interest, borrowed their force from his memory. She did not think of
love; and while Villiers was growing into a part of her life, becoming
knit to her existence by daily habit, and a thousand thoughts expended on
him, she entertained his idea chiefly as having been the friend of Lodore.
"He is certainly the kindest-hearted creature in the world." This was
the third time that, when laying her gentle head on the pillow, this
feeling came like a blessing to her closing eyes. She heard his voice in
the silence of night, even more distinctly than when it was addressed to
her outward sense during the day. For the first time after the lapse of
months, she found one to whom she could spontaneously utter every
thought, as it rose in her mind. A fond, elder brother, if such ever
existed, cherishing the confidence and tenderness of a beloved sister,
might fill the place which her new friend assumed for Ethel. She thought
of him with overflowing affection; and the name of "Mr. Villiers"
sometimes fell from her lips in solitude, and hung upon her ear like
sweetest music. In early life there is a moment--perhaps of all the
enchantments of love it is the one which is never renewed--when passion,
unacknowledged to ourselves, imparts greater delight than any
after-stage of that ever-progressive sentiment. We neither wish nor
expect. A new joy has risen, like the sun, upon our lives; and we rejoice
in the radiance of morning, without adverting to the noon and twilight
that is to follow. Ethel stood on the threshold of womanhood: the door
of life had been closed before her;--again it was thrown open--and the
sudden splendour that manifested itself blinded her to the forms of the
objects of menace or injury, which a more experienced eye would have
discerned within the brightness of her new-found day.

Ethel expressed a wish to visit Eton. In talking of the past, Lord Lodore
had never adverted to any events except those which had occurred during his
boyish days. His youthful pleasures and exploits had often made a part
of their conversation. He had traced for her a plan of Eton college, and
the surrounding scenery; spoken of the trembling delight he had felt in
escaping from bounds; and told how he and Derham had passed happy hours
beside the clear streams, and beneath the copses, of that rural country.
There was one fountain which he delighted to celebrate; and the ivied
ruins of an old monastery, now become a part of a farm-yard, which had
been to these friends the bodily image of many imaginary scenes. Among
the sketches of Whitelock, were several taken in the vicinity of
Windsor; and there were, in his portfolio, studies of trees, cottages,
and also of this same abbey, which Lodore instantly recognized. To many
he had some appending anecdote, some school-boy association. He had
purchased the whole collection from Whitelock. Ethel had copied a few;
and these, together with various sketches made in the Illinois, formed
her dearest treasure, more precious in her eyes than diamonds and
rubies.

We are most jealous of what sits nearest to our hearts; and we must love
fondly before we can let another into the secret of those trivial, but
cherished emotions, which form the dearest portion of our solitary
meditations. Ethel had several times been on the point of proposing a
visit to Eton, to her aunt; but there was an awful sacredness in the
very name, which acted like a spell upon her imagination. When first it
fell from her lips, the word seemed echoed by unearthly whisperings, and
she fled from the idea of going thither,--as it is the feminine
disposition often to do, from the full accomplishment of its wishes, as
if disaster must necessarily be linked to the consummation of their
desires. But a word was enough for Villiers: he eagerly solicited
permission to escort them thither, as, being an Etonian himself, his
guidance would be of great advantage. Ethel faltered her consent; and
the struggle of delight and sensibility made that project appear
painful, which was indeed the darling of her thoughts.

On a bright day in the first week of May, they made this excursion. They
repaired to one of the inns at Salt Hill, and prolonged their walks and
drives about the country. In some of the former, where old walls were to
be scrambled up, and rivulets overleaped, Mrs. Elizabeth remained at the
hotel, and Ethel and Villiers pursued their rambles together. Ethel's
whole soul was given up to the deep filial love that had induced the
journey. Every green field was a stage on which her father had played a
part; each majestic tree, or humble streamlet, was hallowed by being
associated with his image. The pleasant, verdant beauty of the
landscape, clad in all the brightness of early summer; the sunny, balmy
day--the clouds which pranked the heavens with bright and floating
shapes--each hedgerow and each cottage, with its trim garden--each
embowered nook--had a voice which was music to her soul. From the
college of Eton, they sought the dame's house where Lodore and Derham had
lived; then crossing the bridge, they entered Windsor, and prolonged
their walk into the forest. Ethel knew even the rustic names of the
spots she most desired to visit, and to these Villiers led her in
succession. Day declined before they got home, and found Mrs. Elizabeth,
and their repast, waiting them; and the evening was enlivened by many a
tale of boyish pranks, achieved by Villiers, in these scenes. The
following morning they set forth again; and three days were spent in
these delightful wanderings. Ethel would willingly never have quitted
this spot: it appeared to her as if, seeing all, still much remained to
be seen--as if she could never exhaust the variety of sentiments and
deep interest which endeared every foot of this to her so holy ground.
Nor were her emotions silent, and the softness of her voice, and the
flowing eloquence with which she expressed herself, formed a new charm
for her companion.

Sometimes her heart was too full to admit of expression, and grief for
her father's loss was renewed in all its pristine bitterness. One day,
on feeling herself thus overcome, she quitted her companions, and sought
the shady walks of the garden of the hotel, to indulge in a gush of
sorrow which she could not repress. There was something in her gesture
and manner as she left them, that reminded Villiers of Lady Lodore. It was
one of those mysterious family resemblances, which are so striking and
powerful, and yet which it is impossible to point out to a stranger. A
_bligh_ (as this indescribable resemblance is called in some parts of
England) of her mother-struck Villiers forcibly, and he suddenly asked
Mrs. Elizabeth, "If Miss Fitzhenry had never expressed a desire to see
Lady Lodore."

"God forbid!" exclaimed the old lady; "it was my brother's dying wish, that
she should never hear Lady Lodore's name, and I have religiously observed
it. Ethel only knows that she was the cause of her father's misfortunes,
that she deserted every duty, and is unworthy of the name she bears."

Villiers was astonished at this tirade falling from the lips of the
unusually placid maiden, whose heightened colour bespoke implacable
resentment. "Do not mention that woman's name, Mr. Villiers," she
continued, "I am convinced that I should die on the spot if I saw her;
she is as much a murderess, as if she had stabbed her husband to the
heart with a dagger. Her letter to me that I sent to my poor brother in
America, was more the cause of his death, I am sure, than all the duels
in the world. Lady Lodore! I often wonder a thunderbolt from heaven does
not fall on and kill her!"

Mrs. Elizabeth's violence was checked by seeing Ethel cross the road to
return. "Promise not to mention her name to my niece," she cried.

"For the present be assured that I will not," Villiers answered. He had
been struck most painfully by some of Mrs. Elizabeth's expressions, they
implied so much more of misconduct on Lady Lodore's part, than he had ever
suspected--but she must know best; and it seemed to him, indeed, the
probable interpretation of the mystery that enveloped her separation
from her husband. The account spread by Lady Santerre, and current in
the world, appeared inadequate and improbable; Lodore would not have
dared to take her child from her, but on heavier grounds; it was then
true, that a dark and disgraceful secret was hidden in her heart, and
that her propriety, her good reputation, her seeming pride of innocence,
were but the mask to cover the reality that divided her from her
daughter for ever.

Villiers was well acquainted with Lady Lodore; circumstances had caused him
to take a deep interest in her--these were now at an end: but the singular
coincidences that had brought him in contact with her daughter, renewed
many forgotten images, and caused him to dwell on the past with mixed
curiosity and uneasiness. Mrs. Elizabeth's expressions added to the
perplexity of his ideas; their chief effect was to tarnish to his mind
the name of Lady Lodore, and to make him rejoice at the termination that
had been put to their more intimate connexion.




CHAPTER II


One, within whose subtle being,
As light and wind within some delicate cloud,
That fades amid the blue noon's burning sky.
Genius and youth contended.

SHELLEY.


The party returned to town, and on the following evening they went to
the Italian Opera. For the first time since her father's death, Ethel
threw aside her mourning attire: for the first time also, she made one
of the audience at the King's Theatre. She went to hear the music, and
to spend the evening with the only person in the world who was drawn
towards her by feelings of kindness and sympathy--the only person--but
that sufficed. His being near her, was the occasion of more delight than
if she had been made the associate of regal splendour. Yet it was no
defined or disturbing sentiment, that sat so lightly on her bosom and
shone in her eyes. Her's was the first gentle opening of a girl's heart,
who does not busy herself with the future, and reposes on the serene
present with unquestioning confidence. She looked round on the gay world
assembled, and thought, "All are as happy as I am." She listened to the
music with a subdued but charmed spirit, and turned now and then to her
companions with a glad smile, expressive of her delight. Fewer words
were spoken in their little box, probably than in any in the house; but
in none were congregated three hearts so guileless, and so perfectly
satisfied with the portion allotted to them.

At length both opera and ballêt were over, and, leaning on the arm of
Villiers, the ladies entered the round-room. The house had been very
full and the crowd was great. A seat was obtained for Aunt Bessy on one
of the sofas near the door, which opened on the principal staircase.
Villiers and Ethel stood near her. When the crowd had thinned a little,
Villiers went to look for the servant, and Ethel remained surveying the
moving numbers with curiosity, wondering at her own fate, that while
every one seemed familiar one to the other, she knew, and was known by,
none. She did not repine at this; Villiers had dissipated the sense of
desertion which before haunted her, and she was much entertained, as she
heard the remarks and interchange of compliments going on about her. Her
attention was particularly attracted by a very beautiful woman, or
rather girl she seemed, standing on the other side of the room,
conversing with a very tall personage, to whom she, being not above the
middle size, looked up as she talked; which action, perhaps, added to
her youthful appearance. There was an ease in her manners that bespoke a
matron as to station. She was dressed very simply in white, without any
ornament; her cloak hung carelessly from her shoulders, and gave to view
her round symmetrical figure; her silky, chesnut-coloured hair, fell in
thick ringlets round her face, and was gathered with inimitable elegance
in large knots on the top of her head. There was something bewitching in
her animated smile, and sensibility beamed from her long and dark grey
eyes; her simple gesture as she placed her little hand on her cloak, her
attitude as she stood, were wholly unpretending, but graceful beyond
measure. Ethel watched her unobserved, with admiration and interest, so
that she almost forgot where she was, until the voice of Villiers
recalled her. "Your carriage is up--will you come?" The lady turned as
he spoke, and recognized him with a cordial and most sweet smile. They
moved on, while Ethel turned back to look again, as her carriage was
loudly called, and Mrs. Elizabeth seizing her arm, whispered out of
breath, "O my dear, do make haste!" She hurried on, therefore, and her
glance was momentary; but she saw with wonder, that the lady was looking
with eagerness at the party; she caught Ethel's eye, blushed and turned
away, while the folding doors closed, and with a kind of nervous
trepidation her companions descended the stairs. In a moment the ladies
were in their carriage, which drove off, while Mrs. Elizabeth exclaimed
in the tone of one aghast, "Thank God, we got away! O, Ethel, that was
Lady Lodore!"

"My mother!--impossible!"

"O, that we had never come to town," continued her aunt. "Long have I
prayed that I might never see her again;--and she looking as if nothing
had happened, and that Lodore had not died through her means! Wicked,
wicked woman! I will not stay in London a day longer!"

Ethel did not interrupt her ravings: she remembered Captain Markham, and
could not believe but that her aunt laboured under some similar mistake;
it was ridiculous to imagine, that this girlish-looking, lovely being,
had been the wife of her father, whom she remembered with his high
forehead rather bare of hair, his deep marked countenance, his look that
bespoke more than mature age. Her aunt was mistaken, she felt sure; and
yet when she closed her eyes, the beautiful figure she had seen stole,
according to the Arabian image, beneath her lids, and smiled sweetly,
and again started forward to look after her. This little act seemed to
confirm what Mrs. Elizabeth said; and yet, again, it was impossible!
"Had she been named my sister, there were something in it--but my
mother,--impossible!"

Yet strange as it seemed, it was so; in this instance, Mrs. Elizabeth
had not deceived herself; and thus it was that two so near of kin as
mother and daughter, met, it might be said, for the first time. Villiers
was inexpressibly shocked; and believing that Lady Lodore must suffer
keenly from so strange and unnatural an incident, his first kindly impulse
was to seek to see her on the following morning. During her absence, the
violent attack of her sister-in-law had weighed with him, but her look
at once dissipated his uneasy doubts. There was that in this lady, which
no man could resist; she had joined to her beauty, the charm of engaging
manners, made up of natural grace, vivacity, intuitive tact, and soft
sensibility, which infused a kind of idolatry into the admiration with
which she was universally regarded. But it was not the beauty and
fashion of Lady Lodore which caused Villiers to take a deep interest in
her. His intercourse with her had been of long standing, and the object
of his very voyage to America was intimately connected with her.

Edward Villiers was the son of a man of fortune. His father had been
left a widower young in life, with this only child, who, thus single and
solitary in his paternal home, became almost adopted into the family of
his mother's brother, Viscount Maristow. This nobleman being rich,
married, and blessed with a numerous progeny, the presence of little
Edward was not felt as a burthen, and he was brought up with his cousins
like one of them. Among these it would have been hard if Villiers could
not have found an especial friend: this was not the elder son, who, much
his senior, looked down upon him with friendly regard; it was the
second, who was likewise several years older. Horatio Saville was a
being fashioned for every virtue and distinguished by every excellence;
to know that a thing was right to be done, was enough to impel Horatio
to go through fire and water to do it; he was one of those who seem not
to belong to this world, yet who adorn it most; conscientious, upright,
and often cold in seeming, because he could always master his passions;
good over-much, he might be called, but that there was no pedantry nor
harshness in his nature. Resolute, aspiring, and true, his noble
purposes and studious soul, demanded a frame of iron, and he had one of
the frailest mechanism. It was not that he was not tall, well-shaped,
with earnest eyes, a brow built up high to receive and entertain a
capacious mind; but he was thin and shadowy, a hectic flushed his cheek,
and his voice was broken and mournful. At school he held the topmost
place, at college he was distinguished by the energy with which he
pursued his studies; and these, so opposite from what might have been
expected to be the pursuits of his ardent mind, were abstruse
metaphysics--the highest and most theoretical mathematics, and
cross-grained argument, based upon hair-fine logic; to these he addicted
himself. His desire was knowledge; his passion truth; his eager and
never-sleeping endeavour was to inform and to satisfy his understanding.
Villiers waited on him, as an inferior spirit may attend on an
archangel, and gathered from him the crumbs of his knowledge, with
gladness and content. He could not force his boyish mind to similar
exertions, nor feel that keen thirst for knowledge that kept alive his
cousin's application, though he could admire and love these with
fervour, when exhibited in another. It was indeed a singular fact, that
this constant contemplation of so superior a being, added to his
careless turn of mind. Not to be like Horatio was to be nothing--to be
like him was impossible. So he was content to remain one of the
half-ignorant, uninformed creatures most men are, and to found his pride
upon his affection for his cousin, who, being several years older, might
well be advanced even beyond his emulation. Horatio himself did not
desire to be imitated by the light-hearted Edward; he was too familiar
with the exhaustion, the sadness, the disappointment of his pursuits; he
could not be otherwise himself, but he thought all that he aspired
after, was well exchanged for the sparkling eyes, exhaustless spirits,
and buoyant step of Villiers. We none of us wish to exchange our
identity for that of another; yet we are never satisfied with ourselves.
The unknown has always a charm, and unless blinded by miserable vanity,
we know ourselves too well to appreciate our especial characteristics at
a very high rate. When Horace, after deep midnight study, felt his brain
still working like a thousand millwheels, that cannot be stopped; when
sleep fled from him, and yet his exhausted mind could no longer continue
its labours--he envied the light slumbers of his cousin, which followed
exercise and amusement. Villiers loved and revered him; and he felt
drawn closer to him than towards any of his brothers, and strove to
refine his taste and regulate his conduct through his admonitions and
example, while he abstained from following him in the steep and thorny
path he had selected.

Horatio quitted college; he was no longer a youth, and his manhood
became as studious as his younger days. He had no desire but for
knowledge, no thought but for the nobler creations of the soul, and the
discernment of the sublime laws of God and nature. He nourished the
ambition of showing to these latter days what scholars of old had been,
though this feeling was subservient to his instinctive love of learning,
and his wish to adorn his mind with the indefeasible attributes of
truth. He was universally respected and loved, though little understood.
His young cousin Edward only was aware of the earnestness of his
affections, and the sensibility that nestled itself in his warm heart.
He was outwardly mild, placid, and forbearing, and thus obtained the
reputation of being cold--though those who study human nature ought to
make it their first maxim, that those who are tolerant of the follies of
their fellows--who sympathize with, and assist their wishes, and who
apparently forget their own desires, as they devote themselves to the
accomplishment of those of their friends, must have the quickest
feelings to make them enter into and understand those of others, and the
warmest affections to be able to conquer their wayward humours, so that
they can divest themselves of selfishness, and incorporate in their own
being the pleasures and pains of those around them.

The sparkling eye, the languid step, and flushed cheek of Horatio
Saville, were all tokens that there burnt within him a spirit too strong
for his frame; but he never complained; or if he ever poured out his
pent-up emotions, it was in the ear of Edward only; who but partly
understood him, but who loved him entirely. What that thirst for
knowledge was that preyed on him, and for ever urged him to drink of the
purest streams of wisdom, and yet which ever left him unsatisfied,
fevered, and mournful, the gay spirit of Edward Villiers could not
guess: often he besought his cousin to close his musty books, to mount a
rapid horse, to give his studies to the winds, and deliver his soul to
nature. But Horace pointed to some unexplained passage in Plato the
divine, or some undiscovered problem in the higher sciences, and turned
his eyes from the sun; or if indeed he yielded, and accompanied his
youthful friend, some appearance of earth or air would awaken his
curiosity, rouze his slumbering mind again to inquire, and making his
study of the wide cope of heaven, he gave himself up to abstruse
meditation, while nominally seeking for relaxation from his heavier
toils.

Horatio Saville was nine-and-twenty when he first met Lady Lodore, who was
nearly the same age. He had begun to feel that his health was shaken,
and he tried to forget for a time his devouring avocations. He changed
the scene, and went on a visit to a friend, who had a country house not
far from Hastings. Lady Lodore was expected as a guest, together with
her mother. She was much talked of, having become an object of interest
or curiosity to the many. A mystery hung over her fate; but her
reputation was cloudless, and she was warmly supported by the leaders of
fashion. Saville heard of her beauty and her sufferings; the injustice
with which she had been treated--of her magnanimity and desolate
condition; he heard of her talents, her powers of conversation, her
fashion. He figured to himself (as we are apt to incarnate to our
imagination the various qualities of a human being, of whom we hear
much) a woman, brilliant, but rather masculine, majestic in figure, with
wild dark eyes, and a very determined manner. Lady Lodore came: she
entered the room where he was sitting, and the fabric of his fancy was
at once destroyed. He saw a sweet-looking woman; serene, fair, and with
a countenance expressive of contented happiness. He found that her
manners were winning, from their softness; her conversation was
delightful, from its total want of pretension or impertinence.

What the power was that from the first moment they met, drew Horatio
Saville and Lady Lodore together is one of those natural secrets which it
is impossible to explain. Though a student, Saville was a gentleman, with
the manners and appearance of the better specimens of our aristocracy.
There might be something in his look of ill health, which demanded
sympathy; something in his superiority to the rest of the persons about
her, in the genius that sat on his brow, and the eloquence that flowed
from his lips; something in the contrast he presented to every one else
she had ever seen--neither entering into their gossiping slanders, nor
understanding their empty self-sufficiency, that possessed a charm for
one satiated with the world's common scene. It was less of wonder that
Cornelia pleased the student. There were no rough corners, no harshness
about her; she won her way into any heart by her cheerful smiles and
kind tones; and she listened to Saville when he talked of what other
women would have lent a languid ear to, with such an air of interest,
that he found no pleasure so great as that of talking on.

Saville was accustomed to find the men of his acquaintance ignorant. All
the knowledge of worldlings was as a point in comparison with his vast
acquirements. He did not seek Lady Lodore's society either to learn or to
teach, but to forget thought, and to feel himself occupied and diverted
from the sense of listlessness that haunted him in society, without
having recourse to the, to him dangerous, attraction of his books.

Lady Lodore had, in the very brightness of her earliest youth, selected a
proud and independent position. She had refused to bend to her husband's
will, or to submit to the tyranny, as she named it, which he had attempted
to exercise. Youth is bold and fearless. The forked tongue of scandal, the
thousand ills with which woman is threatened in society, without a guide
or a protector--all the worldly considerations which might lead her to
unite herself again to her husband, she had rejected with unbounded
disdain. Her mother was there to stand between her and the shafts of
envy and calumny, and she conceived no mistrust of herself; she believed
that she could hold her course with taintless feelings and security of
soul, through a thousand dangers. At first she had been somewhat annoyed
by ill-natured observations, but Lady Santerre poured the balm of
flattery on her wounds, and a few tears shed in her presence dissipated
the gathering cloud.

Cornelia had every motive a woman could have for guarding her conduct
from reproach. She lived in the midst of polished society, and was
thoroughly imbued with its maxims and laws. She witnessed the downfall
of several, as young and lovely as herself, and heard the sarcasms and
beheld the sneers which were heaped as a tomb above their buried fame.
She had vowed to herself never to become one of these. She was applauded
for her pride, and held up as a pattern. No one feared her. She was no
coquette, though she strove universally to please. She formed no
intimate friendships, though every man felt honoured by her notice. She
had no prudery on her lips, but her conduct was as open and as fair as
day. Here lay her defence against her husband; and she preserved even
the outposts of such bulwarks with scrupulous yet unobtrusive
exactitude.

Her spirits, as well as her spirit, held her up through many a year. More
than ten years had passed since her separation from Lodore--a long time
to tell of; but it had glided away, she scarcely knew how--taking little
from her loveliness, adding to the elegance of her appearance, and the
grace of her manners. Season after season came, and went, and she had no
motive for counting them anxiously. She was sought after and admired; it
was a holiday life for her, and she wondered what people meant when they
spoke of the delusions of this world, and the dangers of our own hearts.
She saw a gay reality about her, and felt the existence of no internal
enemy. Nothing ever moved her to sorrow, except the reflection that now
and then came across, that she had a child--divorced for ever from her
maternal bosom. The sight of a baby cradled in its mother's arms, or
stretching out its little hands to her, had not unoften caused her to
turn abruptly away, to hide her tears; and once or twice she had been
obliged to quit a theatre to conceal her emotion, when such sentiments
were brought too vividly before her. But when her eyes were drowned in
tears, and her bosom heaved with sad emotion, pride came to check the
torrent, and hatred of her oppressor gave a new impulse to her swelling
heart.

She had rather avoided female friendships, and had been warned from them
by the treachery of one, and the misconduct of another, of her more
intimate acquaintances. Lady Lodore renounced friendship, but the world
began to grow a little dull. The frivolity of one, the hard-heartedness of
another, disgusted. She saw each occupied by themselves and their
families, and she was alone. Balls and assemblies palled upon
her--country pleasures were stupid--she had began to think all things
"stale and unprofitable," when she became acquainted with Horatio
Saville. She was glad again to feel animated with a sense of living
enjoyment; she congratulated herself on the idea that she could take
interest in some one thing or person among the empty shapes that
surrounded her; and without a thought beyond the amusement of the
present moment, most of her hours were spent in his company.




CHAPTER III


Ah now, ye gentle pair,--now think awhile,
Now, while ye still can think and still can smile.
* * *
So did they think
Only with graver thoughts, and smiles reduced.

LEIGH HUNT.


A month stole away as if it had been a day, and Lady Lodore was engaged to
pass some weeks with another friend in a distant county. It was easily
contrived, without contrivance, by Saville, that he should visit a
relation who lived within a morning's ride of her new abode. The
restriction placed upon their intercourse while residing under different
roofs contrasted painfully with the perfect freedom they had enjoyed
while inhabiting the same. Their attachment was too young and too
unacknowledged to need the zest of difficulty. It required indeed the
facility of an unobstructed path for it to proceed to the accustomed
bourne; and a straw thrown across was sufficient to check its course for
ever.

The impatience and restlessness which Cornelia experienced during her
journey; the rush of transport that thrilled through her when she heard
of Saville's arrival at a neighbouring mansion, awoke her in an instant
to a knowledge of the true state of her heart. Her pride was, happily
for herself, united to presence of mind and fortitude. She felt the
invasion of the enemy, and she lost not a moment in repelling the
dangers that menaced her. She resolved to be true to the line of conduct
she had marked out for herself--she determined not to love. She did not
alter her manner nor her actions. She met Horatio with the same sweet
smile--she conversed with the same kind interest; but she did not
indulge in one dream, one thought--one reverie (sweet food of love)
during his absence, and guarded over herself that no indication of any
sentiment less general than the friendship of society might appear.
Though she was invariably kind, yet his feelings told him that she was
changed, without his being able to discover where the alteration lay;
the line of demarcation, which she took care never to pass, was too
finely traced, for any but feminine tact to discern, though it
obstructed him as if it had been as high and massive as a city wall. Now
and then his speaking eye rested on her with a pleading glance, while
she answered his look with a frank smile, that spoke a heart at ease,
and perfect self-possession. Indeed, while they remained near each
other, in despite of all her self-denying resolves, Cornelia was happy.
She felt that there was one being in the world who took a deep and
present interest in her, whose thoughts hovered round her and whose mind
she could influence to the conception of any act or feeling she might
desire. That tranquillity yet animation of spirit--that gratitude on
closing her eyes at night--that glad anticipation of the morrow's
sun--that absence of every harsh and jarring emotion, which is the
disposition of the human soul the nearest that we can conceive to
perfect happiness, and which now and then visits sad humanity, to teach
us of what unmeasured and pure joy our fragile nature is capable,
attended her existence, and made each hour of the day a new-born
blessing.

This state of things could not last. An accident revealed to Saville the
true state of his heart; he became aware that he loved Cornelia, deeply
and fervently, and from that moment he resolved to exile himself for
ever from her dear presence. Misery is the child of love when happiness
is not; this Horatio felt, but he did not shrink from the endurance. All
abstracted and lofty as his speculations were, still his place had been
in the hot-bed of patrician society, and he was familiar with the
repetition of domestic revolutions, too frequent there. For worlds he
would not have Cornelia's name become a byeword and mark for
scandal--that name which she had so long kept bright and unreachable.
His natural modesty prevented him from entertaining the idea that he
could indeed destroy her peace; but he knew how many and easy are the
paths which lead to the loss of honour in the world's eyes. That it
could be observed and surmised that one man had approached Lady Lodore with
any but sentiments of reverence, was an evil to be avoided at any cost.
Saville was firm as rock in his resolves--he neither doubted nor
procrastinated. He left the neighbourhood where she resided, and,
returning to his father's house, tried to acquire strength to bear the
severe pain which he could not master.

His gentle and generous nature, ever thoughtful for others, and prodigal
of self, was not however satisfied with this mere negative act of
justice towards one who honoured him, he felt conscious, with her
friendship and kindest thoughts. He was miserable in the idea that he
could not further serve her. He revolved a thousand plans in his mind,
tending to her advantage. In fancy he entered the solitude of her
meditations, and tried to divine what her sorrows or desires were, that
he might minister to their solace or accomplishment. Their previous
intercourse had been very unreserved, and though Cornelia spoke but
distantly and coldly of Lodore, she frequently mentioned her child, and
lamented, with much emotion, the deprivation of all those joys which
maternal love bestows. Often had Saville said, "Why not appeal more
strongly to Lord Lodore? or, if he be inflexible, why calmly endure an
outrage shocking to humanity? The laws of your country may assist you."

"They would not," said Cornelia, "for his reply would be so fraught with
seeming justice, that the blame would fall back on me. He asks but the
trivial sacrifice of my duty to my mother--my poor mother! who, since I
was born, has lived with me and for me, and who has no existence except
through me. I am to tear away, and to trample upon the first of human
ties, to render myself worthy of the guardianship of my child! I cannot
do it--I should hold myself a parricide. Do not let us talk more of
these things; endurance is the fate of woman, and if I have more than my
share, let us hope that some other poor creature, less able to bear, has
her portion lightened in consequence. I should be glad if once indeed I
were permitted to see my cherub girl, though it were only while she
slept; but an ocean rolls between us, and patience must be my
comforter."

The soft sweetness of her look and voice, the angelic grace that
animated every tone and glance, rendered these maternal complaints
mournful, yet enchanting music to the ear of Saville. He could have
listened for ever. But when exiled from her, they assumed another form. He
began to think whether it were not possible to convince Lord Lodore of the
inexcusable cruelty of his conduct; and again and again, he imaged the
exultation of heart he should feel, if he could succeed in placing her
lost babe in the mother's arms.

Saville was the frankest of human beings. Finding his cousin Edward on a
visit at Maristow castle, he imparted his project to him, of making a
voyage to America, seeking out Lord Lodore, and using every argument and
persuasion to induce him to restore her daughter to his wife. Villiers
was startled at the mention of this chivalrous intent. What could have
rouzed the studious Horace to such sudden energy? By one of those
strange caprices of the human mind, which bring forth discord instead of
harmony, Edward had never liked Lady Lodore--he held her to be false and
dangerous. Circumstances had brought him more in contact with her mother
than herself, and the two were associated and confounded in his mind,
till he heard Lady Santerre's falsetto voice in the sweet one of
Cornelia, and saw her deceitful vulgar devices in the engaging manners
of her daughter. He was struck with horror when he discovered that
Saville loved, nay, idolized this beauteous piece of mischief, as he
would have named her. He saw madness and folly in his Quixotic
expedition, and argued against it with all his might. It would not do;
Horatio was resolved to dedicate himself to the happiness of her he
loved; and since this must be done in absence and distance, what better
plan than to restore to her the precious treasure of which she had been
robbed?

Saville resolved to cross the Atlantic, and, though opposed to his
scheme, Villiers offered to accompany him. A voyage to America was but a
trip to an active and unoccupied young man; the society of his cousin
would render the journey delightful; he preferred it at all times to the
commoner pleasures of life, and besides, on this occasion, he was
animated with the hope of being useful to him. There was nothing
effeminate in Saville. His energy of purpose and depth of thought
forbade the idea. Still there was something that appeared to require
kindness and support. His delicate health, of which he took no care,
demanded feminine attentions; his careless reliance upon the uprightness
of others, and total self-oblivion, often hurried him to the brink of
dangers; and though fearlessness and integrity were at hand to extricate
him, Edward, who knew his keen sensibility and repressed quickness of
temper, was not without fear, that on so delicate a mission his ardent
feelings might carry him beyond the mark, and that, in endeavouring to
serve a woman whom he loved with enthusiastic adoration, he might rouze
the angry passions of her husband.

With such feelings the cousins crossed the Atlantic and arrived at New
York. Thence they proceeded to the west of America, and passing and his
daughter on the road without knowing it, arrived at the Illinois after
their departure. They were astonished to find that Mr. Fitzhenry, as he
was named to them, had broken up his establishment, sold his farm, and
departed with the intention of returning to Europe. What this change
might portend they could not guess. Whether it were the result of any
communication with Lady Lodore--whether a reconciliation was under
discussion, or whether it were occasioned by caprice merely they could
not tell; at any rate, it seemed to put an end to Saville's mediation.
If Lodore returned to England, it was probable that Cornelia would
herself make an exertion to have her child restored to her. Whether he
could be of any use was problematical, but untimely interference was to
be deprecated; events must be left to take their own course: Saville was
scarcely himself aware how glad he was to escape any kind of intercourse
with the husband of Cornelia.

This feeling, however unacknowledged, became paramount with him. Now that
Lodore was about to leave America, he wished to linger in it; he planned a
long tour through the various states, he studied their laws and customs,
he endeavoured to form a just estimate of the institutions of the New
World, and their influence on those governed by them.

Edward had little sympathy in these pursuits; he was eager to return to
London, and felt more inclined to take his gun and shoot in the forests,
than to mingle in the society of the various towns. This difference of
taste caused the cousins at various times to separate. Saville was at
Washington when Villiers made a journey to the borders of Canada, to the
falls of the Niagara, and returned by New York; a portion of the United
States which his cousin avoided visiting, until Lodore should have quitted
it.

Thus it was that a strange combination of circumstances brought Villiers
into contact with this unfortunate nobleman, and made him a witness of
and a participator in the closing scene of his disastrous and wasted
life. Villiers did not sympathize in his cousin's admiration of
Cornelia, and was easily won to take a deep interest in the fortunes of her
husband. The very aspect of Lodore commanded attention; his voice entered
the soul: ill-starred, and struck by calamity, he rose majestically from
the ruin around him, and seemed to defy fate. The first thought that
struck Villiers was, how could Lady Lodore desert such a man; how
pitifully degraded must she be, who preferred the throng of fools to the
society of so matchless a being! The gallantry with which he rushed to
his fate, his exultation in the prospect of redeeming his honour, his
melting tenderness towards his daughter, filled Villiers with respect
and compassion. It was all over now. Lodore was dead: his passions, his
wrongs, his errors slept with him in the grave. He had departed from the
busy stage, never to be forgotten--yet to be seen no more.

Lodore was dead, and Cornelia was free. Her husband had alluded to the
gladness with which she would welcome liberty; and Villiers knew that there
was another, also, whose heart would rejoice, and open itself at once to
the charming visitation of permitted love. Villiers sighed to think that
Saville would marry the beautiful widow; but he did not doubt that this
event would take place.

Having seen that Ethel was in kind hands, and learnt the satisfactory
arrangements made for her return to England, he hastened to join his
cousin, and to convey the astounding intelligence. Saville's generous
disposition prevented exultation, and subdued joy. Still the prospect of
future happiness became familiar to him, shadowed only by the fear of
not obtaining the affections of her he so fervently loved. For, strange
to say, Saville was diffident to a fault: he could not imagine any
qualities in himself to attract a beautiful and fashionable woman. His
hopes were slight; his thoughts timid: the pain of eternal division was
replaced by the gentler anxieties of love; and he returned to England,
scarcely daring to expect that crown to his desires, which seemed too
high an honour, too dear a blessing, for earthly love to merit.




CHAPTER IV


Ma la fede degli Amanti
È come l'Araba fenice;
Che vi sia, ciaschun' lo dice.
Ma dove sia, nessun lo sa.

METASTASIO.


Meanwhile Lady Lodore had been enduring the worst miseries of ill-fated
love. The illness of Lady Santerre, preceding her death, had demanded all
her time; and she nursed her with exemplary patience and kindness. During
her midnight watchings and solitary days, she had full time to feel how
deep a wound her heart had received. The figure and countenance of her
absent friend haunted her in spite of every effort; and when death
hovered over the pillow of her mother, she clung, with mad desperation,
to the thought, that there was still one, when this parent should be
gone, to love her, even though she never saw him more.

Lady Santerre died. After the first burst of natural grief, Cornelia
began to reflect that Lord Lodore might now imagine that every obstacle to
their reconciliation was removed. She had looked upon her husband as her
enemy and injurer; she had regarded him with indignation and fear;--but
now she hated him. Strong aversion had sprung up, during the struggles
of passion, in her bosom. She hated him as the eternal barrier between
her and one who loved her with rare disinterestedness. The human heart
must desire happiness;--in spite of every effort at resignation, it must
aspire to the fulfilment of its wish. Lord Lodore was the cause why she
was cut off from it for ever. He had foreseen that this feeling, this
combat, this misery, would be her doom, in the deserted situation she
chose for herself: she had laughed his fears to scorn. Now she abhorred
him the more for having divined her destiny. While she banished the
pleasant thoughts of love, she indulged in the poisoned ones of hate;
and while she resisted each softer emotion as a crime, she opened her
heart to the bitterest resentment, as a permitted solace; nor was she
aware that thus she redoubled all her woes. It was under the influence
of these feelings, that she had written to Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry that
harsh, decided letter, which Lodore received at New York. The
intelligence of his violent death came as an answer to her expressions
of implacable resentment. A pang of remorse stung her, when she thought
how she had emptied the vials of her wrath on a head which had so soon
after been laid low for ever.

The double loss of husband and mother caused Lady Lodore to seclude
herself, not in absolute solitude, but in the agreeable retreat of friendly
society. She was residing near Brighton, when Saville returned from
America, and, with a heart beating high with its own desires, again
beheld the mistress of his affections. His delicate nature caused him to
respect the weeds she wore, even though they might be termed a mockery:
they were the type of her freedom and his hopes; yet, as the tokens of
death, they were to be respected. He saw her more beautiful than ever,
more courted, more waited on; and he half despaired. How could he, the
abstracted student, the man of dreams, the sensitive and timid invalid,
ensnare the fancy of one formed to adorn the circles of wealth and
fashion?

Thus it was that Saville and Cornelia were further off than ever, when
they imagined themselves most near. Neither of them could afterwards
comprehend what divided them; or why, when each would have died for the
other's sake, cobweb barriers should have proved inextricable; and
wherefore, after weathering every more stormy peril, they should perish
beneath the influence of a summer breeze.

The pride of Cornelia's heart, hid by the artificial courtesies of
society, was a sentiment resolved, confirmed, active, and far beyond her
own controul. The smallest opposition appeared rebellion to her majesty
of will; while her own caprices, her own desires, were sacred decrees.
She was too haughty to admit of discussion--too firmly intrenched in a
sense of what was due to her, not to start indignantly from
remonstrance. It is true, all this was but a painted veil. She was
tremblingly alive to censure, and wholly devoted to the object of her
attachment; but Saville was unable to understand these contradictions.
His modesty led him to believe, that he, of all men, was least
calculated to excite love in a woman's bosom. He saw in Cornelia a
beautiful creation, to admire and adore; but he was slow to perceive the
tenderness of soul, which her disposition made her anxious to conceal,
and he was conscious of no qualities in himself that could entitle him
to a place in her affections. Except that he loved her, what merit had
he? And the interests of his affection he was willing to sacrifice at
the altar of her wishes, though his life should be the oblation
necessary to insure their accomplishment.

This is not the description of true love on either side; for, to be
perfect, that sentiment ought to exist through the entireness of mutual
sympathy and trust: but not the less did their passionate attachment
engross the minds of both. All might have been well, indeed, had the
lovers been left to themselves; but friends and relations interfered to
mar and to destroy. The sisters of Saville accused Lady Lodore of
encouraging, and intending to marry, the Marquess of C--. Saville instantly
resolved to be no obstacle in the way of her ambition. Cornelia was fired
with treble indignation to perceive that he at once conceded the place to
his rival. One word or look of gentleness would have changed this; but she
resolved to vanquish by other arms, and to force him to show some
outward sign of jealousy and resentment. Saville had a natural dignity
of mind, founded on simplicity of heart and directness of purpose.
Cornelia knew that he loved her;--on that his claim rested: all that
might be done to embellish and elevate her existence, he would study to
achieve; but he could not enter into, nor understand, the puerile
fancies of a spoiled Beauty: and while she was exerting all her powers,
and succeeded in fascinating a crowd of flatterers, she saw Saville
apart, abstracted from such vanities, pursuing a silent course; ready to
approach her when her attention was disengaged, but at no time making
one among her ostentatious admirers.

There was no moment of her life in which Cornelia did not fully
appreciate her lover's value, and her own good fortune in having
inspired him with a serious and faithful attachment. But she imagined
that this must be known and acknowledged; and that to ask any
demonstration of gratitude, was ungenerous and tyrannical. An untaught
girl could not have acted with more levity and wilfulness. It was worse
when she found that she was accused of encouraging a wealthier and more
illustrious rival. She disdained to exculpate herself from the charge of
such low ambition, but rather furnished new grounds for accusation; and,
in the arrogance of conscious power, smiled at the pettiness of the
attempts made to destroy her influence. Proud in the belief that she
could in an instant dispel the clouds she had conjured athwart her
heaven, she cared not how ominously the thunder muttered, nor how dark
and portentous lowered the threatening storm. It came when she least
expected it: convinced of the fallacy of his confidence, made miserable
by her caprices, agonized by the idea that he only lingered to add
another trophy to his rival's triumph, Saville, who was always impetuous
and precipitate, suddenly quitted England.

This was a severe blow at first; but soon Cornelia smiled at it. He
would return--he must. The sincerity of their mutual preference would
overcome the petty obstacles of time and distance. She never felt more
sure of his devotion than now; and she looked so happy, and spoke so
gaily, that those who were more ready to discern indifference, than
love, in her sentiments, assured the absent Saville, that Lady Lodore
rejoiced at his absence, as having shaken off a burthen, and got rid of an
impediment, which, in spite of herself, was a clog to her brilliant
career. The trusting love that painted her face in smiles was a traitor
to itself and while she rose each day in the belief that the one was
near at hand which would bring her lover before her, dearer and more
attached than ever, she was in reality at work in defacing the whole web
of life, and substituting dark, blank, and sad disappointment, for the
images of light and joy with which her fancy painted it.

Saville had been gone five months. It was strange that he did not
return; and she began to ponder upon how she must unbend, and what
demonstration she must make, to attract him again to her side. The
Marquess of C--was dismissed; and she visited the daughters of Lord
Maristow, to learn what latest news they had received of their brother.
"Do you know, Lady Lodore," said Sophia Saville, "that this is Horatio's
wedding-day? It is too true: we regret it, because he weds a
foreigner--but there is no help now. He is married."

Had sudden disease seized on the frame-work of her body, and dissolved
and scattered with poisonous influence and unutterable pains, the atoms
that composed it, Lady Lodore would have been less agonized, less
terrified. A thousand daggers were at once planted in her bosom. Saville
was false! married! divided from her for ever! She was stunned:--scarcely
understanding the meaning of the phrases addressed to her, and, unable
to conceal her perturbation, she replied at random, and hastened to
shorten her visit.

But no interval of doubt or hope was afforded. The words she had heard
were concise, true to their meaning and all-sufficing. Her heart died
within her. What had she done? Was she the cause? She longed to learn
all the circumstances that led to this hasty marriage, and whether
inconstancy or resentment had impelled him to the fatal act. Yet
wherefore ask these things? It was over; the scene was closed. It were
little worth to analyze the poison she had imbibed, since she was past
all mortal cure.

Her first resolve was to forget--never, never to think of the false one
more. But her thoughts never wandered from his image, and she was
eternally busied in retrospection and conjecture. She was tempted at one
time to disbelieve the intelligence, and to consider it as a piece of
malice on the part of Miss Saville; then the common newspaper told her,
that at the Ambassador's house at Naples, the Honourable Horatio Saville
had married Clorinda, daughter of the Principe Villamarina, a Neapolitan
nobleman of the highest rank.

It was true therefore--and how was it true? Did he love his bride? why
else marry?--had he forgotten his tenderness towards her? Alas! it
needed not forgetting; it was a portion of past time, fleeting as time
itself; it had been borne away with the hours as they passed, and
remembered as a thing which had been, and was no more. The reveries of
love which for months had formed all her occupation, were a blank; or
rather to be replaced by the agonies of despair. Her native haughtiness
forsook her. She was alone and desolate--hedged in on all sides by
insuperable barriers, which shut out every glimpse of hope. She was
humbled in her own eyes, through her want of success, and heartily
despised herself, and all her caprices and vanities, which had led her
to this desart, and then left her to pine. She detested her position in
society, her mechanism of being, and every circumstance, self-inherent,
or adventitious, that attended her existence. All seemed to her sick
fancy so constructed as to ensure disgrace, desertion, and contempt. She
lay down each night feeling as if she could never endure to raise her
head on the morrow.

The unkindness and cruelty of her lover's conduct next presented
themselves to her contemplation. She had suffered much during the past
years, more than she had ever acknowledged, even to herself; she had
suffered of regret and sorrow, while she brooded over her solitary
position, and the privation of every object on whom she might bestow
affection. She had had nothing to hope. Saville had changed all this; he
had banished her cares, and implanted hope in her heart. Now again his
voice recalled the evils, his hand crushed the new-born expectation of
happiness. He was the cause of every ill; and the adversity which she
had endured proudly and with fortitude while it seemed the work of fate,
grew more bitter and heavy when she felt that it arose through the
agency of one, whose kind affection and guardianship she had fondly
believed would hereafter prove a blessing sent as from Heaven itself, be
to the star of her life.

This fit passed off; with struggles and relapses she wore down the first
gush of sorrow, and her disposition again assumed force over her. She
had found it difficult to persuade herself, in spite of facts, that she
was not loved; but it was easy, once convinced of the infidelity of her
lover, to regard him with indifference. She now regretted lost
happiness--but Saville was no longer regretted. She wept over the
vanished forms of delight, lately so dear to her; but she remembered
that he who had called them into life had driven them away; and she
smiled in proud scorn of his fleeting and unworthy passion. It was not
to this love that she had made so tender and lavish a return. She had
loved his constancy, his devotion, his generous solicitude for her
welfare--for the happiness which she bestowed on him, and for the
sympathy that so dearly united them. These were fled; and it were vain
to consecrate herself to an empty and deformed mockery of so beautiful a
truth.

Then she tried to hate him--to despise and to lessen him in her own
estimation. The attempt recoiled on herself. The recollection of his
worth stole across her memory, to frustrate her vain endeavours: his
voice haunted--his expressive eyes beamed on her. It were better to
forget. Indifference was her only refuge, and to attain this she must
wholly banish his image from her mind. Cornelia was possessed of
wonderful firmness of purpose. It had carried her on so long unharmed,
and now that danger was at hand, it served effectually to defend her.
She rose calm and free, above unmerited disaster. She grew proud of the
power she found that she possessed of conquering the most tyrannical of
passions. Peace entered her soul, and she hailed it as a blessing.

The clause in her husband's will which deprived her of the guardianship
of her daughter had been forgotten during this crisis. Before, under the
supposition that she should marry, she had deferred taking any step to
claim her. The idea of a struggle to be made, unassisted, unadvised, and
unshielded, was terrible. She had not courage to encounter all the
annoyances that might ensue. To get rid for a time of the necessity of
action and reflection, she went abroad. She changed the scene--she
travelled from place to place. She gave herself up in the solitude of
continental journies to the whole force of contending passions; now
overcome by despair, and again repressing regret, asserting to herself
the lofty pride of her nature.

By degrees she recovered a healthier tone of mind--a distant and faint,
yet genuine sense of duty dawned upon her; and she began to think on
what her future existence was to depend, and how she could best secure
some portion of happiness. Her heart once again warmed towards the image
of her daughter--and she felt that in watching the development of her
mind, and leading her to love and depend on her, a new interest and real
pleasure might spring up in life. She reproached herself for having so
long, by silence and passive submission, given scope to the belief that
she was willing to be a party against herself, in the injustice of Lodore;
and she returned to England with the intention of instantly enforcing her
rights over her child, and taking to her bosom and to her fondest care
the little being, whose affection and gratitude was to paint her future
life with smiles.

She called to mind Lady Santerre's worldly maxims, and her own
experience. She knew that the first step to success is the appearance of
prosperity and power. To command the good wishes and aid of her friends
she must appear independent of them. She was earnest therefore to hide
the wounds her heart had received, and the real loathing with which she
regarded all things. She arrayed herself in smiles, and banished, far
below into the invisible recesses of her bosom, the contempt and disgust
with which she viewed the scene around her.

She returned to England. She appeared at the height of the season, in
the midst of society, as beautiful, as charming, as happy in look and
manner, as in her days of light-hearted enjoyment. She paused yet a
moment longer, to reflect on what step she had better take on first
enforcing her claim; but her mind was full of its intention, and set
upon the fulfilment.

At this time, but a few days after her arrival in London, she went to
the opera. She heard the name of Fitzhenry called in the lobby--she saw
and recognized Mrs. Elizabeth--the venerable sister Bessy, so little
altered, that time might be said to have touched, but not trenched her
homely kindly face. With her, in attendance on her, she beheld Horatio
Saville's favourite cousin--the gay and fashionable Edward Villiers. It
was strange; her curiosity was strongly excited. It had not long to
languish: the next morning Villiers called, and was readily admitted.




CHAPTER V


And as good lost is seld or never found.

SHAKSPEARE.


Lady Lodore and Villiers met for the first time since Horatio Saville's
marriage. Neither were exactly aware of what the other knew or thought.
Cornelia was ignorant how far her attachment to his cousin was known to
him; whether he shared the general belief in her worldly coquetry, or
what part he might have had in occasioning their unhappy separation. She
could not indeed see him without emotion. He had been Lodore's second,
and received the last dying breath of him who had, in her brightest
youth, selected her from the world, to share his fortunes. Those days
were long past; yet as she grew older, disappointed, and devoid of
pleasurable interest in the present, she often turned her thoughts
backward, and wondered at the part she had acted.

Similar feelings were in Edward's mind. He was prejudiced against her in
every way. He despised her worldly calculations, as reported to him, and
rejoiced in their failure. He believed these reports, and despised her;
yet he could not see her without being moved at once with admiration and
pity. The moon-lit hill, and tragic scene, in which he had played his
part, came vividly before his eyes. He had been struck by the nobleness
of Lodore's appearance--the sensibility that sat on his countenance--his
gentle, yet dignified manners. Ethel's idolatry of her father had
confirmed the favourable prepossession. He could not help
compassionating Cornelia for the loss of her husband, forgetting, for
the moment, their separation. Then again recurred to him the eloquent
appeals of Saville; his eulogiums; his fervent, reverential affection.
She had lost him also. Could she hold up her head after such miserable
events? The evidence of the senses, and the ideas of our own minds, are
more forcibly present, than any notion we can form of the feelings of
others. In spite, therefore, of his belief in her heartlessness,
Villiers had pictured Cornelia attired in dismal weeds, the victim of
grief. He saw her, beaming in beauty, at the opera;--he now beheld her,
radiant in sweet smiles, in her own home. Nothing touched--nothing
harmed her; and the glossy surface, he doubted not, imaged well the
insensible, unimpressive soul within.

Lady Lodore would have despised herself for ever had she betrayed the
tremor that shook her frame when Villiers entered. Her pride of sex was in
arms to enable her to convince him, that no regret, no pining, shadowed her
days. The reality was abhorrent, and should never be confessed. Thus
then they met--each with a whole epic of woe and death alive in their
memory; but both wearing the outward appearance of frivolity and
thoughtlessness. He saw her as lovely as ever, and as kind. Her softest
and sweetest welcome was extended to him. It was this frequent show of
frank cordiality which gained her "golden opinions" from the many. Her
haughtiness was all of the mind;--a desire to please, and constant
association with others, had smoothed the surface, and painted it in the
colours most agreeable to every eye.

They addressed each other as if they had met but the day before. At
first, a few questions and answers passed,--as to where she had been on
the continent, how she liked Baden, &c.;--and then Lady Lodore
said--"Although I have not seen her for several years, I instantly
recognized a relative of mine with you yesterday evening. Does Miss
Fitzhenry make any stay in town?"

The idea of Ethel was uppermost in Villiers's mind, and struck by the
manner in which the woman of fashion spoke of her daughter, he replied,
"During the season, I believe; I scarcely know. Miss Fitzhenry came up
for her health; that consideration, I suppose, will regulate her
movements."

"She looked very well last night--perhaps she intends to remain till she
gets ill, and country air is ordered?" observed Lady Lodore.

"That were nothing new at least," replied Villiers, trying to hide the
disgust he felt at her mode of speaking; "the young and blooming too
often protract their first season, till the roses are exchanged for
lilies."

"If Miss Fitzhenry's roses still bloom," said the lady, "they must be
perennial ones; they have surely grown more fit for a herbal than a
vase."

Villiers now perceived his mistake, and replied, "You are speaking of
Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry, as the good lady styles herself--I spoke
of--her niece--"

"Has Ethel been ill?" Lady Lodore's hurried question, and the
use of the christian name, as most familiar to her thoughts, brought
home to Villiers's heart the feeling of their near relationship. There
was something more than grating; it was deeply painful to speak to a
mother of a child who had been torn from her--who did not know--who had
even been taught to hate her. He wished himself a hundred miles off, but
there was no help, he must reply. "You might have seen last night that
she is perfectly recovered."

Lady Lodore's imagination refused to image her child in the tall, elegant,
full-formed girl she had seen, and she said, "Was Ethel with you? I did
not see her--probably she went home before the opera was over, and I
only perceived your party in the crush-room--you appear already
intimate."

"It is impossible to see Miss Fitzhenry and not to wish to be intimate,"
replied Villiers with his usual frankness. "I, at least, cannot help
being deeply interested in every thing that relates to her."

"You are very good to take concern in my little girl. I should have
imagined that you were too young yourself to like children."

"Children!" repeated Villiers, much amazed; "Miss Fitzhenry!--she is not
a child."

Lady Lodore scarcely heard him; a sudden pang had shot across her heart, to
think how strangers--how every one might draw near her daughter, and be
interested for her, while she could not, without making herself the tale
of the town, the subject, through the medium of news-papers, for every
gossip's tea-table in England--where her sentiments would be scanned,
and her conduct criticized--and this through the revengeful feelings of
her husband, prolonged beyond the grave. Tears had been gathering in her
eyes during the last moments; she turned her head to hide them, and a
quick shower fell on her silken dress. Quite ashamed of this
self-betrayal, she exerted herself to overcome her emotion. Villiers
felt awkwardly situated; his first impulse had been to rise to take her
hand, to soothe her; but before he could do more than the first of these
acts, as Lady Lodore fancied for the purpose of taking his leave, she
said, "It is foolish to feel as I do; yet perhaps more foolish to
attempt to conceal from one, as well acquainted as you are with every
thing, that I do feel pained at the unnatural separation between me and
Ethel, especially when I think of the publicity I must incur by
asserting a mother's claims. I am ashamed of intruding this subject on
you; but she is no longer the baby cherub I could cradle in my arms, and
you have seen her lately, and can tell me whether she has been well
brought up--whether she seems tractable--if she promises to be pretty?"

"Did you not think her lovely?" cried Villiers with animation; "you saw
her last night, taking my arm."

"Ethel!" cried the lady. "Could that be Ethel? True, she is now
sixteen--I had indeed forgot"--her cheeks became suffused with a deep
blush as she remembered all the solicisms she had been committing. "She
is sixteen," she continued, "and a woman--while I fancied a little girl
in a white frock and blue sash: this alters every thing. We have been
indeed divided, and must now remain so for evermore. I will not injure
her, at her age, by making her the public talk--besides, many, many
other considerations would render me fearful of making myself
responsible for her future destiny."

"At least," said Villiers, "she ought to wait on you."

"That were beyond Lord Lodore's bond," said the lady; "and why should she
wait on me? Were she impelled by affection, it were well. But this is
talking very simply--we could only be acquaintance, and I would rather be
nothing. I confess, that I repined bitterly, that I was not permitted to
have my little girl, as I termed her, for my plaything and
companion--but my ideas are now changed: a dear little tractable child
would have been delightful--but she is a woman, with a will of her
own--prejudiced against me--brought up in that vulgar America, with all
kinds of strange notions and ways. Lord Lodore was quite right, I
believe--he fashioned her for himself and--Bessy. The worst thing that
can happen to a girl, is to have her prejudices and principles unhinged;
no new ones can flourish like those that have grown with her growth; and
mine, I fear, would differ greatly from those in which she has been
educated. A few years hence, she may feel the want of a friend, who
understands the world, and who could guide her prudently through its
intricacies; then she shall find that friend in me. Now, I feel
convinced that I should do more harm than good."

A loud knock at the street door interrupted the conversation. "One thing
only I cannot endure," said the lady hastily, "to present a domestic
tragedy or farce to the Opera House--we must not meet in public. I shall
shut up my house and return to Paris."

Mere written words express little. Lady Lodore's expressions were nothing;
but her countenance denoted a change of feeling, a violence of emotion, of
which Villiers hardly believed her capable; but before he could reply,
the servant threw open the door, and her brow immediately clearing,
serenity descended on her face. With her blandest smile she extended her
hand to her new visitor. Villiers was too much discomposed to imitate
her, so with a silent salutation he departed, and cantered round the
park to collect his thoughts before he called in Seymour-street.

The ladies there were not less agitated than Lady Lodore, and displayed
their feelings with the artlessness of recluses. The first words that Mrs.
Elizabeth had addressed to her niece, at the breakfast table, were an
awkwardly expressed intimation, that she meant instantly to return to
Longfield. Ethel looked up with a face of alarm: her aunt continued; "I
do not want to speak ill of Lady Lodore, my dear--God forgive her--that
is all I can say. What your dear father thought of her, his last will
testifies. I suppose you do not mean to disobey him."

"His slightest word was ever a law with me," said Ethel; "and now that
he is gone, I would observe his injunctions more religiously than ever.
But--"

"Then, my dear, there is but one thing to be done: Lady Lodore will
assuredly force herself upon us, meet us at every turn, oblige you to pay
her your duty; nor could you avoid it. No, my dear Ethel, there is but one
escape--your health, thank God, is restored, and Longfield is now in all
its beauty; we will return to-morrow."

Ethel did not reply; she looked very disconsolate--she did not know what
to say; at last, "Mr. Villiers will think it so odd," dropped from her
lips.

"Mr. Villiers is nothing to us, my dear," said aunt Bessy--"not the most
distant relation; he is an agreeable, good-hearted young gentleman--but
there are so many in the world."

Ethel left her breakfast untasted and went out of the room: she felt
that she could no longer restrain her tears. "My father!" she exclaimed,
while a passionate burst of weeping choked her utterance, "my only
friend! why, why did you leave me? Why, most cruel, desert your poor
orphan child? Gracious God! to what am I reserved! I must not see my
mother--a name so dear, so sweet, is for me a curse and a misery! O my
father, why did you desert me!"

Her calm reflections were not less bitter; she did not suffer her
thoughts to wander to Villiers, or rather the loss of her father was
still so much the first grief of her heart, that on any new sorrow, it
was to this she recurred with agony. The form of her youthful mother
also flitted before her; and she asked herself, "Can she be so wicked?"
Lord Lodore had never uttered her name; it was not until his death had put
the fatal seal on all things, that she heard a garbled exaggerated
statement from her aunt, over whose benevolent features a kind of sacred
horror mantled, whenever she was mentioned. The will of Lord Lodore, and
the stern injunction it contained, that the mother and daughter should
never meet, satisfied Ethel of the truth of all that her aunt said; so that
educated to obedience and deep reverence for the only parent she had
ever known, she recoiled with terror from transgressing his commands,
and holding communication with the cause of all his ills. Still it was
hard, and very, very sad; nor did she cease from lamenting her fate,
till Villiers's horse was heard in the street, and his knock at the
door; then she tried to compose herself. "He will surely come to us at
Longfield," she thought; "Longfield will be so very stupid after
London."

After London! Poor Ethel! she had lived in London as in a desert; but
lately it had appeared to her a city of bliss, and all places else the
abode of gloom and melancholy. Villiers was shocked at the appearance of
sorrow which shadowed her face; and, for a moment, thought that the
rencounter with her mother was the sole occasion of the tears, whose
traces he plainly discerned. His address was full of sympathetic
kindness;--but when she said, "We return to-morrow to Essex--will you
come to see us at Longfield?"--his soothing tones were exchanged for
those of surprise and vexation.

"Longfield!--impossible! Why?"

"My aunt has determined on it. She thinks me recovered; and so, indeed,
I am."

"But are you to be entombed at Longfield, except when dying? If so, do,
pray, be ill again directly! But this must not be. Dear Mrs. Fitzhenry,"
he continued, as she came in, "I will not hear of your going to
Longfield. Look; the very idea has already thrown Miss Fitzhenry into a
consumption;--you will kill her. Indeed you must not think of it."

"We shall all die, if we stay in town," said Mrs. Elizabeth, with
perplexity at her niece's evident suffering.

"Then why stay in town?" asked Villiers.

"You just now said, that we ought not to return to Longfield," answered
the lady; "and I am sure if Ethel is to look so ill and wretched, I
don't know what I am to do."

"But there are many places in the world besides either London or
Longfield. You were charmed with Richmond the other day: there are
plenty of houses to be had there; nothing can be prettier or more
quiet."

"Well, I don't know," said Aunt Bessy, "I never thought of that, to be
sure; and I have business which makes our going to Longfield very
inconvenient. I expect Mr. Humphries, our solicitor, next week; and I
have not seen him yet. You really think, Mr. Villiers, that we could get
a house to suit us at Richmond?"

"Let us drive there to-day," said Villiers; "we can dine at the Star and
Garter. You can go in the britzska--I on horseback. The days are long:
we can see every thing; and take your house at once."

This plan sounded very romantic and wild to the sober spinster; but
Ethel's face, lighted up with vivid pleasure, said more in its favour,
than what the good lady called prudence could allege against it. "Silly
people you women are," said Villiers: "you can do nothing by yourselves:
and are always running against posts, unless guided by others. This will
make every thing easy--dispel every difficulty." His thoughts recurred
to Lady Lodore, and her intended journey to Paris, as he said this: and
again they flew to a charming little villa on the river's side, whither he
could ride every day, and find Ethel among her flowers, alone and happy.

The excursion of this morning was prosperous. The day was warm yet
fresh; and as they quitted town, and got surrounded by fields, and
hedges, and trees, nature reassumed her rights, and awakened transport
in Ethel's heart. The boyish spirits of Villiers communicated themselves
to her; and Mrs. Elizabeth smiled, also, with the most exquisite
complacency. A few inquiries conducted them to a pretty rural box,
surrounded by a small, but well laid-out shrubbery; and this they
engaged. The dinner at the inn, the twilight walk in its garden;--the
fair prospect of the rich and cultivated country, with its silvery,
meandering river at their feet; and the aspect of the cloudless heavens,
where one or two stars silently struggled into sight amidst the pathless
wastes of sky, were objects most beautiful to look on, and prodigal of
the sweetest emotions. The wide, dark lake, the endless forests, and
distant mountains, of the Illinois, were not here; but night bestowed
that appearance of solitude, which habit rendered dear to Ethel; and
imagination could transform wooded parks and well-trimmed meadows into
bowery seclusions, sacred from the foot of man, and fresh fields,
untouched by his hand.

A few days found Ethel and her aunt installed at their little villa, and
delighted to be away from London. Education made loneliness congenial to
both: they might seek transient amusements in towns, or visit them for
business; but happiness, the agreeable tenor of unvaried daily life, was
to be found in the quiet of the country only;--and Richmond was the
country to them; for, cut off from all habits of intercourse with their
species, they had but to find trees and meadows near them, at once to
feel transported, from the thick of human life, into the most noiseless
solitude.

Ethel was very happy. She rose in the morning with a glad and grateful
heart, and gazed from her chamber window, watching the early sunbeams as
they crept over the various parts of the landscape, visiting with light
and warmth each open field or embowered nook. Her bosom overflowed with
the kindest feelings, and her charmed senses answered the tremulous
beating of her pure heart, bidding it enjoy. How beautiful did earth
appear to her! There was a delight and a sympathy in the very action of
the shadows, as they pranked the sunshiny ground with their dark and
fluctuating forms. The leafy boughs of the tall trees waved gracefully,
and each wind of heaven wafted a thousand sweets. A magic spell of
beauty and bliss held in one bright chain the whole harmonious universe;
and the soul of the enchantment was love--simple, girlish,
unacknowledged love;--the love of the young, feminine heart, which feels
itself placed, all bleakly and dangerously, in a world, scarce formed to
be its home, and which plumes itself with Love to fly to the covert and
natural shelter of another's protecting care.

Ethel did not know--did not fancy--that she was in love; nor did any of
the throes of passion disturb the serenity of her mind. She only felt
that she was very, very happy; and that Villiers was the kindest of
human beings. She did not give herself up to idleness and reverie. The
first law of her education had been to be constantly employed. Her
studies were various: they, perhaps, did not sufficiently tend to
invigorate her understanding, but they sufficed to prevent every
incursion of listlessness. Meanwhile, during each, the thought of
Villiers strayed through her mind, like a heavenly visitant, to gild all
things with sunny delight. Some time, during the day, he was nearly sure
to come; or, at least, she was certain of seeing him on the morrow; and
when he came, their boatings and their rides were prolonged; while each
moment added to the strength of the ties that bound her to him. She
relied on his friendship; and his society was as necessary to her life,
as the air she breathed. She so implicitly trusted to his truth, that
she was unaware that she trusted at all--never making a doubt about it.
That chance, or time, should injure or break off the tie, was a
possibility that never suggested itself to her mind. As the silver
Thames traversed in silence and beauty the landscape at her feet, so did
love flow through her soul in one even and unruffled stream--the great
law and emperor of her thoughts; yet more felt from its influence, than
from any direct exertion of its power. It was the result and the type of
her sensibility, of her constancy, of the gentle, yet lively sympathy,
it was her nature to bestow, with guileless confidence. Those around her
might be ignorant that her soul was imbued with it, because, being a
part of her soul, there was small outward demonstration. None, indeed,
near her thought any thing about it: Aunt Bessy was a tyro in such
matters; and Villiers--he had resolved, when he perceived love on her
side, to retreat for ever: till then he might enjoy the dear delight
that her society afforded him.




CHAPTER VI


Alas! he knows
The laws of Spain appoint me for his heir;
That all must come to me, if I outlive him,
Which sure I must do, by the course of nature.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.


Edward Villiers was the only child of a man of considerable fortune, who
had early in life become a widower. From the period of this event,
Colonel Villiers (for his youth had been passed in the army, where he
obtained promotion) had led the careless life of a single man. His son's
home was at Maristow Castle, when not at school; and the father seldom
remembered him except as an incumbrance; for his estate was strictly
entailed, so that he could only consider himself possessed of a life
interest in a property, which would devolve, without restriction, on his
more fortunate son.

Edward was brought up in all the magnificence of his uncle's lordly
abode. Luxury and profusion were the elements of the air he breathed. To
be without any desired object that could be purchased, appeared baseness
and lowest penury. He, also, was considered the favoured one of fortune
in the family circle. The elder brother among the Savilles rose above,
but the younger fell infinitely below, the undoubted heir of eight
thousand a year, and one of the most delightful seats in England. He was
brought up to look upon himself as a rich man, and to act as such; and
meanwhile, until his father's death, he had nothing to depend on, except
any allowance he might make him.

Colonel Villiers was a man of fashion, addicted to all the extravagances
and even vices of the times. He set no bounds to his expenses. Gambling
consumed his nights, and his days were spent at horse-races, or any
other occupation that at once excited and impoverished him. His income
was as a drop of water in the mighty stream of his expenditure.
Involvement followed involvement, until he had not a shilling that he
could properly call his own.

Poor Edward heard of these things, but did not mark them. He indulged in
no blameworthy pursuits, nor spent more than beseemed a man in his rank
of life. The idea of debt was familiar to him: every one--even Lord
Maristow--was in debt, far beyond his power of immediate payment. He
followed the universal example, and suffered no inconvenience, while his
wants were obligingly supplied by the fashionable tradesmen. He regarded
the period of his coming of age as a time when he should become
disembarrassed, and enter upon life with ample means, and still more
brilliant prospects.

The day arrived. It was celebrated with splendour at Maristow Castle.
Colonel Villiers was abroad; but Lord Maristow wrote to him to remind
him of this event, which otherwise he might have forgotten. A kind
letter of congratulation was, in consequence, received from him by
Edward; to which was appended a postscript, saying, that on his return,
at the end of a few weeks, he would consult concerning some arrangements
he wished to make with regard to his future income.

His return was deferred; and Edward began to experience some of the
annoyances of debt. Still no real pain was associated with his feelings;
though he looked forward with eagerness to the hour of liberation.
Colonel Villiers came at last. He spoke largely of his intended
generosity, which was shown, meanwhile, by his persuading Edward to join
in a mortgage for the sake of raising an immediate sum. Edward scarcely
knew what he was about. He was delighted to be of service to his father;
and without thought or idea of having made a sacrifice, agreed to all
that was asked of him. He was promised an allowance of six hundred a
year.

The few years that had passed since then were full of painful experience
and bitter initiation. His light and airy spirit was slow to conceive
ill, or to resent wrong. When his annuity remained unpaid, he listened
to his father's excuses with implicit credence, and deplored his
poverty. One day, he received a note from him, written, as usual, in
haste and confusion, but breathing anxiety and regret on his account,
and promising to pay over to him the first money he could obtain. On the
evening of that day, Edward was led by a friend into the gambling room
of a celebrated club. The first man on whom his eyes fell, was his
father, who was risking and losing rouleaus and notes in abundance. At
one moment, while making over a large sum, he suddenly perceived his
son. He grew pale, and then a deep blush spread itself over his
countenance. Edward withdrew. His young heart was pierced to the core.
The consciousness of a father's falsehood and guilt acted on him as the
sudden intelligence of some fatal disaster would have done. He breathed
thick--the objects swam round him--he hurried into the streets--he
traversed them one after the other. It was not this scene alone--this
single act; the veil was withdrawn from a whole series of others
similar; and he became aware that his parent had stepped beyond the line
of mere extravagance; that he had lost honourable feeling; that lies
were common in his mouth; and every other--even his only child--was
sacrificed to his own selfish and bad passions.

Edward never again asked his father for money. The immediate result of
the meeting in the gambling-room, had been his receiving a portion of
what was due to him; but his annuity was always in arrear, and paid so
irregularly, that it became worse than nothing in his eyes; especially,
as the little that he received was immediately paid over to creditors,
and to defray the interest of borrowed money.

He never applied again to Colonel Villiers. He would have considered
himself guilty of a crime, had he forced his father to forge fresh
subterfuges, and to lie to his own son. Brought up in the midst of the
wealthy, he had early imbibed a horror of pecuniary obligation; and this
fastidiousness grew more sensitive and peremptory with each added day of
his life. Yet with all this, he had not learnt to set a right value upon
money; and he squandered whatever he obtained with thoughtless
profusion. He had no friend to whose counsel he could recur. Lord
Maristow railed against Colonel Villiers; and when he heard of Edward's
difficulties, offered to remonstrate and force his brother-in-law to
extricate him: but here ended his assistance, which was earnestly
rejected. Horatio's means were exceedingly limited; but on a word from
his cousin, he eagerly besought him to have recourse to his purse. To
avoid his kindness, and his uncle's interference, Edward became
reserved: he had recourse to Jews and money-lenders; and appeared at
ease, while he was involving himself in countless and still increasing
embarrassments.

Edward was naturally extravagant; or, to speak more correctly, his
education and position implanted and fostered habits of expense and
prodigality, while his careless disposition was unapt to calculate
consequences: his very attempts at economy frequently cost him more than
his most expensive whims. He was not, like his father, a gambler; nor
did he enter into any very reprehensible pleasures: but he had little to
spend, and was thoughtless and confiding; and being always in arrear,
was forced, in a certain way, to continue a system which perpetually led
him further into the maze, and rendered his return impossible. He had no
hope of becoming independent, except through his father's death: Colonel
Villiers, meanwhile, had no idea of dying. He was not fifty years of
age; and considering his own a better life than his son's, involuntarily
speculated on what he should do if he should chance to survive him. He
was a handsome and a fashionable man: he often meditated a second
marriage, if he could render it advantageous; and repined at his
inability to make settlements, which was an insuperable impediment to
his project. Edward's death would overcome this difficulty. Such were
the speculations of father and son; and the portion of filial and
paternal affection which their relative position but too usually
inspires.

Until he was twenty-one, Edward had never spent a thought upon his
scanty resources. Three years had past since then--three brief years,
which had a little taught him of what homely stuff the world is made;
yet care and even reflection had not yet disturbed his repose. Days,
months sped on, and nothing reminded him of his relative wealth or
poverty in a way to annoy him, till he knew Ethel. He had been
interested for her in America--he had seen her, young and lovely,
drowned in grief--sorrowing with the heart's first prodigal sorrow for
her adored father. He had left her, and thought of her no more--except,
as a passing reflection, that in the natural course of things, she was
now to become the pupil of Lady Lodore, and consequently, that her
unsophisticated feelings and affectionate heart would speedily be
tarnished and hardened under her influence. He anticipated meeting her
hereafter in ball-rooms and assemblies, changed into a flirting, giddy,
yet worldly-minded girl, intent upon a good establishment, and a
fashionable partner.

He encountered her under the sober and primitive guardianship of Mrs.
Fitzhenry, unchanged and unharmed. The same radiant innocence beamed
from her face; her sweet voice was still true and heart-reaching in its
tones; her manner mirrored the purity and lustre of a mind incapable of
guile, and adorned with every generous and gentle sentiment. He drew near
her with respect and admiration, and soon no other object showed fair in
his eyes except Ethel. She was the star of the world, and he felt happy
only when the light of her presence shone upon him. Her voice and smile
visited his dreams, and spoke peace and delight to his heart. She was to
him as a jewel (yet sweeter and lovelier than any gem) shut up in a
casket, of which he alone possessed the key--as a pearl, of whose
existence an Indian diver is aware beneath the waves of ocean, deep
buried from every other eye.

There was all in Ethel that could excite and keep alive imaginative and
tender love. In characterizing a race of women, a delightful writer has
described her individually. "She was in her nature a superior being. Her
majestic forehead, her dark, thoughtful eye, assured you that she had
communed with herself. She could bear to be left in solitude--yet what a
look was her's if animated by mirth or love! She was poetical, if not a
poet; and her imagination was high and chivalrous."[1] The elevated tone of
feeling fostered by her father, her worship of his virtues, and the
loneliness of her life in the Illinois, combined to render her
dissimilar to any girl Villiers had ever before known or admired. When
unobserved, he watched her countenance, and marked the varying tracery
of high thoughts and deep emotions pass over it; her dark eye looked out
from itself on vacancy, but read there a meaning only to be discerned by
vivid imagination. And then when that eye, so full of soul, turned on
him, and affection and pleasure at once animated and softened its
glances--when her sweet lips, so delicate in their shape, so balmy and
soft in their repose, were wreathed into a smile--he felt that his whole
being was penetrated with enthusiastic admiration, and that his nature
had bent to a law, from which it could never again be liberated.

That she should mingle with the world--enter into its contaminating
pursuits--be talked of in it with that spirit of depreciation and
impertinence, which is its essence, was odious to him, and he was
overjoyed to have her safe at Richmond--secure from Lady Lodore--shut up
apart from all things, except nature--her unsophisticated aunt, and his own
admiration--a bird of beauty, brooding in its own fair nest,
unendangered by the fowler. These were his feelings; but by degrees
other reflections forced themselves on him; and love which, when it has
knocked and been admitted, _will_ be a tyrant, obliged him to entertain
regrets and fears which agonized him. His hourly aspiration was to make
her his own. Would that dear heart open to receive into its recesses his
image, and thenceforward dedicate itself to him only? Might he become
her lover, guardian, husband--and they tread together the jungle of
life, aiding each other to thread its mazes, and to ward off every
danger that might impend over them.

Bitter worldly considerations came to mar the dainty colours of this
fair picture. He could not conceal from himself the poverty that must
attend him during his father's life. Lord Lodore's singular will reduced
Ethel's property to almost nothing: should he then ally her to his
scanty means and broken fortune? His resolution was made. He would not
deny himself the present pleasure of seeing her, to spare any future
pain in which he should be the only sufferer; but on the first token of
exclusive regard on her side, he would withdraw for ever.


[Footnote 1: Coleridge's "Six Months in the West Indies."]




CHAPTER VII


The world is too much with us.

WORDSWORTH.


Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry's morning task was to read the newspapers--the
only intercourse she held with the world, and all her knowledge of it,
was derived from these daily sheets. Ethel never looked at them--her
thoughts held no communion with the vulgar routine of life, and she was
too much occupied by her studies and reveries to spend any time upon
topics so uninteresting as the state of the nation, or the scandal of
the day.

One morning, while she was painting, her aunt observed, in her usual
tone of voice, scarce lifting her eyes from the paper, "Mr. Villiers did
not tell us this--he is going to be married; I wonder who to!"

"Married!" repeated Ethel.

"Yes, my dear, here it is. 'We hear from good authority that Mr.
Villiers, of Chiverton Park, is about to lead to the hymeneal altar a
young and lovely bride, the only child of a gentleman, said to be the
richest commoner in England.'--Who can it be?"

Ethel did not reply, and the elder lady went on to other parts of the
newspaper. The poor girl, on whom she had dealt all unaware this chance
mortal blow, put down her brush, and hurried into the shrubbery to
conceal her agitation. Why did she feel these sharp pangs? Why did a
bitter deluge of anguish overflow and seem to choke her breathing, and
torture her heart?--she could scarcely tell. "Married!--then I shall
never see him more!" And a passion of tears, not refreshing, but forced
out by agony, and causing her to feel as if her heart was bursting,
shook her delicate frame. At that moment the well-known sound, the
galloping of Villiers's horse up the lane, met her ear. "Does he come
here to tell us at last of his wedding-day?" The horse came on--it
stopped--the bell was rung. Little acts these, which she had watched
for, and listened to, for two months, with such placid and innocent
delight, now they seemed the notes of preparation for a scene of
despair. She wished to retreat to her own room to compose herself; but
it was too late; he was already in that through which she must pass--she
heard his voice speaking to her aunt. "Now is he telling her," she
thought. No idea of reproach, or of accusation of unkindness in him,
dawned on her heart. No word of love had passed between them--even yet
she was unaware that she loved herself; it was the instinctive result of
this despot sentiment, which exerted its sway over her, without her
being conscious of the cause of her sufferings.

The first words of Mrs. Fitzhenry had been to speak of the paragraph in
the newspaper, and to show it her visitor. Villiers read it, and
considered it curiously. He saw at once, that however blunderingly
worded, his father was its hero; and he wondered what foundation there
might be for the rumour. "Singular enough!" he said, carelessly, as he
put the paper down.

"You have kept your secret well," said Mrs. Elizabeth.

"My secret! I did not even know that I had one."

"I, at least, never heard that you were going to be married."

"I!--married! Where is Miss Fitzhenry?"

The concatenation of ideas presented by these words fell unremarked on
the blunt senses of the good lady, and she replied, "In the shrubbery, I
believe, or upstairs: she left me but a moment ago."

Villiers hastened to the garden and soon discerned the tearful girl, who
was bending down to pluck and arrange some flowers, so to hide her
disturbed countenance.

Could we, at the moment of trial, summon our reason and our foregone
resolves--could we put the impression of the present moment at a
distance, which, on the contrary, presses on us with a power as
omnipotent over our soul, as a pointed sword piercing the flesh over our
life, we might become all that we are not--angels or demigods, or any
other being that is not human. As it is, the current of the blood and
the texture of the brain are the machinery by which the soul acts, and
their mechanism is by no means tractable or easily worked; once put in
motion, we can seldom controul their operations; but our serener
feelings are whirled into the vortex they create. Thus Edward Villiers
had a thousand times in his reveries thought over the possibility of a
scene occurring, such as the one he was called upon to act in now--and
had planned a line of conduct, but, like mist before the wind, this
gossamer of the mind was swept away by an immediate appeal to his heart
through his outward sensations. There stood before him, in all her
loveliness, the creature whose image had lived with him by day and by
night, for several long months; and the gaze of her soft tearful eyes,
and the faultering tone of her voice, were the laws to which his sense
of prudence, of right, was immediately subjected.

A few confused sentences interchanged, revealed to him that she
participated in her aunt's mistake, and her simple question, "Why did
you conceal this from me?" spoke the guilelessness of her thoughts,
while the anguish which her countenance expressed, betrayed that the
concealment was not the only source of her grief.

This young pair were ignorant how dear they were to each other. Ethel's
affection was that generous giving away of a young heart which is
unaware of the value of the gift it makes--she had asked for and thought
of no return, though her feeling was the result of a reciprocal one on
his side; it was the instinctive love of the dawn of womanhood, subdued
and refined by her gentle nature and imaginative mind. Edward was more
alive to the nature of his own sentiments--but his knowledge stood him
in no stead to fortify him against the power of Ethel's tears. In a
moment they understood each other--one second sufficed to cause the
before impervious veil to fall at their feet: they had stept beyond this
common-place world, and stood beside each other in the new and
mysterious region of which Love is emperor.

"Dearest Ethel," said Villiers, "I have much to tell you. Do arrange
that we should ride together. I have very much to tell you. You shall
know every thing, and judge for us both, though you should condemn me."

She looked up in his face with innocent surprise; but no words could
destroy the sunshine that brightened her soul: to know that she was
loved sufficed then to fill her being to overflowing with happiness, so
that there was no room for a second emotion.

The lovers rode out together, and thus secured the tête-à-tête which
Villiers especially yearned for. Although she was country-bred, Mrs.
Fitzhenry was too timid to mount on horseback, yet she could not feel
fear for her niece who, under her father's guidance, sat her steed with
an ease and perfect command of the animal, which long habit rendered
second nature to her. As they rode on, considerably in advance of the
groom, they were at first silent--the deep sweet silence which is so
eloquent of emotion--till with an effort, slackening his pace, and
bringing his horse nearer, Villiers began. He spoke of debt, of
difficulties, of poverty--of his unconquerable aversion to the making
any demands on his father--fruitless demands, for he knew how involved
Colonel Villiers was, and how incapable even of paying the allowance he
nominally made his son. He declared his reluctance to drag Ethel into
the sea of cares and discomforts that he felt must surround his youth.
He besought her forgiveness for having loved her--for having linked her
heart to his. He could not willingly resign her, while he believed that
he, all unworthy, was of any worth in her eyes; but would she not
discard him for ever, now that she knew that he was a beggar? and that
all to which he could aspire, was an engagement to be fulfilled at some
far distant day--a day that might never come--when fortune should smile
on him. Ethel listened with exquisite complacency. Every word Villiers
spoke was fraught with tenderness; his eye beamed adoration and
sincerest love. Consciousness chained her tongue, and her faltering
voice refused to frame any echo to the busy instigations of her virgin
heart. Yet it seemed to her as if she must speak; as if she were called
upon to avow how light and trivial were all worldly considerations in
her eyes. With bashful confusion she at length said, "You cannot think
that I care for fortune--I was happy in the Illinois."

Her simplicity of feeling was at this moment infectious. It appeared the
excess of selfishness to think of any thing but love in a desart--while
she had no desire beyond. Indeed, in England or America, she lived in a
desart, as far as society was concerned, and felt not one of those
tenacious though cobweb-seeming ties, that held sway over Villiers. All
his explanations therefore went for nothing. They only felt that this
discourse concerning him had drawn them nearer to each other, and had
laid the first stone of an edifice of friendship, henceforth to be
raised beside the already established one of love. A sudden shower
forced them also to return home with speed, and so interrupted any
further discussion.

In the evening Villiers left them; and Ethel sought, as speedily as she
might, the solitude of her own chamber. She had no idea of hiding any
circumstance from Mrs. Fitzhenry; but confidence is, more than any other
thing, a matter of interchange, and cannot be bestowed unless the giver
is certain of its being received. They had too little sympathy of taste
or idea, and were too little in the habit of communicating their inmost
thoughts, to make Ethel recur to her aunt. Besides, young love is ever
cradled in mystery;--to reveal it to the vulgar eye, appears at once to
deprive it of its celestial loveliness, and to marry it to the clodlike
earth. But alone--alone--she could think over the past day--recall its
minutest incident; and as she imaged to herself the speaking fondness of
her lover's eyes, her own closed, and a thrilling sense of delight swept
through her frame. What a different world was this to what it had been
the day before! The whole creation was invested by a purer atmosphere,
balmy as paradise, which no disquieting thought could penetrate. She
called upon her father's spirit to approve her attachment; and when she
reflected that Edward's hand had supported his dying head--that to
Edward Villiers's care his latest words had intrusted her,--she felt as if
she were a legacy bequeathed to him, and that she fulfilled Lodore's last
behests in giving herself to him. So sweetly and fondly did her gentle
heart strive to make a duty of her wishes; and the idea of her father's
approbation set the seal of perfect satisfaction on her dream of bliss.

It was somewhat otherwise with Villiers. Things went on as before, and
he came nearly every day to Richmond; but while Ethel rested satisfied
with seeing him, and receiving slight, cherished tokens of his unabated
regard,--as his voice assumed a more familiar tone, and his attentions
became more affectionate;--while these were enough for Ethel, he thought
of the future, and saw it each day dressed in gloomier colours. In
Ethel's presence, indeed, he forgot all but her. He loved her fervently,
and beheld in her all that he most admired in woman: her clearness of
spirit, her singleness of heart, her unsuspicious and ingenuous
disposition, were irresistibly fascinating;--and why not spend their
lives thus in solitude?--his--their mutual fortune might afford
this:--why not for ever thus--the happy--the beloved?--his life might
pass like a dream of joy; and that paradise might be realized on earth,
the impossibility of which philosophers have demonstrated, and
worldlings scoffed at.

Thus he thought while in the same room with Ethel;--while on his evening
ride back to town, her form glided before him, and her voice sounded in
his ears, it seemed that where Ethel was, no one earthly bliss could be
wanting; where she was not, a void must exist, dark and dreary as a
starless night. But his progress onward took him out of the magic circle
her presence drew; a portion of his elevated feeling deserted him at
each step; it fell off, like the bark pealing from a tree, in successive
coats, till he was left with scarce a vestige of its brightness;--as the
hue and the scent deserts the flower, when deprived of light,--so, when
away from Ethel, her lover lost half the excellence which her presence
bestowed.

Edward Villiers was eminently sociable in his disposition. He had been
brought up in the thick of life, and knew not how to live apart from it.
His frank and cordial heart danced within his bosom, when he was among
those who sympathized with, and liked him. He was much courted in
society, and had many favourites: and how Ethel would like these, and be
liked by them, was a question he perpetually asked himself. He knew the
worldliness of many,--their defective moral feeling, and their narrow
views; but he believed that they were attached to him, and no man was
ever less a misanthrope than he. He wished, if married to Ethel, to see
her a favourite in his own circle; but he revolted from the idea of
presenting her, except under favourable auspices, surrounded by the
decorations of rank and wealth. To give up the world, the English world,
formed no portion of his picture of bliss; and to occupy a subordinate,
degraded, permitted place in it, was, to one initiated in its
supercilious and insolent assumptions, not to be endured.

The picture had also a darker side, which was too often turned towards
him. If he felt hesitation when he regarded its brighter aspect, as soon
as this was dimmed, the whole current of his feelings turned the other
way; and he called himself villain, for dreaming of allying Ethel, not
to poverty alone, but to its worst consequences and disgrace, in the
shape of debt. "I am a beggar," he thought; "one of many wants, and
unable to provide for any;--the most poverty-stricken of beggars, who
has pledged away even his liberty, were it claimed of him. I look
forward to the course of years with disgust. I cannot calculate the ills
that may occur, or with how tremendous a weight the impending ruin may
fall. I can bear it alone; but did I see _her_ humiliated, whom I would
gladly place on a throne,--by heavens! I could not endure life on such
terms! and a pistol, or some other dreadful means, would put an end to
an existence become intolerable."

As these thoughts fermented within him, he longed to pour them out
before Ethel; to unload his mind of its care, to express the sincere
affection that led him to her side, and yet urged him to exile himself
for ever. He rode over each day to Richmond, intent on such a design;
but as he proceeded, the fogs and clouds that thickened round his soul
grew lighter. At first his pace was regulated; as he drew nearer, he
pressed his horse's flank with impatient heel, and bounded forward. Each
turn in the road was a step nearer the sunshine. Now the bridge, the
open field, the winding lane, were passed; the walls of her abode, and
its embowered windows, presented themselves;--they met; and the glad
look that welcomed him drove far away every thought of banishment, and
dispelled at once every remnant of doubt and despondency.

This state of things might have gone on much longer,--already had it
been protracted for two months,--but for an accidental conversation
between Lady Lodore and Villiers. Since the morning after the opera, they
had scarcely seen each other. Edward's heart was too much occupied to
permit him to join in the throng of a ball-room; and they had no chance of
meeting, except in general society. One evening, at the opera, the lady
who accompanied Lady Lodore, asked a gentleman, who had just come into
their box, "What had become of Edward Villiers?--he was never to be
seen?"

"He is going to be married," was the reply: "he is in constant
attendance on the fair lady at Richmond."

"I had not heard of this," observed Lady Lodore, who, for Horatio's sake,
felt an interest for his favourite cousin.

"It is very little known. The _fiancée_ lives out of the world, and no
one can tell any thing about her. I did hear her name. Young Craycroft
has seen them riding together perpetually in Richmond Park and on
Wimbledon Common, he told me. Miss Fitzroy--no;--Miss Fitz-something it
is;--Fitzgeorge?--no;--Fitzhenry?--yes; Miss Fitzhenry is the name."

Cornelia reddened, and asked no more questions. She controlled her
agitation; and at first, indeed, she was scarcely aware how much she
felt: but while the whole house was listening to a favourite air, and
her thoughts had leisure to rally, they came on her painfully, and
involuntary tears filled her eyes. It was sad, indeed, to hear of her
child as of a stranger; and to be made to feel sensibly how wide the
gulf was that separated them. "My sweet girl--my own Ethel!--are you,
indeed, so lost to me?" As her heart breathed this ejaculation, she felt
the downy cheek of her babe close to her's, and its little fingers press
her bosom. A moment's recollection brought another image:--Ethel, grown
up to womanhood, educated in hatred of her, negligent and
unfilial;--this was not the little cherub whose loss she lamented. Let
her look round the crowd then about her; and among the fair girls she
saw, any one was as near her in affection and duty, as the child so
early torn from her, to be for ever estranged and lost.

The baleful part of Cornelia's character was roused by these
reflections; her pride, her selfwill, her spirit of resistance. "And for
this she has been taken from me," she thought, "to marry, while yet a
child, a ruined man--to be wedded to care and indigence. Thus would it
not have been had she been entrusted to me. O, how hereafter she may
regret the injuries of her mother, when she feels the effects of them in
her own adversity! It is not for me to prevent this ill-judged union.
The aunt and niece would see in my opposition a motive to hasten it:
wise as they fancy themselves--wise and good--what I, the reviled,
reprobated, they would therefore pursue with more eagerness. Be it
so--my day will yet come!"

A glance of triumph shot across her face as she indulged in this emotion
of revenge; the most deceitful and reprehensible of human
feelings--revenge against a child--how sad at best--how sure to bring
with it its recompense of bitterness of spirit and remorse! But
Cornelia's heart had been rudely crushed, and in the ruin of her best
affections, her mother had substituted noxious passions of many
kinds--pride chief of all.

While thus excited and indignant, she saw Edward Villiers. He came into
her box; the lady with her was totally unaware of what had been passing
in her thoughts, nor reverted to the name mentioned as having any
connexion with her. She asked Villiers if it were true that he was going
to be married? Lady heard the question; she turned on him her eyes full
of significant meaning, and with a smile of scorn answered for him, "O
yes, Mr. Villiers is going to be married. His bride is young, beautiful,
and portionless; but he has the tastes of a hermit--he means to emigrate
to America--his simple and inexpensive habits are admirably suited to
the wilderness."

This was said as if in jest, and answered in the same tone. The third in
the trio joined in, quite unaware of the secret meaning of the
conversation. Several bitter allusions were made by Lady Lodore, and the
truth of all she said sent her words home to Edward's heart. She drew, as
if playfully, a representation of highbred indigence, that made his blood
curdle. As if she could read his thoughts, she echoed their worst
suggestions, and unrolled the page of futurity, such as he had often
depicted it to himself, presenting in sketchy, yet forcible colours, a
picture from which his soul recoiled. He would have escaped, but there
was a fascination in the topic, and in the very bitterness of spirit
which she awakened. He rather encouraged her to proceed, while he
abhorred her for so doing, acknowledging the while the justice of all
she said. Lady Lodore was angry, and she felt pleasure in the pain she
inflicted; her wit became keener, her sarcasm more pointed, yet stopping
short with care of any thing that should betray her to their companion,
and avoiding, with inimitable tact, any expression that should convey to
one not in the secret, that she meant any thing more than raillery or
good-humoured quizzing, as it is called.

At length Villiers took his leave. "Were I," he said, "the unfortunate
man you represent me to be, you would have to answer for my life this
night. But re-assure yourself--it is all a dream. I have no thoughts of
marrying; and the fair girl, whose fate as my wife Lady Lodore so kindly
compassionates, is safe from every danger of becoming the victim of my
selfishness and poverty."

This was said laughing, yet an expressive intonation of voice conveyed
his full meaning to Cornelia. "I have done a good deed if I have
prevented this marriage," she thought; "yet a thankless one. After all,
he is a gentleman, and under sister Bessy's guardianship, poor Ethel
might fall into worse hands."

While Lady Lodore thus dismissed her anger and all thought of its cause,
Villiers felt more resentment than had ever before entered his kind
heart. The truths which the lady had spoken were unpalatable, and the
mode in which they were uttered was still more disagreeable. He hated
her for having discovered them, and for presenting them so vividly to
his sight. At one moment he resolved never to see Ethel more; while he
felt that he loved her with tenfold tenderness, and would have given
worlds to become the source of all happiness to her--wishing this the
more ardently, because her mother had pictured him as being the cause to
her of every ill.

Edward's nature was very impetuous, but perfectly generous. The tempest
of anger allayed, he considered all that Lady Lodore had said impartially;
and while he felt that she had only repeated what he had told himself a
thousand times, he resolved not to permit resentment to controul him,
and to turn him from the right path. He felt also, that he ought no
longer to delay acting on his good resolutions. His intercourse with
Miss Fitzhenry had begun to attract attention, and must therefore cease.
Once again he would ride over to Richmond--once again see her--say
farewell, and then stoically banish every pleasant dream--every
heart-enthralling hope--willingly sacrificing his dearest wishes at the
shrine of her welfare.




CHAPTER VIII


She to a window came, that opened west,
Towards which coast her love his way addrest,
There looking forth, she in her heart did find
Many vain fancies working her unrest,
And sent her winged thoughts more swift than wind
To bear unto her love the message of her mind.

THE FAERIE QUEEN.


Ethel, happy in her seclusion, was wholly unaware of her mother's
interference and its effects. She had not the remotest suspicion that it
would be considered as conducive to her welfare to banish the only
friend that she had in the world. In her solitary position, life was a
blank without Edward; and while she congratulated herself on her good
fortune in the concurrence of circumstances that had brought them
together, and, as she believed, established her happiness on the dearest
and most secure foundations, she was far from imagining that he was
perpetually revolving the necessity of bidding her adieu for ever. If
she had been told two years before, that all intercourse between her and
her father were to cease, it would scarcely have seemed more unnatural
or impossible, than that such a decree should be issued to divide her
from one to whom her young heart was entirely given. She relied on him
as the support of her life--her guide and protector--she loved him as
the giver of good to her--she almost worshipped him for the many
virtues, which he either really possessed, or with which her fondness
bounteously gifted him.

Meanwhile the unacute observations of Mrs. Fitzhenry began to be
awakened. She gave herself great credit for discovering that there was
something singular in the constant attendance of Edward, and yet, in
fact, she owed her illumination on this point to her man of law. Mr.
Humphries, whom she had seen on business the day before, finding how
regular a visitor Villiers was, and their only one, first elevated his
eyebrows and then relaxed into a smile, as he said, "I suppose I am soon
to wish Miss Fitzhenry joy." This same day Edward had ridden down to
them; a violent storm prevented his return to town; he slept at the inn
and breakfasted with the ladies in the morning. There was something
familiar and home-felt in his appearance at the breakfast-table, that
filled Ethel with delight. "Women," says the accomplished author of Paul
Clifford, "think that they must always love a man whom they have seen in
his nightcap." There is deep philosophy in this observation, and it was
a portion of that feeling which made Ethel feel so sweetly complacent,
when Villiers, unbidden, rang the bell, and gave his orders to the
servant, as if he had been at home.

Aunt Bessy started a little; and while the young people were strolling
in the shrubbery and renewing the flowers in the vases, she was
pondering on the impropriety of their position, and wondering how she
could break off an intimacy she had hitherto encouraged. But one way
presented itself to her plain imagination, the old resource, a return to
Longfield. With light heart and glad looks, Ethel bounded up stairs to
dress for dinner, and she was twining her ringlets round her taper
fingers before the glass, when her aunt entered with a look of serious
import. "My dear Ethel, I have something important to say to you."

Ethel stopped in her occupation and turned inquiring eyes on her aunt;
"My dear," continued Mrs. Fitzhenry, "we have been a long time away; if
you please, we will return to Longfield."

This time Ethel did not grow pale; she turned again to the mirror,
saying with a smile that lighted her whole countenance, "Dear aunt, that
is impossible--I would rather not."

No negative could have been more imposing on the good lady than this;
she did not know how to reply, how to urge her wish. "Dearest aunt,"
continued her niece, "you are losing time--dinner will be announced, and
you are not dressed. We will talk of Longfield to-morrow--we must not
keep Mr. Villiers waiting."

It was often the custom of Aunt Bessy, like the father of Hamlet, to
sleep after dinner, she did not betake herself to her orchard, but her
arm-chair, for a few minutes' gentle doze. Ethel and Villiers meanwhile
walked out, and, descending to the river side, they were enticed by the
beauty of the evening to go upon the water. Ethel was passionately fond
of every natural amusement; boating was a pleasure that she enjoyed
almost more than any other, and one with which she was seldom indulged;
for her spinster aunt had so many fears and objections, and considered
every event but sitting still in her drawing-room, or a quiet drive with
her old horses, as so fraught with danger and difficulty, that it
required an absolute battle ever to obtain her consent for her niece to
go on the river--she would have died before she could have entered a
boat herself, and, walking at the water's edge, she always insisted that
Ethel should keep close to the bank, while, by the repetition of
expressions of alarm and entreaties to return, she destroyed every
possibility of enjoyment.

The river sped swiftly on, calm and free. There is always life in a
stream, of which a lake is frequently deprived, when sleeping beneath a
windless sky. A river pursues for ever its course, accomplishing the
task its Creator has imposed, and its waters are for ever changing while
they seem the same. It was a balmy summer evening; the air seemed to
brood over the earth, warming and nourishing it. All nature reposed, and
yet not as a lifeless thing, but with the same enjoyment of rest as
gladdened the hearts of the two beings, who, with gratitude and love,
drank in the influence of this softest hour of day. The equal splash of
the oar, or its dripping when suspended, the clear reflection of tree
and lawn in the river, the very colour of the stream, stolen as it was
from heaven itself, the plash of the wings of the waterfowl who skimmed
the waves towards their rushy nests,--every sound and every appearance
was beautiful, harmonious, and soothing. Ethel's soul was at peace;
grateful to Heaven, and satisfied with every thing around her, a
tenderness beamed from her eyes, and was diffused over her attitude, and
attuned her voice, which acted as a spell to make Edward forget every
thing but herself.

They had both been silent for some time, a sweet silence more eloquent
than any words, when Ethel observed, "My aunt wishes to return to
Longfield."

Villiers started as if he had trodden upon a serpent, exclaiming, "To
Longfield! O yes! that were far best--when shall you go?"

"Why is it best? Why should we go?" asked Ethel with surprise.

"Because," replied Villiers impetuously, "it had been better that you
had never left it--that we had never met! It is not thus that I can
fulfil my promise to your father to guard and be kind to his child. I am
practising on your ignorance, taking advantage of your loneliness, and
doing you an injury, for which I should call any other a villain, were
he guilty."

It was the very delight that Edward had been a moment before enjoying,
the very beauty and calmness of nature, and the serenity and kindness of
the sweet face turned towards him, which stirred such bitterness;
checking himself, however, he continued after a pause, in a more
subsided tone.

"Are there any words by which I can lay bare my heart to you,
Ethel?--None! To speak of my true and entire attachment, is almost an
insult; and to tell you, that I tear myself from you for your own sake,
sounds like impertinence. Yet all this is true; and it is the reverence
that I have for your excellence, the idolatry which your singleness of
heart and sincere nature inspires, which prompts me to speak the truth,
though that be different from the usual language of gallantry, or what
is called love.

"Will you hate me or pity me most, when I speak of my determination
never to see you more? You cannot guess how absolutely I am a ruined
man--how I am one of those despicable hangers-on of the rich and noble,
who cover my rags with mere gilding. I am a beggar--I have not a
shilling that I can call my own, and it is only by shifts and meannesses
that I can go on from day to day, while each one menaces me with a
prison or flight to a foreign country.

"I shall go--and you will regret me, Ethel, or you will despise me. It
were best of all that you forgot me. I am not worthy of you--no man
could be; that I have known you and loved you--and for your sake,
banished myself from you, will be the solitary ray of comfort that will
shed some faint glow over my chilled and darkened existence. Will you
say even now one word of comfort to me?"

Ethel looked up; the pure affectionateness of her heart prevented her
from feeling for herself, she thought only of her lover. "Would that I
could comfort you," she said. "You will do what you think right, and
that will be your best consolation. Do not speak of hatred, or contempt,
or indifference. I shall not change though we part for ever: how is it
possible that I should ever cease to feel regard for one who has ever
been kind, considerate, and generous to me? Go, if you think it right--I
am a foolish girl, and know nothing of the world; and I will not doubt
that you decide for the best."

Villiers took her hand and held it in his; his heart was penetrated by
her disinterested self-forgetfulness and confidence. He felt that he was
loved, and that he was about to part from her for ever. The pain and
pleasure of these thoughts mingled strangely--he had no words to express
them, he felt that it would be easier to die than to give her up.

Aunt Bessy, on the river's bank imploring their return, recalled them
from the fairy region to which their spirits had wandered. For one
moment they had been united in sentiment; one kindred emotion of perfect
affection had, as it were, married their souls one to the other; at the
alien sound of poor Bessy's voice the spell fled away on airy wings,
leaving them disenchanted. The rudder was turned, the boat reached the
shore, and unable to endure frivolous talk about any subject except the
one so near his heart, Villiers departed and rode back to town,
miserable yet most happy--despairing yet full of joy; to such a riddle,
love, which finds its completion in sympathy, and knows no desire
beyond, is the only solution.

The feelings of Ethel were even more unalloyed. She had no doubts about
the future, the present embraced the world. She did not attempt to
unravel the dreamy confusion of her thoughts, or to clear up the golden
mist that hung before, curtaining most gloriously the reality beyond.
Her step was buoyant, her eyes sparkling and joyous. Love and gladness
sat lightly on her bosom, and gratitude to Heaven for bestowing so deep
a sense of happiness was the only sentiment that mingled with these.
Villiers, on leaving them, had promised to return the next day; and on
the morrow she rose, animated with such a spirit as may be kindled
within the bosom of an Enchantress, when she pronounces the spell which
is to controul the movements of the planetary orbs. She was more than
queen of the world, for she was empress of Edward's heart, and ruling
there, she reigned over the course of destiny, and bent to her will the
conflicting elements of life.

He did not come. It was strange. Now hope, now fear, were interchanged
one for the other, till night and certain disappointment arrived. Yet it
was not much--the morrow's sun would light him on his way to her. To
cheat the lagging hours of the morrow, she occupied herself with her
painting and music, tasking herself to give so many hours to her
employments, thus to add speed to the dilatory walk of time. The long
day was passed in fruitless expectation--another and another succeeded.
Was he ill? What strange mutation in the course of nature had occurred
to occasion so inexplicable an absence?

A week went by, and even a second was nearly spent. She had not
anticipated this estrangement. Day by day she went over in her mind
their last conversation, and Edward's expressions gathered decision and
a gloomy reality as she pondered on them. The idea of an heroic
sacrifice on his part, and submission to his will on hers, at first
soothed her--but never to see him more, was an alternative that tasked
her fortitude too high; and while her heart felt all the tumults of
despair, she found herself asking what his love could be, that could
submit to lose her? Love in a cottage is the dream of many a high-born
girl, who is not allowed to dance with a younger brother at Almack's;
but a secluded, an obscure, an almost cottage life, was all that Ethel
had ever known, and all that she coveted. Villiers rejected this--not
for her sake, that could not be, but for the sake of a world, which he
called frivolous and vain, and yet to whose tyranny he bowed. To
disentwine the tangled skein of thought which was thus presented, was
her task by day and night. She awoke in the morning, and her first
thought was, "Will he come?" She retired at night, and sleep visited her
eyes, while she was asking herself, "Why has he not been?" During the
day, these questions, in every variety, forced her attention. To escape
from her aunt, to seek solitude, to listen to each sound that might be
his horse, and to feel her heart sicken at the still renewed
disappointment, became, in spite of herself, all her occupation: she
might bend over her drawing, or escape from her aunt's conversation to
the piano; but these were no longer employments, but rather means
adopted to deliver herself up more entirely to her reveries.

The third, the fourth week came, and the silence of death was between
Ethel and her friend. O but for one word, one look to break the spell!
Was she indeed never to see him more? Was all, all over?--was the
harmony their two hearts made, jarred into discord?--was she again the
orphan, alone in the world?--and was the fearless reliance she had
placed upon fate and Edward's fidelity, mere folly or insanity?--and was
desecration and forgetfulness to come over and to destroy the worship
she had so fondly cherished? Nothing had she to turn to--nothing to
console her. Her life became one thought, it twined round her soul like
a serpent, and compressed and crushed every other emotion with its
folds. "I could bear all," she thought, "were I permitted to see him
only once again."

She and Mrs. Fitzhenry were invited by Mrs. Humphries to dine with her.
They were asked to the awful ceremony of spending a long day, which, in
the innocence of her heart, Mrs. Fitzhenry fancied the most delightful
thing in the world. She thought that kindness and friendship demanded of
her that she should be in Montague-square by ten in the morning.
Notwithstanding every exertion, she could not get there till two, and
then, when luncheon was over, she wondered why the gap of time till
seven appeared so formidable. This was to be got over by a drive in
Hyde-park. Ethel had shown peculiar pleasure in the idea of visiting
London; she had looked bright and happy during their journey to town,
but anxiety and agitation clouded her face, at the thought of the park,
of the crisis about to arrive, at the doubt and hope she entertained of
finding Villiers there.

The park became crowded, but he was not in the drive; at length he
entered in the midst of a bevy of fair cousins, whom Ethel did not know
as such. He entered on horseback, flanked on either side by pretty
equestrians, looking as gay and light-hearted, as she would have done,
had she been one, the chosen one among his companions. Twice he passed.
The first time his head was averted--he saw nothing, she even did not
see his face: the next time, his eye caught the aspect of the well-known
chariot--he glanced eagerly at those it contained, kissed his hand, and
went on. Ethel's heart died within her. It was all over. She was the
neglected, the forgotten; but while she turned her face to the other
window of the carriage, so to hide its saddened expression from her
companion, a voice, the dearest, sweetest voice she had ever heard, the
soft harmonious voice, whose accents were more melodious than music,
asked, "Are you in town? have you left Richmond?" In spite of herself, a
smile mantled over her countenance, dimpling it into gladness, and she
turned to see the beloved speaker who had not deserted her--who was
there; she turned, but there was no answering glance of pleasure in the
face of Villiers--he looked grave, and bowed, as if in this act of
courtesy he fulfilled all of friendly interchange that was expected of
him, and rode off. He was gone--and seen no more.




CHAPTER IX


Sure, when the separation has been tried,
That we, who part in love, shall meet again.

WORDSWORTH.


This little event roused Ethel to the necessity of struggling with the
sentiment to which hitherto she had permitted unquestioned power. There
had been a kind of pleasure mingled with her pain, while she believed
that she suffered for her lover's sake, and in obedience to his will. To
love in solitude and absence, was, she well knew, the lot of many of her
sex, and all that is imaginative and tender lends poetry to the emotion.
But to love without return, her father had taught her was shame and
folly--a dangerous and undignified sentiment that leads many women into
acts of humiliation and misery. He spoke the more warmly on this
subject, because he desired to guard his daughter by every possible
means from a fate too common. He knew the sensibility and constancy of
her nature. He dreaded to think that these should be played upon, and
that her angelic sweetness should be sacrificed at the altar of hopeless
passion. That all the powers he might gift her with, all the fortitude
and all the pride that he strove to instil, might be insufficient to
prevent this one grand evil, he too well knew; but all that could should
be done, and his own high-souled Ethel should rise uninjured from the
toils of the snarer, the heartless game of the unfaithful lover.

She steeled her heart against every softer thought, she tasked herself
each day to devote her entire attention to some absorbing employment; to
languages and the composition of music, as occupations that would not
permit her thoughts to stray. She felt a pain deep-seated in her inmost
heart; but she refused to acknowledge it. When a thought, too sweet and
bitter, took perforce possession of the chambers of her brain, she drove
it out with stern and unshaken resolve. She pondered on the best means
to subdue every rebel idea. She rose with the sun, and passed much time
in the open air, that when night came, bodily fatigue might overpower
mental regrets. She conversed with her aunt again about her dear lost
father; that, by renewing images, so long the only ones dear to her,
every subsequent idea might be driven from the place it had usurped.
Always she was rewarded by the sense of doing right, often by really
mitigating the anguish which rose and went to rest with her, and
awakening her in the morning, stung her to renew her endeavours, while
it whispered too audibly, "I am here." She grew pale and thin, and her
eyes again resumed that lustre which spoke a quick and agitated life
within. Her endeavours, by being unremitting, gave too much intensity to
every feeling, and made her live each moment of her existence a
sensitive, conscious life, wearing out her frame, and threatening, while
it accelerated the pulses, to exhaust betimes the animal functions.

She felt this; and she roused herself to contend afresh with her own
heart. As a last resource she determined to quit Richmond. Her
struggles, and the energy called into action by her fortitude, gave a
tone of superiority to her mind, which her aunt felt and submitted to.
Now when a change of residence was determined upon, she at once
negatived the idea of returning to Longfield--yet whither else betake
themselves? Ethel no longer concealed from herself that she and the
worthy spinster were solitary wanderers on earth, cut off from human
intercourse. A bitter sense of desolation had crept over her from the
moment that she knew herself to be deserted by Villiers. All that was
bright in her position darkened into shadow. She shrunk into herself
when she reflected, that should the ground at her feet open and swallow
her, not one among her fellow-creatures would be sensible that the whole
universe of thought and feeling, which emanated from her breathing
spirit, as water from a living spring, was shrunk up and strangled in a
narrow, voiceless grave. A short time before she had regarded death
without terror, for her father had been its prey, and his image was
often shadowed forth in her fancy, beckoning her to join him. Now it had
become more difficult to die. Nature and love were wedded in her mind,
and it was a bitter pang for one so young to bid adieu to both for ever.
Turning her thoughts from Villiers, she would have been glad to discover
any link that might enchain her to the mass. She reverted to her mother.
Her inexperience, her youth, and the timidity of her disposition,
prevented her from making any endeavour to break through the wall of
unnatural separation raised between them. She could only lament. One sign,
one word from Lady Lodore, would have been balm to her poor heart, and
she would have met it with fervent gratitude. But she feared to offend.
She had no hope that any advance would have been met by other than a
disdainful repulse; and she shrunk from intruding herself on her
unwilling parent. She often wept to think that there was none near to
support and comfort her, and yet that at the distance of but a few miles
her mother lived--whose very name was the source of the dearest,
sweetest, and most cruel emotions. She thought, therefore, of her
surviving parent only to despair, and to shrink with terror from the
mere possibility of an accidental meeting.

She earnestly desired to leave England, which had treated her with but a
step-mother's welcome, and to travel away, she knew not whither. Yet
most she wished to go to Italy. Her father had often talked of taking
her to that country, and it was painted in her eyes with the hues of
paradise. She spoke of her desire to her aunt, who thought her mad, and
believed that it was as easy to adventure to the moon, as for two
solitary women to brave alps and earthquakes, banditti and volcanoes, a
savage people and an unknown land. Still, even while she trembled at the
mere notion, she felt that Ethel might lead her thither if she pleased.
It is one of the most beneficent dispensations of the Creator, that
there is nothing so attractive and attaching as affection. The smile of
an infant may command absolutely, because its source is in dependent
love, and the human heart for ever yearns for such demonstration from
another. What would this strange world be without that "touch of
nature?" It is to the immaterial universe, what light is to the visible
creation, scent to the flower, hue to the rainbow; hope, joy, succour,
and self-forgetfulness, where otherwise all would be swallowed up in
vacant and obscure egotism.

No one could approach Ethel without feeling that she possessed an
irresistible charm. The overflowing and trusting affectionateness of her
nature was a loadstone to draw all hearts. Each one felt, even without
knowing wherefore, that it was happiness to obey, to gratify her. Thus
while a journey to Italy filled Mrs. Elizabeth with alarm, a consent
hovered on her lips, because she felt that any risk was preferable to
disappointing a wish of her gentle niece.

And yet even then Ethel paused. She began to repent her desire of
leaving the country inhabited by her dearest friend. She felt that she
should have an uncongenial companion in her aunt--the child of the
wilderness and the good lady of Longfield, were like a living and dead
body in conjunction--the one inquiring, eager, enthusiastic even in her
contemplativeness, sensitively awake to every passing object; while the
other dozed her hours away, and fancied that pitfalls and wild beasts
menaced her, if she dared step one inch from the beaten way.

At this moment, while embarrassed by the very yielding to her desires,
and experiencing a lingering sad regret for all that she was about to
leave behind, Ethel received a letter from Villiers. Her heart beat, and
her fingers trembled, when first she saw, as now she held a paper, which
might be every thing, yet might be nothing to her; she opened it at
last, and forced herself to consider and understand its contents. It was
as follows:--


"DEAR MISS FITZHENRY,

"Will your aunt receive me with her wonted
kindness when I call to-morrow? I fear to have offended by an appearance
of neglect, while my heart has never been absent from Richmond. Plead my
cause, I entreat you. I leave it in your hands.

"Ever and ever yours.

"EDWARD VILLIERS."

_Grosvenor Square, Saturday._


"Dearest Ethel, have you guessed at my sufferings? Shall you hail with
half the joy that I do, a change which enables you to revoke the decree
of absence so galling at least to one of us? If indeed you have not
forgotten me, I shall be rewarded for the wretchedness of these last
weeks."


Ethel kissed the letter and placed it near her heart. A calm joy
diffused itself over her mind; and that she could indeed trust and
believe in him she loved, was the source of a grateful delight, more
medicinal than all the balmy winds of Italy and its promised pleasures.

When Villiers had last quitted Richmond, he had resolved not to expose
himself again to the influence of Ethel. It was necessary that they
should be divided--how far better that they should never meet again! He
was not worthy of her. Another, more fortunate, would replace him, if he
sacrificed his own selfish feelings, and determinately absented himself
from her. As if to confirm his view of their mutual interest, his elder
cousin, Mr. Saville, had just offered his hand to the daughter of a
wealthy Earl, and had been accepted. Villiers took refuge from his
anxious thoughts among his pretty cousins, sisters of the bridegroom,
and with them the discussion of estates, settlements, princely mansions,
and equipages, was the order of the day. Edward sickened to reflect how
opposite would be the prospect, if his marriage with Ethel were in
contemplation. It was not that a noble establishment would be exchanged
for a modest, humble dwelling--he loved with sufficient truth to feel
that happiness with Ethel transcended the wealth of the world. It was
the absolute penury, the debt, the care, that haunted him and made such
miserable contrast with the tens and hundreds of thousands that were the
subject of discussion on the present occasion. His resolution not to
entangle Ethel in this wilderness of ills, gained strength by every
chance word that fell from the lips of those around him; and the image,
before so vivid, of her home at Richmond, which he might at each hour
enter, of her dear face, which at any minute might again bless his
sight, faded into a far-off vision of paradise, from which he was
banished for ever.

For a time he persevered in his purpose, if not with ease, yet with less
of struggle than he himself anticipated. That he could at any hour break
the self-enacted law, and behold Ethel, enabled him day after day to
continue to obey it, and to submit to the decree of banishment he had
passed upon himself. He loved his pretty cousins, and their kindness and
friendship soothed him; he spent his days with them, and the familiar,
sisterly intercourse, hallowed by long association, and made tender by
the grace and sweetness of these good girls, compensated somewhat for
the absence of deeper interest. They talked of Horatio also, and that
was a more touching string than all. The almost worship, joined to pity
and fear for him, with which Edward regarded his cousin, made him cling
fondly to those so closely related to him, and who sympathized with, and
shared, his enthusiastic affection.

This state of half indifference did not last long. His meeting with
Ethel in Hyde Park operated an entire change. He had seen her face but a
moment--her dear face, animated with pleasure at beholding him, and
adorned with more than her usual loveliness. He hurried away, but the
image still pursued him. All at once the world around grew dark and
blank; at every instant his heart asked for Ethel. He thirsted for the
sweet delight of gazing on her soft lustrous eyes, touching her hand,
listening to her voice, whose tones were so familiar and beloved. He
avoided his cousins to hide his regrets; he sought solitude, to commune
with memory; and the intense desire kindled within him to return to her,
was all but irresistible. He had received a letter from Horace Saville
entreating him to join him at Naples; he had contemplated complying, as
a means of obtaining forgetfulness. Should he not, on the contrary, make
this visit with Ethel for his companion? It was a picture of happiness
most enticing; and then he recollected with a pang, that it was
impossible for him to quit England; that it was only by being on the
spot, that he obtained the supplies necessary for his existence. With
bitterness of spirit he recognized once again his state of beggary, and
the hopelessness that attended on all his wishes.

All at once he was surprised by a message from his father, through Lord
Maristow. He was told of Colonel Villiers's intended marriage with the
only daughter of a wealthy commoner, which yet could not be arranged
without the concurrence of Edward, or rather without sacrifices on his
part for the making of settlements. The entire payment of his debts, and
the promise of fifteen hundred a year for the future, were the bribes
offered to induce him to consent. Edward at once notified his
compliance. He saw the hour of freedom at hand, and the present was too
full of interest, too pregnant with misery or happiness, to allow the
injury done to his future prospects to weigh with him for a moment. Thus
he might purchase his union with Ethel--claim her for his own. With the
thought, a whole tide of tenderness and joy poured quick and warm into
his heart, and it seemed as if he had never loved so devotedly as now.
How false an illusion had blinded him! he fancied that he had banished
hope, while indeed his soul was wedded to her image, and the very
struggle to free himself, had served to make the thought of her more
peremptory and indelible.

With these thoughts, he again presented himself at Richmond. He asked
Mrs. Fitzhenry's consent to address her niece, and became the accepted
lover of Ethel. The meeting of their two young hearts in the security of
an avowed attachment, after so many hours wasted in despondency and
painful struggles, did not visit the fair girl with emotions of burning
transport: she felt it rather like a return to a natural state of
things, after unnatural deprivation. As if, a young nestling, she had
been driven from her mother's side, and was now restored to the dear
fosterage of her care. She delivered herself up to a calm reliance upon
the future, and saw in the interweaving of duty and affection, the
fulfilment of her destiny, and the confirmation of her earthly
happiness. They were to be joined never to part more! While each
breathed the breath of life, no power could sever them; health or
sickness, prosperity or adversity--these became mere words; her health
and her riches were garnered in his heart, and while she bestowed the
treasures of her affection upon him, could he be poor? It was not
therefore to be her odious part to crush the first and single attachment
of her soul--to tear at once the "painted veil of life," delivering
herself up to cheerless realities--to know that, to do right, she must
banish from her recollection those inward-spoken vows which she should
deem herself of a base inconstant disposition ever to forget. It was not
reserved for her to pass joyless years of solitude, reconciling herself
to the necessity of divorcing her dearest thoughts from their wedded
image. The serene and fair-showing home she coveted was open before
her--she might pass within its threshold, and listen to the closing of
the doors behind, as they shut out the world from her, with pure and
unalloyed delight.

Ethel was very young, yet in youth such feelings are warmer in our
hearts than in after years. We do not know then that we can ever change;
or that, snake-like, casting the skin of an old, care-worn habit, a new
one will come fresh and bright in seeming, as the one before had been,
at the hour of its birth. We fancy then, that if our present and first
hope is disappointed, our lives are a mere blank, not worth a "pin's
fee;" the singleness of our hearts has not been split into the million
hair-like differences, which, woven by time into one texture, clothes us
in prudence as with a garment. We are as if exposed naked to the action
of passions and events, and receive their influence with keen and
fearful sensitiveness. Ethel scarcely heard, and did not listen to nor
understand, the change of circumstances that brought Villiers back to
her--she only knew, that he was confirmed her own. Satisfied with this
delightful conclusion to her sufferings, she placed her destiny in his
hands, without fear or question.

Mrs. Elizabeth thought her niece very young to marry; but Villiers, who
had, while hesitating, done his best to hide his sweet Ethel away from
every inquisitive eye, now that she was to be his own, hastened to
introduce Lord Maristow (Lady Maristow had died two years before) to
her, and to bring her among his cousins, whom he regarded as sisters.
The change was complete and overwhelming to the fair recluses. Where
before they lived in perpetual tête-à-tête, or separated but to be
alone, they were now plunged into what appeared to them a crowd. Sophia,
Harriet, and Lucy Saville, were high-born, high-bred, and elegant girls,
accustomed to what they called the quiet of domestic life, amidst a
thousand relations and ten thousand acquaintances. No female relative
had stepped into their mother's place, and they were peculiarly
independent and high-spirited; they had always lived in what they called
the world, and knew nothing but what that world contained. Their manners
were easy, their tempers equable and affectionate. If their dispositions
were not all exactly alike, they had a family resemblance that drew them
habitually near each other. They received Ethel among their number with
cordiality, bestowing on her every attention which politeness and
kindness dictated. Yet Ethel felt somewhat as a wild antelope among tame
ones. Their language, the topics of their discourse, their very
occupations, were all new to her. She lent herself to their customs with
smiles and sweetness, but her eye brightened when Edward came, and she
often unconsciously retreated to his side as a shelter and a refuge.
Edward's avocations had been as worldly perhaps as those of his pretty
cousins; but a man is more thrown upon the reality of life, while girls
live altogether in a factitious state. He had travelled much, and seen
all sorts of people. Besides, between him and Ethel, there was that mute
language which will make those of opposite sexes intelligible to one
another, even when literally not understanding each other's dialect.
Villiers found no deficiency of intelligence or sympathy in Ethel, while
the fashionable girls to whom he had introduced her felt a little at a
loss how to entertain the stranger.

Lord Maristow and his family had been detained in town till after Mr.
Saville's marriage, and were now very eager to leave it. They remained
out of compliment to Edward, and looked forward impatiently to his
wedding as the event that would set them free. London was empty, the
shooting season had begun; yet still he was delayed by his father. He
wished to sign the necessary papers, and free himself from all business,
that he and his bride might immediately join Horatio at Naples. Yet
still Colonel Villiers's marriage was delayed; till at last he intimated
to his son, that it was postponed for the present, and begged that he
would not remain in England on his account.

Edward was somewhat staggered by this intelligence. Yet as the letter
that communicated it contained a considerable remittance, he quieted
himself. To give up Ethel now was a thought that did not for a moment
enter his mind; it was but the reflection of the difficulties that would
surround them, if his prospects failed, that for a few seconds clouded
his brow with care. But it was his nature usually to hope the best, and
to trust to fortune. He had never been so prudent as with regard to his
marriage with Ethel; but that was for her sake. This consideration could
not again enter; for, like her, he would, under the near hope of making
her his, have preferred the wilds of the Illinois, with her for his
wife, than the position of the richest English nobleman, deprived of
such a companion. His heart, delivered up to love, was complete in its
devotion and tenderness. He was already wedded to her in soul, and would
sooner have severed his right arm from his body, than voluntarily have
divided himself from this dearer part of himself. This "other half,"
towards whom he felt as if literally he had, to give her being,


"Lent
Out of his side to her, nearest his heart;
Substantial life, to have her by his side,
Henceforth an individual solace dear."


With these feelings, an early day was urged and named; and, drawing
near, Ethel was soon to become a bride. On first making his offer,
Villiers had written to Lady Lodore; and Mrs. Fitzhenry, much against her
will, by the advice of her solicitor, did the same. Lady Lodore was in
Scotland. No answer came. The promised day approached; but still she
preserved this silence: it became necessary to proceed without her
consent. Banns were published; and Ethel became the wife of Villiers on
the 25th of October. Lord Maristow hastened down to his Castle to kill
pheasants: while, on her part, Mrs. Fitzhenry took her solitary way to
Longfield, half consoled for separating from Ethel, by this return to
the habits of more than sixty years. In vain had London or Richmond
wooed her stay; in vain was she pressed to pay a visit to Maristow
Castle: to return to her home was a more enticing prospect. Her good old
heart danced within her when she first perceived the village steeple;
the chimneys of her own house made tears spring into her eyes; and when,
indeed, she found herself by the familiar hearth, in the accustomed
arm-chair, and her attentive housekeeper came to ask if she would not
take any thing after her journey, it seemed to her as if all the
delights of life were summed up in this welcome return to monotony and
silence.




CHAPTER X


Let me
Awake your love to my uncomforted brother.

OLD PLAY.


Meanwhile Villiers and his bride proceeded on their way to Naples. It
mattered little to Ethel whither they were going, or to whom. Edward was
all in all to her; and the vehicle that bore them along in their journey
was a complete and perfect world, containing all that her heart desired.
They avoided large towns, and every place where there was any chance of
meeting an acquaintance. They passed up the Rhine, and Ethel often
imaged forth, in her fancy, a dear home in a secluded nook; and longed
to remain there, cut off from the world, for ever. She had no thought
but for her husband, and gratitude to Heaven for the happiness showered
on her. Her soul might have been laid bare, each faculty examined, each
idea sifted, and one spirit, one sentiment, one love, would have been
found pervading and uniting them all. The heart of a man is seldom as
single and devoted as that of a woman. In the present instance, it was
natural that Edward should not be so absolutely given up to one thought
as was his bride. Ethel's affections had never been called forth except
by her father, and by him who was now her husband. When it has been
said, that she thought of heaven to hallow and bless her happiness, it
must be understood that the dead made a part of that heaven, to which
she turned her eyes with such sweet thankfulness. She was constant to
the first affection of her heart. She might be said to live perpetually
in thought beside her father's grave. Before she had wept and sorrowed
near it; now she placed the home of her happy married life close to the
sacred earth, and fancied that its mute inhabitant was the guardian
angel to watch over and preserve her.

Villiers had lived among many friends, and was warmly attached to
several. His cousin Horatio was dearer to him than any thing had ever
been, till he knew Ethel. Even now he revered him more, and felt a kind
of duteous attachment drawing him towards him. He wanted Horatio to see
and approve of Ethel:--not that he doubted what his opinion of her would
be; but the delight which his own adoration of her excellence imparted
to him would be doubled, when he saw it shared and confirmed by his
friend. Besides this, he was anxious to see Horace on his own account.
He wished to know whether he was happy in his marriage; whether Clorinda
were worthy of him; and if Lady Lodore were entirely forgotten. As they
advanced on their journey, his desire to see his cousin became more and
more present to his mind; and he talked of him to Ethel, and imparted to
her a portion of his fervent and affectionate feelings.

Entering Switzerland, they came into a world of snow. Here and there, on
the southern side of a mountain, a lawny upland might disclose itself in
summer verdure; and the brawling torrents, increased by the rains, were
not yet made silent by frost. Edward had visited these scenes before;
and he could act the guide to his enraptured Ethel, who remembered her
father's glowing descriptions; and while she gazed with breathless
admiration, saw his step among the hills, and thought that his eye had
rested on the wonders she now beheld. Soon the mountains, the
sky-seeking "palaces of nature," were passed, and they entered fair,
joyous Italy. At each step they left winter far behind. Ethel would
willingly have lingered in Florence and Rome; but once south of the
Appenines, Edward was eager to reach Naples; and the letters he got from
Saville spurred him on to yet greater speed.

Before leaving England, Lucy Saville had said to Ethel,--"You are now
taking our other comfort from us; and what we are to do without either
Horatio or Edward, I am unable to conjecture. We shall be like a house
without its props. Divided, they are not either of them half what they
were joined. Horace is so prudent, so wise, so considerate, so
sympathizing; Edward so active and so kind-hearted. In any difficulty,
we always asked Horace what we ought to do; and Edward did the thing
which he pointed out.

"Horatio's marriage was a sad blow to us all. You will bring Edward
back, and we shall be the happier for your being with him; but shall we
ever see our brother again?--or shall we only see him to lament the
change? Not that he can ever really alter; his heart, his understanding,
his goodness, are as firm as rock; but there is that about him which
makes him too much the slave of those he is in immediate contact with.
He abhors strife; the slightest disunion is mortal to him. He is not of
this world. Pure-minded as a woman, honourable as a knight of old, he is
more like a being we read of, and his match is not to be found upon
earth. Horatio never loved but once, and his attachment was unfortunate.
He loved Lady----" Here recollection dyed Miss Saville's cheeks with
crimson: she had forgotten that Lady Lodore was the mother of Ethel. After
a moment's hesitation she continued:--"I have no right to betray the
secrets of others. Horace was a discarded lover; and he was forced to
despise the lady whom he had imagined possessed of every excellence. For
the first time he was absorbed in what may be termed a selfish
sentiment. He could not bear to see any of us: he fled even from Edward,
and wandering away, we heard at last that he was at Naples, whither he
had gone quite unconscious of the spot of earth to which he was bending
his steps. The first letter we got from him was dated from that place.
His letter was to me; for I am his favourite sister; and God knows my
devoted affection, my worship of him, deserves this preference. You
shall read it; it is the most perfect specimen of enthusiastic and
heart-moving eloquence ever penned. He had been as in a trance, and
awoke again to life as he looked down from Pausilippo on the Bay of
Naples. The attachment to one earthly object, which preyed on his being,
was suddenly merged in one universal love and adoration. He saw that the
"creation was good;" he purged his heart at once of the black spot which
had blotted and marred its beauty; and opened his whole soul to pure,
elevated, heavenly love. I tamely quote his burning and transparent
expressions, through which you may discern, as in a glass, the glorious
excellence of his soul."

"But, alas! this state of holy excitement could not endure; something
human will still creep in to mingle with and sully our noblest
aspirations. Horatio was taken by an acquaintance to see a beautiful
girl at a convent; in a fatal moment an English lady said to him, 'Come,
and I will show you what perfect beauty is:' and those words decided my
poor brother's destiny. Of course I only know our new sister through his
letters. He told us that Clorinda was shut up in this convent through
the heartless vanity of her mother, who dreaded her as a rival, to wait
there till her parents should find some suitable match, which she must
instantly accept, or be doomed to seclusion for ever. In his younger
days Horace had said, 'I am in love with an idea, and therefore women
have no power over me.' But the time came when his heart was to be the
dupe of his imagination--so was it with his first love--so now, I fear,
did he deceive himself with regard to Clorinda. He declared indeed that
his love for her was not an absorbing passion like his first, but a
mingling of pity, admiration, and that tenderness which his warm heart
was ever ready to bestow. He described her as full of genius and
sensibility, a creature of fire and power, but dimmed by sorrow, and
struggling with her chains. He visited her again; he tried to comfort,
he offered to serve her. It was the first time that a manly, generous
spirit had ever presented itself to the desponding girl. The high-souled
Englishman appeared as a god beside her sordid countrymen; indeed,
Horatio would have seemed such compared with any of his sex; his
fascination is irresistible--Clorinda felt it; she loved him with
Italian fervour, and the first word of kindness from him elicited a
whole torrent of gratitude and passion. Horace had no wish to marry; his
old wound was by no means healed, but rather opened, and bled afresh,
when he was called upon to answer the enthusiastic ardour of the Italian
girl. He felt at once the difference of his feeling for her, and the
engrossing sentiment of which he had been nearly the victim. But he
could rescue her from an unworthy fate, and make her happy. He acted
with his usual determination and precipitancy, and within a month she
became his wife. Here ends my story; his letters were more concise after
his marriage. At first I attributed this to his having a new and dearer
friend, but latterly when he has written he has spoken with such
yearning fondness for home, that I fear--And then when I offered to
visit him, he negatived my proposition. How unlike Horatio! it can only
mean that his wife was averse to my coming. I have questioned slightly
any travellers from Italy. Mrs. Saville seldom appears in English
society except at balls, and then she is always surrounded by Italians.
She is decidedly correct in her conduct, but more I cannot tell. Her
letters to us are beautifully written, and of her talents, even her
genius, I do not entertain a doubt. Perhaps I am prejudiced, but I fear
a Neapolitan, or rather, I should say, I fear a convent education; and
that taste which leads her to associate with her own demonstrative,
unrefined countrymen, instead of trying to link herself to her husband's
friends. I may be wrong--I shall be glad to be found so. Will you tell
me whether I am? I rather ask you than Edward, because your feminine
eyes will discern the truth of these things quicker than he. Happy girl!
you are going to see Horatio--to find a new, gifted, fond friend; one as
superior to his fellow-creatures, as perfection is superior to frailty."

This account, remembered with more interest now that she approached the
subject of it, excited Ethel's curiosity, and she began, as they went on
their way from Rome to Naples, in a great degree to participate in
Edward's eagerness to see his cousin.




CHAPTER XI


Sad and troubled?
How brave her anger shows! How it sets off
Her natural beauty! Under what happy star
Was Virolet born, to be beloved and sought
By two incomparable women?

FLETCHER.


It was the month of December when the travellers arrived at this "piece
of heaven dropt upon earth," as the natives themselves name it. The moon
hung a glowing orb in the heavens, and lighted up the sea to beauty. A
blood-red flash shot up now and then from Vesuvius; a summer softness
was in the atmosphere, while a thousand tokens presented themselves of a
climate more friendly, more joyous, and more redundant than that of the
northern Isle from which they came. It was very late at night when they
reached their hotel, and they were heartily fatigued, so that it was not
till the next morning, that immediately after breakfast, Villiers left
Ethel, and went out to seek the abode of his cousin.

He had been gone some little time, when a waiter of the hotel, throwing
open Ethel's drawing-room door, announced "Signor Orazio." Quite new to
Italy, Ethel was ignorant of the custom in that country, of designating
people by their christian names; and that Horatio Saville, being a
resident in Naples, and married to a Neapolitan, was known everywhere by
the appellation which the servant now used. Ethel was not in the least
aware that it was Lucy's brother who presented himself to her. She saw a
gentleman, tall, very slight in person, with a face denoting habitual
thoughtfulness, and stamped by an individuality which she could not tell
whether to think plain, and yet it was certainly open and kind. An
appearance of extreme shyness, almost amounting to awkwardness, was
diffused over him, and his words came hesitatingly; he spoke English,
and was an Englishman--so much Ethel discovered by his first words,
which were, "Villiers is not at home?" and then he began to ask her
about her journey, and how she liked the view of the bay of Naples,
which she beheld from her windows. They were in this kind of trivial
conversation when Edward came bounding up-stairs, and with exclamations
of delight greeted his cousin. Ethel, infinitely surprised, examined her
guest with more care. In a few minutes she began to wonder how she came
to think him plain. His deep-set, dark-grey eyes struck her as
expressive, if not handsome. His features were delicately moulded, and
his fine forehead betokened depth of intellect; but the charm of his
face was a kind of fitful, beamy, inconstant smile, which diffused
incomparable sweetness over his physiognomy. His usual look was cold and
abstracted--his eye speculated with an inward thoughtfulness--a chilling
seriousness sat on his features, but this glancing and varying
half-smile came to dispel gloom, and to invite and please those with
whom he conversed. His voice was modulated by feeling, his language was
fluent, graceful in its turns of expression, and original in the
thoughts which it expressed. His manners were marked by high breeding,
yet they were peculiar. They were formed by his individual disposition,
and under the dominion of sensibility. Hence they were often abrupt and
reserved. He forgot the world around him, and gave token, by absence of
mind, of the absorbing nature of his contemplations. But at a touch this
vanished, and a sweet earnestness, and a beaming kindliness of spirit,
at once displaced his abstraction, rendering him attentive, cordial, and
gay.

Never had Horatio Saville appeared to so little advantage as during his
short tête-à-tête with his new relative. At all times, when
quiescent, he had a retiring manner, and an appearance, whose want of
pretension did not at first allure, and yet which afterwards formed his
greatest attraction. He was always unembarrassed, and Ethel could not
guess that towards her alone he felt as timid and shy as a girl. It was
with considerable effect that Horatio had commanded himself to appear
before the daughter of Lady Lodore. There was something incongruous and
inconceivable in the idea of the child of Cornelia a woman, married to
his cousin. He feared to see in her an image of the being who had
subdued his heart of hearts, and laid prostrate his whole soul; he
trembled to catch the sound of her voice, lest it might echo tones which
could disturb to their depths his inmost thoughts. Ethel was so unlike
her mother, that by degrees he became reassured; her eyes, her hair, her
stature, and tall slender shape, were the reverse of Lady Lodore; so
that in a little while he ventured to raise his eyes to her face, and to
listen to her, without being preoccupied by a painful sensation, which,
in its violence, resembled terror. It is true that by degrees this
dissimilarity to her mother became less; she had gestures, smiles, and
tones, that were all Lady Lodore, and which, when discerned, struck his
heart with a pang, stealing away his voice, and causing him to stand
suspended in the act he was about, like one acted upon by magic.

While this mute and curious examination was going on in the minds of
Ethel and her visitant, the conversation had not tarried. Edward had
never been so far south, and the wonders of Naples were as new to him as
to Ethel. Saville was eager to show them, and proposed going that very
day to Pompeii. For, as he said, all their winter was not like the
present day, so that it was best to seize the genial weather while it
lasted. Was Mrs. Villiers too much fatigued? On the contrary, Ethel was
quite on the alert; but first she asked whether Mrs. Saville would not
accompany them.

"Clorinda," said Horatio, "promises herself much pleasure from your
acquaintance, and intends calling on you to-day at twenty-four o'clock,
that is, at the Ave Maria: how stupid I am," he continued, laughing, "I
quite forget that you are not Italianized, as I am, and do not know the
way in which the people here count their time. Clorinda will call late
in the afternoon, the usual visiting hour at Naples, but she would find
no pleasure in visiting a ruined city and fallen fragments. One house in
the Chiaja is worth fifty Pompeiis in the eyes of a Neapolitan, and
Clorinda is one, heart and soul. I hope you will be pleased with her,
for she is an admirable specimen of her countrywomen, and they are
wonderful and often sublime creatures in their way; but do not mistake
her for an English woman, or you will be disappointed--she has not one
atom of body, one particle of mind, that bears the least affinity to
England. And now, is your carriage ordered?--there it is at the door;
so, as I should say to one of my own dear sisters, put on your bonnet,
Ethel, quickly, and do not keep us waiting; for though at Naples, days
are short in December, and we have none of their light to lose."

When, after this explanation, Ethel first saw Clorinda, she was inclined
to think that Saville had scarcely done his wife justice. Certainly she
was entirely Italian, but she was very beautiful; her complexion was
delicate, though dark and without much colour. Her hair silken and
glossy as the raven's wing; her large bright black eyes resplendent; the
perfect arch of her brows, and the marmoreal and harmonious grace of her
forehead, such as is never seen in northern lands, except in sculpture
imitated from the Greeks. The lower part of her face was not so good;
her smile was deficient in sweetness, her voice wanted melody, and
sounded loud to an English ear. Her gestures were expressive, but quick
and wanting in grace. She was more agreeable when silent and could be
regarded as a picture, than when called into action. She was
complimentary in her conversation, and her manners were winning by their
frankness and ease. She gesticulated too much, and her features were too
much in motion,--too pantomimely expressive, so to speak, not to impress
disagreeably one accustomed to the composure of the English. Still she
was a beautiful creature; young, artless, desirous to please, and
endowed, moreover, with the vivacious genius, the imaginative talent of
her country. She spoke as if she were passionately attached to her
husband; but when Ethel mentioned his English home and his relations, a
cloud came over the lovely Neapolitan's countenance, and a tremor shook
her frame. "Do not think hardly of me," she said, "I do not hate
England, but I fear it. I am sure I should be disliked there--I should
be censured, perhaps taunted, for a thousand habits and feelings as
natural to me as the air I breathe. I am proud, and I should retort
impertinence, and, displeasing my husband, become miserable beyond
words. Stay with us; you I love, and should be wretched to part from.
Stay and enjoy this paradise with us. Intreat his sisters, if they wish
to see Horatio, to come over. I will be more than a sister to them; but
let us all forget that such a place as that cold, distant England
exists."

This was Clorinda's usual mode of speaking of her husband's native
country: but once, when Ethel had urged her going there with more
earnestness than usual, suddenly her countenance became disturbed; and
with a lowering and stormy expression of face, that her English friend
could never afterwards forget, she said, "Say not another word, I pray.
Horatio loved--he loves an Englishwoman--it is torture enough for me to
know this. I would rather be torn in quarters by wild horses, broken in
pieces on the rack, than set foot in England. My cousin, as you have
pity for me, and value the life of Horace, use your influence to prevent
his only dreaming of a return to England. Methinks I could strike him
dead, if I only knew that such a thought lived for a second in his
heart."

These words said, Clorinda resumed her smiles, and was, more than usual,
desirous of flattering and pleasing Ethel; so that she softened, though
she could not erase, the impression her vehemence had made. However,
there appeared no necessity for Ethel to exert her influence. Horace was
equally averse to going to England. He loved to talk of it; he
remembered, with yearning fondness, its verdant beauty, its pretty
villages, its meandering streams, its embowered groves; the spots he had
inhabited, the trivial incidents of his daily life, were recalled with
affection: but he did not wish to return. Villiers attributed this
somewhat to his unforgotten attachment to Lady Lodore; but it was more
strange that he negatived the idea of one of his sisters visiting
him:--"She would not like it," was all the explanation he gave.

Several months passed lightly over the heads of the new-married pair;
while they, bee-like, sipped the honey of life, and, never cloyed, fed
perpetually on sweets. Naples, its galleries, its classic and beautiful
environs, offered an endless succession of occupation and amusement. The
presence of Saville elevated their pleasures; for he added the living
spirit of poetry to their sensations, and associated the treasures of
human genius with the sublime beauty of nature. He had a tact, a
delicacy, a kind of electric sympathy in his disposition, that endeared
him to every one that approached him. His very singularities, by keeping
alive an interest in him, added to the charm. Sometimes he was so
abstracted as to do the most absent things in the world; and the quick
alternations of his gaiety and seriousness were often ludicrous from
their excess. There was one thing, indeed, to which Ethel found it
difficult to accustom herself, which was his want of punctuality, which
often caused hours to be lost, and their excursions spoiled. Nor did he
ever furnish good excuses, but seemed annoyed at being questioned on the
subject.

Clorinda never joined them in their drives and rides out of the city.
She feared to trust herself to winds and waves; the heat, the breeze,
the dust, annoyed her; and she found no pleasure in looking at
mountains, which, after all, were only mountains; or ruins, which were
only ruins--stones, fit for nothing but to be removed and thrown away.
But Clorinda had an empire of her own, to which she gladly admitted her
English relatives, and the delights of which they fully appreciated.
Music, heard in such perfection at the glory of Naples, the theatre of
San Carlo, and the heavenly strains which filled the churches with an
atmosphere of sound more entrancing than incense--all these were hers;
and her own voice, rich, full, and well-cultivated, made a temple of
melody of her own home.

There was--it could not be called a wall--but there was certainly a
paling, of separation between Ethel and Clorinda. The young English girl
could not discover in what it consisted, or why she could not pass
beyond. The more she saw of the Neapolitan, the more she believed that
she liked her--certainly her admiration increased;--still she felt that
on the first day that Clorinda had visited her, with her caressing
manners and well-turned flatteries, she was quite as intimate with her
as now, after several weeks. She had surely nothing to conceal; all was
open in her conduct; yet often Ethel thought of her as a magician
guarding a secret treasure. Something there was that she watched over
and hid. There was often a look of anxiety about her which Ethel
unconsciously dispelled by some chance word; or a cloud all at once
dimmed her face, and her magnificent and dazzling eyes flashed sudden
fire, without apparent cause. There was something in her manner that
always said, "You are English, I am Italian; and there is natural war
between my fire and your snow." But no word, no act, ever betrayed
alienation of feeling. Thus a sort of mystery pervaded their
intercourse, which, though it might excite curiosity, and was not unakin
to admiration, kept the affections in check.

Sometimes Ethel thought that Clorinda feared to compromise her
salvation, for she was a Catholic. During the revelries of the Carnival,
this difference of religion was not so apparent; but when Lent began, it
showed itself, and divided them, on various occasions, more than before.
At last, Lent also was drawing to a close; and as Villiers and Ethel
were anxious to see the ceremonies of Passion Week at Rome, it was
arranged that they, and Mr. and Mrs. Saville, should visit the Eternal
City together. Horatio manifested a distaste even to the short residence
that it was agreed they should make together during the month they were
to spend at Rome; but Clorinda showed herself particularly anxious for
the fulfilment of this plan, and, the majority prevailing, the whole
party left Naples together.

Full soon was the veil of mystery then withdrawn, and Villiers and his
wife let into the arcana of their cousin's life. Horatio had yielded
unwillingly to Clorinda's intreaties, and extracted many promises from
her before he gave his consent; but all would not do--the natural, the
uncontrollable violence of her disposition broke down every barrier; and
in spite of his caution, and her struggles with herself, the reality
opened fearfully upon the English pair. The lava torrent of Neapolitan
blood flowed in her veins; and restraining it for some time, it at last
poured itself forth with volcanic violence. It was at the inn at
Terracina, on their way to Rome, that a scene took place, such as an
English person must cross Alps and Apennines to behold. Ethel had seen
that something was wrong. She saw the beauty of Clorinda vanished,
changed, melted away and awfully transformed into actual ugliness: she
saw tiger like glances from her eyes, and her lips pale and quivering.
Poor Saville strove, with gentle words, to allay the storm to which some
jealous freak gave rise: perceiving that his endeavours were vain, he
rose to quit the room. They were at dinner: she sprung on him with a
knife in her hand: Edward seized her arm; and she sunk on the floor in
convulsions. Ethel was scarcely less moved. Seeing her terrified beyond
all expression, Horatio led her from the room. He was pale--his voice
failed him. He left her; and sending Edward to her, returned to his
wife.

The same evening he said to Villiers,--"Do not ask me to stay;--let me
go without another word. You see how it is. With what Herculean labour I
have concealed this sad truth so long, is scarcely conceivable. When
Ethel's sweet smile has sometimes reproached my tardiness, I have
escaped, but half alive, from a scene like the one you witnessed.

"In a few hours, it is true, Clorinda will be shocked--full of
remorse--at my feet;--that is worse still. Her repentance is as violent
as her rage; and both transform her from a woman into something too
painful to dwell upon. She is generous, virtuous, full of power and
talent; but this fatal vehemence more than neutralizes her good
qualities. I can do nothing; I am chained to the oar. I have but one
hope: time, reason, and steadiness of conduct on my part, may subdue
her; and as she will at no distant period become a mother, softer
feelings may develop themselves. Sometimes I am violently impelled to
fly from her for ever. But she loves me, and I will not desert her. If
she will permit me, I will do my duty to the end. Let us go back now.
You will return to Naples next winter; and with this separation, which
will gall her proud spirit to its core, as a lesson, I hope by that time
that she will prove more worthy of Ethel's society."

Nothing could be said to this. Saville, though he asked, "Let us go
back," had decreed, irrevocably, in his own mind, not to advance another
step with his companions. The parting was melancholy and ominous. He
would not permit Clorinda to appear again; for, as he said, he feared
her repentance more than her violence, and would not expose Ethel as the
witness of a scene of humiliation and shame. A thousand times over, his
friends promised to return immediately to Naples, not deferring their
visit till the following winter. He was to take a house for them, for
the summer, at Castel à Mare, or Sorrento; and immediately after Easter
they were to return. These kind promises were a balm to his disturbed
mind. He watched their carriage from the inn at Terracina, as it skimmed
along the level road of the Pontine Marshes, and could not despair while
he expected its quick return. Turning his eyes away, he resumed his yoke
again; and, melancholy beyond his wont, joined his remorseful wife. They
were soon on their way back to Naples:--she less demonstrative in her
repentance, because more internally and deeply touched, than she had
ever been before.




CHAPTER XII


Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade.

SHAKSPEARE.


Parting thus sadly from their unfortunate cousin, Villiers and Ethel
were drawn together yet nearer, and, if possible, with a deeper
tenderness of affection than before. Here was an example before their
eyes, that all their fellow-creatures were not equally fortunate in the
lottery of life, and that worse than a blank befell many, while the
ticket which they had drawn was a prize beyond all summing. Edward felt
indeed disappointed at losing his cousin's society, as well as deeply
grieved at the wretched fate which he had selected for himself. Ethel,
on the contrary, was in her heart glad that he was absent. She had no
place in that heart to spare away from her husband; and however much she
liked Horatio, and worthy as he was of her friendship, she felt him as
an encroacher. Now she delivered herself up to Edward, and to the
thought of Edward solely, with fresh and genuine delight. No one stood
between her and him--none called off his attention, or forced her to
pass one second of time unoccupied by his idea. When she expressed these
feelings to Villiers, he called her selfish and narrow-hearted, yet his
pride and his affection were gratified; for he knew how true was every
word she uttered, and how without flaw or blot was her faith and her
attachment.

"And yet, my Ethel," he said, "I sometimes ask myself, how this boasted
affection of yours will stand the trials which I fear are preparing for
it."

"What trials?" she asked anxiously.

"Care, poverty; the want of all the luxuries, perhaps of the comforts of
life."

Ethel smiled again. "That is your affair," she replied, "do you rouse
your courage, if you look upon these as evils. I shall feel nothing of
all this, while near you; care--poverty--want! as if I needed any thing
except your love--you yourself--who are mine."

"Yes, dear," replied Villiers, "that is all very well at this moment;
rolling along in a comfortable carriage--an hotel ready to receive us,
with all its luxuries; but suppose us without any of these,
Ethel--suppose yourself in a melancholy, little, dingy abode, without
servants, without carriage, going out on foot."

"Not alone," replied his wife, laughing, and kissing his hand; "I shall
have you to wait on me--to wait upon--"

"You take it very well now,"
said Edward; "I hope that you will never be put to the trial. I am far
from anticipating this excess of wretchedness, of course, but I cannot
help feeling, that the prospects of to-morrow are uncertain, and I am
anxious for my long-delayed letters from England."

With Ethel's deep and warm affection, had she been ten or only five
years older, she also must have participated in Edward's inquietude. But
care is a word, not an emotion, for the very young. She was only
seventeen. She had never attended to the disbursements of money--she was
ignorant of the mechanism of giving and receiving, on which the course
of our life depends. It was in vain that she sought in the interior of
her mind for an image that should produce fear or regret, with regard to
the absence or presence of money. No one reflection or association
brought into being an idea on the subject. Again she kissed Edward's
hand, and looked on him with her soft clear eyes, thinking only, "He is
here--and Heaven has given me all I ask."

Left again to themselves, they were anxious to avoid acquaintances. Yet
this was impossible during the Holy Week at Rome. Villiers found many
persons whom he knew; women of high rank and fashion, men of wealth, or
with the appearance of it, enjoying the present, and, while away from
England, unencumbered by care. Mr. and Mrs. Villiers were among these,
and of them; their rank and their style of living resembling theirs,
associated them together. All this was necessary to Edward, for he had
been accustomed to it--it was natural to Ethel, because, being wholly
inexperienced, she did as others did, and as Villiers wished her to do,
without reflection or forethought.

Yet each day added to Edward's careful thoughts. Easter was gone, and
the period approached when they had talked of returning to Naples. The
covey of English had taken flight towards the north; they were almost
the only strangers in the ancient and silent city, whose every stone
breathes of a world gone by--whose surpassing beauty crowns her still
the glory of the world. The English pair, left to themselves, roamed
through the ruins and loitered in the galleries, never weary of the very
ocean of beauty and grandeur which they coursed over in their summer
bark. The weather grew warm, for the month of May had commenced, and
they took refuge in the vast churches from the heat; at twilight they
sought the neighbouring gardens, or scrambled about the Coliseum, or the
more ruined and weedgrown baths of Caracalla. The fire-flies came out,
and the splashing of the many fountains reached their ears from afar,
while the clear azure of the Roman sky bent over them in beauty and
peace.

Ethel never alluded to their proposed return to Naples--she feared each
day to hear Villiers mention it--she was so happy where she was, she
shrunk from any change. The majesty, the simplicity, the quiet of Rome,
were in unison with the holy stillness that dwelt in her soul, absorbed
as it was by one unchanging image. She had reached the summit of human
happiness--she had nothing more to ask; her full heart, not bursting,
yet gently overflowing in its bliss, thanked Heaven, and drew nearer
Edward, and was at peace.

"God help us!" exclaimed Villiers, "I wonder what on earth will become
of us!"

They were sitting together on fragment of the Coliseum; they had
clambered up its fallen wall, and reached a kind of weed-grown chasm
whose depth, as it was moonlight, they could not measure by the eye; so
they sat beside it on a small fragment, and Villiers held Ethel close to
him lest she should fall. The heartfelt and innocent caress of two
united in the sight of Heaven, wedded together for the endurance of the
good and ills of life, hallowed the spot and hour; and then, even while
Ethel nestled nearer to him in fondness, Edward made the exclamation
that she heard with a wonder which mingled with, yet could not disturb,
the calm joy which she felt.

"What but good can come of us, while we are thus?" she asked.

"You will not listen to me, nor understand me," replied her husband.
"But I do assure you, that our position is more than critical. No
remittances, no letters come from England; we are in debt here--in debt
in Italy! A thousand miles from our resources! I grope in the dark and
see no outlet--every day's post, with the nothing that it brings, adds
to my anxiety."

"All will be well," replied Ethel gently; "no real evil will happen to
us, be assured."

"I wish," said Villiers, "your experience, instead of your ignorance,
suggested the assertion. I would rather die a thousand deaths than apply
to dear Horace, who is ill enough off himself; but every day here adds
to our difficulties. Our only hope is in our instant return to
England--and, by heavens!--you kiss me, Ethel, as if we lived in fairy
land, and that such were our food--have you no fears?"

"I am sorry to say, none," she answered in a soft voice; "I wish I could
contrive some, because I appear unsympathizing to you--but I cannot
fear;--you are in health and near me. Heaven and my dear father's spirit
will watch over us, and all will be well. This is the end and beginning
of my anxiety; so dismiss yours, love--for, believe me, in a day or two,
these forebodings of yours will be as a dream."

"It is very strange," replied Edward, "were you not so close to me, I
should fancy you a spirit instead of a woman; you seem to have no touch
of earthly solicitude. Well, I will do as you bid me, and hope for
to-morrow. And now let us get down from this place before the moon sets
and leaves us in darkness."

As if to confirm the auguries of Ethel, the following morning brought
the long-expected letters. One contained a remittance, another was from
Colonel Villiers, to say, that Edward's immediate presence was requisite
in England to make the final arrangements before his marriage. With a
glad heart Villiers turned his steps northward; while Ethel, if she
could have regretted aught while with him, would have sighed to leave
their lonely haunts in Rome. She well knew that whatever of sublime
nature might display, or man might congregate of beautiful in art
elsewhere, there was a calm majesty, a silent and awful repose in the
ruins of Rome, joined to the delights of a southern climate, and the
luxuriant vegetation of a sunny soil, more in unison with her single and
devoted heart, than any other spot in the universe could boast. They
would both have rejoiced to have seen Saville again; yet they were
unacknowledgedly glad not to pursue their plan of domesticating near him
at Naples. A remediless evil, which is for ever the source of fresh
disquietude, is one that tasks human fortitude and human patience, more
than those vaster misfortunes which elevate while they wound. The proud
aspiring spirit of man craves something to raise him from the dust, and
to adorn his insignificance; he seeks to strengthen his alliance with
the lofty and the eternal, and shrinks from low-born cares, as being the
fetters and bolts that link him to his baser origin. Saville, the slave
of a violent woman's caprice, struggling with passions, at once so fiery
and so feeble as to excite contempt, was a spectacle which they were
glad to shun. Their own souls were in perfect harmony, and discord was
peculiarly abhorrent to them.

They travelled by the beaten route of Mont Cenis, Lyons, and Calais, and
in less than a month arrived in England. As the presence of Villiers was
requisite in London, after staying a few days at an hotel in
Brook-street, they took a furnished house in the same street for a short
time. The London season had passed its zenith, but its decline was
scarcely perceptible. Ethel had no wish to enter into its gaieties, and
it had been Edward's plan to avoid them until they were richer. But here
they were, placed by fate in the very midst of them; and as, when their
affairs were settled, they intended again to return abroad, he could not
refuse himself the pleasure of seeing Ethel, in the first flower of her
loveliness, mingling with, and outshining, every other beauty of her
country. It would have been difficult indeed, placed within the verge of
the English aristocracy assembled in London, to avoid its engagements
and pleasures--for he "also was an Arcadian," and made one of the
self-enthroned "world." The next two months, therefore, while still
every settlement was delayed by his father, they spent in the
fashionable circles of London.

They did not indeed enter into its amusements with the zest and
resolution of tyros. To Villiers the scene was not new, and therefore
not exceedingly enticing; and Ethel's mind was not of the sort to be
borne along in the stream of folly. They avoided going to crowded
entertainments--they were always satisfied with one or two parties in
the evening. Nay, once or twice in the week they usually remained at
home, and not unseldom dined tête-à-tête. The serpent fang of
pleasure, and the paltry ambition of society, had no power over Ethel.
She often enjoyed herself, because she often met people of either sex,
whose fame, or wit, or manners, interested and pleased her. But as
little vanity as mortal woman ever had fell to her share. Very young,
and (to use the phrase of the day) very new, flattery and admiration
glanced harmlessly by her. Her personal vanity was satisfied when
Villiers was pleased, and, for the rest, she was glad to improve her
mind, and to wear away the timidity, which she felt that her lonely
education had induced, by mingling with the best society of her country.

She had also some curiosity, and as she promised herself but a brief
sojourn in this land of lions, she wished to see several things and
persons she might never come in contact with again. Various names which
had reached her in the Illinois, here grew from shadows into real human
beings--ministers of state, beauties, authors, and wits. She visited
once or twice the ventilator of St. Stephen's, and graced a red bench of
the House of Lords on the prorogation of Parliament. Villiers was very
much pleased with her throughout. His pride was gratified by the
approval she elicited from all. Men admired her, but distantly--as a
being they could not rudely nor impertinently approach. Women were not
afraid of her, because they saw, that though she made no display of
conjugal attachment, she loved her husband. Her extreme youth, the
perpetual sunshine of her countenance, and the gentle grace of her
manners, won more the liking than the praise of her associates. They
drew near her as to one too untaught to understand their mysteries, and
too innocent to judge them severely; an atmosphere of kindness and of
repose followed her wherever she went: this her husband felt more than
any other, and he prized his Ethel at the worth she so truly deserved.

One of the reasons which caused Mrs. Villiers to avoid large assemblies,
was that Lady Lodore was in town, and that in such places they sometimes
met. Ethel did not well know how to act. Youth is ever fearful of making
unwelcome demonstration, and false shame often acts more powerfully to
influence it, than the call of duty or the voice of affection. Villiers
had no desire to bring the mother and daughter together, and stood
neutral. Lady Lodore had once or twice recognized her by a bow and a
smile, but after such, she always vanished and was seen no more that
evening. Ethel often yearned to approach, to claim her tenderness and to
offer her filial affection. Villiers laughed at such flights. "The safe
thing to do," he said, "is to take the tone of Lady Lodore. She is held
back by no bashfulness--she does the thing she wishes, without
hesitation or difficulty. Did she desire her lovely grown-up daughter to
play a child's part towards her, she would soon contrive to bring it
about. Lady Lodore is a woman of the world--she was nursed in its
lessons, and piously adheres to its code; its ways are her's, and the
objects of ambition which it holds out, are those which she desires to
attain. She is talked of as admired and followed by the Earl of D----. You
may spoil all, if you put yourself forward."

Ethel was not quite satisfied. The voice of nature was awake within, and
she yearned to claim her mother's affection. Until now, she had regarded
her more as a stranger; but at this time, a filial instinct stirred her
heart, impelling her to some outward act--some demonstration of duty.
Whenever she saw Lady Lodore, which was rarely, and at a distance, she
gazed earnestly on her, and tried to read within her soul, whether Villiers
was right, and her mother happy. The shining, uniform outside of a woman
of fashion baffled her endeavours without convincing her. One evening at
the Opera, she discerned Lady Lodore in the tier below her. Ethel drew
back and shaded herself with the curtain of her box, so that she could
not be perceived, while she watched her mother intently. A succession of
visitors came into Lady Lodore's box, and she spoke to all with the
animation of a heart at ease. There was an almost voluptuous repose in
her manner and appearance, that contrasted with, while it adorned, the
easy flow of her conversation, and the springtide of wit, which, to
judge from the amusement of her auditors, flowed from her lips. Yet
Ethel fancied that her smile was often forced, so suddenly did it
displace an expression of listlessness and languor, which when she
turned from the people in her box to the stage, came across her
countenance like a shadow. It might be the gas, which shadows so
unbecomingly the fair audience at the King's Theatre; it might be the
consequences of raking, for Lady Lodore was out every night; but Ethel
thought that she saw a change; she was less brilliant, her person
thinner, and had lost some of its exquisite roundness. Still, as her
daughter gazed, she thought, She is not happy. Yet what could she do?
How pour sweetness into the bitter stream of life? As Villiers had said,
any advance of hers might spoil all. The sister of the nobleman he had
mentioned, was her companion at the opera. Lord D----himself came, though
late, to fetch her away. She had therefore her own prospects, her own
plans, which doubtless she desired to pursue undisturbed, however they
might fail to charm away the burthen of life.

Once, and only once, Ethel heard her mother's voice, and was spoken to
by her. She had gone to hear the speech from the throne, on the
prorogation of Parliament. She got there late, so that every bench was
filled. Room was made for her near the throne, immediately under the
gallery, (as the house was constructed until last year,) but she was
obliged to be separated from her party, and sat half annoyed at being
surrounded by strangers. A peer, whom she recognized as the Earl of D----,
came up, and entered into conversation with the lady sitting behind her.
Could it be her mother? She remembered, that as she sat down she had
glanced at some one whom she thought she knew, and she did not doubt that
this was Lady Lodore. A sudden thrill passed as an electric shock through
her frame, every joint in her body trembled, her knees knocked together,
and the colour forsook her cheeks. She tried to rally. Why should she
feel agitated, as if possessed by terror, on account of this near
contact with the dearest relation Heaven has bestowed on its creatures?
Why not turn; and if she did not speak, claim, with beseeching eyes, her
mother's love? Was it indeed her? The lady spoke, and her voice entered
and stirred Ethel's beating heart with strange emotion; every drop of
blood within her seemed to leap at the sound; but she sat still as a
statue, saying to herself, "When Lord D----leaves her I will turn and
speak." After some trivial conversation on topics of the day, the peers
were ordered to take their seats, and Lord D----departed;--then Ethel
tried to summon all her courage; but now the doors were thrown open, the
king entered, and every one stood up. At this moment,--as she, in the
confusion of being called upon, while abstracted, to do any act, however
slight, had for a moment half forgotten her mother,--her arm was
touched; and the same voice which had replied to Lord D----, said to her,
"Your ear-ring is unfastened, Ethel; it will fall out." Ethel could not
speak; she raised her hands, mechanically, to arrange the ornament; but
her trembling fingers refused to perform the office. "Permit me," said
the lady, drawing off her glove; and Ethel felt her mother's hand touch
her cheek: her very life stood suspended; it was a bitter pain, yet a
pleasure inconceivable; there was a suffocation in her throat, and the
tears filled her eyes; but even the simple words, "I thank you," died on
her lips--her voice could frame no sound. The world, and all within its
sphere, might have passed away at that moment, and she been unconscious
of any change. "Yes, she will love me!" was the idea that spoke audibly
within; and a feeling of confidence, a flow of sympathy and enthusiastic
affection, burst on her heart. As soon as she could recollect herself,
she turned: Lady Lodore was no longer there; she had glided from her
seat; and Ethel just caught a glimpse of her, as she contrived another
for herself, behind a column, which afterwards so hid her, that her
daughter could only see the waving of her plumes. On these she fixed her
eyes until all was over; and then Lady Lodore went out hurriedly, with
averted face, as if to escape her recognition. This put the seal on
Ethel's dream. She believed that her mother obviously signified her
desire that they should continue strangers to each other. It was hard,
but she must submit. She had no longer that prejudice against Lady
Lodore, that exaggerated notion of her demerits, which the long exile of
her father, and the abhorrence of Mrs. Fitzhenry, had before instilled.
Her mother was no longer a semi-gorgon, hid behind a deceptive mask--a
Medea, without a touch of human pity. She was a lovely, soft-voiced,
angelic-looking woman, whom she would have given worlds to be permitted
to love and wait upon. She found excuses for her errors; she lavished
admiration on all her attractions; she could do all but muster courage
to vanquish the obstacles that existed to their intercourse. She fondly
cherished her image, as an idol placed in the sanctuary of her heart,
which she could regard with silent reverence and worship, but whose
concealing veil she could not raise. Villiers smiled when she spoke in
this way to him. He saw, in her enthusiasm, the overflowing of an
affectionate heart, which longed to exhaust itself in loving. He kissed
her, and bade her think any thing, so that she did nothing. The time for
doing had indeed, for the present, passed away. Lady Lodore left town;
and when mother and daughter met again, it was not destined to be
beneath a palace roof, surrounded by the nobility of the land.




CHAPTER XIII


I choose to comfort myself by considering, that even
while I am lamenting my present uneasiness, it is
passing away.

HORACE WALPOLE.


An event occurred at this time, which considerably altered the plans of
Mr. and Mrs. Villiers. They had been invited to spend some time at
Maristow Castle, and were about to proceed thither with Lord Maristow
and his daughters, when the sudden death of Mr. Saville changed every
thing. He died of a malignant fever, leaving a young widow, and no
child, to inherit his place in society.

Through this unlooked-for event, Horatio became the immediate heir of
his father's title. He stept, from the slighted position of a younger
son into the rank of the eldest; and thus became another being in all
men's eyes--but chiefly in his father's.

Viscount Maristow had deeply regretted his son's foreign marriage, and
argued against his choice of remaining abroad. He was a statesman, and
conceived that Horatio's talents and eloquence would place him high
among the legislators of St. Stephen's. The soundness of his
understanding, and the flowing brilliancy of his language, were pledges
of his success. But Saville was not ambitious. His imagination rose high
above the empty honours of the world--to be useful was a better aim; but
he did not conceive that his was a mind calculated to lead others in its
train: its framework was too delicate, too finely strung, to sound in
accord with the many. He wanted the desire to triumph; and was content
to adore truth in the temple of his own mind, without defacing its
worship by truckling to the many falsehoods and errors which demand
subserviency in the world.

Lord Maristow had hitherto submitted to his disappointment, not without
murmurs, but without making any great effort at victory. He had written
many letters intreating his son to cast off the drowsy Neapolitan
sloth;--he had besought Villiers, previous to his departure the
preceding year, to bring his cousin back with him;--and this was all.

The death of his eldest son quickened him to exertion. He resolved to
trust no longer to written arguments, but to go himself to Italy, and by
force of paternal authority, or persuasions, to induce his son to come
back to his native country, and to fill with honour the post to which
fortune had advanced him. He did not doubt that Horatio would himself
feel the force of his new duties; but it would be clenching his purpose,
and paying an agreeable compliment to Clorinda, to make this journey,
and to bring them back with him when he returned. Whatever Mrs.
Saville's distaste to England might be, it must yield to the necessity
that now drew her thither. Lord Maristow could not imagine any
resistance so violent as to impede his wishes. The projected journey
charmed his daughters, saddened as they were by their recent loss. Lucy
was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing her beloved brother. She felt
sure that Clorinda would be brought to reason and thus, with their
hearts set upon one object, one idea, they bade adieu to Ethel and her
husband, as if their career was to be as sunny and as prosperous as they
doubted not that their own would be.

Lord Maristow alone guessed how things might stand. "Edward, my dear
boy," he said, "give me credit for great anxiety on your account. I wish
this marriage of yours had not taken place, then you might have roughed
it as other young men do, and have been the better for a little tart
experience. I do not like this shuffling on your father's part. I hear
for a certainty that this marriage of his will come to nothing--the
friends of the young lady are against it, and she is very young, and
only an heiress by courtesy--her father can give her as many tens of
thousands as he pleases, but he has sworn not to give her a shilling if
she marries without his consent; and he has forbidden Colonel Villiers
his house. He still continues at Cheltenham, and assures every one that
he is on safe ground; that the girl loves him, and that when once his,
the father must yield. It is too ridiculous to see him playing a
boy-lover's part at his time of life, trying to undermine a daughter's
sense of duty--he, who may soon be a grandfather! The poor little thing,
I am told, is quite fascinated by his dashing manners and station in
society. We shall see how it will end--I fear ill; her father might
pardon a runaway match with a lover of her own age; but he will never
forgive the coldblooded villany, excuse me, of a man of three times her
age; who for gain, and gain only, is seeking to steal her from him. Such
is the sum of what I am told by a friend of mine, just arrived from
Cheltenham. The whole thing is the farce of the day, and the stolen
interviews of the lovers, and the loud, vulgarly-spoken denunciations of
her father, vary the scene from a travestie of Romeo and Juliet to the
comedies of Plautus or Molière. I beg your pardon, Edward, for my
frankness, but I am angry. I have been used as a cat's-paw--I have been
treated unfairly--I was told that the marriage wanted but your
signature--my representations induced you to offer to Miss Fitzhenry,
and now you are a ruined man. I am hampered by my own family, and cannot
come forward to your assistance. My advice is, that you wait a little,
and see what turn matters take; once decided, however they conclude,
strong representations shall be made to your father, and he shall be
forced to render proper assistance; then if politics take a better turn,
I may do something for you--or you can live abroad till better times."

Villiers thanked Lord Maristow for his advice, and made no remarks
either on his details or promises. He saw his own fate stretched
drearily before him; but his pride made him strong to bear without any
outward signs of wincing. He would suffer all, conceal all, and be
pitied by none. The thought of Ethel alone made him weak. Were she
sheltered during the storm which he saw gathering so darkly, he would
have felt satisfied.

What was to be done? To go abroad, was to encounter beggary and famine.
To remain, exposed him to a thousand insults and dangers from which
there was no escape. Such were the whisperings of despair--but brighter
hopes often visited him. All could not be so evil as it seemed. Fortune,
so long his enemy, would yield at last one inch of ground--one inch to
stand upon, where he might wait in patience for better days. Had he
indeed done his utmost to avert the calamities he apprehended? Certainly
not. Thus spoke his sanguine spirit: more could and should be done. His
father might find means, he himself be enabled to arrange with his
lawyer some mode of raising a sum of money which would at least enable
him to go on the continent with his wife. He spent his thoughts in
wishes for the attainment of this desirable conclusion to his adversity,
till the very earnestness of his expectations seemed to promise their
realization. It could not be that the worst would come. Absurd!
Something must happen to assist them. Seeking for this unknown something
which, in spite of all his efforts, would take no visible or tangible
form, he spent weary days and sleepless nights, his brain spinning webs
of thought, not like those of the spider, useful to their weaver--a
tangled skein they were rather, where the clue was inextricably hid. He
did not speak of these things to Ethel, but he grew sad, and she was
anxious to go out of town, to have him all to herself, when she promised
herself to dispel his gloom; and, as she darkly guessed at the source of
his disquietude, by economy and a system of rigid privation, to show him
how willing and able she was to meet the adversity which he so much
dreaded.




CHAPTER XIV


The pure, the open, prosperous love,
That pledged on earth, and sealed above,
Grows in the world's approving eyes,
In friendship's smile and home's caress,
Collecting all the heart's sweet ties
Into one knot of happiness.

LALLA ROOKH.


Another month withered away in fruitless expectation. Villiers felt that
he was following an ignis fatuus, yet knew not how to give up his
pursuit. At length, he listened more docilely to Ethel's representations
of the expediency of quitting town. She wished to pay her long-promised
visit to her aunt, and Villiers at last consented to accompany her. They
gave up their house, dispersed a tolerably numerous establishment, and
left town for their sober and rural seclusion in Essex.

Taken from the immediate scene where care met him at every turn,
Edward's spirits rose; and the very tranquillity and remoteness of
Longfield became a relief and an enjoyment. It was bright October
weather. The fields were green, the hedges yet in verdant trim. The air
was so still that the dead leaves hung too lazy to fall, from the
topmost boughs of the earlier trees. The oak was still dressed in a dark
sober green--the fresh July shoot, having lost its summer hue, was
unapparent among the foliage; the varying tints of beach, ash, and elm,
diversified the woods. The morning and evening skies were resplendent
with crimson and gold, and the moonlight nights were sweeter than the
day.

Fatigued by the hurry of town, and one at least worn out with care, the
young pair took a new lease of love in idleness in this lonely spot. A
slight attack of rheumatism confined Aunt Bessy to her chimney-corner,
but in spite of her caution to Ethel not to incur the same penalty from
all the array of wet walks and damp shoes, it was her best pleasure each
morning to tie on her bonnet, take her husband's arm, and they wandered
away together, returning only to find their horses ready, and then they
departed for hours, coming back late and unwillingly after the sun was
down. Mrs. Elizabeth wondered where all the beautiful spots were, which
Ethel described so enthusiastically as to be found in the neighbourhood.
The good lady longed to go out herself to see if she could not reap
equal delight from viewing the grouping of trees, whose various autumnal
tints were painted in Ethel's speech with hues too bright for earth, or
to discover what there could be so extraordinarily picturesque in a
moss-grown cottage, near a brook, with a high bank clothed with wood
behind, which she believed must be one Dame Nixon's cottage, in the Vale
of Bewling, and which she knew she must have passed a thousand times,
and yet she had never noticed its beauty. Very often Ethel could give no
information of whither they had been, only they had lost themselves in
majestic woods, lingered in winding lanes, which led to resplendent
views, or even reached the margin of the barren sea, to behold the
enveloping atmosphere reflected in its fitful mirror--to watch the
progress of evanescent storms, or to see the moon light up her silvery
pathway on the dusky waste. Villiers took his gun with him in his walks,
but, though American bred, Ethel was so unfeignedly distressed by the
sight of death, that he never brought down a bird: he shot in its
direction now and then, to keep his pointer in practice, and to laugh at
his wife's glad triumph when he missed his feathery mark.

Ethel was especially delighted to renew her acquaintance with Longfield,
her father's boyhood home, under such sunny circumstances. She had loved
it before: with anguish in her heart, and heavy sadness weighing on her
steps, she had loved it for his sake. But now that it became the home,
the dedicated garden of love, it received additional beauty in her eyes
from its association with the memory of Lord Lodore. All things conjoined;
the season, calmed and brightened, as if for her especial enjoyment;
remembrance of the past, and the undivided possession of her Edward's
society, combined to steep her soul in happiness. Even he, whose more
active and masculine spirit might have fretted in solitude and sloth,
was subdued by care and uncertainty to look on the peace of the present
moment as the dearest gift of the gods. Both so young, and the minds of
both open as day to each other's eyes, no single blot obscured their
intercourse. They never tired of each other, and the teeming spirit of
youth filled the empty space of each hour as it came, with a new growth
of sentiments and ideas. The long evening had its pleasures, with its
close-drawn curtains and cheerful fire. Even whist with the white-haired
parson, and Mrs. Fitzhenry in her spectacles, imparted pleasure. Could
any thing duller have been devised, which would have been difficult, it
had not been so to them; and a stranger coming in and seeing their
animated looks, and hearing their cheerful tones and light-hearted
laugh, must have envied the very Elysium of delight, which aunt Bessy's
usually so sober drawing-room contained. Merely to see Ethel leaning on
her husband's arm, and looking up in his face as he drew her yet closer,
and, while his fingers were twined among her silken ringlets, kissed so
fondly her fair brow, must have demonstrated to a worldling the
irrefragable truth that happiness is born a twin, love being the parent.

The beauty of a pastoral picture has but short duration in this cloudy
land,--and happiness, the sun of our moral existence, is yet more fitful
in its visitations. Villiers and his young wife took their accustomed
ride through shady lanes and copses, and through parks, where, though
the magnificent features of nature were wanting, the eye was delighted
by a various prospect of wood and lawny upland. The soft though wild
west wind drove along vast masses of snowy clouds, which displayed in
their intervals the deep stainless azure of the boundless sky. The
shadows of the clouds now darkened the pathway of our riders, and now
they saw the sunlight advance from a distance, coming on with steps of
light and air, till it reached them, and they felt the warmth and
gladness of sunshine descend on them. The various coloured woods were
now painted brightly in the beams, and now half lost in shadow. There
was life and action everywhere--yet not the awakening activity of
spring, but rather a vague, uneasy restlessness, allied to languor, and
pregnant with melancholy.

Villiers was silent and sad. Ethel too well knew the cause wherefore he
was dispirited. He had received letters that morning which stung him
into a perception of the bitter realities which were gathering about
them. One was to say that no communication had been received from his
father, but that it was believed that he was somewhere in London--the
other was from his banker, to remind him that he had overdrawn his
credit--nearly the most disagreeable intelligence a man can hear when he
possesses no immediate means of replenishing his drained purse. Ethel
was grieved to see him pained, but she could not acutely feel these
pecuniary distresses. She tried to divert his thoughts by conversation,
and pointing out the changes which the advancing season made in the
aspect of the country.

"Yes," said Villiers, "it is a beautiful world; poets tell us this, and
religious men have drawn an argument for their creed from the wisdom and
loveliness displayed in the external universe, which speaks to every
heart and every understanding. The azure canopy fretted with golden
lights, or, as now, curtained by wondrous shapes, which, though they are
akin to earth, yet partake the glory of the sky--the green expanse,
variegated by streams, teeming with life, and prolific of food to
sustain that life, and that very food the chief cause of the beauty we
enjoy--with such magnificence has the Creator set forth our table--all
this, and the winds that fan us so balmily, and the flowers that enchant
our sight--do not all these make earth a type of heaven?"

Ethel turned her eyes on him to read in his face the expression of the
enthusiasm and enjoyment that seemed to dictate his words. But his
countenance was gloomy, and as he continued to speak, his expressions
took more the colour of his uneasy feelings. "How false and senseless
all this really is!" he pursued. "Find a people who truly make earth,
its woods and fells, and inclement sky, their unadorned dwelling-place,
who pluck the spontaneous fruits of the soil, or slay the animals as
they find them, attending neither to culture nor property, and we give
them the name of barbarians and savages--untaught, uncivilized,
miserable beings--and we, the wiser and more refined, hunt and
exterminate them:--we, who spend so many words, either as preachers or
philosophers, to vaunt that with which they are satisfied, we feel
ourselves the greater, the wiser, the nobler, the more barriers we place
between ourselves and nature, the more completely we cut ourselves off
from her generous but simple munificence."

"But is this necessary?" asked the forest-bred girl: "when I lived in the
wilds of the Illinois--the simplest abode, food and attire, were all I
knew of human refinements, and I was satisfied."

Villiers did not appear to heed her remark, but continued the train of
his own reflections. "The first desire of man is not for wealth nor
luxury, but for sympathy and applause. He desires to remove to the
furthest extremity of the world contempt and degradation; and according
to the ideas of the society in which he is bred, so are his desires
fashioned. We, the most civilized, high-bred, prosperous people in the
world, make no account of nature, unless we add the ideas of possession,
and of the labours of man. We rate each individual, (and we all desire
to be rated as individuals, distinct from and superior to the mass,) not
by himself, but by his house, his park, his income. This is a trite
observation, yet it appears new when it comes home: what is lower,
humbler, more despicable than a poor man? Give him learning, give him
goodness--see him with manners acquired in poverty, habits dyed in the
dusky hues of penury; and if we do not despise him, yet we do not admit
him to our tables or society. Refinement may only be the varnish of the
picture, yet it is necessary to make apparent to the vulgar eye even the
beauties of Raphael."

"To the vulgar eye!" repeated Ethel, emphatically.

"And I seem one of those, by the way I speak," said Edward, smiling.
"Yet, indeed, I do not despise any man for being poor, except myself. I
can feel pride in showing honour where honour is due, even though clad
in the uncouth and forbidding garb of plebeianism; but I cannot claim
this for myself--I cannot demand the justice of men, which they would
nickname pity. The Illinois would be preferable far."

"And the Illinois might be a paradise," said Ethel.

"We hope for a better--we hope for Italy. Do you remember Rome and the
Coliseum, my love?--Naples, the Chiaja, and San Carlo?--these were
better than the savannas of the west. Our hopes are good; it is the
present only which is so thorny, so worse than barren: like the souls of
Dante, we have a fiery pass to get through before we reach our place of
bliss; that we have it in prospect will gift us with fortitude.
Meanwhile I must string myself to my task. Ethel, dearest, I shall go to
town to-morrow."

"And I with you, surely?"

"Do not ask it; this is your first lesson in the lore you were so ready
to learn, of bearing all for me--"

"With you," interrupted his wife.

"With me--it shall soon be," replied Edward; "but to speak according to
the ways of this world, my presence in London is necessary for a few
days--for a very few days; a journey there and back for me is nothing,
but it would be a real and useless expense if you went. Indeed, Ethel,
you must submit to my going without you--I ask it of you, and you will
not refuse."

"A few days, you say," answered Ethel--"a very few days? It is hard. But
you will not be angry, if I should join you if your return is delayed?"

"You will not be so mad," said Villiers. "I go with a light heart,
because I leave you in security and comfort. I will return--I need not
protest--you know that I shall return the moment I can. I speak of a few
days; it cannot be a week: let me go then, with what satisfaction I may,
to the den of darkness and toil, and not be farther annoyed by the fear
that you will not support my absence with cheerfulness. As you love me,
wait for me with patience--remain with your aunt till I return."

"I will stay for a week, if it must be so," replied Ethel.

"Indeed, my love, it must--nor will I task you beyond--before a week is
gone by, you shall see me."

Ethel looked wistfully at him, but said no more. She thought it
hard--she did not think it right that he should go--that he should toil
and suffer without her; but she had no words for argument or contention,
so she yielded. The next morning--a cold but cheerful morning--at seven
o'clock, she drove over with him in Mrs. Fitzhenry's little pony chaise
to the town, four miles off, through which the stages passed. A first
parting is a kind of landmark in life--a starting post whence we begin
our career out of illusion and the land of dreams, into reality and
endurance. They arrived not a moment too soon: she had yet a thousand
things to say--one or two very particular things, which she had reserved
for the last moment; there was no time, and she was forced to
concentrate all her injunctions into one word, "Write!"

"Every day--and do you."

"It will be my only pleasure," replied his wife. "Take care of
yourself."

He was on the top of the stage and gone; and Ethel felt that a blank
loneliness had swallowed up the dearest joy of her life.

She drew her cloak round her--she gazed along the road--there were no
traces of him--she gave herself up to thought, and as he was the object
of all her thoughts, this was her best consolation. She reviewed the
happy days they had spent together--she dwelt on the memory of his
unalterable affection and endearing kindness, and then tears rushed into
her eyes. "Will any ill ever befall him?" she thought. "O no, none ever
can! he must be rewarded for his goodness and his love. How dear he
ought to be to me! Did he not take the poor friendless girl from
solitude and grief; and disdaining neither her poverty nor her orphan
state, give her himself, his care, his affection? O, my Edward! what
would Ethel have been without you? Her father was gone--her mother
repulsed her--she was alone in the wide world, till you generously made
her your own!"

With the true enthusiasm of passion, Ethel delighted to magnify the
benefits she had received, and to make those which she herself conferred
nothing, that gratitude and love might become yet stronger duties. In
her heart, though she reproached herself for what she termed
selfishness, she could not regret his poverty and difficulties, if thus
she should acquire an opportunity of being useful to him; but she felt
herself defrauded of her best privileges, of serving and consoling, by
their separation.

Thus,--now congratulating herself on her husband's attachment, now
repining at the fate that divided them,--agitated by various emotions
too sweet and bitter for words, she returned to Longfield. Aunt Bessy
was in her arm-chair, waiting for her to begin breakfast. Edward's seat
was empty--his cup was not placed--he was omitted in the domestic
arrangements;--tears rushed into her eyes; and in vain trying to calm
herself, she sobbed aloud. Aunt Bessy was astonished; and when all the
explanation she got was, "He is gone!" she congratulated herself, that
her single state had spared her the endurance of these conjugal
distresses.




CHAPTER XV


How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen,
What old December's bareness every where!

SHAKSPEARE.


Ethel cheered herself to amuse her aunt; and, as in her days of hopeless
love, she tried to shorten the hours by occupation. It was difficult;
for all her thoughts were employed in conjectures as to where Edward
was, what doing--in looking at her watch, and following in her mind all
his actions--or in meditating how hereafter she might remedy any
remissness on her part, (so tender was her conscience,) and best
contribute to his happiness. Such reveries beguiled many hours, and
enabled her to endure with some show of courage the pains of absence.
Each day she heard from him--each day she wrote, and this entire pouring
out of herself on paper formed the charm of her existence. She
endeavoured to persuade him how fortunate their lot might hereafter
be--how many of his fears were unfounded or misplaced.

"Remember, dearest love," she said, "that I have nothing of the fine
lady about me. I do not even feel the want of those luxuries so
necessary to most women. This I owe to my father. It was his first care,
while he brought me up in the most jealous retirement, to render me
independent of the services of others. Solitude is to me no evil, and
the delight of my life would be to wait upon you. I am not therefore an
object of pity, when fortunes deprives me of the appurtenances of
wealth, which rather annoy than serve me. My devotion and sacrifice, as
you are pleased to call the intense wish of my heart to contribute to
your happiness, are nothing. I sacrifice all, when I give up one hour of
your society--there is the sting--there the merit of my permitting you
to go without me. I can ill bear it. I am impatient and weak; do not
then, Edward dearest, task me too far--recall me to your side, if your
return is delayed--recall your fond girl to the place near your heart,
where she desires to remain for ever."

Villiers answered with few but expressive words of gratitude and
fidelity. His letters breathed disappointment and anxiety. "It is too
true," he said, "as I found it announced when I first came to town, my
father is married. He got the banns published in an obscure church in
London; he persuaded Miss Gregory to elope with him, and they are
married. Her father is furious, he returns every letter unopened; his
house and heart, he says, are still open to his daughter--but the--, I
will not repeat his words, who stole her from him, shall never benefit
by a shilling of his money--let her return, and all shall be
pardoned--let her remain with her husband, and starve, he cares not. My
father has spent much time and more money on this pursuit: in the hope
of securing many thousands, he raised hundreds at a prodigal and ruinous
interest, which must now be paid. He has not ten pounds in the world--so
he says. My belief is, that he is going abroad to secure to himself the
payment of the scanty remnant of his income. I have no hopes. I would
beg at the corner of a street, rather than apply to a man who never has
been a parent to me, and whose last act is that of a villain. Excuse me;
you will be angry that I speak thus of my father, but I know that he
speaks of the poor girl he has deluded, with a bitterness and insult,
which prove what his views were in marrying her. In this moment of
absolute beggary, my only resource is to raise money. I believe I shall
succeed; and the moment I have put things in train, with what heartfelt,
what unspeakable joy, shall I leave this miserable place for my own
Ethel's side, long to remain!"

Villiers's letters varied little, but yet they got more desponding; and
Ethel grew very impatient to see him again. She had counted the days of
her week--they were fulfilled, and her husband did not return. Every
thing depended, he said, on his presence; and he must remain yet for
another day or two. At first he implored her to be patient. He besought
her, as she loved him, to endure their separation yet for a few more
days. His letters were very short, but all in this style. They were
imperative with his wife--she obeyed; yet she did so, she told him,
against her will and against her sense of right. She ought to be at his
side to cheer him under his difficulties. She had married him because
she loved him, and because the first and only wish of her heart was to
conduce to his happiness. To travel together, to enjoy society and the
beauties of nature in each other's society, were indeed blessings, and
she valued them; but there was another dearer still, of which she felt
herself defrauded, and for which she yearned. "The aim of my life, and
its only real joy," she said, "is to make your existence happier than it
would have been without me. When I know and feel that such a moment or
hour has been passed by you with sensations of pleasure, and that
through me, I have fulfilled the purpose of my destiny. Deprived of the
opportunity to accomplish this, I am bereft of that for which I breathe.
You speak as if I were better off here than if I shared the
inconveniences of your lot--is not this strange language, my own Edward?
You talk of security and comfort; where can I be so secure as near you?
And for comfort! what heart-elevating joy it would be to exchange this
barren, meagre scene of absence, for the delight, the comfort of seeing
you, of waiting on you! I do not ask you to hasten your return, so as to
injure your prospects, but permit me to join you. Would not London
itself, dismal as you describe it, become sunny and glad, if Ethel were
with you?"

To these adjurations Villiers scarcely replied. Time crept on; three
weeks had already elapsed. Now and then a day intervened, and he did not
write, and his wife's anxiety grew to an intolerable pitch. She did not
for an instant suspect his faith, but she feared that he must be utterly
miserable, since he shrunk from communicating his feelings to her. His
last letter was brief; "I have just come from my solicitor," he said,
"and have but time to say, that I must go there again to-morrow, so I
shall not be with you. O the heavy hours in this dark prison! You will
reward me and make me forget them when I see you--but how shall I pass
the time till then!"

These words made Ethel conceive the idea of joining him in town. He
would not, he could not be angry? He could not bring his mind to ask her
to share his discomforts--but ought she not to volunteer--to insist upon
his permitting her to come? Permit! the same pride that prevented his
asking, would induce him to refuse her request; but should she do wrong,
if, without his express permission, she were to join him? A thrill, half
fear, half transport, made her heart's blood stand still at the thought.
The day after this last, she got no letter; the following day was
Monday, and there would be no post from town. Her resolution was taken,
and she told her aunt, that she should go up to London the following
day. Mrs. Elizabeth knew little of the actual circumstances of the young
pair. Villiers had made it an express condition, that she should not be
informed of their difficulties, for he was resolute not to take from her
little store, which, in the way she lived, was sufficient, yet barely
so, for her wants. She did not question her niece as to her journey; she
imagined that it was a thing arranged. But Ethel herself was full of
perplexity; she remembered what Villiers had said of expense; she knew
that he would be deeply hurt if she used a public conveyance, and yet to
go post would consume the little money she had left, and she did not
like to reach London pennyless. She began to talk to her aunt, and
faltered out something about want of money for posting--the good lady's
purse was instantly in her hand. Ethel had not the same horror as her
husband of pecuniary obligation--she was too inexperienced to know its
annoyances; and in the present instance, to receive a small sum from her
aunt, appeared to her an affair that did not merit hesitation. She took
twenty pounds for her journey, and felt her heart lighter. There yet
remained another question. Hitherto they had travelled in their own
carriage, with a valet and lady's maid. Villiers had taken his servant
to town with him. In a postscript to one of his letters, he said, "I was
able to recommend Laurie to a good place, so I have parted with him, and
I shall not take another servant at this moment." Laurie had been long
and faithfully attached to her husband, who had never lived without an
attendant, and who, from his careless habits, was peculiarly helpless.
Ethel felt that this dismissal was a measure of economy, and that she
ought to imitate it. Still as any measure to be taken always frightened
her, she had not courage to discharge her maid, but resolved to go up to
town without her. Aunt Bessy was shocked at her going alone, but Ethel
was firm; nothing could happen to her, and she should prove to Edward
her readiness to endure privation.

On Monday, at eleven in the forenoon, on the 28th of November, Ethel,
having put together but a few things,--for she expected a speedy
return,--stept into her travelling chariot, and began her journey to
town. She was all delight at the idea of seeing Edward. She reproached
herself for having so long delayed giving this proof of her earnest
affection. She listened with beaming smiles to all her aunt's
injunctions and cautions: and, the carriage once in motion, drawing her
shawl round her, as she sat in the corner, looking on the despoiled yet
clear prospect, her mind was filled with the most agreeable
reveries--her heart soothed by the dearest anticipations.

To pay the post-horses--to gift the postillion herself, were all events
for her: she felt proud. "Edward said, I must begin to learn the ways of
the world; and this is my first lesson in economy and care," she
thought, as she put into the post-boy's hand just double the sum he had
ever received before. "And how good, and attentive, and willing every
body is! I am sure women can very well travel alone. Every one is
respectful, and desirous to serve," was her next internal remark, as she
undrew her little silken purse, to give a waiter half-a-crown, who had
brought her a glass of water, and whose extreme alacrity struck her as
so very kind-hearted.

Her spirits flagged as the day advanced. In spite of herself, an uneasy
feeling diffused itself through her mind, when, the sun going down, a
misty, chilly twilight crept over the landscape. Had she done right? she
asked herself; would Edward indeed be glad to see her? She felt half
frightened at her temerity--alarmed at the length of her journey--timid
when she thought of the vast London she was about to enter, without any
certain bourn. She supposed that Villiers went each day to his club, and
she knew that he lodged in Duke street, St. James's; but she was
ignorant of the number of the house, and the street itself was unknown
to her; she did not remember ever to have been in it in her life.

Her carriage entered labyrinthine London by Blackwall, and threaded the
wilds of Lothbury. A dense and ever-thickening mist, palpable, yellow,
and impervious to the eye, enveloped the whole town. Ethel had heard of
a November fog; but she had never witnessed one, and the idea of it did
not occur to her memory: she was half-frightened, thinking that some
strange phænomena were going on, and fancying that her postillion was
hurrying forward in terror. At last, in Cheapside, they stopped jammed
up by carts and coaches; and then she contrived to make herself heard,
asking what was the matter? The word "eclipse" hung upon her lips.

"Only, ma'am, the street has got blocked up like in the fog: we shall
get on presently."

The word "fog" solved the mystery; and again her thoughts were with
Villiers. What a horrible place for him to live in! And he had been
enduring all this wretchedness, while she was breathing the pure
atmosphere of the country. Again they proceeded through the "murky air,"
and through an infinitude of mischances;--the noise--the hubbub--the
crowd, as she could distinguish it, as if veiled by dirty gauze, by the
lights in the shops--all agitated and vexed her. Through Fleet Street
and the Strand they went; and it seemed as if their progress would never
come to an end. The whole previous journey from Longfield was short in
comparison to this tedious procession: twenty times she longed to get
out and walk. At last they got free, and with a quicker pace drove up to
the door of the Union Club, in Charing Cross.

The post-boy called one of the waiters to the carriage door; and Ethel
asked--"Is Mr. Villiers here?"

"Mr. Villiers, ma'am, has left town."

Ethel was aghast. She had watched assiduously along the road; yet she
had felt certain that if he had meant to come, she would have seen him
on Sunday; and till this moment, she had not entertained a real doubt
but that she should find him. She asked, falteringly, "When did he go?"

"Last week, ma'am: last Thursday, I think it was."

Ethel breathed again: the man's information must be false. She was too
inexperienced to be aware that servants and common people have a
singular tact in selecting the most unpleasant intelligence, and being
very alert in communicating it. "Do you know," she inquired, "where Mr.
Villiers lodges?"

"Can't say, indeed, ma'am; but the porter knows;--here, Saunders!"

No Saunders answered. "The porter is not in the way; but if you can
wait, ma'am, he'll be back presently."

The waiter disappeared: the post-boy came up--he touched his hat.
"Wait," said Ethel;--"we must wait a little;" and he removed himself to
the horses' heads. Ethel sat in her lonely corner, shrouded by fog and
darkness, watching every face as it passed under the lamp near, fancying
that Edward might appear among them. The ugly faces that haunt, in quick
succession, the imagination of one oppressed by night-mare, might vie
with those that passed successively in review before Ethel. Most of them
hurried on, looking neither to the right nor left. Some entered the
house; some glanced at her carriage: one or two, perceiving a bonnet,
evidently questioned the waiter. He stood there for her own service,
Ethel thought; and she watched his every movement--his successive
disappearances and returns--the people he talked to. Once she signed to
him to come; but--"No, ma'am, the porter is not come back yet,"--was all
his answer. At last, after having stood, half whistling, for some five
minutes, (it appeared to Ethel half-an-hour,) without having received
any visible communication, he suddenly came up to the carriage door,
saying, "The porter could not stay to speak to you, ma'am, he was in
such a hurry. He says, Mr. Villiers lodges in Duke Street, St. James's:
he should know the house, but has forgotten the number."

"Then I must wait till he comes back again. I knew all that before. Will
he be long?"

"A long time, ma'am; two hours at least. He said that the woman of the
house is a widow woman--Mrs. Derham."

Thus, as if by torture, (but, as with the whipping boys of old, her's
was the torture, not the delinquent's,) Ethel extracted some information
from the stupid, conceited fellow. On she went to Duke Street, to
discover Mrs. Derham's residence. A few wrong doors were knocked at; and
a beer-boy, at last, was the Mercury that brought the impatient, longing
wife, to the threshold of her husband's residence. Happy beer-boy! She
gave him a sovereign: he had never been so rich in his life
before;--such chance-medleys do occur in this strange world!




CHAPTER XVI


O my reviving joy! thy quickening presence
Makes the sad night
Sit like a youthful spring upon my blood.
I cannot make thy welcome rich enough
With all the wealth of words.

MIDDLETON.


The boy knocked at the door. A servant-girl opened it. "Does Mr.
Villiers lodge here?" asked the postillion, from his horse.

"Yes," said the girl.

"Open the door quickly, and let me out!" cried Ethel, as her heart beat
fast and loud.

The door was opened--the steps let down--operations tedious beyond
measures, as she thought. She got out, and was in the hall, going up
stairs.

"Mr. Villiers is not at home," said the maid.

Through the low blinds of the parlour window, Mrs. Derham had been
watching what was going on. She heard what her servant said, and now
came out. "Mr. Villiers is not at home," she reiterated; "will you leave
any message?"

"No; I will wait for him. Show me into his room."

"I am afraid that it is locked," answered Mrs. Derham repulsively:
"perhaps you can call again. Who shall I say asked for him?"

"O no!" cried Ethel, "I must wait for him. Will you permit me to wait in
your parlour? I am Mrs. Villiers."

"I beg pardon," said the good woman; "Mrs. Villiers is in the country."

"And so I am," replied Ethel--"at least, so I was this morning. Don't
you see my travelling carriage?--look; you may be sure that I am Mrs.
Villiers."

She took out of her little bag one of Edward's letters, with the perusal
of which she had beguiled much of her way to town. Mrs. Derham looked at
the direction--"The Honourable Mrs. Villiers;"--her countenance
brightened. Mrs. Derham was a little, plump, well-preserved woman of
fifty-four or five. She was kind-hearted, and of course shared the
worship for rank which possesses every heart born within the four seas.
She was now all attention. Villiers's room was open; he was expected
very soon:--"He is so seldom out in an evening: it is very unlucky; but
he must be back directly," said Mrs. Derham, as she showed the way up
the narrow staircase. Ethel reached the landing, and entered a room of
tolerable dimensions, considerably encumbered with litter, which opened
into a smaller room, with a tent bed. A little bit of fire glimmered in
the grate. The whole place looked excessively forlorn and comfortless.

Mrs. Derham bustled about to bestow a little neatness on the room,
saying something of the "untidiness of gentlemen," and "so many lodgers
in the house." Ethel sat down she longed to be alone. There was the
post-boy to be paid, and to be ordered to take the carriage to a
coach-house; and then--Mrs. Derham asked her if she would not have
something to eat: she herself was at tea, and offered a cup, which Ethel
thankfully accepted, acknowledging that she had not eaten since the
morning. Mrs. Derham was shocked. The rank, beauty, and sweet manners of
Ethel had made a conquest, which her extreme youth redoubled. "So young
a lady," she said, "to go about alone: she did not know how to take care
of herself, she was sure. She must have some supper: a roast chicken
should be ready in an hour--by the time Mr. Villiers came in."

"But the tea," said Ethel, smiling; "you will let me have that now?"

Mrs. Derham hurried away on this hint, and the young wife was left
alone. She had been married a year; but there was still a freshness
about her feelings, which gave zest to every change in her wedded life.
"This is where he has been living without me," she thought; "Poor
Edward! it does not look as if he were very comfortable."

She rose from her seat, and began to arrange the books and papers. A
glove of her husband's lay on the table: she kissed it with a glad
feeling of welcome. When the servant came in, she had the fire
replenished--the hearth swept; and in a minute or two, the room had lost
much of its disconsolate appearance. Then, with a continuation of her
feminine love of order she arranged her own dress and hair; giving to
her attire, as much as possible, an at-home appearance. She had just
finished--just sat down, and begun to find the time long--when a quick,
imperative knock at the door, which she recognized at once, made her
heart beat, and her cheek grow pale. She heard a step--a voice--and Mrs.
Derham answer--"Yes, sir; the fire is in--every thing comfortable;"--and
Ethel opened the door, as she spoke, and in an instant was clasped in
her husband's arms.

It was not a moment whose joy could be expressed by words. He had been
miserable during her absence, and had thought of sending for her; but he
looked round his single room, remembered that he was in lodgings, and
gave up his purpose with a bitter murmur: and here she was, uncalled
for, but most welcome: she was here, in her youth, her loveliness, her
sweetness: these were charms; but others more transcendent now attended
on, and invested her;--the sacred tenderness of a wife had led her to
his side; and love, in its most genuine and beautiful shape, shed an
atmosphere of delight and worship about her. Not one circumstance could
alloy the unspeakable bliss of their meeting. Poverty, and its
humiliations, vanished from before the eyes of Villiers; he was
overflowingly rich in the possession of her affections--her presence.
Again and again he thanked her, in broken accents of expressive
transport.

"Nothing in the whole world could make me unhappy now!" he cried; and
Ethel, who had seen his face look elongated and gloomy at the moment he
had entered, felt indeed that Medea, with all her potent herbs, was less
of a magician than she, in the power of infusing the sparkling spirit of
life into one human frame. It was long before either were coherent in
their inquiries and replies. There was nothing, indeed, that either
wished to know. Life, and its purposes, were fulfilled, rounded,
complete, without a flaw. They loved, and were together--together, not
for a transitory moment, but for the whole duration of the eternity of
love, which never could be exhausted in their hearts.

After more than an hour spent in gradually becoming acquainted and
familiar with the transporting change, from separate loneliness to
mutual society and sympathy, the good-natured face of Mrs. Derham showed
itself, to announce that Ethel's supper was ready. These words brought
back to Edward's recollection his wife's journey, and consequent
fatigues: he grew more desirous than Mrs. Derham to feed his poor
famished bird, whose eyes, in spite of the joy that shone in them, began
to look languid, and whose cheek was pale. The little supper-table was
laid, and they sat down together.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu has recorded the pleasure to be reaped


"When we meet with champagne and a chicken at last;"


and perhaps social life
contains no combination so full of enjoyment as a tête-à-tête supper.
_Here_ it was, with its highest zest. They feared no prying eyes--they
knew no ill: it was not a scanty hour of joy snatched from an age of
pain--a single spark illuminating a long blank night. It came after
separation, and possessed, therefore, the charm of novelty; but it was
the prelude to a long reunion--the seal set on their being once again
joined, to go through together each hour of the livelong day. Full of
unutterable thankfulness and gladness, as were the minds of each, there
was, besides,


"A sacred and home-felt delight,
A sober certainty of waking bliss,"


which is the crown and fulfilment of perfect human
happiness. "Imparadised" by each other's presence--no doubt--no fear of
division on the morrow-no dread of untoward event, suspicion, or blame,
clouded the balmy atmosphere which their hearts created around them. No.
Eden was required to enhance their happiness; there needed no


"Crisped brooks,
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold;"--


no


"Happy, rural seat, with various view,"


decked with


"Flowers of all hue,"
"All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;"--


nor "cool recess," nor



"Vernal airs,
Breathing the smell of field and grove."


In their narrow
abode--their nook of a room, cut off from the world, redolent only of
smoke and fog--their two fond hearts could build up bowers of delight,
and store them with all of ecstasy which the soul of man can know,
without any assistance of eye, or ear, or scent. So rich, and prodigal,
and glorious, in its gifts, is faithful and true-hearted love,--when it
knows the sacrifices which it must make to merit them, and consents
willingly to forego vanity, selfishness, and the exactions of self-will,
in unlimited and unregretted exchange.

Mutual esteem and gratitude sanctified the unreserved sympathy which
made each so happy in the other. Did they love the less for not loving
"in sin and fear?" Far from it. The certainty of being the cause of good
to each other tended to foster the most delicate of all passions, more
than the rougher ministrations of terror, and a knowledge that each was
the occasion of injury to the other. A woman's heart is peculiarly
unfitted to sustain this conflict. Her sensibility gives keenness to her
imagination, and she magnifies every peril, and writhes beneath every
sacrifice which tends to humiliate her in her own eyes. The natural
pride of her sex struggles with her desire to confer happiness, and her
peace is wrecked.

Far different was the happy Ethel's situation--far otherwise were her
thoughts employed than in concealing the pangs of care and shame. The
sense of right adorned the devotion of love. She read approbation in
Edward's eyes, and drew near him in full consciousness of deserving it.
They sat at their supper, and long after, by the cheerful fire, talking
of a thousand things connected with the present and the future--the
long, long future which they were to spend together; and every now and
then their eyes sparkled with the gladness of renewed delight in seeing
each other. "Mine, my own, for ever!"--And was this exultation in
possession to be termed selfish? by no other reasoning surely, than that
used by a cold and meaningless philosophy, which gives this name to
generosity and truth, and all the nobler passions of the soul. They
congratulated themselves on this mutual property, partly because it had
been a free gift one to the other; partly because they looked forward to
the right it ensured to each, of conferring mutual benefits; and partly
through the instinctive love God has implanted for that which, being
ours, is become the better part of ourselves. They were united for
"better and worse," and there was a sacredness in the thought of the
"worse" they might share, which gave a mysterious and celestial charm to
the present "better."




CHAPTER XVII


Do you not think yourself truly happy?
You have the abstract of all sweetness by you,
The precious wealth youth labours to arrive at,
Nor is she less in honour than in beauty.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.


The following day was one of pouring, unintermitting rain. Villiers and
Ethel drew their chairs near their cheerful fire, and were happy. Edward
could not quite conquer his repugnance to seeing his wife in lodgings,
and in those also of so mean and narrow a description. But the spirit of
Ethel was more disencumbered of earthly particles: that had found its
rest in the very home of Love. The rosy light of the divinity invested
all things for her. Cleopatra on the Cydnus, in the bark which--


"Like a burnished throne
Burnt on the water,"


borne along


"By purple sails . . .
. . . So perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with them;"


was not more
gorgeously attended than Ethel was to her own fancy, lapped and cradled
in all that love has of tender, voluptuous, and confiding.

Several days past before Villiers could withdraw her from this blissful
dream, to gaze upon the world as it was. He could not make her disgusted
with her fortunes nor her abode, but he awakened anxiety on his own
account. His father, as he had conjectured, was gone to Paris, leaving
merely a message for his son, that he would willingly join him in any
act for raising money, by mortgage or the absolute disposal of a part of
the estate. Edward had consulted with his solicitor, who was to look
over a vast variety of papers, to discover the most eligible mode of
making some kind of sale. Delay, in all its various shapes, waited on
these arrangements; and Villiers was very averse to leaving town till he
held some clue to the labyrinth of obstacles which presented themselves
at every turn. He talked of their taking a house in town; but Ethel
would not hear of such extravagance. In the first place, their actual
means were at a very low ebb, with little hope of a speedy supply. There
was another circumstance, the annoyance of which he understood far
better than Ethel could. He had raised money on annuities, the interest
of which he was totally unable to pay; this exposed him to a personal
risk of the most disagreeable kind, and he knew that his chief creditor
was on the point of resorting to harsh measures against him. These
things, dingy-visaged, dirty-handed realities as they were, made a
strange contrast with Ethel's feeling of serene and elevated bliss; but
she, with unshrinking heart, brought the same fortitude and love into
the crooked and sordid ways of modern London, which had adorned heroines
of old, as they wandered amidst trackless forests, and over barren
mountains.

Several days passed, and the weather became clear, though cold. The
young pair walked together in the parks at such morning hours as would
prevent their meeting any acquaintances, for Edward was desirous that it
should not be known that they were in town. Villiers also traced his
daily, weary, disappointing way to his solicitor, where he found things
look more blank and dismal each day. Then when evening came, and the
curtains were drawn, they might have been at the top of Mount Caucasus,
instead of in the centre of London, so completely were they cut off from
every thing except each other. They then felt absolutely happy: the
lingering disgusts of Edward were washed clean away by the bounteous,
everspringing love, that flowed, as waters from a fountain, from the
heart of Ethel, in one perpetual tide.

In those hours of unchecked talk, she learned many things she had not
known before--the love of Horatio Saville for Lady Lodore was revealed to
her; but the story was not truly told, for the prejudices as well as the
ignorance of Villiers rendered him blind to the sincerity of Cornelia's
affection and regret. Ethel wondered, and in spite of the charm with
which she delighted to invest the image of her mother, she could not
help agreeing with her husband that she must be irrevocably wedded to
the most despicable worldly feelings, so to have played with the heart
of a man such as Horatio: a man, whose simplest word bore the stamp of
truth and genius; one of those elected few whom nature elevats to her
own high list of nobility and greatness. How could she, a simple girl,
interest feelings which were not alive to Saville's merits? She could
only hope that in some dazzling marriage Lady Lodore would find a
compensation for the higher destiny which might have been hers, but
that, like the "base Indian," she had thrown


"A pearl away,
Richer than all his tribe."


There was a peaceful quiet in their secluded and obscure life, which
somewhat resembled the hours spent on board ship, when you long for, yet
fear, the conclusion of the voyage, and shrink involuntarily from
exchanging a state, whose chief blessing is an absence of every care,
for the variety of pains and pleasures which chequer life. Ethel
possessed her all--so near, so undivided, so entirely her own, that she
could not enter into Villiers's impatience, nor quite sympathize with
the disquietude he could not repress. After considerable delays, his
solicitor informed him that his father had so entirely disposed of all
his interest in the property, that his readiness to join in any act of
sale would be useless. The next thing to be done was for Edward to sell
a part of his expectations, and the lawyer promised to find a purchaser,
and begged to see him three days hence, when no doubt he should have
some proposal to communicate.

Whoever has known what such things are--whoever has waited on the demurs
and objections, and suffered the alternations of total failure and
suddenly renewed hopes, which are the Tantalus-food held to the lips of
those under the circumstances of Villiers, can follow in imagination his
various conferences with his solicitor, as day after day something new
was discovered, still to drag on, or to impede, the tortoise pace of his
negociations. It will be no matter of wonder to such, that a month
instead of three days wasted away, and found him precisely in the same
position, with hopes a little raised, though so frequently blasted, and
nothing done.

In recording the annoyances, or rather the adversity which the young
pair endured at this period, a risk is run, on the one hand, of being
censured for bringing the reader into contact with degrading and sordid
miseries; and on the other, of laying too much stress on circumstances
which will appear to those in a lower sphere of life, as scarcely
deserving the name of misfortune. It is very easy to embark on the wild
ocean of romance, and to steer a danger-fraught passage, amidst giant
perils,--the very words employed, excite the imagination, and give grace
to the narrative. But all beautiful and fairylike as was Ethel Villiers,
in tracing her fortunes, it is necessary to descend from such altitudes,
to employ terms of vulgar use, and to describe scenes of common-place
and debasing interest; so that, if she herself, in her youth and
feminine tenderness, does not shed light and holiness around her, we
shall grope darkling, and fail utterly in the scope which we proposed to
ourselves in selecting her history for the entertainment of the reader.




CHAPTER XVIII


I saw her upon nearer view,
A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
A Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

WORDSWORTH.


The end of December had come. New year's day found and left them still
in Duke Street. On the 4th of January Villiers received a letter from
his uncle, Lord Maristow, entrusting a commission to him, which obliged
him to go to the neighbourhood of Egham. Not having a horse, he went by
the stage. He set out so late in the day that there was no chance of his
returning the same night; and he promised to be back early on the
morrow. Ethel had letters to write to Italy and to her aunt; and with
these she tried to beguile the time. She felt lonely; the absence of
Villiers for so many hours engendered an anxiety, which she found some
difficulty in repressing. Accustomed to have him perpetually at her
side, and without any other companion or resource, she repined at her
solitude. There was his empty chair, and no hope that he would occupy
it; and she sat in her little room so near to thousands, and yet so cut
off from every one, with such a sense of desolation as Mungo Park might
have felt in central Africa, or a shipwrecked mariner on an uninhabited
island.

Her pen was taken up, but she did not write. She could not command her
thoughts to express any thing but the overflowing, devoted,
all-engrossing affection of her heart, her adoration for her husband;
that would not amuse Lucy,--she thought: and she had commenced another
sheet with "My dearest Aunt," when the maid-servant ushered a man into
her presence--a stranger, a working man. What could he want with her? He
seemed confused, and stammered out, "Mr. Villiers is not in?"

"He will be at home to-morrow, if you want him; or have you any message
that I can give?"

"You are Mrs. Villiers, ma'am?"

"Yes, my good man, I am Mrs. Villiers."

"If you please, ma'am, I am Saunders, one of the porters at the Union
Club."

"I remember: has any message come there? or does Mr. Villiers owe you
any money?" and her purse was in her hand.

"O no, ma'am. Mr. Villiers is a good gentleman; and he has been petiklar
generous to me--and that is why I come, because I am afraid," continued
the man, lowering his tone, "that he is in danger."

"Good heavens! Where? how?" cried Ethel, starting from her chair. "Tell
me at once."

"Yes, ma'am, I will; so you must know that this evening--"

"Yes, this evening. What has happened? he left me at six o'clock--what
is it?"

"Nothing, I hope, this evening, ma'am. I am only afraid for to-morrow
morning. And I will tell you all I know, as quick as ever I can."

The man then proceeded to relate, that some one had been inquiring about
Mr. Villiers at the Club House. One of the servants had told him that he
lived in Duke Street, St. James's, and that was all he knew; but
Saunders came up, and the man questioned him. He instantly recognized
the fellow, and knew what his business must be. And he tried to deceive
him, and declared that Mr. Villiers was gone out of town; but the fellow
said that he knew better than that; and that he had been seen that very
day in the Strand. He should look for him, no thanks to Saunders, in
Duke Street. "And so, ma'am, you see they'll be sure to be here early
to-morrow morning. So don't let Mr. Villiers stay here, on no account
whatsomever."

"Why?" asked Ethel, simply; "they can't hurt him."

"I am sure, ma'am," said Saunders, his face brightening, "I am very glad
to hear that--you know best. They will arrest him for sure, but--"

"Arrest him!"

"Yes, ma'am, for I've seen the tall one before. There were two of
them--bailiffs."

Ethel now began to tremble violently; these were strange, cabalistic
words to her, the more awful from their mystery. "What am I to do?" she
exclaimed; "Mr. Villiers will be here in the morning, he sleeps at
Egham, and will be here early; I must go to him directly."

"I am glad to hear he is so far," said Saunders; "and if I can be of any
use you have but to say it; shall I go to Egham? there are night coaches
that go through, and I might warn him."

Ethel thought--she feared to do any thing--she imagined that she should
be watched, that all her endeavours would be of no avail. She looked at
the man, honesty was written on his face; but there was no intelligence,
nothing to tell her that his advice was good. The possibility of such an
event as the present had never occurred to her. Villiers had been silent
with regard to his fears on this head. She was suddenly transported into
a strange sea, hemmed in by danger, without a pilot or knowledge of a
passage. Again she looked at the man's face: "What is best to be done!"
she exclaimed.

"I am sure, ma'am" he replied, as if she had asked him the question, "I
think what I said is best, if you will tell me where I can find Mr.
Villiers. I should think nothing of going, and he could send word by me
what he wished you to do."

"Yes, that would indeed be a comfort. I will write three lines, and you
shall take them." In a moment she had written. "Give this note into his
own hand, he will sleep there--I have written the direction of the
house--or at some inn, at Egham. Do not rest till you have given the
letter, and here is for your trouble." She held out two sovereigns.

"Depend on me, ma'am; and I will bring an answer to you by nine in the
morning. Mr. Villiers will pay me what he thinks fit--you may want your
money. Only, ma'am, don't be frightened when them men come to-morrow--if
the people here are good sort of folks, you had better give them a
hint--it may save you trouble."

"Thank you: you are a good man, and I will remember you, and reward you.
By nine to-morrow--you will be punctual?"

The man again assured her that he would use all diligence, and took his
leave.

Ethel felt totally overwhelmed by these tidings. The unknown is always
terrible, and the ideas of arrest, and prison, and bolts, and bars, and
straw, floated before her imagination. Was Villiers safe even where he
was? Would not the men make inquiries, learn where he had gone, and
follow him, even if it were to the end of the world? She had heard of
the activity employed to arrest criminals, and mingled every kind of
story in her head, till she grew desperate from terror. Not knowing what
else to do, she became eager for Mrs. Derham's advice, and hurried down
stairs to ask it.

She had not seen much of the good lady since her first arrival. Every
day, when Villiers went out, she came up, indeed, on the momentous
question of "orders for dinner;" and then she bestowed the benefit of
some five or ten minutes garrulity on her fair lodger. Ethel learnt that
she had seen better days, and that were justice done her, she ought to
be riding in her coach, instead of letting lodgings. She learnt that she
had a married daughter living at Kennington: poor enough, but struggling
on cheerfully with her mother's help. The best girl in the world she
was, and a jewel of a wife, and had two of the most beautiful children
that ever were beheld.

This was all that Ethel knew, except that once Mrs. Derham had brought
her one of her grandchildren to be seen and admired. In all that the
good woman said, there was so much kindness, such a cheerful endurance
of the ills of life, and she had shown such a readiness to oblige, that
the idea of applying to her for advice, relieved Ethel's mind of much of
its load of anxiety.

She was too much agitated to think of ringing for the servant, to ask to
see her; but hurried down stairs, and knocked at the parlour-door almost
before she was aware of what she was doing. "Come in," said a feminine
voice. Ethel entered, and started to see one she knew;--and yet again
she doubted;--was it indeed Fanny Derham whom she beheld?

The recognition afforded mutual pleasure: checked a little on Ethel's
part, by her anxieties; and on Fanny's, by a feeling that she had been
neglected by her friend. A few letters had passed between them, when
first Ethel had visited Longfield: since then their correspondence had
been discontinued till after her return to England, from Italy, when
Mrs. Villiers had wrote; but her letter was returned by the post-office,
no such person being to be found according to the address.

The embarrassment of the moment passed away. Ethel forgot, or rather did
not advert to, her friend's lowly destiny, in the joy of meeting her
again. After a minute or two, also, they had become familiar with the
change that time had operated in their youthful appearance, which was
not much, and most in Ethel. Her marriage, and conversance with the
world, had changed her into a woman, and endowed her with easy manners
and self-possession. Fanny was still a mere girl; tall, beyond the
middle height, yet her young, ingenuous countenance was unaltered, as
well as that singular mixture of mildness and independence, in her
manners, which had always characterized her. Her light blue eyes beamed
with intelligence, and her smile expressed the complacency and
condescension of a superior being. Her beauty was all intellectual:
open, sincere, passionless, yet benignant, you approached her without
fear of encountering any of the baser qualities of human beings,--their
hypocrisy, or selfishness. Those who have seen the paintings of the
calm-visaged, blue-eyed deities of the frescos of Pompeii, may form an
idea of the serene beauty of Fanny Derham.

When Mrs. Villiers entered, she was reading earnestly--a large
dictionary open before her. The book on which she was intent was in
Greek characters. "You have not forgotten your old pursuits," said
Ethel, smiling.

"Say rather I am more wedded to them than ever," she replied; "since,
more than ever, I need them to give light and glory to a dingy world.
But you, dear Ethel, if so I may call you,--you looked anxious as you
entered: you wish to speak to my mother;--she is gone to Kennington, and
will not return to-night. Can I be of any use?"

Her mother! how strange! and Mrs. Derham, while she had dilated with
pride on her elder daughter, had never mentioned this pearl of price,
which was her's also.

"Alas! I fear not!" replied Ethel; "it is experience I need--experience
in things you can know nothing about, nor your mother either, probably;
yet she may have heard of such things, and know how to advise me."

Mrs. Villiers then explained the sources of her disquietude. Fanny
listened with looks of the kindest sympathy. "Even in such things," she
said, "I have had experience. Adversity and I are become very close
friends since I last saw you: we are intimate, and I know much good of
her; so she is grateful, and repays me by prolonging her stay. Be
composed: no ill will happen, I trust, to Mr. Villiers;--at least you
need not be afraid of his being pursued. It the man you have sent be
active and faithful, all will be well. I will see these troublesome
people to-morrow, when they come, and prevent your being annoyed. If
Saunders returns early, and brings tidings of Mr. Villiers, you will
know what his wishes are. You can do nothing more to-night; and there is
every probability that all will be well."

"Do you really think so?" cried Mrs. Villiers. "O that I had gone with
him!--never will I again let him go any where without me."

Fanny entered into more minute explanations, and succeeded, to a great
degree, in calming her friend. She accompanied her back to her own room,
and sat with her long. She entered into the details of her own
history:--the illness and death of her father; the insulting treatment
her mother had met from his family; the kindness of a relation of her
own, who had assisted them, and enabled them to pursue their present
mode of life, which procured them a livelihood. Fanny spoke generally of
these circumstances, and in a spirit that seemed to disdain that such
things were; not because they were degrading in the eyes of others, but
because they interfered with the philosophic leisure, and enjoyment of
nature, which she so dearly prized. She thought nothing of privation, or
the world's impertinence; but much of being immured in the midst of
London, and being forced to consider the inglorious necessities of life.
Her desire to be useful to her mother induced her often to spend
precious time in "making the best of things," which she would readily
have dispensed with altogether, as the easiest, as well as the wisest,
way of freeing herself from their trammels. Her narration interested
Ethel, and served to calm her mind. She thought--"Can I not bear those
cares with equanimity for Edward's sake, which Fanny regards as so
trivial, merely because Plato and Epictetus bid her do so? Will not the
good God, who has implanted in her heart so cheerless a consolation,
bring comfort to mine, which has no sorrow but for another's sake?"

These reflections tranquillized her, when she laid her head on her
pillow at night. She resigned her being and destiny to a Power superior
to any earthly authority, with a conviction, that its most benign
influence would be extended over her.
END OF VOL. II.

CHAPTER I


If the dull substance of my flesh were thought,
Injurious distance should not stop my way;
For then, despite of space, I would be brought,
From limits far remote, where thou dost stay.

SHAKSPEARE.


The still hours of darkness passed silently away, and morning dawned,
when


All rose to do the task, he set to each
Who shaped us to his ends, and not our own.


Ethel had slept peacefully through the livelong night;
nor woke till a knock at her door roused her. A rush of fear--a sense of
ill, made her heart palpitate as she opened her eyes to the light of
day. While she was striving to recall her thoughts, and to remember what
the evil was with which she was threatened, again the servant tapped at
her door, to say that Saunders had returned, and to deliver the letter
he had brought. She looked at her watch: it was past ten o'clock. She
felt glad that it had grown so late, and she not disturbed: yet as she
took the letter brought to her from her husband, all her tremor
returned; and she read it with agitation, as if it contained the
announcement of her final doom.


"You send me disagreeable tidings, my sweet Ethel," wrote Villiers,--"I
hope unfounded; but caution is necessary: I shall not, therefore, come
to Duke Street. Send me a few lines, by Saunders, to tell me if any
thing has happened. If what he apprehended has really taken place, you
must bear, my love, the separation of a day. You do not understand these
things, and will wonder when I tell you, that when the clock strikes
twelve on Saturday night, the magic spells and potent charms of
Saunders's friends cease to have power: at that hour I shall be restored
to you. Wait till then--and _then_ we will consult for the future. Have
patience, dearest love: you have wedded poverty, hardship, and
annoyance; but, joined to these, is the fondest, the most faithful heart
in the world;--a heart you deign to prize, so I will not repine at ill
fortune. Adieu, till this evening;--and then, as Belvidera says,
'Remember twelve!'

"_Saturday Morning._"


After reading these lines, Ethel dressed herself hastily. Fanny Derham
had already asked permission to see her; and she found her waiting in
her sitting-room. It was an unspeakable comfort to have one as
intelligent and kind as Fanny, to communicate with, during Edward's
absence. The soft, pleading eyes of Ethel asked her for comfort and
counsel; and, in spite of her extreme youth, the benignant and
intelligent expression of Fanny's countenance promised both.

"I am sorry to say," she said, "that Saunders's prognostics are too
true. Such men as he describes have been here this morning. They were
tolerably civil, and I convinced them, with greater ease than I had
hoped, that Mr. Villiers was absent from the house; and I assured them,
that after this visit of theirs, he was not likely to return."

"And do you really believe that they were"--Ethel faltered.

"Bailiffs? Assuredly," replied Fanny: "they told me that they had the
power to search the house; but if they were 'strong,' they were also
'merciful.' And now, what do you do? Saunders tells me he is waiting to
take back a letter to Mr. Villiers, at the London Coffee House. Write
quickly, while I make your breakfast."

Ethel gladly obeyed. She wrote a few words to her husband. That it was
already Saturday, cheered her: twelve at night would soon come.

After her note was dispatched, she addressed Fanny. "What trouble I
give," she said: "what will your mother think of such degrading
proceedings?"

"My mother," said Fanny, "is the kindest-hearted woman in the world. We
have never exactly suffered this disaster; but we are in a rank of life
which causes us to be brought into contact with such among our friends
and relations; and she is familiar with trouble in almost all shapes.
You are a great favourite of hers; and now that she can claim a sort of
acquaintance, she will be heart and soul your friend."

"It is odd," observed Ethel, "that she never mentioned you to me. Had
the name of Fanny been mentioned, I should have recollected who Mrs.
Derham was."

"Perhaps not," said Fanny; "it would have required a great effort of the
imagination to have fancied Mrs. Derham the wife of my father. You never
knew him; but Lord Lodore made you familiar with his qualities: the most
shrinking susceptibility to the world's scorn, joined to the most entire
abstraction from all that is vulgar; a morbid sensibility and delicate
health placed him in glaring contrast with my mother. They never in the
least assimilated; and her character has gained in excellence since his
loss. Before she was fretted and galled by his finer feelings--now she
can be good in her own way. Nothing reminds her of his exalted
sentiments, except myself; and she is willing enough to forget me."

"And you do not repine?" asked her friend.

"I do not: she is happy in and with Sarah. I should spoil their notions
of comfort, did I mingle with them;--they would torture and destroy me,
did they interfere with me. I lost my guide, preserver, my guardian
angel, when my father died. Nothing remains but the philosophy which he
taught me--the disdain of low-thoughted care which he sedulously
cultivated: this, joined to my cherished independence, which my
disposition renders necessary to me."

"And thus you foster sorrow, and waste your life in vain regrets?"

"Pardon me! I do not waste my life," replied Fanny, with her sunny
smile;--"nor am I unhappy--far otherwise. An ardent thirst for
knowledge, is as the air I breathe; and the acquisition of it, is pure
and unalloyed happiness. I aspire to be useful to my fellow-creatures:
but that is a consideration for the future, when fortune shall smile on
me; now I have but one passion; it swallows up every other; it dwells
with my darling books, and is fed by the treasures of beauty and wisdom
which they contain."

Ethel could not understand. Fanny continued:--"I aspire to be
useful;--sometimes I think I am--once I know I was. I was my father's
almoner.

"We lived in a district where there was a great deal of distress, and a
great deal of oppression. We had no money to give, but I soon found that
determination and earnestness will do much. It was my father's lesson,
that I should never fear any thing but myself. He taught me to
penetrate, to anatomize, to purify my motives; but once assured of my
own integrity, to be afraid of nothing. Words have more power than any
one can guess; it is by words that the world's great fight, now in these
civilized times, is carried on; I never hesitated to use them, when I
fought any battle for the miserable and oppressed. People are so afraid
to speak, it would seem as if half our fellow-creatures were born with
deficient organs; like parrots they can repeat a lesson, but their voice
fails them, when that alone is wanting to make the tyrant quail."

As Fanny spoke, her blue eyes brightened, and a smile irradiated her
face; these were all the tokens of enthusiasm she displayed, yet her
words moved Ethel strangely, and she looked on her with wonder as a
superior being. Her youth gave grace to her sentiments, and were an
assurance of their sincerity. She continued:--

"I am becoming flightly, as my mother calls it; but, as I spoke, many
scenes of cottage distress passed through my memory, when, holding my
father's hand, I witnessed his endeavours to relieve the poor. That is
all over now--he is gone, and I have but one consolation--that of
endeavouring to render myself worthy to rejoin him in a better world. It
is this hope that impels me continually and without any flagging of
spirit, to cultivate my understanding and to refine it. O what has this
life to give, as worldlings describe it, worth one of those glorious
emotions, which raise me from this petty sphere, into the sun-bright
regions of mind, which my father inhabits! I am rewarded even here by
the elevated feelings which the authors, whom I love so passionately,
inspire; while I converse each day with Plato, and Cicero, and
Epictetus, the world, as it is, passes from before me like a vain
shadow."

These enthusiastic words were spoken with so calm a manner, and in so
equable a voice, that there seemed nothing strange nor exaggerated in
them. It is vanity and affectation that shock, or any manifestation of
feeling not in accordance with the real character. But while we follow
our natural bent, and only speak that which our minds spontaneously
inspire, there is a harmony, which, however novel, is never grating.
Fanny Derham spoke of things, which, to use her own expression, were to
her as the air she breathed, and the simplicity of her manner entirely
obviated the wonder which the energy of her expressions might occasion.

Such a woman as Fanny was more made to be loved by her own sex than by
the opposite one. Superiority of intellect, joined to acquisitions
beyond those usual even to men; and both announced with frankness,
though without pretension, forms a kind of anomaly little in accord with
masculine taste. Fanny could not be the rival of women, and, therefore,
all her merits were appreciated by them. They love to look up to a
superior being, to rest on a firmer support than their own minds can
afford; and they are glad to find such in one of their own sex, and thus
destitute of those dangers which usually attend any services conferred
by men.

From talk like this, they diverged to subjects nearer to the heart of
Ethel. They spoke of Lord Lodore, and her father's name soothed her
agitation even more than the consolatory arguments of her friend. She
remembered how often he had talked of the trials to which the constancy of
her temper and the truth of her affection might be put, and she felt her
courage rise to encounter those now before her, without discontent, or
rather with that cheerful fortitude, which sheds grace over the rugged
form of adversity.




CHAPTER II


_Marian._ Could you so long be absent?
_Robin._ What a week?
Was that so long?
_Marian._ How long are lovers' weeks,
Do you think, Robin, when they are asunder?
Are they not pris'ners' years?

BEN JONSON.


The day passed on more lightly than Ethel could have hoped; much of it
indeed was gone before she opened her eyes to greet it. Night soon
closed in, and she busied herself with arrangements for the welcome of
her husband. Fanny loved solitude too well herself not to believe that
others shared her taste. She retired therefore when evening commenced.
No sooner was Ethel alone, than every image except Edward's passed out
of her mind. Her heart was bursting with affection. Every other idea and
thought, to use a chemical expression, was held in solution by that
powerful feeling, which mingled and united with every particle of her
soul. She could not write nor read; if she attempted, before she had
finished the shortest sentence, she found that her understanding was
wandering, and she re-read it with no better success. It was as if a
spring, a gush from the fountain of love poured itself in, bearing away
every object which she strove to throw upon the stream of thought, till
its own sweet waters alone filled the channel through which it flowed.
She gave herself up to the bewildering influence, and almost forgot to
count the hours till Edward's expected arrival. At last it was ten
o'clock, and then the sting of impatience and uncertainty was felt. It
appeared to her as if a whole age had passed since she had seen or heard
of him--as if countless events and incalculable changes might have taken
place. She read again and again his note, to assure herself that she
might really expect him: the minutes meanwhile stood still, or were told
heavily by the distinct beating of her heart. The east wind bore to her
ear the sound of the quarters of hours, as they chimed from various
churches. At length eleven, half-past eleven was passed, and the hand of
her watch began to climb slowly upwards toward the zenith, which she
desired so ardently that it should reach. She gazed on the dial-plate,
till she fancied that the pointers did not move; she placed her hands
before her eyes resolutely, and would not look for a long long time;
three minutes had not been travelled over when again she viewed it; she
tried to count her pulse, as a measurement of time; her trembling
fingers refused to press the fluttering artery. At length another
quarter of an hour elapsed, and then the succeeding one hurried on more
speedily. Clock after clock struck; they mingled their various tones, as
the hour of twelve was tolled throughout London. It seemed as if they
would never end. Silence came at last--a brief silence succeeded by a
firm quick step in the street below, and a knock at the door. "Is he not
too soon?" poor fearful Ethel asked herself. But no; and in a moment
after, he was with her, safe in her glad embrace.

Perhaps of the two, Villiers showed himself the most enraptured at this
meeting. He gazed on his sweet wife, followed every motion, and hung
upon her voice, with all the delight of an exile, restored to his
long-lost home. "What a transporting change," he said, "to find myself
with you--to see you in the same room with me--to know again that,
lovely and dear as you are, that you are mine--that I am again
myself--not the miserable dog that has been wandering about all day--a
body without a soul! For a few short hours, at least, Ethel will call me
hers."

"Indeed, indeed, love," she replied, "we will not be separated again."

"We will not even think about that tonight," said Villiers. "The future
is dark and blank, the present as radiant as your own sweet self can
make it."

On the following day--and the following day did come, in spite of
Ethel's wishes, which would have held back the progress of time: it came
and passed away; hour after hour stealing along, till it dwindled to a
mere point. On the following day, they consulted earnestly on what was
to be done. Villiers was greatly averse to Ethel's leaving her present
abode, where every one was so very kind and attentive to her, and he was
sanguine in his hopes of obtaining in the course of the week, just
commenced, a sum, sufficient to carry them to Paris or Brussels, were
they could remain till his affairs were finally arranged, and the
payment of his debts regulated in a way to satisfy his creditors. One
week of absence; Villiers used all his persuasion to induce Ethel to
submit to it. "Where you can be, I can be also," was her answer; and she
listened unconvinced to the detail of the inconveniences which Villiers
pointed out: at last he almost got angry. "I could call you unkind,
Ethel," he said, "not to yield to me."

"I will yield to you," said Ethel, "but you are wrong to ask me."

"Never mind that," replied her husband, "do concede this point, dearest;
if not because it is best that you should, then because I wish it, and
ask it of you. You say that your first desire is to make me happy, and
you pain me exceedingly by your--I had almost said perverseness."

Thus, not convinced, but obedient, Ethel agreed to allow him to depart
alone. She bargained that she should be permitted to come each day in a
hackney coach to a place where he might meet her, and they could spend
an hour or two together. Edward did not like this plan at all, but there
was no remedy. "You are at least resolved," he said, "to spur my
endeavours; I will not rest day or night, till I am enabled to get away
from this vast dungeon."

The hours stole on. Even Edward's buoyant spirits could not bear up
against the sadness of watching the fleeting moments till the one should
come, which must separate him from his wife. "This nice, dear room," he
said, "I am sure I beg its pardon for having despised it so much
formerly--it is not as lofty as a church, nor as grand as a palace, but
it is very snug; and now you are in it, I discern even elegance in its
exceedingly queer tables and chairs. When our carriage broke down on the
Apennines, how glad we should have been if a room like this had risen,
'like an exhalation' for our shelter! Do you remember the barn of a
place we got into there, and our droll bed of the leaves of Indian corn,
which crackled all night long, and awoke us twenty times with the fear
of robbers? Then, indeed, twelve o'clock was not to separate us!"

As he said this he sighed; the hour of eleven was indicated by Ethel's
watch, and still he lingered; but she grew frightened for him, and
forced him to go away, while he besought the delay of but a few minutes.

Ethel exerted herself to endure as well as she could the separation of
the ensuing week. She was not of a repining disposition, yet she found
it very hard to bear. The discomfort to which Villiers was exposed
annoyed her, and the idea that she was not permitted to alleviate it
added to her painful feelings. In her prospect of life every evil was
neutralized when shared--now they were doubled, because the pain of
absence from each other was superadded. She did not yield to her
husband, in her opinion that this was wrong. She was willing to go
anywhere with him, and where he was, she also could be. There could be
no degradation in a wife waiting on the fallen fortunes of her husband.
No debasement can arise from any services dictated by love. It is
despicable to submit to hardship for unworthy and worldly objects, but
every thing that is suffered for the sake of affection, is hallowed by
the disinterested sentiment, and affords triumph and delight to the
willing victim. Sometimes she tried in speech or on paper to express
these feelings, and so by the force of irresistible reasoning to
persuade Edward to permit her to join him; but all argument was weak;
there was something beyond, that no words could express, which was
stronger than any reason in her heart. Who can express the power of
faithful and single-hearted love? As well attempt to define the laws of
life, which occasions a continuity of feeling from the brain to the
extremity of the frame, as try to explain how love can so unite two
souls, as to make each feel maimed and half alive, while divided. A
powerful impulse was perpetually urging Ethel to go--to place herself
near Villiers--to refuse to depart. It was with the most violent
struggles that she overcame the instigation.

She never could forget herself while away from him, or find the
slightest alleviation to her disquietude, except while conversing with
Fanny Derham, or rather while drawing her out, and listening to her, and
wondering at a mechanism of mind so different from her own. Each had
been the favourite daughter of men of superior qualities of mind. They
had been educated by their several fathers with the most sedulous care,
and nothing could be more opposite than the result, except that, indeed,
both made duty the master motive of their actions. Ethel had received,
so to speak, a sexual education. Lord Lodore had formed his ideal of what a
woman ought to be, of what he had wished to find his wife, and sought to
mould his daughter accordingly. Mr. Derham contemplated the duties and
objects befitting an immortal soul, and had educated his child for the
performance of them. The one fashioned his offspring to be the wife of a
frail human being, and instructed her to be yielding, and to make it her
duty to devote herself to his happiness, and to obey his will. The other
sought to guard his from all weakness, to make her complete in herself,
and to render her independent and self-sufficing. Born to poverty as
Fanny was, it was thus only that she could find happiness in rising
above her sphere; and, besides, a sense of pride, surviving his sense of
injury, caused him to wish that his child should set her heart on higher
things, than the distinctions and advantages of riches or rank; so that
if ever brought into collision with his own family, she could look down
with calm superiority on the "low ambition" of the wealthy. While Ethel
made it her happiness and duty to give herself away with unreserved
prodigality to him, whom she thought had every claim to her entire
devotion; Fanny zealously guarded her individuality, and would have
scorned herself could she have been brought to place the treasures of
her soul at the disposal of any power, except those moral laws which it
was her earnest endeavour never to transgress. Religion, reason, and
justice--these were the landmarks of her life. She was kind-hearted,
generous, and true--so also was Ethel; but the one was guided by the
tenderness of her heart, while the other consulted her understanding,
and would have died rather than have acted contrary to its dictates.

To guard Ethel from every contamination, Lord Lodore had secluded her from
all society, and forestalled every circumstance that might bring her into
conjunction with her fellow-creatures. He was equally careful to prevent
her fostering any pride, except that of sex; and never spoke to her as
if she were of an elevated rank: and the communication, however small,
which she necessarily had with the Americans, made such ideas foreign to
her mind. But she was excedingly shy; tremblingly alive to the slightest
repulse; and never perfectly fearless, (morally so, that is), except
when under the shelter of another's care. Fanny's first principle was,
that what she ought to do, that she could do, without hesitation or
regard for obstacles. She had something Quixotic in her nature; or
rather she would have had, if a clear head and some experience, even
young as she was, had not stood in the way of her making any glaring
mistakes; so that her enterprises were never ridiculous; and being
usually successful, could not be called extravagant. For herself, she
needed but her liberty and her books;--for others, she had her time, her
thoughts, her decided and resolute modes of action, all at their
command, whenever she was convinced that they had a just claim upon
them.

It was singular that the resolute and unshrinking Fanny should be the
daughter of Francis Derham; and the timid, retiring Ethel, of his bold
and daring protector. But this is no uncommon case. We feel the evil
results of our own faults, and endeavour to guard our children from
them; forgetful that the opposite extreme has also its peculiar dangers.
Lord Lodore attributed his early misfortunes to the too great freedom he
had enjoyed, or rather to the unlimited scope given to his will, from his
birth. Mr. Derham saw the unhappiness that had sprung from his own
yielding and undecided disposition. The one brought up his child to
dependence; the other taught his to disdain every support, except the
applause of her own conscience. Lodore fostered all the sensibility, all
the softness, of Ethel's feminine and delicat nature; while Fanny's
father strove to harden and confirm a character, in itself singularly
stedfast and upright.

In spite of the great contrast thus exhibited between Ethel and Fanny,
one quality created a good deal of similarity between them. There was in
both a total absence of every factitious sentiment. They acted from
their own hearts--from their own sense of right, without the
intervention of worldly considerations. A feeling of duty ruled all
their actions; and, however excellent a person's dispositions may be, it
yet requires considerable elevation of character never to deviate from
the strict line of honour and integrity.

Fanny's society a little relieved Ethel's solitude: yet that did not
weigh on her; and had she not been the child of her father's earliest
friend, and the companion of past days, she would have been disinclined,
at this period, to cultivate an intimacy with her. She needed no
companion except the thought of Edward, which was never absent from her
mind. But amidst all her affection for her husband, which gained
strength, and, as it were, covered each day a larger portion of her
being, any one associated with the name of Lodore--of her beloved father,
had a magic power to call forth her warmest feelings of interest. Both
ladies repeated to each other what they had heard from their several
parents. Mr. Derham had, among his many lessons of usefulness, descanted
on the generosity and boldness of Fitzhenry, as offering an example to
be followed. And during the last months of Lodore's life, he had
recurred, with passionate fondness, to the memory of his early years,
and painted in glowing colours the delicacy of feeling, the deep sense
of gratitude, and the latent but fervid enthusiasm, which adorned the
character of Francis Derham.




CHAPTER III


It does much trouble me to live without you:
Our loves and loving souls have been so used
To one household in us.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.


The week passed on. It was the month of January, and very cold. A black
frost bound up every thing with ice, and the piercing air congealed the
very blood. Each day Ethel went to see her husband;--each day she had to
encounter Mrs. Derham's intreaties not to go, and the reproaches of
Villiers for coming. Both were unavailing to prevent the daily
pilgrimage. Mrs. Derham sighed heavily when she saw her enter the
ricketty hackney-coach, whose damp lining, gaping windows, and miserable
straw, made it a _cold-bed_ for catarrh--a very temple for the spirit of
winter. Villiers each day besought her to have horses put to their
chariot, if she must come; but Ethel remembered all he had ever said of
expense, and his prognostications of how ill she would be able to endure
the petty, yet galling annoyances of poverty; and she resolved to prove,
that she could cheerfully bear every thing except separation from him.
With this laudable motive to incite her, she tasked her strength too
far. She kept up her spirits to meet him with a cheerful countenance;
and she contrived to conceal the sufferings she endured while they were
together. They got out and walked now and then; and this tended to keep
up the vital warmth. Their course was generally taken over Blackfriars
Bridge; and it was on their return across the river, on whose surface
large masses of ice floated, while a bitter north-east wind swept up,
bearing on its blasts the unthawed breath of the German Ocean, that she
felt the cold enter her heart, and make her head feel dizzy. Still she
could smile, and ask Villiers why he objected to her taking an exercise
even necessary for her health; and repeat again and again, that, bred in
America, an English winter was but a faint reflex of what she had
encountered there, and insist upon being permitted to come on the
following day. These were precious moments in her eyes, worth all the
pain they occasioned,--well worth the struggle she made for the
repetition. Edward's endearing attentions--the knowledge she had that
she was loved--the swelling and earnest affection that warmed her own
heart,--hallowed these hard-earned minutes, and gave her the sweet
pleasure of knowing that she demonstrated, in some slight degree, the
profound and all engrossing attachment which pervaded her entire being.
They parted; and often she arrived nearly senseless at Duke Street, and
once or twice fainted on entering the warm room: but it was not pain she
felt then--the emotions of the soul conquered the sensation of her body,
and pleasure, the intense pleasure of affection, was predominant through
all.

Sunday came again, and brought Villiers to her home. Mrs. Derham took
the opportunity to represent to him the injury that Ethel was doing
herself; and begged him, as he cared for her health, to forbid her
exposing herself to the inclement weather.

"You hear this, Ethel," said Villiers; "and yet you are obstinate. It
this right? What can I urge, what can I do, to prevent this wrong-headed
pertinacity?"

"You use such very hard words," replied Ethel, smiling, "that you
frighten me into believing myself criminal. But so far am I from
conceding, that you only give me courage to say, that I cannot any
longer endure the sad and separate life we lead. It must be changed,
dearest; we must be together."

Villiers was pacing the room impatiently: with an exclamation almost
approaching to anger, he stopped before his wife, to remonstrate and to
reproach. But as he gazed upon her upturned face, fixed so beseechingly
and fondly on him, he fancied that he saw the hues of ill-health
stealing across her cheeks, and thinness displacing the roundness of her
form. A strange emotion flashed across him; a new fear, too terrible
even to be acknowledged to himself, which passed, like the shadow of a
storm, across his anticipations, and filled him with inquietude. His
reprehension was changed to a caress, as he said, "You are right, my
love, quite right; we must not live thus. You are unable to take care of
yourself; and I am very wrong to give up my dearest privilege, of
watching day and night over the welfare of my only treasure. We will be
together, Ethel; if the worst come, it cannot be very bad, while we are
true to each other."

Tears filled the poor girl's eyes--tears of joy and tenderness--at
hearing Edward echo the sentiments she cherished as the most sacred in
the world. For a few minutes, they forgot every thing in the
affectionate kiss, which ratified, as it were, this new law; and then
Edward considered how best he could carry it into effect.

"Gayland," he said, (he was his solicitor,) "has appointed to see me on
Thursday morning, and has good hopes of definitively arranging the
conditions for the loan of the five hundred pounds, which is to enable
us to wait for better things. On Thursday evening, we will leave town.
We will go to some pretty country inn, to wait till I have signed these
papers; and trust to Providence that no ill will arise. We must not be
more than fifteen or twenty miles from London; so that when I am obliged
to go up, I can return again in a few hours. Tell me, sweet, does this
scheme please you?"

Ethel expressed her warmest gratitude; and then Villiers insinuated his
condition, that she should not come to see him in the interval, but
remain, taking care of herself, till, on Thursday afternoon, at six
o'clock, she came, with their chariot, to the northern side of St.
Paul's Churchyard, where he would immediately join her. They might
write, meanwhile: he promised letters as long as if they were to go to
India; and soothed her annoyance with every expression of thankfulness
at her giving up this point. She did give it up, with all the readiness
she could muster; and this increased, as he dwelt upon the enjoyment
they would share, in exchanging foggy, smoky London, for the
ever-pleasing aspect of nature, which, even during frost and snow,
possesses her own charms--her own wonders; and can gratify our senses by
a thousand forms of beauty, which have no existence in a dingy
metropolis.

When the evening hour came for the young pair to separate, their hearts
were cheered by the near prospect of re-union; and a belief that the, to
them, trivial privations of poverty were the only ones they would have
to endure. The thrill of fear which had crossed the mind of Villiers, as
to the health and preservation of his wife, had served to dissipate the
lingering sense of shame and degradation inspired by the penury of their
situation. He felt that there was something better than wealth, and the
attendance of his fellow-creatures; something worse than poverty, and
the world's scorn. Within the fragile form of Ethel, there beat a heart
of more worth than a king's ransom; and its pulsations were ruled by
him. To lose her! What would all that earth can afford, of power or
splendour, appear without her? He pressed her to his bosom, and knew
that his arms encircled all life's worth for him. Never again could he
forget the deep-felt appreciation of her value, which then took root in
his mind; while she, become conscious, by force of sympathy, of the kind
of revolution that was made in his sentiments, felt that the foundations
of her life grew strong, and that her hopes in this world became
stedfast and enduring. Before, a wall of separation, however slight, had
divided them; they had followed a system of conduct independent of each
other, and passed their censure upon the ideas of either. This was over
now--they were one--one sense of right--one feeling of happiness; and
when they parted that night, each felt that they truly possessed the
other; and that by mingling every hope and wish, they had confirmed the
marriage of their hearts.




CHAPTER IV


. . . . . . Think but whither
Now you can go; what you can do to live;
How near you have barred all ports to your own
succour.
Except this one that here I open, love.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.


The most pleasing thoughts shed their balmy influence on Ethel's repose
that night. Edward's scheme of a country inn, where the very freedom
would make them more entirely dependent upon each other, was absolutely
enchanting. Where we establish ourselves, and look forward to the
passage of a long interval of time, we form ties with, and assume duties
towards, many of our fellow-creatures, each of which must diminish the
singleness of the soul's devotion towards the selected one. No doubt
this is the fitting position for human beings to place themselves in, as
affording a greater scope for utility: but for a brief space, to have no
occupation but that of contributing to the happiness of him to whom her
life was consecrated, appeared to Ethel a very heaven upon earth. It was
not that she was narrow-hearted: so much affection demands a spacious
mansion for its abode; but in their present position of struggle and
difficulty, there was no possibility of extending her sphere of
benevolence, and she gladly concentrated her endeavours in the one
object whose happiness was in her hands.

All night, even in sleep, a peculiar sense of calm enjoyment soothed the
mind of Ethel, and she awoke in the morning with buoyant spirits, and a
soul all alive to its own pleasurable existence. She sat at her little
solitary breakfast table, musing with still renewed delight upon the
prospect opened before her, when suddenly she was startled by the vision
of an empty purse. What could Villiers intend? She felt assured that his
stock was very nearly exhausted, and for herself two sovereigns, which
were not sufficient to meet the demands of the last week, was all that
she possessed. She tried to recollect if Edward had said any thing that
denoted any expectation of receiving money; on the contrary--diving into
the recesses of her memory, she called to mind that he had said, "We
shall receive your poor little dividend of a hundred pounds, in less
than a fortnight, so we shall be able to live, even if Gayland should
delay getting the other money--I suppose we have enough to get on till
then."

He had said this inquiringly, and she knew that she had made a sign of
assent, though at the time, she had no thought of the real purport of
his question or of her answer. What was to be done? The obvious
consequence of her reflections was at once to destroy the cherished
scheme of going out of town with Villiers. This was a misfortune too
great to bear, and she at last decided upon having again recourse to her
aunt. Unused to every money transaction, she had not that terror of
obligation, nor dislike of asking, which is so necessary to preserve our
independence, and even our sense of justice, through life. Money had
always been placed like counters in her hand; she had never known whence
it came, and until her marriage, she had never disposed of more than
very small sums. Subsequently Villiers had been the director of their
expenses. This was the faulty part of her father's system of education.
But Lodore's domestic habits were for a great part founded on experience in
foreign countries, and he forgot that an English wife is usually the
cashier--the sole controller of the disbursements of her family. It
seemed as easy a thing for Ethel to ask for money from Mrs. Fitzhenry,
as she knew it would be easy for her to give. In compliance, however,
with Villiers's notions, she limited her request to ten pounds, and tried
to word her letter so as to create no suspicion in her aunt's mind with
regard to their resources. This task achieved, she dismissed every
annoying thought, and when Fanny came to express her hope, that, bleak
and snowy as was the day, she did not intend to make her accustomed
pilgrimage, with a countenance beaming with delight, she dilated on
their plan, and spoke as if on the much-desired Thursday, the gates of
Elysium were to be thrown open for her.

There would have appeared something childish in her gladness to the
abstracted and philosophic mind of Fanny, but that the real evils of her
situation, and the fortitude, touching in its unconscious simplicity,
with which she encountered them, commanded respect. Ethel, as well as
her friend, was elevated above the common place of life; she also
fostered a state of mind, "lofty and magnificent, fitted rather to
command than to obey, not only suffering patiently, but even making
light of all human cares; a grand and dignified self-possession, which
fears nothing, yields to no one, and remains for ever unvanquished."
When Fanny, in one of their conversations, while describing the uses of
philosophy, had translated this eulogium of its effects from Cicero,
Ethel had exclaimed, "This is love--it is love alone that divides us
from sordid earthborn thoughts, and causes us to walk alone, girt by its
own beauty and power."

Fanny smiled; yet while she saw slavery rather than a proud independence
in the creed of Ethel, she admired the warmth of heart which could endow
with so much brilliancy a state of privation and solitude. At the
present moment, when Mrs. Villiers was rapturously announcing their
scheme for leaving London, an expression of pain mantled over Fanny's
features; her clear blue eyes became suffused, a large tear gathered on
her lashes. "What is the matter?" asked Ethel anxiously.

"That I am a fool--but pardon me, for the folly is already passed away.
For the first time you have made it hard for me to keep my soul firm in
its own single existence. I have been debarred from all intercourse with
those whose ideas rise above the soil on which they tread, except in my
dear books, and I thought I should never be attached to any thing but
them. Yet do not think me selfish, Mr. Villiers is quite right--it is
much better that you should not be apart--I am delighted with his plan."

"Away or near, dear Fanny," said Ethel, in a caressing tone, "I never
can forget your kindness--never cease to feel the warmest friendship for
you. Remember, our fathers were friends, and their children ought to
inherit the same faithful attachment."

Fanny smiled faintly. "You must not seduce me from my resolves," she
said. "I know my fate in this world, and I am determined to be true to
myself to the end. Yet I am not ungrateful to you, even while I declare,
that I shall do my best to forget this brief interval, during which, I
have no longer, like Demogorgon, lived alone in my own world, but become
aware that there are ties of sympathy between me and my
fellow-creatures, in whose existence I did not believe before."

Fanny's language, drawn from her books, not because she tried to
imitate, but because conversing perpetually with them, it was natural
that she should adopt their style, was always energetic and imaginative;
but her quiet manner destroyed every idea of exaggeration of sentiment:
it was necessary to hear her soft and low, but very distinct voice utter
her lofty sentiments, to be conscious that the calm of deep waters was
the element in which she dwelt--not the fretful breakers that spend
themselves in sound.

The day seemed rather long to Ethel, who counted the hours until
Thursday. Gladly she laid her head on the pillow at night, and bade
adieu to the foregone hours. The first thing that awoke her in the
morning, was the postman's knock; it brought, as she had been promised,
a long, long letter from Edward. He had never before written with so
much affection or with such an overflowing of tenderness, that made her
the centre of his world--the calm fair lake to receive into its bosom
the streams of thought and feeling which flowed from him, and yet which,
after all, had their primal source in her. "I am a very happy girl,"
thought Ethel, as she kissed the beloved papers, and gazed on them in
ecstasy; "more happy than I thought it was ever given us to be in this
world."

She rose and began to dress; she delayed reading more than a line or
two, that she might enjoy her dearest pleasure for a longer time--then
again, unable to controul her impatience, she sat half dressed, and
finished all--and was begining anew, when there was a tap at her door.
It was Fanny. She looked disturbed and anxious, and Ethel's fears were
in a moment awake.

"Something annoying has occurred," she said; "yet I do not think that
there is any thing to dread, though there is a danger to prevent."

"Speak quickly," cried Ethel, "do not keep me in suspense."

"Be calm--it is nothing sudden, it is only a repetition of the old
story. A boy has just been here--a boy you gave a sovereign to--do you
remember?--the night of your arrival. It seems that he has vowed himself
to your service ever since. Those two odious men, who were here once,
are often at his master's place-an alehouse, you know. Well, yesterday
night, he overheard them saying, that Mr. Villiers's resort at the London
coffee-house, was discovered, or at least suspected, and that a writ was
to be taken out against him in the city."

"What does that mean?" cried Ethel.

"That Mr. Villiers will probably be arrested to-day, or to-morrow, if he
remains where he is."

"I will go directly to him," cried Ethel; "we must leave town at once.
God grant that I am not too late!"

Seeing her extreme agitation, Fanny remained with her--forced her to
take some breakfast, and then, fearing that if any thing had really
taken place, she would be quite bewildered, asked her permission to
accompany her. "Will you indeed come with me?" Ethel exclaimed, "How
dear, how good you are! O yes, do come--I can never go through it all
alone; I shall die, if I do not find him."

A hackney coach had been called, and they hastened with what speed they
might, to their destination. A kind of panic seized upon Ethel, a tremor
shook her limbs, so that when they at last stopped, she was unable to
speak. Fanny was about to ask for Mr. Villiers, when an exclamation of
joy from Ethel stopped her; Edward had seen them, and was at the coach
door. The snow lay thick around on the roofs of the houses, and on every
atom of vantage ground it could obtain; it was then snowing, and as the
chilly fleece dropped through or was driven about in the dark
atmosphere, it spread a most disconsolate appearance over every thing;
and nothing could look more dreary than poor Ethel's jumbling vehicle,
with its drooping animals, and the half-frozen driver. Villiers had made
up his mind that he should never be mortified by seeing her again in
this sort of equipage, and he hurried down, the words of reproach
already on his lips, "Is this your promise?" he asked.

"Yes, dearest, it is. Come in, there is danger here.--Come in--we must
go directly."

Seeing Fanny, Villiers became aware that there was some absolute cause
for their journey, so he obeyed and quickly heard the danger that
threatened him. "It would have been better," he said, "that you had come
in the carriage, and that we had instantly left town."

"Impossible!" cried Ethel; "till to-morrow--that is quite impossible. We
have no money until to-morrow."

"Well, my love, since it is so, we must arrange as well as we can. Do
you return home immediately--this cold will kill you. I will take care
of myself, and you can come for me on Thursday evening, as we proposed."

"Do not ask it of me, Edward," said Ethel; "I cannot leave you. I could
never live through these two days away from you--you must not desire
it--you will kill me."

Edward kissed her pale cheek. "You tremble," he said; "how violently you
tremble! Good God! what can we do? What would you have me do?"

"Any thing, so that we remain together. It is of so little consequence
where we pass the next twenty-four hours, so that we are together. There
are many hotels in town."

"I must not venture to any of these; and then to take you in this
miserable manner, without servants, or any thing to command attendance.
But you shall have your own way; having deprived you of every other
luxury, at least, you shall have your will; which, you know, compensates
for every thing with your obstinate sex."

Ethel smiled, rejoicing to find him in so good and accommodating a
humour. "Yes, pretty one," he continued, marking her feelings, "you
shall be as wretched and uncomfortable as your heart can desire. We will
play the incognito in such a style, that if our adventures were printed,
they would compete with those of Don Quixote and the fair Dulcinea. But
Miss Derham must not be admitted into our vagabondizing--we will not
detain her."

"Yet she must know whither we are going, to bring us the letters that
will confer freedom on us."

Villiers wrote hastily an address on a card. "You will find us there,"
he said. "Do not mention names when you come. We shall remain, I
suppose, till Thursday."

"But we shall see you some time to-morrow, dear Fanny?" asked Ethel.
Already she looked bright and happy; she esteemed herself fortunate to
have gained so easily a point she had feared she must struggle for--or
perhaps give up altogether. Fanny left them, and the coachman having
received his directions, drove slowly on through the deep snow, which
fell thickly on the road; while they, nestling close to each other, were
so engrossed by the gladness of re-union, that had Cinderella's
godmother transmuted their crazy vehicle for a golden coach, redolent of
the perfumes of fairy land, they had scarcely been aware of the change.
Their own hearts formed a more real fairy land, which accompanied them
whithersoever they went, and could as easily spread its enchantments
over the shattered machine in which they now jumbled along, as amidst
the cloth of gold and marbles of an eastern palace.




CHAPTER V


Few people know how little is necessary to live.
What is called or thought _hardship_ is nothing; _one_
unhappy feeling is worse than a thousand years of it.

LORD EDWARD FITZGERALD.


Uncertain what to do, Villiers had hastily determined that they should
take up their abode at a little inn near Brixton, to wait till Thursday.
He did not know the place except by having passed it, and observed a
smart landlady at the door; so he trusted that it would be neat and
clean. There was nothing imposing in the apperance of the young pair and
their hackney coach, accordingly there was no bustling civility
displayed to receive them. However, when the fire was once lighted, the
old-fashioned sofa drawn near, and dinner ordered, they sat together and
felt very happy; outcasts though they were, wanderers from civilized
existence, shut out, through poverty, from the refinements and gilt
elegancies of life.

One only cloud there was, when Villiers asked his wife an explanation
about their resources, and inquired whence she expected to receive money
on the following day. Ethel explained. Villiers looked disturbed. There
was something almost of anger in his voice, when he said, "And so,
Ethel, you feel no compunction in acting in exact opposition to my
wishes, my principles, my resolves?"

"But, dear Edward, what can principles have to do with borrowing a few
pounds from dear good Aunt Bessy? Besides, we can repay her."

"Be assured that we shall," replied Villiers; "and you will never again,
I trust, behave so unjustly by me. There are certain things in which we
must judge and act for ourselves, and the question of money
transactions is one. I may suffer--and you, alas! may also, through
poverty; though you have taken pains to persuade me, that you do not
feel that struggles, which, for your sake chiefly, embitter my
existence. Yet they are nothing in comparison with the loss of my
independence--the sense of obligation--the knowledge that my kind
friends can talk over my affairs, take me to task, and call me a burthen
to them. Why am I as I am? I have friends and connexions who would
readily assist me at this extremity, if I asked it, and I might turn
their kind feelings into sterling gold if I would; but I have no desire
to work this transmutation--I prefer their friendship."

"Do you mean," inquired his wife, "that your friends would not love you
the better for having been of service to you?"

"If they could serve me without annoyance to themselves they might; but
high in rank and wealthy as many of my relations are, there is not one
among them, at least of those to whom I could have recourse, who do not
dispose of their resources to the uttermost shilling, in their own way.
I then come to interfere with and to disarrange their plans; at first,
this might not be much--but presently they would weigh me against the
gold I needed, and it might happen, that my scale would kick the beam.

"I speak for myself not for others; I may be too proud, too
sensitive--but so I am. Ever since I knew what pecuniary obligations
were, I resolved to lay under such to no man, and this resolve was
stronger than my love for you; judge therefore of its force, and the
violence you do me, when you would oblige me to act against it. Did I
begin to borrow, a train of thoughts would enter the lender's mind; the
consciousness of which, would haunt me like a crime. My actions would be
scanned--I should be blamed for this, rebuked for that--even your name,
my Ethel, which I would place, like a star in the sky, far above their
mathematical measurements, would become stale in their mouths, and the
propriety of our marriage canvassed: could you bear that?"

"I yield to all you say," she answered; "yet this is strange morality.
Are generosity, benevolence, and gratitude, to be exploded among us? Is
justice, which orders that the rich give of his superfluity to the poor,
to be banished from the world?"

"You are eloquent," said Villiers; "but, my little wild American, this
is philosophy for the back-woods only. We have got beyond the primeval
simplicity of barter and exchange among gentlemen; and it is such if I
give gratitude in return for fifty pounds: by-and-by my fellow-trader
may grumble at the bargain. All this will become very clear to you
hereafter, I fear--when knowledge of the world teaches you what sordid
knaves we all are; it is to prevent your learning this lesson in a
painful way, that I guard you so jealously from making a wrong step at
this crisis."

"You speak of dreams," said Ethel, "as if dear aunt Bessy would feel any
thing but pleasure in sending her mite to her own dear niece."

"I have told you what I wish," replied her husband, "my honour is in
your hands; and I implore you, on this point, to preserve it in the way
I desire. There is but one relationship that authorizes any thing like
community of goods, it is that of parent and child; but we are orphans,
dearest--step-children, who are not permitted to foster our filial
sentiments. My father is unworthy of his name--the animal who destroys
its offspring at its birth is merciful in comparison with him: had he
cast me off at once, I should have hardened my hands with labour, and
earned my daily bread; but I was trained to "high-born necessities," and
have all the "wide wants and narrow powers"[1] of the heir of wealth. But
let us dismiss this ungrateful subject. I never willingly advert, even
in my own mind, to my father's unpaternal conduct. Let us instead fancy,
sweet love, that we were born to what we have--that we are cottagers,
the children of mechanics, or wanderers in a barbarous country, where
money is not; and imagine that this repose, this cheerful fire, this
shelter from the pelting snow without, is an unexpected blessing. Strip
a man bare to what nature made him, and place him here, and what a hoard
of luxury and wealth would not this room contain! In the Illinois, love,
few mansions could compete with this."

This was speaking in a language which Ethel could easily comprehend; she
had several times wished to express this very idea, but she feared to
hurt the refined and exclusive feelings of her husband. A splendid
dwelling, costly living, and many attendants, were with her the
adjuncts, not the material, of life. If the stage on which she played
her part was to be so decorated, it was well; if otherwise, the change
did not merit her attention. Love scoffed at such idle trappings, and
could build his tent of canvas, and sleep close nestled in her heart as
softly, being only the more lovely and the more true, from the absence
of every meretricious ornament.

This was another of Ethel's happy evenings, when she felt drawn close to
him she loved, and found elysium in the intimate union of their
thoughts. The dusky room showed them but half to each other; and the
looks of each, beaming with tenderness, drank life from one another's
gaze. The soft shadows thrown on their countenances, gave a lamp-like
lustre to their eyes, in which the purest spirit of affection sat,
weaving such unity of sentiment, such strong bonds of attachment, as
made all life dwindle to a point, and freighted the passing minute with
the hopes and fears of their entire existence. Not much was said, and
their words were childish--words


Intellette dar loro soli ambedui,


which a listener would have judged to be meaningless. But the mystery of
love gave a deep sense to each syllable. The hours flew lightly away. There
was nothing to interrupt, nothing to disturb. Night came and the day was
at an end; but Ethel looked forward to the next, with faith in its equal
felicity, and did not regret the fleet passage of time.

They had been asked during the evening if they were going by any early
coach on the following morning, and a simple negative was given. On that
morning they sat at their breakfast, with some diminution of the
sanguine hopes of the previous evening. For morning is the time for
action, of looking forward, of expectation,--and they must spend this in
waiting, cooped up in a little room, overlooking no cheering scene. A
high road, thickly covered with snow, on which various vehicles were
perpetually passing, was immediately before them. Opposite was a row of
mean-looking houses, between which might be distinguished low fields
buried in snow; and the dreary dark-looking sky bending over all, added
to the forlorn aspect of nature. Villiers was very impatient to get
away, yet another day must be passed here, and there was no help.

On the breakfast-table the waiter had placed the bill of the previous
day; it remained unnoticed, and he left it on the table when the things
were taken away. "I wonder when Fanny will come," said Ethel.

"Perhaps not at all to-day," observed Villiers, "she knows that we
intend to remain till tomorrow here; and if your aunt's letter is
delayed till then, I see no chance of her coming, nor any use in it."

"But Aunt Bessy will not delay; her answer is certain of arriving this
morning."

"So you imagine, love. You know little of the various chances that wait
upon borrowing."

Soon after, unable to bear confinement to the house, uneasy in his
thoughts, and desirous a little to dissipate them by exercise, Villiers
went out. Ethel, taking a small Shakspeare, which her husband had had
with him at the coffee-house, occupied herself by reading, or turning
from the written page to her own thoughts, gave herself up to reverie,
dwelling on many an evanescent idea, and reverting delightedly to many
scenes, which her memory recalled. She was one of those who "know the
pleasures of solitude, when we hold commune alone with the tranquil
solemnity of nature." The thought of her father, of the Illinois, and
the measureless forest rose before her, and in her ear was the dashing
of the stream which flowed near their abode. Her light feet again
crossed the prairie, and a thousand appearances of sky and earth
departed for ever, were retraced in her brain. "Would not Edward be
happy there?" she thought: "why should we not go? We should miss dear
Horatio; but what else could we regret that we leave behind? and perhaps
he would join us, and then we should be quite happy." And then her fancy
pictured her new home and all its delights, till her eyes were suffused
with tender feeling, as her imagination sketched a variety of
scenes--the pleasant labours of cultivation, the rides, the hunting, the
boating, all common-place occurrences, which, attended on by love, were
exalted into a perpetual gorgeous procession of beatified hours. And
then again she allowed to herself that Europe or America could contain
the same delights. She recollected Italy, and her feelings grew more
solemn and blissful as she meditated on the wondrous beauty and
changeful but deep interest of that land of memory.

Villiers did not return for some hours;--he also had indulged in
reverie--long-drawn, but not quite so pleasant as that of his
inexperienced wife. The realities of life were kneaded up too entirely
with his prospects and schemes, for them to assume the fairy hues that
adorned Ethel's. He could not see the end to his present struggle for
the narrowest independence. Very slender hopes had been held out to him;
and thus he was to drag out an embittered existence, spent upon sordid
cares, till his father died--an ungrateful idea, from which he turned
with a sigh. He walked speedily, on account of the cold; and as his
blood began to circulate more cheerily in his frame, a change came over
the tenor of his thoughts. From the midst of the desolation in which he
was lost, a vision of happiness arose, that forced itself on his
speculations, in spite, as he imagined, of his better reason. The image
of an elegant home, here or in Italy, adorned by Ethel--cheered by the
presence of friends, unshadowed by any cares, presented itself to his
mind with strange distinctness and pertinacity. At no time had Villiers
loved so passionately as now. The difficulties of their situation had
exalted her, who shared them with such cheerful fortitude, into an angel
of consolation. The pride of man in possessing the affections of this
lovely and noble-minded creature, was blended with the tenderest desire
of protecting and serving her. His heart glowed with honest joy at the
reflection that her happiness depended upon him solely, and that he was
ready to devote his life to secure it. Was there any action too arduous,
any care too minute, to display his gratitude and his perfect affection?
As his recollection came back, he found that he was at a considerable
distance from her, so he swiftly turned his steps homeward, (that was
his home where she was,) and scarcely felt that he trod earth as he
recollected that each moment carried him nearer, and that he should soon
meet the fond gaze of the kindest, sweetest eyes in the world.

Thus they met, with a renewed joy, after a short absence, each reaping,
from their separate meditations, a fresh harvest of loving thoughts and
interchange of grateful emotion. Great was the pity that such was their
situation--that circumstances, all mean and trivial, drew them from
their heaven-high elevation, to the more sordid cares of this dirty
planet. Yet why name it pity? their pure natures could turn the
grovelling substance presented to them, to ambrosial food for the
sustenance of love.


[Footnote 1: The Cenci.]




CHAPTER VI


There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
When two that are linked in one heavenly tie,
With heart never changing, and brow never cold,
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die.

LALLA ROOKH.


Villiers had not been returned long, when the waiter came in, and
informed them, that his mistress declined serving their dinner, till her
bill of the morning was paid; and then he left the room. The gentle pair
looked at each other, and laughed. "We must wait till Fanny comes, I
fear," said Ethel; "for my purse is literally empty."

"And if Miss Derham should not come?" remarked Villiers.

"But she will!--she has delayed, but I am perfectly certain that she
will come in the course of the day: I do not feel the least doubt about
it."

To quicken the passage of time, Ethel employed herself in netting a
purse, (the inutility of which Villiers smilingly remarked,) while her
husband read to her some of the scenes from Shakspeare's play of
"Troilus and Cressida." The profound philosophy, and intense passion, of
this drama, adorned by the most magnificent poetry that can even be
found in the pages of this prince of poets, caused each to hang
attentive and delighted upon their occupation. As it grew dark, Villiers
stirred up the fire, and still went on; till having with difficulty
decyphered the lines--


"She was beloved--she loved;--she is, and doth;
But still sweet love is food for fortune's tooth,"--


he closed the books. "It is in vain," he said; "our liberator does
not come; and these churls will not give us lights."

"It is early yet, dearest," replied Ethel;--"not yet four o'clock. Would
Troilus and Cressida have repined at having been left darkling a few
minutes? How much happier we are than all the heroes and heroines that
ever lived or were imagined! they grasped at the mere shadow of the
thing, whose substance we absolutely possess. Let us know and
acknowledge our good fortune. God knows, I do, and am beyond words
grateful!"

"It is much to be grateful for--sharing the fortunes of a ruined man!"

"You do not speak as Troilus does," replied Ethel smiling: "he knew
better the worth of love compared with worldly trifles."

"You would have me protest, then," said Villiers;--


"But, alas!
I am as true as truth's simplicity,
And simpler than the infancy of truth;"


"so that all I can say is, that you are a very ill-used little girl, to be
mated as you are--so buried, with all your loveliness, in this
obscurity--so bound, though akin to heaven, to the basest dross of
earth."

"You are poetical, dearest, and I thank you. For my own part, I am in
love with ill luck. I do not think we should have discovered how very
dear we are to each other, had we sailed for ever on a summer sea."

Such talk, a little prolonged, at length dwindled to silence. Edward
drew her nearer to him; and as his arm encircled her waist, she placed
her sweet head on his bosom, and they remained in silent reverie. He, as
with his other hand he played with her shining ringlets, and parted them
on her fair brow, was disturbed in thought, and saddened by a sense of
degradation. Not to be able to defend the angelic creature, who depended
on him, from the world's insults, galled his soul, and embittered even
the heart's union that existed between them. She did not think--she did
know of these things. After many minutes of silence, she said,--"I have
been trying to discover why it is absolute pleasure to suffer pain for
those we love."

"Pleasure in pain!--you speak riddles."

"I do," she replied, raising her head; "but I have divined this. The
great pleasure of love is derived from sympathy--the feeling of
union--of unity. Any thing that makes us alive to the sense of
love--that imprints deeper on our plastic consciousness the knowledge of
the existence of our affection, causes an increase of happiness. There
are two things to which we are most sensitive--pleasure and pain. But
habit can somewhat dull the first; and that which was in its newness,
ecstasy--our being joined for ever--becomes, like the air we breathe, a
thing we could not live without, but yet in which we are rather
passively than actively happy. But when pain comes to awaken us to a
true sense of how much we love--when we suffer for one another's dear
sake--the consciousness of attachment swells our hearts: we are recalled
from the forgetfulness engendered by custom; and the awakening and
renewal of the sense of affection brings with it a joy, that sweetens to
its dregs the bitterest cup."

"Encourage this philosophy, dear Ethel," replied Villiers; "you will
need it: but it shames me to think that I am your teacher in this
mournful truth." As he spoke, his whole frame was agitated by tenderness
and grief. Ethel could see, by the dull fire-light, a tear gather on his
eye-lashes: it fell upon her hand. She threw her arms round him, and
pressed him to her heart with a passionate gush of weeping, occasioned
partly by remorse at having so moved him, and partly by her heart's
overflowing with the dear security of being loved.

They had but a little recovered from this scene, when the waiter,
bringing in lights, announced Miss Derham. Her coming had been full of
disasters. After many threatenings, and much time consumed in clumsy
repairs, her hackney-coach had fairly broken down: she had walked the
rest of the way; but they were much further from town than she expected;
and thus she accounted for her delay. She brought no news; but held in
her hand the letter that contained the means of freeing them from their
awkward predicament.

"We will not stay another minute in this cursed place," said Villiers:
"we will go immediately to Salt Hill, where I intended to take you
to-morrow. I can return by one of the many stages which pass
continually, to keep my appointment with Gayland; and be back with you
again by night. So if these stupid people possess a post-chaise, we will
be gone directly."

Ethel was well pleased with this arrangement; and it was put it
execution immediately. The chaise and horses were easily procured. They
set Fanny down in their way through town. Ethel tried to repay her
kindness by heartfelt thanks; and she, in her placid way, showed clearly
how pleased she was to serve them.

Leaving her in Piccadilly, not far from her own door, they pursued their
way to Salt Hill; and it seemed as if, in this more change of place,
they had escaped from a kind of prison, to partake again in the
immunities and comforts of civilized life. Ethel was considerably
fatigued when she arrived; and her husband feared that he had tasked her
strength too far. The falling and fallen snow clogged up the roads, and
their journey had been long. She slept, indeed, the greater part of the
way, her head resting on him; and her languor and physical suffering
were soothed by emotions the most balmy and by the gladdening sense of
confidence and security.

They arrived at Salt Hill late in the evening. The hours were precious;
for early on the following day, Villiers was obliged to return to town.
On inquiry, he found that his best mode was to go by a night-coach from
Bath, which would pass at seven in the morning. They were awake half the
night, talking of their hopes, their plans, their probable deliverance
from their besetting annoyances. By this time Ethel had taught her own
phraseology, and Villiers had learned to believe that whatever must
happen would fall upon both, and that no separation could take place
fraught with any good to either.

When Ethel awoke, late in the morning, Villiers was gone. Her watch told
her, indeed, that it was near ten o'clock, and that he must have
departed long before. She felt inclined to reproach him for leaving her,
though only for a few hours, without an interchange of adieu. In truth,
she was vexed that he was not there: the world appeared to her so blank,
without his voice to welcome her back to it from out of the regions of
sleep. While this slight cloud of ill-humour (may it be called?) was
passing over her mind, she perceived a little note, left by her husband,
lying on her pillow. Kissing it a thousand times, she read its contents,
as if they possessed talismanic power. They breathed the most passionate
tenderness: they besought her, as she loved him, to take care of
herself, and to keep up her spirits until his return, which would be as
speedy as the dove flies back to its nest, where its sweet mate fondly
expects him. With these assurances and blessings to cheer her, Ethel
arose. The sun poured its wintry yet cheering beams into the parlour,
and the sparkling, snow-clad earth glittered beneath. She wrapped
herself in her cloak, and walked into the garden of the hotel. Long
immured in London, living as if its fogs were the universal vesture of
all things, her spirits rose to exultation and delight, as she looked on
the blue sky spread cloudlessly around. As the pure breeze freshened her
cheek, a kind of transport seized her; her spirit took wings; she felt
as if she could float on the bosom of the air--as if there was a
sympathy in nature, whose child and nursling she was, to welcome her
back to her haunts, and to reward her bounteously for coming. The trees,
all leafless and snow-bedecked, were friends and intimates: she kissed
their rough barks, and then laughed at her own folly at being so rapt.
The snow-drop, as it peeped from the ground, was a thing of wonder and
mystery; and the shapes of frost, beautiful forms to be worshipped. All
sorrow--all care passed away, and left her mind as clear and bright as
the unclouded heavens that bent over her.




CHAPTER VII


Herein
Shall my captivity be made my happiness;
Since what I lose in freedom, I regain
With interest.

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.


The glow of enthusiasm and gladness, thus kindled in her soul, faded
slowly as the sun descended; and human tenderness returned in full tide
upon her. She longed for Edward to speak to; when would he come back?
She walked a little way on the London road; she returned: still her
patience was not exhausted. The sun's orb grew red and dusky as it
approached the horizon: she returned to the house. It was yet early:
Edward could not be expected yet: he had promised to come as soon as
possible; but he had prepared her for the likelihood of his arrival only
by the mail at night. It was long since she had written to Saville.
Cooped up in town, saddened by her separation from her husband, or
enjoying the brief hours of reunion, she had felt disinclined to write.
Her enlivened spirits now prompted her to pour out some of their
overflowings to him. She did not allude to any of the circumstances of
their situation, for Edward had forbidden that topic: still she had much
to say; for her heart was full of benevolence to all mankind; besides
her attachment to her husband, the prospect of becoming a mother within
a few months, opened another source of tenderness; there seemed to be a
superabundance of happiness within her, a portion of which she desired
to impart to those she loved.

Daylight had long vanished, and Villiers did not return. She felt
uneasy:--of course he would come by the mail; yet if he should not--what
could prevent him? Conjectures would force themselves on her,
unreasonable, she told herself; yet her doubts were painful, and she
listened attentively each time that the sound of wheels grew, and again
faded, upon her ear. If the vehicle stopped, she was in a state of
excitation that approached alarm. She knew not what she feared; yet her
disquiet increased into anxiety. "Shall I ever see him again?" were
words that her lips did not utter, and yet which lingered in her heart,
although unaccompanied by any precise idea to her understanding.

She had given a thousand messages to the servants;--and at last the mail
arrived. She heard a step--it was the waiter:--"The gentleman is not
come, ma'am," he said. "I knew it," she thought;--"yet why? why?" At one
time she resolved to set off for town; yet whither to go--where to find
him? An idea struck her, that he had missed the mail; but as he would
not leave her a prey to uncertainty, he would come by some other
conveyance. She got a little comfort from this notion, and resumed her
occupation of waiting; though the vagueness of her expectations rendered
her a thousand times more restless than before. And all was vain. The
mail had arrived at eleven o'clock--at twelve she retired to her room.
She read again and again his note: his injunction, that she should take
care of herself, induced her to go to bed at a little after one; but
sleep was still far from her. Till she could no longer expect--till it
became certain that it must be morning before he could come, she did not
close her eyes. As her last hope quitted her, she wept bitterly. Where
was the joyousness of the morning?--the exuberant delight with which her
veins had tingled, which had painted life as a blessing? She hid her
face in her pillow, and gave herself up to tears, till sleep at last
stole over her senses.

Early in the morning her door opened and her curtain was drawn aside.
She awoke immediately, and saw Fanny Derham standing at her bed-side.

"Edward! where is he?" she exclaimed, starting up.

"Well, quite well," replied Fanny: "do not alarm yourself, dear Mrs.
Villiers,--he has been arrested."

"I must go to him immediately. Leave me for a little while, dear
Fanny,--I will dress and come to you; do you order the chaise meanwhile.
I can hear every thing as we are going to town."

Ethel trembled violently--her speech was rapid but inarticulate; the
paleness that overspread her face, blanching even her marble brow, and
the sudden contraction of her features, alarmed Fanny. The words she had
used in communicating her intelligence were cabalistic to Ethel, and her
fears were the more intolerable because mysterious and undefined; the
blood trickled cold in her veins, and a chilly moisture stood on her
forehead. She exerted herself violently to conquer this weakness, but it
shackled her powers, as bands of rope would her limbs, and after a few
moments she sank back on her pillow almost bereft of life. Fanny sprang
to the bell, then sprinkled her with water; some salts were procured
from the landlady, and gradually the colour revisited her cheeks, and
her frame resumed its functions--an hysteric fit, the first she had ever
had, left her at last exhausted but more composed. She herself became
frightened lest illness should keep her from Villiers; she exerted
herself to become tranquil, and lay for some time without speaking or
moving. A little refreshment contributed to restore her, and she turned
to Fanny with a faint sweet smile, "You see," said she, "what a weak,
foolish thing I am; but I am well now, quite rallied--there must be no
more delay."

Her cheerful voice and lively manner gave her friend confidence. Fanny
was one who believed much in the mastery of mind, and felt sure that
nothing would be so prejudicial to Mrs. Villiers as contradiction, and
obstacles put in the way of her attaining the object of her wishes. In
spite therefore of the good people about, who insisted that the most
disastrous consequences would ensue, she ordered the horses, and
prepared for their immediate journey to town. Ethel repaid her cares
with smiles, while she restrained her curiosity, laid as it were a check
on her too impatient movements, and forced a calm of manner which gave
her friend courage to proceed.

It was not until they were on their way that the object of their journey
was mentioned. Fanny then spoke of the arrest as a trifling
circumstance--mentioned bail, and twenty things, which Ethel only
comprehended to be mysterious methods of setting him free; and then also
she asked the history of what had happened. The tale was soon told. The
moment Mr. Villiers had entered Piccadilly he had caused a coach to be
called, but on passing to it from the stage, two men entered it with
him, whose errand was too easily explained. He had driven first to his
solicitor's, hoping to put every thing in train for his instant
liberation. The day was consumed in these fruitless endeavours--he did
not give up hope till past ten at night, when he sent to Fanny, asking
her to go down to Mrs. Villiers as early as possible in the morning, and
to bring her up to town. His wish was, he said, that Ethel should take
up her abode at Mrs. Derham's till this affair could be arranged, and
they were enabled to leave London. His note was hurried; he promised
that another, more explicit, should await his wife on her arrival.

"You will tell the driver," said Ethel, when this story was finished,
"to drive to Edward's prison. I would not stay away five minutes from
him in his present situation to purchase the universe."

Any one but Miss Derham might have resisted Ethel's wish--have argued
with her, and irritated her by the display of obstacles and
inconveniences. It was not Fanny's method ever to oppose the desires of
others. They knew best, she affirmed, their own sensations, and what was
most fitting for them. What is best for me, habit, education, and a
different texture of character, may render the worst for them. In the
present instance, also, she saw that Ethel's feelings were almost too
high wrought for her strength--that opposition, by making a further call
on her powers, might upset them wholly. She had besides, the deepest
respect for her attachment to her husband, and was willing to reward it
by bringing her to him without delay. Having thus fortunately fallen
into reasonable hands, guided by one who could understand her character,
and not torture her by forcing notions the opposite of those on which
she felt herself compelled to act, Ethel became tranquil, and saw the
mere panic of inexperience in her previous excessive alarm.

They now approached London. Fanny called the post-boy to the window of
the chaise, and gave him directions, at which he a little stared, but
said nothing. She gave things their own names, and never dreamt of
saving appearances, as it is called. What ought to be done, that she
dared do in the face of the whole world, and therefore to make a mystery
of their destination never once occurred to her. They drove through the
long interminable suburbs--through Piccadilly and the Strand. Ethel's
cheeks flushed with the excitement, and something like apprehension made
her heart flutter. She had endeavoured to form an image in her own mind
of whither they were going--it was vague and therefore frightful--but
Edward was there, and she also would share the horrors of his
prison-house.

They passed through Temple Bar, and going down an obscure street or two,
stopped at a dingy door-way. "This is not right," said Ethel, almost
gasping for breath, "this is not a prison."

"Something very like it, as you will find too soon," said her friend.

Still Ethel's imagination was relieved by the absence of the massy
walls, the portentous gates, the gloomy immensity of an absolute prison.
The door of the house being opened, Ethel stepped out from the chaise
and asked for Mr. Villiers. The man whom she addressed hesitated, but
Ethel had learnt one only worldly lesson, which was, whenever she needed
the services of people of the lower orders, to disseminate money
plentifully. Her purse was in her hand, and she gave a sovereign to the
man, who then at once showed them upstairs; which she ascended, though
every limb nearly refused to perform its office as she approached the
spot where again she was to find--to see him, whose image lived
eternally in her heart, and whom it was the sole joy of her life to wait
on, to be sheltered by, to live near.

The door was opened. In the dingy, dusty room, beside the fire, which
looked as if it could not burn, and was never meant to warm even the
black neglected grate, Villiers sat, reading. His first emotion was
shame when he saw Ethel enter. There was no accord between her spotless
loveliness and his squalid prison-room. Any one who has seen a sunbeam
suddenly enter and light up a scene of housewifely neglect, and vulgar
discomfort, and felt how obtrusive it rendered all that might be
half-forgotten in the shade, can picture how the simple elegance of
Ethel displayed yet more distinctly to her husband the worse than
beggarly scene in which she found him. His cheeks flushed, and almost he
would have turned away. He would have reproached, but a tenderness and
an elevation of feeling animated her expressive countenance, which
turned the current of his thoughts. Whether it were their fate to suffer
the extremes of fortune in the savage wilderness, or in the more
appalling privations of civilized life--love, and the poetry of love
accompanied her, and gilded, and irradiated the commonest forms of
penury. She looked at him, and her eyes then glanced to the barred
windows. As Fanny and their conductor left them, she heard the key turn
in the lock with an impertinent intrusive loudness. She felt pained for
him, but for herself it was as if the world and all its cares were
locked out, and as if in this near association with him, she reaped the
reward of all her previous anxiety. There was no repining in her
thoughts, no dejection in her manner; Villiers could read in her open
countenance, as plainly as through the clearest crystal, the sentiments
that were passing in her mind--it was something more satisfied than
resignation, more contented than fortitude. It was a knowledge that
whatever evil might attend her lot, the good so far outweighed it, that,
for his sake only, could she advert to any feeling of distress. It was a
consciousness of being in her place, and of fulfilling her duty,
accompanied by a sort of rapture in remembering how thrice dear and
hallowed that duty was. Angels could not feel as she did, for they
cannot sacrifice to those they love; yet there was in her that absence
of all self-emanating pain, which is the characteristic of what we are
told of the angelic essences.

As when at night autumnal winds are howling, and vast masses of winged
clouds are driven with indescribable speed across the sky--we note the
islands of dark ether, built round by the white fleecy shapes; and as we
mark the stars which gem their unfathomable depth, silence and sublime
tranquillity appear to have found a home in that deep vault, and we love
to dwell on the peace and beauty that live there, while the clouds still
rush on, and the face of the lower heaven is more mutable than water.
Thus the mind of Ethel, surrounded by the world's worst forms of
adversity, showed clear and serene, entirely possessed by the repose of
love. It was impossible but that, in spite of shame and regret, Villiers
should not participate in these feelings. He gave himself up to the
softening influence: he knew not how to repine on his own account;
Ethel's affection demanded to stand in place of prosperity, and he could
not refuse to admit so dear a claim.

The door had closed on them, and every outlet to liberty, or the
enjoyment of life, was barred up. Edward drew Ethel towards him and
kissed her fondly. Their eyes met, and the speechless tenderness that
beamed from hers reached his heart and soothed every ruffled feeling.
Sitting together, and interchanging a few words of comfort and hope,
mingled with kind looks and affectionate caresses, they neither of them
remembered indignity nor privation. The tedious mechanism of civilized
life, and the odious interference of their fellow-creatures were
forgotten, and they were happy.




CHAPTER VIII


Veggo purtroppo
Che favola è la vita,
E la favola mia non è compita.

PETRARCA.


The darker months of winter had passed away, and the chilly, blighting
English spring begun. Towards the end of March Lady Lodore came to town.
She had long ago, in her days of wealth, fitted up a house in Park Lane, so
she returned to it, as to a home--if home it might be called--where no
one welcomed her--where none sat beside her at the domestic hearth.

For the first time she felt keenly this circumstance. During her
mother's lifetime she had had her constantly for a companion, and
afterwards as events pressed upon her, and while the anguish she felt
upon Horatio Saville's marriage was still fresh, she had not reverted to
her lonely position as the source of pain.

The haughty, the firm, the self-exalting soul of Cornelia had borne up
long. She had often felt that she walked on the borders of a precipice,
and that if once she admitted sentiments of regret, she should plunge
without retrieve into a gulph, dark, portentous, inextricable. She had
often repeated to herself that fate should not vanquish her, and that in
spite of despair she would be happy: it is true that the misery
occasioned by Saville's marriage was a canker at her heart, for which
there was no cure, but she had recourse to dissipation that she might
endeavour to forget it. A sad and ineffectual remedy. She was surrounded
by admirers, whom she disdained, and by friends to whom she would have
died rather than betray the naked misery of her soul. She had never
planned nor thought of marriage. The report concerning the Earl of
D----was one of those which the world always makes current, when two
persons of opposite sexes are, by any chance, thrown much together. His
sister was Lady Lodore's friend, and she had chaperoned her, and been of
assistance to her, during the courtship of the gentleman who was at
present her husband. It was their house that Lady Lodore had just
quitted on arriving in town. The new-born happiness of early wedded life
had been a scene to call her back to thoughts which were the sources of
the bitterest anguish. She abhorred herself that she could envy, that
she could desire to exchange places with, any created being. She
abridged her visit, and fancied that she should regain peace in the
independence of her own home. But the enjoyment of liberty was cold in
her heart, and loneliness added a freezing chilliness to her feeling.

The mind of Cornelia was much above the world she lived in, though she
had sacrificed all to it; and, so to speak, much above herself. Take
pride from her, and there was understanding, magnanimity, and great
kindliness of disposition: but pride had been the wall of China to shut
up all her better qualities, and to keep them from communicating with
the world beyond;--pride, which grew strong by resistance, and towered
above every aggressor;--pride, which crumbled away, when time and change
were its sole assailants, till her inner being was left unprotected and
bare.

She found herself alone in the world. She felt that her life was
aimless, unprofitable, blank. She was humiliated and saddened by her
relative position in the world. She did not think of her daughter as a
resource; she was in the hands of her enemies, and no hope lay there.
She entertained the belief that Mrs. Villiers was weak both in character
and understanding; and that to make any attempt to interest herself in
her, would end in disappointment, if not disgust. Imagining, as we are
all apt to do, how we should act in another person's place, she had
formed a notion of what she would have done, had she been Ethel; and as
nothing was done, she almost despised, and quite pitied her. No! there
was no help. She was alone;--none loved, none cared for her; and the
flower of the field, which a child plucks and wears for an hour, and
then casts aside, was of more worth than she.

Every amusement grew tedious--all society vacant and dull. When she came
back from dinners or assemblies, to her luxurious but empty abode, the
darkest thoughts, engendered by spleen, hung over its threshold, and
welcomed her return. At such times, she would dismiss her attendant, and
remain half the night by her fireside, encouraging sickly reveries,
struggling with the fate that bound her, yet unable in any way to make
an effort for freedom.

"Time"--thus would her thoughts fashion themselves--"yes, time rolls on,
and what does it bring? I live in a desert; its barren sands feed my
hour-glass, and they come out fruitless as they went in. Months change
their names--years their cyphers: my brow is sadly trenched; the bloom
of youth is faded: my mind gathers wrinkles. What will become of me?

"Hopes of my youth, where are ye?--my aspirations, my pride, my belief
that I could grasp and possess all things? Alas! there is nothing of all
this! My soul lies in the dust; and I look up to know that I have been
playing with shadows, and that I am fallen for ever! What do I see
around me? The tide of life is ebbing fast! I had fancied that pearls
and gold would have been left by the retiring waves; and I find only
barren, lonely sands! No voice reaches me from across the waters--no one
stands beside me on the shore! Would--O would I could lay my head on the
spray-sprinkled beach, and sleep for ever!

"This is madness!--these incoherent images that throng my brain are the
ravings of insanity!--yet what greater madness, than to know that love,
affection, the charities of life, the hopes of existence, are empty
words for me. Am I indeed to have done with these? What is it that still
moves up and down in my soul, making me feel as if something might yet
be accomplished? Is it that the ardour of youth is not yet tamed? Alas!
my youth has departed for ever. Yet wherefore these sighs, which wrap an
eternity of wretchedness in their evanescent breath?--why these tears,
that, flowing from the inmost fountains of the soul, endeavour to give
passage to the flood of sorrow that deluges and overwhelms it? The
husband of my youth!--the thought of him passes like a shadow across me!
Had he borne with me a little longer--had I submitted to his
controul--how different my destiny had been! But I will not think of
that--I do not! A mightier storm than any he could raise has swept
across me since, and laid all waste. My soul has been set upon a hope,
which has vanished, and desolation has come in its room. Could God, in
his anger, bestow a bitterer curse on a condemned spirit, than that
which weighs on me, when I reflect, that through my own fault I lost
him, whom but to see was paradise? The thought haunts me like a crime;
yet when is it absent from me?--it sleeps with me, rises with me--it is
by me now, and I would willingly die only to dismiss it for ever.

"Miserable Cornelia! Thou hast been courted, lauded, waited on,
loved!--it is all over! I am alone! My poor, poor mother!--my much
reviled, my dearest mother!--by you, at least, I was valued! Ah! why are
you gone, leaving your wretched child alone?

"O that I could take wings and rise from out of the abyss into which I
am fallen! Can I not, myself being miserable, take pleasure in the
pleasure of others; and by force of strong sympathy, forget my selfish
woes? With whom can I sympathize? None desire my care, and all would
repay my officiousness with ingratitude, perhaps with scorn. Once I
could assist the poor; now I am poor myself: my limited means scarce
suffice to keep me in that station in society, from which, did I once
descend, I were indeed trampled upon and destroyed for ever. Tears rush
from my eyes--my heart sinks within me, as I look forward. Again the
same cares, the same coil, the same bitter result. Hopes held out, only
to be crushed; affections excited, only to be scattered to the winds. I
blamed myself for struggling too much with fate, for rowing against wind
and tide, for resolving to controul the events that form existence: now
I yield--I have long yielded--I have let myself drift, as I hoped, into
a quiet creek, where indifference and peace ruled the hour; and lo! it
is a whirlpool, to swallow all I had left of enjoyment upon earth!"

It was not until she had exhausted herself by these gloomy and restless
reflections, that she laid her head upon her pillow, and tried to sleep.
Morning usually dawned before she closed her eyes; and it was nearly
noon before she rose, weary and unrefreshed. It was with a struggle that
she commenced a new day--a day that was to be cheered by no event nor
feeling capable of animating her to any sense of joy. She had never
occupied herself by intellectual exertion: her employments had been the
cultivation of what are called accomplishments merely; and when now she
reverted to these, it was with bitterness. She remembered the interval
when she had been inspirited by the delightful wish to please Horatio.
Now none cared how the forlorn Cornelia passed her time;--no one would
hang enraptured on her voice, or hail with gladness the developement of
some new talent. "It is the same," she thought, "how I get rid of the
heavy hours, so that they go. I have but to give myself up to the
sluggish stream that bears me on to old age, not more bereft or
unregarded than these wretched years."

Thus she lingered idly through the morning; her only enjoyment being,
when she secured to herself a solitary drive, and reclining back in her
carriage, felt herself safe from every intrusion, and yet enjoying a
succession of objects, that a little varied the tenor of her thoughts.
She had deserted the park, and sought unfrequented drives in the
environs of London. Evening at last came, and with it her uninteresting
engagements, which yet she found better than entire seclusion. Forced to
rouse herself to adopt, as a mask, the smiling appearance which had been
natural to her for many years, she often abhorred every one around her;
and yet, hating herself more, took refuge among them, from her own
society. Her chief care was to repress any manifestation of her despair,
which too readily rose to her lips or in her eyes. The glorious hues of
sunset--the subduing sounds of music--even the sight of a beautiful
girl, resplendent with happiness and youth, moving gracefully in
dance--had power to move her to tears: her blood seemed to curdle and
grow thick, while gloomy shadows mantled over her features. Often, she
could scarcely forbear expressing the bitterness of her feelings, and
indulging in acrimonious remarks on the deceits of life, and the inanity
of all things. It seemed to her, sometimes, that she must die if she did
not give vent to the still increasing horror with which she regarded the
whole system of the world.

Nor were her sufferings always thus negative. One evening, especially, a
young travelled gentleman approached her, with all the satisfaction
painted on his countenance, which he felt at having secured a topic for
the entertainment of the fashionable Lady Lodore.

"You are intimate with the Misses Saville," he said; "what charming
girls they are! I have just left them at Naples, where they have been
spending the carnival. I saw them almost every day, and capitally we
enjoyed ourselves. Their Italian sister-in-law spirited them up to mask,
and to make a real carnival of it. A most lovely woman that. Did you
ever see Mrs. Saville, Lady Lodore?"

"Never," replied his auditress.

"Such eyes! Gazelles, and stars, and suns, and the whole range of poetic
imagery, might be sought in vain, to do justice to her large dark eyes.
She is very young--scarcely twenty: and to see her with her child, is
positively a finer tableau than any Raphael or Correggio in the world.
She has a little girl, not a year old, with golden hair, and eyes as
black as the mother's--the most beautiful little thing, and so
intelligent. Saville doats on it: no wonder--he is not himself handsome,
you know; though the lovely Clorinda would stab me if she heard me say
so. She positively adores him. You should have seen them together."

Lady Lodore turned on him one of her sweetest smiles, and in her blandest
tone, said, "If you could only get me an ice from that servant, who I see
immovable behind those dear, wonderful dowagers, you would so oblige
me."

He was gone in a minute; and on his return, Lady Lodore was so deeply
engrossed in being persuaded to go to the next drawing room, by the young
and new-married Countess of G--, that she could only reward him with
another heavenly smile. He was obliged to take his carnival at Naples to
some other listener.

Cornelia scarcely closed her eyes that night. The thought of the happy
wife and lovely child of Saville, pierced her as with remorse. She had
entirely broken off her acquaintance with his family, so that she was
ignorant of Clorinda's disposition, and readily fancied that she was as
happy as she believed that the wife of Horatio Saville must be. She
would not acknowledge that she was wicked enough to repine at her
felicity; but that he should be rendered happy by any other woman than
herself--that any other woman should have become the sharer of his
dearest affections, stung her to the core. Yet why should she regret?
She were well exchanged for one so lovely and so young. At the age of
thirty-four, which she had now reached, Cornelia persuaded herself, that
the name of beauty was a mockery as applied to her--though her own glass
might have told her otherwise; for time had dealt lightly with her, so
that the extreme fascination of her manner, and the animation and
intelligence of her countenance, made her compete with many younger
beauties. She felt that she was deteriorated from the angelic being she
had seemed when she first appeared as Lodore's bride; and this made all
compliments show false and vain. Now she figured to herself the dark
eyes of the Neapolitan; and easily believed that the memory of her would
contrast, like a faded picture, with the rich hues of Clorinda's face;
while her sad and withered feelings were in yet greater opposition to
the vivacity she had heard described and praised--to the triumphant and
glad feelings of a beloved wife. It seemed to her as if she must weep
for ever, and yet that tears were unavailing to diminish in any degree
the sorrow that weighed so heavily at her heart. These reflections sat
like a night-mare on her pillow, troubling the repose she in vain
courted. She arose in the morning, scarcely conscious that she had slept
at all--languid from exhaustion--her sufferings blunted by their very
excess.




CHAPTER IX


O, where have I been all this time? How 'friended
That I should lose myself thus desp'rately.
And none for pity show me how I wandered!

BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.


While it was yet too early for visitors, and before she had ordered
herself to be denied to every one, as she intended to do, she was
surprised by a double knock at the door, and she rang hastily to prevent
any one being admitted. The servants, with contradictory orders, found
it difficult to evade the earnest desire of the visitor to see their
lady; and at last they brought up a card, on which was written, "Miss
Derham wishes to be permitted to see Lady Lodore for Mrs. Villiers."
_From_ had first been written, erased, and _for_ substituted. Lady Lodore
was alarmed; and the ideas of danger and death instantly presenting
themselves, she desired Miss Derham to be shown up. She met her with a
face of anxiety, and with that frankness and kindness of manner which
was the irresistible sceptre she wielded to subdue all hearts. Fanny had
hitherto disliked Lady Lodore. She believed her to be cold, worldly, and
selfish--now, in a moment, she was convinced, by the powerful influence
of manner, that she was the contrary of all this; so that instead of the
chilling address she meditated, she was impelled to throw off her
reserve, and to tell her story with animation and detail. She spoke of
what Mrs. Villiers had gone through previous to the arrest of her
husband--and how constantly she had kept her resolve of remaining with
him--though her situation day by day becoming more critical, demanded
attentions and luxuries which she had no means of attaining. "Yet," said
Fanny, "I should not have intruded on you even now, but that they cannot
go on as they are; their resources are utterly exhausted,--and until
next June I see no prospect for them."

"Why does not Mr. Villiers apply to his father? even if letters were of
no avail, a personal appeal--"

"I am afraid that Colonel Villiers has
nothing to give," replied Fanny, "and at all events, Mr. Villiers's
imprisonment--"

"Prison!" cried Lady Lodore, "you do not mean--Ethel cannot be
living in prison!"

"They live within the rules, if you understand that term. They rent a
lodging close to the prison on the other side of the river."

"This must indeed be altered," said Lady Lodore, "this is far too
shocking--poor Ethel, she must come here! Dear Miss Derham, will you
tell her how much I desire to see her, and entreat her to make my house
her home."

Fanny shook head. "She will not leave her husband--I should make your
proposal in vain."

Lady Lodore looked incredulous. After a moment's thought she persuaded
herself that Ethel's having refused to return to the house of Mrs. Derham,
or having negatived some other proposed kindness originated this notion,
and she believed that she had only to make her invitation in the most
gracious possible way, not to have it refused. "I will go to Ethel
myself," she said; "I will myself bring her here, and so smooth all
difficulties."

Fanny did not object. Under her new favourable opinion of Lady Lodore, she
felt that all would be well if the mother and daughter were brought
together, though only for a few minutes. She wrote down Ethel's address,
and took her leave, while at the same moment Lady Lodore ordered her
carriage, and assured her that no time should be lost in removing Mrs.
Villiers to a more suitable abode.

Lady Lodore's feelings on this occasion were not so smiling as her looks.
She was grieved for her daughter, but she was exceedingly vexed for
herself. She had desired some interest, some employment in life, but she
recoiled from any that should link her with Ethel. She desired occupation,
and not slavery; but to bring the young wife to her own house, and make it
a home for her, was at once destructive of her own independence. She
looked forward with repugnance to the familiarity that must thence ensue
between her and Villiers. Even the first step was full of annoyance, and
she was displeased that Fanny had given her the task of going to her
daughter's habitation, and forced her to appear personally on so
degrading a scene; there was however no help--she had undertaken it, and
it must be done.

Every advance she made towards the wretched part of the town where Ethel
lived, added to her ill-humour. She felt almost personally affronted by
the necessity she was under of first coming in contact with her daughter
under such disastrous circumstances. Her spleen against Lord Lodore
revived: she viewed every evil that had ever befallen her, as arising from
his machinations. If Ethel had been entrusted to her guardianship, she
certainly had never become the wife of Edward Villiers--nor ever have
tasted the dregs of opprobrious poverty.

At length, her carriage drew near a row of low, shabby houses; and as
the name caught her eye she found that she had reached her destination.
She resolved not to see Villiers, if it could possibly be avoided; and
then making up her mind to perform her part with grace, and every show
of kindness, she made an effort to smooth her brow and recall her
smiles. The carriage stopped at a door--a servant-maid answered to the
knock. She ordered Mr. Villiers to be asked for; he was not at home. One
objection to her proceeding was removed by this answer. Mrs. Villiers
was in the house, and she alighted and desired to be shown to her.




CHAPTER X


As flowers beneath May's footsteps waken
As stars from night's loose hair are shaken;
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.

SHELLEY.


Never before had the elegant and fastidious Lady Lodore entered such an
abode, or ascended such stairs. The servant had told her to enter the room
at the head of the first flight, so she made her way by herself, and
knocked at the door. The voice that told her to come in, thrilled
through her, she knew not why, and she became disturbed at finding that
her self-possession was failing her. Slight things act powerfully on the
subtle mechanism of the human mind. She had dressed with scrupulous
plainness, yet her silks and furs were strangely contrasted with the
room she entered, and she felt ashamed of all the adjuncts of wealth and
luxury that attended her. She opened the door with an effort: Ethel was
seated near the fire at work--no place or circumstance could deteriorate
from her appearance--in her simple, unadorned morning-dress, she looked
as elegant and as distinguished as she had done when her mother had last
seen her in diamonds and plumes in the presence of royalty. There was
a charm about both, strikingly in contrast, and yet equal in
fascination--the polish of Lady Lodore, and the simplicity of Ethel were
both manifestations of inward grace and dignity; and as they now met, it
would have been difficult to say which had the advantage of the other.
Ethel's extreme youth, by adding to the interest with which she must be
regarded, was in her favour. Yet full of sensibility and loveliness as
was her face, she had never been, nor was she even now, as strikingly
beautiful as her mother.

Lady Lodore could not restrain the tear that started into her eye on
beholding her daughter situated as she was. Ethel's feelings, on the
contrary, were all gladness. She had no pride to allay her gratitude for
her mother's kindness. "How very good of you to come!" she said, "how could
you find out where we were?"

"How long have you been here?" asked Lady Lodore, looking round the
wretched little room.

"Only a few weeks--I assure you it is not so bad as it seems. I should
not much mind it, but that Edward feels it so deeply on my account."

"I do not wonder," said her mother, "he must be cut to the soul--but
thank God it is over now. You shall come to me immediately, my house is
quite large enough to accommodate you--I am come to fetch you."

"My own dearest mother!"--the words scarcely formed themselves on
Ethel's lips; she half feared to offend the lovely woman before her by
showing her a daughter's affection.

"Yes, call me mother," said Lady Lodore; "I may, at last, I hope, be
allowed to prove myself one. Come then, dear Ethel, you will not refuse my
request--you will come with me?"

"How gladly--but--will they let Edward go? I thought there was no hope
of so much good fortune."

"I fear indeed," replied her mother, "that Mr. Villiers must endure the
annoyance of remaining here a little longer; but I hope his affairs will
soon be arranged."

Ethel bent her large eyes inquiringly on her mother, as if not
understanding; and then, as her meaning opened on her, a smile diffused
itself over her countenance as she said, "Your intentions are the
kindest in the world--I am grateful, how far more grateful than I can at
all express, for your goodness. That you have had the kindness to come
to this odious place is more than I could ever dare expect."

"It is not worth your thanks, although I think I deserve your
acquiescence to my proposal. You will come home with me?"

Ethel shook her head, smilingly. "All my wishes are accomplished," she
said, "through this kind visit. I would not have you for the world come
here again; but the wall between us is broken down, and we shall not
become strangers again."

"My dearest Ethel," said Lady Lodore, seriously, "I see what you mean. I
wish Mr. Villiers were here to advocate my cause. You must come with me--he
will be much more at ease when you are no longer forced to share his
annoyances. This is in every way an unfit place for you, especially at
this time."

"I shall appear ungrateful, I fear," replied Ethel, "if I assure you how
much better off I am here than I could be any where else in the world.
This place appears miserable to you--so I dare say it is; to me it seems
to possess every requisite for happiness, and were it not so, I would
rather live in an actual dungeon with Edward, than in the most splendid
mansion in England, away from him."

Her face was lighted up with such radiance as she spoke--there was so
much fervour in her voice--such deep affection in her speaking
eyes--such an earnest demonstration of heartfelt sincerity, that Lady
Lodore was confounded and overcome. Swift, as if a map had been unrolled
before her, the picture of her own passed life was retraced in her
mind--its loneless and unmeaning pursuits--and the bitter disappointments
that had blasted every hope of seeing better days. She burst into tears.
Ethel was shocked and tried to soothe her by caresses and assurances of
gratitude and affection. "And yet you will not come with me?" said Lady
Lodore, making an effort to resume her self-command.

"I cannot. It is impossible for me voluntarily to separate myself from
Edward--I am too weak, too great a coward."

"And is there no hope of liberation for him?" This question of Lady
Lodore forced them back to matter-of-fact topics, and she became composed.
Ethel related how ineffectual every endeavour had yet been to arrange
his affairs, how large his debts, how inexorable his creditors, how
neglectful his attorney.

"And his father?" inquired her mother.

"He seems to me to be kind-hearted," replied Ethel, "and to feel deeply
his son's situation; but he has no means--he himself is in want."

"He is keeping a carriage at this moment in Paris," said Lady Lodore, "and
giving parties--however, I allow that that is no proof of his having
money. Still you must not stay here."

"Nor shall we always," replied Ethel; "something of course will happen
to take us away, though as yet it is all hopeless enough."

"Aunt Bessy, Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry, might give you assistance. Have
you asked her?--has she refused?"

"Edward has exacted a promise from me not to reveal our perplexities to
her--he is punctilious about money obligations, and I have given my word
not to hurt his delicacy on that point."

"Then that, perhaps, is the reason why you refused my request to go home
with me?" said Lady Lodore reproachfully.

"No," replied Ethel, "I do not think that he is so scrupulous as to
prevent a mother from serving her child, but he shall answer for
himself; I expect him back from his walk every minute."

"Then forgive me if I run away," said Lady Lodore; "I am not fit to see him
now. Better times will come, dearest Ethel, and we shall meet again. God
bless you, my child, as so much virtue and patience deserve to be blest.
Remember me with kindness."

"Do not you forget me," replied Ethel, "or rather, do not think of me
and my fortunes with too much disgust. We shall meet again, I hope?"

Lady Lodore kissed her, and hurried away. Scarcely was she in her carriage
than she saw Villiers advancing: his prepossessing appearance, ingenuous
countenance, and patrician figure, made more intelligible to her
world-practised eyes the fond fidelity of his wife. She drew up the
window that he might not see her, as she gave her directions for "home,"
and then retreating to the corner of her carriage, she tried to compose
her thoughts, and to reflect calmly on what was to be done.

But the effort was vain. The further she was removed from the strange
scene of the morning, the more powerfully did it act on, and agitate her
mind. Her soul was in tumults. This was the being she had pitied, almost
despised! Her eager imagination now exalted her into an angel. There was
something heart-moving in the gentle patience, and unrepining
contentment with which she bore her hard lot. She appeared in her eyes
to be one of those rare examples sent upon earth to purify human nature,
and to demonstrate how near akin to perfection we can become. Latent
maternal pride might increase her admiration, and maternal tenderness
add to its warmth. Her nature had acknowledged its affinity to her
child, and she felt drawn towards her with inexpressible yearnings. A
vehement desire to serve her sprung up--but all was confused and
tumultuous. She pressed her hand on her forehead, as if so to restrain
the strong current of thought. She compressed her lips, so to repress
her tears.

Arrived at home, she found herself in prison within the walls of her
chamber. She abhorred its gilding and luxury--she longed for Ethel's
scant abode and glorious privations. To alleviate her restlessness, she
again drove out, and directed her course through the Regent's Park, and
along the new road to Hampstead, where she was least liable to meet any
one she knew. It was one of the first fine days of spring. The green
meadows, the dark boughs swelling and bursting into bud, the fresh
enlivening air, the holiday of nature's birth--all this was lost on her,
or but added to her agitation. Still her thoughts were with her child in
her narrow abode; every lovely object served but to recall her image,
and the wafting of the soft breeze seemed an emanation from her. It was
dark before she came back, and sent a hurried note of excuse to the
house where she was to have dined. "No more, O never more," she cried,
"will I so waste my being, but learn from Ethel to be happy, and to
love."

Many thoughts and many schemes thronged her brain. Something must be
done, or her heart would burst. Pride, affection, repentance, all
occupied the same channel, and increased the flood that swept away every
idea but one. Her very love for Horatio, true and engrossing as it had
been, the source of many tears and endless regrets, appeared as slight
as the web of gossamer, compared to the chain that bound her to her
daughter. She could not herself understand, nor did she wish to know,
whence and why this enthusiasm had risen like an exhalation in her soul,
covering and occupying its entire space. She only knew it was there,
interpenetrating, paramount. Ethel's dark eyes and silken curls, her
sweet voice and heavenly smile, formed a moving, speaking picture, which
she felt that it were bliss to contemplate for ever. She retired at last
to bed, but not to rest; and as she lay with open eyes, thinking not of
sleep--alive in every pore--her brain working with ten thousand
thoughts, one at last grew more importunate than the rest, and demanded
all her attention. Her ideas became more consecutive, though not less
rapid and imperious. She drew forth in prospect, as it were, a map of
what was to be done, and the results. Her mind became fixed, and
sensations of ineffable pleasure accompanied her reveries. She was
resolved to sacrifice every thing to her daughter--to liberate Villiers,
and to establish her in ease and comfort. The image of self-sacrifice,
and of the ruin of her own fortunes, was attended with a kind of
rapture. She felt as if, in securing Ethel's happiness, she could never
feel sorrow more. This was something worth living for: the burden of
life was gone--its darkness dissipated--a soft light invested all
things, and angels' voices invited her to proceed. While indulging in
these reveries, she sunk into a balmy sleep--such a one she had not
enjoyed for many months--nay, her whole past life had never afforded her
so sweet a joy. The thoughts of love, when she believed that she should
be united to Saville, were not so blissful; for self-approbation,
derived from a consciousness of virtue and well-doing, hallowed every
thought.




CHAPTER XI


Like gentle rains on the dry plains,
Making that green which late was grey;
Or like the sudden moon, that stains
Some gloomy chamber's window panes,
With a broad light like day.

SHELLEY.


How mysterious a thing is the action of repentance in the human mind! We
will not dive into the debasing secrets of remorse for guilt. Lady Lodore
could accuse herself of none. Yet when she looked back, a new light shone
on the tedious maze in which she had been lost; a light--and she blessed
it--that showed her a pathway out of tempest and confusion into serenity
and peace. She wondered at her previous blindness; it was as if she had
closed her eyelids, and then fancied it was night. No fear that she
should return to darkness; her heart felt so light, her spirit so clear
and animated, that she could only wonder how it was she had missed
happiness so long, when it needed only that she should stretch out her
hand to take it.

Her first act on the morrow was to have an interview with her
son-in-law's solicitor. Nothing could be more hopeless than Mr.
Gayland's representation of his client's affairs. The various deeds of
settlement and entail, through which he inherited his estate, were
clogged in such a manner as to render an absolute sale of his
reversionary prospects impossible, so that the raising of money on them
could only be effected at an immense future sacrifice. Under these
circumstances Gayland had been unwilling to proceed, and appeared
lukewarm and dilatory, while he was impelled by that love for the
preservation of property, which often finds place in the mind of a legal
adviser.

Lady Lodore listened attentively to his statements. She asked the extent of
Edward's debts, and somewhat started at the sum named as necessary to
clear him. She then told Mr. Gayland that their ensuing conversation
must continue under a pledge of secrecy on his part. He assented, and
she proceeded to represent her intention of disposing of her jointure
for the purpose of extricating Villiers from his embarrassments. She
gave directions for its sale, and instructions for obtaining the
necessary papers to effect it. Mr. Gayland's countenance brightened; yet
he offered a few words of remonstrance against such unexampled
generosity.

"The sacrifice," said Lady Lodore, "is not so great as you imagine. A
variety of circumstances tend to compensate me for it. I do not depend upon
this source of income alone; and be assured, that what I do, I consider, on
the whole, as benefiting me even more than Mr. Villiers."

Mr. Gayland bowed; and Cornelia returned home with a light heart. For
months she had not felt such an exhilaration of spirits. A warm joy
thrilled through her frame, and involuntary smiles dimpled her cheeks.
Dusky and dingy as was the day, the sunshine of her soul dissipated its
shadows, and spread brightness over her path. She could scarcely
controul the expression of her delight; and when she sat down to write
to Ethel, it was several minutes before she was able to collect her
thoughts, so as to remember what she had intended to say. Two notes were
destroyed before she had succeeded in imparting that sobriety to her
expressions, which was needful to veil her purpose, which she had
resolved to lock within her own breast for ever. At length she was
obliged to satisfy herself with a few vague expressions. This was her
letter:--


"I cannot help believing, my dearest girl, that your trials are coming
to a conclusion. I have seen Mr. Gayland; and it appears to me that
energy and activity are chiefly wanting for the arrangement of your
husband's affairs: I think I have in some degree inspired these. He has
promised to write to Mr. Villiers, who, I trust, will find satisfaction
in his views. Do you, my dearest Ethel, keep up your spirits, and take
care of your precious health. We shall meet again in better days, when
you will be rewarded for your sufferings and goodness. Believe me, I
love as much as I admire you; so, in spite of the past, think of me with
indulgence and affection."


Lady Lodore dressed to dine out, and for an evening assembly. She looked so
radiant and so beautiful, that admiration and compliments were showered
upon her. How vain and paltry they all seemed; and yet her feelings were
wholly changed from that period, when she desired to reject and scoff at
the courtesy of her fellow-creatures. The bitterness of spirit was gone,
which had prompted her to pour out gall and sarcasm, and had made it her
greatest pleasure to revel in the contempt and hate that filled her
bosom towards herself and others. She was now at peace with the world,
and disposed to view its follies charitably. Yet how immeasurably
superior she felt herself to all those around her! not through vanity or
supercilious egotism, but from the natural spring of inward joy and
self-approbation, which a consciousness of doing well opened in her
before dried-up heart. She somewhat contemned her friends, and wholly
pitied them. But she could not dwell on any disagreeable sentiment. Her
thoughts, while she reverted to the circumstances that so changed their
tenor, were stained with the fairest hues, harmonized by the most
delicious music. She had risen to a sphere above, beyond the ordinary
soarings of mortals--a world without a cloud, without one ungenial
breath. She wondered at herself. She looked back with mingled horror and
surprise on the miserable state of despondence to which she had been
reduced. Where were now her regrets?--where her ennui, her repinings,
her despair? "In the deep bosom of the ocean buried!"--and she arose, as
from a second birth, to new hopes, new prospects, new feelings; or
rather to another state of being, which had no affinity to the former.
For poverty was now her pursuit, obscurity her desire, ruin her hope;
and she smiled on, and beckoned to these, as if life possessed no
greater blessings.

Her impetuosity and pride served to sustain the high tone of her soul.
She had none of that sloth of purpose, or weakness of feeling, that
leads to hesitation and regret. To resolve with her had been, during the
whole course of her life, to do; and what her mind was set upon she
accomplished--it might be rashly, but still with that independence and
energy, that gave dignity even to her more ambiguous actions. As before,
when she cast off Lodore, she had never admitted a doubt that she was
justified before God and her conscience for refusing to submit to the
most insulting tyranny; so now, believing that she had acted ill in not
demanding the guardianship of her daughter, and resolving to atone for
the evils which were the consequence of this neglect of duty on her
part, she had no misgivings as to the future, but rushed precipitately
onwards. As a racer at the Olympic games, she panted to arrive at the
goal, though it were only to expire at the moment of its attainment.

Meanwhile, Ethel had been enchanted by her mother's visit, and spoke of
it to Villiers as a proof of the real goodness of her heart, insisting
that she was judged harshly and falsely. Villiers smiled incredulously.
"She gains your esteem at an easy rate," he observed; "cultivate it, if
it makes you happier. It will need more than a mere act of ordinary
courtesy--more than a slight invitation to her house, to persuade me
that Lady Lodore is not--what she is--a worshipper of the world, a
frivolous, unfeeling woman. Mark me whether she comes again."

Her letter, on the following day, strengthened his opinion. "This is
even insulting," he said: "she takes care to inform you that she will
not look again on your poverty, but will wait for _better days_ to bring
you together. The kindness of such an intimation is quite admirable. She
has inspired Gayland with energy and activity!--O, then, she must be a
Medea, in more senses than the more obvious one."

Ethel looked reproachfully. She saw that Villiers was deeply hurt that
Lady Lodore had become acquainted with their distresses, and been a witness
of the nakedness of the land. She could not inspire him with the tenderness
that warmed her heart towards her mother, and the conviction she
entertained, in spite of appearances, (for she was forced to confess to
herself that Lady Lodore's letter was not exactly the one she expected,)
that her heart was generous and affectionate. It was a comfort to her
that Fanny Derham participated in her opinions. Fanny was quite sure
that Lady Lodore would prove herself worthy of the esteem she had so
suddenly conceived for her; and Ethel listened delightedly to her
assertions--it was so soothing to think well of, to love, and praise her
mother.

The solicitor's letter, which came, as Lady Lodore announced, somewhat
surprised Villiers; yet, after a little reflection, he gave no heed to
its contents. It said, that upon further consideration of particular
points, Gayland perceived certain facilities; by improving upon which,
he hoped soon to make a favourable arrangement, and to extricate Mr.
Villiers from his involvements. Any thing so vague demanded explanation.
Edward wrote earnestly, requesting one; but his letter remained
unanswered. Perplexed and annoyed, he obtained permission to quit his
bounds for a few hours, and called upon the man of law. Gayland was so
busy, that he could not afford him more than five minutes' conversation.
He said that he had hopes--even expectations; that a little time would
show more; and he begged his client to be patient. Villiers returned in
despair. The only circumstance that at all served to inspire him with
any hope, was, that on the day succeeding to his visit, he received a
remittance of an hundred pounds from Gayland, who begged to be
considered as his banker till the present negociations should be
concluded.

There was some humiliation in the knowledge of how welcome this supply
had become, and Ethel used her gentle influence to mitigate the pain of
such reflections. If she ever drooped, it was not for herself, but for
Villiers; and she carefully hid even these disinterested repinings. Her
own condition did not inspire her with any fears, and the anxiety that
she experienced for her unborn child was untinctured by bitterness or
despair. She felt assured that their present misfortunes would be of
short duration; and instead of letting her thoughts dwell on the
mortifications or shame that marked the passing hour, she loved to fill
her mind with pleasing sensations, inspired by the tenderness of her
husband, the kindness of poor Fanny, and the reliance she had in the
reality of her mother's affection. In vain, she said, did the harsher
elements of life try to disturb the serenity which the love of those
around her produced in her soul. Her happiness was treasured in their
hearts, and did not emanate from the furniture of a room, nor the
comfort of an equipage. Her babe, if destined to open its eyes first on
such a scene, would be still less acted upon by its apparent
cheerlessness. Cradled in her arms, and nourished at her bosom, what
more benign fate could await the little stranger? What was there in
their destiny worthy of grief, while they remained true to each other?

With such arguments she tried to inspire Villiers with a portion of that
fortitude and patience which was a natural growth in herself. They had
but slender effect upon him. Their different educations had made her
greatly his superior in these virtues; besides that she, with her
simpler habits and unprejudiced mind, was less shocked by the
concomitants of penury, than he, bred in high notions of aristocratic
exclusiveness. She had spent her youth among settlers in a new country,
and did not associate the idea of disgrace with want. Nakedness and
gaunt hunger had often been the invaders of her forest home, scarcely to
be repelled by her father's forethought and resources. How could she
deem these shameful, when they had often assailed the most worthy and
industrious, who were not the less regarded or esteemed on that account.
She had acquired a practical philosophy, while inhabiting the western
wilderness, and beholding the vast variety of life that it presents,
which stood her in good stead under her European vicissitudes. The white
inhabitants of America did not form her only school. The Red Indian and
his squaw were also human beings, subject to the same necessities,
moved, in the first instance, by the same impulses as herself. All that
bore the human form were sanctified to her by the spirit of sympathy;
and she could not, as Edward did, feel herself wholly outcast and under
ban, while kindness, however humble, and intelligence, however lowly,
attended upon her.

Villiers could not yield to her arguments, nor partake her wisdom; yet
he was glad that she possessed any source of consolation, however
unimaginable by himself. He buried within his heart the haughty sense of
wrong. He uttered no complaint, though his whole being rebelled against
the state of inaction to which he was reduced. It maddened him to feel
that he could not stir a finger to help himself, even while he fancied
that he saw his young wife withering before his eyes; and looked forward
to the birth of his child, under circumstances, that rendered even the
necessary attendance difficult, if not impracticable. The heaviest
weight of slavery fell upon him, for it was he that was imprisoned, and
forbidden to go beyond certain limits; and though Ethel religiously
confined herself within yet narrower bounds than those allotted to him,
he only saw, in this delicacy, another source of evil. Nor were these
real tangible ills those which inflicted the greatest pain. Had these
misfortunes visited him in the American wilderness, or in any part of
the world where the majesty of nature had surrounded them, he fancied
that he should have been less alive to their sinister influence. But
here shame was conjoined with the perpetual spectacle of the least
reputable class of the civilized community. Their walks were haunted by
men who bore the stamp of profligacy and crime; and the very shelter of
their dwelling was shared by the mean and vulgar. His aristocratic pride
was sorely wounded at every turn;--not for himself so much, for he was
manly enough to feel "that a man's a man for all that,"--but for Ethel's
sake, whom he would have fondly placed apart from all that is deformed
and unseemly, guarded even from the rougher airs of heaven, and
surrounded by every thing most luxurious and beautiful in the world.

There was no help. Now and then he got a letter from his father, full of
unmeaning apologies and unmanly complaints. The more irretrievable his
poverty became, the firmer grew his resolve not to burden with his wants
any more distant relation. He would readily give up every prospect of
future wealth to purchase ease and comfort for Ethel; but he could not
bend to any unworthy act; and the harder he felt pressed upon and
injured by fortune, the more jealously he maintained his independence of
feeling; on that he would lean to the last, though it proved a sword to
pierce him.

He looked forward with despair, yet he tried to conceal his worst
thoughts, which would still be brooding upon absolute want and
starvation. He answered Ethel's cheering tones in accents of like cheer,
and met the melting tenderness of her gaze with eyes that spoke of love
only. He endeavoured to persuade her that he did not wholly shut his
heart from the hopes she was continually presenting to him. Hopes, the
very names of which were mockery. For they must necessarily be embodied
in words and ideas--and his father or uncle were mentioned--the one had
proved a curse, the other a temptation. He could trace his reverses as
to the habits of expence and the false views of his resources, acquired
under Lord Maristow's tutelage, as to the prodigality and neglect of his
parent. Even the name of Horatio Saville produced bitterness. Why was
he not here? He would not intrude his wants upon him in his Italian
home; but had he been in England, they had been saved from these worst
blows of fate.

The only luxury of Villiers was to steal some few hours of solitude,
when he could indulge in his miserable reflections without restraint.
The loveliness and love of Ethel were then before his imagination to
drive him to despair. To suffer alone would have been nothing; but to
see this child of beauty and tenderness, this fairest nursling of nature
and liberty, droop and fade in their narrow, poverty-striken home, bred
thoughts akin to madness. During each live-long night he was kept awake
by the anguish of such reflections. Darker thoughts sometimes intruded
themselves. He fancied that if he were dead, Ethel would be happier. Her
mother, his relations, each and all would come forward to gift her with
opulence and ease. The idea of self-destruction thus became soothing;
and he pondered with a kind of savage pleasure on the means by which he
should end the coil of misery that had wound round him.

At such times the knowledge of Ethel's devoted affection checked him. Or
sometimes, as he gazed on her as she lay sleeping at his side, he felt
that every sorrow was less than that which separation must produce; and
that to share adversity with her was greater happiness than the
enjoyment of prosperity apart from her. Once, when brought back from the
gloomiest desperation by such a return of softer emotions, the words of
Francesca da Rimini rushed upon his mind and completed the change. He
recollected how she and her lover were consoled by their eternal
companionship in the midst of the infernal whirlwind. "And do I love you
less, my angel?" he thought; "are you not more dear to me than woman
ever was to man, and would I divide myself from you because we suffer?
Perish the thought! Whether for good or ill, let our existences still
continue one, and from the sanctity and sympathy of our union, a sweet
will be extracted, sufficient to destroy the bitterness of this hour. We
prefer remaining together, mine own sweet love, for ever together,
though it were for an eternity of pain. And these woes are finite. Your
pure and exalted nature will be rewarded for its sufferings, and I, for
your sake, shall be saved. I could not live without you in this world;
and yet with insane purpose I would rush into the unknown, away from
you, leaving you to seek comfort and support from other hands than mine.
I was base and cowardly to entertain the thought, but for one moment--a
traitor to my own affection, and the stabber of your peace. Ah, dearest
Ethel, when in a few hours your eyes will open on the light, and seek me
as the object most beloved by them, were I away, unable to return their
fondness, incapable of the blessing of beholding them, what hell could
be contrived to punish more severely my dereliction of duty?"

With this last thought another train of feeling was introduced, and he
strung himself to more manly endurance. He saw that his post was
assigned him in this world, and that he ought to fulfil its duties with
courage and patience. Hope came hand in hand with such ideas--and the
dawn of content on his soul was a proof that the exercise of virtue
brought with it its own reward. He could not always keep his feelings in
the same tone, but he no longer saw greatness of mind in the indulgence
of sorrow.

He remembered that throughout the various stations into which society
has divided human beings, adversity and pain belong to each, and that
death and treachery are more frightful evils than all the hardships of
life. He thought of his unborn child, and of his duties towards it--not
only in a worldly point of view, but as its teacher and guide in morals
and religion. The beauty and use of the ties of blood, to which his
peculiar situation had hitherto blinded him, became intelligible at once
to his heart and his understanding; and while he felt how ill his father
had fulfilled the paternal duties, he resolved that his own offspring
should never have cause to reproach him for similar misconduct. Before
he had repined because the evils of his lot seemed gratuitous suffering;
but now he felt, as Ethel had often expressed it, that the sting of
humiliation is taken from misfortune, when we nerve ourselves to endure
it for another's sake.




CHAPTER XII


The world had just begun to steal
Each hope that led me lightly on,
I felt not as I used to feel,
And life grew dark and love was gone.

THOMAS MOORE.


While the young pair were thus struggling with the severe visitation of
adversity, Lady Lodore was earnestly engaged in her endeavours to extricate
them from their difficulties. The ardour of her zeal had made her take
the first steps in this undertaking, with a resolution that would not
look behind, and a courage not to be dismayed by the dreary prospect
which the future afforded. The scheme which she had planned, and was now
proceeding to execute, was unbounded in generosity and self-sacrifice.
It was not in her nature to stop short at half-measures, nor to pause
when once she had fixed her purpose. If she ever trembled on looking
forward to the utter ruin she was about to encounter, her second emotion
was to despise herself for such pusillanimity, and to be roused to
renewed energy. She intended to devote as much as was necessary of the
money arising from the sale of her jointure, as fixed by her marriage
settlement, for the liquidation of her son-in-law's debts. The remaining
six hundred a-year, bequeathed to her in Lord Lodore's will, under
circumstances of cruel insult, she resolved to give up to her daughter's
use, for her future subsistence. She hoped to save enough from the sum
produced by the disposal of her jointure, to procure the necessaries of
life for a few years, and she did not look beyond. She would quit London
for ever. She must leave her house, which she had bought during her days
of prosperity, and which she had felt so much pride and delight in
adorning with every luxury and comfort: to crown her good work, she
intended to give it up to Ethel. And then with her scant means she would
take refuge in the solitude where Lodore found her, and spend the
residue of her days among the uncouth and lonely mountains of Wales, in
poverty and seclusion. It was from no agreeable association with her
early youth, that she selected the neighbourhood of Rhaider Gowy for her
future residence; nor from a desire of renewing the recollections of the
period spent there, nor of revisiting the scenes, where she had stepped
beyond infancy into the paths of life. Her choice simply arose from
being obliged to think of economy in its strictest sense, and she
remembered this place as the cheapest in the world, and the most
retired. Besides, that in fixing on a part of the country which she had
before inhabited, and yet where she would be utterly unknown, the idea
of her future home assumed distinctness, and a greater sense of
practicability was imparted to her schemes, than could have been the
case, had she been unable to form any image in her mind of the exact
spot whither she was about to betake herself.

The first conception of this plan had dawned on her soul, as the design
of some sublime poem or magnificent work of art may present itself to
the contemplation of the poet and man of genius. She dwelt on it in its
entire result, with a glow of joy; she entered into its details with
childish eagerness. She pictured to herself the satisfaction of Villiers
and Ethel at finding themselves suddenly, as by magic, restored to
freedom and the pleasures of life. She figured their gladness in
exchanging their miserable lodging for the luxury of her elegant
dwelling; their pleasure in forgetting the long train of previous
misfortunes, or remembering them only to enhance their prosperity, when
pain and fear, disgrace and shame, should be exchanged for security and
comfort. She repeated to herself, "I do all this--I, the despised
Cornelia! I who was deemed unworthy to have the guardianship of my own
child. I, who was sentenced to desertion and misery, because I was too
worldly and selfish to be worthy of Horace Saville! How little through
life has my genuine character been known, or its qualities appreciated!
Nor will it be better understood now. My sacrifices will continue a
mystery, and even the benefits I am forced to acknowledge to flow from
me, I shall diminish in their eyes, by bestowing them with apparent
indifference. Will they ever deign to discover the reality under the
deceitful appearances which it will be my pride to exhibit? I care not;
conscience will approve me--and when I am alone and unthought of, the
knowledge that Ethel is happy through my means will make poverty a
blessing."

It was not pride alone that induced Lady Lodore to resolve on concealing
the extent of her benefits. All that she could give was not much if
compared with the fortunes of the wealthy--but it was a competence, which
would enable her daughter and her husband to expect better days with
patience; but if they knew how greatly she was a sufferer for their good,
they would insist at least upon her sharing their income--and what was
scanty in its entireness, would be wholly insufficient when divided.
Villiers also might dispute or reject her kindness, and deeply injured as
she believed herself to have been by him--injured by his disesteem, and the
influence he had used over Saville, in a manner so baneful to her
happiness, she felt irrepressible exultation at the idea of heaping
obligation on him,--and knowing herself to be deserving of his deepest
gratitude. All these sentiments might be deemed fantastic, or at least
extravagant. Yet her conclusions were reasonable, for it was perfectly
true that Villiers would rather have returned to his prison, than have
purchased freedom at the vast price she was about to pay for it. No, her
design was faultless in its completeness, meagre and profitless if she
stopt short of its full execution. Nor would she see Ethel again in the
interim--partly fearful of not preserving her secret inviolate--partly
because she felt so strongly drawn towards her, that she dreaded finding
herself the slave of an affection--a passion, which, under her
circumstances, she could not indulge. Without counsellor, without one
friendly voice to encourage, she advanced in the path she had marked
out, and drew from her own heart only the courage to proceed.

It required, however, all her force of character to carry her forward. A
thousand difficulties were born at every minute, and the demands made
were increased to such an extent as to make it possible that they would
go beyond her means of satisfying them. She had not the assistance of
one friend acquainted with the real state of things to direct her--her
only adviser was a man of law, who did what he was directed--not indeed
with passive obedience, but whose deviations from mere acquiescence,
arose from technical objections and legal difficulties, at once
unintelligible and tormenting.

Besides these more palpable annoyances, other clouds arose, natural to
wavering humanity, which would sometimes shadow Cornelia's soul, so that
she drooped from the height she had reached, with a timid and dejected
spirit. At first she looked forward to ruin, exile, and privation, as to
possessions which she coveted--but the further she proceeded, the more
she lost view of the light and gladness which had attended on the dawn
of her new visions. Futurity became enveloped in an appalling obscurity,
while the present was sad and cheerless. The ties which she had formed
in the world, which she had fancied it would be so easy to cut asunder,
assumed strength; and she felt that she must endure many pangs in the
act of renouncing them for ever. The scenes and persons which, a little
while ago, she had regarded as uninteresting and frivolous--she was now
forced to acknowledge to be too inextricably interwoven with her habits
and pursuits, to be all at once quitted without severe pain. When the
future was spoken of by others with joyous anticipation, her heart sunk
within her, to think how her hereafter was to become disjointed and cast
away from all that had preceded it. The mere pleasures of society grew
into delights, when thought of as about to become unattainable; and
slight partialities were regarded as if founded upon strong friendship
and tender affection. She was not aware till now how habit and
association will endear the otherwise indifferent, and how the human
heart, prone to love, will entwine its ever-sprouting tendrils around
any object, not absolutely repulsive, which is brought into near contact
with it. When any of her favourites addressed her in cordial tones, when
she met the glance of one she esteemed, directed towards her with an
expression of kindliness and sympathy, her eyes grew dim, and a thrill
of anguish passed through her frame. All that she had a little while ago
scorned as false and empty, she now looked upon as the pleasant reality
of life, which she was to exchange for she scarcely knew what--a living
grave, a friendless desart--for silence and despair.

It is a hard trial at all times to begin the world anew, even when we
exchange a mediocre station for one which our imagination paints as full
of enjoyment and distinction. How much more difficult it was for Lady to
despoil herself of every good, and voluntarily to encounter poverty in
its most unadorned guise. As time advanced, she became fully aware of
what she would have to go through, and her heroism was the greater,
because, though the charm had vanished, and no hope of compensation or
reward was held out, she did not shrink from accomplishing her task. She
could not exactly say, like old Adam in the play,


At seventeen years many their fortunes seek,
But at fourscore it is too late a week.


Yet at her age it was perhaps more difficult to cast off the goods of this
world, than at a more advanced one. Midway in life, we are not weaned
from affections and pleasures--we still hope. We even demand more of
solid advantages, because the romantic ideas of youth have disappeared,
and yet we are not content to give up the game. We no longer set our
hearts on ephemeral joys, but require to be enabled to put our trust in
the continuance of any good offered to our choice. This desire of
durability in our pleasures is equally felt by the young; but ardour of
feeling and ductility of imagination is then at hand to bestow a
quality, so dear and so unattainable to fragile humanity, on any object
we desire should be so gifted. But at a riper age we pause, and seek
that our reason may be convinced, and frequently prefer a state of
prosperity less extatic and elevated, because its very sobriety
satisfies us that it will not slip suddenly from our grasp.

The comforts of life, the esteem of friends--these are things which we
then regard with the greatest satisfaction; and other feelings, less
reasonable, yet not less keenly felt, may enter into the circle of
sensations, which forms the existence of a beautiful woman. It is less
easy for one who has been all her life admired and waited upon, to give
up the few last years of such power, than it would have been to cast
away the gift in earlier life. She has learned to doubt her influence,
to know its value, and to prize it. In girlhood it may be matter of mere
triumph--in after years it will be looked on as an inestimable quality
by which she may more easily and firmly secure the benevolence of her
fellow-creatures. All this depends upon the polish of the skin and the
fire of the eye, which a few years will deface and quench--and while the
opprobrious epithet of old woman approaches within view, she is glad to
feel secure from its being applied to her, by perceiving the signs of
the influence of her surviving attractions marked in the countenances of
her admirers. Lady Lodore never felt so kindly inclined towards hers, as now
that she was about to withdraw from them. Their admiration, for its own
sake, she might contemn, but she valued it as the testimony that those
charms were still hers, which once had subdued the soul of him she
loved--and this was no disagreeable assurance to one who was on the eve
of becoming a grandmother.

Her sensibility, awakened by the considerations forced on her by her new
circumstances, caused her to make more progress in the knowledge of
life, and in the philosophy of its laws, than love or ambition had ever
done before. The last had rendered her proud from success, the first had
caused her to feel dependent on one only; but now that she was about to
abandon all, she found herself bound to all by stronger ties than she
could have imagined. She became aware that any new connexion could never
be adorned by the endearing recollections attending those she had
already formed. The friends of her youth, her mere acquaintances, she
regarded with peculiar partiality, as being the witnesses or sharers of
her past joys and successes. Each familiar face was sanctified in her
eyes by association; and she walked among those whom she had so lately
scorned, as if they were saintly memorials to be approached with awe,
and quitted with eternal regret. Her hopes and prospects had hinged upon
them, but her life became out of joint when she quitted them. Her
sensitive nature melted in unwonted tenderness while occupied by such
contemplations, and they turned the path, she had so lately entered as
one of triumph and gladness, to gloom and despondence.

Sometimes she pondered upon means for preserving her connexion with the
world. But any scheme of that kind was fraught, on the one hand, with
mortification to herself, on the other, with the overthrow of her
designs, through the repugnance which Ethel and her husband would feel
at occasioning such unmeasured sacrifices. She often regretted that
there were no convents, to which she might retire with safety and
dignity. Conduct, such as she contemplated pursuing, would, under the
old regime in France, have been recompensed by praise and gratitude;
while its irrevocability must prevent any resistance to her wishes. In
giving up fortune and station, she would have placed herself under the
guardianship of a community; and have found protection and security, to
compensate for poverty and slavery. The very reverse of all this must
now happen. Alone, friendless, unknown, and therefore despised, she must
shift for herself, and rely on her own resources for prudence to insure
safety, and courage to endure the evils of her lot. To one of another
sex, the name of loneliness can never convey the idea of desolation and
disregard, which gives it so painful a meaning in a woman's mind. They
have not been taught always to look up to others, and to do nothing for
themselves; so that business becomes a matter of heroism to a woman,
when conducted in the most common-place way; but when it is accompanied
by mystery, she feels herself transported from her fitting place, and as
if about to encounter shame and contumely. Lady Lodore had never been
conversant with any mode of life, except that of being waited on and
watched over. In the poverty of her early girlhood, her mother had been
constantly at her side. The necessity of so conducting herself as to
prevent the shadow of slander from visiting her, had continued this
state of dependence during all her married life. She had never stept
across a street without attendance; nor put on her gloves, but as
brought to her by a servant. Her look had commanded obedience, and her
will had been law with those about her. This was now to be altered. She
scarcely reverted in her mind to these minutiæ; and when she did, it
was to smile at herself for being able to give weight to such trifles.
She was not aware how, hereafter, these small things would become the
shapings and embodyings which desertion and penury would adopt, to sting
her most severely. The new course she was about to enter, was too
unknown to make her fears distinct. There was one vast blank before her,
one gigantic and mishapen image of desertion, which filled her mind to
the exclusion of every other, but whose parts were not made out, though
this very indistinctness was the thing that often chiefly appalled her.

She said, with the noble exile,[2]--


"I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil now."


It is true that she had not, like him,
to lament that--


"My native English, now I must forego;"


but there is
another language, even more natural than the mere dialect in which we
have been educated. When our lips no longer utter the sentiments of our
heart--when we are forced to exchange the spontaneous effusions of the
soul for cramped and guarded phrases, which give no indication of the
thought within,--then, indeed, may we say, that our tongue becomes



. . . "an unstringed viol, or a harp,
. . . . . . put into his hands,
That knows no touch to tune the harmony."


And this was to be Lady Lodore's position. Her only companions would be
villagers; or, at best, a few Welsh gentry, with whom she could have no
real communication. Sympathy, the charm of life, was dead for her, and
her state of banishment would be far more complete than if mountains and
seas only constituted its barriers.

Lady Lodore was often disturbed by these reflections, but she did not on
that account waver in her purpose. The flesh might shrink, but the spirit
was firm. Sometimes, indeed, she wondered how it was that she had first
conceived the design, which had become the tyrant of her life. She had
long known that she had a daughter, young, lovely, and interesting,
without any great desire to become intimate with her. Sometimes pride,
sometimes indignation, had checked her maternal feelings. The only time
before, in which she had felt any emotion similar to that which now
governed her, was on the day when she had spoken to her in the House of
Lords. But instead of indulging it, she had fled from it as an enemy,
and despised herself as a dupe, for being for one instant its subject.
When her fingers then touched her daughter's cheek, she had not trembled
like Ethel; yet an awful sensation passed through her frame, which for a
moment stunned her, and she hastily retreated, to recover herself. Now,
on the contrary, she longed to strain her child to her heart; she
thought no sacrifice too great, which was to conduce to her advantage;
and that she condemned herself never to see her more, appeared the
hardest part of the lot she was to undergo. Why was this change? She
could not tell--memory could not inform her. She only knew that since
she had seen Ethel in her adversity, the stoniness of her heart had
dissolved within her, that her whole being was subdued to tenderness,
and that the world was changed from what it had been in her eyes. She
felt that she could not endure life, unless for the sake of benefiting
her child; and that this sentiment mastered her in spite of herself, so
that every struggle with it was utterly vain.

Thus if she sometimes repined at the hard fate that drove her into
exile, yet she never wavered in her intentions; and in the midst of
regret, a kind of exultation was born, which calmed her pain. Smiles sat
upon her features, and her voice was attuned to cheerfulness. The
new-sprung tenderness of her soul imparted a fascination to her manner
far more irresistible than that to which tact and polish had given rise.
She was more kind and affectionate, and, above all, more sincere, and
therefore more winning. Every one felt, though none could divine the
cause of, this change. It was remarked that she was improved: some
shrewdly suspected that she was in love. And so she was--with an object
more enchanting than any earthly lover. For the first time she knew and
loved the Spirit of good and beauty, an affinity to which affords the
greatest bliss that our nature can receive.


[Footnote 2: Richard II.]




CHAPTER XIII


It is the same, for be it joy or sorrow.
The path of its departure still is free;
Man's yesterday can ne'er be like his morrow,
Nor aught endure save mutability.

SHELLEY.


The month of June had commenced. In spite of lawyer's delays and the
difficulties attendant on all such negociations, they were at last
concluded, and nothing remained but for Lady to sign the paper which was
to consign her to comparative destitution. In all changes we feel most
keenly the operation of small circumstances, and are chiefly depressed
by the necessity of stooping to the direction of petty arrangements, and
having to deal with subordinate persons. To complete her design, Lady
Lodore had to make many arrangements, trivial yet imperative, which
called for her attention, when she was least fitted to give it. She had
met these demands on her patience without shrinking; and all was
prepared for the finishing stroke about to be put to her plans. She
dismissed those servants whom she did not intend to leave in the house
for Ethel's use. She contrived to hasten the intended marriage of her
own maid, so to disburthen herself wholly. The mode by which she was,
solitary and unknown, to reach the mountains of Wales, without creating
suspicion, or leaving room for conjecture, was no easy matter. In human
life, one act is born of another, so that any one that disjoins itself
from the rest, instantly gives rise to curiosity and inquiry. Lady
Lodore, though fertile in expedients, was almost foiled: the eligibility
of having one confidant pressed itself upon her. She thought of Fanny
Derham; but her extreme youth, and her intimacy with Mrs. Villiers,
which would have necessitated many falsehoods, so to preserve the
secret, deterred her: she determined at last to trust to herself alone.
She resolved to take with her one servant only, who had not been long in
her service, and to dismiss him immediately after leaving London.
Difficulties presented themselves on every side; but she believed that
they could be best surmounted by obviating them in succession as they
arose, and that any fixed artificial plan would only tend to embarrass,
while a simple mode of proceeding would continue unquestioned.

Her chief art consisted in not appearing to be making any change at all.
She talked of a visit of two or three months to Emms, and mentioned her
intention of lending her house, during the interval, to her daughter.
She thus secured to herself a certain period during which no curiosity
would be exicited; and after a month or two had passed away, she would
be utterly forgotten:--thus she reasoned; and whether it were a real
tomb that she entered, or the living grave which she anticipated, her
name and memory would equally vanish from the earth, and she be thought
of no more. If Ethel ever entertained a wish to see her, Villiers would
be at hand to check and divert it. Who else was there to spend a thought
upon her? Alone upon earth, no friendly eye, solicitous for her welfare,
would seek to penetrate the mystery in which she was about to envelope
herself.

The day came, it was the second of June, when every preliminary was
accomplished. She had signed away all that she possessed--she had done
it with a smile--and her voice was unfaltering. The sum which she had
saved for herself consisted of but a few hundred pounds, on which she
was to subsist for the future. Again she enforced his pledge of secrecy
on Mr. Gayland; and glad that all was over, yet heavy at heart in spite
of her gladness, she returned to her home, which in a few hours she was
to quit for ever.

During all this time, her thoughts had seldom reverted to Saville. Hope
was dead, and the regrets of love had vanished with it. That he would
approve her conduct, was an idea that now and then flashed across her
mind; but he would remain in eternal ignorance, and therefore it could
not bring their thoughts into any communion. Whether he came to England,
or remained at Naples, availed her nothing. No circumstance could add
to, or diminish, the insuperable barrier which his marriage placed
between them.

She returned home from her last interview with Mr. Gayland: it was four
o'clock in the day; at six she had appointed Fanny Derham to call on
her; and an hour afterwards, the horses were ordered to be at the door,
which were to convey her away.

She became strangely agitated. She took herself to task for her
weakness; but every moment disturbed yet more the calm she was so
anxious to attain. She walked through the rooms of the house she had
dwelt in for so many years. She looked on the scene presented from her
windows. The drive in Hyde Park was beginning to fill with carriages and
equestrians, to be thronged with her friends whom she was never again to
see. Deep sadness crept over her mind. Her uncontrollable thoughts, by
some association of ideas, which she could not disentangle--brought
before her the image of Lodore, with more vividness than it had possessed
for years. A kind of wish to cross the Atlantic, and to visit the scenes
where he had dwelt so long, arose within her; and then again she felt a
desire to visit Longfield, and to view the spot in which his mortal
remains were laid. As her imagination pictured the grave of the husband
of her youth, whom she had abandoned and forgotten, tears streamed from
her eyes--the first she had shed, even in idea, beside it. "It is not to
atone--for surely I was not guilty towards him"--such were Lady Lodore's
reflections,--"yet, methinks, in this crisis of my fate, when about to
imitate his abrupt and miserable act of self-banishment, my heart yearns
for some communication with him; and it seems to me as if, approaching
his cold, silent dust, he would hear me if I said, 'Be at peace! your
child is happy through my means!"'

Again her reveries were attended by a gush of tears. "How strange a fate
is mine, ever to be abandoned by, or to abandon, those towards whom I am
naturally drawn into near contact. Fifteen years are flown since I
parted from Lodore for ever! Then by inspiring one so high-minded, so richly
gifted, as Saville, with love for me, fortune appeared ready to
compensate for my previous sufferings; but the curse again operated, and
I shall never see him more. Yet do I not forget thee, Saville, nor thy
love!--nor can it be a crime to think of the past, which is as
irretrievable as if the grave had closed over it. Through Saville it has
been that I have not lived quite in vain--that I have known what love
is; and might have even tasted of happiness, but for the poison which
perpetually mingles with my cup. I never wish to see him more; but if I
earnestly desire to visit Lodore's grave, how gladly would I make a far
longer pilgrimage to see Saville's child, and to devote myself to one
who owes its existence to him. Wretched Cornelia! what thoughts are
these? Is it now, that you are a beggar and an outcast, that you first
encourage unattainable desires?"

Still as she looked round, and remembered how often Saville had been
beside her in that room, thoughts and regrets thronged faster and more
thickly on her. She recollected the haughty self-will and capricious
coquetry which had caused the destruction of her dearest hopes. She took
down a miniature of herself, which her lover had so fruitlessly besought
her to give him. It was on the belief that she had bestowed this picture
on a rival that he had so suddenly come to the determination of quitting
England. It seemed now in its smiles and youth to reproach her for
having wasted both; and the sight of it agitated her bosom, and produced
a tumult of regret and despair at his loss--till she threw it from her,
as too dearly associated with one she must forget. And yet wherefore
forget?--he had forgotten; but as a dead wife might in her grave, love
her husband, though wedded to another, so might the lost, buried
Cornelia remember him, though the husband of Clorinda. Self-compassion
now moved her to tears, and she wept plentiful showers, which rather
exhausted than relieved her.

With a strong effort she recalled her sense of what was actually going
on, and struggling resolutely to calm herself, she sat down and began a
letter to her daughter, which was necessary, as some sort of
explanation, at once to allay wonder and baffle curiosity. Thus she
wrote:


"DEAREST ETHEL,

"My hopes have not been deceived. Mr. Gayland has at last contrived
means for the liberation of your husband; and to-morrow morning you will
leave that shocking place. Perhaps I receive more pleasure from this
piece of good fortune than you, for your sense of duty and sweet
disposition so gild the vilest objects, that you live in a world of your
own, as beautiful as yourself, and the accident of situation is
immaterial to you.

"It is not enough, however, that you should be free. I hope that the
punctilious delicacy of Mr. Villiers will not cause you to reject the
benefits of a mother. In this instance there is more of justice than
generosity in my offer; and it may therefore be accepted without the
smallest hesitation. My jointure ought to satisfy me, and the additional
six hundred a year--which I may call the price of blood, since I bought
it at the sacrifice of the dearest ties and duties,--is most freely at
your service. It will delight me to get rid of it, as much as if thus I
threw off the consciousness of a crime. It is yours by every law of
equity, and will be hereafter paid into your banker's hands. Do not
thank me, my dear child--be happy, that will be my best reward. Be
happy, be prudent--this sum will not make you rich; and the only
acknowledgment I ask of you is, that you make it suffice, and avoid debt
and embarrassment.

"By singular coincidence I am imperatively obliged to leave England at
this moment. The horses are ordered to be here in half an hour--I am
obliged therefore to forego the pleasure of seeing you until my return.
Will you forgive me this apparent neglect, which is the result of
necessity, and favour me by coming to my house to-morrow, on leaving
your present abode, and making it your home until my return? Miss Derham
has promised to call here this afternoon; I shall see her before I go,
and through her you will learn how much you will make me your debtor by
accepting my offers, and permitting me to be of some slight use to you.

"Excuse the brevity and insufficiency of this letter, written at the
moment of departure.--You will hear from me again, when I am able to
send you my address, and I shall hope to have a letter from you.
Meanwhile Heaven bless you, my angelic Ethel! Love your mother, and
never, in spite of every thing, permit unkind thoughts of her to harbour
in your mind. Make Mr. Villiers think as well of me as he can, and
believe me that your welfare will always be the dearest wish of my
heart. Adieu.

"Ever affectionately yours.

"C. LODORE."


She folded and sealed this letter, and at the same moment there was a
knock at the door of her house, which she knew announced the arrival of
Fanny Derham. She was still much agitated, and trying to calm herself,
she took up a newspaper, and cast her eyes down the columns; so, by one
of the most common place of the actions of our life, to surmount the
painful intensity of her thoughts. She read mechanically one or two
paragraphs--she saw the announcements of births, marriages, and deaths.
"My moral death will not be recorded here," she thought, "and yet, I
shall be more dead than any of these." The thought in her mind remained
as it were truncated; her eye was arrested--a paleness came over
her--the pulses of her heart paused, and then beat tumultuously--how
strange--how fatal were the words she read!--

"Died suddenly at the inn at the Mola di Gaeta, on her way from Naples,
Clorinda, the wife of the honourable Horatio Saville, in the
twenty-second year of her age."

Her drawing-room door was opened, the butler announced Miss Derham,
while her eyes still were fixed on the paragraph: her head swam
round--the world seemed to slide from under her. Fanny's calm clear
voice recalled her. She conquered her agitation--she spoke as if she had
not just crossed a gulf--not been transported to a new world; and,
again, swifter than light, brought back to the old one. She conversed
with Fanny for some time; giving some kind of explanation for not having
been to see Ethel, begging her young friend to press her invitation, and
speaking as if in autumn they should all meet again. Fanny, philosophic as
she was, regarded Lady Lodore with a kind of idolatry. The same charm that
had fascinated the unworldly and abstracted Saville, she exercised over
the thoughtful and ingenuous mind of the fair young student. It was the
attraction of engaging manners, added now to the sense of right, joined
to the timid softness of a woman, who trembled on acting unsupported,
even though her conscience approved her deeds. It was her loveliness
which had gained in expression what it had lost in youth, and kindness
of heart was the soul of the enchantment. Fanny ventured to remonstrate
against her sudden departure. "O we shall soon meet again," said
Cornelia; but her thoughts were more of heaven than earth, as the scene
of meeting; for her heart was chilled--her head throbbed--the words she
had read operated a revolution in her frame, more allied to sickness and
death, than hope or triumph.

Fanny at length took her leave, and Lady Lodore was again alone. She took
up the newspaper--hastily she read again the tidings; she sunk on the sofa,
burying her face in the pillow, trying not to think, while she was
indeed the prey to the wildest thoughts.

"Yes," thus ran her reflections, "he is free--he is no longer _married_!
Fool, fool! he is still lost to you!--an outcast and a beggar, shall I
solicit his love! which he believes that I rejected when prosperous.
Rather never, never, let me see him again. My beauty is tarnished, my
youth flown; he would only see me to wonder how he had ever loved me.
Better hide beneath the mountains among which I am soon to find a
home--better, far better, die, than see Saville and read no love in his
eyes.

"Yet thus again I cast happiness from me. What then would I do? Unweave
the web--implore Mr. Villiers to endure my presence--reveal my state of
beggary--ask thanks for my generosity, and humbly wait for a kind glance
from Saville, to raise me to wealth as well as to happiness.--Cornelia,
awake!--be not subdued at the last--act not against your disposition, the
pride of your soul--the determinations you have formed--do not learn to
be humble in adversity--you, who were disdainful in happier days--no! if
they need me--if they love me--if Saville still remembers the
worship--the heart's entire sacrifice which once he made to me--will a
few miles--the obscurity of my abode--or the silence and mystery that
surrounds me, check his endeavours that we should once again meet?

"No!" she said, rising, "my destiny is in other and higher hands than my
own. It were vain to endeavour to controul it. Whatever I do, works
against me; now let the thread be spun to the end, while I do nothing; I
can but endure the worst patiently; and how much better to bear in
silence, than to struggle vainly with the irrevocable decree! I submit.
Let Providence work out its own ends, and God dispose of the being he
has made--whether I reap the harvest in this world or in the next, my
part is played, I will strive no more!"

She believed in her own singleness of purpose as she said this, and yet
she was never more deceived. While she boasted of her resignation, she
was yielding not to a high moral power, but to the pride of her soul.
Her resolutions were in accordance with the haughtiness of her
disposition, and she felt satisfied, not because she was making a noble
sacrifice, but because she thus adorned more magnificently the idol she
set up for worship, and believed herself to be more worthy of applause
and love. Yet who could condemn even errors that led to such unbending
and heroic forgetfulness of all the baser propensities of our nature.
Nor was this feeling of triumph long-lived; the wounding and humiliating
realities of life, soon degraded her from her pedestal, and made her
feel, as it were, the disgrace and indignities of abdication.

Her travelling chariot drove up to the door, and, after a few moments'
preparation, she was summoned. Again she looked round the room; her
heart swelled high with impatience and repining, but again she conquered
herself. She took up her miniature--_that_ now she might possess--for she
could remember without sin--she took up the newspaper, which did or did
not contain the fiat of her fate; but this action appeared to militate
against the state of resignation she had resolved to attain, so she
threw it down: she walked down the stairs, and passed out from her house
for the last time--she got into the carriage--the door was closed--the
horses were in motion--all was over.

Her head felt sick and heavy; she leaned back in her carriage half
stupified. When at last London and its suburbs were passed, the sight of
the open country a little revived her--but she soon drooped again.
Nothing presented itself to her thoughts with any clearness, and the
exultation which had supported her vanished totally. She only knew that
she was alone, poor, forgotten; these words hovered on her lips, mingled
with others, by which she endeavoured to charm away her despondency.
Fortitude and resignation for herself--freedom and happiness for Ethel.
"O yes, she is free and happy--it matters not then what I am!" No tears
flowed to soften this thought. The bright green country--the meadows
mingled with unripe corn-fields--the tufted woods--the hedgerows full of
flowers, could not attract her eye; pangs every now and then seized upon
her heart--she had talked of resignation, but she was delivered up to
despair.

At length she sank into a kind of stupor. She was accompanied by one
servant only; she had told him where she intended to remain that night.
It was past eleven before they arrived at Reading; the night was chill,
and she shivered while she felt as if it were impossible to move, even
to draw up the glasses of her chariot. When she arrived at the inn where
she was to pass the night, she felt keenly the discomfort of having no
female attendant. It was new--she felt as if it were disgraceful, to
find herself alone among strangers, to be obliged to give orders
herself, and to prepare alone for her repose.

All night she could not sleep, and she became aware at last that she was
ill. She burnt with fever--her whole frame was tormented by aches, by
alternate hot and shivering fits, and by a feeling of sickness. When
morning dawned, it was worse. She grew impatient--she rose. She had
arranged that her servant should quit her at this place. He had been but
a short time with her, and was easily dismissed under the idea, that she
was to be joined by a man recommended by a friend, who was accustomed to
the continent, whither it was supposed that she was going. She had
dismissed him the night before, he was already gone, when on the morrow
she ordered the horses.--She paid the bills herself--and had to answer
questions about luggage; all these things are customary to the poor, and
to the other sex. But take a high-born woman and place her in immediate
contact with the rough material of the world, and see how like a
sensitive plant she will shrink, close herself up and droop, and feel as
if she had fallen from her native sphere into a spot unknown, ungenial,
and full of storms.

The illness that oppressed Lady Lodore, made these natural feelings even
more acute, till at last they were blunted by the same cause. She now
wondered what it was that ailed her, and became terrified at the
occasional wanderings that interrupted her torpor. Once or twice she
wished to speak to the post-boy, but her voice failed her. At length
they drove up to the inn at Newbury; fresh horses were called for, and
the landlady came up to the door of the carriage, to ask whether the
lady had breakfasted--whether she would take anything. There was
something ghastly in Lady Lodore's appearance, which at once frightened
the good woman, and excited her compassion. She renewed her questions,
which Lady Lodore had not at first heard, adding, "You seem ill, ma'am;
do take something--had you not better alight?"

"O yes, far better," said Cornelia, "for I think I must be very ill."

The change of posture and cessation of motion a little revived her, and
she began to think that she was mistaken, and that it was all nothing,
and that she was well. She was conducted into the parlour of the inn,
and the landlady left her to order refreshment. "How foolish I am," she
thought; "this is mere fancy; there is nothing the matter with me;" and
she rose to ring the bell, and to order horses. When suddenly, without
any previous warning, struck as by a bolt, she fainted, and fell on the
floor, without any power of saving herself. The sound of her fall
quickened the steps of the landlady, who was returning; all the
chamber-maids were summoned, a doctor sent for, and when Lady Lodore opened
her eyes she saw unknown faces about her, a strange place, and voices yet
stranger. She did not speak, but tried to collect her thoughts, and to
unravel the mystery, as it appeared, of her situation. But soon her
thoughts wandered, and fever and weakness made her yield to the
solicitations of those around. The doctor came, and could make out
nothing but that she was in a high fever: he ordered her to be put to
bed. And thus--Saville, and Ethel, and all hopes and fears, having
vanished from her thoughts,--given up to delirium and suffering, poor
Lady Lodore, alone, unknown, and unattended, remained for several weeks
at a country inn--under the hands of a village doctor--to recover, if
God pleased, if not, to sink, unmourned and unheard of, into an untimely
grave.




CHAPTER XIV


But if for me thou dost forsake
Some other maid, and rudely break
Her worshipped image from its base,
To give to me the ruined place--

Then fare thee well--I'd rather make
My bower upon some icy lake,
When thawing suns begin to shine,
Than trust to love so false as thine!

LALLA ROOKH.


On the same day Mr. and Mrs. Villiers left their sad dwelling to take
possession of lady Lodore's house. The generosity and kindness of her
mother, such as it appeared, though she knew but the smallest portion of
it, charmed Ethel. Her heart, which had so long struggled to love her, was
gladdened by the proofs given that she deserved her warmest affection.
The truest delight beamed from her lovely countenance. Even she had felt
the gloom and depression of adversity. The sight of misery or vice in
those around her tarnished the holy fervour with which she would
otherwise have made every sacrifice for Edward's sake. There is
something in this world, which even while it gives an unknown grace to
rough, and hard, and mean circumstances, contaminates the beauty and
harmony of the noble and exalted. Ethel had been aware of this; she
dreaded its sinister influence over Villiers, and in spite of herself
she pined; she had felt with a shudder that in spite of love and
fortitude, a sense, chilling and deponding, was creeping over her,
making her feel the earth alien to her, and calling her away from the
sadness of the scene around to a world bright and pure as herself. Her
very despair thus dressed itself in the garb of religion; and though
these visitations of melancholy only came during the absence of Villiers
and were never indulged in, yet they were too natural a growth of their
wretched abode to be easily or entirely dismissed. Even now that she was
restored to the fairer scenes of life, compassion for the unfortunate
beings she quitted haunted her, and her feelings were too keenly alive
to the miseries which her fellow-creatures suffered, to permit her to be
relieved from all pain by her own exemption. She turned from such
reflections to the image of her dear kind mother with delight. The roof
that sheltered her was hallowed as hers; all the blessings of life which
she enjoyed came to her from the same source as life itself. She
delighted to trace the current of feeling which had occasioned her to
give up so much, and to imagine the sweetness of disposition, the
vivacity of mind, the talents and accomplishments which her physiognomy
expressed, and the taste manifested in her house, and all the things
which she had collected around her, evinced.

In less than a month after their liberation, she gave birth to son. The
mingled danger and rejoicing attendant on this event, imparted fresh
strength to the attachment that united Edward to her; and the little
stranger himself was a new object of tenderness and interest. Thus their
days of mourning were exchanged for a happiness most natural and welcome
to the human heart. At this time also Horatio Saville returned from
Italy with his little girl. She was scarcely more than a year old, but
displayed an intelligence to be equalled only by her extraordinary
beauty. Her golden silken ringlets were even then profuse, her eyes were
as dark and brilliant as her mother's, but her complexion was fair, and
the same sweet smile flitted round her infant mouth, as gave the charm
to her father's face. He idolized her, and tried by his tenderness and
attention to appease, as it were, the manes of the unfortunate Clorinda.

She, poor girl, had been the victim of the violence of passion and
ill-regulated feelings native to her country, excited into unnatural
force by the singularity of her fate. When Saville saw her first in her
convent, she was pining for liberty; she did not think of any joy beyond
escaping the troublesome impertinence of the nuns and the monotonous
tenor of monastic life, of associating with people she loved, and
enjoying the common usages of life, unfettered by the restrictions that
rendered her present existence a burthen. But though she desired no
more, her disgust for the present, her longing for a change, was a
powerful passion. She was adorned by talents, by genius; she was
eloquent and beautiful, and full of enthusiasm and feeling. Saville
pitied her; he lamented her future fate among her unworthy countrymen;
he longed to cherish, to comfort, and to benefit her. His heart, so
easily won to tenderness, gave her readily a brother's regard. Others,
seeing the active benevolence and lively interest that this sentiment
elicited, might have fancied him inspired by a warmer feeling; but he
well knew the difference, he ardently desired her happiness, but did not
seek his own in her.

He visited her frequently, he brought her books, he taught her English.
They were allowed to meet daily in the parlour of the convent, in the
presence of a female attendant; and his admiration of her talents, her
imagination, her ardent comprehensive mind, increased on every
interview. They talked of literature--the poets--the arts; Clorinda sang
to him, and her fine voice, cultivated by the nicest art, was a source
of deep pleasure and pain to her auditor. His sensibility was awakened
by the tones of love and rapture--sensibility, not alas! for her who
sang, but for the false and absent. While listening, his fancy recalled
Lady Lodore's image; the hopes she had inspired, the rapture he had felt in
her presence--the warm vivifying effect her voice and looks had on him
were remembered, and his heart sank within him to think that all this
sweetness was deceptive, fleeting, lost. Once, overcome by these
thoughts, he resolved to return suddenly to England, to make one effort
more to exchange unendurable wretchedness for the most transporting
happiness;--absence from Cornelia, to the joy of pouring out the
overflowing sentiments of his heart at her feet. While indulging in this
idea, a letter from his sister Lucy caused a painful revulsion; she
painted the woman of the world given up to ambition and fashion,
rejoicing in his departure, and waiting only the moment when she might
with decency become the wife of another. Saville was almost maddened--he
did not visit Clorinda for three days. She received him, when at last he
came, without reproach, but with transport; she saw that sadness, even
sickness, dimmed his eye; she soothed him, she hung over him with
fondness, she sung to him her sweetest, softest airs; his heart melted,
a tear stole from his eye. Clorinda saw his emotion; it excited hers;
her Neapolitan vivacity was not restrained by shame nor fear,--she spoke
of her love for him with the vehemence she felt, and youth and beauty
hallowed the frankness and energy of her expressions. Saville was
touched and pleased,--he left her to meditate on this new state of
things--for free from passion himself, he had never suspected the growth
of it in her heart. He reflected on all her admirable qualities, and the
pity it was that they should be cast at the feet of one of her own
unrefined, uneducated countrymen, who would be incapable of appreciating
her talents--even her love--so that at last she would herself become
degraded, and sink into that system of depravity which makes a prey of
all that is lovely or noble in our nature. He could save her--she loved
him, and he could save her; lost as he was to real happiness, it were to
approximate to it, if he consecrated his life to her welfare.

Yet he would not deceive her. The excess of love which she bestowed
demanded a return which he could not give. She must choose whether, such
as he was, he were worth accepting. Actuated by a sense of justice, he
opened his heart to her without disguise: he told her of his ill-fated
attachment to another--of his self-banishment, and misery--he declared
his real and earnest affection for her--his desire to rescue her from
her present fate, and to devote his life to her. Clorinda scarcely heard
what he said,--she felt only that she might become his--that he would
marry her; her rapture was undisguised, and he enjoyed the felicity of
believing that one so lovely and excellent would at once owe every
blessing of life to him, and that the knowledge of this must ensure his
own content. The consent of her parents was easily yielded,--the Pope is
always ready to grant a dispensation to a Catholic wife marrying a
Protestant husband,--the wedding speedily took place--and Saville became
her husband.

Their mutual torments now began. Horatio was a man of high and
unshrinking principle. He never permitted himself to think of Lady Lodore,
and the warmth and tenderness of his heart led him to attach himself truly
and affectionately to his wife. But this did not suffice for the
Neapolitan. Her marriage withdrew the veil of life--she imagined that
she distinguished the real from the fictitious, but her new sense of
discernment was the source of torture. She desired to be loved as she
loved; she insisted that her rival should be hated--she was shaken by
continual tempests of jealousy, and the violence of her temper,
restrained by no reserve of disposition, displayed itself frightfully.
Saville reasoned, reproached, reprehended, without any avail, except
that when her violence had passed its crisis, she repented, and wept,
and besought forgiveness. Ethel's visit had been a blow hard to bear.
She was the daughter of her whom Saville loved--whom he regretted--on
whom he expended that passion and idolatry, to attain which she would
have endured the most dreadful tortures. These were the reflections, or
rather, these were the ravings, of Clorinda. She had never been so
furious in her jealousy, or so frequent in her fits of passion, as
during the visit of the unconscious and gentle Ethel.

The birth of her child operated a beneficial change for a time; and
except when Saville spoke of England, or she imagined that he was
thinking of it, she ceased to torment him. He was glad; but the moment
was passed when she could command his esteem, or excite his spontaneous
sympathy. He pitied and he loved her; but it was almost as we may become
attached to an unfortunate and lovely maniac; less than ever did he seek
his happiness in her. He loved his infant daughter now better than any
other earthly thing. Clorinda rejoiced in this tie, though she soon grew
jealous even of her own child.

The arrival of Lord Maristow and his daughters was at first full of
benefit to the discordant pair. Clorinda was really desirous of
obtaining their esteem, and she exerted herself to please: when they
talked of her return to England with them, it only excited her to try to
render Italy so agreeable as to induce them to remain there. They were
not like Ethel. They were good girls, but fashionable and fond of
pleasure. Clorinda devised a thousand amusements--concerts, tableaux,
the masquerades of the carnival, were all put in requisition. They
carried their zeal for amusement so far as to take up their abode for a
day or two at Pompeii, feigning to be its ancient inhabitants, and,
bringing the _corps operatique_ to their aid, got up Rossini's opera of
the Ultimi Giorni di Pompeii among the ruins, ending their masquerade by
a mimic eruption. These gaieties did not accord with the classic and
refined tastes of Saville; but he was glad to find his wife and sisters
agree so well, and under the blue sky, and in the laughing land of
Naples, it was impossible not to find beauty and enjoyment even in
extravagance and folly.

Still, like a funeral bell heard amidst a feast, the name of England,
and the necessity of her going thither, struck on the ear and chilled
the heart of the Neapolitan. She resolved never to go; but how could she
refuse to accompany her husband's sisters? how resist the admonitions
and commands of his father? She did not refuse therefore--she seemed to
consent--while she said to Saville, "Poison, stab me--cast me down the
crater of the mountain--exhaust your malice and hatred on me as you
please here--but you shall never take me to England but as a corpse."

Saville replied, "As you will." He was tired of the struggle, and left
the management of his departure to others.

One day his sisters described the delights of a London season, and
strove to win Clorinda by the mention of its balls, parties, and opera;
they spoke of Almack's, and the leaders of fashion; they mentioned Lady
Lodore. They were unaware that Clorinda knew any thing of their brother's
attachment, and speaking of her as one of the most distinguished of
their associates in the London world, made their sister-in-law aware,
that when she made a part of it, she would come into perpetual contact
with her rival. This allusion caused one of her most violent paroxysms
of rage as soon as she found herself alone with her husband. So frantic
did she seem, that Horatio spoke seriously to his father, and declared
he knew of no argument nor power which could induce Clorinda to
accompany them to England. "Then you must go without her," said Lord
Maristow; "your career, your family, your country, must not be
sacrificed to her unreasonable folly." And then, wholly unaware of the
character of the person with whom he had to deal, he repeated the same
thing to Clorinda. "You must choose," he said, "between Naples and your
husband--he must go; do you prefer being left behind?"

Clorinda grew pale, even livid. She returned home. Horatio was not
there; she raved through her house like a maniac; her servants even hid
her child from her, and she rushed from room to room tearing her hair,
and calling for Saville. At length he entered; her eyes were starting
from her head, her frame working with convulsive violence; she strove to
speak--to give utterance to the vehemence pent up within her. She darted
towards him; when suddenly, as if shot to the heart, she fell on the
marble pavement of her chamber, and a red stream poured from her
lips--she had burst a blood-vessel.

For many days she was not allowed to speak nor move. Saville nursed her
unremittingly--he watched by her at night--he tried to soothe her--he
brought her child to her side--his sweetness, and gentleness, and real
tenderness were all expended on her. Although violent, she was not
ungenerous. She was touched by his attentions, and the undisguised
solicitude of his manner. She resolved to conquer herself, and in a fit
of heroism formed the determination to yield, and to go to England. Her
first words, when permitted to speak, were to signify her assent.
Saville kissed and thanked her. She had half imagined that he would
imitate her generosity, and give up the journey. No such thought crossed
his mind; her distaste was too unreasonable to elicit the smallest
sympathy, and consequently any concession. He thanked her warmly, it is
true; and looked delighted at this change, but without giving her time
to retract, he hurried to communicate to his relations the agreeable
tidings.

As she grew better she did not recede, but she felt miserable. The good
spirits and ready preparations of Horatio were all acts of treason
against her: sometimes she felt angry--but she checked herself. Like all
Italians, Clorinda feared death excessively; besides that, to die was to
yield the entire victory to her rival. She struggled therefore, and
conquered herself; and neither expressed her angry jealousy nor her
terrors. She had many causes of fear; she was again in a situation to
increase her family within a few months; and while her safety depended
on her being able to attain a state of calm, she feared a confinement in
England, and believed that it was impossible that she should survive.

She was worn to a skeleton--her large eyes were sunk and ringed with
black, while they burnt with unnatural brilliancy, for her vivacity did
not desert her, and that deceived those around; they fancied that she
was convalescent, and would soon recover strength and good looks, while
she nourished a deep sense of wrong for the slight attention paid to her
sufferings. She wept over herself and her friendless state. Her husband
was not her friend, for he was not her countryman: and full as Saville
was of generous sympathy and kindliness for all, the idea of returning
to England, to his home and friends, to the stirring scenes of life, and
the society of those who loved literature, and were endowed with the
spirit of liberal inquiry and manly habits of thinking, so absorbed and
delighted him, that he could only thank Clorinda again and again--caress
her, and entreat her to get well, that she might share his pleasures.
His words chilled her, and she shrunk from his caresses. "He is thinking
of her, and of seeing her again," she thought. She did him the most
flagrant injustice. Saville was a man of high and firm principle, and
had he been aware of any latent weakness, of any emotion allied to the
master-passion of his soul, he would have conquered it, or have fled
from the temptation. He never thought less of Lady Lodore than now. The
unwonted gentleness and concessions of his wife--his love for his child,
and the presence of his father and dear sisters, dissipated his
regrets,--his conscience was wholly at ease, and he was happy.

Clorinda dared not complain to her English relatives, but she listened
to the lamentations of her Neapolitan friends with a luxury of woe. They
mourned over her as if she were going to visit another sphere; they
pointed out the little island on a map, and seated far off as it was
amidst the northern sea, night and storms, they averred, perpetually
brooded over it, while from the shape of the earth they absolutely
proved that it was impossible to get there. It is true that Lord
Maristow and his daughters, and Saville himself, had come thence--that
was nothing--it was easy to come away. "You see," they said, "the earth
slopes down, and the sun is before them; but when they have to go back,
ah! it is quite another affair; the Alps rise, and the sea boils over,
and they have to toil up the wall of the world itself into winter and
darkness. It is tempting God to go there. O stay, Clorinda, stay in
sunny Italy. Orazio will return: do not go to die in that miserable
birth-place of night and frost."

Clorinda wept yet more bitterly over her hard fate, and the
impossibility of yielding to their wishes. "Would to God," she thought,
"I could abandon the ingrate, and let him go far from Italy and
Clorinda, to die in his wretched country! Would I could forget, hate,
desert him! Ah, why do I idolize one born in that chilly land, where
love and passion are unknown or despised!"

At length the day arrived when they left Naples. It was the month of
May, and very warm. No imagination could paint the glorious beauty of
this country of enchantment, on the completion of spring, before the
heats of summer had withered its freshness. The sparkling waves of the
blue Mediterranean encircled the land, and contrasted with its hues: the
rich foliage of the trees--the festooning of the luxuriant vines, and
the abundant vegetation which sprung fresh from the soil, decorating the
rocks, and mantling the earth with flowers and verdure, were all in the
very prime and blossoming of beauty. The sisters of Saville expressed
their admiration in warm and enthusiastic terms; the words trembled on
poor Clorinda's lips; she was about to say, "Why then desert this land
of bliss?" but Horatio spoke instead: "It is splendid, I own, and once I
felt all that you express. Now a path along a grassy field--a
hedge-row--a copse with a rill murmuring through it--a white cottage
with simple palings enclosing a flower-garden--the spire of a country
church rising from among a tuft of elms--the skies all shadowy with soft
clouds--and the homesteads of a happy thriving peasantry--these are the
things I sigh for. A true English home-scene seems to me a thousand
times more beautiful, as it must be a thousand times dearer than the
garish showy splendour of Naples."

Clorinda's thoughts crept back into her chilled heart; large tear-drops
rose in her eyes, but she concealed them, and shrinking into a corner of
the carriage, she felt more lonely and deserted than she would have done
among strangers who had loved Italy, and participated in her feelings.

They arrived at the inn called the Villa di Cicerone, at the Mola di
Gaeta. All the beauty of the most beautiful part of the Peninsula seems
concentered in that enchanting spot--the perfume of orange flowers
filled the air--the sea was at their feet--the vine-clad hills around.
All this excess of loveliness only added to the unutterable misery of
the Neapolitan girl. Her companions talked and laughed, while she felt
her frame convulsed by internal combats, and the unwonted command she
exercised over her habitual vehemence. Horatio conversed gaily with his
sisters, till catching a glimpse of the pale face of his wretched wife,
her mournful eyes and wasted cheeks, he drew near her. "You are
fatigued, dearest Clorinda," he said, "will you not go to rest?"

He said this in a tender caressing tone, but she felt, "He wants to send
me away--to get rid even of the sight of me." But he sat down by her,
and perceiving her dejection, and guessing partly at its cause, he
soothed her, and talked of their return to her native land, and cheered
her by expressions of gratitude for the sacrifice she was making. Her
heart began to soften, and her tears to flow more freely, when a man
entered, such as haunt the inns in Italy, and watch for the arrival of
rich strangers to make profit in various ways out of them. This man had
a small picture for sale, which he declared to be an original Carlo
Dolce. It was the head of a seraph painted on copper--it was probably a
copy, but it was beautifully executed; besides the depth of colour and
grace of design, there was something singularly beautiful in the
expression of the countenance portrayed,--it symbolized happiness and
love; a beaming softness animated the whole face; a perfect joy, an
ineffable radiance shone out of it. Clorinda took it in her hand--the
representation of heart-felt gladness increased her self-pity; she was
turning towards her husband with a reproachful look, thinking, "Such
smiles you have banished from my face for ever,"--when Sophia Saville,
who was looking over her shoulder, exclaimed, "What an extraordinary
resemblance! there was never any thing so like."

"Who? what?" asked her sister.

"It is Lady Lodore herself," replied Sophia; "her eyes, her mouth, her very
smile."

Lucy gave a quick glance towards her brother. Horatio involuntarily
stepped forward to look, and then as hastily drew back. Clorinda saw it
all--she put down the picture, and left the room--she could not
stay--she could not speak--she knew not what she felt, but that a fiery
torture was eating into her, and she must fly, she knew not whither.
Saville was pained; he hesitated what to do or say--so he remained;
supper was brought in, and Clorinda not appearing, it was supposed that
she had retired to rest. In about an hour and a half after, Horatio went
into her room, and to his horror beheld her stretched upon the cold
bricks of the chamber, senseless; the moon-beams rested on her pale
face, which bore the hues of death. In a moment the house was alarmed,
the village doctor summoned, a courier dispatched to Naples for an
English physician, and every possible aid afforded the wretched
sufferer. She was placed on the bed,--she still lived; her faint pulse
could not be felt, and no blood flowed when a vein was opened, but she
groaned, and now and then opened her eyes with a ghastly stare, and
closed them again as if mechanically. All was horror and despair--no
help--no resource presented itself; they hung round her, they listened
to her groans with terror, and yet they were the only signs of life that
disturbed her death-like state. At last, soon after the dawn of day, she
became convulsed, her pulse fluttered, and blood flowed from her wounded
arm; in about an hour from this time she gave birth to a dead child.
After this she grew calmer and fainter. The physician arrived, but she
was past mortal cure,--she never opened her eyes more, nor spoke, nor
gave any token of consciousness. By degrees her groans ceased, and she
faded into death: the slender manifestations of lingering vitality
gradually decreasing till all was still and cold. After an hour or two
her face resumed its loveliness, pale and wasted as it was: she seemed
to sleep, and none could regret that repose possessed that heart, which
had been alive only to the deadliest throes of unhappy passion. Yet
Saville did more than regret--he mourned her sincerely and deeply,--he
accused himself of hard-heartedness,--he remembered what she was when he
had first seen her;--how full of animation, beauty, and love. He did not
remember that she had perished the victim of uncontrolled passion; he
felt that she was his victim. He would have given worlds to restore her
to life and enjoyment. What was a residence in England--the promises of
ambition--the pleasures of his native land--all that he could feel or
know, compared to the existence of one so young, so blessed with
Heaven's choicest gifts of mind and person. She was his victim, and he
could never forgive himself.

For his father's and sisters' sake he subdued the expression of his
grief, for they also loved Clorinda, and were struck with sorrow at the
sudden catastrophe. His strong mind, also, before long, mastered the
false view he had taken of the cause of her death. He lamented her
deeply, but he did not give way to unavailing remorse, which was founded
on his sensibility, and not on any just cause for repentance. He turned
all his thoughts to repairing her errors, rather than his own, by
cherishing her child with redoubled fondness. The little girl was too
young to feel her loss; she had always loved her father, and now she
clung to his bosom and pressed her infant lips to his cheek, and by her
playfulness and caresses repaid him for the tenderness that he lavished
on her.

After some weeks spent in the north of Italy he returned to England with
her. Lord Maristow and his daughters were already there, and had gone to
Maristow Castle. Saville took up his abode with his cousin Villiers. His
situation was new and strange. He found himself in the very abode of the
dreaded Cornelia, yet she was away, unheard of, almost, it seemed,
forgotten. Did he think of her as he saw the traces of by-gone scenes
around? He played with his child--he secluded himself among his
books--he talked with Ethel of what had happened since their parting,
and reproached Villiers bitterly for not having applied to him in his
distress. But a kind of spell sealed the lips of each, and Lady Lodore, who
was the living spirit of the scene around--the creator of its peace and
happiness--seemed to have passed away from the memory of all. It was in
appearance only. Not an hour, not a minute of the day passed, that did
not bring her idea to their minds, and Saville and Ethel each longed for
the word to be uttered by either, which would permit them to give
expression to the thoughts that so entirely possessed them.




CHAPTER XV


The music
Of man's fair composition best accords,
When 'tis in consort, not in single strains:
My heart has been untuned these many months,
Wanting her presence, in whose equal love
True harmony consisted.

FORD.


At the beginning of September the whole party assembled at Maristow
Castle. Even Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry was among the guests. She had not
visited Ethel in London, because she would not enter Lady Lodore's house,
but she had the true spinster's desire of seeing the baby, and thus
overcame her reluctance to quitting Longfield for a few weeks. Fanny Derham
also accompanied them, unable to deny Ethel's affectionate entreaties.
Fanny's situation had been beneficially changed. Sir Gilbert Derham,
finding that his granddaughter associated with people _in the world_, and
being applied to by Lord Maristow, was induced to withdraw Mrs. Derham
from her mean situation, and to settle a small fortune on each of her
children. Fanny was too young, and too wedded to her platonic notions of
the supremacy of mind, to be fully aware of the invaluable advantages of
pecuniary independence for a woman. She fancied that she could enter on
the career--the only career permitted her sex--of servitude, and yet
possess her soul in freedom and power. She had never, indeed, thought
much of these things: life was, as it concerned herself, a system of
words only. As always happens to the young, she only knew suffering
through her affections, and the real chain of life--its necessities and
cares--and the sinister influences exercised by the bad passions of our
fellow-creatures--had not yet begun to fetter her aspiring thoughts.
Beautiful in her freedom, in her enthusiasm, and even in her learning,
but, above all, in the lively kindliness of her heart, she excited the
wonder and commanded the affections of all. Saville had never seen any
one like her--she brought to his recollection his own young feelings
before experience had lifted "the painted veil which those who live call
life," or passion and sorrow had tamed the ardour of his mind; he looked
on her with admiration, and yet with compassion, wondering where and how
the evil spirit of the world would show its power to torment, and
conquer the free soul of the disciple of wisdom.

Yet Saville's own mind was rather rebuked than tamed: he knew what
suffering was, yet he knew also how to endure it, and to turn it to
advantage, deriving thence lessons of fortitude, of forbearance, and
even of hope. It was not, however, till the seal on his lips was taken
off, and the name of Cornelia mentioned, that he became aware that the
same heart warmed his bosom, as had been the cause at once of such
rapture and misery in former times. Yet even now he did not acknowledge
to himself that he still loved, passionately, devotedly loved, Lady Lodore.
The image of the pale Clorinda stretched on the pavement--his
victim--still dwelt in his memory, and he made a sacrifice at her tomb
of every living feeling of his own. He fancied, therefore, that he spoke
coldly of Cornelia, with speculation only, while in fact, at the very
mention of her name a revulsion took place in his being--his eyes
brightened, his face beamed with animation, his very figure enlarged,
his heart was on fire within him. Villiers saw and appreciated these
tokens of passion; but Ethel only perceived an interest in her mother,
shared with herself, and was half angry that he made no professions of
the constancy of his attachment.

Still, day after day, and soon, all day long, they talked of Lady Lodore.
None but a lover and a daughter could have adhered so pertinaciously to one
subject; and thus Saville and Ethel were often left to themselves, or
joined only by Fanny. Fanny was very mysterious and alarming in what she
said of her beautiful and interesting favourite. While Ethel lamented
her mother's love of the continent, conjectured concerning her return,
and dwelt on the pleasures of their future intercourse, Fanny shook her
head, and said, "It was strange, very strange, that not one letter had
yet reached them from her." She was asked to explain, but she could only
say, that when she last saw Lady Lodore, she was impressed by the idea
that all was not as it seemed. She tried to appear as if acting
according to the ordinary routine of life, and yet was evidently
agitated by violent and irrepressible feeling. Her manner, she had
herself fancied, to be calm, and yet it betrayed a wandering of thought,
a fear of being scrutinized, manifested in her repetition of the same
phrases, and in the earnestness with which she made assurances
concerning matters of the most trivial import. This was all that Fanny
could say, but she was intimately persuaded of the correctness of her
observation, and lamented that she had not inquired further and
discovered more. "For," she said, "the mystery, whatever it is, springs
from the most honourable motives. There was nothing personal nor
frivolous in the feelings that mastered her;" and Fanny feared that at
that very moment she was sacrificing herself to some project--some
determination, which, while it benefited others, was injuring herself.
Ethel, with all her affection for her mother, was not persuaded of the
justice of these suspicions, nor could be brought to acknowledge that
the mystery of Lady Lodore's absence was induced by any motives as
strange and forcible as those suggested by Fanny; but believed that her
young friend was carried away by her own imagination and high-flown
ideas. Saville was operated differently upon. He became uneasy,
thoughtful, restless: a thousand times he was on the point of setting
out to find a clue to the mystery, and to discover the abode of the
runaway,--but he was restrained. It is usually supposed that women are
always under the influence of one sentiment, and if Lady Lodore acted
under the direction and for the sake of another, wherefore should
Saville interfere? what right had he to investigate her secrets, and
disturb her arrangements?

Several months passed. Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry returned to Longfield,
and still the mystery concerning Ethel's mother continued, and the
wonder increased, Soon after Christmas Mr. Gayland, who was also Lord
Maristow's solicitor, came down to the Castle for a few days. He made
inquiries concerning Lady Lodore, and was somewhat surprised at her strange
disappearance and protracted absence. He asked several questions, and
seemed to form conclusions in his own mind; he excited the curiosity of
all, yet restrained himself from satisfying it; he was evidently
disquieted by her unbroken silence, yet feared to betray the origin of
his uneasiness.

While he remained curiosity was dominant: when he went he requested
Villiers to be good enough to let him know if any thing should be heard
of Lady Lodore. He asked this more than once, and required an absolute
promise. After his departure, his questions, his manner, and his last
words recurred, exciting even more surprise than when he had been
present. Fanny brought forward all he said to support her own
conjectures; a shadow of disquiet crossed Ethel's mind; she asked
Villiers to take some steps to discover where her mother was, and on his
refusal argued earnestly, though vainly, to persuade him to comply.
Villiers was actuated by the common-place maxim of not interfering with
the actions and projects of others. "Lady Lodore is not a child," he
said, "she knows what she is about--has she not always avoided you,
Ethel? Why press yourself inopportunely upon her?"

But Ethel was not now to be convinced by the repetition of these
arguments. She urged her mother's kindness and sacrifice; her having
given up her home to them; her house still unclaimed by her, still at
their disposal, and which contained so many things which must have been
endeared by long use and habit, and the relinquishing of which showed
something extraordinary in her motives. This was a woman's feeling, and
made little impression on Villiers--he was willing to praise and to
thank Lady Lodore for her generosity and kindness, but he suspected nothing
beyond her acknowledged acts.

Saville heard this disquisition; he wished Villiers to be convinced--he
was persuaded that Ethel was right--he was angry at his cousin's
obstinacy--he was miserable at the idea that Cornelia should feel
herself treated with neglect--that she should need protection and not
have it--that she should be alone, and not find assistance proffered,
urged upon her. He mounted his horse and took a solitary ride,
meditating on these things--his imagination became heated, his soul on
fire. He pictured Lady Lodore in solitude and desertion, and his heart
boiled within him. Was she sick, and none near her?--was she dead, and her
grave unvisited and unknown? A lover's fancy is as creative as a poet's
and when once it takes hold of any idea, it clings to it tenaciously. If
it is thus even with ordinary minds, how much more with Saville, with
all energy which was his characteristic, and the latent fire of love
burning in his heart. His resolution was sudden, and acted on at once.
He turned his horse's head towards London. On reaching the nearest town,
he ordered a chaise and four post horses. He wrote a few hurried lines
announcing an absence of two or three days, and with the rapidity that
always attended the conception of his purposes and their execution, the
next morning, having travelled all night, he was in Mr. Gayland's
office, questioning that gentleman concerning Lady Lodore, and seeking
from him all the light he could throw upon her long-continued and
mysterious absence.

Mr. Gayland had promised Lady Lodore not to reveal her secret to Mr. or
Mrs. Villiers; but he felt himself free to communicate it to any other
person. He was very glad to get rid of the burden and even the
responsibility of being her sole confidant. He related all he knew to
Saville, and the truth flashed on the lover's mind. His imagination
could not dupe him--he could conceive, and therefore believe in her
generosity, her magnanimity. He had before, in some degree, divined the
greatness of mind of which Lady Lodore was capable; though as far as
regarded himself, her pride, and his modesty, had deceived him. Now he
became at once aware that Cornelia had beggared herself for Ethel's
sake. She had disposed of her jointure, given up the residue of her
income, and wandered away, poor and alone, to avoid the discovery of the
extent and consequences of her sacrifices. Saville left Mr. Gayland's
office with a bursting and a burning heart. At once he paid a warm
tribute of admiration to her virtues, and acknowledged to himself his
own passionate love. It became a duty, in his eyes, to respect, revere,
adore one so generous and noble. He was proud of the selection his heart
had made, and of his constancy. "My own Cornelia," such was his reverie,
"how express your merit and the admiration it deserves!--other people
talk of generosity, and friendship, and parental affection--but you
manifest a visible image of these things; and while others theorize, you
embody in your actions all that can be imagined of glorious and
angelic." He congratulated himself on being able to return to the
genuine sentiments of his heart, and in finding reality give sanction to
the idolatry of his soul.

He longed to pour out his feelings at her feet, and to plead the cause
of his fidelity and affection, to read in her eyes whether she would see
a reward for her sufferings in his attachment. Where was she, to receive
his protestations and vows? He half forgot, in the fervour of his
feelings, that he knew not whither she had retreated, nor possessed any
clue whereby to find her. He returned to Mr. Gayland to inquire from
him; but he could tell nothing; he went to her house and questioned the
servants, they remembered nothings; at last he found her maid, and
learnt from her, where she was accustomed to hire her post-horses; this
was all the information at which he could arrive.

Going to Newman's, with some difficulty he found the post-boy, who
remembered driving her. By his means he traced her to Reading, but here
all clue was lost. The inn to which she had gone had passed into other
hands, and no one knew any thing about the arrivals and departures of
the preceding summer. He made various perquisitions, and lighted by
chance on the servant she had taken with her to Reading, and there
dismissed. From what he said, and a variety of other circumstances, he
became convinced that she had gone abroad. He searched the foreign
passport-office, and found that one had been taken out at the French
Ambassador's in the month of April, by a Mrs. Fitzhenry. He persuaded
himself that this was proof that she had gone to Paris. It was most
probable that, impoverished as she was, and desirous of concealing her
altered situation, that she should, as Lodore had formerly done, dismiss a
title which would at once encumber and betray her. He immediately
resolved to cross to France. And yet for a moment he hesitated, and
reflected on what it was best to do.

He had given no intimation of his proceedings to his cousin, and they
were unaware that his journey was connected with Lady Lodore. He had a
lover's wish to find her himself--himself to be the only source of
consolation--the only mediator to restore her to her daughter and to
happiness. But his fruitless attempts at discovery made him see that his
wishes were not to be effected easily. He felt that he ought to
communicate all he knew to his cousins, and even to ensure their
assistance in his researches. Before going abroad, therefore, he
returned to Maristow Castle.

He arrived late in the evening. Lord Maristow and his daughters were
gone out to dinner. The three persons whom Saville especially wished to
see, alone occupied the drawing-room. Edward was writing to his father,
who had advised him, now that he had a son, entirely to cut off the
entail and mortgage a great part of the property: it was a distasteful
task to answer the suggestions of unprincipled selfishness. While he was
thus occupied, Ethel had taken from her desk her mother's last letter,
and was reading it again and again, weighing every syllable, and
endeavouring to discover a hidden meaning. She went over to the sofa on
which Fanny was sitting, to communicate to her a new idea that had
struck her. The studious girl had got into a corner with her Cicero, and
was reading the Tusculan Questions, which she readily laid aside to
enter on a subject so deeply interesting. Saville opened the door, and
appeared most unexpectedly among them. His manner was eager and abrupt,
and the first words he uttered were, "I am come to disturb you all, and
to beg of you to return to London:--no time must be lost--can you go
to-morrow?"

"Certainly," said Villiers, "if you wish it."

"But why?" asked Ethel.

"You have found Lady Lodore!" exclaimed Fanny.

"You are dreaming, Fanny," said Ethel; "you see Horace shakes his head.
But if we go to-morrow, yet rest to-night. You are fatigued, pale, and
ill, Horace--you have been exerting yourself too much--explain your
wishes, but take repose and refreshment."

Saville was in too excited a state to think of either. He repelled
Ethel's feminine offers, till he had related his story. His listeners
heard him with amazement. Villiers's cheeks glowed with shame, partly at
the injustice of his former conduct--partly at being the object of so
much sacrifice and beneficence on the part of his mother-in-law. Fanny's
colour also heightened; she clasped her hands in delight, mingling
various exclamations with Saville's story. "Did I not say so? I was sure
of it. If you had seen her when I did, on the day of her going away, you
would have been as certain as I." Ethel wept in silence, her heart was
touched to the core, "the remorse of love" awakened in it. How cold and
ungrateful had been all her actions: engrossed by her love for her
husband, she had bestowed no sympathy, made no demonstrations towards
her mother. The false shame and Edward's oft-repeated arguments which
had kept her back, vanished from her mind. She reproached herself
bitterly for lukewarmness and neglect; she yearned to show her
repentance--to seek forgiveness--to express, however feebly, her sense
of her mother's angelic goodness. Her tears flowed to think of these
things, and that her mother was away, poor and alone, believing herself
wronged in all their thoughts, resenting perhaps their unkindness,
mourning over the ingratitude of her child.

When the first burst of feeling was over, they discussed their future
proceedings. Saville communicated his discoveries and his plan of
crossing to France. Villiers was as eager as his cousin to exert himself
actively in the pursuit. His ingenuous and feeling mind was struck by
his injustice, and he was earnest in his wish to atone for the past, and
to recompense her, if possible, for her sacrifices. As every one is apt
to do with regard to the ideas of others, he was not satisfied with his
cousin's efforts or conclusions; he thought more questions might be
asked--more learnt at the inns on the route which Lady Lodore had taken.
The passport Saville had imagined to be hers, was taken out for Dover.
Reading was far removed from any road to Kent. They argued this. Horatio
was not convinced; but while he was bent on proceeding to Paris, Edward
resolved to visit Reading--to examine the neighbourhood--to requestion
the servants--to put on foot a system of inquiry which must in the end
assure them whether she was still in the kingdom. It was at once
resolved, that on the morrow they should go to London.

Thither they accordingly went. They repaired to Lady Lodore's house.
Saville on the next morning departed for France, and a letter soon reached
them from him, saying, that he felt persuaded that the Mrs. Fitzhenry was
Lady Lodore, and that he should pursue his way with all speed to Paris.
It appeared, that the lady in question had crossed to Calais on the
eleventh of June, and intimated her design of going to the Bagneres de
Bigorre among the Pyrennees, passing through Paris on her way. The
mention of the Bagneres de Bigorre clinched Saville's suspicions--it was
such a place as one in Lady Lodore's position might select for her
abode--distant, secluded, situated in sublime and beautiful scenery,
singularly cheap, and seldom visited by strangers; yet the annual resort
of the French from Bordeaux and Lyons, civilized what otherwise had been
too rude and wild for an English lady. It was a long journey
thither--the less wonder that nothing was heard, or seen, or surmised
concerning the absentee by her numerous acquaintances, many of whom were
scattered on the continent. Saville represented all these things, and
expressed his conviction that he should find her. His letter was brief,
for he was hurried, and he felt that it were better to say nothing than
to express imperfectly the conflicting emotions alive in his heart. "My
life seems a dream," he said at the conclusion of his letter; "a long
painful dream, since last I saw her. I awake, she is not here; I go to
seek her--my actions have that single scope--my thoughts tend to that
aim only; I go to find her--to restore her to Ethel. If I succeed in
bestowing this happiness on her, I shall have my reward, and, whatever
happens, no selfish regret shall tarnish my delight."

He urged Villiers, meanwhile, not to rely too entirely on the conviction
so strong in himself, but to pursue his plan of discovery with vigour.
Villiers needed no spur. His eagerness was fully alive; he could not
rest till he had rescued his mother-in-law from solitude and obscurity.
He visited Reading; he extended his inquiries to Newbury: here more
light broke in on his researches. He heard of Lady Lodore's illness--of her
having resided for several months at a villa in the neighbourhood, while
slowly recovering from a fever by which for a long time her life had
been endangered. He heard also of her departure, her return to London.
Then again all was obscurity. The innkeepers and letters of post-horses
in London, were all visited in vain--the mystery became as impenetrable
as ever. It seemed most probable that she was living in some obscure
part of the metropolis--Ethel's heart sunk within her at the thought.

Edward wrote to Saville to communicate this intelligence, which put an
end to the idea of her being in France--but he was already gone on to
Bagneres. He himself perambulated London and its outskirts, but all in
vain. The very thought that she should be residing in a place so sad,
nay, so humiliating, without one gilding circumstance to solace poverty
and obscurity, was unspeakably painful both to Villiers and his wife.
Ethel thought of her own abode in Duke street during her husband's
absence, and how miserable and forlorn it had been--she now wept
bitterly over her mother's fate; even Fanny's philosophy could not
afford consolation for these ideas.

An accident, however, gave a new turn to their conjectures. In the draw
of a work-table, Ethel found an advertisement cut out of a newspaper,
setting forth the merits of a cottage to be let near Rhaiyder Gowy in
Radnorshire, and with this, a letter from the agent at Rhaiyder, dated
the 13th of May, in answer to inquiries concerning the rent and
particulars. The letter intimated, that if the account gave
satisfaction, the writer would get the cottage prepared for the tenant
immediately, and the lady might take possession at the time mentioned,
on the 1st of June. The day after finding this letter, Villiers set out
for Wales.

But first he persuaded Ethel to spend the interval of his absence at
Longfield. She had lately fretted much concerning her mother, and as she
was still nursing her baby, Edward became uneasy at her pale cheeks and
thinness. Ethel was anxious to preserve her health for her child; she
felt that her uneasiness and pining would be lessened by a removal into
the country. She was useless in London, and there was something in her
residence in her mother's house--in the aspect of the streets--in the
memory of what she had suffered there, and the fear that Lady Lodore was
enduring a worse repetition of the same evils, that agitated and preyed
upon her. Her aunt had pressed her very much to come and see her, and
she wrote to say, that she might be expected on the following day. She
bade adieu to Villiers with more of hope with regard to his success than
she had formerly felt. She became half convinced that her mother was not
in London. Fanny supported her in these ideas; they talked continually
of all they knew--of the illness of Lady Lodore--of her firmness of
purpose in not sending for her daughter, or altering her plans in
consequence; they comforted themselves that the air of Wales would
restore her health, and the beauty of the scenery and the freedom of
nature sooth her mind. They were full of hope--of more--of expectation.
Ethel, indeed, had at one time proposed accompanying her husband, but
she yielded to his entreaties, and to the fear suggested, that she might
injure her child's health. Villiers's motions would be more prompt
without her. They separated. Ethel wrote to Saville a letter to find him
at Paris, containing an account of their new discoveries, and then
prepared for her journey to Essex with Fanny, her baby, and the
beautiful little Clorinda Saville, who had been left under her care, on
the following day.




CHAPTER XVI


I am not One who much or oft delights
To season my Friends with personal talk,--
Of Friends who live within an easy walk,
Or Neighbours, daily, weekly in my sight.
And, for my chance acquaintance, Ladies bright.
Sons, Mothers, Maidens withering on the stalk,
These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk
Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast-night.

WORDSWORTH.


Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry returned to Longfield from Maristow Castle at
the end of the month of November. She gladly came back, in all the
dinginess and bleakness of that dismal season, to her beloved seclusion
at Longfield. The weather was dreary, a black frost invested every thing
with its icy chains, the landscape looked disconsolate, and now and then
wintry blasts brought on snow-storms, and howled loudly through the long
dark nights. The amiable spinster drew her chair close to the fire; with
half-shut eyes she contemplated the glowing embers, and recalled many past
winters just like this, when Lodore was alive and in America; or, diving
yet deeper into memory, when the honoured chair she now occupied, had
been dignified by her father, and she had tried to sooth his querulous
complaints on the continued absence of her brother Henry. When, instead
of these familiar thoughts, the novel ones of Ethel and Villiers
intruded themselves, she rubbed her eyes to be quite sure that she did
not dream. It was a lamentable change; and who the cause? Even she whose
absence had been, she felt, wickedly lamented at Maristow Castle,
Cornelia Santerre--she, who in an evil hour, had become Lady Lodore, and
who would before God, answer for the disasters and untimely death of her
ill-fated husband.

With any but Mrs. Fitzhenry, such accusations had, after the softening
process of time, been changed to an admission, that, despite her errors,
Lady Lodore had rather been misled and mistaken, than heinously faulty; and
her last act, in sacrificing so much to her daughter, although the extent
of her sacrifice was unknown to her sister-in-law, had cancelled her former
delinquencies. But the prejudiced old lady was not so easily mollified;
she was harsh alone towards her, but all the gall of her nature was
collected and expended on the head of her brother's widow. Probably an
instinctive feeling of her unreasonableness made her more violent. Her
language was bitter whenever she alluded to her--she rejoiced at her
absence, and instead of entering into Ethel's gratitude and impatience,
she fervently prayed that she might never appear on the scene again.

Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry was less of a gossip than any maiden lady who
had ever lived singly in the centre of a little village. Her heart was
full of the dead and the absent--of past events, and their long train of
consequences, so that the history of the inhabitants of her village,
possessed no charm for her. If any one among them suffered from
misfortune she endeavoured to relieve them, and if any died, she lamented,
moralized on the passage of time, and talked of Lodore's death; but
the scandal, the marriages, the feuds, and wonderful things that came to
pass at Longfield, appeared childish and contemptible, the flickering of
earth-born tapers compared to the splendour, the obscuration, and final
setting of the celestial luminary which had been the pole-star of her
life.

It was from this reason that Mrs. Fitzhenry had not heard of the Lady
who lodged at Dame Nixon's cottage, in the Vale of Bewling, till the
time, when, after having exhausted the curiosity of Longfield, she was
almost forgotten. The Lady, she was known by no other name, had arrived
in the town during Mrs. Fitzhenry's visit to Maristow castle. She had
arrived in her own chariot, unattended by any servant; the following day
she had taken up her abode at Dame Nixon's cottage, saying, that she was
only going to stay a week: she had continued there for more than three
months.

Dame Nixon's cottage was situated about a mile and a half from
Longfield. It stood alone in a little hollow embowered by trees; the
ground behind rose to a slight upland, and a rill trickled through the
garden. You got to it by a bye path, which no wheeled vehicle could
traverse, though a horse might, and it was indeed the very dingle and
cottage which Ethel had praised during her visit into Essex in the
preceding year. The silence and seclusion were in summer tranquillizing
and beautiful; in winter sad and drear; the fields were swampy in wet
weather, and in snow and frost it seemed cut off from the rest of the
world. Dame Nixon and her granddaughter lived there alone. The girl had
been engaged to be married. Her lover jilted her, and wedded a richer
bride. The story is so old, that it is to be wondered that women have
not ceased to lament so common an occurrence. Poor Margaret was, on the
contrary, struck to the heart--she despised herself for being unable to
preserve her lover's affections, rather than the deceiver for his
infidelity. She neglected her personal appearance, nor ever showed
herself among her former companions, except to support her grandmother
to church. Her false lover sat in the adjoining pew. She fixed her eyes
on her Prayer-book during the service, and on the ground as she went
away. She did not wish him to see the change which his faithlessness had
wrought, for surely it would afflict him. Once there had not bloomed a
fresher or gayer rose in the fields of Essex--now she had grown thin and
pale--her young light step had become slow and heavy--sickness and
sorrow made her eyes hollow, and her cheeks sunken. She avoided every
one, devoting herself to attendance on her grandmother. Dame Nixon was
nearly doting. Life was ebbing fast from her old frame; her best
pleasure was to sun herself in the garden in summer, or to bask before
the winter's fire. While enjoying these delights, her dimmed eyes
brightened, and a smile wreathed her withered lips; she said, "Ah! this
is comfortable;" while her broken-hearted grandchild envied a state of
being which could content itself with mere animal enjoyment. They were
very poor. Margaret had to work hard; but the thoughts of the head, or,
at least, the feelings of the heart, need not wait on the labour of the
hands. The Sunday visit to church kept alive her pain; her very prayers
were bitter, breathed close to the deceiver and her who had usurped her
happiness: the memory and anticipation haunted her through the week; she
was often blinded by tears as she patiently pursued her household
duties, or her toil in their little garden. Her hands were hardened with
work, her throat, her face sunburnt; but exercise and occupation did not
prevent her from wasting away, or her cheek from becoming sunk and wan.

Dame Nixon's cottage was poor but roomy; some years before, a gentleman
from London had, in a freak, hired two rooms in it, and furnished them.
Since then, she had sometimes let them, and now they were occupied by
the stranger lady. At first all three of the inhabitants appeared each
Sunday at church. The Lady was dressed in spotless and simple white, and
so closely veiled, that no one could see her face; of course she was
beautiful. Soon after Mrs. Elizabeth's return from Maristow Castle, it
was discovered that first the lady stayed away, and soon, that the whole
party absented themselves on Sunday; and as this defalcation demanded
inquiry, it was discovered that a pony chaise took them three miles off
to the church of the nearest village. This was a singular and yet a
beneficial change. The false swain must rejoice at losing sight of the
memento of his sin, and Margaret would certainly pray with a freer
heart, when she no longer shrunk from his gaze and that of his wife.

It was not until the end of January that Mrs. Elizabeth heard of the
Lady; it was not till the beginning of February that she asked a single
question about her.

In January, passing the inn-yard, the curate's wife, who was walking
with her, said, "There is the chariot belonging to the Lady who lodges
at dame Nixon's cottage. I wonder who she is. The arms are painted out."

"Ah, dame Nixon has a lodger then; that is a good thing, it will help
her through the winter. I have not seen her or her daughter at church
lately."

"No," replied the other, "they go now to Bewling church."

"I am glad to hear it," said Mrs. Fitzhenry; "it is much better for poor
Margaret not to come here."

The conversation went on, and the Lady was alluded to, but no questions
were asked or curiosity excited. In February she heard from the doctor's
wife, that the doctor had been to the cottage, and that the Lady was
indisposed. She heard at the same time that this Lady had refused to
receive the visits of the curate's lady and the doctor's lady--excusing
herself, that she was going to leave Essex immediately. This had
happened two months before. On hearing of her illness, Mrs. Elizabeth
thought of calling on her, but this stopped her. "It is very odd," said
the doctor's wife, "she came in her own carriage, and yet has no
servants. She lives in as poor a way as can be, down in that cottage,
yet my husband says she is more like the Queen of England in her looks
and ways than any one he ever saw."

"Like the Queen of England?" said Mrs. Fitzhenry, "What queen?--Queen
Charlotte?" who had been the queen of the greater part of the good
lady's life.

"She is as young and beautiful as an angel," said the other, half angry;
"it is very mysterious. She did not look downcast like, as if any thing
was wrong, but was as cheerful and condescending as could be.
'Condescending, Doctor,' said I, for my husband used the word; 'you
don't want condescension from a poor body lodging at dame Nixon's.'--'A
poor body!' said he, in a huff, 'she is more of a lady, indeed more like
the Queen of England than any rich body you ever saw.' And what is odd,
no one knows her name--Dame Nixon and Margaret always call her Lady--the
very marks are picked out from her pocket handkerchiefs. Yet I did hear
that there was a coronet plain to be seen on one--a thing impossible
unless she was a poor cast-away; and the doctor says he'd lay his life
that she was nothing of that. He must know her name when he makes out
her bill, and I told him to ask it plump, but he puts off, and puts off,
till I am out of all patience."

A misty confused sense of discomfort stole over Mrs. Elizabeth when she
heard of the coronet in the corner of the pocket handkerchief, but it
passed away without suggesting any distinct idea to her mind. Nor did
she feel curiosity about the stranger--she was too much accustomed to
the astonishment, the conjectures, the gossip of Longfield, to suppose
that there was any real foundation for surprise, because its
wonder-loving inhabitants choose to build up a mystery out of every
common occurrence of life.

This absence of inquisitiveness must long have kept Mrs. Fitzhenry in
ignorance of who her neighbour was, and the inhabitants of Longfield
would probably have discovered it before her, had not the truth been
revealed even before she entertained a suspicion that there was any
secret to be found out.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said her maid to her one evening, as she was
superintending the couchée of the worthy spinster, "I think you ought
to know, though I am afraid you may be angry."

The woman hesitated; her mistress encouraged her. "If it is any thing I
ought to know, Wilmot, tell it at once, and don't be afraid. What has
happened to you?"

"To me, ma'am,--la! nothing," replied the maid; "it's something about
the Lady at dame Nixon's, only you commanded me never to speak the name
of----"

And again the good woman stopped short. Mrs. Fitzhenry, a little
surprised, and somewhat angry, bade her go on. At length, in plain words
she was told:

"Why, ma'am, the Lady down in the Vale is no other than my lady--than
Lady Lodore."

"Ridiculous--who told you so?"

"My own eyes, ma'am; I shouldn't have believed any thing else. I saw the
Lady, and it was my Lady, as sure as I stand here."

"But how could you know her? it is years since you saw her."

"Yes, ma'am," said the woman, with a smile of superiority; "but it is
not easy to forget Lady Lodore. See her yourself, ma'am,--you will know
then that I am right."

Wilmot had lived twenty years with Mrs. Fitzhenry. She had visited town
with her at the time of Ethel's christening. She had been kept in
vexatious ignorance of subsequent events, till the period of the visit
of her mistress and niece to London two years before, when she
indemnified herself. Through the servants of Villiers, and of the Misses
Saville, she had learnt a vast deal; and not satisfied with mere
hearsay, she had seen Lady Lodore several times getting into her carriage
at her own door, and had even been into her house: such energy is there in
a liberal curiosity. The same disinterested feeling had caused her to go
down to dame Nixon's with an offer from her mistress of service to the
Lady, hearing she was ill. She went perfectly unsuspicious of the
wonderful discovery she was about to make, and was thus rewarded beyond
her most sanguine hopes, by being in possession of a secret, known to
herself alone. The keeping of a secret is, however, a post of no honour
if all knowledge be confined to the possessor alone. Mrs. Wilmot was
tolerably faithful, with all her love of knowledge; she was sure it
would vex her mistress if Lady Lodore's strange place of abode were
known at Longfield, and Mrs. Fitzhenry was consequently the first person
to whom she had hinted the fact. All this account she detailed with
great volubility. Her mistress recommended discretion most earnestly;
and at the same time expressed a doubt whether her information was
correct.

"I wish you would go and judge for yourself, ma'am," said the maid.

"God forbid!" exclaimed Mrs. Fitzhenry. "God grant I never see Lady
Lodore again! She will go soon. You tell me that dame Nixon says she is
only staying till she is well. She will go soon, and it need never be
known, except to ourselves, Wilmot, that she was ever here."

There was a dignity in this eternal mystery that somewhat compensated
for the absence of wonder and fuss which the woman had anticipated with
intense pleasure. She assured her mistress, over and over again, of her
secrecy and discretion, and was dismissed with the exhortation to forget
all she had learnt as quickly as possible.

"Wherefore did she come here? what can she be doing?" Mrs. Fitzhenry
asked herself over and over again. She could not guess. It was strange,
it was mysterious, and some mischief was at the bottom--but she would go
soon--"would that she were already gone!"

It must be mentioned that Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry had left Maristow
Castle before the arrival of Mr. Gayland, and had therefore no knowledge
of the still more mysterious cloud that enveloped Lady Lodore's absence.
Ignorant of her self-destroying sacrifices and generosity, her pity was
not excited, her feelings were all against her. She counted the days as
they passed, and looked wistfully at Wilmot, hoping that she would
quickly bring tidings of the Lady's departure. In vain; the doctor
ceased to visit the cottage, but the Lady remained. All at once the
doctor visited it again with greater assiduity than ever--not on account
of his beautiful patient--but Dame Nixon had had a paralytic stroke, and
the kind Lady had sent for him, and promised to defray all the expenses
of the poor woman's illness.

All this was truly vexatious. Mrs. Fitzhenry fretted, and even asked
Wilmot questions, but the unwelcome visitor was still there. Wherefore?
What could have put so disagreeable a whim into her head? The good lady
could think of no motive, while she considered her presence an insult.
She was still more annoyed when she received a letter from Ethel. It had
been proposed that Mr. and Mrs. Villiers should pay her a visit in the
spring; but now Ethel wrote to say that she might be immediately
expected. "I have strange things to tell you about my dear mother,"
wrote Ethel; "it is very uncertain where she is. Horatio can hear
nothing of her at Paris, and will soon return. Edward is going to Wales,
as there seems a great likelihood that she has secluded herself there.
While he is away you may expect me. I shall not be able to stay long--he
will come at the end of a week to fetch me."

Mrs. Fitzhenry shuddered. Her prejudices were stronger than ever. She
experienced the utmost wretchedness from the idea that the residence of
Lady Lodore would be discovered, and a family union effected. It seemed
desecration to the memory of her brother, ruin to Ethel--the greatest
misfortune that could befal any of them. Her feelings were exaggerated,
but they were on that account the more powerful. How could she avert the
evil?--a remedy must be sought, and she fixed on one--a desperate one,
in truth, which appeared to her the sole mode of saving them all from
the greatest disasters.

She resolved to visit Lady Lodore; to represent to her the impropriety and
wickedness of her having any intercourse with her daughter, and to
entreat her to depart before Ethel's arrival. Her violence might almost
seem madness; but all people who live in solitude become to a certain
degree insane. Their views of things are not corrected by comparing them
with those of others; and the strangest want of proportion always reigns
in their ideas and sentiments.




CHAPTER XVII


So loth we part from all we love,
From all the links that bind us;
So turn our hearts, where'er we rove,
To those we've left behind us.

THOMAS MOORE.


On the following morning Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry drove to the Vale of
Bewling. It was the last day of February. The March winds were hushed as
yet; the breezes were balmy, the sunshine cheerful; a few soft clouds
flecked the heavens, and the blue sky appeared between them calm and
pure. Each passing air breathed life and happiness--it caressed the
cheek--and the swelling buds of the trees felt its quickening influence.
The almond-trees were in bloom--the pear blossoms began to whiten--the
tender green of the young leaves showed themselves here and there among
the hedges. The old lady felt the cheering influence, and would have
become even gay, had not the idea of the errand she was on checked her
spirits. Sometimes the remembrance that she was really going to see her
sister-in-law absolutely startled her; once or twice she thought of
turning back; she passed through the lanes, and then alighting from her
carriage, walked by a raised foot-way, across some arable fields--and
again through a little grove; the winding path made a turn, and dame
Nixon's white, low-roofed cottage was before her. Every thing about it
looked trim, but very humble: and it was unadorned during this early
season by the luxury of flowers and plants, which usually give even an
appearance of elegance to an English cottage. Mrs. Fitzhenry opened the
little gate--her knees trembled as she walked through the scanty garden,
which breathed of the new-sprung violets. The entrance to the cottage
was by the kitchen: she entered this, and found Margaret occupied by a
culinary preparation for her grandmother. Mrs. Fitzhenry asked after the
old woman's health, and thus gained a little time. Margaret answered in
her own former quiet yet cheerful voice; she was changed from what she
had been a few weeks before. The bloom had not returned to her cheeks,
but they no longer appeared streaked with deathly paleness; her motions
had lost the heaviness that showed a mind ill at ease. Mrs. Elizabeth
congratulated her on the restoration of her health.

"O yes," she replied, with a blush, "I am not the same creature I used
to be, thank God, and the angel he has sent us here;--if my poor
grandmother would but get well I should be quite happy; but that is
asking too much at her time of life."

The old lady made no further observations: she did not wish to hear the
praises of her sister-in-law. "Your lodger is still here?" at length she
said.

"Yes, God be praised!" replied Margaret.

"Will you give her my compliments, and say I am here, and that I wish to
see her."

"Yes, ma'am," said Margaret; "only the lady has refused to see any one,
and she does not like being asked."

"I do not wish to be impertinent or intrusive," answered Mrs. Elizabeth;
"only tell her my name, and if she makes any objection, of course she
will do as she likes. Where is she?"

"She is sitting with my poor grandmother; the nurse--Heaven bless her!
she would hire a nurse, to spare me, as she said--is lain down to sleep,
and she said she would watch by grandmother while I got the gruel; but
it's ready now, and I will go and tell her."

Away tripped Margaret, leaving her guest lost in wonder. Lady Lodore
watching the sick-bed of an old cottager--Lady Lodore immured in a
poverty-stricken abode, fit only for the poorer sort of country people.
It was more than strange, it was miraculous. "Yet she refused to
accompany poor Henry to America! there must be some strange mystery in
all this, that does not tell well for her."

So bitterly uncharitable was the unforgiving old lady towards her
brother's widow. She ruminated on these things for a minute or two, and
then Margaret came to usher her into the wicked one's presence. The
sitting-room destined for the lodger was neat, though very plain. The
walls were wainscotted and painted white,--the windows small and
latticed,--the furniture was old black, shining mahogany; the chairs
high-backed and clumsy; the table heavy and incommodious; the fire-place
large and airy; and the shelf of the mantel-piece almost as high as the
low ceiling: there were a few things of a more modern construction; a
comfortable sofa, a rose-wood bureau and large folding screen; near the
fire was a large easy chair of Gillows's manufacture, two light cane
ones, and two small tables; vases filled with hyacinths, jonquils, and
other spring flowers stood on one, and an embroidery frame occupied the
other. There was a perfume of fresh-gathered flowers in the room, which
the open window rendered very agreeable. Lady Lodore was standing near the
fire--(for Wilmot was not mistaken, and it was she indeed who now
presented herself to Mrs. Fitzhenry's eyes)--she might be agitated--she
did not show it--she came forward and held out her hand. "Dear Bessy,"
she said, "you are very kind to visit me; I thank you very much."

The poor recluse was overpowered. The cordiality of the greeting
frightened her: she who had come full of bitter reproach and hard
purposes, to be thanked with that sweet voice and smile. "I thought," at
length she stammered out, "that you did not wish to be known. I am glad
you are not offended, Cornelia."

"Offended by kindness? O no! It is true I did not wish--I do not wish
that it should be known that I am here--but since, by some strange
accident, you have discovered me, how can I help being grateful for your
visit? I am indeed glad to see you; it is so long since I have heard any
thing. Ah! dear Bessy, tell me, how is Ethel?"

Tears glistened in the mother's eyes: she asked many questions, and Mrs.
Fitzhenry a little recovered her self-possession, as she answered them.
She looked at Lady Lodore--she was changed--she could not fail of being
changed after so many years,--she was no longer a beautiful girl, but
she was a lovely woman. Despite the traces of years, which however
lightly they impressed, yet might be discerned; expression so
embellished her that it was impossible not to admire; brilliancy had
given place to softness, animation to serenity; still she was
fair--still her silken hair clustered on her brow, and her sweet eyes
were full of fire; her smile had more than its former charm--it came
from the heart.

Mrs. Fitzhenry was not, however, to be subdued by a little outward show.
She was there, who had betrayed and deserted (such were the energetic
words she was accustomed to employ) the noble, broken-hearted Lodore. The
thought steeled her purpose, and she contrived at last to ask whether
Lady Lodore was going to remain much longer in Essex?

"I have been going every day since I came here. In a few weeks I shall
certainly be gone. Why do you ask?"

"Because I thought--that is--you have made a secret of your being here,
and I expect Ethel in a day or two, and she would certainly discover
you."

"Why should she not?" asked Lady Lodore. "Why should you be averse to my
seeing Ethel?"

It is very difficult to say a disagreeable thing, especially to one
unaccustomed to society, and who is quite ignorant of the art of
concealing the sting of her intentions by flowery words. Mrs. Fitzhenry
said something about her sister-in-law's own wishes, and the desire
expressed by Lodore that there should be no intercourse between the mother
and daughter.

Cornelia's eyes flashed fire--"Am I," she exclaimed, "to be always the
sacrifice? Is my husband's vengeance to pursue me beyond his grave--even
till I reach mine? Unjust as he was, he would not have desired this."

Mrs. Elizabeth coloured with anger. Lady Lodore continued--"Pardon me,
Bessy, I do not wish to say any thing annoying to you or in blame of
Lodore. God knows I did him great wrong--but--"

"O Cornelia," cried the old lady, "do you indeed acknowledge that you
were to blame?"

Lady Lodore smiled, and said, "I were strangely blind to the defects of my
own character, and to the consequences of my actions, were I not conscious
of my errors; but retrospection is useless, and the punishment has
been--is--sufficiently severe. Lodore himself would not have perpetuated
his resentment, had he lived only a very little while longer. But I will
speak frankly to you, Bessy, as frankly as I may, and you shall decide
on my further stay here. From circumstances which it is immaterial to
explain, I have resolved on retiring into absolute solitude. I shall
never live in London again--never again see any of my old friends and
acquaintances. The course of my life is entirely changed; and whether I
live here or elsewhere, I shall live in obscurity and poverty. I do not
wish Ethel to know this. She would wish to assist me, and she has
scarcely enough for herself. I do not like being a burthen--I do not
like being pitied--I do not like being argued with, or to have my
actions commented upon. You know that my disposition was always
independent."

Mrs. Elizabeth assented with a sigh, casting up her eyes to heaven.

Lady Lodore smiled, and went on. "You think this is a strange place for me
to live in: whether here or elsewhere, I shall never live in any better: I
shall be fortunate if I find myself as well off when I leave Essex, for
the people here are good and honest, and the poor girl loves me,--it is
always pleasant to be loved."

A tear again filled Cornelia's eyes--she tried to animate herself to
smile. "I have nothing to love in all the wide world except Ethel; I do
love her; every one must love her--she is so gentle--so kind--so
warm-hearted and beautiful,--I love her more than my own heart's blood;
she is my child--part of that blood--part of myself--the better part; I
have seen little of her, but every look and word is engraved on my
heart. I love her voice--her smiles--the pressure of her soft white
hand. Pity me, dear Bessy, I am never to see any of these, which are all
that I love on earth, again. This idea fills me with regret--with
worse--with sorrow. There is a grave not far from here which contains
one you loved beyond all others,--what would you not give to see him
alive once again? To visit his tomb is a consolation to you. I must not
seen even the walls within which my blessed child lives. You alone can
help me--can be of comfort to me. Do not refuse--do not send me away. If
I leave this place, I shall go to some secluded nook in Wales, and be
quite--quite alone; the sun will shine, and the grass will grow at my
feet, but my heart will be dead within me, and I shall pine and die. I
have intended to do this; I have waited only till the sufferings of the
poor woman here should be at an end, that I may be of service to
Margaret, and then go. Your visit, which I fancied meant in kindness,
has put other thoughts into my head.

"Do not object to my staying here; let me remain; and do yet more for
me--come to me sometimes, and bring me tidings of my daughter--tell me
what she says--how she looks,--tell me that she is at each moment well
and happy. Ah! do this, dear Bessy, and I will bless you. I shall never
see her--at least not for years; there are many things to prevent it:
yet how could I drag out those years quite estranged from her? My heart
has died within me each time I have thought of it. But I can live as I
say; I shall expect you every now and then to come and talk to me of
her; she need never know that I am so near--she comes so seldom to
Essex. I shall soon be forgotten at Longfield. Will you consent? you
will do a kind action, and God will bless you."

Mrs. Fitzhenry was one of those persons who always find it difficult to
say, No; and Lady Lodore asked with so much earnestness that she commanded;
she felt that her request ought to be granted, and therefore it was
impossible to refuse it. Before she well knew what she had said, the
good lady had yielded her consent and received her sister-in-law's warm
and heart-felt thanks.

Mrs. Fitzhenry looked round the room: "But how can you think of staying
here, Cornelia?" she said; "this place is not fit for you. I should have
thought that you could never have endured such homely rooms."

"Do you think them so bad?" replied the lady; "I think them very
pleasant, for I have done with pride, and I find peace and comfort here.
Look," she continued, throwing open a door that led into the garden, "is
not that delightful? This garden is very pretty: that clear rivulet
murmurs by with so lulling a sound;--and look at these violets, are they
not beautiful? I have planted a great many flowers, and they will soon
come up. Do you not know how pleasant it is to watch the shrubs we
plant, and water, and rear ourselves?--to see the little green shoots
peep out, and the leaves unfold, and then the flower blossom and expand,
diffusing its delicious odour around,--all, as it were, created by
oneself, by one's own nursing, out of a bit of stick or an ugly bulb?
This place is very pretty, I assure you: when the leaves are on the
trees they make a bower, and the grove behind the house is shady, and
leads to lanes and fields more beautiful than any I ever saw. I have
loitered for hours in this garden, and been quite happy. Now I shall be
happier than ever, thanks to you. You will not forget me. Come as often
as you can. You say that you expect Ethel soon?"

Lady Ladore walked with her sister-in-law to the garden-gate, and
beyond, through the little copse, still talking of her daughter. "I
cannot go further," she said, at last, "without a bonnet--so good-bye,
dear Bessy. Come soon. Thank you--thank you for this visit."

She held out her hand: Mrs. Fitzhenry took it, pressed it, a half
feeling came over her as if she were about to kiss the check of her
offending relative, but her heart hardened, she blushed, and muttering
a hasty good-bye, she hurried away. She was bewildered, and after
walking a few steps, she turned round, and saw again the white dress of
Cornelia, as a turn in the path hid her. The grand, the exclusive Lady
Lodore--the haughty, fashionable, worldly-heartless wife thus metamorphosed
into a tender-hearted mother--suing to her for crumbs of charitable
love--and hiding all her boasted advantages in that low-roofed cottage!
What could it all mean?

Mrs. Fitzhenry walked on. Again she thought, "How odd! I went there,
determining to persuade her to go away, and miserable at the thoughts of
seeing her only once; and now I have promised to visit her often, and
agreed that she shall live here. Have I not done wrong? What would my
poor brother say? Yet I could not refuse. Poor thing! how could I
refuse, when she said that she had nothing else to live for? Besides, to
go away and live alone in Wales--it would be too dreadful; and she
thanked me as if she were so grateful. I hope I have not done wrong.

"But how strange it is that Henry's widow should have become so poor;
she has given up a part of her income to Ethel, but a great deal
remains. What can she have done with it? She is mysterious, and there is
never any good in mystery. Who knows what she may have to conceal?" Mrs.
Elizabeth got in her carriage, and each step of the horses took her
farther from the web of enchantment which Cornelia had thrown over her.
"She is always strange,"--thus ran her meditations; "and how am I to see
her, and no one find it out? and what a story for Longfield, that Lady
Lodore should be living in poverty in dame Nixon's cottage. I forgot to
tell her that--I forgot to say so many things I meant to say--I don't know
why, except that she talked so much, and I did not know how to bring in
my objections. But it cannot be right: and Ethel in her long rambles and
rides with Miss Derham or Mr. Villiers, will be sure to find her out. I
wish I had not seen her--I will write and tell her I have changed my
mind, and entreat her to go away."

As it occurs to all really good-natured persons, it was very
disagreeable to Mrs. Fitzhenry to be angry, and she visited the
ill-temper so engendered on the head of poor Cornelia. She disturbed
herself by the idea of all the disagreeable things that might happen--of
her sister-in-law's positive refusal to go; the very wording which she
imagined for her intended letter puzzled and irritated her. She no
longer felt the breath of spring as pleasant, but sat back in the
chariot, "nursing her wrath to keep it warm." When she reached her home,
Ethel's carriage was at her door.

The meeting, as ever, between aunt and niece was affectionate. Fanny was
welcomed, the baby was kissed, and little Clorinda admired, but the
theme nearest Ethel's heart was speedily introduced--her mother. The
disquietudes she felt on her account--Mr. Saville's journey to
Paris--the visit of Villiers to Wales to discover her place of
concealment--the inutility of all their endeavours.

"But why are they so anxious?" asked her aunt; "I can understand you:
you have some fantastic notion about your mother, but how can Mr.
Villiers desire so very much to find her?"

"I could almost say," said Ethel, "that Edward is more eager than
myself, though I should wrong my own affection and gratitude; but he was
more unjust towards her, and thus he feels the weight of obligation more
keenly; but, perhaps, dear aunt, you do not know all that my dearest
mother has done for us--the unparalleled sacrifices she has made."

Then Ethel went on to tell her all that Mr. Gayland had
communicated--the sale of her jointure--the very small residue of money
she had kept for herself--the entire payment of Villiers's debts--and
afterwards the surrender of the remainder of her income and of her house
to them. Her eyes glistened as she spoke; her heart, overflowing with
admiration and affection, shone in her beautiful face, her voice was
pregnant with sensibility, and her expressions full of deep feeling.

Mrs. Elizabeth's heart was not of stone--far from it; it was, except in
the one instance of her sister-in-law, made of pliable materials. She
heard Ethel's story--she caught by sympathy the tenderness and pity she
poured forth--she thought of Lady Lodore at the cottage, a dwelling so
unlike any she had ever inhabited before--poverty-stricken and mean; she
remembered her praises of it--her cheerfulness--the simplicity of taste
which she displayed--the light-hearted content with which she spoke of
every privation except the absence of Ethel. What before was mysterious
wrong, was now manifest heroism. The loftiness and generosity of her
mind rose upon the old lady unclouded; her own uncharitable deductions
stung her with remorse; she continued to listen, and Ethel to narrate,
and the big tears gathered in her eyes, and rolled down her venerable
cheeks,--tears at once of repentance and admiration.




CHAPTER XVIII


Repentance is a tender sprite;
If aught on earth have heavenly might,
'Tis lodged within her silent tear.

WORDSWORTH.


Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry was not herself aware of all that Lady Lodore had
suffered, or the extent of her sacrifices. She guessed darkly at them,
but it was the detail that rendered them so painful, and, but for their
motive, humiliating to one nursed in luxury, and accustomed to all those
intermediate servitors and circumstances, which stand between the rich
and the bare outside of the working-day world. Cornelia shrunk from the
address of those she did not know, and from the petty acts of daily
life, which had gone on before without her entering into their detail.

Her illness at Newbury had been severe. She was attacked by the scarlet
fever; the doctor had ordered her to be removed from the bustle of the
inn, and a furnished villa had been taken for her, while she could only
give a languid assent to propositions which she understood confusedly.
She was a long time very ill--a long time weak and slowly convalescent.
At length health dawned on her, accompanied by a disposition attuned to
content and a wish for tranquillity. Her residence was retired,
commodious, and pretty; she was pleased with it, she did not wish to
remove, and was glad to procrastinate from day to day any consideration
of the future. Thus it was a long time before the strength of her
thoughts and purposes was renewed, or that she began to think seriously
of where she was, and what she was going to do.

During the half delirium, the disturbed and uncontrollable, but not
unmeaning reveries, of her fever, the idea of visiting Lodore's grave had
haunted her pertinaciously. She had often dreamt of it: at one time the
tomb seemed to rise in a lonely desert; and the dead slept peacefully
beneath sunshine or starlight. At another, storms and howling winds were
around, groans and sighs, mingled with the sound of the tempest, and
menaces and reproaches against her were breathed from the cold marble.
Now her imagination pictured it within the aisles of a magnificent
cathedral; and now again the real scene--the rustic church of Longfield
was vividly present to her mind. She saw the pathway through the green
churchyard--the ruined ivy-mantled tower, which showed how much larger
the edifice had been in former days, near which might be still discerned
on high a niche containing the holy mother and divine child--the
half-defaced porch on which rude monkish imagery was carved--the
time-worn pews, and painted window. She had never entered this church
but once, many, many years ago; and it was strange how in sleep and
fever-troubled reverie, each portion of it presented itself distinctly
and vividly to her imagination. During these perturbed visions, one
other form and voice perpetually recurred. She heard Ethel continually
repeat, "Come! come!" and often her figure flitted round the tomb or sat
beside it. Once, on awakening from a dream, which impressed her deeply
by the importunity and earnestness of her daughter's appeal, she was
forcibly impelled to consider it her duty to obey, and she made a vow
that on recovering from her illness, she would visit her husband's
grave.

Now while pondering on the humiliations and cheerless necessities which
darkened her future, and rousing herself to form some kind of resolution
concerning them, this dream was repeated, and on awakening, the memory
of her forgotten vow renewed itself in her. She dwelt on it with
pleasure. Here was something to be done that was not mere wretchedness
and lonely wandering--something that, connecting her with the past, took
away the sense of desertion and solitude, so hard to bear. In the
morning, at breakfast, it so chanced that she read in the Morning Herald
a little paragraph announcing that Viscount Maristow was entertaining a
party of friends at Maristow Castle, among whom were Mr. and Mrs.
Villiers, and the Hon. Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry. This was a fortunate
coincidence. The dragon ceased for a moment to watch the garden, and she
might avail herself of its absence to visit its treasure unnoticed and
unknown. She put her project into immediate execution. She crossed the
country, passing through London on her way to Longfield--she arrived.
Without delay she fulfilled her purpose. She entered the church and
viewed the tablet, inscribed simply with the name of Lodore, and the date
of his birth and death. The words were few and common-place, but they were
eloquent to her. They told her that the cold decaying shape lay beneath,
which in the pride of life and love had clasped her in its arms as its
own for evermore. Short-lived had been the possession. She had loosened
the tie even while thought and feeling ruled the now insentient
brain--he had been scarcely less dead to her while inhabiting the
distant Illinois, than now that a stone placed above him, gave visible
token of his material presence, and the eternal absence of his immortal
part. Cornelia had never before felt so sensibly that she had been a
wife neglecting her duties, despising a vow she had solemnly pledged,
estranging herself from him, who by religious ordinance, and the laws of
society, alone had privilege to protect and love her. Nor had she before
felt so intimately the change--that she was a widow; that her lover, her
husband, the father of her child, the forsaken, dead Lodore, was indeed
no part of the tissue of life, action, and feeling to which she
belonged.

Solitude and sickness had before awakened many thoughts in her mind, and
she recalled them as she sat beside her dead husband's grave. She looked
into her motives, tried to understand the deceits she had practised on
herself, and to purify her conscience. She meditated on time, that law
of the world, which is so mysterious, and so potent; ruling us
despotically, and yet wholly unappreciated till we think upon it.
Petrarch says, that he was never so young, but that he knew that he was
growing old. Lady Lodore had never thought of this till a few months back;
it seemed to her, that she had never known it until now--that she felt that
she was older--older than the vain and lovely bride of Lodore--than the
haughty high-spirited friend of Casimir Lyzinski. And where was Casimir?
She had never heard of him again, she had scarcely ever thought of him;
he had grown older too--change, the effects of passion or of destiny,
must have visited him also;--they were all embarked on one mighty
stream--Lodore had gained a haven; but the living were still at the
mercy of the vast torrent--whither would it hurry them?

There was a charm in these melancholy and speculative thoughts to the
beautiful exile--for we may be indeed as easily exiled by a few roods of
ground, as by mountains and seas. A strong decree of fate banished
Cornelia from the familiar past, into an unknown and strange present.
Still she clung to the recollection of bygone years, and for the first
time gave way to reflections full of scenes and persons to be seen no
more. The tomb beside which she lingered, was an outward sign of these
past events, and she did not like to lose sight of it so soon. She heard
that Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry was to remain away for a month--so much
time at least was hers. She inquired for lodgings, and was directed to
Dame Nixon's cottage. She was somewhat dismayed at first by its
penurious appearance, but "it would do for a few days;" and she found
that what would serve for a few days, might serve for months.


"Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long."


Most true for
solitary man. It is society that increases his desires. If Lady Lodore had
been visited in her humble dwelling by the least regarded among her
acquaintances, she would have felt keenly its glaring deficiencies. But
although used to luxury, Margaret's cuisine sufficed for herself alone;
the low-roofed rooms were high enough, and the latticed windows which
let in the light of heaven, fulfilled their purpose as well as the
plate-glass and lofty embrasures of a palace.

Lady Lodore was obliged also to consider one other thing, which forms so
large a portion of our meditations in real life--her purse. She found when
settled in the cottage, in the Vale of Bewling, that her stock of money
was reduced to one hundred pounds. She could not cross the country and
establish herself at a distance from London with this sum only. She had
before looked forward to selling her jewels and carriage as to a distant
event, but now she felt that it was the _next_ thing she must do. She
shrunk from it naturally: the very idea of revisiting London--of seeing
its busy shops and streets--once so full of life and its purposes to
her, and in which she would now wander an alien, was inconceivably
saddening; she was willing to put off the necessity as long as possible,
and thus continued to procrastinate her departure from Essex.

Mrs. Fitzhenry returned; but she could neither know nor dream of the
vicinity of her sister-in-law. We are apt to think, when we know nothing
of any one, that no one knows any thing of us; experience can scarcely
teach us, that the reverse of this is often the truth. Seeing only an
old woman in her dotage--and a poor love-sick girl, who knew nothing
beyond the one event which had blasted all her happiness--she never
heard the inhabitants of Longfield mentioned, and believed that she was
equally unheard of by them. Then her indisposition protracted her stay,
and now the mortal illness of the poor woman. For she had become
interested for Margaret and promised to befriend her; and in case of her
grandmother's death, to take her from a spot where every association and
appearance kept open the wounds inflicted by her unfaithful lover.

Time had thus passed on: now sad, now cheerful, she tried to banish
every thought of the future, and to make the occurrences of each day
fill and satisfy her mind. She lived obscurely and humbly, and perhaps
as wisely as mortal may in this mysterious world, where hope is
perpetually followed by disappointment, and action by repentance and
regret. The days succeeded to each other in one unvaried tenor. The
weather was cheerful, the breath of spring animating. She watched the
swelling of the buds--the peeping heads of the crocuses--the opening of
the anemones and wild wind-flowers, and at last, the sweet odour of the
new-born violets, with all the interest created by novelty; not that she
had not observed and watched these things before, with transitory
pleasure, but now the operations of nature filled all her world; the
earth was no longer merely the dwelling place of her acquaintance, the
stage on which the business of society was carried on, but the mother of
life--the temple of God--the beautiful and varied store-house of
bounteous nature.

Dwelling on these ideas, Cornelia often thought of Horatio Saville,
whose conversations, now remembered, were the source whence she drew the
knowledge and poetry of her present reveries. As solitude and nature
grew lovely in her eyes, she yearned yet more fondly for the one who
could embellish all she saw. Yet while her mind needed a companion so
congenial to her present feelings, her heart was fuller of Ethel; her
affection for Saville was a calm though deep-rooted sentiment, resulting
from the conviction, that she should find entire happiness if united to
him, and in an esteem or rather an enthusiastic admiration of his
talents and virtues, that led her to dwell with complacency on the hope,
that he still remembered and loved her: but the human heart is jealous,
and with difficulty admits two emotions of equal force, and her love for
her daughter was the master passion. The instinct of nature spoke
audibly within her; the atoms of her frame seemed alive each one as she
thought of her; often her tears flowed, often her eyes brightened with
gladness when alone, and the beloved image of her beautiful daughter as
she saw her last, smiling amidst penury and indignity, was her dearest
companion by day and night. She alone made her present situation
endurable, and yet separation from her was irksome beyond expression.
Was she never to see or hear of her more? It was very hard: she implored
Providence to change the harsh decree--she longed inexpressibly for one
word that had reference to her--one event, however slight, which should
make her existence palpable.

When Margaret announced Mrs. Fitzhenry, her heart bounded with joy. She
could ask concerning Ethel--hear; her countenance was radiant with
delight, and she really for a moment thought her sister-in-law's visit
was meant in kindness, since so much pleasure was the result. This
conviction had produced the very thing it anticipated. She had given
poor Bessy no time to announce the actual intention with which she came;
she had borne away her sullen mood by force of sweet smiles and sweeter
words; and saw her depart with gladdened spirits, whispering to herself
the fresh hopes and fond emotions which filled her bosom. She walked
back to her little garden and stooped to gather some fresh violets, and
to prop a drooping jonquil heavy with its burthen of sweet blooms. She
inhaled the vernal odours with rapture. "Yes," she thought, "nature is
the refuge and home for women: they have no public career--no aim nor
end beyond their domestic circle; but they can extend that, and make all
the creations of nature their own, to foster and do good to. We
complain, when shut up in cities of the niggard rules of society, which
gives us only the drawing-room or ball-room in which to display our
talents, and which, for ever turning the sympathy of those around us
into envy on the part of women, or what is called love on that of men,
besets our path with dangers or sorrows. But throw aside all vanity, no
longer seek to surpass your own sex, nor to inspire the other with
feelings which are pregnant with disquiet or misery, and which seldom
end in mutual benevolence, turn your steps to the habitation which God
has given as befitting his creatures, contemplate the lovely ornaments
with which he has blessed the earth;--here is no heart-burning nor
calumny; it is better to love, to be of use to one of these flowers,
than to be the admired of the many--the mere puppet of one's own
vanity."

Lady Lodore entered the house; she asked concerning her poor hostess, and
learnt that she slept. For a short time she employed herself with her
embroidery; her thoughts were all awake; and as her fingers created
likenesses of the flowers she loved, several times her eyes filled with
tears as she thought of Ethel, and how happy she could be if her fate
permitted her to cultivate her affection and enjoy her society.

"It is very sad," she thought; "only a few minutes ago my spirits were
buoyant, gladdened as they were by Bessy's visit; but they flag again,
when I think of my loneliness and the unreplying silence of this place.
What is to become of me? I shall remain here: yes; I shall not banish
myself to some inhospitable nook, where I should never hear her name.
But am I not to see her again? Am I to be nothing to her? Is she
satisfied with my absence--and are they all--to whom I am bound by ties
of consanguinity or affection, indifferent to the knowledge of whether I
exist or not? Nothing gives token to them of my life; it is as if the
grave had closed abruptly over me--and had it closed, thus I should have
been mourned, in coldness and neglect."

Again her eyes were suffused; but as she wiped away the blinding tears,
she was recalled from her reflections by the bright rays of the sun
which entered her little room. She threw open the door, stepped out into
the garden--the sun was setting; the atmosphere was calm, and lighted up
by golden beams; the few clouds were dyed in the same splendid hues, the
birds sent forth a joyous song at intervals, and a band of rooks passed
above the little wood, cawing loudly. The air was balmy, the
indescribable freshness of spring was abroad, interpenetrating and
cheerful. Cornelia's melancholy fled as she felt and gave way to its
influence. "God blesses all things," she thought, "and he will also
bless me. Much wrong have I done, but love pure and disinterested is in
my heart, and I shall be repaid. My own sweet Ethel! I have sacrificed
every thing except my life for your sake, and I would add my life to the
gift, could it avail you. I ask but for you and your love. The world has
many blessings, and I have asked for them before, with tears and
anguish, but I give up all now, except you, my child. You are all the
world to me! Will you not come, even now, as I implore Heaven to give
you to me?"

She raised her eyes in prayer, and it seemed as if her wishes were to be
accomplished--surely once in a life God will grant the earnest entreaty
of a loving heart. Cornelia believed that he would, that happiness was
near at hand, and life not all a blank. She heard a rustling among the
trees, a light step;--was it Margaret? She had scarcely asked herself
this question, when the dear object of her every thought and hope was
before her--in her arms;--Ethel had entered from the wood, had seen her
mother, had sprung forward and clasped her to her heart.

"My dear, dear child!"

"Dearest mother!" repeated Ethel, as her eyes were filled with tears of
delight, "why did you go--why conceal yourself? You do not know the
anxiety we have suffered, and how very unhappy your absence has made us.
But I have found you--of all that have gone to seek you, I have found
you; I deserve this reward, for I love you most of all."

Lady Lodore returned her daughter's caresses--and her tears flowed fast for
very joy, and then she turned to Mrs. Fitzhenry, who followed Ethel, but
who had been outspeeded by her in her eagerness. The old lady's face was
beaming with happiness. "Ah, Bessy, you have betrayed me--traitress! I
did not expect this--I do not deserve such excessive happiness."

"You deserve all, and much more than we can any of us bestow," cried
Ethel, "except that your dear generous heart will repay you beyond any
reward we can give, and you will be blest in the happiness we owe to you
alone. Edward is gone far away into Wales in quest of you."

"An Angelica run after by the Paladins," said Lady Lodore, smiling through
her tears.

"Paladins, worthy the name!" replied Ethel. "Horatio is even now on the
salt seas for your sake--he is returning discomfited and hopeless from
his journey of discovery to the Pyrenees--his zeal almost deserved the
reward which I have found, yet who but she, for whom you sacrificed so
much, ought to be the first to thank you? And while we all try to show
you an inexpressible gratitude, ought not I to be the first to see,
first to kiss, first--always the first--to love you?"




CONCLUSION


None, I trust,
Repines at these delights, they are free and harmless:
After distress at sea, the dangers o'er,
Safety and welcomes better taste ashore.

FORD.


Thus the tale of "Lodore" is ended. The person who bore that title by right
of descent, has long slept in peace in the church of his native village.
Neither his own passions, nor those of others, can renew the pulsations
of his heart. "The silver cord is loosed, and the pitcher broken at the
fountain." His life had not been fruitless. The sedulous care and
admirable education he had bestowed on Ethel, would, had he lived, have
compensated to him for his many sufferings, and been a source of pure
and unfading joy to the end. He was not destined in this world to reap
the harvest of his virtues, though his errors had been punished
severely. Still his memory is the presiding genius of his daughter's
life, and the name of Lodore contains for her a spell that dignifies
existence in her own eyes, and incites her to render all her thoughts
and actions such as her beloved father would have approved. It was fated
that the evil which he did should die with him--but the good out-lived
him long, and was a blessing to those whom he loved far better than
himself.

She who received the title on her marriage, henceforth continued her
existence under another; and the wife of Saville, who soon after became
Viscountess Maristow, loses her right to be chronicled in these pages.
So few years indeed are passed since the period to which the last
chapter brought us, that it may be safely announced that Cornelia
Santerre possesses that happiness, through her generosity and devoted
affection, which she had lost through pride and self-exaltation. She
wonders at her past self--and laments the many opportunities she lost
for benefiting others, and proving herself worthy of their attachment.
Her pride is gone, or rather, her pride is now placed in redeeming her
faults. She is humble, knowing how much she was deceived in herself--she
is forgiving, for she feels that she needs forgiveness. She looks on the
track of years she has passed over as wasted, and she wishes to retrieve
their loss. She respects, admires, in some sense it may be said, that
she adores her husband; but even while consenting to be his, and thus
securing her own happiness, she told him that her first duties were
towards Ethel--and that he took a divided heart, over the better part of
which reigned maternal love. Saville, the least egoistic of human
beings, smiled to hear her name that a defect, which was in his eyes her
crowning virtue.

Edward Villiers learnt to prize worldly prosperity at its true value,
and each day blesses the train of circumstances that led him to wed
Ethel, even though poverty and suffering had followed close behind.
Ethel herself might be said to have been always happy. She was incapable
of being impressed by any sorrow, that did not touch her for another's
sake: and while she exerted herself to alleviate the pain endured by
those she loved, she passed on unhurt. Heaven spared her life's most
cruel evils. Death had done its worst when she lost her father. Now,
surrounded by dear friends, and the object of her husband's constant
tenderness, she pursues a tranquil course: which for any one to consider
the most blissful allotted to mortals, they must have a heart like her
own--faithful, affectionate, and generous.

Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry, kind and gentle aunt Bessy, always felt her
heaven clouded while she indulged in her aversion to her sister-in-law.
She is happy now that she is reconciled to Cornelia; strange to say, she
loves her even more than she loves Ethel--she is more intimately
connected in her mind with the memory of Lodore. She often visits her at
Maristow Castle; in the neighbourhood of which Margaret is settled,
being happily married. Colonel Villiers still lives in Paris. He is in a
miserable state of poverty, difficulty, and ill-health. His wife has
deserted him: he neglected and outraged her, and she in a fit of remorse
left him, and returned to nurse her father during a lingering illness,
which is likely to continue to the end of his life, though he shows no
symptoms of immediate decay. He is eager to lavish all his wealth on his
child, if he can be sure that no portion of it is shared by her husband.
With infinite difficulty, and at the cost of many privations, she, with
a true woman's feeling, contrives to send him remittances now and then,
though she receives in return neither thanks nor kindness. He pursues a
course of dissipation in its most degraded form--a wretched hanger-on at
resorts, misnamed of pleasure--gambling while he has any money to
lose--trying to ruin others as he has been ruined.

Thus we have done our duty, in bringing under view, in a brief summary,
the little that there is to tell of the personages who formed the drama
of this tale. One only remains to be mentioned: but it is not in a few
tame lines that we can revert to the varied fate of Fanny Derham. She
continued for some time among her beloved friends, innocent and calm as
she was beautiful and wise; circumstances at last led her away from
them, and she has entered upon life. One who feels so deeply for others,
and yet is so stern a censor over herself--at once so sensitive and so
rigidly conscientious--so single-minded and upright, and yet open as day
to charity and affection, cannot hope to pass from youth to age
unharmed. Deceit, and selfishness, and the whole web of human passion
must envelope her, and occasion her many sorrows; and the unworthiness
of her fellow-creatures inflict infinite pain on her noble heart: still
she cannot be contaminated--she will turn neither to the right nor left,
but pursue her way unflinching; and, in her lofty idea of the dignity of
her nature, in her love of truth and in her integrity, she will find
support and reward in her various fortunes. What the events are, that
have already diversified her existence, cannot now be recounted; and it
would require the gift of prophecy to foretell the conclusion. In after
times these may be told, and the life of Fanny Derham be presented as a
useful lesson, at once to teach what goodness and genius can achieve in
palliating the woes of life, and to encourage those, who would in any
way imitate her, by an example of calumny refuted by patience, errors
rectified by charity, and the passions of our nature purified and
ennobled by an underviating observance of those moral laws on which all
human excellence is founded--a love of truth in ourselves, and a sincere
sympathy with our fellow-creatures.




THE END