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.