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.