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.