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.