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.