Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade.
SHAKSPEARE.
Parting thus sadly from their unfortunate cousin, Villiers and Ethel
were drawn together yet nearer, and, if possible, with a deeper
tenderness of affection than before. Here was an example before their
eyes, that all their fellow-creatures were not equally fortunate in the
lottery of life, and that worse than a blank befell many, while the
ticket which they had drawn was a prize beyond all summing. Edward felt
indeed disappointed at losing his cousin's society, as well as deeply
grieved at the wretched fate which he had selected for himself. Ethel,
on the contrary, was in her heart glad that he was absent. She had no
place in that heart to spare away from her husband; and however much she
liked Horatio, and worthy as he was of her friendship, she felt him as
an encroacher. Now she delivered herself up to Edward, and to the
thought of Edward solely, with fresh and genuine delight. No one stood
between her and him--none called off his attention, or forced her to
pass one second of time unoccupied by his idea. When she expressed these
feelings to Villiers, he called her selfish and narrow-hearted, yet his
pride and his affection were gratified; for he knew how true was every
word she uttered, and how without flaw or blot was her faith and her
attachment.
"And yet, my Ethel," he said, "I sometimes ask myself, how this boasted
affection of yours will stand the trials which I fear are preparing for
it."
"What trials?" she asked anxiously.
"Care, poverty; the want of all the luxuries, perhaps of the comforts of
life."
Ethel smiled again. "That is your affair," she replied, "do you rouse
your courage, if you look upon these as evils. I shall feel nothing of
all this, while near you; care--poverty--want! as if I needed any thing
except your love--you yourself--who are mine."
"Yes, dear," replied Villiers, "that is all very well at this moment;
rolling along in a comfortable carriage--an hotel ready to receive us,
with all its luxuries; but suppose us without any of these,
Ethel--suppose yourself in a melancholy, little, dingy abode, without
servants, without carriage, going out on foot."
"Not alone," replied his wife, laughing, and kissing his hand; "I shall
have you to wait on me--to wait upon--"
"You take it very well now,"
said Edward; "I hope that you will never be put to the trial. I am far
from anticipating this excess of wretchedness, of course, but I cannot
help feeling, that the prospects of to-morrow are uncertain, and I am
anxious for my long-delayed letters from England."
With Ethel's deep and warm affection, had she been ten or only five
years older, she also must have participated in Edward's inquietude. But
care is a word, not an emotion, for the very young. She was only
seventeen. She had never attended to the disbursements of money--she was
ignorant of the mechanism of giving and receiving, on which the course
of our life depends. It was in vain that she sought in the interior of
her mind for an image that should produce fear or regret, with regard to
the absence or presence of money. No one reflection or association
brought into being an idea on the subject. Again she kissed Edward's
hand, and looked on him with her soft clear eyes, thinking only, "He is
here--and Heaven has given me all I ask."
Left again to themselves, they were anxious to avoid acquaintances. Yet
this was impossible during the Holy Week at Rome. Villiers found many
persons whom he knew; women of high rank and fashion, men of wealth, or
with the appearance of it, enjoying the present, and, while away from
England, unencumbered by care. Mr. and Mrs. Villiers were among these,
and of them; their rank and their style of living resembling theirs,
associated them together. All this was necessary to Edward, for he had
been accustomed to it--it was natural to Ethel, because, being wholly
inexperienced, she did as others did, and as Villiers wished her to do,
without reflection or forethought.
Yet each day added to Edward's careful thoughts. Easter was gone, and
the period approached when they had talked of returning to Naples. The
covey of English had taken flight towards the north; they were almost
the only strangers in the ancient and silent city, whose every stone
breathes of a world gone by--whose surpassing beauty crowns her still
the glory of the world. The English pair, left to themselves, roamed
through the ruins and loitered in the galleries, never weary of the very
ocean of beauty and grandeur which they coursed over in their summer
bark. The weather grew warm, for the month of May had commenced, and
they took refuge in the vast churches from the heat; at twilight they
sought the neighbouring gardens, or scrambled about the Coliseum, or the
more ruined and weedgrown baths of Caracalla. The fire-flies came out,
and the splashing of the many fountains reached their ears from afar,
while the clear azure of the Roman sky bent over them in beauty and
peace.
Ethel never alluded to their proposed return to Naples--she feared each
day to hear Villiers mention it--she was so happy where she was, she
shrunk from any change. The majesty, the simplicity, the quiet of Rome,
were in unison with the holy stillness that dwelt in her soul, absorbed
as it was by one unchanging image. She had reached the summit of human
happiness--she had nothing more to ask; her full heart, not bursting,
yet gently overflowing in its bliss, thanked Heaven, and drew nearer
Edward, and was at peace.
"God help us!" exclaimed Villiers, "I wonder what on earth will become
of us!"
They were sitting together on fragment of the Coliseum; they had
clambered up its fallen wall, and reached a kind of weed-grown chasm
whose depth, as it was moonlight, they could not measure by the eye; so
they sat beside it on a small fragment, and Villiers held Ethel close to
him lest she should fall. The heartfelt and innocent caress of two
united in the sight of Heaven, wedded together for the endurance of the
good and ills of life, hallowed the spot and hour; and then, even while
Ethel nestled nearer to him in fondness, Edward made the exclamation
that she heard with a wonder which mingled with, yet could not disturb,
the calm joy which she felt.
"What but good can come of us, while we are thus?" she asked.
"You will not listen to me, nor understand me," replied her husband.
"But I do assure you, that our position is more than critical. No
remittances, no letters come from England; we are in debt here--in debt
in Italy! A thousand miles from our resources! I grope in the dark and
see no outlet--every day's post, with the nothing that it brings, adds
to my anxiety."
"All will be well," replied Ethel gently; "no real evil will happen to
us, be assured."
"I wish," said Villiers, "your experience, instead of your ignorance,
suggested the assertion. I would rather die a thousand deaths than apply
to dear Horace, who is ill enough off himself; but every day here adds
to our difficulties. Our only hope is in our instant return to
England--and, by heavens!--you kiss me, Ethel, as if we lived in fairy
land, and that such were our food--have you no fears?"
"I am sorry to say, none," she answered in a soft voice; "I wish I could
contrive some, because I appear unsympathizing to you--but I cannot
fear;--you are in health and near me. Heaven and my dear father's spirit
will watch over us, and all will be well. This is the end and beginning
of my anxiety; so dismiss yours, love--for, believe me, in a day or two,
these forebodings of yours will be as a dream."
"It is very strange," replied Edward, "were you not so close to me, I
should fancy you a spirit instead of a woman; you seem to have no touch
of earthly solicitude. Well, I will do as you bid me, and hope for
to-morrow. And now let us get down from this place before the moon sets
and leaves us in darkness."
As if to confirm the auguries of Ethel, the following morning brought
the long-expected letters. One contained a remittance, another was from
Colonel Villiers, to say, that Edward's immediate presence was requisite
in England to make the final arrangements before his marriage. With a
glad heart Villiers turned his steps northward; while Ethel, if she
could have regretted aught while with him, would have sighed to leave
their lonely haunts in Rome. She well knew that whatever of sublime
nature might display, or man might congregate of beautiful in art
elsewhere, there was a calm majesty, a silent and awful repose in the
ruins of Rome, joined to the delights of a southern climate, and the
luxuriant vegetation of a sunny soil, more in unison with her single and
devoted heart, than any other spot in the universe could boast. They
would both have rejoiced to have seen Saville again; yet they were
unacknowledgedly glad not to pursue their plan of domesticating near him
at Naples. A remediless evil, which is for ever the source of fresh
disquietude, is one that tasks human fortitude and human patience, more
than those vaster misfortunes which elevate while they wound. The proud
aspiring spirit of man craves something to raise him from the dust, and
to adorn his insignificance; he seeks to strengthen his alliance with
the lofty and the eternal, and shrinks from low-born cares, as being the
fetters and bolts that link him to his baser origin. Saville, the slave
of a violent woman's caprice, struggling with passions, at once so fiery
and so feeble as to excite contempt, was a spectacle which they were
glad to shun. Their own souls were in perfect harmony, and discord was
peculiarly abhorrent to them.
They travelled by the beaten route of Mont Cenis, Lyons, and Calais, and
in less than a month arrived in England. As the presence of Villiers was
requisite in London, after staying a few days at an hotel in
Brook-street, they took a furnished house in the same street for a short
time. The London season had passed its zenith, but its decline was
scarcely perceptible. Ethel had no wish to enter into its gaieties, and
it had been Edward's plan to avoid them until they were richer. But here
they were, placed by fate in the very midst of them; and as, when their
affairs were settled, they intended again to return abroad, he could not
refuse himself the pleasure of seeing Ethel, in the first flower of her
loveliness, mingling with, and outshining, every other beauty of her
country. It would have been difficult indeed, placed within the verge of
the English aristocracy assembled in London, to avoid its engagements
and pleasures--for he "also was an Arcadian," and made one of the
self-enthroned "world." The next two months, therefore, while still
every settlement was delayed by his father, they spent in the
fashionable circles of London.
They did not indeed enter into its amusements with the zest and
resolution of tyros. To Villiers the scene was not new, and therefore
not exceedingly enticing; and Ethel's mind was not of the sort to be
borne along in the stream of folly. They avoided going to crowded
entertainments--they were always satisfied with one or two parties in
the evening. Nay, once or twice in the week they usually remained at
home, and not unseldom dined tête-à-tête. The serpent fang of
pleasure, and the paltry ambition of society, had no power over Ethel.
She often enjoyed herself, because she often met people of either sex,
whose fame, or wit, or manners, interested and pleased her. But as
little vanity as mortal woman ever had fell to her share. Very young,
and (to use the phrase of the day) very new, flattery and admiration
glanced harmlessly by her. Her personal vanity was satisfied when
Villiers was pleased, and, for the rest, she was glad to improve her
mind, and to wear away the timidity, which she felt that her lonely
education had induced, by mingling with the best society of her country.
She had also some curiosity, and as she promised herself but a brief
sojourn in this land of lions, she wished to see several things and
persons she might never come in contact with again. Various names which
had reached her in the Illinois, here grew from shadows into real human
beings--ministers of state, beauties, authors, and wits. She visited
once or twice the ventilator of St. Stephen's, and graced a red bench of
the House of Lords on the prorogation of Parliament. Villiers was very
much pleased with her throughout. His pride was gratified by the
approval she elicited from all. Men admired her, but distantly--as a
being they could not rudely nor impertinently approach. Women were not
afraid of her, because they saw, that though she made no display of
conjugal attachment, she loved her husband. Her extreme youth, the
perpetual sunshine of her countenance, and the gentle grace of her
manners, won more the liking than the praise of her associates. They
drew near her as to one too untaught to understand their mysteries, and
too innocent to judge them severely; an atmosphere of kindness and of
repose followed her wherever she went: this her husband felt more than
any other, and he prized his Ethel at the worth she so truly deserved.
One of the reasons which caused Mrs. Villiers to avoid large assemblies,
was that Lady Lodore was in town, and that in such places they sometimes
met. Ethel did not well know how to act. Youth is ever fearful of making
unwelcome demonstration, and false shame often acts more powerfully to
influence it, than the call of duty or the voice of affection. Villiers
had no desire to bring the mother and daughter together, and stood
neutral. Lady Lodore had once or twice recognized her by a bow and a
smile, but after such, she always vanished and was seen no more that
evening. Ethel often yearned to approach, to claim her tenderness and to
offer her filial affection. Villiers laughed at such flights. "The safe
thing to do," he said, "is to take the tone of Lady Lodore. She is held
back by no bashfulness--she does the thing she wishes, without
hesitation or difficulty. Did she desire her lovely grown-up daughter to
play a child's part towards her, she would soon contrive to bring it
about. Lady Lodore is a woman of the world--she was nursed in its
lessons, and piously adheres to its code; its ways are her's, and the
objects of ambition which it holds out, are those which she desires to
attain. She is talked of as admired and followed by the Earl of D----. You
may spoil all, if you put yourself forward."
Ethel was not quite satisfied. The voice of nature was awake within, and
she yearned to claim her mother's affection. Until now, she had regarded
her more as a stranger; but at this time, a filial instinct stirred her
heart, impelling her to some outward act--some demonstration of duty.
Whenever she saw Lady Lodore, which was rarely, and at a distance, she
gazed earnestly on her, and tried to read within her soul, whether Villiers
was right, and her mother happy. The shining, uniform outside of a woman
of fashion baffled her endeavours without convincing her. One evening at
the Opera, she discerned Lady Lodore in the tier below her. Ethel drew
back and shaded herself with the curtain of her box, so that she could
not be perceived, while she watched her mother intently. A succession of
visitors came into Lady Lodore's box, and she spoke to all with the
animation of a heart at ease. There was an almost voluptuous repose in
her manner and appearance, that contrasted with, while it adorned, the
easy flow of her conversation, and the springtide of wit, which, to
judge from the amusement of her auditors, flowed from her lips. Yet
Ethel fancied that her smile was often forced, so suddenly did it
displace an expression of listlessness and languor, which when she
turned from the people in her box to the stage, came across her
countenance like a shadow. It might be the gas, which shadows so
unbecomingly the fair audience at the King's Theatre; it might be the
consequences of raking, for Lady Lodore was out every night; but Ethel
thought that she saw a change; she was less brilliant, her person
thinner, and had lost some of its exquisite roundness. Still, as her
daughter gazed, she thought, She is not happy. Yet what could she do?
How pour sweetness into the bitter stream of life? As Villiers had said,
any advance of hers might spoil all. The sister of the nobleman he had
mentioned, was her companion at the opera. Lord D----himself came, though
late, to fetch her away. She had therefore her own prospects, her own
plans, which doubtless she desired to pursue undisturbed, however they
might fail to charm away the burthen of life.
Once, and only once, Ethel heard her mother's voice, and was spoken to
by her. She had gone to hear the speech from the throne, on the
prorogation of Parliament. She got there late, so that every bench was
filled. Room was made for her near the throne, immediately under the
gallery, (as the house was constructed until last year,) but she was
obliged to be separated from her party, and sat half annoyed at being
surrounded by strangers. A peer, whom she recognized as the Earl of D----,
came up, and entered into conversation with the lady sitting behind her.
Could it be her mother? She remembered, that as she sat down she had
glanced at some one whom she thought she knew, and she did not doubt that
this was Lady Lodore. A sudden thrill passed as an electric shock through
her frame, every joint in her body trembled, her knees knocked together,
and the colour forsook her cheeks. She tried to rally. Why should she
feel agitated, as if possessed by terror, on account of this near
contact with the dearest relation Heaven has bestowed on its creatures?
Why not turn; and if she did not speak, claim, with beseeching eyes, her
mother's love? Was it indeed her? The lady spoke, and her voice entered
and stirred Ethel's beating heart with strange emotion; every drop of
blood within her seemed to leap at the sound; but she sat still as a
statue, saying to herself, "When Lord D----leaves her I will turn and
speak." After some trivial conversation on topics of the day, the peers
were ordered to take their seats, and Lord D----departed;--then Ethel
tried to summon all her courage; but now the doors were thrown open, the
king entered, and every one stood up. At this moment,--as she, in the
confusion of being called upon, while abstracted, to do any act, however
slight, had for a moment half forgotten her mother,--her arm was
touched; and the same voice which had replied to Lord D----, said to her,
"Your ear-ring is unfastened, Ethel; it will fall out." Ethel could not
speak; she raised her hands, mechanically, to arrange the ornament; but
her trembling fingers refused to perform the office. "Permit me," said
the lady, drawing off her glove; and Ethel felt her mother's hand touch
her cheek: her very life stood suspended; it was a bitter pain, yet a
pleasure inconceivable; there was a suffocation in her throat, and the
tears filled her eyes; but even the simple words, "I thank you," died on
her lips--her voice could frame no sound. The world, and all within its
sphere, might have passed away at that moment, and she been unconscious
of any change. "Yes, she will love me!" was the idea that spoke audibly
within; and a feeling of confidence, a flow of sympathy and enthusiastic
affection, burst on her heart. As soon as she could recollect herself,
she turned: Lady Lodore was no longer there; she had glided from her
seat; and Ethel just caught a glimpse of her, as she contrived another
for herself, behind a column, which afterwards so hid her, that her
daughter could only see the waving of her plumes. On these she fixed her
eyes until all was over; and then Lady Lodore went out hurriedly, with
averted face, as if to escape her recognition. This put the seal on
Ethel's dream. She believed that her mother obviously signified her
desire that they should continue strangers to each other. It was hard,
but she must submit. She had no longer that prejudice against Lady
Lodore, that exaggerated notion of her demerits, which the long exile of
her father, and the abhorrence of Mrs. Fitzhenry, had before instilled.
Her mother was no longer a semi-gorgon, hid behind a deceptive mask--a
Medea, without a touch of human pity. She was a lovely, soft-voiced,
angelic-looking woman, whom she would have given worlds to be permitted
to love and wait upon. She found excuses for her errors; she lavished
admiration on all her attractions; she could do all but muster courage
to vanquish the obstacles that existed to their intercourse. She fondly
cherished her image, as an idol placed in the sanctuary of her heart,
which she could regard with silent reverence and worship, but whose
concealing veil she could not raise. Villiers smiled when she spoke in
this way to him. He saw, in her enthusiasm, the overflowing of an
affectionate heart, which longed to exhaust itself in loving. He kissed
her, and bade her think any thing, so that she did nothing. The time for
doing had indeed, for the present, passed away. Lady Lodore left town;
and when mother and daughter met again, it was not destined to be
beneath a palace roof, surrounded by the nobility of the land.