No language can paint the utter desolation of poor Caroline's mind; for
she was too young, too inexperienced, too much accustomed from infancy,
to be the unmurmuring slave of her mother's capricious tyranny to have
any thing like a just estimate of her own situation.
Had she ventured to think, which she had never yet done, that when of
age she should be her own mistress, she would, as very young people do
when they look forward three or four years, have thought the period so
remote as to be scarcely an object of hope; while she would still have
trembled at the thought of venturing at any time, however distant, to
disobey her mother, unless indeed she could be quite sure of never
seeing her again.
Lady Palliser's plan of government when Caroline was a mere infant, had
been a system of terror; nor had any thing in her subsequent conduct
tended to soften that first impression. Frowns and menacing attitudes
had been used towards the baby before it could understand words, if when
occasionally brought into its mother's presence it had happened to
stretch its little hand towards any attractive object. Hours of solitary
imprisonment in a dark room had been inflicted on the child, for but a
fancied dilatoriness of movement in the execution of a command, till
poor Caroline had learned to start with nervous alarm, and fly with the
alacrity of terror at the very sound of her mother's voice; while it was
melancholy to see, during the seemingly willing movement the little
innocent face of the child filled with the contradictory expressions of
anxiety and dread.
Thus had early associations followed up by constant tyranny, imposed at
the dictates of a temper unreasonable, capricious, and unfeeling, taught
Caroline to view with a sinking of the heart the very smiles of her
mother's countenance, as played off in company; none of them she knew
were intended for her, even when their light, perchance, was turned upon
her.
Overweening, all-engrossing vanity, was Lady Palliser's ruling passion;
society therefore in which she could be the object of universal
admiration was her only element. Not that she was what is commonly
called a flirt:--she was too haughty--too exacting of general adoration
for such a condescension towards any individual in particular; while yet
within her hidden thoughts, concealed beneath an appearance of
statue-like coldness, she had a secret delight in imagining every man
with whom she was acquainted, as much in love with her as he dared to
be, and withheld from a declaration of his passion only by her own
haughty reserve: nay, so far did she carry this dream of vanity, that
she felt more or less of resentment towards every man of her
acquaintance who married or attached himself to any other woman.
Such was the person with whom poor Caroline had hitherto spent every
domestic hour she could remember. Her home, which had thus never been a
happy one, now by contrast with the vague hopes in which she had
latterly ventured to indulge, presented to her imagination a long
perspective of tenfold dreariness. The frowns in private, the artificial
smiles in public of her unkind parent, were all that she anticipated in
future. Her very youth seemed an aggravation of her misery, for the
grave itself, which, in her present exaggerated and hopeless state of
feeling, was she believed, the only refuge to which she could look
forward, appeared at an immeasurable distance, the path to it stretching
before her mind's eye an interminable pilgrimage of weariness.
We do not mean to support these views of the subject as rational or
just; but Caroline in experience and knowledge of the world, as well as
in chancery phraseology, was still an infant; even her love had at
present something in it of the feelings of the child turning to the kind
and gentle, as a refuge from the harshness of the more severe; and with
the idea of Alfred was blended thoughts of his sisters and of Lady
Arden, and of their happy home--that scene of cheerfulness and general
goodwill, which she had latterly enjoyed the privilege of entering
without ceremony, and which she had never quitted without regret.
The most severe, however, of all her sufferings was the thought that
Alfred must now hate and despise her.
She was shut up in her own apartment weeping bitterly and giving way to
a succession of dreary reflections, when she received a summons from her
mother to appear in the drawing-room. So much was she accustomed to
obey implicitly that she did not dare to excuse herself.
On descending, she found with Lady Palliser, Sir Willoughby Arden and
his cousin Geoffery. Willoughby was turning over new songs and
professing himself a great admirer of music; the true secret of which
was that he sang remarkably well himself. After some trivial
conversation, he discovered several duets in which he had often taken a
part with his sisters, and intreated that Caroline would try one of
them. She excused herself on the plea of a headache caused by the music,
lights, and late hours of the previous evening; but Lady Palliser
interfering, she was compelled to make a wretched attempt; the manner
spiritless, the voice tremulous and even out of tune. Willoughby's
performance, however, was really good; he was therefore quite
delighted. As the song was being concluded, Lady and the Misses Arden
came in, and the latter being prevailed on to assist Willoughby with
some more of his favourite duets, the visit was prolonged into quite a
morning concert.
When the Ardens were about to take their departure for the avowed
purpose of a walk, Lady Palliser insisted on Caroline's accompanying
them, saying that the air would take away her headache. Caroline made a
faint effort to excuse herself, but in this, as in every thing, was
obliged to submit.
They soon met and were joined by Lord Darlingford and Sir James Lindsey;
and it not being an hour at which any part of the walks was particularly
crowded, they wandered on to where the shade by its coolness was
inviting.
Willoughby attached himself entirely to our heroine, with whom he
already fancied himself in love. Lord Darlingford walked soberly beside
Jane, who after many relapses of a hope, fainter at each return, had
resigned her early dream of first and mutual love, and was now quietly
receiving his serious addresses. She had at length brought her mind to
anticipate, with a placid sort of happiness, the hope of obtaining for
life the companionship and protection of a friend whom she could
respect; together with the certainty of securing a perfectly eligible
establishment, and thus escaping all those miseries inflicted by the
unfeeling world's scorn on the poor and the unprotected;--miseries
against which her mother and her aunt had so often warned her.
Louisa was attended by Sir James, her expected marriage with whom was
now the universal theme. She had herself, however, by no means made up
her mind; she could not even approach a decision, her meditations on the
subject always ending in a fruitless wish that Henry were the elder
brother.
Madeline, who did not happen to have a lover present walked and talked
with her cousin Geoffery.
Mrs. Dorothea had been called for as they passed her door; she was the
companion of Lady Arden.
Arranged in the order we have described, our party came suddenly upon
Alfred, standing where we last left him, and having just brought his
solitary musings to the final summing up with which we concluded the
last chapter.