Lady Cecil's house was situated on the heights that overlook Fairlight
Bay, near Hastings. Any one who has visited that coast knows the
peculiar beauty of the rocks, downs, and groves of Fairlight. The oak,
which clothes each dell, and, in a dwarf and clipped state, forms the
hedges, imparts a richness not only to the wide landscape, but to each
broken nook of ground and sequestered corner; the fern, which grows only
in contiguity to the oak, giving a wild forest appearance to the glades.
The mansion itself was large, convenient, and cheerful. The grounds were
extensive; and from points of view you could see the wide sea--the more
picturesque bay--and the undulating, varied shore that curves in towards
Winchelsea. It was impossible to conceive a scene more adapted to revive
the spirits, and give variety and amusement to the thoughts.
Elizabeth grew better, as by a miracle, the very day after her arrival;
and within a week a sensible change had taken place in her appearance,
as well as her health. The roses bloomed in her cheeks--her step
regained its elasticity--her spirits rose even to gayety. All was new
and animating. Lady Cecil's beautiful and spirited children delighted
her. It was a domestic scene, adorned by elegance and warmed by
affection. Elizabeth had, despite her attachment to her father, often
felt the weight of loneliness when left by him at Zante; or when his
illness threw her back entirely on herself. Now on each side there were
sweet, kind faces--playful, tender caresses--and a laughing mirth,
cheering in its perfect innocence.
The only annoyance she suffered arose from the great influx of visiters.
Having lived a life disjoined from the crowd, she soon began to conceive
the hermitess, delight in loneliness, and the vexation of being intruded
upon by the frivolous and indifferent. She found that she loved friends,
but hated acquaintance. Nor was this strange. Her mind was quite empty
of conventional frivolities. She had not been at a ball twice in her
life, and then only when a mere child; yet all had been interest and
occupation. To unbend with her was to converse with a friend--to play
with children--or to enjoy the scenes of nature with one who felt their
beauties with her. "It was hard labour," she often said, "to talk with
people with whom she had not one pursuit--one taste in common." Often
when a barouche, crowded with gay bonnets, appeared, she stole away.
Lady Cecil could not understand this. Brought up in the thick of
fashionable life, no person of her clique was a stranger; and if any odd
people called on her--still they were in some way entertaining; or if
_bores_--bores are an integral portion of life, not to be shaken off
with impunity, for, as oysters, they often retain the fairest pearls in
close conjunction. "You are wrong," said Lady Cecil. "You must not be a
savage--I cannot have mercy on you; this little jagged point in your
character must be worn off--you must be as smooth and glossy in exterior
as you are incalculably precious in the substance of your mind."
Elizabeth smiled; but not the less when a sleek, self-satisfied dowager,
all smiles to those she knew--all impertinent scrutiny to the
unknown--and a train of ugly old women in embryo--called, for the
present, misses--followed, each honouring her with an insolent stare.
"There was a spirit in her feet," and she could not stay, but hurried
out into the woodland dells, and with a book, her own reveries, and the
beautiful objects around her, as her companions; and feeling
ecstatically happy, both at what she possessed, and what she had escaped
from.
Thus it was one day that she deserted Lady Cecil, who was smiling
sweetly on a red-faced gouty squire, and listening placidly to his angry
wife, who was complaining that her name had been put too low down in
some charity list. She stole out from the glass door that opened on the
lawn, and, delighted that her escape was secure, hurried to join the
little group of children whom she saw speeding beyond into the park.
"Without a bonnet, Miss Falkner!" cried Miss Jervis.
"Yes; and the sun is warm. You are not using your parasol, Miss Jervis;
lend it me, and let us go into the shade." Then, taking her favourite
child by the hand, she said, "Come, let us pay visits. Mamma has got
some visiters; so we will go and seek for some. There is my Lord Deer
and pretty Lady Doe. Ah! pretty Miss Fawn, what a nice dappled frock you
have on!"
The child was enchanted; and they wandered on through the glades, among
the fern, into a shady dell, quite at the other side of the park, and
sat down beneath a spreading oak-tree. By this time they had got into a
serious talk of where the clouds were going, and where the first tree
came from, when a gentleman, who had entered the park gates unperceived,
rode by, and pulling up his horse suddenly, with a start, and an
exclamation of surprise, he and Elizabeth recognised each other.
"Mr. Neville!" she cried, and her heart was full in a moment of a
thousand recollections--of the gratitude she owed--their parting
scene--and the many conjectures she had formed about him since they
separated. He looked more than pleased; and the expression of gloomy
abstraction which his face too often wore was lighted up by a smile that
went straight to the heart. He sprung from his horse, gave the rein to
his groom, and joining Elizabeth and her little companion, walked
towards the house.
Explanations and surprise followed. He was the praised, expected brother
of Lady Cecil. How strange that Elizabeth had not discovered this
relationship at Marseilles! and yet, at that time, she had scarcely a
thought to spare beyond Falkner. His recovery surprised Neville, and he
expressed the warmest pleasure. He looked with tenderness and admiration
at the soft and beautiful creature beside him, whose courage and
unwearied assiduity had preserved her father's life. It was a bewitching
contrast to remember her face shadowed by fear--her vigilant, anxious
eyes fixed on her father's wan countenance--her thoughts filled with one
sad fear; and now to see it beaming in youthful beauty, animated by the
happy, generous feelings which were her nature. Yet this very
circumstance had a sad reaction upon Neville. His heart still bore the
burden of its sorrow, and he felt more sure of the sympathy of the
afflicted mourner, than of one who looked untouched by any adversity.
The sentiment was transitory, for Elizabeth, with that delicate tact
which is natural to a feeling mind, soon gave such a subdued tone to
their conversation as made it accord with the mysterious unhappiness of
her companion.
When near the house, they were met by Lady Cecil, who smiled at what she
deemed a sudden intimacy naturally sprung between two who had so many
qualities in common. Lady Cecil really believed them made for each
other, and had been anxious to bring them together; for, being
passionately attached to her brother, and grieving at the melancholy
that darkened his existence, she thought she had found a cure in her new
friend; and that the many charms of Elizabeth would cause him to forget
the misfortunes on which he so vainly brooded. She was still more
pleased when an explanation was given, and she found that they were
already intimate--already acquainted with the claims each possessed to
the other's admiration and interest; and each naturally drawn to seek in
the other that mirror of their better nature, that touch of kindred
soul, which showed that they were formed to share existence, or,
separated, to pine eternally for a reunion.
Lady Cecil with playful curiosity questioned why they had concealed
their being acquainted. Elizabeth could not well tell; she had thought
much of Neville, but first the prohibition of Falkner, and then the
excessive praises Lady Cecil bestowed upon her brother, chained her
tongue. The one had accustomed her to preserve silence on a subject
deeply interesting to her; the other jarred with any confidence, for
there would have been a comparing Neville with the Gerard which was
indeed himself; and Elizabeth neither wished to have her friend
depreciated, nor to struggle against the enthusiasm felt by the lady for
her brother. The forced silence of to-day on such a subject renders the
silence of to-morrow almost a matter of necessity; and she was ashamed
to mention one she had not already named. It may be remarked that this
sort of shame arises in all dispositions; it is the seal and symbol of
love. Shame of any kind was not akin to the sincere and ingenuous nature
of Elizabeth; but love, though young and unacknowledged, will tyrannise
from the first, and produce emotions never felt before.
Neville hoarded yet more avariciously the name of Elizabeth. There was
delight in the very thought of her; but he shrunk from being questioned.
He had resolved to avoid her; for, till his purpose was achieved, and
the aim of his existence fulfilled, he would not yield to the charms of
love, which he felt hovered round the beautiful Elizabeth. Sworn to a
sacred duty, no self-centred or self-prodigal passion should come
between him and its accomplishment. But, meeting her thus unawares, he
could not continue guarded; his very soul drank in gladness at the sight
of her. He remarked with joy the cheerfulness that had replaced her
cares; he looked upon her open brow, her eyes of mingled tenderness and
fire, her figure, free and graceful in every motion, and felt that she
realized every idea he had formed of feminine beauty. He fancied,
indeed, that he looked upon her as a picture; that his heart was too
absorbed by its own griefs to catch a thought beyond; he was unmindful,
while he gazed, of that emanation, that shadow of the shape, which the
Latin poet tells us flows from every object, that impalpable impress of
her form and being, which the air took and then folded round him, so
that all he saw entered, as it were, into his own substance, and became
mingled up for evermore with his identity.