Lord Avondale now looked more and more coldly on Calantha; but all others
courted and flattered her. The Princess and many others had departed.
Mrs. Seymour alone appeared to watch her with anxiety. In vain Calantha
affected the most thoughtless gaiety: remorse and suspense alternately
agitated her mind. One evening she observed Lord Glenarvon and her aunt,
Mrs. Seymour, in earnest discourse—she knew not then that she herself
was the subject. “She is pure, she is innocent,” said Mrs. Seymour:
“her spirits wild and thoughtless, may have led her into a thousand
follies; but worse, never—never.”—“Fierce passion burns in her eye,”
said Glenarvon, scornfully: “the colour in her cheeks varies.—I love
her as well as you can,” he continued, laughing; “but do you think she
does not love me a little in return?”—“Oh! even in jest, do not talk
thus of Calantha,” said Mrs. Seymour: “you alarm me.”—“There is no
occasion,” replied Glenarvon: “calm yourself. I only said, that were
I to attempt it I could succeed; she should be ready to leave you, and
Lord Avondale, her dear husband and her babes, and her retinue, and all
else; and I could make her follow me as St. Clara did: aye verily; but,
in truth, I will not.” Mrs. Seymour was angry; she coloured; she was
hurt. “You could not,” she replied with warmth. “O I know her well, and
know you could not. Whatever her faults, she is so pure, so chaste even
in thought.”—“She loves me.”—“It is false” said Mrs. Seymour, still more
eagerly. “Even if she had any foolish romantic liking to another than
her husband, Buchanan is the favourite”—“Buchanan!” said Lord Glenarvon
with a sneer. “I will make her heart ache for this,” after which he
retired.
Calantha knew not then one word of what had passed. The morning after
she was informed by Mrs. Seymour that Lord Glenarvon was gone. “Gone!
where?” she said rather in surprise, and agitated. “I know not,” replied
Mrs. Seymour, coldly enough. “I conclude to Belfont: his uncle Lord de
Ruthven is arrived there. But, indeed, I am glad he is gone:—you have
not conducted yourself well. I, your aunt, have no doubt of you; but
others, who know you less, Calantha, blame you more.”
A letter was now delivered to Mrs. Seymour: she opened it: it was from
Glenarvon; she was dreadfully agitated upon reading it. It contained
these words:—“As you seem to doubt the confidence and attachment with
which your niece, the Countess of Avondale, has honoured me, I enclose
you one of her own letters, that you may see my vanity alone did not
authorise me in the conclusion that she was attached to me. Her duplicity
to me can scarcely justify the means I take of opening an aunt’s eyes;
but the peculiar circumstances of my situation will, I hope, excuse it.
“Your most obedient servant,
“GLENARVON.”
This letter enclosed one of Lady Avondale’s—one which, however, she had
not blushed to write. She read it with terror when Mrs. Seymour placed
it in her hands. Cruel Glenarvon! could he have the heart thus to betray
me—to my own aunt too. Oh! had that aunt been less indulgent, less kind,
what had been my fate?
“You are innocent yet, my child,” said Mrs. Seymour, placing her arms
around her; “and the early conviction of the meanness and wickedness of
him for whom you were preparing to sacrifice so much, will render it
easy to reclaim yourself from your present errors, and look with less
confidence in future.”—“Never, never, will I pardon him,” cried Calantha,
with supprest indignation. “I will not hate; that were too flattering
to his vanity: I will not fly; that were a proof that there was cause
for it: but, lowered to the dust as I ought to feel—humbled to the earth
(and whilst she spoke, she looked and felt more proudly, more vainly
than ever), even I can despise him. What are superior talents, if he
who possesses them can act thus? Oh! I would rather die in torture, than
ever pardon this.”
“Be less violent,” said Mrs. Seymour, with a look of heart-broken
tenderness and affection: “that stubborn spirit must be subdued.”—“I
will revenge——” “Be calm, Calantha: think what you are saying: how
unfeminine and how puerile! Put off these frowns and this idle rage,
and look reasonably upon your own conduct, not upon his.”—“Shall you
ever permit him to enter these doors again?”—“Had I the power, assuredly
never.”—“Oh, let him return; I care not; I can see him with the scorn,
with the indifference he deserves. Do not look thus, my dearest aunt:
dry your tears: I am not worth one single tear now; but I will act in
future so as to silence even these too just reproaches.”
“Do you repent, Calantha?”—“Do not talk of repentance: I cannot feel it:
my sin is light compared with his.”—“Towards your husband,”—“Oh! Lord
Avondale, he is happy enough: he cares not.”—“Indeed he does, my child.
I tremble for you: every hour of your life is a continual warfare and
peril. One danger no sooner ends than another arises. Will you never
consider the duties of your situation, or the character you have to form
and to preserve?”—“Who is more loved than I am? On whom does even the
world smile with greater kindness? Beauties, wits, the virtuous—can they
cope with me? I am every one’s friend, and every one loves, even though
they blame Calantha.” As she said this, she smiled, and threw herself
on her aunt’s bosom.
But all this Calantha did but to cheer her aunt. Though not false, she
dreaded any one’s seeing the real state of her mind: at this moment,
she thought Mrs. Seymour too gentle, and of too tender a nature to bear
the violence of her headstrong character:—she knew it would cause her
misery were she to read her heart’s secret, and she smiled therefore and
spoke with levity, whilst her soul was in torture. But the very moment
Mrs. Seymour had left her, Calantha gave way to the rage of fury, and
the despondency she felt. To have lost Glenarvon, was at this time the
real source of her regret;—to speculate upon the cause of his sudden
cruelty and treachery her sole occupation.
At the hour of dinner Mrs. Seymour again entered her room; but without a
single reproach. She had been crying—her eyes were swollen and red; but
she affected scarcely to remember what had passed, and urged Calantha to
accompany her to dinner, as her absence on the day Lord Glenarvon was
from home, might appear strange. But Lady Avondale stubbornly refused,
and would not speak. She even appeared sullen, that her aunt might not
see she was miserable. She even affected more anger, more violence than
she felt against Glenarvon, that she might disguise from herself and
her aunt the pang his loss had given her. She relented however when she
saw her aunt’s grief; and, struggling with tears which never come till
passion is over, and which she thought it weak to display, she dressed
and appeared at dinner. It was alone to please Mrs. Seymour she had done
so; and, solely engrossed with the past, and utterly indifferent to the
mortifying remarks her melancholy and silence occasioned, Calantha hated
those who had the unkindness to censure and judge her, and looked not
upon herself with one sentiment of condemnation.
Towards evening Lord Avondale came to her, and said kindly enough that
she looked ill. Then her heart smote her, and affecting a pettish ill
temper, which she did not, could not feel, she replied that she was well,
and took up a book, as if to read. May none ever experience the torture
Calantha felt, when, instead of being offended, he gently pressed her
hand. She had rather he had struck a dagger into her heart.
Upon retiring to rest, Lady Avondale sent for Zerbellini, and asked
him respecting Lord Glenarvon. The boy was a constant favourite and
playmate of his; he carried notes and flowers, from each to the other;
and artless as he was, he already felt delight in the eager interest
so much mystery and secresy required.—He told Lady Avondale a thousand
anecdotes of Glenarvon; but he had told them so often that they failed
to please. He then showed her the presents he had received from those
who formerly professed to like her. “And did you ever shew them to Lord
Glenarvon?” said Lady Avondale? The thought occurring that this might
have offended. “I did,” said Zerbellini, with a shrewd smile.—“And
was he angry?”—“Oh, not in the least: only the more kind; and he did
question me so and then the boy repeated a thousand things that he had
asked, which shewed Calantha, too well, how eager he was to ascertain,
from other lips than her’s, every minute detail of follies and errors
she had committed. There was no need for this.”
Lady Avondale felt indignant; for there was not a thought of her heart
she desired to conceal from him. What she had done wrong, she herself had
confessed without reserve; and to be thus cross-examined and distrusted,
deeply grieved her. She thought, too, it lessened her regard; it gave
her a worse opinion of Glenarvon; and this god—this idol, to whom she
had bowed so low, sunk at once from the throne of glory upon which her
imagination had raised him. “If I pardon this,” she cried, as she sent
Zerbellini away, and hastened to bed,—“if ever I waste a tear, or sigh,
or thought, on him again, may I suffer what I deserve.—But the thing is
impossible.”
Lady Mandeville at this time was all kindness to Lady Avondale. She was
going from the castle; and, as she parted, she gave her this advice.
“Never place yourself in the power of any man: love of this sort is
apt to terminate in a wreck; and whoever puts most to stake will be the
sufferer.” Lady Augusta also departed.