Two serene and innocent years had glided away at Cherbury since this
morning ramble to Cadurcis Abbey, and Venetia had grown in loveliness,
in goodness, and intelligence. Her lively and somewhat precocious mind
had become greatly developed; and, though she was only nine years of
age, it scarcely needed the affection of a mother to find in her an
interesting and engaging companion. Although feminine education was
little regarded in those days, that of Lady Annabel had been an
exception to the general practice of society. She had been brought
up with the consciousness of other objects of female attainment and
accomplishment than embroidery, 'the complete art of making pastry,'
and reading 'The Whole Duty of Man.' She had profited, when a child,
by the guidance of her brother's tutor, who had bestowed no unfruitful
pains upon no ordinary capacity. She was a good linguist, a fine
musician, was well read in our elder poets and their Italian
originals, was no unskilful artist, and had acquired some knowledge
of botany when wandering, as a girl, in her native woods. Since her
retirement to Cherbury, reading had been her chief resource. The hall
contained a library whose shelves, indeed, were more full than choice;
but, amid folios of theological controversy and civil law, there might
be found the first editions of most of the celebrated writers of the
reign of Anne, which the contemporary proprietor of Cherbury, a man of
wit and fashion in his day, had duly collected in his yearly visits to
the metropolis, and finally deposited in the family book-room.
The education of her daughter was not only the principal duty of Lady
Annabel, but her chief delight. To cultivate the nascent intelligence
of a child, in those days, was not the mere piece of scientific
mechanism that the admirable labours of so many ingenious writers have
since permitted it comparatively to become. In those days there was no
Mrs. Barbauld, no Madame de Genlis, no Miss Edgeworth; no 'Evenings at
Home,' no 'Children's Friend,' no 'Parent's Assistant.' Venetia loved
her book; indeed, she was never happier than when reading; but she
soon recoiled from the gilt and Lilliputian volumes of the good Mr.
Newbury, and her mind required some more substantial excitement than
'Tom Thumb,' or even 'Goody Two-Shoes.' 'The Seven Champions' was
a great resource and a great favourite; but it required all the
vigilance of a mother to eradicate the false impressions which such
studies were continually making on so tender a student; and to
disenchant, by rational discussion, the fascinated imagination of her
child. Lady Annabel endeavoured to find some substitute in the essays
of Addison and Steele; but they required more knowledge of the
every-day world for their enjoyment than an infant, bred in such
seclusion, could at present afford; and at last Venetia lost herself
in the wildering pages of Clelia and the Arcadia, which she pored over
with a rapt and ecstatic spirit, that would not comprehend the warning
scepticism of her parent. Let us picture to ourselves the high-bred
Lady Annabel in the terrace-room of her ancient hall, working at
her tapestry, and, seated at her feet, her little daughter Venetia,
reading aloud the Arcadia! The peacocks have jumped up on the
window-sill, to look at their friends, who love to feed them, and by
their pecking have aroused the bloodhound crouching at Lady Annabel's
feet. And Venetia looks up from her folio with a flushed and smiling
face to catch the sympathy of her mother, who rewards her daughter's
study with a kiss. Ah! there are no such mothers and no such daughters
now!
Thus it will be seen that the life and studies of Venetia tended
rather dangerously, in spite of all the care of her mother, to the
development of her imagination, in case indeed she possessed that
terrible and fatal gift. She passed her days in unbroken solitude, or
broken only by affections which softened her heart, and in a scene
which itself might well promote any predisposition of the kind;
beautiful and picturesque objects surrounded her on all sides; she
wandered, at it were, in an enchanted wilderness, and watched the deer
reposing under the green shadow of stately trees; the old hall
itself was calculated to excite mysterious curiosity; one wing was
uninhabited and shut up; each morning and evening she repaired with
her mother and the household through long galleries to the chapel,
where she knelt to her devotions, illumined by a window blazoned with
the arms of that illustrious family of which she was a member, and
of which she knew nothing. She had an indefinite and painful
consciousness that she had been early checked in the natural inquiries
which occur to every child; she had insensibly been trained to speak
only of what she saw; and when she listened, at night, to the long
ivy rustling about the windows, and the wild owls hooting about the
mansion, with their pining, melancholy voices, she might have been
excused for believing in those spirits, which her mother warned her to
discredit; or she forgot these mournful impressions in dreams, caught
from her romantic volumes, of bright knights and beautiful damsels.
Only one event of importance had occurred at Cherbury during these two
years, if indeed that be not too strong a phrase to use in reference
to an occurrence which occasioned so slight and passing an interest.
Lord Cadurcis had died. He had left his considerable property to his
natural children, but the abbey had descended with the title to a very
distant relative. The circle at Cherbury had heard, and that was all,
that the new lord was a minor, a little boy, indeed very little older
than Venetia herself; but this information produced no impression. The
abbey was still deserted and desolate as ever.