None will be surprised that, to a woman thus unfortunate and thus
deserving, my heart willingly rendered up all its sympathies; that, as I
partook of all her grief, I hailed, with equal delight, those omens of
felicity which now, at length, seemed to play in her fancy.
I saw her often,--as often as my engagements would permit, and oftener
than I allowed myself to visit any other. In this I was partly selfish.
So much entertainment, so much of the best instruction, did her
conversation afford me, that I never had enough of it.
Her experience had been so much larger than mine, and so wholly
different, and she possessed such unbounded facility of recounting all
she had seen and felt, and absolute sincerity and unreserve in this
respect were so fully established between us, that I can imagine nothing
equally instructive and delightful with her conversation.
Books are cold, jejune, vexatious in their sparingness of information at
one time and their impertinent loquacity at another. Besides, all they
choose to give they give at once; they allow no questions, offer no
further explanations, and bend not to the caprices of our curiosity.
They talk to us behind a screen. Their tone is lifeless and monotonous.
They charm not our attention by mute significances of gesture and looks.
They spread no light upon their meaning by cadences and emphasis and
pause.
How different was Mrs. Fielding's discourse! So versatile; so bending to
the changes of the occasion; so obsequious to my curiosity, and so
abundant in that very knowledge in which I was most deficient, and on
which I set the most value, the knowledge of the human heart; of
society as it existed in another world, more abundant in the varieties
of customs and characters, than I had ever had the power to witness.
Partly selfish I have said my motives were, but not so, as long as I saw
that my friend derived pleasure, in her turn, from my company. Not that
I could add directly to her knowledge or pleasure, but that expansion of
heart, that ease of utterance and flow of ideas which always were
occasioned by my approach, were sources of true pleasure of which she
had been long deprived, and for which her privation had given her a
higher relish than ever.
She lived in great affluence and independence, but made use of her
privileges of fortune chiefly to secure to herself the command of her
own time. She had been long ago tired and disgusted with the dull and
fulsome uniformity and parade of the play-house and ballroom. Formal
visits were endured as mortifications and penances, by which the
delights of privacy and friendly intercourse were by contrast increased.
Music she loved, but never sought it in places of public resort, or from
the skill of mercenary performers; and books were not the least of her
pleasures.
As to me, I was wax in her hand. Without design and without effort, I
was always of that form she wished me to assume. My own happiness became
a secondary passion, and her gratification the great end of my being.
When with her, I thought not of myself. I had scarcely a separate or
independent existence, since my senses were occupied by her, and my mind
was full of those ideas which her discourse communicated. To meditate on
her looks and words, and to pursue the means suggested by my own
thoughts, or by her, conducive, in any way, to her good, was all my
business.
"What a fate," said I, at the conclusion of one of our interviews, "has
been yours! But, thank Heaven, the storm has disappeared before the age
of sensibility has gone past, and without drying up every source of
happiness. You are still young; all your powers unimpaired; rich in the
compassion and esteem of the world; wholly independent of the claims and
caprices of others; amply supplied with that means of usefulness,
called money; wise in that experience which only adversity can give.
Past evils and sufferings, if incurred and endured without guilt, if
called to view without remorse, make up the materials of present joy.
They cheer our most dreary hours with the widespread accents of 'well
done,' and they heighten our pleasures into somewhat of celestial
brilliancy, by furnishing a deep, a ruefully-deep, contrast.
"From this moment, I will cease to weep for you. I will call you the
happiest of women. I will share with you your happiness by witnessing
it; but that shall not content me. I must some way contribute to it.
Tell me how I shall serve you. What can I do to make you happier? Poor
am I in every thing but zeal, but still I may do something. What--pray
tell me, what can I do?"
She looked at me with sweet and solemn significance. What it was exactly
I could not divine, yet I was strangely affected by it. It was but a
glance, instantly withdrawn. She made me no answer.
"You must not be silent; you _must_ tell me what I can do for you.
Hitherto I have done nothing. All the service is on your side. Your
conversation has been my study, a delightful study, but the profit has
only been mine. Tell me how I can be grateful: my voice and manner, I
believe, seldom belie my feelings." At this time, I had almost done what
a second thought made me suspect to be unauthorized. Yet I cannot tell
why. My heart had nothing in it but reverence and admiration. Was she
not the substitute of my lost mamma? Would I not have clasped that
beloved shade? Yet the two beings were not just the same, or I should
not, as now, have checked myself, and only pressed her hand to my lips.
"Tell me," repeated I, "what can I do to serve you? I read to you a
little now, and you are pleased with my reading. I copy for you when you
want the time. I guide the reins for you when you choose to ride. Humble
offices, indeed, though, perhaps, all that a raw youth like me can do
for you; but I can be still more assiduous. I can read several hours in
the day, instead of one. I can write ten times as much as now.
"Are you not my lost mamma come back again? And yet, not _exactly_ her,
I think. Something different; something better, I believe, if that be
possible. At any rate, methinks I would be wholly yours. I shall be
impatient and uneasy till every act, every thought, every minute,
someway does you good.
"How!" said I, (her eye, still averted, seemed to hold back the tear
with difficulty, and she made a motion as if to rise,) "have I grieved
you? Have I been importunate? Forgive me if I have offended you."
Her eyes now overflowed without restraint. She articulated, with
difficulty, "Tears are too prompt with me of late; but they did not
upbraid you. Pain has often caused them to flow, but now
it--is--_pleasure_."
"What a heart must yours be!" I resumed. "When susceptible of such
pleasures, what pangs must formerly have rent it!--But you are not
displeased, you say, with my importunate zeal. You will accept me as
your own in every thing. Direct me; prescribe to me. There must be
_something_ in which I can be of still more use to you; some way in
which I can be wholly yours----"
"_Wholly mine!_" she repeated, in a smothered voice, and rising. "Leave
me, Arthur. It is too late for you to be here. It was wrong to stay so
late."
"I have been wrong; but how too late? I entered but this moment. It is
twilight still; is it not?"
"No: it is almost twelve. You have been here a long four hours; short
ones I would rather say,--but indeed you must go."
"What made me so thoughtless of the time? But I will go, yet not till
you forgive me." I approached her with a confidence and for a purpose at
which, upon reflection, I am not a little surprised; but the being
called Mervyn is not the same in her company and in that of another.
What is the difference, and whence comes it? Her words and looks engross
me. My mind wants room for any other object. But why inquire whence the
difference? The superiority of her merits and attractions to all those
whom I knew would surely account for my fervour. Indifference, if I
felt it, would be the only just occasion of wonder.
The hour was, indeed, too late, and I hastened home. Stevens was waiting
my return with some anxiety. I apologized for my delay, and recounted to
him what had just passed. He listened with more than usual interest.
When I had finished,--
"Mervyn," said he, "you seem not be aware of your present situation.
From what you now tell me, and from what you have formerly told me, one
thing seems very plain to me."
"Pr'ythee, what is it?"
"Eliza Hadwin:--do you wish--could you bear--to see her the wife of
another?"
"Five years hence I will answer you. Then my answer may be, 'No; I wish
her only to be mine.' Till then, I wish her only to be my pupil, my
ward, my sister."
"But these are remote considerations; they are bars to marriage, but not
to love. Would it not molest and disquiet you to observe in her a
passion for another?"
"It would, but only on her own account; not on mine. At a suitable age
it is very likely I may love her, because it is likely, if she holds on
in her present career, she will then be worthy; but at present, though I
would die to insure her happiness, I have no wish to insure it by
marriage with her."
"Is there no other whom you love?"
"No. There is one worthier than all others; one whom I wish the woman
who shall be my wife to resemble in all things."
"And who is this model?"
"You know I can only mean Achsa Fielding."
"If you love her likeness, why not love herself?"
I felt my heart leap.--"What a thought is that! Love her I _do_ as I
love my God; as I love virtue. To love her in another sense would brand
me for a lunatic."
"To love her as a woman, then, appears to you an act of folly."
"In me it would be worse than folly. 'Twould be frenzy."
"And why?"
"Why? Really, my friend, you astonish me. Nay, you startle me--for a
question like that implies a doubt in you whether I have not actually
harboured the thought."
"No," said he, smiling, "presumptuous though you be, you have not,
to-be-sure, reached so high a pitch. But still, though I think you
innocent of so heinous an offence, there is no harm in asking why you
might not love her, and even seek her for a wife."
Achsa Fielding _my wife_! Good Heaven!--The very sound threw my soul
into unconquerable tumults. "Take care, my friend," continued I, in
beseeching accents, "you may do me more injury than you conceive, by
even starting such a thought."
"True," said he, "as long as such obstacles exist to your success; so
many incurable objections: for instance, she is six years older than
you."
"That is an advantage. Her age is what it ought to be."
"But she has been a wife and mother already."
"That is likewise an advantage. She has wisdom, because she has
experience. Her sensibilities are stronger, because they have been
exercised and chastened. Her first marriage was unfortunate. The purer
is the felicity she will taste in a second! If her second choice be
propitious, the greater her tenderness and gratitude."
"But she is a foreigner; independent of control, and rich."
"All which are blessings to herself, and to him for whom her hand is
reserved; especially if, like me, he is indigent."
"But then she is unsightly as a _night-hag_, tawny as a Moor, the eye of
a gipsy, low in stature, contemptibly diminutive, scarcely bulk enough
to cast a shadow as she walks, less luxuriance than a charred log, fewer
elasticities than a sheet pebble."
"Hush! hush! blasphemer!"--(and I put my hand before his mouth)--"have I
not told you that in mind, person, and condition, she is the type after
which my enamoured fancy has modelled my wife?"
"Oh ho! Then the objection does not lie with you. It lies with her, it
seems. She can find nothing in you to esteem! And, pray, for what faults
do you think she would reject you?"
"I cannot tell. That she can ever balance for a moment, on such a
question, is incredible. _Me! me!_ That Achsa Fielding should think of
me!"
"Incredible, indeed! You, who are loathsome in your person, an idiot in
your understanding, a villain in your morals! deformed! withered! vain,
stupid, and malignant. That such a one should choose _you_ for an idol!"
"Pray, my friend," said I, anxiously, "jest not. What mean you by a hint
of this kind?"
"I will not jest, then, but will soberly inquire, what faults are they
which make this lady's choice of you so incredible? You are younger than
she, though no one, who merely observed your manners and heard you talk,
would take you to be under thirty. You are poor: are these impediments?"
"I should think not. I have heard her reason with admirable eloquence
against the vain distinctions of property and nation and rank. They were
once of moment in her eyes; but the sufferings, humiliations, and
reflections of years have cured her of the folly. Her nation has
suffered too much by the inhuman antipathies of religious and political
faction; she, herself, has felt so often the contumelies of the rich,
the high-born, and the bigoted, that----"
"Pr'ythee, then, what dost imagine her objections to be?"
"Why--I don't know. The thought was so aspiring; to call her _my wife_
was a height of bliss the very far-off view of which made my head
dizzy."
"A height, however, to attain which you suppose only her consent, her
love, to be necessary?"
"Without doubt, her love is indispensable."
"Sit down, Arthur, and let us no longer treat this matter lightly. I
clearly see the importance of this moment to this lady's happiness and
yours. It is plain that you love this woman. How could you help it? A
brilliant skin is not hers; nor elegant proportions; nor majestic
stature: yet no creature had ever more power to bewitch. Her manners
have grace and dignity that flow from exquisite feelings, delicate
taste, and the quickest and keenest penetration. She has the wisdom of
men and of books. Her sympathies are enforced by reason, and her
charities regulated by knowledge. She has a woman's age, fortune more
than you wish, and a spotless fame. How could you fail to love her?
"_You_, who are her chosen friend, who partake her pleasures and share
her employments, on whom she almost exclusively bestows her society and
confidence, and to whom she thus affords the strongest of all indirect
proofs of impassioned esteem,--how could you, with all that firmness of
love, joined with all that discernment of her excellence, how could you
escape the enchantment?
"You have not thought of marriage. You have not suspected your love.
From the purity of your mind, from the idolatry with which this woman
has inspired you, you have imagined no delight beyond that of enjoying
her society as you now do, and have never fostered a hope beyond this
privilege.
"How quickly would this tranquillity vanish, and the true state of your
heart be evinced, if a rival should enter the scene and be entertained
with preference! then would the seal be removed, the spell be broken,
and you would awaken to terror and to anguish.
"Of this, however, there is no danger. Your passion is not felt by you
alone. From her treatment of you, your diffidence disables you from
seeing, but nothing can be clearer to me than that she loves you."
I started on my feet. A flush of scorching heat flowed to every part of
my frame. My temples began to throb like my heart. I was half delirious,
and my delirium was strangely compounded of fear and hope, of delight
and of terror.
"What have you done, my friend? You have overturned my peace of mind.
Till now the image of this woman has been followed by complacency and
sober rapture; but your words have dashed the scene with dismay and
confusion. You have raised up wishes, and dreams, and doubts, which
possess me in spite of my reason, in spite of a thousand proofs.
"Good God! You say she loves,--loves _me_!--me, a boy in age; bred in
clownish ignorance; scarcely ushered into the world; more than
childishly unlearned and raw; a barn-door simpleton; a plough-tail,
kitchen-hearth, turnip-hoeing novice! She, thus splendidly endowed; thus
allied to nobles; thus gifted with arts, and adorned with graces; that
she should choose me, me for the partner of her fortune; her affections;
and her life! It cannot be. Yet, if it were; if your guesses
should--prove--Oaf! madman! To indulge so fatal a chimera! So rash a
dream!
"My friend! my friend! I feel that you have done me an irreparable
injury. I can never more look her in the face. I can never more frequent
her society. These new thoughts will beset and torment me. My disquiet
will chain up my tongue. That overflowing gratitude; that innocent joy,
unconscious of offence, and knowing no restraint, which have hitherto
been my titles to her favour, will fly from my features and manners. I
shall be anxious, vacant, and unhappy in her presence. I shall dread to
look at her, or to open my lips, lest my mad and unhallowed ambition
should betray itself."
"Well," replied Stevens, "this scene is quite new. I could almost find
it in my heart to pity you. I did not expect this; and yet, from my
knowledge of your character, I ought, perhaps, to have foreseen it. This
is a necessary part of the drama. A joyous certainty, on these
occasions, must always be preceded by suspenses and doubts, and the
close will be joyous in proportion as the preludes are excruciating. Go
to bed, my good friend, and think of this. Time and a few more
interviews with Mrs. Fielding will, I doubt not, set all to rights."