The accomplishment of her favourite views being thus disappointed, or
at least deferred, Lady Margaret resolved to return to Italy, and there
to seek for Viviani. Her brother, however, entreated her to remain with
him. He invited his friends, his relations, his neighbours. Balls and
festivities once more enlivened the castle: it seemed his desire to raze
every trace of sorrow from the memory of his child; and to conceal the
ravages of death under the appearance at least of wild and unceasing
gaiety.—The brilliant _fêtes_, and the magnificence of the Duke of
Altamonte and his sister, became the constant theme of admiration; from
far, from near, fashion and folly poured forth their victims to grace
and to enjoy them; and Lord and Lady Dartford naturally found their place
amidst the various and general assemblage. To see Lord Dartford again, to
triumph over his falsehood, to win him from an innocent confiding wife,
and then betray him at the moment in which he fancied himself secure,
this vengeance was yet wanting to satisfy the restless fever of Lady
Margaret’s mind; and the contemplation of its accomplishment gave a new
object, a new hope to her existence; for Lady Margaret had preferred
enduring even the tortures of remorse, to the listless insipidity of
stagnant life, where the passions of her heart, were without excitement,
and those talents of which she felt the power, useless and obscured.
What indeed would she not have preferred to the society of Mrs. Seymour
and her daughters?
The Duchess of Altamonte had possessed a mind, as cultivated as her own,
and a certain refinement of manner which is sometimes acquired by long
intercourse with the most polished societies, but is more frequently the
gift of nature, and, if it be not the constant attendant upon nobility
of blood, is very rarely found in those who are not distinguished by
that adventitious and accidental circumstance.
Mrs. Seymour had many of the excellent qualities, but none of the rare
endowments possessed by the Duchess; she was a strict follower of the
paths of custom and authority; in the steps which had been marked by
others, she studiously walked, nor thought it allowable to turn aside
for any object however praiseworthy and desirable. She might be said to
delight in prejudice—to enjoy herself in the obscure and narrow prison
to which she had voluntarily confined her intellects—to look upon the
impenetrable walls around her as bulwarks against the hostile attacks
by which so many had been overcome. The daughters were strictly trained
in the opinions of their mother. “The season of youth,” she would say,
“is the season of instruction;” —and consequently every hour had its
allotted task; and every action was directed according to some established
regulation.
By these means, Sophia and Frances were already highly accomplished;
their manners were formed; their opinions fixed, and any contradictions
of those opinions, instead of raising doubt, or urging to enquiry, only
excited in their minds astonishment at the hardihood and contempt for
the folly which thus opposed itself to the final determination of the
majority, and ventured to disturb the settled empire and hereditary right
of their sentiments and manners.—“These are _your_ pupils,” Lady Margaret
would often exultingly cry, addressing the mild Mrs. Seymour—“these
paragons of propriety—these sober minded steady automatons. Well, I mean
no harm to them or you. I only wish I could shake off a little of that
cold formality which petrifies me. Now see how differently _my_ Calantha
shall appear, when I have opened her mind, and formed her according
to _my_ system of education—the system which nature dictates and every
feeling of the heart willingly accedes to. Observe well the difference
between a child of an acute understanding, before her mind has been
disturbed by the absurd opinions of others, and after she has learned
their hackneyed jargon: note her answer—her reflections; and you will
find in them, all that philosophy can teach, and all to which science
and wisdom must again return. But, in your girls and in most of those
whom we meet, how narrow are the views, how little the motives, by which
they are impelled. Even granting that they act rightly,—that by blindly
following, where others lead, they pursue the safest course, is there
any thing noble, any thing superior in the character from which such
actions spring? _I_ am ambitious for Calantha. I wish her not only to
be virtuous; I will acknowledge it,—I wish her to be distinguished and
great.”
Mrs. Seymour, when thus attacked, always permitted Lady Margaret to
gain the victory of words and to triumph over her as much as the former
thought it within the bounds of good breeding to allow herself; but she
never varied, in consequence, one step in her daily course, or deviated
in the slightest degree from the line of conduct which she had before
laid down.
Sometimes, however, she would remonstrate with her niece, when she saw
her giving way to the violence of her temper, or acting, as she thought,
absurdly or erroneously; and Calantha, when thus admonished, would
acknowledge her errors, and, for a time at least, endeavour to amend
them; for her heart was accessible to kindness, and kindness she at all
times met with from Mrs. Seymour and her daughters.
It was indeed Calantha’s misfortune to meet with too much kindness, or
rather too much indulgence from almost all who surrounded her. The Duke,
attentive solely to her health, watched her with the fondest solicitude,
and the wildest wishes her fancy could invent, were heard with the most
scrupulous attention and gratified with the most unbounded compliance.
Yet, if affection, amounting to idolatry, could in any degree atone for
the pain the errors of his child too often occasioned him, that affection
was felt by Calantha for her Father.
Her feelings indeed swelled with a tide too powerful for the unequal
resistance of her understanding:—her motives appeared the very best,
but the actions which resulted from them were absurd and exaggerated.
Thoughts, swift as lightening, hurried through her brain:—projects,
seducing, but visionary crowded upon her view: without a curb she followed
the impulse of her feelings; and those feelings varied with every varying
interest and impression.
Such character is not uncommon, though rarely seen amongst the higher
ranks of society. Early and constant intercourse with the world, and that
polished sameness which results from it, smooths away all peculiarities;
and whilst it assimilates individuals to each other, corrects many
faults, and represses many virtues.
Some indeed there are who affect to differ from others: but the very
affectation proves that, in fact, they resemble the ordinary mass; and
in general this assumption of singularity is found in low and common
minds, who think that the reputation of talent and superiority belongs
to the very defects and absurdities which alone have too often cast a
shade upon the splendid light of genius, and degraded the hero and the
poet, to the level of their imitators.
Lovely indeed is that grace of manner, that perfect ease and refinement
which so many attempt to acquire, and for which it is to be feared so
much too often is renounced—the native vigour of mind, the blush of
indignant and offended integrity, the open candour of truth, and all
the long list of modest unassuming virtues, known only to a new and
unsullied heart.
Calantha turned with disgust from the slavish followers of prejudice.
She disdained the beaten tract, and she thought that virtue would be for
her a safe, a sufficient guide; that noble views, and pure intentions
would conduct her in a higher sphere; and that it was left to her to set
a bright example of unshaken rectitude, undoubted truth and honourable
fame. All that was base or mean, she, from her soul, despised; a fearless
spirit raised her, as she fondly imagined, above the vulgar herd; self
confident, she scarcely deigned to bow the knee before her God; and man,
as she had read of him in history, appeared too weak, too trivial to
inspire either alarm or admiration.
It was thus, with bright prospects, strong love of virtue, high ideas
of honour, that she entered upon life. No expence, no trouble had been
spared in her education; masters, tutors and governesses surrounded her.
She seemed to have a decided turn for every thing it was necessary for her
to learn; instruction was scarcely necessary, so readily did her nature
bend itself to every art, science and accomplishment; yet never did she
attain excellence, or make proficiency in any; and when the vanity of
a parent fondly expected to see her a proficient in all acquirements,
suited to her sex and age, he had the mortification of finding her more
than usually ignorant, backward and uninstructed. With an ear the most
sensible and accurate, she could neither dance, nor play; with an eye
acute and exact, she could not draw; with a spirit that bounded within
her from excess of joyous happiness, she was bashful and unsocial in
society; and with the germs of every virtue that commands esteem and
praise, she was already the theme of discussion, observation and censure.
Yet was Calantha loved—dearly and fondly loved; nor could Mrs. Seymour,
though constantly discovering new errors in her favourite, prevent her
from being the very idol of her heart. Calantha saw it through all her
assumed coldness; and she triumphed in the influence she possessed.
But Sophia and Frances were not as cordially her friends:—they had not
reached that age, at which lenity and indulgence take place of harsher
feelings, and the world appears in all its reality before us. To them,
the follies and frailties of others carried with them no excuse, and
every course that they themselves did not adopt, was assuredly erroneous.
Calantha passed her time as much as possible by herself; the general
society at the castle was uninteresting to her. The only being for whom
she felt regard, was Sir Everard St. Clare, brother to Camioli the bard,
and late physician to her mother, was the usual object of ridicule to
almost all of his acquaintance. Lady St. Clare in pearls and silver;
Lauriana and Jessica, more fine if possible and more absurd than their
mother; Mrs. Emmet a Lady from Cork, plaintive and reclining in white
satin and drapery; and all the young gentlemen of large property and
fortune, whom all the young ladies were daily and hourly endeavouring
to please, had no attraction for a mind like Calantha’s. Coldly she
therefore withdrew from the amusements natural to her age; yet it was from
embarrassment, and not from coldness, that she avoided their society.
Some favorites she already had:—the Abbess of Glenaa, St. Clara her
niece, and above all Alice Mac Allain, a beautiful little girl of whom
her mother had been fond, had already deeply interested her affections.
In the company of one or other of these, Calantha would pass her mornings;
and sometimes would she stand alone upon the summit of the cliff, hour
after hour, to behold the immense ocean, watching its waves, as they
swelled to the size of mountains, then dashed with impetuous force against
the rocks below; or climbing the mountain’s side, and gazing on the lofty
summits of Heremon and Inis Tara, lost in idle and visionary thought;
but at other times joyous, and without fear, like a fairy riding on a
sun beam through the air, chasing the gay images of fancy, she would
join in every active amusement and suffer her spirits to lead her into
the most extravagant excess.