THE INTERVIEW.--THE CRISIS OF A LIFE.
The western chamber was that I have mentioned as the one in which
Constance usually fixed her retreat, when neither sociability nor state
summoned her to the more public apartments. I should have said that
Godolphin slept in the house; for, coming from a distance and through
country roads, Lady Erpingham had proffered him that hospitality, and he
had willingly accepted it. Before the appointed hour, he was at the
appointed spot.
He had passed the hours till then without even seeking his pillow. In
restless strides across his chamber, he had revolved those words with
which Constance had seemed to deny the hopes she herself had created. All
private and more selfish schemes or reflections had vanished, as by magic,
from the mind of a man prematurely formed, but not yet wholly hardened in
the mould of worldly speculation. He thought no more of what he should
relinquish in obtaining her hand; with the ardour of boyish and real love,
he thought only of her. It was as if there existed no world but the
little spot in which she breathed and moved. Poverty, privation, toil,
the change of the manners and habits of his whole previous life, to those
of professional enterprise and self-denial;--to all this he looked
forward, not so much with calmness as with triumph.
"Be but Constance mine!" said he again and again; and again and again
those fatal words knocked at his heart, "No hope--none!" and he gnashed
his teeth in very anguish, and muttered, "But mine she will not--she will
never be!"
Still, however, before the hour of noon, something of his habitual
confidence returned to him. He had succeeded, though but partially, in
reasoning away the obvious meaning of the words; and he ascended to the
chamber from the gardens, in which he had sought, by the air, to cool his
mental fever, with a sentiment, ominous and doubtful indeed, but still
removed from despondency and despair.
The day was sad and heavy. A low, drizzling rain, and labouring yet
settled clouds, which denied all glimpse of the sky, and seemed cursed
into stagnancy by the absence of all wind or even breeze, increased by
those associations we endeavour in vain to resist, the dark and oppressive
sadness of his thoughts.
He paused as he laid his hand on the door of the chamber: he listened; and
in the acute and painful life which seemed breathed into all his senses,
he felt as if he could have heard,--though without the room,--the very
breath of Constance; or known, as by an inspiration, the presence of her
beauty. He opened the door gently; all was silence and desolation for
him--Constance was not there!
He felt, however, as if that absence was a relief. He breathed more
freely, and seemed to himself more prepared for the meeting. He took his
station by the recess of the window: in vain--he could rest in no spot: he
walked to and fro, pausing only for a moment as some object before him
reminded him of past and more tranquil hours. The books he had admired
and which, at his departure, had been left in their usual receptacle at
another part of the house, he now discovered on the tables: they opened of
themselves at the passages he had read aloud to Constance: those pages, in
his presence, she had not seemed to admire; he was inexpressibly touched
to perceive that, in his absence, they had become dear to her. As he
turned with a beating heart from this silent proof of affection, he was
startled by the sudden and almost living resemblance to Constance, which
struck upon him in a full-length picture opposite--the picture of her
father. That picture, by one of the best of our great modern masters of
the art, had been taken of Vernon in the proudest epoch of his prosperity
and fame. He was portrayed in the attitude in which he had uttered one of
the most striking sentences of one of his most brilliant orations: the
hand was raised, the foot advanced, the chest expanded. Life, energy,
command, flashed from the dark eye, breathed from the dilated nostril,
broke from the inspired lip. That noble brow--those modelled
features--that air, so full of the royalty of genius--how startlingly did
they resemble the softer lineaments of Constance!
Arrested, in spite of himself, by the skill of the limner, and the
characteristic of the portrait Godolphin stood, motionless and gazing,
till the door opened, and Constance herself stood before him. She smiled
faintly, but with sweetness as she approached; and seating herself,
motioned him to a chair at a little distance. He obeyed the gesture in
silence.
"Godolphin!" said she, softly. At the sound of her voice he raised his
eyes from the ground, and fixed them on her countenance with a look so
full of an imploring and earnest meaning, so expressive of the passion,
the suspense of his heart, that Constance felt her voice cease at once.
But he saw as he gazed how powerful had been his influence. Not a vestige
of bloom was on her cheek: her very lips were colourless: her eyes were
swollen with weeping; and though she seemed very calm and self-possessed,
all her wonted majesty of mien was gone. The form seemed to shrink within
itself. Humbleness and sorrow--deep, passionate, but quiet sorrow--had
supplanted the haughtiness and the elastic freshness of her beauty. "Mr.
Godolphin," she repeated, after a pause, "answer me truly and with
candour; not with the world's gallantry, but with a sincere, a plain
avowal. Were you not--in your unguarded expressions last night--were you
not excited by the surprise, the passion, of the moment? Were you not
uttering what, had you been actuated only by a calm and premeditated
prudence, you would at least have suppressed?"
"Miss Vernon," replied Godolphin, "all that I said last night, I now, in
calmness, and with deliberate premeditation, repeat: all that I can dream
of happiness is in your hands."
"I would, indeed, that I could disbelieve you," said Constance,
sorrowfully; "I have considered deeply on your words. I am touched--made
grateful--proud--yes, truly proud--by your confessed affection--but--"
"Oh, Constance!" cried Godolphin; in a sudden and agonized voice--and
rising, he flung himself impetuously at her feet--"Constance! do not
reject me!"
He seized her hand: it struggled not with his. He gazed on her
countenance: it was dyed in blushes; and before those blushes vanished,
her agitation found relief in tears, which flowed fast and full.
"Beloved!" said Godolphin, with a solemn tenderness, "why struggle with
your heart? That heart I read at this moment: _that_ is not averse to
me." Constance wept on. "I know what you would say, and what you feel,"
continued Godolphin: "you think that I--that we both are poor: that you
could ill bear the humiliations of that haughty poverty which those born
to higher fortunes so irksomely endure. You tremble to link your fate
with one who has been imprudent--lavish--selfish, if you will. You recoil
before you intrust your happiness to a man who, if he wreck that, can
offer you nothing in return: no rank--no station--nothing to heal a
bruised heart, or cover its wound, at least, in the rich disguises of
power and wealth. Am I not right, Constance? Do I not read your mind?"
"No!" said Constance with energy. "Had I been born any man's daughter,
but his from whom I take my name; were I the same in all things, mind and
heart, save in one feeling, one remembrance, one object--that I am now;
Heaven is my witness that I would not cast a thought upon poverty--upon
privation: that I would--nay, I do--I do confide in your vows, your
affection. If you have erred, I know it not. If any but you tell me you
have erred, I believe them not. You I trust wholly and implicitly.
Heaven, I say, is my witness that, did I obey the voice of my selfish
heart, I would gladly, proudly, share and follow your fortunes. You
mistake me if you think sordid and vulgar ambition can only influence me.
No! I could be worthy of you! The daughter of John Vernon could be a
worthy wife to the man of indigence and genius. In your poverty I could
soothe you; in your labour I could support you; in your reverses console,
in your prosperity triumph. But--but, it must not be. Go,
Godolphin--dear Godolphin! There are thousands better and fairer than I
am, who will do for you as I would have done; but who possess the power I
have not--who, instead of sharing, can raise your fortunes. Go!--and if
it comfort, if it soothe you, believe that I have not been insensible to
your generosity, your love. My best wishes, my fondest prayers, my
dearest hopes, are yours."
Blinded by her tears, subdued by her emotions, Constance was still
herself. She rose; she extricated her hand from Godolphin's; she turned
to leave the room. But Godolphin, still kneeling, caught hold of her
robe, and gently, but effectually detained her.
"The picture you have painted," said he, "do not destroy at once. You
have portrayed yourself my soother, guide, restorer. You _can,_ indeed
you can, be this. You do not know me, Constance. Let me say one word for
my self. Hitherto, I have shunned fame and avoided ambition. Life has
seemed to me so short, and all that even glory wins so poor, that I have
thought no labour worth the price of a single hour of pleasure and
enjoyment. For you, how joyfully will I renounce my code! For myself I
could ask no honour: for you, I will labour for all. No toil shall be dry
to me--no pleasure shall decoy. I will renounce my idle and desultory
pursuits. I will enter the great public arena, where all who come armed
with patience and with energy are sure to win. Constance, I am not
without talents, though they have slept within me; say but the word, and
you know not what they can produce."
An irresolution in Constance was felt as a sympathy by Godolphin; he
continued,--
"We are both desolate in the world, Constance; we are orphans--friendless,
fortuneless. Yet both have made our way without friends, and commanded
our associates, though without fortune. Does not this declare we have
that within us which, when we are united, can still exalt or conquer our
destiny? And we--we--alone in the noisy and contentious world with which
we strive--we shall turn, after each effort, to our own hearts, and find
there a comfort and a shelter. All things will bind us closer and closer
to each other. The thought of our past solitude, the hope of our future
objects, will only feed the fountain of our present love. And how much
sweeter, Constance, will be honours to you, if we thus win them;
sanctified as they will be by the sacrifices we have made; by the thought
of the many hours in which we desponded, yet took consolation from each
other; by the thought how we sweetened mortifications by sympathy, and
made even the lowest successes noble by the endearing associations with
which we allied them! How much sweeter to you will be such honours than
those which you might command at once, but accompanied by a cold heart;
rendered wearisome because won with ease and low because undignified by
fame! Oh, Constance! am I not heard? Have not love, nature, sense,
triumphed?"
As he spoke, he had risen gently, and wound his arms around her not
reluctant form: her head reclined upon his bosom; her hand was surrendered
to his; and his kiss stole softly and unchidden to her cheek. At that
instant, the fate of both hung on a very hair. How different might the
lot, the character, of each have been, had Constance's lips pronounced the
words that her heart already recorded! And she might have done so; but as
she raised her eyes, the same object that had before affected Godolphin
came vividly upon her, and changed, as by an electric shock, the whole
current of her thoughts. Full and immediately before her was the picture
of her father. The attitude there delineated, so striking at all times,
seemed to Constance at that moment more than ever impressive, and even
awful in the _livingness_ of its command. It was the face of Vernon in
the act of speech--of warning--of reproof; such as she had seen it often
in private life; such as she had seen it in his bitter maledictions on his
hollow friends at the close of his existence: nay, such as she had seen
it,--only more fearful, and ghastly with the hues of death,--in his last
hours; in those hours in which he had pledged her to the performance of
his revenge, and bade her live not for love but the memory of her sire.
With the sight of the face rushed upon her the dark and solemn
recollections of that time and of that vow. The weakness of love vanished
before the returning force of a sentiment nursed through her earliest
years, fed by her dreams, strengthened by her studies, and hardened by the
daring energies of a nature lofty yet fanatical, into the rule, the end,
nay, the very religion of life! She tore herself away from the surprised
and dismayed Godolphin; she threw herself on her knees before the picture;
her lips moved rapidly; the rapid and brief prayer for forgiveness was
over, and Constance rose a new being. She turned to Godolphin, and,
lifting her arm towards the picture, as she regarded, with her bright and
kindling eyes, the face of her lover; she said:--
"As you think now, thought he whose voice speaks to you from the canvas;
he, who pursued the path that you would tread; who, through the same toil,
the same pursuit, that you would endure, used the same powers and the same
genius you would command; he, who won,--what you might win also at
last,--the smile of princes, the trust of nobles, the shifting and sandy
elevation which the best, the wisest, and greatest statesmen in this
country, if unbacked by a sordid and caballing faction, can alone
obtain;--he warns you from that hollow distinction,--from its wretched
consummation. Oh, Godolphin!" she continued, subdued, and sinking from a
high-wrought but momentary paroxysm, uncommon to her collected character,
"Oh, Godolphin! I saw that man dying, deserted, lonely, cursed by his
genius, ruined by his prosperity. I saw him dying,--die,--of a broken and
trampled heart. Could I doom another victim to the same course, and the
same perfidy, and the same fate? Could I, with a silent heart, watch by
that victim; could I, viewing his certain doom, elate him with false
hopes?--No, no! fly from me,--from the thought of such a destiny. Marry
one who can bring you wealth, and support you with rank; _then_ be
ambitious if you will. Leave me to fulfil my doom,--my vow; and to think,
however wretched I may be, that I have not inflicted a permanent
wretchedness on you."
Godolphin sprang forward; but the door closed upon his eyes; and he saw
Constance--as Constance _Vernon_--no more.