Marion was no miser of happiness to hoard it all up for her own use,
and most willingly would she have imparted a share of her present
joyous feelings to Agnes, but in vain did she look for any
encouragement to the frank, confiding, and sociable nature of her own
disposition, from a sister who had no desire to share in the hopes and
fears, the joys and sorrows of a disinterested attachment, such as she
could neither understand nor approve.
"Perfect happiness and a hut in the country!" said Agnes,
contemptuously, while the warm blood mantled into Marion's cheek, but
instantly putting her features in order to look composed and
indifferent, she turned the conversation to no particular subject.
Too happy to be silent, Marion next selected for her _confidante_ the
very last person upon earth whom it would have occurred to most young
ladies to entrust with the progress of a love affair, while, from Sir
Arthur, she received the deepest and most affectionate interest in
return for all she told him, though he acted like a perfect incendiary,
by adding fuel to the flame, inviting Mr. Granville to his house
whenever he could come, and praising him whenever he departed.
With daily increasing solicitude, Marion's elderly confidant listened
to all the simple romance of her thoughts and feelings, delighted with
the overflow of a heart which had nothing to conceal. Neither
overvaluing nor undervaluing the gifts of fortune, Sir Arthur felt
unspeakable comfort in the belief that Marion would now be better
protected and cared for through life, than could have been hoped, from
the few years that remained to himself, or from the heedless
indifference of her brother, who had never shown her much regard till
now, when he testified his care in the way least acceptable to Marion,
by an angry, resolute opposition to her marrying and settling, as he
persisted in saying, "upon ninepence a-day."
The difficulty increased every week, of joining that happy circle where
her most delightful hours had been passed, and a thousand impediments
were now contrived by Sir Patrick to prevent Marion from visiting even
at Sir Arthur's; while the young Baronet filled his house at St. John's
Lodge with so many of his friends, that the Admiral laughingly observed
one day, while he seemed possessed by the very spirit of raillery and
good humor, "I think, Marion, your brother is actually laying siege to
you now--or rather, it is turning into a blockade! I suppose he expects
some of those half-witted blockheads fluttering about the house to
eclipse Granville, which is of course extremely probable! Now, for the
twentieth time to-day, let us discuss my nephew elect. He seems--rather
amiable!"
"Seems! dear uncle Arthur! he is all that he seems, and a hundred times
more! He is--need I say what he is?"
"No! no! I remember to have read novels long ago, and know all about
it! Marion, you may well feel proud of being admired and beloved by one
who is himself admired and beloved by all! I cannot think," added Sir
Arthur, with a sly smile, "what in all the world Mr. Granville sees to
fancy in you!"
"That is exactly what puzzles me! I often wonder why he likes me!"
"Because, I suppose, somehow or other, he cannot help it. Now, Marion,
you have the worst of memories I know, for what Mr. Granville says; but
do try if you can recollect a few of his last conversations to
entertain me with. You will have so many lovers soon at St. John's
Lodge, that it may perhaps become impossible to distinguish Granville
from the rest, or one from another!"
"No! that can never be! Patrick's friends are scarcely my
acquaintances, and not at all likely to become admirers. I feel and
fully appreciate my own happiness now in being chosen and preferred by
one whose thoughts and wishes are all such as my own may be ready and
willing to echo--who can lead my thoughts upwards as well as onwards,
whose attachment is founded on the purest sentiments--and, not the
least of his attraction, dear uncle Arthur, who loves and honors you as
I do!"
"Merely because I am your uncle! Depend upon it, all my great merits
are eclipsed by that one! Well! I must put up with it, till he knows
better! I need not send to the circulating libraries for a romance now,
as there are so many to interest me at home!"
These words of Sir Arthur's referred not merely to the growing
attachment of Richard and Marion, but Caroline Smythe, who was about
soon to depart for England, had in the meantime become a constant and
prominent member of the gay little circle at Seabeach Cottage, where
her friends exerted their utmost endeavors to restore the tone of her
nerves and spirits, which were still much affected by her recent alarm,
and none succeeded so well in diverting her thoughts, and beguiling her
time as the lively, animated Henry De Lancey, who became himself daily
more entranced with the happiness of being in her society. His
preference for Caroline was testified in the way most truly flattering,
being more betrayed than professed, yet his whole heart was visible in
every word and action, while he evidently became every day twenty times
more deeply in love than at first, and the interesting countenance of
Caroline grew more interesting from the additional depth of expression
to be traced there. Sir Arthur, happy in the happiness of others,
appeared to cast aside all care, while sunning himself in the joyous
smiles of those who had so long been the dearest objects of his
solicitude, and day after day the intimacy and mutual affection of all
parties appeared to be riveted by fetters which never could be broken,
though it sometimes crossed Marion's mind as a cause of surprise that
Sir Arthur, who did nothing without reflection, should appear never
once to apprehend the difficulty into which Henry's attachment would
evidently plunge him.
There was something irresistible in the fascinations of young De
Lancey's character, the warmth of which seemed as if it must have been
nurtured beneath a brighter sun than that of others, while there was an
irresistible captivation in his joyous, youthful aspect, his frank and
graceful carriage. Mr. Granville, who had a genius for making society
agreeable, as well as improving, treated him with the confidence and
companionship of a brother, almost insensibly developing the graces of
a heart fitted to awaken the deepest interest, and drawing forth a
power of mind and character in Henry, of which he could scarcely before
have deemed himself capable, while leading him often away from the
common-place nothings of the passing hour, to the highest regions of
thought and to the brightest aspirations after future distinction,
after immortal wisdom and undying happiness.
"We must live and act for others," observed Mr. Granville one day in
his usual tone of energetic animation. "The miser who collects useless
hoards which are lost to him at death, is not more absurd in his vain
pursuit, than the mere philosopher who lays up stores of knowledge to
perish with himself. The good or the evil which may be done by the most
insignificant individual both now and to generations yet unborn, is
incalculable; and the only important question we can ask of ourselves,
in which no other can be concerned, is, 'What shall I do to be saved?'
That, each man must seek to ascertain for himself; and who would not
say that the greatest fool on earth is he who forgets to ask it at
all,--or who asks it with indifference!"
"I am more and more convinced," said Henry, "that religion is the
greatest support in life, and the only one in death. On our hearts it
is like the calm serene light given by the moon when she soars vividly
along the heavens amidst clouds and darkness, pouring celestial light
upon the earth in pure and holy splendor, beautiful and sublime, yet
often how melancholy and solemnizing,
'Thoughts of immortal beauty spring to birth,
And waft the soul beyond the dreams of earth.'"
Henry scarcely ventured to tell his own heart how deeply and
engrossingly he had become attached to Caroline, while in secret he
remembered every word or look which had endeared her to him, with a
pleasure and emotion till now unknown, and which could not but be most
painful in his solitary hours of reflection, when he considered the
uncertain tenure of his own situation in life, and his ignorance
respecting that of Miss Smythe, though he felt soothed and comforted by
the consciousness, that to her he was evidently not indifferent, and
that Sir Arthur either seemed blind to their increasing preference, or
pleased to witness it.
Henry had seated himself one morning in a small ante-room, repairing
his fishing tackle, and though voices became audible in the
drawing-room, in animated conversation, he continued perfectly heedless
of what was passing, till at length his own name, spoken in accents
always dear to him, irresistibly enchained his attention. Sir Arthur
was requesting Caroline to sing one of his favorite melodies, and she
gayly resisted his entreaties, saying, in her liveliest accents, "No!
no! wait patiently till the evening. That was copied for me by Mr. De
Lancey, and I promised he should be present the first time it was
performed. I can refuse you nothing, Sir Arthur, so I must seek safety
by flight!"
Nodding and smiling, with one of her archest looks, Caroline tripped
lightly into the room, where Henry sat, so shaded by the
window-curtain, that he was perfectly invisible, when a moment
afterwards she was followed by Mrs. Smythe, who said in an excited tone
of angry remonstrance,
"Is there no end, Caroline, to this extraordinary intimacy of yours
with young De Lancey! It really is becoming absurd! Sir Arthur is very
much to blame in giving it any encouragement! A youth without
prospects! without so much as a name!"
"With no seat in Parliament! no diplomatic appointment! no family
living! no title!" pursued Caroline, laughing. "You know, my dear aunt,
I never centered all good in birth and station!"
"Neither did I suppose you would dispense with both!" replied Mrs.
Smythe, in a tone of increasing bitterness, and hurrying towards the
door, evidently so irritated, that she dared not trust herself to
remain. "Rather than have my niece united to a nameless outcast, living
upon the bounty of Sir Arthur Dunbar, or of connections who are
probably disgraced by his existence, I would prefer seeing you married
to the Twopenny Postman, for he at least is independent, and has
something."
A glow like fire rushed through Henry's frame at these words, and
before Mrs. Smythe had closed the door, the hot blood seemed boiling in
his veins with agonized shame and sorrow. Pale and red by turns, he
leaned his head on his hands in solitary desolation, and quivered in
every nerve with grief and self-reproach. The whole harvest of his
happiness seemed blasted at a single breath; his mind was a wild chaos
of conflicting emotions; and one only thought rose paramount to all,
that he had been held up to ridicule and contempt, perhaps deservedly,
in the eyes of that one beloved being, the object of his dearest,
first, and only attachment, He wreathed his hands together, and bent
his head in a tempest of emotion, while the whole rich treasure of his
affections and hopes lay mouldered into rubbish at his feet; for he
felt and knew that all Mrs. Smythe had said, was but too painfully
true. A dark extinguisher had fallen over every earth-born wish. He
felt that it had been unpardonable even to desire that the happiness of
another should be linked with his uncertain fate; and he struggled
long, though vainly, for composure, while contemplating the destruction
of that one hope which had contained the sum of all his earthly wishes.
"I will yet deserve her or die!" thought Henry, overleaping
impossibilities, or, with the sanguine feelings of a young and ardent
mind, not even seeing them. "My pleasing dream has ended for the
present; and how could I ever expect it should be otherwise! but I
cannot and will not blot out from the picture of my future life, that
form which embellished every hope of my existence! Days and nights of
laborious exertion shall be as nothing, if I can but prove myself
worthy of Caroline,--if I can but, at the remotest period of time, call
her my own. Were it not for such a prospect I should become
indifferent even to myself!"
Henry's musings were disturbed by a slight noise near him, and when,
with a flashing eye, he started and looked up, the very object of all
his thoughts, hopes, and regrets was beside him, and he beheld
Caroline, her cheeks suffused with the deepest emotion, and her
downcast eyelashes sparkling with tears, while in hurried accents of
extreme agitation, she spoke to him almost inaudibly:
"Is it the affairs of the nation you are so deeply meditating on, Mr.
De Lancey, or your own affairs?"
"My affairs!" exclaimed Henry, in a tone of deep depression, while his
dark lustrous eyes became dim and glassy with emotion. "I have no
affairs! a creature of charity,--of the most generous and noble-minded
benevolence,--but still a dependent on the bounty of others! In your
presence I could forget the mystery and bitterness of my lot,--but I
forget it too much! I am not answerable for my feelings, but I am for
my actions; and I must leave you for ever! I can never know the rapture
of a requited attachment; but why should I not acknowledge the feelings
of admiration that must be common to all in your presence. I am a
nameless outcast; but pardon my folly and infatuation in having loved
you, without a hope of return. My mother perished, as you know, under
fearful circumstances; and who can tell whether my father may not have
died like a felon! My worst enemy can say, or suspect nothing worse
than I sometimes fear; and I deserve all I suffer for having one moment
forgotten the dark mystery of my lot."
"You were here, then, Mr. De Lancey, some moments ago," said Caroline,
in hurried accents! "You overheard all that my aunt so imprudently
said! you! you!--you--what must you think!"
"I dare not trust my lips with the expression of half what I think and
feel," replied Henry, in a low, deep, broken voice, and fixing his
troubled eye on Caroline. "Let me speak for once to you on that subject
which another began! Let me for once relieve my heart, by saying how
entirely,--how unchangeably I love you. What bright visions of hope
have flitted before my fancy, all blighted now for ever! I know the
utter despair that ought to attend my attachment. Love, to others a
blessing, must ever be to me a curse; yet I would rather love you
without a hope of return, than gain the hearts of a thousand others. I
neither ask nor expect encouragement; only believe and pity me! In the
long absence which awaits me from home, let me be consoled by thinking,
that I am not utterly despised and forgotten,--that when time and
distance have separated us, I may still preserve a place in your
memory, though not perhaps remembered, as I shall remember you."
Caroline listened with deep delight to this renewed confession of
Henry's long-cherished attachment. It seemed as if she could have
listened for ever, but was unable to reply during several minutes of
agitated silence, till at length, with a strong effort, she said in
faltering accents, yet with some of her usual vivacity--
"You said this once before, and I never forgot it. You were very dull
not to read my heart long ago. If I felt less I could say more. Be
constant for two long years, and we may be happy! I need then consult
no one's wishes but my own. Sir Arthur knows all. He has been entrusted
with my thoughts from the first moment, when you told me that--that our
attachment was reciprocal!"
"Can it be!" exclaimed young De Lancey, in accents of the wildest joy,
while, in a transport of emotion, he clasped her hand in his own, and
those words were at last spoken between them, which pledged Henry and
Caroline to each other for ever. "I am not then doomed to pass through
life alone and uncared for. You will accept a heart that never has
loved, and never can love another! I am now afraid only of being too
happy! The tide of my whole existence is changed! The two years you bid
me wait shall not be wasted. For your sake I shall strenuously seek to
become the architect of my own fortunes, to throw off the trammels of
obscurity, to carve out for myself a name which you shall not be
ashamed to hear. The world is before me, where, with buoyant hopes and
resolute will, surely I may achieve something, when my ardent aim and
eager hope shall be to enjoy honor first, and love hereafter. For years
I have not known a moment of solitude, as your image has been my
perpetual companion, and now there is no futurity of life to either of
us, in which we shall not both be interested, for, believe me, no one
on earth was ever loved with greater depth and constancy of attachment
than yourself."
The feelings of a lifetime are sometimes concentrated in a single hour,
and so it was with Henry and Caroline, who talked of the past and of
the future with buoyant hopes and entire affection, but not yet with an
entire confidence; for it was evident that Miss Smythe, in speaking of
her own connexions and prospects, became agitated and reserved, while
she concluded the conversation abruptly, by saying,
"I shall feel proud and happy to think that the motive for all your
exertions is derived from a generous and disinterested attachment to
myself; and whether success or failure be the consequence, we shall at
last share it together, for better or for worse. All real happiness
must spring from the heart. I care neither for splendor nor
amusement--they are the mere outside crust visible to the vulgar eye;
but friendship and--and attachment, founded on religion, these are the
jewel in the casket, outweighing all else."
"Without them, none can know the greatest joys or the greatest sorrows
of this world," said Henry, with emotion. "For your sake I have now a
thousand ambitious desires that never would have occurred to me for
myself alone. If there be anything in me deserving your regard, I wish
it were ten times redoubled, and that, besides, I had fortune, talents,
estates, and friends, beyond the utmost desires of all your
connexions."
"Then," replied Caroline, with a penetrating look at Henry, but in a
careless, off-hand tone, "if we are to suppose a shower of fairy gifts
called down upon us by our own wishes, I shall, perhaps, ask to become,
for your sake, very beautiful, very fascinating, and, above all, very
rich."
"You have everything already, except the wealth," said Henry, warmly;
"and I should abhor an heiress! I would not sacrifice my independence in
life to any woman--scarcely even to you! A man's office is to confer,
not to receive."
"Men of even very large fortune seem, in these days, to feel
otherwise," observed Caroline, smiling. "They have a sort of mercantile
idea on the subject of marrying, that it would be very presumptuous in
a young lady, without sufficient capital, to expect a partnership in
their house."
"I have little, indeed, to offer, and even that little based upon a
mysterious uncertainty," replied Henry. "Yet unless I could bestow
something besides myself, and something more than I ask in return, I
never would marry. It is a mean, degrading position, for any man to be
a pensioner on his wife, when even the very gifts which his affection
might induce him to give her must be purchased with her own money. No!
dearest Caroline, we shall be contented on very little, and we might be
miserable on a great deal. Your happiness shall be my first, almost my
only consideration. Our affection will be riveted by the sacrifices we
daily make for each other, till it becomes woven into our very being;
while, come what may, we are above adversity, and equal to prosperity,
strong in mutual attachment, and in one common hope for time and for
eternity."
"May we live to realize all you say," replied Caroline, with tears
starting to her eyes, while a smile was on her cheek. "The picture is
drawn by a masterly hand. In this world the sun itself has many dark
spots, and I do not expect or hope that we shall be without our share
of difficulties and sorrows; but our happiness is rooted in a soil that
cannot fail, for we shall advance together, in social and unlimited
confidence, through the land of fleeting shadows, to the land of bright
and permanent realities, of unimaginable and unceasing enjoyment."
"How different is the happiness of the Christian from that described by
the poet," said Henry.
"My hope, that never grew to certainty,--
My youth, that perish'd in its vain desire;
My fond ambition, crush'd e'er it could be
Aught save a self-consuming, wasted fire!"