If Glenarvon’s letters had given joy to Calantha in more prosperous
and happier days, when surrounded by friends, what must they have
appeared to her now, when bereft of all? They were as the light
of Heaven to one immersed in darkness: they were as health to the
wretch who has pined in sickness: they were as riches to the poor,
and joy to the suffering heart. What then must have been her feelings
when they suddenly and entirely ceased! At first, she thought the
wind was contrary, and the mails irregular. Of one thing she felt
secure—Glenarvon could not mean to deceive her. His last letter,
too, was kinder than any other; and the words with which he concluded
it were such as to inspire her with confidence. “If, by any chance,
however improbable,” he said, “my letters fail to reach you, impute
the delay to any cause whatever: but do me enough justice not for one
moment to doubt of me. I will comply with every request of yours; and
from you I require in return nothing but remembrance—the remembrance
of one who has forgotten himself, the world, fame, hope, ambition—all
here, and all hereafter, but you.”
Every one perhaps has felt the tortures of suspense: every one knows
its lengthened pangs: it is not necessary here to paint them. Weeks
now passed, instead of days, and still not one line, one word from
Glenarvon. Then it was that Lady Avondale thus addressed him:
“It is in vain, my dearest friend, that I attempt to deceive myself.
It is now two weeks since I have watched, with incessant anxiety,
for one of those dear, those kind letters, which had power to still
the voice of conscience, and to make one, even as unworthy as I am,
comparatively blest. You accused me of coldness; yet I have written
since, I fear, with only too much warmth. Alas! I have forgotten all
the modesty and dignity due to my sex and situation, to implore for
one line, one little line, which might inform me you were well, and
not offended. Lord Avondale’s return, I told you, had been delayed.
His absence, his indifference, are now my only comfort in life. Were
it otherwise, how could I support the unmeasured guilt I have heaped
upon my soul? The friends of my youth are estranged by my repeated
errors and long neglect. I am as lonely, as miserable in your absence
as you can wish.
“Glenarvon, I do not reproach you: I never will. But your sudden, your
unexpected silence, has given me more anguish than I can express. I
will not doubt you: I will follow your last injunctions, and believe
every thing sooner than that you will thus abandon me. If that time
is indeed arrived—and I know how frail a possession guilty love must
ever be—how much it is weakened by security—how much it is cooled
by absence: do not give yourself the pain of deceiving me: there
is no use in deceit. Say with kindness that another has gained your
affections; but let them never incline you to treat me with cruelty.
Oh, fear not, Glenarvon, that I shall intrude, or reproach you. I
shall bear every affliction, if you but soften the pang to me by one
soothing word.
“Now, possibly, when you receive this, you will laugh at me for my
fears: you will say I but echo back those which you indulged. But so
sudden is the silence, so long the period of torturing suspense, that
I must tremble till I receive one line from your dearest hand—one line
to say that you are not offended with me. Remember that you are all
on earth to me; and if I lose that for which I have paid so terrible
a price, what then will be my fate!
“I dread that you should have involved yourself seriously. Alas! I
dread for you a thousand things that I dare not say. My friend, we
have been very wicked. It is myself alone I blame. On me, on me be
the crime; but if my life could save you, how gladly would I give
it up! Oh, cannot we yet repent! Act well, Glenarvon: be not in love
with crime: indeed, indeed, I tremble for you. It is not inconstancy
that I fear. Whatever your errors may be, whatever fate be mine, my
heart cannot be severed from you. I shall, as you have often said,
never cease to love; but, were I to see your ruin, ah, believe me,
it would grieve me more than my own. I am nothing, a mere cypher:
you might be all that is great and superior. Act rightly, then, my
friend; and hear this counsel, though it comes from one as fallen as
I am. Think not that I wish to repine, or that I lament the past. You
have rendered me happy: it is not you that I accuse. But, now that
you are gone, I look with horror upon my situation; and my crimes by
night and by day appear unvarnished before me.
“I am frightened, Glenarvon: we have dared too much. I have followed
you into a dark abyss; and now that you, my guide, my protector, have
left my side, my former weakness returns, and all that one smile
of yours could make me forget, oppresses and confounds me. The eye
of God has marked me, and I sink at once. You will abandon me: that
thought comprises all things in it. Therein lies the punishment of
my crime; and God, they say, is just. The portrait which you have
left with me has a stern look. Some have said that the likeness of a
friend is preferable to himself, for that it ever smiles upon us; but
with me it is the reverse. I never saw Glenarvon’s eyes gaze coldly
on me till now. Farewell.
“Ever with respect and love,
“Your grateful, but unhappy friend,
“CALANTHA.”
Lady Avondale was more calm when she had thus written. The next
morning a letter was placed in her hand. Her heart beat high. It was
from Mortanville Priory:—but it was from Lady Trelawney, in answer
to one she had sent her, and not from Glenarvon.
“Dearest cousin,” said Lady Trelawney, “I have not had time to
write to you one word before. Of all the places I ever was at, this
is the most perfectly delightful. Had I a spice in me of romance, I
would attempt to describe it; but, in truth, I cannot. Tell Sophia
we expect her for certain next week; and, if you wish to be diverted
from all black thoughts, join our party. I received your gloomy
letter after dinner. I was sitting on a couch by ——, shall I tell
you by whom?—by Lord Glenarvon himself. At the moment in which it
was delivered, for the post comes in here at nine in the evening, he
smiled a little as he recognized the hand; and, when I told him you
were ill, that smile became an incredulous laugh; for he knows well
enough people are never so ill as they say. Witness himself: he is
wonderfully recovered: indeed, he is grown perfectly delightful. I
thought him uncommonly stupid all this summer, which I attribute now
to you; for you encouraged him in his whims and woes. Here, at least,
he is all life and good humour. Lady Augusta says he is not the same
man; but sentiment, she affirms, undermines any constitution; and
you are rather too much in that style.
“After all, my dear cousin, it is silly to make yourself unhappy about
any man. I dare say you thought Lord Glenarvon very amiable: so do
I:—and you fancied he was in love with you, as they call it; and I
could fancy the same: and there is one here, I am sure, may fancy it as
well as any of us: but it is so absurd to take these things seriously.
It is his manner; and he owns himself that a _grande passion_ bores
him to death; and that if you will but leave him alone, he finds a
little absence has entirely restored his senses.
“By the bye, did you give him ... but that is a secret. Only I much
suspect that he has made over all that you have given him to another.
Do the same by him, therefore; and have enough pride to shew him that
you are not so weak and so much in his power as he imagines. I shall
be quite provoked if you write any more to him. He shews all your
letters: I tell you this as a friend: only, now, pray do not get me
into a scrape, or repeat it.
“Do tell me when Lord Avondale returns. They say there has been a real
rising in the north: but Trelawney thinks people make a great deal
of nothing at all: he says, for his part, he believes it is all talk
and nonsense. We are going to London, where I hope you will meet us.
Good bye to you, dear coz. Write merrily, and as you used. My motto,
you know, is, laugh whilst you can, and be grave when you must. I
have written a long letter to my mother and Sophia; but do not ask
to see it. Indeed, I would tell you all, if I were not afraid you’d
be so foolish as to vex yourself about what cannot be helped.”
Lady Avondale did vex herself; and this letter from Frances made her
mad. The punishment of crime was then at hand:—Glenarvon had betrayed,
had abandoned her. Yet was it possible, or was it not the malice of
Frances who wished to vex her? Calantha could not believe him false.
He had not been to her as a common lover:—he was true: she felt
assured he was; yet her agitation was very great. Perhaps he had been
misled, and he feared to tell her. Could she be offended, because he
had been weak? Oh, no! he knew she could not: he would never betray
her secrets; he would never abandon her, because a newer favourite
employed his momentary thoughts. She felt secure he would not, and
she was calm.
Lady Avondale walked to Belfont. She called upon many of her former
friends; but they received her coldly. She returned to the castle;
but every eye that met her’s appeared to view her with new marks of
disapprobation. Guilt, when bereft of support, is ever reprobated; but
see it decked in splendour and success, and where are they who shrink
from its approach? Calantha’s name was the theme of just censure,
but in Glenarvon’s presence, who had discovered that she was thus
worthless and degraded? And did they think she did not feel their
meanness. The proud heart is the first to sink before contempt—it
feels the wound more keenly than any other can.
O, there is nothing in language that can express the deep humiliation
of being received with coldness, when kindness is expected—of seeing
the look, but half concealed, of strong disapprobation from such
as we have cause to feel beneath us, not alone in vigour of mind
and spirit, but even in virtue and truth. The weak, the base, the
hypocrite, are the first to turn with indignation from their fellow
mortals in disgrace; and, whilst the really chaste and pure suspect
with caution, and censure with mildness, these traffickers in petty
sins, who plume themselves upon their immaculate conduct, sound the
alarum bell at the approach of guilt, and clamour their anathemas
upon their unwary and cowering prey.
For once they felt justly; and in this instance their conduct was
received without resentment. There was a darker shade on the brow,
an assumed distance of manner, a certain studied civility, which
seemed to say, that, by favour, Lady Avondale was excused much; that
the laws of society would still admit her; that her youth, her rank
and high connexions, were considerations which everted from her that
stigmatising brand, her inexcusable behaviour otherwise had drawn
down: but still the mark was set upon her, and she felt its bitterness
the more, because she knew how much it had been deserved.
Yet of what avail were the reproving looks of friends, the bitter
taunts of companions, whom long habit had rendered familiar, the
ill-timed menaces and rough reproaches of some, and the innuendoes and
scornful jests of others? They only tended to harden a mind rendered
fierce by strong passion, and strengthen the natural violence of a
character which had set all opposition at defiance, and staked every
thing upon one throw—which had been unused to refuse itself the
smallest gratification, and knew not how to endure the first trial to
which it ever had been exposed. Kindness had been the only remaining
hope; and kindness, such as the human heart can scarce believe in,
was shewn in vain. Yet the words which are so spoken seldom fail to
sooth. Even when on the verge of ruin, the devoted wretch will turn
and listen to the accents which pity and benevolence vouchsafe to
utter; and though they may come too late, her last looks and words
may bless the hand that was thus stretched out to save her.
It was with such looks of grateful affection that Lady Avondale turned
to Mrs. Seymour, when she marked the haughty frowns of Lady Margaret,
and the cold repulsive glance with which many others received her. Yet
still she lived upon the morrow; and, with an anguish that destroyed
her, watched, vainly watched, for every returning post. Daily she
walked to that accustomed spot—that dear, that well-known spot, where
often and often she had seen and heard the man who then would have
given his very existence to please; and the remembrance of his love,
of his promises, in some measure re-assured her.
One evening, as she wandered there, she met St. Clara, who passed her
in haste, whilst a smile of exulting triumph lighted her countenance.
Lady Avondale sighed, and seated herself upon the fragment of a rock;
but took no other notice of her. There was a blaze of glorious light
diffused over the calm scene, and the gloomy battlements of Belfont
Priory yet shone with the departing ray. When Calantha arose to
depart, she turned from the golden light which illuminated the west,
and gazed in agony upon the spot where it was her custom to meet her
lover. The vessels passed to and fro upon the dark blue sea; the
sailors cheerfully followed their nightly work; and the peasants,
returning from the mountains with their flocks, sung cheerfully as
they approached their homes. Calantha had no home to return to; no
approving eye to bid her welcome: her heart was desolate. She met
with an aged man, whose white locks flowed, and whose air was that
of deep distress. He looked upon her. He asked charity of her as he
passed: he said that he was friendless, and alone in the world. His
name she asked: he replied, “Camioli.” “If gold can give you peace,
take this,” she said. He blessed her: he called her all goodness—all
loveliness; and he prayed for her to his God. “Oh, God of mercy!” said
Calantha, “hear the prayer of the petitioner: grant me the blessing
he has asked for me. I never more can pray. He little knows the pang
he gave. He calls me good: alas! that name and Calantha’s are parted
for ever.”
Poor wretch! who hast nothing to hope for in life,
But the mercy of hearts long success has made hard.
No parent hast thou, no fond children, no wife,
Thine age from distress and misfortune to guard.
Yet the trifle I gave, little worth thy possessing,
Has call’d forth in thee, what I cannot repay:
Thou hast ask’d of thy God for his favour and blessing;
Thou hast pray’d for the sinner, who never must pray.
Old man, if those locks, which are silver’d by time,
Have ne’er been dishonor’d by guilt or excess;
If when tempted to wrong, thou hast fled from the crime;
By passion unmov’d, unappall’d by distress:
If through life thou hast follow’d the course that is fair,
And much hast perform’d, though of little possess’d;
Then the God of thy fathers shall favour the prayer,
And a blessing be sent to a heart now unblest.