Constance on the Lake.
Dearest Kitty,--With what rapture do I once more throw myself into the
arms of your affection! How devotedly do I seek the sanctuary of my
dearest Kitty's heart! It is all over, my sweet friend,--all over! I
see you start,--your cheek is bloodless, and your lips tremble,--but
reassure yourself, Kitty, and hear me. If there be anything against
which I am weak and powerless,--if there be aught in life to oppose
which I have neither strength nor energy,--it is the reproach of one I
love! Already do I stand accused before you, even now have you arraigned
me, and my condemnation is trembling on your lips. Avow it,--own it,
dear girl. Your heart, at least, has said the words of my sentence: "All
over! so then Mary Anne has jilted him,--changed her mind in the last
hour,--trifled with his affections, and made a sport of his feelings."
Yes, such is the charge against me; and, trembling as I stand before
you, I syllable the word "Guilty." "Guilty, but with extenuating
circumstances." Be calm then, be patient; and, above all, be merciful,
while I plead before you.
I deny nothing, I evade nothing. I cannot even pretend that my altered
feelings originated in any long process of reason or reflection. I will
not affect to say that I struggled against conflicting doubts, and only
yielded when powerless to resist them. No, dearest, I am above every
such shallow artifice; and I own that it was on the very morning your
letter arrived--at the moment when my hot tears were falling over the
characters traced by your hand--as, enraptured, I kissed the lines that
breathed your love--then there suddenly broke upon me a light illumining
the dark horizon around me. Space became peopled with forms and images,
voices and warnings floated around and above me, and as I read your
words--"If, then, your whole heart be his"--I trembled, Kitty, my eyes
grew dim, my bosom heaved in agony, and, in my heart-wrung misery, I
cried aloud, "Oh, save me from this perfidy,--save me from myself!"
Save that the letter which my fingers grasped convulsively was the
offspring of friendship and not of love betrayed, the scene was
precisely like that which closes the second act of the "Lucia di
Lammermoor." Mamma, the Baron, James, even to the priest, all were
there; and, like Lucia, dressed in my bridal robe, the orange-flowers
in my hair, and such a love of a Brussels veil fastened mantilla-wise to
the back of the head, I stood pale, trembling, and conscience-stricken!
the awful words of your question ringing in my ears, like the voice of
an angel come to call me to judgment, "'If your whole heart be his!' But
it is not," cried I, aloud,--"it is not, it never can be!" I know not in
what wild rhapsody my emotions found utterance. I have no memory of that
gushing cataract in which overwrought feelings found their channel.
I spoke in that rapt enthusiasm in which, as we are told, the ancient
priestesses delivered their dream-revealings, for I, too, was as one
inspired, as agony alone can inspire. Of myself I know nothing, but I
have since heard that the scene was harrowing to a degree that no words
can convey. The Baron, mounted on his fastest courser, fled into the
woods; James, spirited on by some imagined sense of injury, thirsting
for a vengeance on he knew not what or whom, pursued him; mamma was
seized with frantic screaming; and even papa himself, whose lethargic
humor stands him like an armor of proof,--even he swore and imprecated
in a manner that called forth a most impressive rebuke from the
chaplain.
[Illustration: 541]
The scene changes,--we are away! The castle and its deep woods grow
dim behind us; the wild mountains of the Schwartz Wald rise before and
around us. The dark pines wave their stately tops, the wood-pigeon cries
his plaintive note; rocky glen and rugged precipice, foaming waterfalls
and wooded slopes, pass swiftly by, and on we hasten,--on and on; but,
with all our speed, dark, brood-ing care can still outstrip us, and
sorrow follows faster than the wind.
We arrived at Constance by midnight, when I soon betook me to bed, and
cried myself to sleep. Sweet--sweet tears were they, flowing like the
crystal drops from the margin of an overcharged fountain; for such was
the heart of your afflicted Mary Anne.
It is not by any casuistry about the injustice I should have done, had
I bestowed a moiety where I had promised a whole heart. It is not by any
pretence that I felt this to be an unworthy artifice, that I now appeal
to your merciful consideration. It is simply as one suddenly awakened
to the terrible conviction that she cannot be loved as she is capable
of loving; or, in other words, that she despairs of ever inspiring that
passion which alone could requite her for the agony of love. Oh, Kitty,
it is an agony, and such a one as no torture of human wickedness ever
equalled. May you never feel it in that intensity of suffering which is
alike its ecstasy and its woe!
Do not reproach me, Kitty; my heart has already done so,
bitterly,--terribly! Again and again have I asked myself, "Who and what
are you, that dare to reject rank, wealth, station, glorious lineage,
and a noble name? If these and the most devoted love cannot move
you, what are the ambitions that rise before you?" Over and over do
I interrogate myself thus, and yet the only reply is, a heart-heaved
sigh,--the spirit-wrung voice of inward suffering! You, dearest, who
know your friend, will not accuse her of exaggerated or overwrought
vanity. None so well as you are aware that these are not my
characteristic failings.
An excess of humility may depreciate me, even to the lowliest condition
of humble fortune; and if happiness be but there, I will not deem the
choice a mean one! You will judge of the sincerity of my words, when I
tell you that I have just been unpacking all my things, and putting them
away in drawers and wardrobes; and oh, Kitty, if you could but see them!
Papa was really splendid, and allowed me to order everything I could
fancy. Of course his generosity fettered rather than stimulated my
extravagance, so that I merely took the absolute _nécessaire_. Of these
I may mention two cashmeres and three Brussels scarfs, one a perfect
love; twelve morning, eighteen evening dresses, of which one for
the altar is covered with Valenciennes, looped up with pearls and
brilliants*, the corsage ornamented down the front with a bouquet of
the same stones, arranged to represent lilies of the valley, with
dewdrops,--a pretty device, and quite simple, to suit the occasion.
The presentation robe is actually magnificent, and only needs a diamond
_parure_ to be queenly. How I dote, too, on these dear little bonnets!
I never weary of trying them on; they sit so coquettishly on the back of
the bead, and make one look sly and modest, and gentle and saucy, all
at once! In this walk of art the French are incomparably above us. Dress
with them observes all the harmony of color and the keeping of a great
picture. No lilac bonnets and blue shawls,--no scarlets and pinks
alternately killing and marring each other,--none of that false heraldry
of costume by which your Englishwoman displays her vulgar wealth and
ill-assorted finery. All is graceful, well toned, and harmonious. Your
_mise_ is, so to say, the declaration of your sentiments, just as the
signal of a man-of-war proclaims her intention; and how ingenious to
think that your stately cashmere suggests homage, your ermined mantle
watchful devotion, your muslin peignoir confidence and intimate
intercourse.
Now, your "English" must _look_ all these to be intelligible, and
constantly converts herself into a great staring, ogling, leering
machine, very shocking to contemplate.
I need scarcely remark to you, dearest, that the step I have just taken
has made my position in the family like that of the young lady who
refused Louis Napoleon before Europe. Our situations, if you come to
consider them, are wonderfully alike; and there are extraordinary points
of resemblance between the gentlemen, to which I cannot at present more
fully allude. The ungenerous observations and slighting allusions to
which I am exposed would actually wring your heart. Even James remarked
that the whole affair reminded him of Joe Hudson, who, after accepting
an Indian appointment, refused to sail when he had obtained the outfit.
"Mary Anne only wanted the kit," was the vulgar impertinence by which
he closed this piece of flattery; and this was in allusion to the
_trousseau!_ Men are so shallow, so meanly minded, Kitty, and, above
all, so ungenerous in the measure of our motives. They really think that
we value dress for itself, and not as a means to an end,--that end being
their own subjection! Mamma, I must say, is truly kind; she regrets,
naturally enough you will think, the loss of a great alliance. She had
pictured to herself the quartering of the M'Carthys with the house of
W------, and ranged in imagination over various remote but ambitious
contingencies; but, with true maternal affection, she has effaced all
these memories from her heart, only to think of me and of my emotions. I
have also been able to supply her with a consolation, no less great than
unexpected, in this wise: papa, from one cause or other, had been of
late seriously meditating a return to Ireland; I shame to say, Kitty,
that he never valued, never understood the Continent; its habits, its
ways, and its wines, all disagreed with him; financial reasons, too,
influenced him; for somehow, up to this, we have been forced to overlook
the claims of economy, and only regard those which refer to the station
we are to maintain in society. Now, from all these causes, he had
brought himself to think the only safety lay in a speedy retreat! Mamma
had ascertained this beyond a doubt by some passages in Mr. Purcell's
letters to papa; how obtained I know not. From these she gathered that
at any moment he was capable of abandoning the campaign, and embarking
the whole army! The misery such a course would entail upon us I have no
need to enlarge upon; nor could I, if I tried, find words to depict the
condition of suffering that would be ours if again domesticated in that
dreadful island. Forgive me, dearest, if I wound one susceptibility of
your tender heart,--I would not ruffle even a rose-leaf of your gentle
nature; but I cannot refrain from saying that Ireland is very dreadful!
Philosophers affect to tell us, Kitty, that from the chemical properties
of meteoric stones we can predicate the nature of the planets from which
they have fallen, and the most ingenious theories as to the structure,
size, and conformation of their bodies are built upon such slender
materials. Now, would it be too wide a stretch of ingenuity to apply
this theory to home affairs, and argue, from the specimen one sees of
the dear country, what must be the land that has reared them? And oh,
Kitty, if so, what a sentence we should be condemned to pass!
But to the consolation of which I spoke, and which in this diversion I
was nigh forgetting. Papa, as I mentioned, was bent on going home;
and now these costly preparations of wedding finery offer the means of
opposing him, for of what use could they possibly be at Dodsborough,
Kitty? To what end that enormous outlay, if brought back to the regions
of Bruff? Here is an expensive armament,--all the _matériel_ of a
campaign provided; who would counsel the consigning it to rust and
decay? who would advise giving over to moths what might be made the
adornment of some brilliant capital? Whether we consider the question
morally, financially, or strategically, we arrive at the same
conclusion. Such a display as this, if exhibited at home, would
revolutionize the whole neighborhood, disgust them with home-grown gowns
and bonnets, and lead to irrepressible extravagance, debt, and ruin. So
far for moral considerations. Financially, the cost is incurred, and it
only remains to make the outlay profitable; this, it is needless to say,
cannot be done at Dodsborough. And now for the strategy, the tactical
part, Kitty. We all know that whenever a marriage is broken off, scandal
seizes the occasion for any reports she likes to circulate, and the
good-natured world always agrees in condemning "the lady." If her
character or conduct be unimpeachable, then they make searches as to
her temper. She was a termagant that ruled her whole family, scolded her
sisters, bullied her brothers, and was the terror of everyone. If this
indictment cannot be sustained, they find a flaw in her fortune; her
twenty thousand was "only ten;" ten, Irish currency; perhaps on an Irish
mortgage of an Irish property, mayhap charged with Heaven knows what of
annuities to Irish relations! Now, Kitty, it is essential to avoid every
one of these evil imputations, and I have supplied mamma with so good
a brief in the cause, so carefully drawn up, and so well argued, that
I don't think papa will let the case go to a jury, or, in other words,
that he will give in his submission at once. I have much more to tell
you, and will write again to-morrow.
Ever yours in affection,
Mary Anne Dodd.