smile at his own weakness, Vernon turned his looks towards the door,
waiting for Lucretia's entrance, and since her uncle's address to him,
feeling that new and indescribable interest in her appearance which is
apt to steal into every breast when what was before but an indifferent
acquaintance, is suddenly enhaloed with the light of a possible wife.
At length the door opened, and Lucretia entered. Mr. Vernon lowered his
book, and gazed with an earnestness that partook both of doubt and
admiration.
Lucretia Clavering was tall,--tall beyond what is admitted to be tall in
woman; but in her height there was nothing either awkward or masculine,--
a figure more perfect never served for model to a sculptor. The dress at
that day, unbecoming as we now deem it, was not to her--at least, on the
whole disadvantageous. The short waist gave greater sweep to her
majestic length of limb, while the classic thinness of the drapery
betrayed the exact proportion and the exquisite contour. The arms then
were worn bare almost to the shoulder, and Lucretia's arms were not more
faultless in shape than dazzling in their snowy colour; the stately neck,
the falling shoulders, the firm, slight, yet rounded bust,--all would
have charmed equally the artist and the sensualist. Fortunately, the sole
defect of her form was not apparent at a distance: that defect was in the
hand; it had not the usual faults of female youthfulness,--the
superfluity of flesh, the too rosy healthfulness of colour,--on the
contrary, it was small and thin; but it was, nevertheless, more the hand
of a man than a woman: the shape had a man's nervous distinctness, the
veins swelled like sinews, the joints of the fingers were marked and
prominent. In that hand it almost seemed as if the iron force of the
character betrayed itself. But, as we have said, this slight defect,
which few, if seen, would hypercritically notice, could not, of course,
be perceptible as she moved slowly up the room; and Vernon's eye,
glancing over the noble figure, rested upon the face. Was it handsome?
Was it repelling? Strange that in feature it had pretensions to the
highest order of beauty, and yet even that experienced connoisseur in
female charms was almost as puzzled what sentence to pronounce. The
hair, as was the fashion of the day, clustered in profuse curls over the
forehead, but could not conceal a slight line or wrinkle between the
brows; and this line, rare in women at any age, rare even in men at hers,
gave an expression at once of thought and sternness to the whole face.
The eyebrows themselves were straight, and not strongly marked, a shade
or two perhaps too light,--a fault still more apparent in the lashes; the
eyes were large, full, and though bright, astonishingly calm and deep,--
at least in ordinary moments; yet withal they wanted the charm of that
steadfast and open look which goes at once to the heart and invites its
trust,--their expression was rather vague and abstracted. She usually
looked aslant while she spoke, and this, which with some appears but
shyness, in one so self-collected had an air of falsehood. But when, at
times, if earnest, and bent rather on examining those she addressed than
guarding herself from penetration, she fixed those eyes upon you with
sudden and direct scrutiny, the gaze impressed you powerfully, and
haunted you with a strange spell. The eye itself was of a peculiar and
displeasing colour,--not blue, nor gray, nor black, nor hazel, but rather
of that cat-like green which is drowsy in the light, and vivid in the
shade. The profile was purely Greek, and so seen, Lucretia's beauty
seemed incontestable; but in front face, and still more when inclined
between the two, all the features took a sharpness that, however regular,
had something chilling and severe: the mouth was small, but the lips were
thin and pale, and had an expression of effort and contraction which
added to the distrust that her sidelong glance was calculated to inspire.
The teeth were dazzlingly white, but sharp and thin, and the eye-teeth
were much longer than the rest. The complexion was pale, but without much
delicacy,--the paleness seemed not natural to it, but rather that hue
which study and late vigils give to men; so that she wanted the freshness
and bloom of youth, and looked older than she was,--an effect confirmed
by an absence of roundness in the cheek not noticeable in the profile,
but rendering the front face somewhat harsh as well as sharp. In a word,
the face and the figure were not in harmony: the figure prevented you
from pronouncing her to be masculine; the face took from the figure the
charm of feminacy. It was the head of the young Augustus upon the form
of Agrippina. One touch more, and we close a description which already
perhaps the reader may consider frivolously minute. If you had placed
before the mouth and lower part of the face a mask or bandage, the whole
character of the upper face would have changed at once,--the eye lost its
glittering falseness, the brow its sinister contraction; you would have
pronounced the face not only beautiful, but sweet and womanly. Take that
bandage suddenly away and the change would have startled you, and
startled you the more because you could detect no sufficient defect or
disproportion in the lower part of the countenance to explain it. It was
as if the mouth was the key to the whole: the key nothing without the
text, the text uncomprehended without the key.
Such, then, was Lucretia Clavering in outward appearance at the age of
twenty,--striking to the most careless eye; interesting and perplexing
the student in that dark language never yet deciphered,--the human
countenance. The reader must have observed that the effect every face
that he remarks for the first time produces is different from the
impression it leaves upon him when habitually seen. Perhaps no two
persons differ more from each other than does the same countenance in our
earliest recollection of it from the countenance regarded in the
familiarity of repeated intercourse. And this was especially the case
with Lucretia Clavering's: the first impulse of nearly all who beheld it
was distrust that partook of fear; it almost inspired you with a sense of
danger. The judgment rose up against it; the heart set itself on its
guard. But this uneasy sentiment soon died away, with most observers, in
admiration at the chiselled outline, which, like the Grecian sculpture,
gained the more the more it was examined, in respect for the intellectual
power of the expression, and in fascinated pleasure at the charm of a
smile, rarely employed, it is true, but the more attractive both for that
reason and for its sudden effect in giving brightness and persuasion to
an aspect that needed them so much. It was literally like the abrupt
breaking out of a sunbeam; and the repellent impression of the face thus
familiarized away, the matchless form took its natural influence; so that
while one who but saw Lucretia for a moment might have pronounced her
almost plain, and certainly not prepossessing in appearance, those with
whom she lived, those whom she sought to please, those who saw her daily,
united in acknowledgment of her beauty; and if they still felt awe,
attributed it only to the force of her understanding.
As she now came midway up the room, Gabriel started from his seat and ran
to her caressingly. Lucretia bent down, and placed her hand upon his
fair locks. As she did so, he whispered,--
"Mr. Vernon has been watching for you."
"Hush! Where is your father?"
"Behind the screen, at chess with Sir Miles."
"With Sir Miles!" and Lucretia's eye fell, with the direct gaze we have
before referred to, upon the boy's face.
"I have been looking over them pretty often," said he, meaningly: "they
have talked of nothing but the game." Lucretia lifted her head, and
glanced round with her furtive eye; the boy divined the search, and with
a scarce perceptible gesture pointed her attention to Mainwaring's
retreat. Her vivid smile passed over her lips as she bowed slightly to
her lover, and then, withdrawing the hand which Gabriel had taken in his
own, she moved on, passed Vernon with a commonplace word or two, and was
soon exchanging greetings with the gay merry-makers in the farther part
of the room. A few minutes afterwards, the servants entered, the tea-
table was removed, chairs were thrust back, a single lady of a certain
age volunteered her services at the piano, and dancing began within the
ample space which the arch fenced off from the whist-players. Vernon had
watched his opportunity, and at the first sound of the piano had gained
Lucretia's side, and with grave politeness pre-engaged her hand for the
opening dance.
At that day, though it is not so very long ago, gentlemen were not
ashamed to dance, and to dance well; it was no languid saunter through a
quadrille; it was fair, deliberate, skilful dancing amongst the courtly,
--free, bounding movement amongst the gay.
Vernon, as might be expected, was the most admired performer of the
evening; but he was thinking very little of the notice he at last
excited, he was employing such ingenuity as his experience of life
supplied to the deficiencies of a very imperfect education, limited to
the little flogged into him at Eton, in deciphering the character and
getting at the heart of his fair partner.
"I wonder you do not make Sir Miles take you to London, my cousin, if you
will allow me to call you so. You ought to have been presented."
"I have no wish to go to London yet."
"Yet!" said Mr. Vernon, with the somewhat fade gallantry of his day;
"beauty even like yours has little time to spare."
"Hands across, hands across!" cried Mr. Ardworth.
"And," continued Mr. Vernon, as soon as a pause was permitted to him,
"there is a song which the prince sings, written by some sensible old-
fashioned fellow, which says,--
"'Gather your rosebuds while you may, For time is still a
flying."'
"You have obeyed the moral of the song yourself, I believe, Mr. Vernon."
"Call me cousin, or Charles,--Charley, if you like, as most of my friends
do; nobody ever calls me Mr. Vernon,--I don't know myself by that name."
"Down the middle; we are all waiting for you," shouted Ardworth.
And down the middle, with wondrous grace, glided the exquisite nankeens
of Charley Vernon.
The dance now, thanks to Ardworth, became too animated and riotous to
allow more than a few broken monosyllables till Vernon and his partner
gained the end of the set, and then, flirting his partner's fan, he
recommenced,--
"Seriously, my cousin, you must sometimes feel very much moped here."
"Never!" answered Lucretia. Not once yet had her eye rested on Mr.
Vernon. She felt that she was sounded.
"Yet I am sure you have a taste for the pomps and vanities. Aha! there
is ambition under those careless curls," said Mr. Vernon, with his easy,
adorable impertinence.
Lucretia winced.
"But if I were ambitious, what field for ambition could I find in
London?"
"The same as Alexander,--empire, my cousin."
"You forget that I am not a man. Man, indeed, may hope for an empire.
It is something to be a Pitt, or even a Warren Hastings."
Mr. Vernon stared. Was this stupidity, or what?
"A woman has an empire more undisputed than Mr. Pitt's, and more pitiless
than that of Governor Hastings."
"Oh, pardon me, Mr. Vernon--"
"Charles, if you please."
Lucretia's brow darkened.
"Pardon me," she repeated; "but these compliments, if such they are meant
to be, meet a very ungrateful return. A woman's empire over gauzes and
ribbons, over tea-tables and drums, over fops and coquettes, is not worth
a journey from Laughton to London."
"You think you can despise admiration?"
"What you mean by admiration,--yes."
"And love too?" said Vernon, in a whisper.
Now Lucretia at once and abruptly raised her eyes to her partner. Was he
aiming at her secret? Was he hinting at intentions of his own? The look
chilled Vernon, and he turned away his head.
Suddenly, then, in pursuance of a new train of ideas, Lucretia altered
her manner to him. She had detected what before she had surmised. This
sudden familiarity on his part arose from notions her uncle had
instilled,--the visitor had been incited to become the suitor. Her
penetration into character, which from childhood had been her passionate
study, told her that on that light, polished, fearless nature scorn would
have slight effect; to meet the familiarity would be the best means to
secure a friend, to disarm a wooer. She changed then her manner; she
summoned up her extraordinary craft; she accepted the intimacy held out
to her, not to unguard herself, but to lay open her opponent. It became
necessary to her to know this man, to have such power as the knowledge
might give her. Insensibly and gradually she led her companion away from
his design of approaching her own secrets or character, into frank talk
about himself. All unconsciously he began to lay bare to his listener
the infirmities of his erring, open heart. Silently she looked down, and
plumbed them all,--the frivolity, the recklessness, the half gay, half
mournful sense of waste and ruin. There, blooming amongst the wrecks,
she saw the fairest flowers of noble manhood profuse and fragrant still,
--generosity and courage and disregard for self. Spendthrift and gambler
on one side the medal; gentleman and soldier on the other. Beside this
maimed and imperfect nature she measured her own prepared and profound
intellect, and as she listened, her smile became more bland and frequent.
She could afford to be gracious; she felt superiority, scorn, and safety.
As this seeming intimacy had matured, Vernon and his partner had quitted
the dance, and were conversing apart in the recess of one of the windows,
which the newspaper readers had deserted, in the part of the room where
Sir Miles and Dalibard, still seated, were about to commence their third
game at chess. The baronet's hand ceased from the task of arranging his
pawns; his eye was upon the pair; and then, after a long and complacent
gaze, it looked round without discovering the object it sought.
"I am about to task your kindness most improperly, Monsieur Dalibard,"
said Sir Miles, with that politeness so displeasing to Ardworth, "but
will you do me the favour to move aside that fold of the screen? I wish
for a better view of our young people. Thank you very much."
Sir Miles now discovered Mainwaring, and observed that, far from
regarding with self-betraying jealousy the apparent flirtation going on
between Lucretia and her kinsman, he was engaged in animated conversation
with the chairman of the quarter sessions. Sir Miles was satisfied, and
ranged his pawns. All this time, and indeed ever since they had sat down
to play, the Provencal had been waiting, with the patience that belonged
to his character, for some observation from Sir Miles on the subject
which, his sagacity perceived, was engrossing his thoughts. There had
been about the old gentleman a fidgety restlessness which showed that
something was on his mind. His eyes had been frequently turned towards
his niece since her entrance; once or twice he had cleared his throat and
hemmed,--his usual prelude to some more important communication; and
Dalibard had heard him muttering to himself, and fancied he caught the
name of "Mainwaring." And indeed the baronet had been repeatedly on the
verge of sounding his secretary, and as often had been checked both by
pride in himself and pride for Lucretia. It seemed to him beneath his
own dignity and hers even to hint to an inferior a fear, a doubt, of the
heiress of Laughton. Olivier Dalibard could easily have led on his
patron, he could easily, if he pleased it, have dropped words to instil
suspicion and prompt question; but that was not his object,--he rather
shunned than courted any reference to himself upon the matter; for he
knew that Lucretia, if she could suppose that he, however indirectly, had
betrayed her to her uncle, would at once declare his own suit to her, and
so procure his immediate dismissal; while, aware of her powers of
dissimulation and her influence over her uncle, he feared that a single
word from her would suffice to remove all suspicion in Sir Miles, however
ingeniously implanted, and however truthfully grounded. But all the
while, under his apparent calm, his mind was busy and his passions
burning.
"Pshaw! your old play,--the bishop again," said Sir Miles, laughing, as
he moved a knight to frustrate his adversary's supposed plan; and then,
turning back, he once more contemplated the growing familiarity between
Vernon and his niece. This time he could not contain his pleasure.
"Dalibard, my dear sir," he said, rubbing his hands, "look yonder: they
would make a handsome couple!"
"Who, sir?" said the Provencal, looking another way, with dogged
stupidity.
"Who? Damn it, man! Nay, pray forgive my ill manners, but I felt glad,
sir, and proud, sir. Who? Charley Vernon and Lucretia Clavering."
"Assuredly, yes. Do you think that there is a chance of so happy an
event?"
"Why, it depends only on Lucretia; I shall never force her." Here Sir
Miles stopped, for Gabriel, unperceived before, picked up his patron's
pocket-handkerchief.
Olivier Dalibard's gray eyes rested coldly on his son. "You are not
dancing to-night, my boy. Go; I like to see you amused."
The boy obeyed at once, as he always did, the paternal commands. He
found a partner, and joined a dance just begun; and in the midst of the
dance, Honore Gabriel Varney seemed a new being,--not Ardworth himself so
thoroughly entered into the enjoyment of the exercise, the lights, the
music. With brilliant eyes and dilated nostrils, he seemed prematurely
to feel all that is exciting and voluptuous in that exhilaration which to
childhood is usually so innocent. His glances followed the fairest form;
his clasp lingered in the softest hand; his voice trembled as the warm
breath of his partner came on his cheeks.
Meanwhile the conversation between the chess-players continued.
"Yes," said the baronet, "it depends only on Lucretia. And she seems
pleased with Vernon: who would not be?"
"Your penetration rarely deceives you, sir. I own I think with you.
Does Mr. Vernon know that you would permit the alliance?"
"Yes; but--" the baronet stopped short.
"You were saying, but-- But what, Sir Miles?"
"Why, the dog affected diffidence; he had some fear lest he should not
win her affections. But luckily, at least, they are disengaged."
Dalibard looked grave, and his eye, as if involuntarily, glanced towards
Mainwaring. As ill-luck would have it, the young man had then ceased his
conversation with the chairman of the quarter sessions, and with arms
folded, brow contracted, and looks, earnest, anxious, and intent, was
contemplating the whispered conference between Lucretia and Vernon.
Sir Miles's eye had followed his secretary's, and his face changed. His
hand fell on the chess board and upset half the men; he uttered a very
audible "Zounds!"
"I think, Sir Miles," said the Provencal, rising, as if conscious that
Sir Miles wished to play no more,--"I think that if you spoke soon to
Miss Clavering as to your views with regard to Mr. Vernon, it might ripen
matters; for I have heard it said by French mothers--and our Frenchwomen
understand the female heart, sir--that a girl having no other affection
is often prepossessed at once in favour of a man whom she knows
beforehand is prepared to woo and to win her, whereas without that
knowledge he would have seemed but an ordinary acquaintance."
"It is shrewdly said, my dear Monsieur Dalibard; and for more reasons
than one, the sooner I speak to her the better. Lend me your arm. It is
time for supper; I see the dance is over."
Passing by the place where Mainwaring still leaned, the baronet looked at
him fixedly. The young man did not notice the gaze. Sir Miles touched
him gently. He started as from a revery.
"You have not danced, Mr. Mainwaring."
"I dance so seldom, Sir Miles," said Mainwaring, colouring.
"Ah! you employ your head more than your heels, young gentleman,--very
right; I must speak to you to-morrow. Well, ladies, I hope you have
enjoyed yourselves? My dear Mrs. Vesey, you and I are old friends, you
know; many a minuet we have danced together, eh? We can't dance now, but
we can walk arm-in-arm together still. Honour me. And your little
grandson--vaccinated, eh? Wonderful invention! To supper, ladies, to
supper!"
The company were gone. The lights were out,--all save the lights of
heaven; and they came bright and still through the casements. Moonbeam
and Starbeam, they seemed now to have the old house to themselves. In
came the rays, brighter and longer and bolder, like fairies that march,
rank upon rank, into their kingdom of solitude. Down the oak stairs,
from the casements, blazoned with heraldry, moved the rays, creepingly,
fearfully. On the armour in the hall clustered the rays boldly and
brightly, till the steel shone out like a mirror. In the library, long
and low, they just entered, stopped short: it was no place for their
play. In the drawing-room, now deserted, they were more curious and
adventurous. Through the large window, still open, they came in freely
and archly, as if to spy what had caused such disorder; the stiff chairs
out of place, the smooth floor despoiled of its carpet, that flower
dropped on the ground, that scarf forgotten on the table,--the rays
lingered upon them all. Up and down through the house, from the base to
the roof, roved the children of the air, and found but two spirits awake
amidst the slumber of the rest.
In that tower to the east, in the tapestry chamber with the large gilded
bed in the recess, came the rays, tamed and wan, as if scared by the
grosser light on the table. By that table sat a girl, her brow leaning
on one hand; in the other she held a rose,--it is a love-token: exchanged
with its sister rose, by stealth, in mute sign of reproach for doubt
excited,--an assurance and a reconciliation. A love-token!--shrink not,
ye rays; there is something akin to you in love. But see,--the hand
closes convulsively on the flower; it hides it not in the breast; it
lifts it not to the lip: it throws it passionately aside. "How long!"
muttered the girl, impetuously,--"how long! And to think that will here
cannot shorten an hour!" Then she rose, and walked to and fro, and each
time she gained a certain niche in the chamber she paused, and then
irresolutely passed on again. What is in that niche? Only books. What
can books teach thee, pale girl? The step treads firmer; this time it
halts more resolved. The hand that clasped the flower takes down a
volume. The girl sits again before the light. See, O rays! what is the
volume? Moon and Starbeam, ye love what lovers read by the lamp in the
loneliness. No love-ditty this; no yet holier lesson to patience, and
moral to hope. What hast thou, young girl, strong in health and rich in
years, with the lore of the leech,--with prognostics and symptoms and
diseases? She is tracing with hard eyes the signs that precede the grim
enemy in his most sudden approach,--the habits that invite him, the
warnings that he gives. He whose wealth shall make her free has twice
had the visiting shock; he starves not, he lives frae! She closes the
volume, and, musing, metes him out the hours and days he has to live.
Shrink back, ye rays! The love is disenhallowed; while the hand was on
the rose, the thought was on the charnel.
Yonder, in the opposite tower, in the small casement near the roof, came
the rays. Childhood is asleep. Moon and Starbeam, ye love the slumbers
of the child! The door opens, a dark figure steals noiselessly in. The
father comes to look on the sleep of his son. Holy tenderness, if this
be all! "Gabriel, wake!" said a low, stern voice, and a rough hand shook
the sleeper.
The sharpest test of those nerves upon which depends the mere animal
courage is to be roused suddenly, in the depth of night, by a violent
hand. The impulse of Gabriel, thus startled, was neither of timidity nor
surprise. It was that of some Spartan boy not new to danger; with a
slight cry and a fierce spring, the son's hand clutched at the father's
throat. Dalibard shook him off with an effort, and a smile, half in
approval, half in irony, played by the moonlight over his lips.
"Blood will out, young tiger," said he. "Hush, and hear me!"
"Is it you, Father?" said Gabriel. "I thought, I dreamed--"