CONVERSATION BETWEEN LADY ERPINGHAM AND CONSTANCE.--FURTHER PARTICULARS
OF GODOLPHIN’S FAMILY, ETC.
Lady Erpingham was a widow; her jointure, for she had been an heiress
and a duke’s daughter, was large; and the noblest mansion of all the
various seats possessed by the wealthy and powerful house of Erpingham
had been allotted by her late lord for her widowed residence. Thither
she went punctually on the first of every August, and quitted it
punctually on the eighth of every January.
It was some years after the date of Godolphin’s departure from England,
and the summer following the spring in which Constance had been “brought
out;” and, after a debut of such splendour that at this day (many years
subsequent to that period) the sensation she created is not only a
matter of remembrance but of conversation, Constance, despite the
triumph of her vanity, was not displeased to seek some refuge, even from
admiration, among the shades of Wendover Castle.
“When,” said she one morning, as she was walking with Lady Erpingham
upon a terrace beneath the windows of the castle, which overlooked the
country for miles,--“when will you go with me, dear Lady Erpingham, to
see those ruins of which I have heard so much and so often, and which I
have never been able to persuade you to visit? Look! the day is so
clear that we can see their outline now--there, to the right of that
church!--they cannot be so very far from Wendover.”
“Godolphin Priory is about twelve miles off,” said Lady Erpingham;
“but it may seem nearer, for it is situated on the highest spot of
the county. Poor Arthur Godolphin! he is lately dead!” Lady Erpingham
sighed.
“I never heard you speak of him before.”
“There might be a reason for my silence, Constance. He was the person,
of all whom I ever saw, who appeared to me when I was at your age, the
most fascinating. Not, Constance, that I was in love with him, or that
he gave me any reason to become so through gratitude for any affection
on his part. It was a girl’s fancy, idle and short-lived--nothing more!”
“And the young Godolphin--the boy who, at so early an age, has made
himself known for his eccentric life abroad?”
“Is his son; the present owner of those ruins, and, I fear, of little
more, unless it be the remains of a legacy received from a relation.”
“Was the father extravagant, then?”
“Not he! But his father had exceeded a patrimony greatly involved,
and greatly reduced from its ancient importance. All the lands we see
yonder---those villages, those woods--once belonged to the Godolphins.
They were the most ancient and the most powerful family in this part of
England; but the estates dwindled away with each successive generation,
and when Arthur Godolphin, my Godolphin, succeeded to the property,
nothing was left for him but the choice of three evils--a profession,
obscurity, or a wealthy marriage. My father, who had long destined me
for Lord Erpingham, insinuated that it was in me that Mr. Godolphin
wished to find the resource I have last mentioned, and that in such
resource was my only attraction in his eyes. I have some reason to
believe he proposed to the Duke; but he was silent to me, from whom,
girl as I was, he might have been less certain of refusal.”
“What did he at last?”
“Married a lady who was supposed to be an heiress; but he had scarcely
enjoyed her fortune a year before it became the subject of a lawsuit.
He lost the cause and the dowry; and, what was worse, the expenses of
litigation, and the sums he was obliged to refund, reduced him to what,
for a man of his rank, might be considered absolute poverty. He was
thoroughly chagrined and soured by this event; retired to those ruins,
or rather to the small cottage that adjoins them, and there lived to
the day of his death, shunning society, and certainly not exceeding his
income.”
“I understand you: he became parsimonious.”
“To the excess which his neighbours called miserly.”
“And his wife?”
“Poor woman! she was a mere fine lady, and died, I believe, of the same
vexation which nipped, not the life, but the heart of her husband.”
“Had they only one son?”
“Only the present owner: Percy, I think--yes, Percy; it was his mother’s
surname--Percy Godolphin.”
“And how came this poor boy to be thrown so early on the world? Did he
quarrel with Mr. Godolphin?”
“I believe not: but when Percy was about sixteen, he left the obscure
school at which he was educated, and resided for some little time with
a relation, Augustus Saville. He stayed with him in London for about a
year, and went everywhere with him, though so mere a boy. His manners
were, I well remember, assured and formed. A relation left him some
moderate legacy, and afterwards he went abroad alone.”
“But the ruins! The late Mr. Godolphin, notwithstanding his reserve, did
not object to indulging the curiosity of his neighbours.”
“No: he was proud of the interest the ruins of his hereditary mansion
so generally excited,--proud of their celebrity in print-shops and in
tours; but he himself was never seen. The cottage in which he lived,
though it adjoins the ruins, was, of course, sacred from intrusion,
and is so walled in, that that great delight of English visitors at
show-places--peeping in at windows--was utterly forbidden. However that
be, during Mr. Godolphin’s life, I never had courage to visit what, to
me, would have been a melancholy scene now, the pain would be somewhat
less; and since you wish it, suppose we drive over and visit the ruins
to-morrow? It is the regular day for seeing them, by the by.”
“Not, dear Lady Erpingham, if it give you the least--”
“My sweet girl,” interrupted Lady Erpingham, when a servant approached
to announce visitors at the castle.
“Will you go into the saloon, Constance?” said the elder lady, as,
thinking still of love and Arthur Godolphin, she took her way to her
dressing-room to renovate her rouge.
It would have been a pretty amusement to one of the lesser devils, if,
during the early romance of Lady Erpingham’s feelings towards Arthur
Godolphin, he had foretold her the hour when she would tell how Arthur
Godolphin died a miser--just five minutes before she repaired to the
toilette to decorate the cheek of age for the heedless eyes of a common
acquaintance. ‘Tis the world’s way! For my part, I would undertake to
find a better world in that rookery opposite my windows.