LOVE STRONG AS DEATH, AND NOT LESS BITTER.
When Godolphin returned home the door was open, as Lucilla had left
it, and he went at once into his apartment. He hastened to the table on
which he had left, with the negligence arising from the emotions of the
moment, the letter to Constance,--the paper on which Lucilla had written
her name alone met his eye. While yet stunned and amazed, his servant
and Lucilla’s entered: in a few moments he had learned all they had
to tell him; the rest Lucilla’s handwriting did indeed sufficiently
explain. He comprehended all; and, in a paroxysm of alarm and remorse,
he dispersed his servants, and hurried himself in search of her. He went
to the house of her relations; they had not seen or heard of her. It was
now night, and every obstacle in the way of his search presented itself.
Not a clue could be traced; or, sometimes following a description that
seemed to him characteristic, he chased, and found some wanderer--how
unlike Lucilla! Towards daybreak he returned home, after a vain and
weary search; and his only comfort was in learning from her attendant
that she had about her a sum of money which he knew would in Italy
always purchase safety and attention. Yet, alone, at night, in the
streets,--so utter a stranger as she was to the world,--so young and
so lovely--he shuddered, he gasped for breath at the idea. Might she
destroy herself? That hideous question forced itself upon him; he could
not exclude it: he trembled when he recalled her impassioned and keen
temper; and when, in remembering the tone and words of his letter
to Constance, he felt how desperate a pang every sentence must have
inflicted upon her. And, indeed, even his imagination could not
equal the truth, when it attempted to sound the depths of her wounded
feelings. He only returned home to sally out again. He now employed
the police, and those most active and vigilant agents that at Rome are
willing to undertake all enterprises;--he could not but feel assured of
discovering her.
Still, however, noon--evening came on, and no tidings. As he once more
returned home, in the faint hope that some intelligence might await him
there, his servant hurried eagerly out to him with a letter--it was from
Lucilla, and it was worthy of her: give it to the reader.
LUCILLA’S LETTER.
“I have read your letter to another! Are not these words sufficient to
tell you all? All? no! you never, never, never can tell how crushed and
broken my heart is. Why?--because you are a man, and because you have
never loved as I loved. Yes, Godolphin, I knew that I was not one whom
you could love. I am a poor, ignorant, untutored girl, with nothing at
my heart but a great world of love which I could never tell. Thou saidst
I could not comprehend thee: alas! how much was there--is there--in my
nature--in my feelings, which have been, and ever will be, unfathomable
to thy sight!
“But all this matters not; the tie between us is eternally broken. Go,
dear, dear Godolphin! link thyself to that happier other one--seemingly
so much more thine equal than the lowly and uncultivated Lucilla. Grieve
not for me; you have been kind, most kind, to me. You have taken away
hope, but you have given me pride in its stead;--the blow which has
crushed my heart has given strength to my mind. Were you and I left
alone on the earth, we must still be apart; I could never, never live
with you again; my world is not your world; when our hearts have ceased
to be in common, what of union is there left to us? Yet it would be
something if, since the future is shut out from me, you had not also
deprived me of the past: I have not even the privilege of looking back!
What! all the while my heart was lavishing itself upon thee--all the
while I had no other thought, no other dream but thee--all the while
I sat by thy side, and watched thee, hanging on thy wish, striving to
foresee thy thoughts--all the while I was the partner of thy days, and
at night my bosom was thy pillow, and I could not sleep from the bliss
of thinking thee so near me: thy heart was then indeed away from me: thy
thoughts estranged; I was to thee only an encumbrance--a burthen, from
which thy sigh was to be free! Can I ever look back, then, to those
hours we spent together? All that vast history of the past is but one
record of bitterness and shame. And yet I cannot blame thee; it were
something if I could: in proportion as you loved me not, you were kind
and generous; and God will bless you for that kindness to the poor
orphan. A harsh word, a threatening glance, I never had the affliction
to feel from thee. Tracing the blighted past, I am only left to sadden
at that gentleness which never came from love!
“Go, Godolphin--I repeat the prayer in all humbleness and sincerity--go
to her whom thou lovest, perhaps as I loved thee; go, and in your
happiness I shall feel at last something of happiness myself. We part
for ever, but there is no unkindness between us; there is no reproach
that one can make against the other. If I have sinned, it has been
against Heaven and not thee; and thou--why, even against Heaven mine was
all the fault--the rashness the madness! You will return to your native
land; to that proud England, of which I have so often questioned you,
and which, even in your answers, seems to me so cold and desolate a
spot,--a land so hostile to love. There, in your new ties, you will
learn new objects, and you will be too busy, and too happy, for your
thoughts to turn to me again. Too happy?--No, I wish I could think you
would be; but I whom you deny to possess sympathies with you--I have at
least penetrated so far into your heart as to fear that, come what may,
you will never find the happiness you ask. You exact too much, you dream
too fondly, not to be discontented with the truth. What has happened
to me must happen to my rival--will happen to you throughout life. Your
being is in one world, your soul is in another. Alas! how foolishly I
run on, as if seeking in your nature and not circumstances, the blow
that separates us.
“I shall hasten to a conclusion. I have gained a refuge in this convent;
seek me not, follow me not, I implore, I adjure thee; it can serve no
purpose. I would not see thee; the veil is already drawn between thy
world and me, and it only remains, in kindness and in charity, to bid
each other farewell. Farewell, then! I think I am now with thee; I think
my lips have breathed aside thy long hair, and cling to thy fair temples
with a sister’s---that word, at least, is left me--a sister’s kiss. As
we stood together, at the grey dawn, when we last parted--as then, in
sorrow and in tears, I hid my face in thy bosom--as then, unconscious
of what was to come, I poured forth my assurances of faithful unswerving
thought--as thrice thou didst tear thyself from me and didst thrice
return--and as, through the comfortless mists of morn I gazed after
thee, and fancied for hours that thy last words yet rang in my ear;
so now, but with different feelings, I once more bid thee
farewell--farewell for ever!”