LUCILLA’S FLIGHT.--THE PERPLEXITY OF LADY ERPINGHAM.--A CHANGE COMES
OVER GODOLPHIN’S MIND.--HIS CONVERSATION WITH RADCLYFFE.--GENERAL
ELECTION.--GODOLPHIN BECOMES A SENATOR.
No human heart ever beat with more pure and generous emotions, when
freed from the political fever that burned within her (withering, for
the moment, the chastened and wholesome impulses of her nature), than
those which animated the heart of the queenly Constance. She sent that
evening for the most celebrated physician in London--that polished and
courtly man who seems born for the maladies of the drawing-room, but
who beneath so urbane a demeanour, conceals so accurate and profound a
knowledge of the disorders of his unfortunate race. I say accurate and
profound comparatively, for positive knowledge of pathology is what no
physician in modern times and civilized countries really possesses. No
man cures us--the highest art is not to kill! Constance, then, sent for
this physician, and, as delicately as possible, related the unfortunate
state of Lucilla, and the deep anxiety she felt for her mental and
bodily relief. The physician promised to call the next day; he did
so, late in the afternoon--Lucilla was gone. Strange, self-willed,
mysterious, she came like a dream, to warn, to terrify, and to depart.
They knew not whither she had fled, and her Moorish handmaid alone
attended her.
Constance was deeply chagrined at this intelligence; for she had already
begun to build castles in the air, which poor Lucilla, with a frame
restored, and a heart at ease, and nothing left of the past but a soft
and holy penitence, should inhabit. The countess, however, consoled
herself with the hope that Lucilla would at least write to her, and
mention her new place of residence; but days passed and no letter came.
Constance felt that her benevolent intentions were doomed to be
unfulfilled. She was now greatly perplexed whether or not to relate to
Godolphin the interview that had taken place between her and Lucilla.
She knew the deep, morbid, and painful interest which the memory of this
wild and visionary creature created in Godolphin; and she trembled at
the feeling she might re-awaken by even a faint picture of the condition
and mental infirmities of her whose life he had so darkly shadowed. She
resolved, therefore, at all events for the present, and until every hope
of discovering Lucilla once more had expired, to conceal the meeting
that had occurred. And in this resolve she was strengthened by
perceiving that Godolphin’s mind had become gradually calmed from its
late excitement, and that he had begun to consider, or at least appeared
to consider the apparition of Lucilla at his window, as the mere
delusion of a heated imagination. His nights grew once more tranquil,
and freed from the dark dreams that had tormented his brain; and even
the cool and unimaginative Constance could scarcely divest herself of
the wild fancy that, when Lucilla was near, a secret and preternatural
sympathy between Godolphin and the reader of the stars had produced
that influence over his nightly dreams which paled, and receded, and
vanished, as Lucilla departed from the actual circle in which he lived.
It was at this time, too, that a change was perceptible in Godolphin’s
habits, and crept gradually over the character of his thoughts.
Dissipation ceased to allure him, the light wit of his parasites palled
upon his ear; magnificence had lost its gloss, and the same fastidious,
exacting thirst for the ideal which had disappointed him in the better
objects of life, began now to discontent him with its glittering
pleasures.
The change was natural and the causes not difficult to fathom. The fact
was, that Godolphin had now arrived at that period of existence when a
man’s character is almost invariably subject to great change; the crisis
in life’s fever, when there is a new turn in our fate, and our moral
death or regeneration is sealed by the silent wavering, or the solemn
decision of the Hour. Arrived at the confines of middle age, there is
an outward innovation in the whole system; unlooked-for symptoms break
forth in the bodily, unlooked-for symptoms in the mental, frame.
It happened to Godolphin that, at this critical period, a chance, a
circumstance, a straw, had reunited his long interrupted, but never
stifled affections to the image of his beautiful Constance. The reign
of passion, the magic of those sweet illusions, that ineffable yearning
which possession mocks, although it quells at last, were indeed for ever
over; but a friendship more soft and genial than exists in any relation,
save that of husband and wife, had sprung up, almost as by a miracle (so
sudden was it), between breasts for years divided. And the experience
of those years had taught Godolphin how frail and unsubstantial had been
all the other ties he had formed. He wondered, as sitting alone with
Constance, her tenderness recalled the past, her wit enlivened the
present, and his imagination still shed a glory and a loveliness over
the future, that he had been so long insensible to the blessing of that
communion which he now experienced. He did not perceive what in fact
was the case--that the tastes and sympathies of each, blunted by that
disappointment which is the child of experience, were more willing
to concede somewhat to the tastes and sympathies of the other; that
Constance gave a more indulgent listening to his beautiful refinements
of an ideal and false epicurism; that he, smiling still, smiled with
kindness, not with scorn, at the sanguine politics, the worldly schemes,
and the rankling memories of the intriguing Constance. Fortunately,
too, for her, the times were such, that men who never before dreamed of
political interference were roused and urged into the mighty conflux
of battling interests, which left few moderate and none neuter. Every
coterie resounded with political war-cries; every dinner rang; from soup
to the coffee, with the merits of the bill; wherever Godolphin turned
for refuge, Reform still assailed him; and by degrees the universal
feeling, that was at first ridiculed, was at last, although reluctantly,
admitted by his mind.
“Why,” said he, one day, musingly, to Radclyffe, whom he met in the old
Green Park,--(for since the conversation recorded between Radclyffe and
Constance the former came little to Erpingham House), “why should I not
try a yet untried experiment? Why should I not live like others in their
graver as in their lighter pursuits? I confess, when I look back to the
years I have spent in England, I feel that I calculated erroneously. I
chalked out a plan--I have followed it rigidly. I have lived for self,
for pleasure, for luxury; I have summoned wit, beauty, even wisdom
around me. I have been the creator of a magic circle, but to the
magician himself the magic was tame and ignoble. In short, I have
dreamed, and am awake. Yet, what course of life should supply this,
which I think of deserting? Shall I go once more abroad, and penetrate
some untravelled corner of the earth? Shall I retire into the country,
and write, draining my mind of the excitement that presses on it; or
lastly, shall I plunge with my contemporaries into the great gulf
of actual events, and strive, and fret, and struggle?--or--in short,
Radclyffe, you are a wise man: advise me!”
“Alas!” answered Radclyffe, “it is of no use advising one to be happy
who has no object beyond himself. Either enthusiasm, or utter mechanical
coldness, is necessary to reconcile men to the cares and mortifications
of life. You must feel nothing, or you must feel for others. Unite
yourself to a great object; see its goal distinctly; cling to its course
courageously; hope for its triumph sanguinely; and on its majestic
progress you sail, as in a ship, agitated indeed by the storms, but
unheeding the breeze and the surge that would appal the individual
effort. The larger public objects make us glide smoothly and unfelt
over our minor private griefs. To be happy, my dear Godolphin, you must
forget yourself. Your refining and poetical temperament preys upon your
content. Learn benevolence--it is the only cure to a morbid nature.”
Godolphin was greatly struck by this answer of Radclyffe; the more so,
as he had a deep faith in the unaffected sincerity and the calculating
wisdom of his adviser. He looked hard in Radclyffe’s face, and, after
a pause of some moments, replied slowly, “I believe you are right
after all; and I have learned in a few short sentences the secret of a
discontented life.”
Godolphin would have sought other opportunities of conversing with
Radclyffe, but events soon parted them. Parliament was dissolved! What
an historical event is recorded in those words! The moment the king
consented to that measure, the whole series of subsequent events became,
to an ordinary prescience, clear as in a mirror. Parliament dissolved
in the heat of the popular enthusiasm, a majority, a great majority of
Reformers was sure to be returned.
Constance perceived at a glance the whole train of consequences issuing
from that one event; perceived and exulted. A glory had gone for ever
from the party she abhorred. Her father was already avenged. She heard
his scornful laugh ring forth from the depths of his forgotten grave.
London emptied itself at once. England was one election. Godolphin
remained almost alone. For the first time a sense of littleness crept
over him; a feeling of insignificance, which wounded and galled his
vain nature. In these great struggles he was nothing. The admired--the
cultivated--_spirituel_--the splendid Godolphin, sank below the commonest
adventurer, the coarsest brawler--yea, the humblest freeman, who felt
his stake in the state, joined the canvass, swelled the cry, and helped
in the mighty battle between old things and new, which was so resolutely
begun. This feeling gave an impetus to the growth of the new aspirations
he had already suffered his mind to generate; and Constance marked,
with vivid delight, that he now listened to her plans with interest, and
examined the political field with a curious and searching gaze.
But she was soon condemned to a disappointment proportioned to her
delight. Though Godolphin had hitherto taken no interest in party
politics, his prejudices, his feelings, his habits of mind, were all the
reverse of democratic. When he once began to examine the bearings of the
momentous question that agitated England, he was not slow in coming to
conclusions which threatened to produce a permanent disagreement between
Constance and himself.
“You wish me to enter Parliament, my dear Constance,” said he, with
his quiet smile; “it would be an experiment dangerous to the union
re-established between us. I should vote against your Bill.”
“You!” exclaimed Constance, with warmth; “is it possible that you can
sympathise with the fears of a selfish oligarchy--with the cause of the
merchants and traffickers of the plainest right of a free people--the
right to select their representatives?”
“My dear Constance,” returned Godolphin, “my whole theory of Government
is aristocratic. The right of the people to choose representatives!--you
may as well say the right of the people to choose kings, or magistrates,
and judges--or clergymen and archbishops! The people have, it is true,
the abstract and original right to choose all these, and every year to
chop and change them as they please, but the people, very properly,
in all states, mortgage their elementary rights for one catholic and
practical right--the right to be well governed. It may be no more to
the advantage of the state that the People (that is, the majority, the
populace) should elect uncontrolled all the members of the House of
Commons--than that they should elect all the pastors of their religion.
The sole thing we have to consider is, will they be better governed?”
“Unquestionably,” said Constance.
“Unquestionably!--Well, I question it. I foresee a more even balance of
parties--nothing else. When parties are evenly balanced states tremble.
In good government there should be somewhere sufficient power to carry
on, not unexamined, but at least with vigour, the different operations
of government itself. In free countries, therefore, one party ought to
preponderate sufficiently over the other. If it do not--all the state
measures are crippled, delayed, distorted, and the state languishes
while the doctors dispute as to the medicines to be applied to it. You
will find by your Bill, not that the Tories are destroyed, but that the
Whigs and the Radicals are strengthened--the Lords are not crushed--but
the Commons are in a state to contest with them. Hence party battles
upon catchwords--struggles between the two chambers for things of straw.
You who desire progress and movement will find the real affairs of this
great Artificial Empire, in its trade--commerce--colonies--internal
legislation--standing still while the Whigs and the Tories pelt each
other with the quibbles of faction. No I should vote against your Bill!
I am not for popular governments, though I like free states. All the
advantages of democracy seem to me more than counterbalanced by the
sacrifice of the peace and tranquillity, the comfort and the grace, the
dignity and the charities of life that democracies usually entail. If
the object of men is to live happily--not to strive and to fret--not
to make money in the marketplace, and call each other rogues on the
hustings, who would not rather be a German than an American? I own I
regret to differ from you. For--but no matter----”
“For!--what were you about to say?”
“For--then, since you must know it--I am beginning to feel interest
in these questions--excitement is contagious. And after all, if a
man really deem his mother-country in some danger, inaction is not
philosophy, but a species of parricide. But to think of the daily and
hourly pain I should occasion to you, my beloved and ardent Constance,
by shocking all your opinions, counteracting all your schemes, working
against objects which your father’s fate and your early associations
have so singularly made duties in your eyes--to do all this is a
patriotism beyond me. Let us glide out of this whirlpool, and hoist sail
for some nook in the country where we can hear gentler sounds than the
roar of the democracy.”
Constance sighed, and suffered Godolphin to quit her in silence. But
her generous heart was touched by his own generosity. This is one of
the great curses of a woman who aspires to the man’s part of political
controversy. If the man choose to act, the woman, with all her wiles,
her intrigues, her arts, is powerless. If Godolphin were to enter
Parliament a Tory, the great Whig rendezvous of Erpingham House was
lost, and Constance herself a cipher--and her father’s wrongs forgotten,
and the stern purpose of her masculine career baffled at the very
moment of success. She now repented that she had ever desired to draw
Godolphin’s attention to political matters. She wondered at her own want
of foresight. How, with his love for antiquity--his predilections for
the elegant and the serene--his philosophy of the “Rose-garden”--could
she ever have supposed that he would side with the bold objects and
turbulent will of a popular party in a stormy crisis?
The subject was not renewed. But she had the pain of observing that
Godolphin’s manner was altered: he took pleasure in none of his old
hobbies--he was evidently dissatisfied with himself. In fact, it is true
that he, for the first time in his life, felt that there is a remorse
to the mind as well as to the soul, and that a man of genius cannot be
perpetually idle without, as he touches on the middle of his career,
looking to the past with some shame, and to the fixture with some
ambition. One evening, when he had sat by the open window in a
thoughtful and melancholy, almost morose, silence for a considerable
time, Constance, after a violent struggle with herself, rose suddenly,
and fell on his neck--
“Forgive me, Percy,” she said, unable to suppress her tears--“forgive
me--it is past--I have no right that you, so superior to myself, should
be sacrificed to my--my prejudices you would call them--so be it. Is
it for your wife to condemn you to be inglorious? No--no--dear
Godolphin--fulfil your destiny--you are born for high objects. Be
active--be distinguished--and I will ask no more!”
John Vernon, in that hour you were forgotten! Who among the dead can
ever hope for fidelity, when love to the living invites a woman to
betray?
“My sweet Constance,” said Godolphin, drawing her to his heart, and
affected in proportion as he appreciated all that in that speech his
wife gave up for his sake--the all, far more than the lovely person, the
splendid wealth, the lofty rank that she had brought to his home--“my
sweet Constance, do not think I will take advantage of words so
generously, but hastily spoken. Time enough hereafter to think of
differences between us. At present let us indulge only the luxury of
the new love--the holiness of the new nuptials--that have made us as one
Being. Perhaps this restlessness, so unusual to me, will pass away--let
us wait awhile. At present ‘Sparta has many a worthier son.’ One other
year, one sweet summer, of the private life we have too much suffered to
glide away, enjoyed, and then we will see whether the harsh realities of
Ambition be worth either a concession or a dispute. Let us go into the
country--to-morrow if you will.”
And as Constance was about to answer, he sealed her lips with his kiss.
But Lady Erpingham was not one of those who waver in what they deem a
duty. She passed the night in stern and sleepless commune with herself;
she was aware of all that she hazarded--all that she renounced: she was
even tortured by scruples as to the strange oath that had almost unsexed
her. Still, in spite of all, she felt that nothing would excuse her in
suffering that gifted and happy intellect, now awakened from the sleep
of the Sybarite, to fall back into its lazy and effeminate repose. She
had no right to doom a human soul to rot away in its clay. Perhaps,
too, she hoped, as all polemical enthusiasts do, that Godolphin, once
aroused, would soon become her convert. Be that as it may, she delayed,
on various pretences, their departure from London. She went secretly the
next day to one of the proprietors of the close Boroughs, the existence
of which was about to be annihilated, and a few days afterwards
Godolphin received a letter informing him that he had been duly elected
member for ----. I will not say what were his feelings at these tidings.
Perhaps, such is man’s proud and wayward heart, he felt shame to be so
outdone by Constance.