Oh, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes!
SHAKSPEARE.
Alice Darnell had made good and sufficient use of the interval
left her, to execute the task of explaining the past, and opening
the future to the parties concerned. For before that time next
day, she had succeeded in clearing the coast, not only of her
brother, but, what was perhaps more difficult, of her nephew George,
whose acquittal the day before upon both charges, had, thanks to
the clumsiness of Mr. Spencer, been complete. With some little
difficulty Alice had persuaded him, as well as his uncle, that it
would be better for them to keep out of the way; and Castleton had
been for some time established with Lucy, in undisturbed possession
of the little lodging-house parlour.
Whilst he was opening to her, by degrees, the brilliant prospects
which he proposed to her to share with him, she sat on the sofa
beside him, holding one hand in both of hers, and looking up at him
with an expression of innocent adoration, such as could only be
pourtrayed upon a countenance of such unrivalled sweetness. As, after
detailing his views for their own future, he turned to describe what
he proposed to do for the different members of her own family, she
interrupted him with--
“Oh, my dear Lord! but that you are even much more good than great,
I should wonder at your kindness to poor George, not only to bear
him no ill-will for daring to lift his lowly hand against your life,
but even to propose to serve him so effectually, and exactly in the
way he would like best. To procure him a birth in a king’s ship, by
which, in time, he may become an admiral, for George is very clever
in that line, though rude and unlettered in others--think of that,
aunt Alice!” addressing her aunt, who had then entered the room,
which she occasionally quitted. “Think of that, that George may
live to be an admiral, and all through the kind forgiving goodness
of my own dear Lord here,” added she, pressing his hand, which she
held against her heart, and then dropping her head, and looking up
timidly from under her brows, as if she thought she had been too
demonstrative; then turning the subject, she said, “But George is to
go away then, to-day? and didn’t he wish to see me?”
“Yes, he shall see you, when my Lord is obliged to go and arrange his
other necessary matters,” replied Alice; part of whose plan was, in
every possible way to avoid flurry to her niece, whose spirits were
hardly yet settled. She therefore decided that she should not see
more than one person at a time; and, as restored composure was her
great object, she determined, that least of all ought Lucy to see
Castleton and George together.
Lord Castleton, whose intimate friend had just taken the command of
a frigate commissioned for Halifax, and under sailing orders, had
written the strongest recommendation of George, begging his friend
to take him as a supernumerary midshipman, and, if occasion should
occur, to promote him. As it is not always necessary to analyze
motives for liberal actions, so, certainly, no one of the parties who
were to benefit either directly or otherwise by this recommendation,
estimated how much the peculiar value of the arrangement, in Lord
Castleton’s eyes, was enhanced, by the ship taking so immediate a
departure for so distant a station.
Alice Darnell had, upon a consideration of all the bearings of the
case, been disposed to acquiesce in what was rather the suggestion
offered, than the condition proposed by Lord Castleton, that the
marriage should be strictly private; and that, indeed, it need never
be exactly known what had been the previous condition in life, where
the previous residence, of his future wife. She was as much justified
by her own early experience of the great world, as she was guided
by her partiality for her niece, in imagining, that there was a
natural unaffected grace in Lucy’s manner, which would prevent her
former very humble state from being suspected, if not promulgated.
Her early recollections of the world, at the same time, served to
remind her that, if that humble origin was known, defects, supposed
inseparable from it, would be imagined, even though they did not
exist.
On the other hand, concealment on this head, if desirable, was
rendered peculiarly practicable, from the utter solitude in which
Lucy had been brought up, never having had even an acquaintance out
of her own thinly-scattered and secluded neighbourhood. Her brother,
too, Alice felt, however well calculated to fill with credit the
state to which he was born, would be unfit, as he would be unwilling,
to be placed in any other; and his wife, however willing she might be
to make the experiment, would be infinitely more unfit than Richard
Darnell to accompany her daughter into that exalted sphere in which
she was now to move.
Alice Darnell could not help rejoicing that the absence of her
sister-in-law upon this occasion, removed any difficulty that might
have been expected from her not being so well aware as every body
who was acquainted with her was, how impossible it would be that she
should share with Lucy all the advantages of her new situation.
“I should have thought,” said Alice, addressing Castleton, “that you
of all men would have been least likely to persuade me to overlook
all the ills that sometimes spring from mystery in the married
state. But mystery, where it affects the character of the connexion
to be formed, or where it only relates to circumstances which that
connexion itself supersedes, is quite distinct; and therefore I am
inclined to agree with you, that it is better the marriage should
take place here privately, and as soon as the special licence can be
procured, that when my brother and I return home, we may announce it
to her mother as an event completed.”
This being settled, Castleton said to Lucy, “I must leave you now to
take steps for the licence. Farewell for the present, and only for
the _present_, for it is a word that the future shall teach _us_ to
forget to use.”
Castleton having left the room, Alice desired George to come in, to
take leave of his cousin, as he was to depart that afternoon. He was
dressed in a manner better calculated to suit his new character of
gentleman; but never looked so awkward, or seemed so little at his
ease. He walked first straight for the window, then half towards
Lucy, but turned to the fireplace, and from thence back to the
window, without saying a word. From thence he was gently drawn away
by his cousin, who said, “Come, dear cousin George, have you nothing
pretty to say to your poor little Lucy? I am sure I wish _you_ joy of
your promotion with all my heart.”
“And I am as sure that in all mine, there is no other wish than that
your promotion, if you like so to call it, may be attended with every
earthly happiness. Perhaps I’d better go at once. Good b’ye.”
“Nay stay, dear George, it is not enough that we should separate
with these wishes, without settling how we may be informed whether
they are fulfilled or not. I can never forget those days, when we
neither of us ever formed a thought that the other didn’t know; and
believe me, till we meet again, I shall have no greater pleasure than
hearing from you, and how you are getting on;--and now you may put
a direction that will easier reach its mark, than poor Lucy Darnell,
Bankside Farm, England. Wasn’t that the way you wrote to me last, you
said? You’ll try again, won’t you, dear?”
“No, I think I’d better not; it wouldn’t be altogether suitable, I
think, with your new situation. When you get accustomed to all these
fine folk, there will be much in George Darnell you’ll wish altered;
and I shouldn’t like to bring shame on you, Lucy.”
“Bring shame on me! that you could never do, but by such courses as
you have lately followed; and to these I have no fear you will turn
again. Do not bring shame on yourself by such means, and you can
never bring shame on me. If you mean that, because I’m a lady, shame
could spring from the homeliness of true and tried affection, that
would be shame of my own making; ay, and worse than I could bear.”
“Ay, you speak all this out of kindness, and like yourself, dear
Lucy: and so you feel now, I’m sure. But a time will come--and what’s
more, it ought to come--when the less you see, or even perhaps hear
of me, the better. I will not bring up now all about our former
parting, and all that. I was much older than you were then, and
things you said made more impression on me than they were like to do
on yourself; but it’s all for the best. He that’s won you, has done
his taste credit, to find you out, quite out of his line as you were,
and I’m bound to speak well of him, for he’s behaved nobly to me; and
I’ve no doubt he’ll try and make you happy, and he ought to succeed,
for he’s plenty of helps to try with; but all I can say is, that you
can’t want to hear of ME, and I shouldn’t like to intrude.”
“Why shouldn’t I want to hear of you? You talk of the helps he has,
by which I suppose you mean power and wealth. But what would be one’s
first wish to put them to, but to assist one’s friends? And who would
be the first of friends whom one would seek out at the end of the
world to serve? Why, who but you, dear George.”
“Ay, all that’s as you feel now; and I don’t mean to say that any
change could ever make you hard or unfeeling, but I can’t but think
that it an’t in nature that this should always remain the same. I
dare say you judge me a little altered now; so I am, perhaps. I have
turned more things over in my head lately, than I did in all my
life before. A prison’s quite the school of thought. You’re going,
on t’other hand, to one perpetual holiday of the mind,--and every
thing else if you like. It will be an existence of which you’ve no
idea. Well! it mayn’t suit after all. But if so, it’s no short voyage
you’re bound on. You’ll never have Bankside Farm and Morden Bay to
leeward again; and, therefore, you had better not have cousin George
to pilot your thoughts the way they must never turn. But as it’s much
more like you’ll find all sunshine around you, I would not like to
be the one black spot on your horizon; and when not in sight, you
must soon forget to care about the humble playmate of your youth, who
feels even in parting from you so completely that your unhappiness
must make his, that he heartily prays that this last may be the case.
Prosper in your new line of life, and that you may do so, take not
with you a thought of your old one. Once more, a long good b’ye.”
“Good b’ye, dearest George,” said Lucy, throwing herself for the last
time into his arms.
“No, Lucy; that’s more than I can bear,” cried George, tearing
himself away, and rushing from her presence.