"Ianthe's Soul"
Lady Eustace had been rather cross on the journey down to Scotland,
and had almost driven the unfortunate Macnulty to think that Lady
Linlithgow or the workhouse would be better than this young tyrant;
but on her arrival at her own house she was for awhile all smiles and
kindness. During the journey she had been angry without thought, but
was almost entitled to be excused for her anger. Could Miss Macnulty
have realised the amount of oppression inflicted on her patroness by
the box of diamonds she would have forgiven anything. Hitherto there
had been some secrecy, or at any rate some privacy attached to the
matter; but now that odious lawyer had discussed the matter aloud, in
the very streets, in the presence of the servants, and Lady Eustace
had felt that it was discussed also by every porter on the railway
from London down to Troon, the station in Scotland at which her own
carriage met her to take her to her own castle. The night at Carlisle
had been terrible to her, and the diamonds had never been for a
moment off her mind. Perhaps the worst of it all was that her own
man-servant and maid-servant had heard the claim which had been so
violently made by Mr. Camperdown. There are people, in that respect
very fortunately circumstanced, whose servants, as a matter of
course, know all their affairs, have an interest in their concerns,
sympathise with their demands, feel their wants, and are absolutely
at one with them. But in such cases the servants are really known,
and are almost as completely a part of the family as the sons and
daughters. There may be disruptions and quarrels; causes may arise
for ending the existing condition of things; but while this condition
lasts, the servants in such households are, for the most part, only
too well inclined to fight the battles of their employers. Mr. Binns,
the butler, would almost foam at the mouth if it were suggested to
him that the plate at Silvercup Hall was not the undoubted property
of the old squire; and Mrs. Pouncebox could not be made to believe,
by any amount of human evidence, that the jewels which her lady has
worn for the last fifteen years are not her ladyship's very own.
Binns would fight for the plate, and so would Pouncebox for the
jewels, almost till they were cut to pieces. The preservation of
these treasures on behalf of those who paid them their wages and fed
them, who occasionally scolded them, but always succoured them, would
be their point of honour. No torture would get the key of the cellar
from Binns; no threats extract from Pouncebox a secret of the toilet.
But poor Lizzie Eustace had no Binns and no Pouncebox. They are
plants that grow slowly. There was still too much of the mushroom
about Lady Eustace to permit of her possessing such treasures. Her
footman was six feet high, was not bad looking, and was called
Thomas. She knew no more about him, and was far too wise to expect
sympathy from him, or other aid than the work for which she paid
him. Her own maid was somewhat nearer to her; but not much nearer.
The girl's name was Patience Crabstick, and she could do hair well.
Lizzie knew but little more of her than that.
Lizzie considered herself still to be engaged to be married to Lord
Fawn,--but there was no sympathy to be had in that quarter. Frank
Greystock might be induced to sympathise with her;--but hardly after
the fashion which Lizzie desired. And then sympathy in that direction
would be so dangerous should she decide upon going on with the Fawn
marriage. For the present she had quarrelled with Lord Fawn;--but
the very bitterness of that quarrel, and the decision with which her
betrothed had declared his intention of breaking off the match, made
her the more resolute that she would marry him. During her journey to
Portray she had again determined that he should be her husband; and,
if so, advanced sympathy,--sympathy that would be pleasantly tender
with her cousin Frank, would be dangerous. She would be quite willing
to accept even Miss Macnulty's sympathy, if that humble lady would
give it to her of the kind she wanted. She declared to herself that
she could pour herself out on Miss Macnulty's bosom, and mingle her
tears even with Miss Macnulty's, if only Miss Macnulty would believe
in her. If Miss Macnulty would be enthusiastic about the jewels,
enthusiastic as to the wickedness of Lord Fawn, enthusiastic in
praising Lizzie herself, Lizzie,--so she told herself,--would have
showered all the sweets of female friendship even on Miss Macnulty's
head. But Miss Macnulty was as hard as a deal board. She did as she
was bidden, thereby earning her bread. But there was no tenderness in
her;--no delicacy;--no feeling;--no comprehension. It was thus that
Lady Eustace judged her humble companion; and in one respect she
judged her rightly. Miss Macnulty did not believe in Lady Eustace,
and was not sufficiently gifted to act up to a belief which she did
not entertain.
Poor Lizzie! The world, in judging of people who are false and bad
and selfish and prosperous to outward appearances, is apt to be hard
upon them, and to forget the punishments which generally accompany
such faults. Lizzie Eustace was very false and bad and selfish,--and,
we may say, very prosperous also; but in the midst of all she was
thoroughly uncomfortable. She was never at ease. There was no green
spot in her life with which she could be contented. And though, after
a fashion, she knew herself to be false and bad, she was thoroughly
convinced that she was ill-used by everybody about her. She was being
very badly treated by Lord Fawn;--but she flattered herself that she
would be able to make Lord Fawn know more of her character before she
had done with him.
Portray Castle was really a castle,--not simply a country mansion so
called, but a stone edifice with battlements and a round tower at one
corner, and a gate which looked as if it might have had a portcullis,
and narrow windows in a portion of it, and a cannon mounted upon a
low roof, and an excavation called the moat,--but which was now a
fantastic and somewhat picturesque garden,--running round two sides
of it. In very truth, though a portion of the castle was undoubtedly
old, and had been built when strength was needed for defence and
probably for the custody of booty,--the battlements, and the round
tower, and the awe-inspiring gateway had all been added by one of
the late Sir Florians. But the castle looked like a castle, and was
interesting. As a house it was not particularly eligible, the castle
form of domestic architecture being exigeant in its nature, and
demanding that space, which in less ambitious houses can be applied
to comfort, shall be surrendered to magnificence. There was a great
hall, and a fine dining-room with plate-glass windows looking out
upon the sea; but the other sitting-rooms were insignificant, and the
bedrooms were here and there, and were for the most part small and
dark. That, however, which Lizzie had appropriated to her own use was
a grand chamber, looking also out upon the open sea.
The castle stood upon a bluff of land, with a fine prospect of the
Firth of Clyde, and with a distant view of the Isle of Arran. When
the air was clear, as it often is clear there, the Arran hills
could be seen from Lizzie's window, and she was proud of talking of
the prospect. In other respects, perhaps, the castle was somewhat
desolate. There were a few stunted trees around it, but timber had
not prospered there. There was a grand kitchen garden,--or rather
a kitchen garden which had been intended to be grand;--but since
Lizzie's reign had been commenced, the grandeur had been neglected.
Grand kitchen gardens are expensive, and Lizzie had at once been firm
in reducing the under-gardeners from five men to one and a boy. The
head-gardener had of course left her at once; but that had not broken
her heart, and she had hired a modest man at a guinea a week instead
of a scientific artist, who was by no means modest, with a hundred
and twenty pounds a year and coals, house, milk, and all other
horticultural luxuries. Though Lizzie was prosperous and had a fine
income, she was already aware that she could not keep up a town and
country establishment and be a rich woman on four thousand a year.
There was a flower garden and small shrubbery within the so-called
moat; but, otherwise, the grounds of Portray Castle were not
alluring. The place was sombre, exposed, and, in winter, very cold;
and, except that the expanse of sea beneath the hill on which stood
the castle was fine and open, it had no great claim to praise on
the score of scenery. Behind the castle, and away from the sea,
the low mountains belonging to the estate stretched for some eight
or ten miles; and towards the further end of them, where stood a
shooting-lodge, called always The Cottage, the landscape became rough
and grand. It was in this cottage that Frank Greystock was to be
sheltered with his friend, when he came down to shoot what Lady
Eustace had called her three annual grouse.
She ought to have been happy and comfortable. There will, of
course, be some to say that a young widow should not be happy and
comfortable,--that she should be weeping her lost lord, and subject
to the desolation of bereavement. But as the world goes now, young
widows are not miserable; and there is, perhaps, a growing tendency
in society to claim from them year by year still less of any misery
that may be avoidable. Suttee propensities of all sorts, from burning
alive down to bombazine and hideous forms of clothing, are becoming
less and less popular among the nations, and women are beginning to
learn that, let what misfortunes will come upon them, it is well for
them to be as happy as their nature will allow them to be. A woman
may thoroughly respect her husband, and mourn him truly, honestly,
with her whole heart, and yet enjoy thoroughly the good things which
he has left behind for her use. It was not, at any rate, sorrow for
the lost Sir Florian that made Lady Eustace uncomfortable. She had
her child. She had her income. She had her youth and beauty. She
had Portray Castle. She had a new lover,--and, if she chose to be
quit of him, not liking him well enough for the purpose, she might
undoubtedly have another whom she would like better. She had hitherto
been thoroughly successful in her life. And yet she was unhappy. What
was it that she wanted?
She had been a very clever child,--a clever, crafty child; and now
she was becoming a clever woman. Her craft remained with her; but
so keen was her outlook upon the world, that she was beginning to
perceive that craft, let it be never so crafty, will in the long
run miss its own object. She actually envied the simplicity of Lucy
Morris, for whom she delighted to find evil names, calling her
demure, a prig, a sly puss, and so on. But she could see,--or half
see,--that Lucy with her simplicity was stronger than was she with
her craft. She had nearly captivated Frank Greystock with her wiles,
but without any wiles Lucy had captivated him altogether. And a man
captivated by wiles was only captivated for a time, whereas a man won
by simplicity would be won for ever,--if he himself were worth the
winning. And this, too, she felt,--that let her success be what it
might, she could not be happy unless she could win a man's heart.
She had won Sir Florian's, but that had been but for an hour,--for a
month or two. And then Sir Florian had never really won hers. Could
not she be simple? Could not she act simplicity so well that the
thing acted should be as powerful as the thing itself;--perhaps even
more powerful? Poor Lizzie Eustace! In thinking over all this, she
saw a great deal. It was wonderful that she should see so much and
tell herself so many home truths. But there was one truth she could
not see, and therefore could not tell it to herself. She had not
a heart to give. It had become petrified during those lessons of
early craft in which she had taught herself how to get the better of
Messrs. Harter and Benjamin, of Sir Florian Eustace, of Lady
Linlithgow, and of Mr. Camperdown.
Her ladyship had now come down to her country house, leaving London
and all its charms before the end of the season, actuated by various
motives. In the first place, the house in Mount Street was taken
furnished, by the month, and the servants were hired after the same
fashion, and the horses jobbed. Lady Eustace was already sufficiently
intimate with her accounts to know that she would save two hundred
pounds by not remaining another month or three weeks in London, and
sufficiently observant of her own affairs to have perceived that
such saving was needed. And then it appeared to her that her battle
with Lord Fawn could be better fought from a distance than at close
quarters. London, too, was becoming absolutely distasteful to her.
There were many things there that tended to make her unhappy, and
so few that she could enjoy! She was afraid of Mr. Camperdown, and
ever on the rack lest some dreadful thing should come upon her in
respect of the necklace,--some horrible paper served upon her from a
magistrate, ordering her appearance at Newgate, or perhaps before the
Lord Chancellor, or a visit from policemen, who would be empowered
to search for and carry off the iron box. And then there was so
little in her London life to gratify her! It is pleasant to win in a
fight;--but to be always fighting is not pleasant. Except in those
moments, few and far between, in which she was alone with her cousin
Frank,--and perhaps in those other moments in which she wore her
diamonds,--she had but little in London that she enjoyed. She still
thought that a time would come when it would be otherwise. Under
these influences she had actually made herself believe that she was
sighing for the country, and for solitude; for the wide expanse of
her own bright waves,--as she had called them,--and for the rocks of
dear Portray. She had told Miss Macnulty and Augusta Fawn that she
thirsted for the breezes of Ayrshire, so that she might return to her
books and her thoughts. Amidst the whirl of London it was impossible
either to read or to think. And she believed it too,--herself. She
so believed it, that on the first morning of her arrival she took a
little volume in her pocket, containing Shelley's "Queen Mab," and
essayed to go down upon the rocks. She had actually breakfasted at
nine, and was out on the sloping grounds below the castle before ten,
having made some boast to Miss Macnulty about the morning air.
She scrambled down,--not very far down, but a little way beneath the
garden gate, to a spot on which a knob of rock cropped out from the
scanty herbage of the incipient cliff. Fifty yards lower the real
rocks began; and, though the real rocks were not very rocky, not
precipitous or even bold, and were partially covered with salt-fed
mosses down almost to the sea, nevertheless they justified her in
talking about her rock-bound shore. The shore was hers,--for her
life, and it was rock-bound. This knob she had espied from her
windows;--and, indeed, had been thinking of it for the last week,
as a place appropriate to solitude and Shelley. She had stood on
it before, and had stretched her arms with enthusiasm towards the
just-visible mountains of Arran. On that occasion the weather,
perhaps, had been cool; but now a blazing sun was overhead, and when
she had been seated half a minute, and "Queen Mab" had been withdrawn
from her pocket, she found that it would not do. It would not do,
even with the canopy she could make for herself with her parasol. So
she stood up and looked about herself for shade;--for shade in some
spot in which she could still look out upon "her dear wide ocean,
with its glittering smile." For it was thus that she would talk about
the mouth of the Clyde. Shelter near her there was none. The scrubby
trees lay nearly half a mile to the right,--and up the hill, too. She
had once clambered down to the actual shore, and might do so again.
But she doubted that there would be shelter even there; and the
clambering up on that former occasion had been a nuisance, and would
be a worse nuisance now. Thinking of all this, and feeling the sun
keenly, she gradually retraced her steps to the garden within the
moat, and seated herself, Shelley in hand, within the summer-house.
The bench was narrow, hard, and broken; and there were some snails
which discomposed her;--but, nevertheless, she would make the best
of it. Her darling "Queen Mab" must be read without the coarse,
inappropriate, every-day surroundings of a drawing-room; and it was
now manifest to her that, unless she could get up much earlier in the
morning, or come out to her reading after sunset, the knob of rock
would not avail her.
She began her reading, resolved that she would enjoy her poetry in
spite of the narrow seat. She had often talked of "Queen Mab," and
perhaps she thought she had read it. This, however, was in truth her
first attempt at that work. "How wonderful is Death! Death and his
brother, Sleep!" Then she half-closed the volume, and thought that
she enjoyed the idea. Death,--and his brother Sleep! She did not
know why they should be more wonderful than Action, or Life, or
Thought;--but the words were of a nature which would enable her to
remember them, and they would be good for quoting. "Sudden arose
Ianthe's soul; it stood all-beautiful in naked purity." The name of
Ianthe suited her exactly. And the antithesis conveyed to her mind
by naked purity struck her strongly, and she determined to learn the
passage by heart. Eight or nine lines were printed separately, like a
stanza, and the labour would not be great, and the task, when done,
would be complete. "Instinct with inexpressible beauty and grace,
Each stain of earthliness Had passed away, it reassumed Its native
dignity, and stood Immortal amid ruin." Which was instinct with
beauty,--the stain or the soul, she did not stop to inquire, and may
be excused for not understanding. "Ah,"--she exclaimed to herself,
"how true it is; how one feels it; how it comes home to one!--'Sudden
arose Ianthe's soul!'" And then she walked about the garden,
repeating the words to herself, and almost forgetting the heat.
"'Each stain of earthliness had passed away.' Ha;--yes. They will
pass away, and become instinct with beauty and grace." A dim idea
came upon her that when this happy time should arrive, no one
would claim her necklace from her, and that the man at the stables
would not be so disagreeably punctual in sending in his bill.
"'All-beautiful in naked purity!'" What a tawdry world was this, in
which clothes and food and houses are necessary! How perfectly that
boy-poet had understood it all! "'Immortal amid ruin!'" She liked the
idea of the ruin almost as well as that of the immortality, and the
stains quite as well as the purity. As immortality must come, and as
stains were instinct with grace, why be afraid of ruin? But then, if
people go wrong,--at least women,--they are not asked out any where!
"'Sudden arose Ianthe's soul; it stood all-beautiful--'" And so the
piece was learned, and Lizzie felt that she had devoted her hour to
poetry in a quite rapturous manner. At any rate she had a bit to
quote; and though in truth she did not understand the exact bearing
of the image, she had so studied her gestures, and so modulated her
voice, that she knew that she could be effective. She did not then
care to carry her reading further, but returned with the volume into
the house. Though the passage about Ianthe's soul comes very early
in the work, she was now quite familiar with the poem, and when, in
after days, she spoke of it as a thing of beauty that she had made
her own by long study, she actually did not know that she was lying.
As she grew older, however, she quickly became wiser, and was aware
that in learning one passage of a poem it is expedient to select
one in the middle, or at the end. The world is so cruelly observant
now-a-days, that even men and women who have not themselves read
their "Queen Mab" will know from what part of the poem a morsel is
extracted, and will not give you credit for a page beyond that from
which your passage comes.
After lunch Lizzie invited Miss Macnulty to sit at the open window of
the drawing-room and look out upon the "glittering waves." In giving
Miss Macnulty her due, we must acknowledge that, though she owned no
actual cleverness herself, had no cultivated tastes, read but little,
and that little of a colourless kind, and thought nothing of her
hours but that she might get rid of them and live,--yet she had a
certain power of insight, and could see a thing. Lizzie Eustace
was utterly powerless to impose upon her. Such as Lizzie was, Miss
Macnulty was willing to put up with her and accept her bread. The
people whom she had known had been either worthless,--as had been
her own father, or cruel,--like Lady Linlithgow, or false,--as was
Lady Eustace. Miss Macnulty knew that worthlessness, cruelty, and
falseness had to be endured by such as she. And she could bear them
without caring much about them;--not condemning them, even within
her own heart, very heavily. But she was strangely deficient in
this,--that she could not call these qualities by other names, even
to the owners of them. She was unable to pretend to believe Lizzie's
rhapsodies. It was hardly conscience or a grand spirit of truth that
actuated her, as much as a want of the courage needed for lying. She
had not had the face to call old Lady Linlithgow kind, and therefore
old Lady Linlithgow had turned her out of the house. When Lady
Eustace called on her for sympathy, she had not courage enough to
dare to attempt the bit of acting which would be necessary for
sympathetic expression. She was like a dog or a child, and was unable
not to be true. Lizzie was longing for a little mock sympathy,--was
longing to show off her Shelley, and was very kind to Miss Macnulty
when she got the poor lady into the recess of the window. "This is
nice;--is it not?" she said, as she spread her hand out through the
open space towards the "wide expanse of glittering waves."
"Very nice,--only it glares so," said Miss Macnulty.
"Ah, I love the full warmth of the real summer. With me it always
seems that the sun is needed to bring to true ripeness the fruit of
the heart." Nevertheless she had been much troubled both by the heat
and by the midges when she tried to sit on the stone. "I always think
of those few glorious days which I passed with my darling Florian
at Naples;--days too glorious because they were so few." Now Miss
Macnulty knew some of the history of those days and of their
glory,--and knew also how the widow had borne her loss.
"I suppose the bay of Naples is fine," she said.
"It is not only the bay. There are scenes there which ravish you,
only it is necessary that there should be some one with you that can
understand you. 'Soul of Ianthe!'" she said, meaning to apostrophise
that of the deceased Sir Florian. "You have read 'Queen Mab'?"
"I don't know that I ever did. If I have, I have forgotten it."
"Ah,--you should read it. I know nothing in the English language that
brings home to one so often one's own best feelings and aspirations.
'It stands all-beautiful in naked purity,'" she continued, still
alluding to poor Sir Florian's soul. "'Instinct with inexpressible
beauty and grace, Each stain of earthliness had passed away.' I can
see him now in all his manly beauty, as we used to sit together by
the hour, looking over the waters. Oh, Julia, the thing itself has
gone,--the earthly reality; but the memory of it will live for ever!"
"He was a very handsome man, certainly," said Miss Macnulty, finding
herself forced to say something.
"I see him now," she went on, still gazing out upon the shining
water. "'It reassumed its native dignity, and stood Primeval amid
ruin.' Is not that a glorious idea, gloriously worded?" She had
forgotten one word and used a wrong epithet; but it sounded just as
well. Primeval seemed to her to be a very poetical word.
"To tell the truth," said Miss Macnulty, "I never understand poetry
when it is quoted unless I happen to know the passage beforehand. I
think I'll go away from this, for the light is too much for my poor
old eyes." Certainly Miss Macnulty had fallen into a profession for
which she was not suited.