Hopes, what are they? beads of morning
Strung on slender blades of grass,
Or a spider's web adorning,
In a strait and treacherous pass.
WORDSWORTH.
The months of July, August, and September had passed away. Lord Lodore
enjoyed, during the two last, a singularly complacent state of mind. He had
come to Wales with worn-out spirits, a victim to that darker species of
_ennui_, which colours with gloomy tints the future as well as the
present, and is the ministering angel of evil to the rich and
prosperous. He despised himself, contemned his pursuits, and called all
vanity beneath the vivifying sun of heaven. Real misfortunes have worn
the guise of blessings to men so afflicted, but he was withdrawn from
this position, by a being who wore the outward semblance of an angel,
and from whom he felt assured nothing but good could flow.
Cornelia Santerre was lovely, vivacious, witty, and good-humoured; yet
strange to say, her new lover was not rendered happy so much by the
presence of these qualities, as by the promise which they gave for the
future. He loved her; he believed that she would be to the end of his
life a blessing and a delight; yet passion was scarcely roused in his
heart; it was "a sober certainty of waking bliss," and a reasonable
belief in the continuance of this state, that made him, while he loved
her, regard her rather as a benefactress than a mistress.
Benefactress is a strange word to use, especially as her extreme youth
was probably the cause that more intimate sympathies did not unite them,
and why passion entered so slightly into their intercourse. It is
possible, so great was the discrepancy of their age, and consequently of
their feelings and views of life, that Lodore would never have thought of
marrying Cornelia, but that Lady Santerre was at hand to direct the
machinery of the drama. She inspired him with the wish to gift her
angelic child with the worldly advantages which his wife must possess;
to play a god-like part, and to lift into prosperity and happiness, one
who seemed destined by fortune to struggle with adversity. Lady Santerre
was a worldly woman and an oily flatterer; Lodore had been accustomed to
feminine controul, and he yielded with docility to her silken fetters.
The ninth of October was Cornelia's sixteenth birthday, and on it she
became the wife of Lord Lodore. This event took place in the parish church
of Rhyaider Gowy, and it was communicated to "the world" in the newspapers.
Many discussions then arose as to who Miss Santerre could be. "The only
daughter of the late Sir John." The only late Sir John Santerre
remembered, was, in fact, the grandfather of the bride, and the hiatus
in her genealogy, caused by her father's death before he had been known
as a baronet, puzzled every fashionable gossip. The whole affair,
however, had been forgotten, when curiosity was again awakened in the
ensuing month of March, by an announcement in the Morning Post, of the
arrival of the noble pair at Mivart's. Lord Lodore had always rented a
box at the King's Theatre. It had been newly decorated at the beginning
of the season, and on the first Saturday in April all eyes turned
towards it as he entered, having the loveliest, fairest, and most
sylph-like girl, that ever trod dark earth, leaning on his arm. There
was a child-like innocence, a fascinating simplicity, joined to an
expression of vivacity and happiness, in Lady Lodore's countenance,
which impressed at first sight, as being the completion of feminine
beauty. She looked as if no time could touch, no ill stain her; artless
affection and amiable dependence spoke in each graceful gesture. Others
might be beautiful, but there was that in her, which seemed allied to
celestial loveliness.
Such was the prize Lord Lodore had won. The new-married pair took up their
residence in Berkeley-square, and here Lady Santerre joined them, and
took possession of the apartments appropriated to her use, under her
daughter's roof. All appeared bright on the outside, and each seemed
happy in each other. Yet had any one cared to remark, they had perceived
that Lodore looked even more abstracted than before his marriage. They
had seen, that, in the domestic _coterie_, mother and daughter were
familiar friends, sharing each thought and wish, but that Lodore was one
apart, banished, or exiling himself from the dearest blessings of
friendship and love. There might be no concealment, but also there was
no frankness between the pair. Neither practised disguise, but
there was no outpouring of the heart--no "touch of nature,"
which, passing like an electric shock, made their souls one.
An insurmountable barrier stood between Lodore and his happiness--between
his love and his wife's confidence; that this obstacle was a
shadow--undefined--formless--nothing--yet every thing, made it trebly
hateful, and rendered it utterly impossible that it should be removed.
The magician who had raised this ominous phantom, was Lady Santerre. She
was a clever though uneducated woman: perfectly selfish, soured with the
world, yet clinging to it. To make good her second entrance on its
stage, she believed it necessary to preserve unlimited sway over the
plastic mind of her daughter. If she had acted with integrity, her end
had been equally well secured; but unfortunately, she was by nature
framed to prefer the zig-zag to the straight line; added to which, she
was imperious, and could not bear a rival near her throne. From the
first, therefore, she exerted herself to secure her empire over
Cornelia; she spared neither flattery nor artifice; and, well acquainted
as she was with every habit and turn of her daughter's mind, her task
was comparatively easy.
The fair girl had been brought up (ah! how different from the sentiments
which Lodore had thought to find the natural inheritance of the mountain
child!) to view society as the glass by which she was to set her
feelings, and to which to adapt her conduct. She was ignorant,
accustomed to the most frivolous employments, shrinking from any mental
exercise, so that although her natural abilities were great, they lay
dormant, producing neither bud nor blossom, unless such might be called
the elegance of her appearance, and the charm of the softest and most
ingenuous manners in the world. When her husband would have educated her
mind, and withdrawn her from the dangers of dissipation, she looked on
his conduct as tyrannical and cruel. She retreated from his manly
guidance, to the pernicious guardianship of Lady Santerre, and she
sheltered herself at her side, from any effort Lodore might make for her
improvement.
Those who have never experienced a situation of this kind, cannot
understand it; the details appear trivial: there seems wanting but one
effort to push away the flimsy web, which, after all, is rather an
imaginary than real bondage. But the slightest description will bring it
home to those who have known it, and groaned beneath a despotism the more
intolerable, as it could be less defined. Lord Lodore found that he had no
home, no dear single-hearted bosom where he could find sympathy and to
which to impart pleasure. When he entered his drawing-room with gaiety
of spirit to impart some agreeable tidings, to ask his wife's advice, or
to propose some plan, Lady Santerre was ever by her side, with her hard
features and canting falsetto voice, checking at once the kindling
kindness of his soul, and he felt that all that he should say would be
turned from its right road, by some insidious remark, and the words he
was about to speak died upon his lips. When he looked forward through
the day, and would have given the world to have had his wife to himself,
and to have sought, in some drive or excursion, for the pleasant
unreserved converse he sighed for, Lady Santerre must be consulted; and
though she never opposed him, she always carried her point in opposition
to his. His wishes were made light of, and he was left to amuse himself,
and to know that his wife was imbibing the lessons of one, whom he had
learnt to despise and hate.
Lord Lodore cherished an ideal of what he thought a woman ought to be; but
he had no lofty opinion of woman as he had usually found her. He had
believed that the germ of all the excellencies which he esteemed was to
be found in Cornelia, and he found himself mistaken. He had expected to
find truth, clearness of spirit, and complying gentleness, the adorning
qualities of the unsophisticated girl, and he found her the willing
disciple of one whose selfish and artful character was in direct
contradiction to his own. Once or twice at the beginning, he had
attempted to withdraw his wife from this sinister influence, but Lady
Lodore highly resented any effort of this kind, and saw in it an
endeavour to make her neglect her first and dearest duties. Lodore,
angry that the wishes of another should be preferred to his, drew back
with disappointed pride; he disdained to enforce by authority, that
which he thought ought to be yielded to love. The bitter sense of
wounded affections was not to be appeased by knowing that, if he chose,
he could command that, which was worthless in his eyes, except as a
voluntary gift.
And here his error began; he had married one so young, that her
education, even if its foundation had been good, required finishing, and
who as it was, had every thing to learn. During the days of courtship he
had looked forward with pleasure to playing the tutor to his fair
mistress: but a tutor can do nothing without authority, either open or
concealed--a tutor must sacrifice his own pursuits and immediate
pleasures, to study and adapt himself to the disposition of his pupil.
As has been said of those who would acquire power in the state--they
must in some degree follow, if they would lead, and it is by adapting
themselves to the humour of those they would command, that they
establish the law of their own will, or of an apparent necessity. But
Lodore understood nothing of all this. He had been accustomed to be managed
by his mistress; he had been yielding, but it was because she contrived to
make his will her own; otherwise he was imperious: opposition startled
and disconcerted him, and he saw heartlessness in the want of
accommodation and compliance he met at home. He had expected from
Cornelia a girl's clinging fondness, but that was given to her mother;
nor did she feel the womanly tenderness, which sees in her husband the
safeguard from the ills of life, the shield to stand between her and the
world, to ward off its cruelties; a shelter from adversity, a refuge
when tempests were abroad. How could she feel this, who, proud in youth
and triumphant beauty, knew nothing of, and disbelieved the tales which
sages and old women tell of the perils of life? The world looked to her
a velvet strewn walk, canopied from every storm--her husband alone, who
endeavoured to reveal the reality of things to her, and to disturb her
visions, was the source of any sorrow or discomfort. She was buoyed up
by the supercilious arrogance of youth; and while inexperience rendered
her incapable of entering into the feelings of her husband, she
displayed towards him none of that deference, and yielding submission,
which might reasonably have been expected from her youth, but that her
mother was there to claim them for herself, and to inculcate, as far as
she could, that while she was her natural friend, Lodore was her natural
enemy.
He, with strong pride and crushed affections, gave himself up for a
disappointed man. He disdained to struggle with the sinister influence
of his mother-in-law; he did not endeavour to discipline and invigorate
the facile disposition of his bride. He had expected devotion,
attention, love; and he scorned to complain or to war against the
estrangement that grew up between them. If at any time he was impelled
by an overflowing heart to seek his fair wife's side, the eternal
presence of Lady Santerre chilled him at once; and to withdraw her from
this was a task difficult indeed to one who could not forgive the
competition admitted between them. At first he made one or two
endeavours to separate them; but the reception his efforts met with
galled his haughty soul; and while he cherished a deep and passionate
hatred for the cause, he grew to despise the victim of her arts. He
thought that he perceived duplicity, low-thoughted pride, and coldness
of heart, the native growth of the daughter of such a mother. He yielded
her up at once to the world and her parent, and resolved to seek, not
happiness, but occupation elsewhere. He felt the wound deeply, but he
sought no cure; and pride taught him to mask his soreness of spirit by a
studied mildness of manner, which, being joined to cold indifference,
and frequent contradiction, soon begot a considerable degree of
resentment, and even dislike on her part. Her mother's well-applied
flatteries and the adulation of her friends were contrasted with his
half-disguised contempt. The system of society tended to increase their
mutual estrangement. She embarked at once on the stream of fashion; and
her whole time was given up to the engagements and amusements that
flowed in on her on all sides; while he--one other regret added to many
previous ones--one other disappointment in addition to those which
already corroded his heart--bade adieu to every hope of domestic
felicity, and tried to create new interests for himself, seeking, in
public affairs, for food for a mind eager for excitement.