Time and Change together take their flight.
L. E. L.
Fitzhenry and his daughter travelled for many days in rain and sunshine,
across the vast plains of America. Conversation beguiled the way, and
Ethel, delighted by the novelty and variety of all she saw, often felt
as if springing from her seat with a new sense of excitement and
gladness. So much do the young love change, that we have often thought
it the dispensation of the Creator, to show that we are formed, at a
certain age, to quit the parental roof, like the patriarch, to seek some
new abode where to pitch our tents, and pasture our flocks. The clear
soft eyes of the fair girl glistened with pleasure at each picturesque
view, each change of earth and sky, each new aspect of civilization and
its results, as they were presented to her.
Fitzhenry--or as he approaches the old world, so long deserted by him, he
may resume his title--Lord Lodore had quitted his abode in the Illinois
upon the spur of the moment; he had left his peaceful dwelling impatiently,
and in haste, giving himself no time for second thoughts--scarcely for
recollection. As the fever of his mind subsided, he saw no cause to
repent his proceeding, and yet he began to look forward with an anxious
and foreboding mind. He had become aware that the village of the
Illinois was not the scene fitted for the development of his daughter's
first social feelings, and that he ought to take her among the educated
and refined, to give her a chance for happiness. A Gertrude or an
Haidée, brought up in the wilds, innocent and free, and bestowing the
treasure of their hearts on some accomplished stranger, brought on
purpose to realize the ideal of their dreamy existences, is a picture of
beauty, that requires a miracle to change into an actual event in life;
and that one so pure, so guileless, and so inexperienced as Ethel,
should, in sheer ignorance, give her affections away unworthily, was a
danger to be avoided beyond all others. Whitelock had performed the part
of the wandering stranger, but he was ill-fitted for it; and Lodore's
first idea was to hurry his daughter away before she should invest him,
or any other, with attributes of glory, drawn from her own imagination
and sensibility, wholly beyond his merits.
This was done. Father and daughter were on their way to New York, having
bid an eternal adieu to the savannas and forests of the west. For a time,
Lodore's thoughts were haunted by the image of the home they had left.
The murmuring of its stream was in his ears, the shape of each distant
hill, the grouping of the trees, surrounding the wide-spread prairie,
the winding pathway and trellised arbour were before his eyes, and he
thought of the changes that the seasons would operate around, and of his
future plans unfulfilled, as any home-bred farmer might, when his lease
was out, and he was forced to remove to another county.
As their steps drew near the city which was their destination, these
recollections became fainter, and, except in discourse with Ethel, when
their talk usually recurred to the prairie, and their late home, he
began to anticipate the future, and to reflect upon the results of his
present journey.
Whither was he about to go? To England? What reception should he there
meet? and under what auspices introduce his child to her native country?
There was a stain upon his reputation that no future conduct could
efface. The name of Lodore was a by-word and a mark for scorn; it was
introduced with a sneer, followed by calumny and rebuke. It could not
even be forgotten. His wife had remained to keep alive the censure or
derision attached to it. He, it is true, might have ceased to live in
the memories of any. He did not imagine that his idea ever recurred to
the thoughtless throng, whose very name and identity were changed by the
lapse of twelve years. But when it was mentioned, when he should awaken
the forgotten sound by his presence, the echo of shame linked to it
would awaken also; the love of a sensation so rife among the wealthy and
idle, must swell the sound, and Ethel would be led on the world's stage
by one who was the object of its opprobrium.
What then should he do? Solicit Lady Lodore to receive and bring out her
daughter? Deprive himself of her society; and after having guarded her
unassailed infancy, desert her side at the moment when dangers grew
thick, and her mother's example would operate most detrimentally on her?
He thought of his sister, with whom he kept up a regular though
infrequent correspondence. She was ill fitted to guide a young beauty on
a path which she had never trod. He thought of France, Italy, and
Germany, and how he might travel about with her during the two or three
succeeding years, enlarging and storing her mind, and protracting the
happy light-hearted years of youth. His own experience on the continent
would facilitate this plan; and though it presented, even on this very
account, a variety of objections, it was that to which he felt most
attracted.
There was yet another--another image and another prospect to which he
turned with a kind of gasping sensation, which was now a shrinking
aversion to--now an ardent desire for, its fulfilment. This was the
project of a reconciliation with Cornelia, and that they should
henceforth unite in their labours to render each other and their child
happy.
Twelve years had passed since their separation: twelve years, which had
led him from the prime of life to its decline--which forced Cornelia to
number, instead of nineteen, more than thirty years--bringing her from
crude youth to fullest maturity. What changes might not time have
operated in her mind! Latterly no intercourse had passed between them,
they were as dead to each other; and yet the fact of the existence of
either was a paramount law with both, ruling their actions and
preventing them from forming any new tie. Cornelia might be tired of
independence, have discovered the hollowness of her mother's system, and
desire, but that pride prevented her, a reunion with her long-exiled
husband. Her understanding was good; intercourse with the world had
probably operated to cultivate and enlarge it--maternal love might reign
in full force, causing her heart to yearn towards the blooming Ethel,
and a thousand untold sorrows might make her regard the affection of her
child's father, as the prop, the shelter, the haven, where to find
peace, if not happiness.
And yet Cornelia was still young, still beautiful, still admired: he was
on the wane--a healthy life had preserved the uprightness of his form
and the spring of his limbs; but his countenance, how changed from the
Lodore who pledged his faith to her in the rustic church at Rhyaider Gowy!
The melting softness of his dark eyes was altered to mere sadness--his
brow, from which the hair had retreated, was delved by a thousand lines;
grey sprinkled his black hair,--a wintry morning stealing drearily upon
night--each year had left its trace, and with no Praxitelean hand,
engraven lines upon the rounded cheek, and sunk and diminished the full
eye. Twelve years had scarcely operated so great a change as here
described; but thus he painted it to himself, exaggerating and deforming
the image his mirror presented--and where others had only marked the
indications of a thoughtful mind, and the traces of over-wrought
sensibility, he beheld careful furrows and age-worn wrinkles.
And was he thus to claim the beautiful, the courted--she who still
reigned supreme on Love's own throne? and to whom, so had he been told,
time had brought increased charms as its gift, strewing roses and
fragrance on her lovely head, so proving that neither grief nor passion
had disturbed the proud serenity of her heart.
Lodore had lived many years the life of a recluse, having given up
ambition, hope, almost life itself, inasmuch as that existence is scarcely
to be termed life, which does not bring us into intimate connexion with our
fellow-creatures, nor develope in its progress some plan of present
action or anticipation for the future. He was roused from his lethargy
as he approached peopled cities; a desire to mingle again in human
affairs was awakened, together with an impatience under the obscurity to
which he had condemned himself. He grew at last to despise his
supineness, which had prevented him from struggling with and vanquishing
his adverse fortunes. He resolved no longer to be weighed down by the
fear of obloquy, while he was conscious of the bravery and determination
of his soul, and with what lofty indignation he was prepared to sweep
away the stigma attached to him, and to assert the brightness of his
honour. This, for his daughter's sake, as well as for his own, he
determined to do.
He had no wish, however, to enter upon the task in America. His native
country must be the scene of his exertions, as to re-assert himself
among his countrymen was their object. He felt, also, that, from the
beginning, he must take no false step; and it behoved him fully to
understand the state of things in England as regarded him, before he
presented himself. He delayed his voyage, therefore, till he had
exchanged letters with Europe. He wrote to his sister, immediately on
arriving at New York, asking for intelligence concerning Lady Lodore; and
communicating his intention to return immediately, and, if possible, to
effect a reconciliation with his estranged wife. He besought an
immediate reply, as he did not wish to defer his voyage beyond the
spring months.
Having sent this letter, he gave himself up to the society of his
daughter. He occupied himself by endeavouring to form her for the new
scenes on which she was about to enter, and to divest her of the first
raw astonishment excited by the contrast formed by the busy, commercial
eastern, with the majestic tranquillity of the western portion of the
new world. He wished to accustom her to mingle with her fellow-creatures
with ease and dignity; and he sought to enlarge her mind, and to excite
her curiosity, by introducing her to the effects of civilization. He
would willingly have formed acquaintances for her sake, but that such a
circumstance might interfere with the incognito he meant to preserve
while away from his native country. We can never divest ourselves of our
identity and consciousness, and are apt to fancy that others are equally
alive to our peculiar individuality. It was not probable that the name
of Lodore, or of Fitzhenry, should be known in New York; but as the title
had been bestowed as a reward for victories obtained over the Americans, he
who bore it was less to be blamed for fancying that they had heard with
pleasure the story of his disgrace, and would be ready to visit his
fault with malignant severity.
An accident, however, brought him into contact with an English lady, and
he gladly availed himself of this opportunity to bring Ethel into the
society of her country people. One day he received an elegant little
note, such as are written in London by the fashionable and the fair,
which, with many apologies, contained a request. The writer had heard
that he was about to return to England with his daughter. Would he
refuse to take under his charge a young lady, who was desirous of
returning thither? The distance from their native land drew English
people together, and usually made them kindly disposed towards each
other. The circumstances under which this request was made were
peculiar; and if he would call to hear them explained, his interest
would be excited, and he would not refuse a favour which would lay the
writer under the deepest obligation.
Lodore answered this application in person. He found an English family
residing in one of the best streets of New York, and was introduced to the
lady who had addressed him. Her story, the occasion of her request, was
detailed without reserve. Her husband's family had formerly been
American royalists, refugees in England, where they had lived poor and
forgotten. A brother of his father had remained behind in the new
country, and acquired a large fortune. He had lived to extreme old age;
and dying childless, left his wealth to his English nephew, upon
condition that he settled in America. This had caused their emigration.
While in England, they had lived at Bath, and been intimate with a
clergyman, who resided near. This clergyman was a singular man--a
recluse, and a student--a man of ardent soul, held down by a timid,
nervous disposition. He was an outcast from his family, which was
wealthy and of good station, on account of having formed a mes-alliance.
How indeed he could have married his unequal partner was matter of
excessive wonder. She was illiterate and vulgar--coarse-minded, though
good-natured. This ill-matched pair had two daughters;--one, the
younger, now about fourteen years old, was the person whom it was
desired to commit to Lodore's protection.
The lady continued:--She had a large family of boys, and but one girl,
of the age of Fanny Derham;--they had been for some years companions and
friends. When about to emigrate, she believed that she should benefit
equally her daughter and her friend, if she made the latter a companion
in their emigration. With great reluctance, Mr. Derham had consented to
part with his child: he had thought it for her good, and he had let her
go. Fanny obeyed her father. She manifested no disinclination to the
plan; and it seemed as if the benevolent wishes of Mrs. Greville were
fulfilled for the benefit of all. They had been in America nearly a
year, and now Fanny was to return. She herself had borne her absence
from her father with fortitude: yet it required an exertion of fortitude
to bear it, which was destroying the natural vivacity of her
disposition. Gloom gathered over her mind; she fled society; she sought
solitude; and spent day after day in reverie. Mrs. Greville strove to
rouse her, and Fanny lent herself with good grace to any exertion
demanded of her; yet it was plain, that even when she gave herself most
up to her desire to please her hostess, her thoughts were far away, her
eye was tracing the invisible outline of objects divided from her by the
ocean; and her inmost sense was absorbed by the recollection of one far
distant; while her ear and voice were abstractedly lent to those
immediately around her. Mrs. Greville endeavoured vainly to amuse and
distract her thoughts. The only pleasure which attracted her young mind
was study--a deep and unremitted application to those profound
acquirements, to the knowledge of which her father had introduced her.
"When you know my young friend," continued Mrs. Greville, "you will
understand the force of character which renders her unlike every other
child. Fanny never was a child. Mrs. Derham and her daughter Sarah
bustled through the business of life--of the farm and the house; while
it devolved on Fanny to attend to, to wait upon, her father. She was his
pupil--he her care. The relation of parent and child subsisted between
them, on a different footing than in ordinary cases. Fanny nursed her
father, watched over his health and humours, with the tenderness and
indulgence of a mother; while he instructed her in the dead languages,
and other sorts of abstruse learning, which seldom make a part of a
girl's education. Fanny, to use her own singular language, loves
philosophy, and pants after knowledge, and indulges in a thousand
Platonic dreams, which I know nothing about; and this mysterious and
fanciful learning she has dwelt upon with tenfold fervour since her
arrival in America.
"The contrast," continued Mrs. Greville, "between this wonderful, but
strange girl, and her parent, is apparent in nothing more than the
incident that made me have recourse to your kindness. Fanny pined for
home, and her father. The very air of America was distasteful to her--we
were not congenial companions. But she never expressed discontent. As
much as she could, she shut herself up in the world of her own mind; but
outwardly, she was cheerful and uncomplaining. A week ago we had letters
from her parents, requesting her immediate return. Mr. Derham wasted
away without her; his health was seriously injured by what, in feminine
dialect, is called fretting; and both he and her mother have implored me
to send her back to them without delay."
Lord Lodore listened with breathless interest, asking now and then such
questions as drew on Mrs. Greville to further explanation. He soon
became convinced that he was called upon to do this act of kindness for
the daughter of his former school-fellow--for Francis Derham, whom he
had not known nor seen since they had exchanged the visions of boyhood
for the disappointing realities of maturer age. And this was Derham's
fate!--poor, mis-matched, destroyed by a morbid sensibility, an object
of pity to his own young child, yet adored by her as the gentlest and
wisest of men. How different--and yet how similar--the destinies of
both! It warmed the heart of Lodore to think that he should renew his
boyish intimacy. Derham would not reject him--would not participate in
the world's blind scorn: in his bosom no harsh nor unjust feeling could
have place; his simple, warm heart would yearn towards him as of yore;
and the school-fellows become again all the world to each other.
After this explanation, Mrs. Greville introduced her young friend. Her
resemblance to her father was at first sight remarkable, and awoke with
greater keenness the roused sensibility of Lodore. She was pale and fair;
her light, golden hair clustered in short ringlets over her small,
well-formed head, leaving unshaded a high forehead, clear as opening
day. Her blue eyes were remarkably light and penetrating, with defined
and straight brows. Intelligence, or rather understanding, reigned in
every feature; independence of thought, and firmness, spoke in every
gesture. She was a mere child in form and mien--even in her expressions;
but within her was discernible an embryo of power, and a grandeur of
soul, not to be mistaken. Simplicity and equability of temper were her
characteristics: these smoothed the ruggedness which the singularity of
her character might otherwise have engendered.
Lodore rejoiced in the strange accident that gave such a companion to his
daughter. Nothing could be in stronger contrast than these two
girls;--the fairy form, the romantic and yielding sweetness of Ethel,
whose clinging affections formed her whole world,--with the studious and
abstracted disciple of ancient learning. Notwithstanding this want of
similarity, they soon became mutually attached. Lodore was a link
between them. He excited Ethel to admire the concentrated and
independent spirit of her new friend; and entered into conversation with
Fanny on ancient philosophy, which was unintelligible and mysterious to
Ethel. The three became inseparable: they prolonged their excursions in
the neighbouring country; while each enjoyed peculiar pleasures in the
friendship and sympathy of their companions.
This addition to their society, and an intimacy cultivated with Mrs.
Greville, whose husband was absent at Washington, formed, as it were, a
weaning time for Lodore, from the seclusion of the Illinois. There he had
lived, cut off from the past and the future, existing in the present
only. He had been happy there; cured of the wounds which had penetrated
his heart so deeply, through the ministration of all-healing nature. He
felt the gliding of the hours as a blessing; and the occupations of each
day were replete with calm enjoyment. He thought of England, as a seaman
newly saved from a wreck would of the tempestuous ocean, with fear and
loathing, and with heart-felt gladness that he was no longer the sport
of its waves. He cultivated such a philosophic turn of mind as often
brought a smile of self-pity on his lips, at the recollection of scenes
which, during their passage, had provoked bitter and burning sensations.
What was all this strife of passion, this eager struggle for something,
he knew not what, to him now? The healthy labours of his farm, the
tranquillity of his library, the endearing caresses of his child, were
worth all the vanities of life.
Thus he had felt in the Illinois; and now again he looked back to his
undisturbed life there, wondering how he had endured its monotonous
loneliness. A desire for action, for mingling with his fellow-men, had
arisen in his heart. He felt like a strong swimmer, who longs to battle
with the waves. He desired to feel and to exert his powers, to fill a
space in the eyes of others, to re-assert himself in their esteem, or to
resent their scorn. He could no longer regard the past with
imperturbability. Again his passions were roused, as he thought of his
mother-in-law, of his wife, and of the strange scenes which had preceded
and caused his flight from England. These ideas had long occupied his
mind, without occasioning any emotion. But now again they were full of
interest; and pain and struggle again resulted from the recollection. At
such times he was glad that Ethel had a companion, that he might leave
her and wander alone. He became a prey to the same violence of passion,
the same sense of injury and stinging hurry of thought, which for twelve
years had ceased to torture him. But no tincture of cowardice entered
into his sensations. His soul was set upon victory over the evil fortune
to which he had so long submitted. When he thought of returning to
England, from which he had fled with dishonour, his cheek tingled as a
thousand images of insult and contumely passed rapidly through his mind,
as likely to visit him. His heart swelled within him--his very soul grew
faint; but instead of desiring to fly the anticipated opprobrium, he
longed to meet it and to wash out shame, if need were, with his life's
blood; and, by resolution and daring, to silence his enemies, and redeem
his name from obloquy.
One day, occupied by such thoughts, he stood watching that vast and
celebrated cataract, whose everlasting and impetuous flow mirrored the
dauntless but rash energy of his own soul. A vague desire of plunging
into the whirl of waters agitated him. His existence appeared to be a
blot in the creation; his hopes, and fears, and resolves, a worthless
web of ill-assorted ideas, best swept away at once from the creation.
Suddenly his eye caught the little figure of Fanny Derham, standing on a
rock not far distant, her meaning eyes fixed on him. The thunder of the
waters prevented speech; but as he drew near her, he saw that she had a
paper in her hand. She held it out to him; a blush mantled over her
usually pale countenance as he took it; and she sprung away up the rocky
pathway.
Lodore cast his eyes on the open letter, and his own name, half forgotten
by him, presented itself on the written page. The letter was from Fanny's
father--from Derham, his friend and school-fellow. His heart beat fast
as he read the words traced by one formerly so dear. "The beloved name
of Fitzhenry"--thus Derham had written--"awakens a strange conjecture.
Is not your kind protector, the friend and companion of my boyish days?
Is it not the long absent Lodore, who has stretched out a paternal hand
to my darling child, and who is about to add to his former generous
acts, the dearer one of restoring my Fanny to me? Ask him this
question;--extract this secret from him. Tell him how my chilled heart
warms with pleasure at the prospect of a renewal of our friendship. He
was a god-like boy; daring, generous, and brave. The remembrance of him
has been the bright spot which, except yourself, is all of cheering that
has chequered my gloomy existence. Ask him whether he remembers him
whose life he saved--whom he rescued from oppression and misery. I am an
old man now, weighed down by sorrow and infirmity. Adversity has also
visited him; but he will have withstood the shocks of fate, as gallantly
as a mighty ship stems the waves of ocean: while I, a weather-worn
skiff, am battered and wrecked by the tempest. From all you say, he must
be Lodore. Mark him, Fanny: if you see one lofty in his mien, yet
gracious in all his acts; his person adorned by the noblest attributes
of rank; full of dignity, yet devoid of pride; impatient of all that is
base and insolent, but with a heart open as a woman's to
compassion;--one whose slightest word possesses a charm to attract and
enchain the affections:--if such be your new friend, put this letter
into his hand; he will remember Francis Derham, and love you for my
sake, as well as for your own."