Downward flies my lord,
Nodding beside my lady in his carriage;
Away! away! fresh horses are the word,
And changed as quickly as hearts after marriage.
BYRON.
It was with feelings of satisfaction, utterly unmixed with regret,
that Lucy found herself once more cutting her way through that dense
mass, which is made up of strings of carriages, and clouds of smoke,
towards those suburbs which upon her entrance had struck her as
interminable. She only felt that she had Castleton once more by her
side--a pleasure which had daily become more rare, as their stay in
London had been protracted. The impression uppermost in his mind, if
not so pure and unmixed, was upon the whole of a pleasurable nature.
The same train of thought recurred to him as had produced so much
effect upon his then unsettled opinions some years back, when upon
leaving town at that season he had first sought Morden Bay, and
had for the first time beheld the present partner of his fate; and
as these feelings returned in almost their original freshness,
they chased away all the more unworthy causes of repining, which
the frivolous habits of the world had fostered; and for the time
all anxieties dependent upon a false sense of shame at her former
position no longer interfered with well-merited admiration of her
excellent virtues, and transcendent beauty, and grateful confidence
in her unbounded devotion to himself. He even looked back with
something like contempt at the perpetual uneasiness under which
he had laboured, lest the extreme lowness of her origin should be
discovered, and was now ashamed of having been so much ashamed of
some of her unpractised mistakes.
One littleness, though, he could not help clinging to. It was
still a great satisfaction to him, that the dreaded discovery had
not been gossipped amongst his servants. He would of all things
have disliked that the daily talk of those from whom he looked
for habitual respect, should turn upon the fact of their mistress
having been, what they would call, “no better than themselves.”
As for the world, he knew enough of it to be aware that there his
principal difficulties and dangers were past. The world had been
peculiarly disposed to criticise the first debût of a new denizen
nearly connected with one to whose taste that world had long yielded
a forced allegiance. Another season, and detraction would find some
more stirring game than one so inoffensive as Lucy.
Amidst these topics for satisfaction, almost for self-gratulation,
one unpleasant doubt did obtrude itself. Though the care of the world
would no longer molest his enjoyment, was he quite certain that he
should himself continue perfectly contented with the success of his
experiment? Was she the companion he required? He started in anger
at himself as this hitherto fleeting and shapeless suspicion assumed
the form of a substantial doubt, and, as chasing it impatiently
away, he cast upon her a look of affection and encouragement, she
best answered the appeal, and removed for the time all traces of
painful impression, by discussing with ease and spirit the pleasure
she should derive from again beholding Somersby, and recalling
with accuracy the favourite spots within his domain which they had
together frequented, during their last residence there. As these
were the outward images then uppermost in his mind, he gladly
obliterated, in this fortunate reciprocity, those ideas which had
before intruded themselves.
The circumstances of the first few days at Somersby, seemed to
continue the illusion, (if illusion it was,) that the qualifications
of his partner for life left him nothing to desire. The weather
was beautiful, and with elastic step and cheerful countenance she
accompanied him every where, participating in all his plans and
entering into all his improvements. But persons, however strong,
cannot stroll through the whole day; and Lucy before she left London
had, with good reason, been recommended not to over fatigue herself;
so a pony-phaeton was put in requisition, and this enabled them to
extend their excursions, and protract their enjoyment; but our fickle
climate will sometimes frown on pony-phaetons even in August. There
came a wet week, and they were confined to the house, and immured in
the library. This was an unlucky _locale_ for Lucy; but it had always
been used as the common morning-room, and she felt lonely if she did
not see Castleton, even though _his_ eyes were fixed on his book.
Had Castleton been alone, his study would have been all-sufficient
to him; but being, as it were, thus continually in company, there
was hardly any thing he read, by which some train of thought was not
awakened in his ever active imagination, which he longed at once to
communicate. It was not that he was anxious captiously to criticise,
or to find fault, but he was often eager to illustrate and to impart
the beauties that struck him; and as, with this desire, he looked
upon his uninformed companion, he felt the hopelessness of such an
attempt. If it was a book of science, in vain would he comment upon
the extension of that, of which she neither knew the rudiments nor
the terms--if of fiction, equally beyond her reach were the least
soaring flights of fancy--if of satire, she was equally little
cognizant of the persons portrayed, or aware of the foibles for
which they were ridiculed. He had once before indulged in the social
custom of blending conversation with his reading; the precedent was
an ominous one. It had been at Rome. When persons familiarly known
to each other live under the same roof in a foreign hotel, their
intercourse is naturally on an easy footing, and much time will
sometimes be spent together by that facility of gliding, unasked, in
and out of apartments, which never could have been demanded under
the well-drilled form of “a knock-and-ring” London visit. When
the intimacy of friendship thus confirms the interest of a warmer
feeling, it is a delightful, but a dangerous habit.
Castleton had in this manner spent the most of many mornings in
Lady Gayland’s. They did not then think it necessary, under these
circumstances, always to talk, to the exclusion of books; but
they often found it agreeable to mix up reciprocal remarks on
their reading. And some of these most animated and interesting
discussions had arisen out of casual observations excited by some
passage which had forcibly struck them in the perusal; and whether
these conversations took the turn of excited enthusiasm, or refined
criticism, their uniform effect was, that the parties engaged in them
separated mutually better pleased with each other. In the course of
the last week, Castleton had frequently ventured, in some of the
lighter works with which he had been engaged, to read short extracts
to Lucy, explaining and recommending the whole book to her perusal.
This desire she always immediately complied with; but her attention
was ever fixed, and her memory exerted in the discovery of these
particular passages, which he happened accidentally to have cited;
and, in this pursuit, her eye would wander over whole lines of print,
as a traveller would over lines of hedge and ditch by the road side,
noting nothing by the way, in search of one only object.
The fact was, as has been stated before, that her mother had
always, at that age when the taste is acquired, discouraged reading
as unprofitable. And her aunt, not feeling herself at liberty to
interfere directly with the system of her mother, had rather selected
passages adapted to her capacity, and facilitated even these by
her explanations, than encouraged her in any independent course of
reading. Alice Darnell’s plan had had the effect upon her niece’s
mind, of a sort of intellectual “swimming in corks.” Now deprived of
this artificial aid, she felt more than ever, the utter helplessness
of her ignorance. She had been enabled by these means to dabble
gracefully in shallows; but was utterly incapable of venturing
unassisted on the wide ocean of knowledge.
A week had passed in this way; the mornings and most of the evenings
devoted to study on the part of Castleton, and the same time consumed
by Lucy, in vain attempts to toil after him in the few books, which,
on reading himself, he thought it possible to recommend to her. She
had, in making the effort, no other object in view, but endeavouring
to please him, by appearing to understand his remarks; and in this
she had too often failed; for, though gratified, at first, by
thinking that she had remarked the same points which had struck him,
he was again disappointed, when he went on to ask her opinion upon
other parts, which perhaps had made as strong an impression upon
himself, though, from the consciousness that she was unacquainted
with the book, he had not communicated that impression. He sometimes
found, that except those passages to which he had directed her
attention, all the rest of the work, connected with which these
isolated passages acquired a redoubled value, had produced no more
effect upon her, than if her eyes had never glanced over its pages.
One afternoon, he had accidentally taken up the “Promessi Sposi” of
Manzoni, (that only child of the old age of Italian literature.) The
copy in his hand was the original one, which he had not seen since he
had first read it with delight in Italy. The marks that had either
been made by himself, or another, of admiration of the most sterling,
though, perhaps, not the most palpable beauties of this work of true
genius, were still visible upon the pages before him, and recalled
the scene, and the occasions on which they were made; and when the
thought recurred, but for his own over-fastidious feeling, and
perverted imagination, what might now have been his lot, he turned on
Lucy a look, in which disappointment was perhaps too legibly written;
for she interpreted it at once into a desire for some change; and
imagining such to be his wish, she asked him if he did not think “it
was now fine enough to take a stroll out of doors?”
The weather had certainly shown symptoms of settling; the clouds
had first lightened, then dispersed; and now the sun, successfully
struggling through the dappled sky, already played on the sparkling
drops, which the gentle breeze began to shake from the dripping
leaves.
Castleton rose from his chair, glad to snap the chain of thought
which bound his spirit to no good purpose; and throwing up the
window, the enjoyment of all external sources of pleasure seemed
suddenly restored.
Every inducement combined to tempt them forth. The mingled odour of
the freshened herbage, and of the grateful flower-garden beneath,
breathed through the atmosphere one varied fragrance. The cheerful
song of the feathered tribe sounded as an irresistible invitation to
all living things, to share with them in rejoicing at the restored
reign of nature.
“Yes, dear Lucy,” said Castleton, encircling her waist, “get on your
bonnet, and we shall have a delightful walk.”
As he said this, the grinding of carriage-wheels through the
rain-soaked gravel was heard, and a well-packed travelling equipage
appeared in sight.
“O, I do believe that is Lady Gayland,” said Lucy, clapping her hands
with delight, “and now you won’t want for amusement.”
And Lady Gayland it certainly was. She had been expected shortly,
but the precise day was not known; and as she had paid another visit
since she left town--and no lady was ever expected to comprehend the
irregularities of a cross-country post--her arrival before her own
announcement of herself was very pardonable.