Romance and Reality (Landon)/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV.
"it is a fearful thing
To love as I love thee; to feel the world,
The beautiful, the bright, joy-giving world,
A blank without thee.***
He is the star, round which my thoughts revolve
Like satellites. My father! can it be,
That thine, the unceasing love of many years,
Doth not so fill my heart as this strange guest?"
The Ancestress.
What an odd thing experience is!—now turning over so rapidly the book of life, now writing so much on a single leaf. We hear of the head turning grey in a single night,—the same change passes over the heart. Affection is the tyrant of a woman, and only bids her to the banquet to suspend a cutting sword over her head, which a word, a look may call down to inflict the wound that strikes to the death, or heals, but with a scar. Could we fling back the veil which nature and society alike draw over her feelings, how much of sorrow—unsuspected because unexpressed—would be found! —how many a young and beating heart would show disappointment graven on the inmost core!—what a history of vain hopes, gentle endeavours, anxieties, and mortifications, laid bare! There is one phrase continually occurring in conversation,—"O, a woman never marries the man to whom she was first attached." How often—how lightly is this said!—how little thought given to the world of suffering it involves! Checked by circumstance—abandoned from necessity, the early attachment may depart with the early enthusiasm which youth brings, but leaves not; still the dream was sweet, and its waking bitter. But Emily was not one to whom such vision could be
"Sweet, not lasting,
The perfume and suppliance of a moment."
Nature had given her the keenest sensibility; and the solitude in which much of her life had hitherto been passed had left free scope for the imagination to spiritualise and exalt. Living entirely with her uncle and aunt, she had insensibly caught the quiet manners of these, much advanced in life,—the young are great imitators. Unaccustomed to witness strong bursts of feeling, she never thought of giving outwardly way to her own; thus, hers, unrelieved and unexhausted by display, grew stronger from concealment. She had mixed little with those of her own age,—hence she was reserved; and the confidante and the confession weaken love, by mixing up with it somewhat of vanity, and taking from its mystery. Emily's idea of love was of the most romantic and exalted kind. Whether borrowed from the Duchess of Cleves, and the other old novels with which the library abound, where love is a species of idolatry; or from the pages of modern poetry, where all that is spiritual and beautiful is thrown around its nature;—all made love to her a species of religion.
She had arrived in London with no very accurate notion of what she had to expect; but it was to be something very delightful. Accustomed to be made much of—aware of her own pretensions, she had come prepared for entertainment and homage; but she had found neither;—and though rich, pretty, and high-born, she was at nineteen very near being philosophical, and pronouncing the pleasures of the world to be vanity and vexation of spirit.
Lorraine's arrival had changed all this. At a glance he saw how weary a time the young friend of his sister must be passing; and mere good nature only would have prompted his attention to the stranger—to say nothing of that stranger being an elegant and interesting girl.
Emily now had a partner, who decided the fact of her fairy-like dancing—whose authority was sufficient for admiration—whose attention settled the worthiness of the object on which it was bestowed: she owed him much more than himself. Again, the mornings passed away so pleasantly, when there was some one to whom she could talk about last night; and it was much more agreeable to sing to Edward than to herself. He loved music; he liked the grace, the wit of female society: he was very handsome; and there was nothing improbable in supposing he had a heart to lose, and, moreover, he might lose it. Not that Emily had given one thought to such chance,—Love is the least calculating of all dreamers,—she had been very happy, and such shrink intuitively from asking why. Mortification had forced the conviction upon her; and who ever saw the one they love devoted to another, and found not the fatal truth written on their heart,—and for ever? Many and bitter were the tears Emily shed that night over two withered roses: she wept for vain hopes, for regret, but for shame more than all. Shame is the worst pang of unrequited affection. Heavens! to be forced to ask ourselves what right we had to love.
One of our most celebrated authors (a lady, by the question,) once asked, how is it that women in the utmost depths of grief never forget to curl their hair?—Vanity was the cause assigned; but I say, shame. We shrink from shewing outward sign of sorrow, if that sorrow be in aught connected with the feelings; and the reason of this must be sought in some theory of innate ideas not yet discovered.
Emily the next morning appeared with the usual grape-like curls, and her cheek no paler than fatigue might authorise.
"'Ah, the day of my destiny's over,'"
said Lorraine; "and, a fair exchange being no robbery, I quote the next line a little varied,
'The star of my fate is on high.'
Listen to the importance of yesterday:—'Yesterday Lady Walsingham's splendid villa was thrown open to the fashionable world, which crowded to enjoy all that taste could invent, or luxury supply,—breakfast was laid for two hundred.' There lies the spell; pines and champagne who can resist,—even though through the medium of Lady Walsingham? How tired, how fat her poor ladyship looked! like Mont Blanc, she was covered with the crimson of evening."
"Nay, now, Edward," said Mr. Delawarr, "you were there yourself."
"Yes; and am I not just acting up to our great social principle—go first, and grumble afterwards? Besides, the fête was given not to pleasure, but to pretension—and pretension is a sort of general election, depending on universal suffrage, and subject to canvassing and criticism. Born a milkmaid, meant for a farmer's wife, why are Lady Walsingham's nature and fate at variance? Those red arms should have been celebrated for their skill in bacon, and her cheeses noted the country round. How comfortable she would have looked in her crimson shawl—how respectable in her flowered print! What can she have to do with French kid?—her gloves are her martyrs. That countenance shining through blonde—those elephantine ears, whose girandole of diamonds is the size of a chandelier in half the drawing-rooms of genteel residences for small families or a single gentleman—what part can she have in the airy empire of caprice, the Parthian-arrow-guarded world of fashion? Why does not she live in the country, roast whole oxen on her wedding-day, keep open house at an election, shake her acquaintance heartily by the hand, and drive in a coach-and-four with outriders every Sunday to church? Her idea of taste (the ocean whence Fashion springs) is like the pupil's idea of Helen, to whom Apelles said, 'Not being able to make her beautiful, you have made her splendid.'"
"Strange," said Mr. Delawarr, "the influence of opinion! We know people to be fools—individually we should disdain their judgment; yet, taken in a mass, no sacrifice seems too great to secure their suffrage. The desire of notoriety, and the love of fame, differ but little; yet one is the meanest, the other the noblest feeling in our nature: the one looks to the present, and is a mixture of the selfish and the common-place—the other dwells upon the future, and is the generous and the exalted."
"Lady Walsingham's is a very beautiful place," observed Emily, from the mere desire of saying something. It is curious, that when we feel in ourselves the most inclined to silence, we almost always fancy it is absolutely necessary we should talk.
"It is indeed," replied Lorraine; "I know no places that so realise my ideas of luxury as these villas—so near our crowded, hot, dusty, noisy metropolis; yet so green, so cool, so quiet, and so filled with flowers. I dislike Richmond itself exceedingly; just a place to visit on Sunday—with its hill covered with people, evidently labouring, not against its height, but their own good dinner. The curse of the steam-boat is upon the lovely river; but some of the villas, imbedded in their own old trees—surrounded by turf the fairy queen might tread—girdled with every variety of flowery shrub—I do not quite say I could spend the whole day there, but I could have a luxurious breakfast—one ought to indulge in natural tastes of a morning. Alas! with what regret do I see the brick-dust generation in which we live, so prolific in squares, crescents, places, rows, streets,—tall, stiff houses, with red curtains and white blinds! If this city system of colonisation goes on, our children will advertise a green tree, like an elephant, as 'this most wonderful production of nature;' and the meaning of green grass will only be to be found in the dictionary."
"What a valuable art will landscape painting be in those days! A view from nature will, both for beauty and rarity, be the chef d'œuvre of an artist."
"I must own, landscapes are not my favourite style of art: it is the feeling, more than the seeing, of the country in which I delight; the warm, soft air—the many musical noises—the wandering through the lights and shadows of the thick trees, rather than looking on any given point of view."
"I do agree with you—I hate a fine prospect by profession—one that you are expected to admire, and say fine things about; but in landscapes I like and dislike what I do in Wordsworth's poetry: I admire its mountain range of distant hill and troubled sky—or the lonely spot of inland shade, linked with human thought and human interest; but I detest its small pieces of rurality, its sheep and its cows. In painting, as in poetry, I like to be somewhat carried out of my every-day existence. For example, I give my utmost praise—or, I should rather say, my homage—to the Ode on Immortality, Tintern Abbey, &c. ; but my taste revolts from Goody Blake and Harry Gill. Now, Hofland's pictures are great favourites of mine: there is not only the lovely scene—the moon reflected in her softest mirror, the wave—but something or other that calls up the poetry of memory in the gazer; the battlements of some old castle, whose only banner is now of ivy—or a fallen temple, whose divinity has departed, but whose beauty remains, and whose 'fine electric chain' is one of a thousand associations."
"While on the subject of pictures, I heard the other day—we cannot vouch, as the newspapers say, for the truth of the report—that Lady Walsingham has had her picture and her husband's taken in a style at once allegorical and domestic. His lordship is holding a cage of doves, to which she is throwing roses: I understand her ladyship particularly requested the cage might be richly gilt."
"As it is the great principle of political economy to tax luxuries, why are not reports taxed? Are they not the chief luxuries of society? Of all my senses, I thank Heaven that of hearing is limited; the dative case is very well—hearing what is said to me; but preserve me from the ablative case—hearing what is said about me!"
"Would Lady Walsingham enjoy hearing to-day what is said of her fête yesterday?"
"Ah!" exclaimed Emily, "how unkind, how unjust this is!"
"You remember the old proverb, 'a fair exchange is no robbery,' or the anecdote of Piron, who said that the only speeches necessary on admission to the French Academy were for the received to say, ' Grand merci, messieurs;' and for the receivers to reply, ' Il n'y a pas de quoi.' Most hosts and guests might exchange these courtesies; and the ' Grand merci ' of vanity might be answered by the ' Il n'y a pas de quoi ' of ostentation. We speak ill of our neighbours, not from ill-nature, but idleness; satire is only the cayenne of conversation: people have so few subjects for talking about in common with their friends but their friends; and it is utterly impossible to dress them as Fontenelle did his asparagus, toute en huile."
"One reason why Mr. Heathcote, who dines here to-day, is called so entertaining is, that, like the conquerors of old, he gives no quarter."
"I regret my absence," said Lorraine; "but I have promised to go and congratulate Lady Lauriston on her leaving the oaks of her park for the acacias of her villa. Still I lament Mr. Heathcote: he knows all the world, and has an anecdote for and an epigram upon every body. He kills with diamond arrows: his voice is so low, his smile so bland, his whole manner so gentle, that you are barely aware of the concentrated acid and bitter of his speech. I call him cream of tartar. I am sure you will be so much amused."
Emily felt no such certainty—she felt as if she could never be amused again. She wandered into the drawing-room alone: she tried her harp—it was out of tune; her new songs—they were not pretty; she took up a new novel—it was so dull! She went into the front room—it was too sunny; into the back—it was too dark. The sound of Lorraine's cabriolet attracted her to the window; the fear of being seen kept her away. At length it drove off; she held her breath to listen to its latest sound: another nearer carriage drowned the roll of the distant wheels, and she felt as if even this small pleasure were denied. Strange, how any strong feeling refers all things to itself!—we exalt by dint of exaggeration. Not a creature was in the spacious and beautiful rooms: she almost started to see some four or five whole-length reflections of herself: the solitude made them painful; and, catching up a book, she threw herself into an arm-chair, which, at least, had the advantage of being far from any glass.
There is a certain satisfaction in the appearance of employment, and Emily opened her book; but she could not read—her thoughts were far away. Mortification had added divers prose notes to the poetry of the last few weeks. Her first impulse was to deny her feelings even to herself—her second to laugh bitterly at such vain deceit. Then she recalled words, looks, whose softness had misled;—alas! a slight investigation served to shew how much their colouring had been given by herself; and, as a last resource, she began to magnify the merit of Edward Lorraine.
Our being attached to a hero almost makes a heroine; and excellence is an excellent excuse for admiration. Yes, he was worthy of devotion, such as the heart pays, and once only, to the idol it has itself set up; but it was to be deep, silent, and unsuspected. And Adelaide—she would love her! How kind, how true, were the next moment's wishes for their happiness!
What a pity it is that our most pure and most beautiful feelings should spring from false impressions! What generous self-sacrifice—what a world of gentle affection, were now called forth in Emily by a moment's phantasy, whose life depended on that frailest of frail things, a coquette's vanity!
How untrue, to say youth is the happiest season of our life: it is filled with vexations, for almost all its ideas are false ones; they must be set right—and often how harshly! Its hopes are actual beliefs: how often must they be taught doubt by disappointment! And then its keen feelings, laying themselves so bare to the beak of the vulture experience! Youth is a season that has no repose.
They spent the next fortnight at Richmond—and a very miserable fortnight it was; for Lady Lauriston's villa was at Twickenham, and whether on the river or the road, the arrangement was always the same—Adelaide was the care of Lorraine. Emily soon found her fancy for cultivating the friendship of her fair rival was a fancy indeed. Lady Adelaide had been brought up in a proper sense of the danger of confidence: young friends, as her mother used to observe, are either useless or mischievous; and Adelaide duly considered her young friends as non-entities or rivals.
If, however, the sister was as cold as politeness, the brother was being animated very rapidly into something like warmth. Now an only son, it was his duty to marry: moreover, he thought a married man more comfortable than a single one: many little liberties were taken with a single, never taken with a married man: it was purchasing an exemption from young ladies at once. Finally, he thought Emily was in love with him: she always took his arm in walking, and they were sure to sit by each other at dinner. He forgot Emily had no choice. Pre-occupied and absent, Lord Merton never came into Emily's head: excepting their intervisiting, both families were living rather retired,—so there was no third person to say, "Ah, what a conquest you have made!" This phrase, which so often opens the eyes to what does not exist, gave here no intimation of actual mischief.
Yet our four lovers were all on the brink of discord. Lorraine was beginning to think his divinity not quite so divine—delays are dangerous—and neither his vanity nor his sentiment was satisfied at the little progress he had made. Adelaide was tiring of flirtation, which had only held so long a reign from the death of a relation having forced them into most unwilling retirement. It was very tiresome of aunts to die, if they were to be considered relations.
The second season thus broken up, Lady Lauriston was daily impressing on her beauty's mind the necessity of a "further-looking hope" and an establishment. Emily was sad, weary, and seemed ill: all said late hours were too much for her—a good sign, thought her calculating lover, in a wife; and every morning, between the paragraphs of the Morning Herald, Lord Merton weighed the advantages and disadvantages of wedded life.
Miss Arundel had never been properly brought out as an heiress; and amazing animation was added to the attachment, when, one evening, Lady Lauriston detailed to her dear Alfred much excellent advice, and the information that Emily was her uncle's adopted child, and, as such, certain of a noble fortune,—to say nothing of hopes from her aunt, whose property her indefatigable ladyship had ascertained was at her own disposal.
The next morning, her for once very obedient son rode back with Lorraine. Want of something else to say, and a very shady lane, disposed him to confidence; and he forthwith began a panegyric on himself, and on the good fortune of Miss Arundel, stating, he was now on his road to offer himself and his debts to her acceptance. Lorraine was surprised. I have heard it said, that no man ever believes a woman can fall in love with his friend: I would add, she certainly falls marvellously in his opinion if she does—and Edward's first thoughts were of Lord Merton's divers imperfections. Never had he seemed more selfish or more silly: "but, to be sure, the fool has a title;" and he amused himself with recalling all the usual common-places on the vanity and ambition of woman, while Merton poured into his ear the whole stream of his self-satisfaction.
They arrived: one said he should prolong his ride for an hour or two—the other went into the drawing-room. Emily was seated in a window; but there was room for two, and her unsuspected lover took his place. Mechanically she shut the book, assumed an attitude of attention, and prepared a few yeses. Lord Merton began by mentioning the good qualities he required in a wife, and thence took occasion to apply them all to Emily; but his introduction had been so long, that she, who knew no earthly reason why she should be interested in the various excellences of the future Lady Merton, allowed her thoughts to wander, and was only roused from her reverie by her hand being taken—a little rapture being deemed necessary at her consent—so her silence had been interpreted—and kissed with as much devotedness as Merton could shew any one but himself. Surprised and angry, she rose from her seat, and exclaimed, "I really do not understand"—a sentence Lord Morton did not give her time to finish; for, ascribing her retreat to embarrassment, he was most desirous of sustaining her under the weight of obligation, lest her gratitude should be quite fatiguing. Slowly the conviction broke upon him that she had not heard what he had been saying.
"Am I to understand, madam, that you have not listened to what I was mentioning? "
Now really sorry and confused, Emily pleaded headach,—said she could not account for her absence of mind,—made a thousand excuses,—entreated him to mention what he had been saying again, a glimmering idea having crossed her mind of a charity fair, about which he had been affecting much interest; and referring his thanks to his supposing she had promised her assistance, and with floating visions of guitars, butterflies, and boots made into pincushions, now prepared to listen in good earnest.
With the concentrated anger of fourteen patriots at a list of sinecures in which they have no part, or a dozen professors who find they cannot get pupils—nor fees without, Lord Merton steadied his voice, almost inarticulate from rage, sufficiently to answer,—
"Yes, Miss Arundel, I will repeat; but, remember, repetition is not renewal. I offered you the title of Lady Merton,—I am sorry for you,—good morning;" and Lord Merton left the room, thoroughly convinced of Emily's vain regrets, and with quite an elation of spirits from thinking his dignity had been properly supported, and the offender punished by his not repeating the offer.
Emily sat in the window, sometimes pondering on objects without, and then on those within, when Lorraine's entrance interrupted a very profound meditation on the strange contrarieties of love affairs in this world.
"Has Merton been here this morning?"
Emily's blush seemed sufficient answer; and Lorraine began a laughing succession of questions, congratulations, &c.
Now this was really too bad.—for him to suppose she could think of another, and to take her acceptance as a matter of course,—and such another, too, as Lord Merton: mortification lent a helping hand to vexation.
Lorraine was Merton's friend. Pray, was it that which gave such pleasant piquancy to Emily's bitter and contemptuous denial of all wish for Merton's hand or heart? Certainly he had not remembered till then, what a pity that such a sweet creature should be so utterly thrown away. The human heart is like Pandora's box—only it is hatred, not hope, that lies curled up at the bottom. It is well we are little in the habit of analysing our common and passing sensations,—we should be horror-struck at our own quantity of hate.
The next day brought a letter from Mr. Arundel,—for the first time he urged his niece's return.
"I miss," said the letter, "your light step, and your dear smile, more and more every hour. You have many days of life before you,—I but a few. I can spare you no longer, dearest Emily. You are not happy,—none of your letters breathe the buoyant spirit of your age. The last of a house whose branches have dropt off one by one,—whose records are filled with those who died in their youth,—child of a brother in whom I once cherished all the active hopes I never indulged for myself, judge how precious you are in my sight. I must have you in my own care again,—I must have my child home."
Long and bitterly did Emily weep over this letter,—she started with horror from herself. Was it possible that she could feel the faintest wish for delay? She recalled the many happy hours she had passed among the old trees, or reading aloud to her uncle some book whose delight was too great to keep to herself,—she thought of favourite walks; but in the midst of all these recollections she found herself holding her breath to catch a distant sound of Lorraine's step, or a tone of his voice; and her heart sank cold and dead, when she remembered that in a few days she should listen for them in vain. It was with a feeling of atonement she hurried her preparations; and yet when the morning of departure came, it seemed scarcely possible it could have come so soon.
No time passes so rapidly as that of painful expectancy,—no hour arrives so soon as the one we dread. It was a morning of July rain—the dreariest of any, perhaps from contrast; we look for sunshine in summer—or because it washes away so many sweet flowers and bright leaves. Who, for example, can watch a tree covered with roses blown into full beauty, and not regret, even to pain, the ravage of a heavy shower on its branches—the growth of its year scattered and destroyed in a morning? But every rose in the garden might have been destroyed before Emily had pitied them;—the eyes that are filled with tears look inwards. Physical miseries greatly add to the discomfort of mental ones. Madame de Genlis represents one of her lovers as deploring the loss of his mistress and his feather-bed in a breath; and certainly early rising increases the pang of separation,—the raw, damp air, the headaching feel of lingering drowsiness, the cold coffee, the hurry of sleepy servants; the science of human happiness—and all is science now-a-days—is greatly in arrear, or we should fix the middle of the day for farewells. Regrets, hopes, good wishes, &c. mingled together,—all regretted her departure. Mr. Delawarr handed her to the carriage; she leant forward, and caught Lorraine's parting bow; the iron gate swung to loudly and heavily,—like that of Dante, it shut on hope.
END OF THE F1RST VOLUME.