Ethel Churchill/Chapter 91
CHAPTER XV.
DIFFERENT VIEWS OF LIFE.
And thus it is with all that made life fair,
Gone with the freshness that it used to wear.
'Tis sad to mark the ravage that the heart
Makes of itself; how one by one depart
The colours that made hope. We seek, we find;
And find, too, charm has, with the change, declined.
Many things have I loved, that now to me
Are as a marvel how they loved could be;
Yet, on we go, desiring to the last
Illusions vain, as any in the past.
"So, all my improvement in your heroine was thrown away upon you. I thought how it would be when I saw Miss Churchill in the stage-box."
It was long since Walter had heard her name, and the sound jarred upon his ear; it brought the real too harshly amid the delusions with which he delighted to surround her image.
"Well," continued Lavinia, "life is just like a comedy, only it does not end so pleasantly; but it has just as many cross purposes. Here I am in love with you, who care only for Miss Churchill; she, again, loves Mr. Courtenaye, and he loves only himself, as far as I can make out."
"Do choose some pleasanter subject," exclaimed Maynard.
"Oh, then I must talk of myself: I cannot think of a pleasanter one," said she. "Do you know that I have made a brilliant conquest?—one that half the fine ladies in London are dying for."
"I congratulate you," replied her companion.
At that moment a slow, heavy step was heard on the stairs. Walter caught the sound before his companion heard it.
"For Heaven's sake!" whispered he, "be silent. There is that eternal dun again. I shall pay him next week, when that cursed pamphlet is done. But the door is closed, so are the windows; if he hears nothing, he will think I am not at home."
The actress put her finger upon her lip; and so susceptible is an imaginative temperament of an outward impression, that, for a moment, Walter forgot every thing but how well the pretty attitude and the arch look would have told on the stage. But a loud single knock at the door recalled him to the full humiliation of his position. The colour rushed to his face, and then left him deadly pale, while he held his breath lest it should betray him. The young actress was at first inclined to, laugh; but there was a wretchedness in the expression of Maynard's countenance which subdued even her reckless gaiety; knock after knock sounded heavily upon the door, still heavier did they sink on his spirit who sat crouching and miserable within. A probation of long and shameful years must be gone through; each one with the endurance more bitter, suffering yet more intolerable, before the debtor can arrive at that system of reckless evasion which is the last stage of poverty. Hope and honesty must long have been left behind, one finer feeling must have, been crushed after another, and hunger been predominant, before debt can be held as other than the most intolerable shame, the most oppressive misery. Walter was yet young in his career, and he felt it bitterly.
At length, the creditor, tired of knocking to no purpose, and convinced that Maynard was not within, thrust a letter under the door, and his steps were heard slowly descending the oaken staircase. Walter could not breathe even when the echo of the last died into utter silence. He dreaded lest he should return. Lavinia sprang up; even her light feet jarred upon his ear: it seemed as if the least movement must recall the man again.
"Hush!" exclaimed he, in a broken voice.
"Nonsense!" replied the girl; "he won't come again to-day. Why, it is not much," added she, opening the bill: "I will pay it for you."
"Give it me!" exclaimed Walter, angrily, colouring even a deeper red. "I wish you would not open my letters."
"I am so rich to-day," said she, laughing; "and what makes me in a good humour, puts you in a bad one. Come, come, be a good child; leave the affair in my hands, and you shall be plagued no more about the matter."
"Lavinia," replied he, taking the bill from her, "there are obligations which it is an affront to offer."
He was right in his refusal. Sooner or later a woman must inevitably despise the man who takes money from her. Before a man can do this, there must be those radical defects of character to which even kindness cannot always be blind. He must be a moral coward, because he exposes her to those annoyances which he has not courage enough to face himself; he must be mean, because he submits to an obligation from the inferior and the weak; and he must be ungrateful, because ingratitude is the necessary consequence of receiving favours of which we are ashamed. Money is the great breaker-up of love and friendship; and this is, I believe, the reason of the common saying, that "large families get on best in the world," because they can receive from each other assistance without degradation. The affection of family ties has the character on it of childhood in which it was formed; it is free, open, confiding; it has none of the delicacy of friendship, or the romance of sentiment: you know that success ought to be in common, and that you have but one interest.
"You must not look angry," said Walter, whose heart smote him for his petulant refusal. "My difficulties only need a week's hard work; but, I do not know how it is, I am not so industrious as I used to be. A little thing takes off my attention, and I am feverish and restless."
"It is," replied the other, "that you work too much."
"No," returned he, "it is that I do not work enough: that I allow my mind to be fretted and distracted with other things. I am never so well, or in such good spirits, as when I shut myself up, and do nothing but write. I wish I could always keep inventing instead of thinking. But we have forgotten your brilliant conquest. What is the name of your new adorateur?"
"Who should it be," replied the actress, with an air of triumph, "but the handsomest and the most fashionable man in London—Sir George Kingston?"
"Sir George Kingston!" cried Walter; "why you say, truly enough, that he has turned the prettiest heads in London! I cannot understand the luck that attends on some, from the very cradle. There are men, who seem only sent into the world to shew how much fortune can do for a favourite! And so you are to be
'Orsini's mistress, and his fancy's queen!'"
"You need not look so surprised," exclaimed Lavinia, with a slight air of pique.
"It was at Sir George Kingston's good fortune, then," interrupted Maynard: "I congratulate you on having taken possession of a heart that so many are trying for!"
"I am sure," cried the young actress, "I never said any thing about a heart; I very much doubt whether a man like Sir George Kingston has one. He is excessively vain; and, having lived all his life in society, to society he looks for the gratification of his vanity. He has one object in existence—to be talked about; for this he devotes himself to the reigning beauty; for this he rides the finest horses, and gives the best dinners; for this he has furnished his house in Spring Gardens in the most splendid manner; and for this he will take me to be the prettiest piece of furniture, there!"
"I have heard he is very clever," said Walter.
"He is no such thing," replied Lavinia; "but he desires to be thought so. I believe, what first made him talk to me was, that he might say my good things somewhere else. As for liking me, he cares no more for me than I do for these currants!" scattering a bunch over her plate as she spoke; "and yet you will see what influence I shall exercise over him. A man who leads his sort of life, must be subject to ennui; he will require to be amused, and I am amusing; it is my business. Moreover, he is vain, and I shall flatter him—the more coarsely the better."
"I begin to believe," muttered her companion, "that what is called delicate flattery, is an absurdity."
"You should lay it on," resumed she, "as we do paint on the stage; it is quantity that tells. But I have, also, another hold on Sir George; I shall do all sorts of absurd and outrageous things, and they will gratify his darling propensity—they will make him talked of!"
"Lavinia!" exclaimed Maynard, suddenly and earnestly, "have you a grain of feeling?"
"It is well for you, Walter, to ask that," answered the girl, her whole face changing, and her words half choked by strong emotion.
"I was wrong," cried he; "to me you have always been kind and enduring: but forgive me, I am not well, and am grown sadly irritable."
"For one word, one look of yours," continued she, "you know well I would give up every thing else in the world. Oh! that you would let me stay beside you, to watch you, to nurse you: but this is folly—" for her quick eye caught the coldness on her companion's face; "I know you do not love me, that you never could love me now. Well, I have chosen my own path; but oh, Walter! there are times when, in the silence of the night, I sit at my window and see the stars shining down so coldly and so sadly, that my thoughts go back upon other years, and a sort of dream comes over me of a far different happiness; I see you, Walter, when but a boy, with your soft, serious eyes, sitting at the feet of my old grandmother, and reading aloud to her: I have not profited much by those words—" and the girl paused, pale and tearful; but, before Maynard had time to answer, she had started up: "but I shall be too late for rehearsal, and Sir George will be there; he intends giving the gayest suppers after the play; I shall take care that you are asked;" and, without waiting for a reply, or bidding further farewell, she left the room so suddenly, that Walter had no time to have prevented her departure, even if he had wished it.
The sound of the door, as it closed after her, sank heavily upon his heart; let her faults be what they might, she was the only human being who cared for him.