CHAPTER IX.
A DEVELOPMENT OF CHARACTER, AND A LONG LETTER; A CHAPTER, ON THE WHOLE,MORE IMPORTANT THAN IT SEEMS.
THE scenes through which, of late, I have conducted my reader are byno means episodical: they illustrate far more than mere narration thecareer to which I was so honourably devoted.
Dissipation,--women,--wine,--Tarleton for a friend, Lady Hasselton for amistress. Let me now throw aside the mask.
To people who have naturally very intense and very acute feelings,nothing is so fretting, so wearing to the heart, as the commonplaceaffections, which are the properties and offspring of the world. We haveseen the birds which, with wings unclipt, children fasten to a stake.The birds seek to fly, and are pulled back before their wings are wellspread; till, at last, they either perpetually strain at the end oftheir short tether, exciting only ridicule by their anguish and theirimpotent impatience; or, sullen and despondent, they remain on theground, without any attempt to fly, nor creep, even to the full limitwhich their fetters will allow. Thus it is with the feelings of thekeen, wild nature I speak of: they are either striving forever to passthe little circle of slavery to which they are condemned, and so movelaughter by an excess of action and a want of adequate power; or theyrest motionless and moody, disdaining the petty indulgence they _might_enjoy, till sullenness is construed into resignation, and despair seemsthe apathy of content. Time, however, cures what it does not kill; andboth bird and beast, if they pine not to the death at first, grow tameand acquiescent at last.
What to me was the companionship of Tarleton, or the attachment ofLady Hasselton? I had yielded to the one, and I had half eagerly, halfscornfully, sought the other. These, and the avocations they broughtwith them, consumed my time, and of Time murdered there is a ghost whichwe term _ennui_. The hauntings of this spectre are the especial curseof the higher orders; and hence springs a certain consequence to thepassions. Persons in those ranks of society so exposed to _ennui_ areeither rendered totally incapable of real love, or they love far moreintensely than those in a lower station; for the affections in them areeither utterly frittered away on a thousand petty objects (poor shiftsto escape the persecuting spectre), or else, early disgusted with theworthlessness of these objects, the heart turns within and languishesfor something not found in the daily routine of life. When this is thecase, and when the pining of the heart is once satisfied, and the objectof love is found, there are two mighty reasons why the love should bemost passionately cherished. The first is, the utter indolence inwhich aristocratic life oozes away, and which allows full food for thatmeditation which can nurse by sure degrees the weakest desire into thestrongest passion; and the second reason is, that the insipidity andhollowness of all patrician pursuits and pleasures render the excitementof love more delicious and more necessary to the "_ignavi terrarumdomini_," than it is to those orders of society more usefully, moreconstantly, and more engrossingly engaged.
Wearied and sated with the pursuit of what was worthless, my heart, atlast, exhausted itself in pining for what was pure. I recurred with atenderness which I struggled with at first, and which in yielding toI blushed to acknowledge, to the memory of Isora. And in the world,surrounded by all which might be supposed to cause me to forget her, myheart clung to her far more endearingly than it had done in the ruralsolitudes in which she had first allured it. The truth was this; atthe time I first loved her, other passions--passions almost equallypowerful--shared her empire. Ambition and pleasure--vast whirlpools ofthought--had just opened themselves a channel in my mind, and thitherthe tides of my desires were hurried and lost. Now those whirlpools hadlost their power, and the channels, being dammed up, flowed back uponmy breast. Pleasure had disgusted me, and the only ambition I had yetcourted and pursued had palled upon me still more. I say, the onlyambition, for as yet that which is of the loftier and more lasting kindhad not afforded me a temptation; and the hope which had borne the nameand rank of ambition had been the hope rather to glitter than to rise.
These passions, not yet experienced when I lost Isora, had affordedme at that period a ready comfort and a sure engrossment. And, insatisfying the hasty jealousies of my temper, in deeming Isora unworthyand Gerald my rival, I naturally aroused in my pride a dexterous oratoras well as a firm ally. Pride not only strengthened my passions, it alsopersuaded them by its voice; and it was not till the languid yet deepstillness of sated wishes and palled desires fell upon me, that thelow accent of a love still surviving at my heart made itself heard inanswer.
I now began to take a different view of Isora's conduct. I now beganto doubt where I had formerly believed; and the doubt, first allied tofear, gradually brightened into hope. Of Gerald's rivalry, at least ofhis identity with Barnard, and, consequently, of his power over Isora,there was, and there could be, no feeling short of certainty. But ofwhat nature was that power? Had not Isora assured me that it was notlove? Why should I disbelieve her? Nay, did she not love myself? had nother cheek blushed and her hand trembled when I addressed her? Were thesesigns the counterfeits of love? Were they not rather of that heart's dyewhich no skill _can_ counterfeit? She had declared that she couldnot, that she could never, be mine; she had declared so with a fearfulearnestness which seemed to annihilate hope; but had she not also, inthe same meeting, confessed that I was dear to her? Had not her lipgiven me a sweeter and a more eloquent assurance of that confession thanwords?--and could hope perish while love existed? She had left me,--shehad bid me farewell forever; but that was no proof of a want of love,or of her unworthiness. Gerald, or Barnard, evidently possessed aninfluence over father as well as child. Their departure from------mighthave been occasioned by him, and she might have deplored, while shecould not resist it; or she might not even have deplored; nay, she mighthave desired, she might have advised it, for my sake as well ashers, were she thoroughly convinced that the union of our loves wasimpossible.
But, then, of what nature could be this mysterious authority whichGerald possessed over her? That which he possessed over the sire,political schemes might account for; but these, surely, could not havemuch weight for the daughter. This, indeed, must still remain doubtfuland unaccounted for. One presumption, that Gerald was either no favouredlover or that he was unacquainted with her retreat, might be drawn fromhis continued residence at Devereux Court. If he loved Isora, and knewher present abode, would he not have sought her? Could he, I thought,live away from that bright face, if once allowed to behold it? unless,indeed (terrible thought!) there hung over it the dimness of guiltyfamiliarity, and indifference had been the offspring of possession.But was that delicate and virgin face, where changes with every momentcoursed each other, harmonious to the changes of the mind, as shadows ina valley reflect the clouds of heaven!--was that face, so ingenuous, sogirlishly revelant of all,--even of the slightest, the most transitory,emotion,--the face of one hardened in deceit and inured to shame? Thecountenance is, it is true, but a faithless mirror; but what man thathas studied women will not own that there is, at least while the downof first youth is not brushed away, in the eye and cheek of zoned anduntainted Innocence, that which survives not even the fruition ofa lawful love, and has no (nay, not even a shadowed and imperfect)likeness in the face of guilt? Then, too, had any worldlier or mercenarysentiment entered her breast respecting me, would Isora have flown fromthe suit of the eldest scion of the rich house of Devereux? and wouldshe, poor and destitute, the daughter of an alien and an exile, wouldshe have spontaneously relinquished any hope of obtaining that alliancewhich maidens of the loftiest houses of England had not disdained todesire? Thus confused and incoherent, but thus yearning fondly towardsher image and its imagined purity, did my thoughts daily and hourlyarray themselves; and, in proportion as I suffered common ties to dropfrom me one by one, those thoughts clung the more tenderly to thatwhich, though severed from the rich argosy of former love, was stillindissolubly attached to the anchor of its hope.
It was during this period of revived affection that I received thefollowing letter from my uncle:
--
I thank thee for thy long letter, my dear boy; I read it over threetimes with great delight. Ods fish, Morton, you are a sad Pickle, Ifear, and seem to know all the ways of the town as well as your olduncle did some thirty years ago! 'Tis a very pretty acquaintance withhuman nature that your letters display. You put me in mind of littleSid, who was just about your height, and who had just such a pretty,shrewd way of expressing himself in simile and point. Ah, it is easy tosee that you have profited by your old uncle's conversation, and thatFarquhar and Etherege were not studied for nothing.
But I have sad news for thee, my child, or rather it is sad for me totell thee my tidings. It is sad for the old birds to linger in theirnest when the young ones take wing and leave them; but it is merry forthe young birds to get away from the dull old tree, and frisk it in thesunshine,--merry for them to get mates, and have young themselves. Now,do not think, Morton, that by speaking of mates and young I am going totell thee thy brothers are already married; nay, there is time enoughfor those things, and I am not friendly to early weddings, nor to speaktruly, a marvellous great admirer of that holy ceremony at any age; forthe which there may be private reasons too long to relate to thee now.Moreover, I fear my young day was a wicked time,--a heinous wicked time,and we were wont to laugh at the wedded state, until, body of me, someof us found it no laughing matter.
But to return, Morton,--to return to thy brothers: they have both leftme; and the house seems to me not the good old house it did when yewere all about me; and, somehow or other, I look now oftener at thechurchyard than I was wont to do. You are all gone now,--all shot upand become men; and when your old uncle sees you no more, and recollectsthat all his own contemporaries are out of the world, he cannot helpsaying, as William Temple, poor fellow, once prettily enough said,"Methinks it seems an impertinence in me to be still alive." You wentfirst, Morton; and I missed you more than I cared to say: but you werealways a kind boy to those you loved, and you wrote the old knight merryletters, that made him laugh, and think he was grown young again (faith,boy, that was a jolly story of the three Squires at Button's!), and oncea week comes your packet, well filled, as if you did not think it a taskto make me happy, which your handwriting always does; nor a shame to mygray hairs that I take pleasure in the same things that please thee! So,thou seest, my child, that I have got through thy absence pretty well,save that I have had no one to read thy letters to; for Gerald and thouare still jealous of each other,--a great sin in thee, Morton, whichI prithee to reform. And Aubrey, poor lad, is a little too rigid,considering his years, and it looks not well in the dear boy to shakehis head at the follies of his uncle. And as to thy mother, Morton,I read her one of thy letters, and she said thou wert a gracelessreprobate to think so much of this wicked world, and to write sofamiliarly to thine aged relative. Now, I am not a young man, Morton;but the word aged has a sharp sound with it when it comes from a lady'smouth.
Well, after thou hadst been gone a month, Aubrey and Gerald, as I wrotethee word long since, in the last letter I wrote thee with my own hand,made a tour together for a little while, and that was a hard stroke onme. But after a week or two Gerald returned; and I went out in my chairto see the dear boy shoot,--'sdeath, Morton, he handles the gun well.And then Aubrey returned alone: but he looked pined and moping, and shuthimself up, and as thou dost love him so, I did not like to tell theetill now, when he is quite well, that he alarmed me much for him; he istoo much addicted to his devotions, poor child, and seems to forget thatthe hope of the next world ought to make us happy in this. Well, Morton,at last, two months ago, Aubrey left us again, and Gerald last week setoff on a tour through the sister kingdom, as it is called. Faith, boy,if Scotland and England are sister kingdoms, 'tis a thousand pities forScotland that they are not co-heiresses!
I should have told thee of this news before, but I have had, as thouknowest, the gout so villanously in my hand that, till t' other day,I have not held a pen, and old Nicholls, my amanuensis, is but a poorscribe; and I did not love to let the dog write to thee on all ourfamily affairs, especially as I have a secret to tell thee which makesme plaguy uneasy. Thou must know, Morton, that after thy departureGerald asked me for thy rooms; and though I did not like that any oneelse should have what belonged to thee, yet I have always had a foolishantipathy to say "No!" so thy brother had them, on condition to leavethem exactly as they were, and to yield them to thee whenever thoushouldst return to claim them. Well, Morton, when Gerald went on histour with thy youngest brother, old Nicholls--you know 'tis a garrulousfellow--told me one night that his son Hugh--you remember Hugh, a thinyouth and a tall--lingering by the beach one evening, saw a man, wrappedin a cloak, come out of the castle cave, unmoor one of the boats, andpush off to the little island opposite. Hugh swears by more than yea andnay that the man was Father Montreuil. Now, Morton, this made mevery uneasy, and I saw why thy brother Gerald wanted thy rooms, whichcommunicate so snugly with the sea. So I told Nicholls, slyly, to havethe great iron gate at the mouth of the passage carefully locked; andwhen it was locked, I had an iron plate put over the whole lock, thatthe lean Jesuit might not creep even through the keyhole. Thy brotherreturned, and I told him a tale of the smugglers, who have reallybeen too daring of late, and insisted on the door being left as I hadordered; and I told him, moreover, though not as if I had suspected hiscommunication with the priest, that I interdicted all further conversewith that limb of the Church. Thy brother heard me with an indifferentlybad grace; but I was peremptory, and the thing was agreed on.
Well, child, the day before Gerald last left us, I went to take leaveof him in his own room,--to tell thee the truth, I had forgotten histravelling expenses; when I was on the stairs of the tower I heard--bythe Lord I did--Montreuil's voice in the outer room, as plainly as everI heard it at prayers. Ods fish, Morton, I was an angered, and I madeso much haste to the door that my foot slipped by the way: thy brotherheard me fall, and came out; but I looked at him as I never looked atthee, Morton, and entered the room. Lo, the priest was not there:I searched both chambers in vain; so I made thy brother lift up thetrapdoor, and kindle a lamp, and I searched the room below, and thepassage. The priest was invisible. Thou knowest, Morton, that thereis only one egress in the passage, and that was locked, as I have saidbefore, so where the devil--the devil indeed--could thy tutor haveescaped? He could not have passed me on the stairs without my seeinghim; he could not have leaped the window without breaking his neck; hecould not have got out of the passage without making himself a currentof air. Ods fish, Morton, this thing might puzzle a wiser man, thanthine uncle. Gerald affected to be mighty indignant at my suspicions;but, God forgive him, I saw he was playing a part. A man does not writeplays, my child, without being keen-sighted in these little intrigues;and, moreover, it is impossible I could have mistaken thy tutor's voice,which, to do it justice, is musical enough, and is the most singularvoice I ever heard,--unless little Sid's be excepted.
_A propos_ of little Sid. I remember that in the Mall, when I waswalking there alone, three weeks after my marriage, De Grammont and Sidjoined me. I was in a melancholic mood ('sdeath, Morton, marriage tamesa man as water tames mice!)--"Aha, Sir William," cried Sedley, "thouhast a cloud on thee; prithee now brighten it away: see, thy wife shineson thee from the other end of the Mall." "Ah, talk not to a dying man ofhis physic!" said Grammont (that Grammont was a shocking rogue, Morton!)"Prithee, Sir William, what is the chief characteristic of wedlock? isit a state of war or of peace?" "Oh, peace to be sure!" cried Sedley,"and Sir William and his lady carry with them the emblem." "How!" criedI; for I do assure thee, Morton, I was of a different turn of mind."How!" said Sid, gravely, "why, the emblem of peace is the _cornucopia_,which your lady and you equitably divide: she carries the _copia_, andyou the _cor_--." Nay, Morton, nay, I cannot finish the jest; for, afterall, it was a sorry thing in little Sid, whom I had befriended like abrother, with heart and purse, to wound me so cuttingly; but 'tis theway with your jesters.
Ods fish, now how I have got out of my st
ory! Well, I did not go back tomy room, Morton, till I had looked to the outside of the iron door, andseen that the plate was as firm as ever: so now you have the whole ofthe matter. Gerald went the next day, and I fear me much lest he shouldalready be caught in some Jacobite trap. Write me thy advice on thesubject. Meanwhile, I have taken the precaution to have the trap-doorremoved, and the aperture strongly boarded over.
But 'tis time for me to give over. I have been four days on this letter,for the gout comes now to me oftener than it did, and I do not know whenI may again write to thee with my own hand; so I resolved I would e'enempty my whole budget at once. Thy mother is well and blooming; she is,at the present, abstractedly employed in a prodigious piece of tapestrywhich old Nicholls informs me is the wonder of all the women.
Heaven bless thee, my child! Take care of thyself, and drink moderately.It is hurtful, at thy age, to drink above a gallon or so at a sitting.Heaven bless thee again, and when the weather gets warmer, thou mustcome with thy kind looks, to make me feel at home again. At present thecountry wears a cheerless face, and everything about us is harsh andfrosty, except the blunt, good-for-nothing heart of thine uncle, andthat, winter or summer, is always warm to thee.
WILLIAM DEVEREUX.
P. S. I thank thee heartily for the little spaniel of the new breed thougottest me from the Duchess of Marlborough. It has the prettiest red andwhite, and the blackest eyes possible. But poor Ponto is as jealous asa wife three years married, and I cannot bear the old hound to be vexed,so I shall transfer the little creature, its rival, to thy mother.
This letter, tolerably characteristic of the blended simplicity,penetration, and overflowing kindness of the writer, occasioned memuch anxious thought. There was no doubt in my mind but that Geraldand Montreuil were engaged in some intrigue for the exiled family.The disguised name which the former assumed, the state reasons whichD'Alvarez confessed that Barnard, or rather Gerald, had for concealment,and which proved, at least, that some state plot in which Gerald wasengaged was known to the Spaniard, joined to those expressions ofMontreuil, which did all but own a design for the restoration of thedeposed line, and the power which I knew he possessed over Gerald, whosemind, at once bold and facile, would love the adventure of the intrigue,and yield to Montreuil's suggestions on its nature,--these combinedcircumstances left me in no doubt upon a subject deeply interestingto the honour of our house, and the very life of one of its members.Nothing, however, for me to do, calculated to prevent or impede thedesigns of Montreuil and the danger of Gerald, occurred to me. Eageralike in my hatred and my love, I said, inly, "What matters it whetherone whom the ties of blood never softened towards me, with whom, frommy childhood upwards, I have wrestled as with an enemy, what matters itwhether he win fame or death in the perilous game he has engaged in?"And turning from this most generous and most brotherly view of thesubject, I began only to think whether the search or the society ofIsora also influenced Gerald in his absence from home. After a fruitlessand inconclusive meditation on that head, my thoughts took a lessselfish turn, and dwelt with all the softness of pity, and the anxietyof love, upon the morbid temperament and ascetic devotions of Aubrey.What, for one already so abstracted from the enjoyments of earth, sodarkened by superstitious misconceptions of the true nature of God andthe true objects of His creatures,--what could be anticipated but wastedpowers and a perverted life? Alas! when will men perceive the differencebetween religion and priestcraft? When will they perceive that reason,so far from extinguishing religion by a more gaudy light, sheds on itall its lustre? It is fabled that the first legislator of the Peruviansreceived from the Deity a golden rod, with which in his wanderings hewas to strike the earth, until in some destined spot the earth entirelyabsorbed it, and there--and there alone--was he to erect a temple to theDivinity. What is this fable but the cloak of an inestimable moral? Ourreason is the rod of gold; the vast world of truth gives the soil, whichit is perpetually to sound; and only where without resistance the soilreceives the rod which guided and supported us will our altar be sacredand our worship be accepted.