Book: Godolphin, Volume 1.
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Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Godolphin, Volume 1.
"What did he at last?"
"Married a lady who was supposed to be an heiress; but he had scarcely
enjoyed her fortune a year before it became the subject of a lawsuit. He
lost the cause and the dowry; and, what was worse, the expenses of
litigation, and the sums he was obliged to refund, reduced him to what,
for a man of his rank, might be considered absolute poverty. He was
thoroughly chagrined and soured by this event; retired to those ruins, or
rather to the small cottage that adjoins them, and there lived to the day
of his death, shunning society, and certainly not exceeding his income."
"I understand you: he became parsimonious."
"To the excess which his neighbours called miserly."
"And his wife?"
"Poor woman! she was a mere fine lady, and died, I believe, of the same
vexation which nipped, not the life, but the heart of her husband."
"Had they only one son?"
"Only the present owner: Percy, I think--yes, Percy; it was his mother's
surname--Percy Godolphin."
"And how came this poor boy to be thrown so early on the world? Did he
quarrel with Mr. Godolphin?"
"I believe not: but when Percy was about sixteen, he left the obscure
school at which he was educated, and resided for some little time with a
relation, Augustus Saville. He stayed with him in London for about a
year, and went everywhere with him, though so mere a boy. His manners
were, I well remember, assured and formed. A relation left him some
moderate legacy, and afterwards he went abroad alone."
"But the ruins! The late Mr. Godolphin, notwithstanding his reserve, did
not object to indulging the curiosity of his neighbours."
"No: he was proud of the interest the ruins of his hereditary mansion so
generally excited,--proud of their celebrity in print-shops and in tours;
but he himself was never seen. The cottage in which he lived, though it
adjoins the ruins, was, of course, sacred from intrusion, and is so walled
in, that that great delight of English visitors at show-places--peeping in
at windows--was utterly forbidden. However that be, during Mr.
Godolphin's life, I never had courage to visit what, to me, would have
been a melancholy scene now, the pain would be somewhat less; and since
you wish it, suppose we drive over and visit the ruins to-morrow? It is
the regular day for seeing them, by the by."
"Not, dear Lady Erpingham, if it give you the least--"
"My sweet girl," interrupted Lady Erpingham, when a servant approached to
announce visitors at the castle.
"Will you go into the saloon, Constance?" said the elder lady, as,
thinking still of love and Arthur Godolphin, she took her way to her
dressing-room to renovate her rouge.
It would have been a pretty amusement to one of the lesser devils, if,
during the early romance of Lady Erpingham's feelings towards Arthur
Godolphin, he had foretold her the hour when she would tell how Arthur
Godolphin died a miser--just five minutes before she repaired to the
toilette to decorate the cheek of age for the heedless eyes of a common
acquaintance. 'Tis the world's way! For my part, I would undertake to
find a better world in that rookery opposite my windows.
CHAPTER XII.
DESCRIPTION OF GODOLPHIN'S HOUSE.--THE FIRST INTERVIEW.--ITS EFFECT ON
CONSTANCE.
"But," asked Constance, as, the next day, Lady Erpinghain and herself were
performing the appointed pilgrimage to the ruins of Godolphin Priory, "if
the late Mr. Godolphin, as he grew in years, acquired a turn of mind so
penurious, was he not enabled to leave his son some addition to the pied
de terre we are about to visit?"
"He must certainly have left some ready money," answered Lady Erpinghain.
"But is it, after all, likely that so young a man as Percy Godolphin could
have lived in the manner he has done without incurring debts? It is most
probable that he had some recourse to those persons so willing to
encourage the young and extravagant, and that repayment to them will more
than swallow up any savings his father might have amassed."
"True enough!" said Constance; and the conversation glided into remarks on
avaricious fathers and prodigal sons. Constance was witty on the subject,
and Lady Erpingham laughed herself into excellent humour.
It was considerably past noon when they arrived at the ruins.
The carriage stopped before a small inn, at the entrance of a dismantled
park; and, taking advantage of the beauty of the day, Lady Erpingham and
Constance walked slowly towards the remains of the Priory.
The scene, as they approached, was wild and picturesque in the extreme. A
wide and glassy lake lay stretched beneath them: on the opposite side
stood the ruins. The large oriel window--the Gothic arch--the broken, yet
still majestic column, all embrowned and mossed with age, were still
spared, and now mirrored themselves in the waveless and silent tide.
Fragments of stone lay around, for some considerable distance, and the
whole was backed by hills, covered with gloomy and thick woods of pine and
fir. To the left, they saw the stream which fed the lake, stealing away
through grassy banks, overgrown with the willow and pollard oak: and
there, from one or two cottages, only caught in glimpses, thin wreaths of
smoke rose in spires against the clear sky. To the right, the ground was
broken into a thousand glens and hollows: the deer-loved fern, the golden
broom, were scattered about profusely; and here and there were dense
groves of pollards; or, at very rare intervals, some single tree decaying
(for all round bore the seal of vassalage to Time), but mighty, and
greenly venerable in its decay.
As they passed over a bridge that, on either side of the stream, emerged,
as it were, from a thick copse, they caught a view of the small abode that
adjoined the ruins. It seemed covered entirely with ivy; and, so far from
diminishing, tended rather to increase the romantic and imposing effect of
the crumbling pile from which it grew.
They opened a little gate at the other extremity of the bridge, and in a
few minutes more, they stood at the entrance to the Priory.
It was an oak door, studded with nails. The jessamine grew upon either
side; and, to descend to a commonplace matter, they had some difficulty in
finding the bell among the leaves in which it was imbedded. When they had
found and touched it, its clear and lively sound rang out in that still
and lovely though desolate spot, with an effect startling and impressive
from its contrast. There is something very fairy-like in the cheerful
voice of a bell sounding among the wilder scenes of nature, particularly
where Time advances his claim to the sovereignty of the landscape; for the
cheerfulness is a little ghostly, and might serve well enough for a tocsin
to the elvish hordes whom our footsteps may be supposed to disturb.
An old woman, in the neat peasant dress of our country, when, taking a
little from the fashion of the last century (the cap and the kerchief), it
assumes no ungraceful costume,--replied to their summons. She was the
solitary cicerone of the place. She had lived there, a lone and childless
widow, for thirty years; and, of all the persons I have ever seen, would
furnish forth the best heroine to one of those pictures of homely life
which Wordsworth has dignified with the partriarchal tenderness of his
genius.
They wound a narrow passage, and came to the ruins of the great hall. Its
gothic arches still sprang lightly upward on either side; and, opening a
large stone box that stood in a recess, the old woman showed them the
gloves, and the helmet, and the tattered banners, which had belonged to
that Godolphin who had fought side by side with Sidney, when he, whose
life--as the noblest of British lyrists hath somewhere said--was "poetry
put into action,"[1] received his death-wound in the field of Zutphen.
Thence they ascended by the dilapidated and crumbling staircase, to a
small room, in which the visitors were always expected to rest themselves,
and enjoy the scene in the garden below. A large chasm yawned where the
casement once was; and round this aperture the ivy wreathed itself in
fantastic luxuriance. A sort of ladder, suspended from this chasm to the
ground, afforded a convenience for those who were tempted to a short
excursion by the view without.
And the view _was_ tempting! A smooth green lawn, surrounded by shrubs
and flowers, was ornamented in the centre by a fountain. The waters were,
it is true, dried up; but the basin, and the "Triton with his wreathed
shell," still remained. A little to the right was an old monkish
sun-dial; and through the green vista you caught the glimpse of one of
those gray, grotesque statues with which the taste of Elizabeth's day
shamed the classic chisel.
There was something quiet and venerable about the whole place; and when
the old woman said to Constance, "Would you not like, my lady, to walk
down and look at the sun-dial and the fountain?" Constance felt she
required nothing more to yield to her inclination. Lady Erpingham, less
adventurous, remained in the ruined chamber; and the old woman, naturally
enough, honoured the elder lady with her company.
Constance, therefore, descended the rude steps alone. As she paused by
the fountain, an indescribable and delicious feeling of repose stole over
a mind that seldom experienced any sentiment so natural or so soft. The
hour, the stillness, the scene, all conspired to lull the heart into that
dreaming and half-unconscious reverie in which poets would suppose the
hermits of elder times to have wasted a life, indolent, and yet scarcely,
after all, unwise. "Methinks," she inly soliloquised, "while I look
around, I feel as if I could give up my objects of life; renounce my
hopes; forget to be artificial and ambitious; live in these ruins, and,"
(whispered the spirit within,) "loved and loving, fulfil the ordinary doom
of woman."
Indulging a mood, which the proud and restless Constance, who despised
love as the poorest of human weaknesses, though easily susceptible to all
other species of romance, had scarcely ever known before, she wandered
away from the lawn into one of the alleys cut amidst the grove around.
Caught by the murmur of an unseen brook, she tracked it through the trees,
as its sound grew louder and louder on her ear, till at length it stole
upon her sight. The sun, only winning through the trees at intervals,
played capriciously upon the cold and dark waters as they glided on, and
gave to her, as the same effect has done to a thousand poets, ample matter
for a simile or a moral.
She approached the brook, and came unawares upon the figure of a young
man, leaning against a stunted tree that overhung the waters, and occupied
with the idle amusement of dropping pebbles in the stream. She saw only
his profile; but that view is, in a fine countenance, almost always the
most striking and impressive, and it was eminently so in the face before
her. The stranger, who was scarcely removed from boyhood, was dressed in
deep mourning. He seemed slight, and small of stature. A travelling cap
of sables contrasted, not hid, light brown hair of singular richness and
beauty. His features were of that pure and severe Greek of which the only
fault is that in the very perfection of the chiselling of the features
there seems something hard and stern. The complexion was pale, even to
wanness; and the whole cast and contour of the head were full of
intellect, and betokening that absorption of mind which cannot be marked
in any one without exciting a certain vague curiosity and interest.
So dark and wondrous are the workings of our nature, that there are
scarcely any of us, however light and unthinking, who would not be
arrested by the countenance of one in deep reflection--who would not
pause, and long to pierce into the mysteries that were agitating that
world, most illimitable by nature, but often most narrowed by custom--the
world within.
And this interest, powerful as it is, spelled and arrested Constance at
once. She remained for a minute gazing on the countenance of the young
stranger, and then she--the most self-possessed and stately of human
creatures--blushing deeply, and confused though unseen, turned lightly
away and stopped not on her road till she regained the old chamber and
Lady Erpingham.
The old woman was descanting upon the merits of the late Lord of Godolphin
Priory,--
"For though they called him close, and so forth, my lady, yet he was
generous to others; it was only himself he pinched. But, to be sure, the
present squire won't take after him there."
"Has Mr. Percy Godolphin been here lately?" asked Lady Erpingham.
"He is at the cottage now, my lady," replied the old woman. "He came two
days ago."
"Is he like his father?"
"Oh! not near so fine-looking a gentleman! much smaller, and quite
pale-like. He seems sickly: them foreign parts do nobody no good. He was
as fine a lad at sixteen years old as ever I seed; but now he is not like
the same thing."
So then it was evidently Percy Godolphin whom Constance had seen by the
brook--the owner of a home without coffers, and estates without a
rent-roll--the Percy Godolphin, of whom, before he had attained the age
when others have left the college, or even the school, every one had
learned to speak--some favourably, all with eagerness. Constance felt a
vague interest respecting him spring up in her mind. She checked it, for
it was a sin in her eye to think with interest on a man neither rich nor
powerful; and as she quitted the ruins with Lady Erpingham, she
communicated to the latter her adventure. She was, however, disingenuous;
for though Godolphin's countenance was exactly of that cast which
Constance most admired, she described him just as the old woman had done;
and Lady Erpingham figured to herself, from the description, a little
yellow man, with white hair and a turned-up nose. O Truth! what a hard
path is thine! Does any keep it for three inches together in the
commonest trifle?--and yet two sides of my library are filled with
histories!
[1] Campbell.
CHAPTER XIII.
A BALL ANNOUNCED.--GODOLPHIN'S VISTT TO WENDOVER CASTLE.--HIS MANNERS AND
CONVERSATION.
Lady Erpingham (besides her daughter, Lady Eleanor, married to Mr. Clare,
a county member, of large fortune) was blessed with one son.
The present Earl had been for the last two years abroad. He had never,
since his accession to his title, visited Wendover Castle; and Lady
Erpingham one morning experienced the delight of receiving a letter from
him, dated Dover, and signifying his intention of paying her a visit. In
honour of this event, Lady Erpingham resolved to give a grand ball. Cards
were issued to all the families in the county; and, among others, to Mr.
Godolphin.
On the third day after this invitation had been sent to the person I have
last named, as Lady Erpingham and Constance were alone in the saloon, Mr.
Percy Godolphin was announced. Constance blushed as she looked up, and
Lady Erpingham was struck by the nobleness of his address, and the perfect
self-possession of his manner. And yet nothing could be so different as
was his deportment from that which she had been accustomed to admire--from
that manifested by the exquisites of the day. The calm, the nonchalance,
the artificial smile of languor, the evenness, so insipid, yet so
irreproachable, of English manners when considered most polished,--all
this was the reverse of Godolphin's address and air. In short, in all he
said or did there was something foreign, something unfamiliar. He was
abrupt and enthusiastic in conversation, and used gestures in speaking.
His countenance lighted up at every word that broke from hint on the
graver subjects of discussion. You felt, indeed, with him that you were
with a man of genius--a wayward and a spoiled man, who had acquired his
habits in solitude, but his graces in the world.
They conversed about the ruins of the Priory, and Constance expressed her
admiration of their romantic and picturesque beauty. "Ah!" said he
smiling, but with a slight blush, in which Constance detected something of
pain; "I heard of your visit to my poor heaps of stone. My father took
great pleasure in the notice they attracted. When a proud man has not
riches to be proud of, he grows proud of the signs of his poverty itself.
This was the case with my poor father. Had he been rich, the ruins would
not have existed: he would have rebuilt the old mansion. As he was poor,
he valued himself on their existence, and fancied magnificence in every
handful of moss. But all life is delusion: all pride, all vanity, all
pomp, are equally deceit. Like the Spanish hidalgo, we put on spectacles
when we eat our cherries, in order that they may seem ten times as big as
they are!"
Constance smiled; and Lady Erpingham, who had more kindness than delicacy,
continued her praises of the Priory and the scenery round it.
"The old park," said she, "with its wood and water, is so beautiful! It
wants nothing but a few deer, just tame enough to come near the ruins, and
wild enough to start away as you approach."
"Now you would borrow an attraction from wealth," said Godolphin, who,
unlike English persons in general, seemed to love alluding to his poverty:
"it is not for the owner of a ruined Priory to consult the aristocratic
enchantments of that costly luxury, the Picturesque. Alas! I have not
even wherewithal to feed a few solitary partridges; and I hear, that if I
go beyond the green turf, once a park, I shall be warned off forthwith,
and my very qualification disputed."
"Are you fond of shooting?" said Lady Erpingham.
"I fancy I should be; but I have never enjoyed the sport in England."
"Do pray come, then," said Lady Erpingham, kindly, "and spend your first
week in September here. Let me see: the first of the month will be next
Thursday; dine with us on Wednesday. We have keepers and dogs here
enough, thanks to Robert; so you need only bring your gun."
"You are very kind, dear Lady Erpingham," said Godolphin warmly: "I accept
your invitation at once."
"Your father was a very old friend of mine," said the lady with a sigh.
"He was an old admirer," said the gentleman, with a bow.
CHAPTER XIV.
CONVERSATION BETWEEN GODOLPHIN AND CONSTANCE.--THE COUNTRY LINE AND THE
TOWN LINE.
And Godolphin came on the appointed Wednesday. He was animated that day
even to brilliancy. Lady Erpingham thought him the most charming of men;
and even Constance forgot that he was no match for herself. Gifted and
cultivated as she was, it was not without delight that she listened to his
glowing descriptions of scenery, and to his playful yet somewhat
melancholy strain of irony upon men and their pursuits. The peculiar
features of her mind made her, indeed, like the latter more than she could
appreciate the former; for in her nature there was more bitterness than
sentiment. Still, his rich language and fluent periods, even in
description, touched her ear and fancy, though they sank not to her heart;
and she yielded insensibly to the spells she would almost have despised in
another.
The next day, Constance, who was no very early riser, tempted by the
beauty of the noon, strolled into the gardens. She was surprised to hear
Godolphin's voice behind her: she turned round and he joined her.
"I thought you were on your shooting expedition?"
"I have been shooting, and I am returned. I was out by daybreak, and I
came back at noon in the hope of being allowed to join you in your ride or
walk."
Constance smilingly acknowledged the compliment; and as they passed up the
straight walks of the old-fashioned and stately gardens, Godolphin turned
the conversation upon the varieties of garden scenery; upon the poets who
have described those varieties best; upon that difference between the town
life and the country, on which the brothers of the minstrel craft have, in
all ages, so glowingly insisted. In this conversation, certain points of
contrast between the characters of these two young persons might be
observed.
"I confess to you," said Godolphin, "that I have little faith in the
permanence of any attachment professed for the country by the inhabitants
of cities. If we can occupy our minds solely with the objects around
us,--if the brook and the old tree, and the golden sunset, and the summer
night, and the animal and homely life that we survey,--if these can fill
our contemplation, and take away from us the feverish schemes of the
future,--then indeed I can fully understand the reality of that tranquil
and happy state which our elder poets have described as incident to a
country life. But if we carry with us to the shade all the restless and
perturbed desires of the city; if we only employ present leisure in
schemes for an agitated future--then it is in vain that we affect the
hermit and fly to the retreat. The moment the novelty of green fields is
over, and our projects are formed, we wish to hurry to the city to execute
them. We have, in a word, made our retirement only a nursery for schemes
now springing up, and requiring to be transplanted."
"You are right," said Constance, quickly; "and who would pass life as if
it were a dream? It seems to me that we put retirement to the right use
when we make it only subservient to our aims in the world."
"A strange doctrine for a young beauty," thought Godolphin, "whose head
ought to be full of groves and love." "Then," said he aloud, "I must rank
among those who abuse the purposes of retirement; for I have hitherto been
flattered to think that I enjoy it for itself. Despite the artificial
life I have led, everything that speaks of nature has a voice that I can
rarely resist. What feelings created in a city can compare with those
that rise so gently and so unbidden within us when the trees and the
waters are our only companions--our only sources of excitement and
intoxication? Is not contemplation better than ambition?"
"Can you believe it?" said Constance, incredulously.
"I do."
Constance smiled; and there would have been contempt in that beautiful
smile, had not Godolphin interested her in spite of herself.