Book: Godolphin, Volume 2.
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Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Godolphin, Volume 2.
Godolphin continued talking sentiment with Lady Delmour, until her lord,
who was very fond of his carriage horses, came up and took her away; and
then, perhaps glad to be relieved, Percy sauntered into the ballroom,
where, though the crowd was somewhat thinned, the dance was continued
with that spirit which always seems to increase as the night advances.
For my own part, I now and then look late in at a ball as a warning and
grave memento of the flight of time. No amusement belongs of right so
essentially to the young, in their first youth,--to the unthinking, the
intoxicated,--to those whose blood is an elixir.
"If Constance be woman," said Godolphin to himself, as he returned to the
ballroom, "I will yet humble her to my will. I have not learned the
science so long, to be now foiled in the first moment I have seriously
wished to triumph."
As this thought inspired and excited him, he moved along at some distance
from, but carefully within the sight of Constance. He paused by Lady
Margaret Midgecombe. He addressed her. Notwithstanding the insolence and
the ignorance of the Duchess of Winstoun, he was well received by both
mother and daughter. Some persons there are, in all times and in all
spheres, who command a certain respect, bought neither by riches, rank,
nor even scrupulous morality of conduct. They win it by the reputation
that talent alone can win them, and which yet is not always the reputation
of talent. No man, even in the frivolous societies of the great, obtains
homage without certain qualities, which, had they been happily directed,
would have conducted him to fame. Had the attention of a Grammont, or of
a ----, been early turned towards what ought to be the objects desired,
who can doubt that, instead of the heroes of a circle, they might have
been worthy of becoming names of posterity?
Thus the genius of Godolphin had drawn around him an eclat which made even
the haughtiest willing to receive and to repay his notice; and Lady
Margaret actually blushed with pleasure when he asked her to dance. A
foreign dance, then only very partially known in England, had been called
for: few were acquainted with it,--those only who had been abroad; and as
the movements seemed to require peculiar grace of person, some even among
those few declined, through modesty, the exhibition.
To this dance Godolphin led Lady Margaret. All crowded round to see the
performers; and, as each went through the giddy and intoxicating maze,
they made remarks on the awkwardness or the singularity, or the
impropriety of the dance. But when Godolphin began, the murmurs changed.
The slow and stately measure then adapted to the steps, was one in which
the graceful symmetry of his person might eminently display itself. Lady
Margaret was at least as well acquainted with the dance: and the couple
altogether so immeasurably excelled all competitors, that the rest, as if
sensible of it, stopped one after the other; and when Godolphin,
perceiving that they were alone, stopped also, the spectators made their
approbation more audible than approbation usually is in polished society.
As Godolphin paused, his eyes met those of Constance. There was not there
the expression he had anticipated there was neither the anger of jealousy,
nor the restlessness of offended vanity, nor the desire of conciliation,
visible in those large and speaking orbs. A deep, a penetrating, a sad
inquiry seemed to dwell in her gaze,--seemed anxious to pierce into his
heart, and to discover whether there she possessed the power to wound, or
whether each had been deceived: so at least seemed that fixed and
melancholy intenseness of look to Godolphin. He left Lady Margaret
abruptly: in an instant he was by the side of Constance.
"You must be delighted with this evening," said he, bitterly: "wherever I
go I hear your praises: every one admires you; and he who does not admire
so much as worship you, _he_ alone is beneath your notice. He--born to
such shattered fortunes,--he indeed might never _aspire_ to that which
titled and wealthy idiots deem they may _command,_--the hand of Constance
Vernon."
It was with a low and calm tone that Godolphin spoke. Constance turned
deadly pale: her frame trembled; but she did not answer immediately. She
moved to a seat retired a little from the busy crowd; Godolphin followed
and sat himself beside her; and then, with a slight effort, Constance
spoke.
"You heard what was said, Mr. Godolphin, and I grieve to think you did.
If I offended you, however, forgive me, I pray you; I pray
sincerely--warmly. God knows I have suffered myself enough from idle
words, and from the slighting opinion with which this hard world visits
the poor, not to feel deep regret and shame if I wound, by like means,
another, more especially"--Constance's voice trembled,--"more especially
_you!_"
As she spoke, she turned her eyes on Godolphin, and they were full of
tears. The tenderness of her voice, her look, melted him at once. Was it
to him, indeed, that the haughty Constance addressed the words of kindness
and apology?--to him whose intrinsic circumstances she had heard described
as so unworthy of her, and, his reason told him, with such justice?
"Oh, Miss Vernon!" said he, passionately; "Miss Vernon--Constance--dear,
dear Constance! dare I call you so? hear me one word. I love you with a
love which leaves me no words to tell it. I know my faults, my poverty,
my unworthiness; but--but--may I--may I hope?"
And all the woman was in Constance's cheek, as she listened. That cheek,
how richly was it dyed! Her eyes drooped; her bosom heaved. How every
word in those broken sentences sank into her heart! never was a tone
forgotten. The child may forget its mother, and the mother desert the
child: but never, never from a woman's heart departs the memory of the
first confession of love from him whom she first loves! She lifted her
eyes, and again withdrew them, and again gazed.
"This must not be," at last she said; "no, no! it is folly, madness in
both!"
"Not so; nay, not so!" whispered Godolphin, in the softest notes of a
voice that could never be harsh. "It may seem folly--madness if you will,
that the brilliant and all-idolized Miss Vernon should listen to the vows
of so lowly an adorer: but try me--prove me, and own--yes, you _will_ own
some years hence, that that folly has been happy beyond the happiness of
prudence or ambition."
"This!" answered Constance, struggling with her emotions; "this is no spot
or hour for such a conference. Let us meet to-morrow--the western
chamber."
"And the hour?"
"Twelve!"
"And I may hope--till then?"
Constance again grew pale; and in a voice that, though it scarcely left
her lips, struck coldness and dismay into his sudden and delighted
confidence, answered,
"No, Percy, there is no hope!--none!"
[1] Then uncommon.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE INTERVIEW.--THE CRISIS OF A LIFE.
The western chamber was that I have mentioned as the one in which
Constance usually fixed her retreat, when neither sociability nor state
summoned her to the more public apartments. I should have said that
Godolphin slept in the house; for, coming from a distance and through
country roads, Lady Erpingham had proffered him that hospitality, and he
had willingly accepted it. Before the appointed hour, he was at the
appointed spot.
He had passed the hours till then without even seeking his pillow. In
restless strides across his chamber, he had revolved those words with
which Constance had seemed to deny the hopes she herself had created. All
private and more selfish schemes or reflections had vanished, as by magic,
from the mind of a man prematurely formed, but not yet wholly hardened in
the mould of worldly speculation. He thought no more of what he should
relinquish in obtaining her hand; with the ardour of boyish and real love,
he thought only of her. It was as if there existed no world but the
little spot in which she breathed and moved. Poverty, privation, toil,
the change of the manners and habits of his whole previous life, to those
of professional enterprise and self-denial;--to all this he looked
forward, not so much with calmness as with triumph.
"Be but Constance mine!" said he again and again; and again and again
those fatal words knocked at his heart, "No hope--none!" and he gnashed
his teeth in very anguish, and muttered, "But mine she will not--she will
never be!"
Still, however, before the hour of noon, something of his habitual
confidence returned to him. He had succeeded, though but partially, in
reasoning away the obvious meaning of the words; and he ascended to the
chamber from the gardens, in which he had sought, by the air, to cool his
mental fever, with a sentiment, ominous and doubtful indeed, but still
removed from despondency and despair.
The day was sad and heavy. A low, drizzling rain, and labouring yet
settled clouds, which denied all glimpse of the sky, and seemed cursed
into stagnancy by the absence of all wind or even breeze, increased by
those associations we endeavour in vain to resist, the dark and oppressive
sadness of his thoughts.
He paused as he laid his hand on the door of the chamber: he listened; and
in the acute and painful life which seemed breathed into all his senses,
he felt as if he could have heard,--though without the room,--the very
breath of Constance; or known, as by an inspiration, the presence of her
beauty. He opened the door gently; all was silence and desolation for
him--Constance was not there!
He felt, however, as if that absence was a relief. He breathed more
freely, and seemed to himself more prepared for the meeting. He took his
station by the recess of the window: in vain--he could rest in no spot: he
walked to and fro, pausing only for a moment as some object before him
reminded him of past and more tranquil hours. The books he had admired
and which, at his departure, had been left in their usual receptacle at
another part of the house, he now discovered on the tables: they opened of
themselves at the passages he had read aloud to Constance: those pages, in
his presence, she had not seemed to admire; he was inexpressibly touched
to perceive that, in his absence, they had become dear to her. As he
turned with a beating heart from this silent proof of affection, he was
startled by the sudden and almost living resemblance to Constance, which
struck upon him in a full-length picture opposite--the picture of her
father. That picture, by one of the best of our great modern masters of
the art, had been taken of Vernon in the proudest epoch of his prosperity
and fame. He was portrayed in the attitude in which he had uttered one of
the most striking sentences of one of his most brilliant orations: the
hand was raised, the foot advanced, the chest expanded. Life, energy,
command, flashed from the dark eye, breathed from the dilated nostril,
broke from the inspired lip. That noble brow--those modelled
features--that air, so full of the royalty of genius--how startlingly did
they resemble the softer lineaments of Constance!
Arrested, in spite of himself, by the skill of the limner, and the
characteristic of the portrait Godolphin stood, motionless and gazing,
till the door opened, and Constance herself stood before him. She smiled
faintly, but with sweetness as she approached; and seating herself,
motioned him to a chair at a little distance. He obeyed the gesture in
silence.
"Godolphin!" said she, softly. At the sound of her voice he raised his
eyes from the ground, and fixed them on her countenance with a look so
full of an imploring and earnest meaning, so expressive of the passion,
the suspense of his heart, that Constance felt her voice cease at once.
But he saw as he gazed how powerful had been his influence. Not a vestige
of bloom was on her cheek: her very lips were colourless: her eyes were
swollen with weeping; and though she seemed very calm and self-possessed,
all her wonted majesty of mien was gone. The form seemed to shrink within
itself. Humbleness and sorrow--deep, passionate, but quiet sorrow--had
supplanted the haughtiness and the elastic freshness of her beauty. "Mr.
Godolphin," she repeated, after a pause, "answer me truly and with
candour; not with the world's gallantry, but with a sincere, a plain
avowal. Were you not--in your unguarded expressions last night--were you
not excited by the surprise, the passion, of the moment? Were you not
uttering what, had you been actuated only by a calm and premeditated
prudence, you would at least have suppressed?"
"Miss Vernon," replied Godolphin, "all that I said last night, I now, in
calmness, and with deliberate premeditation, repeat: all that I can dream
of happiness is in your hands."
"I would, indeed, that I could disbelieve you," said Constance,
sorrowfully; "I have considered deeply on your words. I am touched--made
grateful--proud--yes, truly proud--by your confessed affection--but--"
"Oh, Constance!" cried Godolphin; in a sudden and agonized voice--and
rising, he flung himself impetuously at her feet--"Constance! do not
reject me!"
He seized her hand: it struggled not with his. He gazed on her
countenance: it was dyed in blushes; and before those blushes vanished,
her agitation found relief in tears, which flowed fast and full.
"Beloved!" said Godolphin, with a solemn tenderness, "why struggle with
your heart? That heart I read at this moment: _that_ is not averse to
me." Constance wept on. "I know what you would say, and what you feel,"
continued Godolphin: "you think that I--that we both are poor: that you
could ill bear the humiliations of that haughty poverty which those born
to higher fortunes so irksomely endure. You tremble to link your fate
with one who has been imprudent--lavish--selfish, if you will. You recoil
before you intrust your happiness to a man who, if he wreck that, can
offer you nothing in return: no rank--no station--nothing to heal a
bruised heart, or cover its wound, at least, in the rich disguises of
power and wealth. Am I not right, Constance? Do I not read your mind?"
"No!" said Constance with energy. "Had I been born any man's daughter,
but his from whom I take my name; were I the same in all things, mind and
heart, save in one feeling, one remembrance, one object--that I am now;
Heaven is my witness that I would not cast a thought upon poverty--upon
privation: that I would--nay, I do--I do confide in your vows, your
affection. If you have erred, I know it not. If any but you tell me you
have erred, I believe them not. You I trust wholly and implicitly.
Heaven, I say, is my witness that, did I obey the voice of my selfish
heart, I would gladly, proudly, share and follow your fortunes. You
mistake me if you think sordid and vulgar ambition can only influence me.
No! I could be worthy of you! The daughter of John Vernon could be a
worthy wife to the man of indigence and genius. In your poverty I could
soothe you; in your labour I could support you; in your reverses console,
in your prosperity triumph. But--but, it must not be. Go,
Godolphin--dear Godolphin! There are thousands better and fairer than I
am, who will do for you as I would have done; but who possess the power I
have not--who, instead of sharing, can raise your fortunes. Go!--and if
it comfort, if it soothe you, believe that I have not been insensible to
your generosity, your love. My best wishes, my fondest prayers, my
dearest hopes, are yours."
Blinded by her tears, subdued by her emotions, Constance was still
herself. She rose; she extricated her hand from Godolphin's; she turned
to leave the room. But Godolphin, still kneeling, caught hold of her
robe, and gently, but effectually detained her.
"The picture you have painted," said he, "do not destroy at once. You
have portrayed yourself my soother, guide, restorer. You _can,_ indeed
you can, be this. You do not know me, Constance. Let me say one word for
my self. Hitherto, I have shunned fame and avoided ambition. Life has
seemed to me so short, and all that even glory wins so poor, that I have
thought no labour worth the price of a single hour of pleasure and
enjoyment. For you, how joyfully will I renounce my code! For myself I
could ask no honour: for you, I will labour for all. No toil shall be dry
to me--no pleasure shall decoy. I will renounce my idle and desultory
pursuits. I will enter the great public arena, where all who come armed
with patience and with energy are sure to win. Constance, I am not
without talents, though they have slept within me; say but the word, and
you know not what they can produce."
An irresolution in Constance was felt as a sympathy by Godolphin; he
continued,--
"We are both desolate in the world, Constance; we are orphans--friendless,
fortuneless. Yet both have made our way without friends, and commanded
our associates, though without fortune. Does not this declare we have
that within us which, when we are united, can still exalt or conquer our
destiny? And we--we--alone in the noisy and contentious world with which
we strive--we shall turn, after each effort, to our own hearts, and find
there a comfort and a shelter. All things will bind us closer and closer
to each other. The thought of our past solitude, the hope of our future
objects, will only feed the fountain of our present love. And how much
sweeter, Constance, will be honours to you, if we thus win them;
sanctified as they will be by the sacrifices we have made; by the thought
of the many hours in which we desponded, yet took consolation from each
other; by the thought how we sweetened mortifications by sympathy, and
made even the lowest successes noble by the endearing associations with
which we allied them! How much sweeter to you will be such honours than
those which you might command at once, but accompanied by a cold heart;
rendered wearisome because won with ease and low because undignified by
fame! Oh, Constance! am I not heard? Have not love, nature, sense,
triumphed?"
As he spoke, he had risen gently, and wound his arms around her not
reluctant form: her head reclined upon his bosom; her hand was surrendered
to his; and his kiss stole softly and unchidden to her cheek. At that
instant, the fate of both hung on a very hair. How different might the
lot, the character, of each have been, had Constance's lips pronounced the
words that her heart already recorded! And she might have done so; but as
she raised her eyes, the same object that had before affected Godolphin
came vividly upon her, and changed, as by an electric shock, the whole
current of her thoughts. Full and immediately before her was the picture
of her father. The attitude there delineated, so striking at all times,
seemed to Constance at that moment more than ever impressive, and even
awful in the _livingness_ of its command. It was the face of Vernon in
the act of speech--of warning--of reproof; such as she had seen it often
in private life; such as she had seen it in his bitter maledictions on his
hollow friends at the close of his existence: nay, such as she had seen
it,--only more fearful, and ghastly with the hues of death,--in his last
hours; in those hours in which he had pledged her to the performance of
his revenge, and bade her live not for love but the memory of her sire.
With the sight of the face rushed upon her the dark and solemn
recollections of that time and of that vow. The weakness of love vanished
before the returning force of a sentiment nursed through her earliest
years, fed by her dreams, strengthened by her studies, and hardened by the
daring energies of a nature lofty yet fanatical, into the rule, the end,
nay, the very religion of life! She tore herself away from the surprised
and dismayed Godolphin; she threw herself on her knees before the picture;
her lips moved rapidly; the rapid and brief prayer for forgiveness was
over, and Constance rose a new being. She turned to Godolphin, and,
lifting her arm towards the picture, as she regarded, with her bright and
kindling eyes, the face of her lover; she said:--
"As you think now, thought he whose voice speaks to you from the canvas;
he, who pursued the path that you would tread; who, through the same toil,
the same pursuit, that you would endure, used the same powers and the same
genius you would command; he, who won,--what you might win also at
last,--the smile of princes, the trust of nobles, the shifting and sandy
elevation which the best, the wisest, and greatest statesmen in this
country, if unbacked by a sordid and caballing faction, can alone
obtain;--he warns you from that hollow distinction,--from its wretched
consummation. Oh, Godolphin!" she continued, subdued, and sinking from a
high-wrought but momentary paroxysm, uncommon to her collected character,
"Oh, Godolphin! I saw that man dying, deserted, lonely, cursed by his
genius, ruined by his prosperity. I saw him dying,--die,--of a broken and
trampled heart. Could I doom another victim to the same course, and the
same perfidy, and the same fate? Could I, with a silent heart, watch by
that victim; could I, viewing his certain doom, elate him with false
hopes?--No, no! fly from me,--from the thought of such a destiny. Marry
one who can bring you wealth, and support you with rank; _then_ be
ambitious if you will. Leave me to fulfil my doom,--my vow; and to think,
however wretched I may be, that I have not inflicted a permanent
wretchedness on you."
Godolphin sprang forward; but the door closed upon his eyes; and he saw
Constance--as Constance _Vernon_--no more.
CHAPTER XIX.
A RARE AND EXQUISITE OF THE BEST (WORST) SCHOOL.--A CONVERSATION ON A
THOUSAND MATTERS.--THE DECLENSION OF THE "SUI PROFUSUS" INTO THE "ALIENI
APPETENS."
There was, in the day I now refer to, a certain house in Chesterfield
Street, Mayfair, which few young men anxious for the eclat of society
passed without a wish for the acquaintance of the inmate. To that small
and dingy mansion, with its verandahs of dusky green, and its blinds
perpetually drawn, there attached an interest, a consideration, and a
mystery. Thither, at the dusk of night, were the hired carriages of
intrigue wont to repair, and dames to alight, careful seemingly of
concealment, yet wanting, perhaps, even a reputation to conceal. Few, at
the early hours of morn, passed that street on their way home from some
glittering revel without noticing some three or four chariots in
waiting;--or without hearing from within the walls the sounds of
protracted festivity. That house was the residence of a man who had never
done anything in public, and yet was the most noted personage in Society
in early life, the all-accomplished Lovelace! in later years mingling
the graces with the decayed heart and the want of principle of a Grammont.
Feared, contemned, loved, hated, ridiculed, honoured, the very genius, the
very personification, of a civilized and profligate life seemed embodied
in Augustus Saville. Hitherto we have spoken of, let us now describe him.
Born to the poor fortunes and equivocal station of cadet in a noble but
impoverished house, he had passed his existence in a round of lavish, but
never inelegant, dissipation. Unlike other men, whom youth, and money,
and the flush of health, and aristocratic indulgence, allure to follies,
which shock the taste as well as the morality of the wise, Augustus
Saville had never committed an error which was not varnished by grace, and
limited by a profound and worldly discretion. A systematic votary of
pleasure--no woman had ever through him lost her reputation or her sphere;
whether it was that he corrupted into fortunate dissimulation the minds
that he betrayed into guilt, or whether he chose his victims with so just
a knowledge of their characters, and of the circumstances round them, that
he might be sure the secrecy maintained by himself would scarcely be
divulged elsewhere. All the world attributed to Augustus Saville the most
various and consummate success in that quarter in which success is most
envied by the lighter part of the world: yet no one could say exactly who,
amongst the many he addressed, had been the object of his triumph. The
same quiet, and yet victorious discretion waited upon all he did. Never
had he stooped to win celebrity from horses or from carriages; nothing in
his equipages showed the ambition to be distinguished from another; least
of all did he affect that most displeasing of minor ostentatious, that
offensive exaggeration of neatness, that outre simplicity, which our young
nobles and aspiring bankers so ridiculously think it bon ton to assume.
No harness, industriously avoiding brass; no liveries, pretending to the
tranquillity of a gentleman's dress; no panels, disdaining the armorial
attributes of which real dignity should neither be ashamed nor
proud--converted plain taste into a display of plainness. He seldom
appeared at races, and never hunted; though he was profound master of the
calculations in the first, and was, as regarded the second, allowed to be
one of the most perfect masters of horsemanship in his time. So, in his
chess, while he chose even sedulously what became him most, he avoided the
appearance of coxcombry, by a disregard to minutiae. He did not value
himself on the perfection of his boot; and suffered a wrinkle in his coat
without a sigh: yet, even the exquisites of the time allowed that no one
was more gentlemanlike in the tout ensemble; and while he sought by other
means than dress to attract, he never even in dress offended. Carefully
shunning the character of the professed wit, or the general talker, he was
yet piquant, shrewd, and animated to the few persons whom he addressed, or
with whom he associated: and though he had refused all offers to enter
public life, he was sufficiently master of the graver subjects that
agitated the times to impress even those practically engaged in them with
a belief in his information and his talents.