Book: Godolphin, Volume 3.
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Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Godolphin, Volume 3.
"You cannot know the world as I do, dear Lucilla," continued Godolphin;
"for experience in its affairs is bought at some little expense, which I
pray that it may never cost you. In all countries, Lucilla, an unmarried
female is exposed to dangers which, without any actual fault of her own,
may embitter her future life. One of the greatest of these dangers lies
in deviating from custom. With the woman who does this, every man thinks
himself entitled to give his thoughts--his words--nay, even his actions, a
license which you cannot but dread to incur. Your uncle and aunt,
therefore, do right to advise your not going alone, to the public streets
of Rome more especially, except in the broad daylight; and though their
advice be irksomely intruded, and ungracefully couched, it is good in its
principle, and--yes, dearest Lucilla, even necessary for you to follow."
"But," said Lucilla, through her tears, "you cannot guess what insults,
what unkindness, I have been forced to submit to from them. I, who never
knew, till now, what insult and unkindness were! I, who----" here sobs
checked her utterance.
"But how, my young and fair friend, how can you mend their manners by
destroying their esteem for you? Respect yourself, Lucilla, if you wish
others to respect you. But, perhaps,"--and such a thought for the first
time flashed across Godolphin--"perhaps you did not seek the Corso for
the _crowd_ but for _one;_ perhaps you went there to meet--dare I guess
the fact?--an admirer, a lover."
"Now _you_ insult me!" cried Lucilla, angrily.
"I thank you for your anger; I accept it as a contradiction," said
Godolphin. "But listen yet a while, and for give frankness. If there be
any one, among the throng of Italian youths, whom you have seen, and could
be happy with; one who loves you and whom you do not hate;--remember that
I am your father's friend; that I am rich; that I can----"
"Cruel, cruel!" interrupted Lucilla and withdrawing herself from
Godolphin, she walked to and fro with great and struggling agitation.
"Is it not so, then?" said Godolphin, doubtingly.
"No, sir: no!"
"Lucilla Volktman," said Godolphin, with a colder gravity than he had yet
called forth, "I claim some attention from you, some confidence, nay, some
esteem;--for the sake of your father--for the sake of your early years,
when I assisted to teach you my native tongue, and loved you as a brother.
Promise me that you will not commit this indiscretion any more--at least
till we meet again; nay, that you will not stir abroad, save with one of
your relations."
"Impossible! impossible!" cried Lucilla, vehemently; "it were to take
away the only solace I have: it were to make life a privation--a curse."
"Not so, Lucilla; it is to make life respectable and safe. I, on the
other hand, will engage that all within these walls shall behave to you
with indulgence and kindness."
"I care not for their kindness!--for the kindness of any one; save----"
"Whom?" asked Godolphin, perceiving she would not proceed: but as she was
still silent, he did not press the question. "Come!" said he,
persuasively: "come, promise, and be friends with me; do not let us part
angrily: I am about to take my leave of you for many months.
"Part!--you!--months!--O God, do not say so!"
With these words, she was by his side; and gazing on him with her large
and pleading eyes, wherein was stamped a wildness, a terror, the cause of
which he did not as yet decipher.
"No, no," said she, with a faint smile: "no! you mean to frighten me, to
extort my promise. You are not going to desert me!"
"But, Lucilla, I will not leave you to unkindness; they shall not--they
dare not wound you again."
"Say to me that you are not going from Rome--speak; quick!"
"I go in two days."
"Then let me die!" said Lucilla, in a tone of such deep despair, that it
chilled and appalled Godolphin, who did not, however, attribute her grief
(the grief of this mere child--a child so wayward and eccentric) to any
other cause than that feeling of abandonment which the young so bitterly
experience at being left utterly alone with persons unfamiliar to their
habits and opposed to their liking.
He sought to soothe her, but she repelled him. Her features worked
convulsively: she walked twice across the room; then stopped opposite to
him, and a certain strained composure on her brow seemed to denote that
she had arrived at some sudden resolution.
"Wouldst thou ask me," she said, "what cause took me into the streets as
the shadows darkened, and enabled me lightly to bear threats at home and
risk abroad?"
"Ay, Lucilla: will you tell me?"
"Thou wast the cause!" she said, in a low voice, trembling with emotion,
and the next moment sank on her knees before him.
With a confusion that ill became so practised and favoured a gallant,
Godolphin sought to raise her. "No! no!" she said; "you will despise me
now: let me lie here, and die thinking of thee. Yes!" she continued, with
an inward but rapid voice, as he lifted her reluctant frame from the
earth, and hung over her with a cold and uncaressing attention: "yes! you
I loved--I adored--from my very childhood. When you were by, life seemed
changed to me; when absent, I longed for night, that I might dream of you.
The spot you had touched I marked out in silence, that I might kiss it and
address it when you were gone. You left us; four years passed away: and
the recollection of you made and shaped my very nature. I loved solitude;
for in solitude I saw you--in imagination I spoke to you--and methought
you answered and did not chide. You returned--and--and--but no matter: to
see you, at the hour you usually leave home; to see you, I wandered forth
with the evening. I tracked you, myself unseen; I followed you at a
distance: I marked you disappear within some of the proud palaces that
never know what love is. I returned home weeping, but happy. And do you
think--do you dare to think--that I should have told you this, had you not
driven me mad!--had you not left me reckless of what henceforth was
thought of me--became of me! What will life be to me when you are gone?
And now I have said all! Go! You do not love me: I know it: but do not
say so. Go--leave me; why do you not leave me?"
Does there live one man who can hear a woman, young and beautiful, confess
attachment to him, and not catch the contagion? Affected, flattered, and
almost melted into love himself, Godolphin felt all the danger of the
moment but this young, inexperienced girl--the daughter of his friend--no!
her he could not--loving, willing as she was, betray.
Yet it was some moments before he could command himself sufficiently to
answer her:--"Listen to me calmly," at length he said; "we are at least to
each other dear friends nay, listen, I beseech you. I, Lucilla, am a man
whose heart is forestalled--exhausted before its time; I have loved,
deeply, and passionately: that love is over, but it has unfitted me for
any species of love resembling itself--any which I could offer to you.
Dearest Lucilla, I will not disguise the truth from you. Were I to love
you, it would be--not in the eyes of _your_ countrymen (with whom such
connexions are common), but in the eyes of mine--it would be dishonour.
Shall I confer even this partial dishonour on you? No! Lucilla, this
feeling of yours towards me is (pardon me) but a young and childish
phantasy: you will smile at it some years hence. I am not worthy of so
pure and fresh a heart: but at least" (here he spoke in a lower voice, and
as to himself)--"at least I am not so unworthy as to wrong it."
"Go!" said Lucilla; "go, I implore you." She spoke, and stood hueless and
motionless, as if the life (life's life was indeed gone!) had departed
from her. Her features were set and rigid; the tears that stole in large
drops down her cheeks were unfelt; a slight quivering of her lips only
bespoke what passed within her.
"Ah!" cried Godolphin, stung from his usual calm--stung from the quiet
kindness he had sought, from principle, to assume--"can I withstand this
trial?--I, whose dream of life has been the love that I might now find!
I, who have never before known an obstacle to a wish which I have not
contended against, if not conquered: and, weakened as I am with the
habitual indulgence to temptation, which has never been so strong as
now;--but no! I will--I will deserve this attachment by self-restraint,
self-sacrifice."
He moved away; and then returning, dropped on his knee before Lucilla.
"Spare me!" said he in an agitated voice, which brought back all the blood
to that young and transparent cheek, which was now half averted from
him--"spare me--spare yourself! Look around, when I am gone, for some one
to replace my image: thousands younger, fairer, warmer of heart, will
aspire to your love; that love for them will be exposed to no peril--no
shame: forget me; select another; be happy and respected. Permit me alone
to fill the place of your friend--your brother. I will provide for your
comforts, your liberty: you shall be restrained, offended no more. God
bless you, dear, dear Lucilla; and believe," (he said almost in a
whisper), "that, in thus flying you, I have acted generously, and with an
effort worthy of your loveliness and your love."
He said, and hurried from the apartment. Lucilla turned slowly round as
the door closed and then fell motionless on the ground.
Meanwhile Godolphin, mastering his emotion, sought the host and hostess;
and begging them to visit his lodging that evening, to receive certain
directions and rewards, hastily left the house.
But instead of returning home, the desire for a brief solitude and
self-commune, which usually follows strong excitement, (and which, in all
less ordinary events, suggested his sole counsellors or monitors to the
musing Godolphin), led his steps in an opposite direction. Scarcely
conscious whither he was wandering, he did not pause till he found himself
in that green and still valley in which the pilgrim beholds the grotto of
Egeria.
It was noon, and the day warm, but not overpowering. The leaf slept on
the old trees that are scattered about that little valley; and amidst the
soft and rich turf the wanderer's step disturbed the lizard, basking its
brilliant hues in the noontide, and glancing rapidly through the herbage
as it retreated. And from the trees, and through the air, the occasional
song of the birds (for in Italy their voices are rare) floated with a
peculiar clearness, and even noisiness of music, along the deserted haunts
of the Nymph.
The scene, rife with its beautiful associations, recalled Godolphin from
his reverie. "And here," thought he, "Fable has thrown its most lovely
enduring enchantment: here, every one who has tasted the loves of earth,
and sickened for the love that is ideal, finds a spell more attractive to
his steps--more fraught with contemplation to his spirit, than aught
raised by the palace of the Caesars or the tomb of the Scipios."
Thus meditating, and softened by the late scene with Lucilla, (to which
his thoughts again recurred), he sauntered onward to the steep side of the
bank, in which faith and tradition have hollowed out the grotto of the
goddess. He entered the silent cavern, and bathed his temples in the
delicious waters of the fountain.
It was perhaps well that it was not at that moment Lucilla made to him her
strange and unlooked-for confession: again and again he said to himself
(as if seeking for a justification of his self-sacrifice), "Her father was
not Italian, and possessed feeling and honour: let me not forget that he
loved me!" In truth, the avowal of this wild girl; an avowal made indeed
with the ardour--but also breathing of the innocence, the inexperience--of
her character--had opened to his fancy new and not undelicious prospects.
He had never loved her, save with a lukewarm kindness, before that last
hour; but now, in recalling her beauty, her tears, her passionate
abandonment can we wonder that he felt a strange beating at his heart, and
that he indulged that dissolved and luxurious vein of tender meditation
which is the prelude to all love? We must recall, too, the recollection
of his own temper, so constantly yearning for the unhackneyed, the
untasted; and his deep and soft order of imagination, by which he
involuntarily conjured up the delight of living with one, watching one, so
different from the rest of the world, and whose thoughts and passions
(wild as they might be) were all devoted to him!
And in what spot were these imaginings fed and coloured? In a spot which
in the nature of its divine fascination could be found only beneath one
sky, that sky the most balmy and loving upon earth! Who could think of
love within the haunt and temple of
"That Nympholepsy of some fond despair,"
and not feel that love enhanced, deepened, modulated, into at once a dream
and a desire?
It was long that Godolphin indulged himself in recalling the image of
Lucilla; but nerved at length and gradually, by harder, and we may hope
better, sentiments than those of a love which he could scarcely indulge
without criminality on the one hand, or, what must have appeared to the
man of the world, derogatory folly on the other; he turned his thoughts
into a less voluptuous channel, and prepared, though with a reluctant
step, to depart homewards. But what was his amaze, his confusion, when,
on reaching the mouth of the cave, he saw within a few steps of him
Lucilla herself!
She was walking alone and slowly, her eyes bent upon the ground, and did
not perceive him. According to a common custom with the middle classes of
Rome, her rich hair, save by a single band, was uncovered; and as her
slight and exquisite form moved along the velvet sod, so beautiful a
shape, and a face so rare in its character, and delicate in its
expression, were in harmony with the sweet superstition of the spot, and
seemed almost to restore to the deserted cave and the mourning stream
their living Egeria.
Godolphin stood transfixed to the earth; and Lucilla, who was walking in
the direction of the grotto, did not perceive, till she was almost
immediately before him. She gave a faint scream as she lifted her eyes;
and the first and most natural sentiment of the woman breaking forth
involuntarily,--she attempted to falter out her disavowal of all
expectation of meeting him there.
"Indeed, indeed, I did not know--that is--I--I--" she could achieve no
more.
"Is this a favourite spot with you?" said he, with the vague
embarrassment of one at a loss for words.
"Yes," said Lucilla, faintly.
And so, in truth, it was: for its vicinity to her home, the beauty of the
little valley, and the interest attached to it--an interest not the less
to her in that she was but imperfectly acquainted with the true legend of
the Nymph and her royal lover--had made it, even from her childhood, a
chosen and beloved retreat, especially in that dangerous summer time,
which drives the visitor from the spot, and leaves the scene, in great
measure, to the solitude which befits it. Associated as the place was
with the recollection of her earlier griefs, it was thither that her first
instinct made her fly from the rude contact and displeasing companionship
of her relations, to give vent to the various and conflicting passions
which the late scene with Godolphin had called forth.
They now stood for a few moments silent and embarrassed, till Godolphin,
resolved to end a scene which he began to feel was dangerous, said in a
hurried tone:--
"Farewell, my sweet pupil!--farewell!--May God bless you!"
He extended his hand, Lucilla seized it, as if by impulse; and conveying
it suddenly to her lips, bathed it with tears. "I feel," said this wild
and unregulated girl, "I feel, from your manner, that I ought to be
grateful to you: yet I scarcely know why: you confessed you cannot love
me, that my affection distresses you--you fly--you desert me. Ah, if you
felt one particle even of friendship for me, could you do so?"
"Lucilla, what can I say?--I cannot marry you."
"Do I wish it?--I ask thee but to let me go with thee wherever thou
goest."
"Poor child!" said Godolphin, gazing on her; "art thou not aware that thou
askest thine own dishonour?"
Lucilla seemed surprised:--"Is it dishonour to love? They do not think so
in Italy. It is wrong for a maiden to confess it; but that thou hast
forgiven me. And if to follow thee--to sit with thee--to be near
thee--bring aught of evil to myself, not thee,--let me incur the evil: it
can be nothing compared to the agony of thy absence!"
She looked up timidly as she spoke, and saw, with a sort of terror, that
his face worked with emotions which seemed to choke his answer. "If," she
cried passionately, "if I have said what pains thee--if I have asked what
would give dishonour, as thou callest it, or harm, to thyself, for give
me--I knew it not--and leave me. But if it were not of thyself that thou
didst speak, believe that thou hast done me but a cruel mercy. Let me go
with thee, I implore! I have no friend here: no one loves me. I hate the
faces I gaze upon; I loathe the voices I hear. And, were it for nothing
else, thou remindest me of him who is gone:--thou art familiar to
me--every look of thee breathes of my home, of my household recollections.
Take me with thee, beloved stranger!--or leave me to die--I will not
survive thy loss!"
"You speak of your father: know you that, were I to grant what you, in
your childish innocence, so unthinkingly request, he might curse me from
his grave?"
"O God, not so!--mine is the prayer--be mine the guilt, if guilt there be.
But is it not unkinder in thee to desert his daughter than to protect
her?"
There was a great, a terrible struggle in Godolphin's breast. "What,"
said he, scarcely knowing what he said,--"what will the world think of you
if you fly with a stranger?"
"There is no world to me but thee!"
"What will your uncle--your relations say?"
"I care not; for I shall not hear them."
"No, no; this must not be!" said Godolphin proudly, and once more
conquering himself. "Lucilla, I would give up every other dream or hope
in life to feel that I might requite this devotion by passing my life with
thee: to feel that I might grant what thou askest without wronging thy
innocence; but--but--"
"You love me then! You love me!" cried Lucilla, joyously, and alive to
no other interpretation of his words. Godolphin was transported beyond
himself; and clasping Lucilla in his arms he covered her cheeks, her lips,
with impassioned and burning kisses; then suddenly, as if stung by some
irresistible impulse, he tore himself away; and fled from the spot.