Book: Godolphin, Volume 5.
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Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Godolphin, Volume 5.
"No," said he, burying his lips among the flowers; "no! I discard the
foreboding; with you I must be happy!" But conscience, still unsilenced,
whispered Lucilla!
The marriage was to take place at Rome. The day was fixed; and, owing to
Constance's rank, beauty and celebrity, the news of the event created
throughout "the English in Italy" no small sensation. There was a great
deal of gossip, of course, on the occasion; and some of this gossip found
its way to the haughty ears of Constance. It was said that she had made a
strange match--that it was a curious weakness in one so proud and
brilliant, to look no loftier than a private and not very wealthy
gentleman; handsome, indeed, and reputed clever; but one who had never
distinguished himself in anything--who never would!
Constance was alarmed and stung, not at the vulgar accusation, the paltry
sneer, but at the prophecy relating to Godolphin: "he had never
distinguished himself in anything--he never would." Rank, wealth, power,
Constance felt these she wanted not, these she could command of herself;
but she felt also that a nobler vanity of her nature required that the man
of her mature and second choice should not be one, in repute, of that mere
herd, above whom, in reality, his genius so eminently exalted him. She
deemed it essential to her future happiness that Godolphin's ambition
should be aroused, that he should share her ardour for those great objects
that she felt would for ever be dear to her.
"I love Rome!" said she, passionately, one day, as accompanied by
Godolphin, she left the Vatican; "I feel my soul grow larger amidst its
ruins. Elsewhere, through Italy, we live in the present, but here in the
past."
"Say not that that is the better life, dear Constance; the present--can we
surpass it?"
Constance blushed, and thanked her lover with a look that told him he was
understood.
"Yet," said she, returning to the subject, "who can breathe the air that
is rife with glory, and not be intoxicated with emulation? Ah, Percy!"
"Ah, Constance! and what wouldst thou have of me? Is it not glory enough
to be thy lover?"
"Let the world be as proud of my choice as I am." Godolphin frowned; he
penetrated in those words to Constance's secret meaning. Accustomed to be
an idol from his boyhood, he resented the notion that he had need of
exertion to render him worthy even of Constance; and sensible that it
might be thought he made an alliance beyond his just pretensions, he was
doubly tenacious as to his own claims. Godolphin frowned, then, and
turned away in silence. Constance sighed; she felt that she might not
renew the subject. But, after a pause, Godolphin himself continued it.
"Constance," said he, in a low firm voice, "let us understand each other.
You are all to me in the world; fame, and honor, and station and
happiness. Am I, also, that all to yon? If there be any thought at your
heart which whispers you, 'You might have served your ambition better; you
have done wrong in yielding to love and love only,'--then, Constance,
pause; it is not too late."
"Do I deserve this, Percy?"
"You drop words sometimes," answered Godolphin, "that seem to indicate
that you think the world may cavil at your choice, and that some exertion
on my part is necessary to maintain your dignity. Constance, need I
say, again and again, that I adore the very dust you tread on? But I have
a pride, a self-respect, beneath which I cannot stoop; if you really think
or feel this, I will not condescend to receive even happiness from you:
let us part."
Constance saw his lips white and quivering as he spoke; her heart smote
her, her pride vanished: she sank on his shoulder, and forgot even
ambition; nay, while she inly murmured at his sentiment, she felt it
breathed a sort of nobility that she could not but esteem. She strove
then to lull to rest all her more worldly anxieties for the future; to
hope that, cast on the exciting stage of English ambition, Godolphin must
necessarily be stirred despite his creed; and if she sometimes doubted,
sometimes despaired of this, she felt at least that his presence had
become dearer to her than all things. Nay, she checked her own
enthusiasm, her own worship of fame, since they clashed with his opinions;
so marvellously and insensibly bad Love bowed down the proud energies and
the lofty soul of the daughter of John Vernon.
CHAPTER XLVI.
THE BRIDALS.--THE ACCIDENT.--THE FIRST LAWFUL POSSESSION OF LOVE.
It was the morning on which Constance and Godolphin were to be married; it
had been settled that they were to proceed the same day towards Florence;
and Constance was at her toilette when her woman laid beside her a large
bouquet of flowers.
"From Percy--from Mr. Godolphin, I mean?" she asked, taking them up.
"No, my lady; a young woman outside the palace gave them me, and bade me
in such pretty English be sure to give them to your ladyship; and when I
offered her money, she would not take anything, my lady."
"The Italians are a courteous people," replied Constance; and she placed
the flowers in her bosom.
As, after the ceremony, Godolphin assisted his bride into the carriage, a
girl, wrapped in a large cloak, pressed forward for a moment. Godolphin
had in that moment turned his head to give some order to his servant, and
with the next the girl had sunk back into the throng that was drawn around
the carriage--yet not before Constance had heard her murmur in deep,
admiring, yet sorrowful tone: "Beautiful! how beautiful!--Ah me!"
"Did you observe what beautiful eyes that young girl had?" asked
Constance, as the carriage whirled off.
"What girl? I saw nothing but you!"
"Hark! there is a noise behind."
Godolphin looked out; the crowd seemed collected round one person.
"Only a young woman fainted, sir!" said his servant seated behind. "She
fell down in a fit just before the horses; but they started aside, and did
not hurt her."
"That is fortunate!" said Godolphin, reseating himself by his new bride;
"drive on faster."
At Florence, Godolphin revealed to Constance the outline of Lucilla's
history, and Constance shared somewhat of the feelings with which he told
it.
"I left," said he, "in the hands of the abbess a sum to be entirely at
Lucilla's control, whether she stay in the convent or not, and which will
always secure to her an independence. But I confess I should like now,
once more to visit the convent, and learn on what fate she has decided."
"You would do well, dear Percy," replied Constance, who from her high and
starred sphere could stoop to no vulgar jealousy; "indeed, I think you
could do no less."
And Godolphin covered those generous lips with the sweet kisses in which
esteem begins to mingle with passion. What has the earth like that first
fresh union of two hearts long separated, and now blended for ever?
However close the sympathy between woman and her lover--however each
thinks to have learned the other--what a world is there left un-learned,
until marriage brings all those charming confidences, that holy and sweet
intercourse, which leaves no separate interest, no undivided thought! But
there is one thing that distinguishes the conversation of young married
people from that of lovers on a less sacred footing--they talk of the
future! Other lovers talk rather of the past; an uncertainty pervades
their hereafter; they feel they recoil from, it; they are sensible that
their plans are not one and indivisible.' But married people are always
laying out the "to come;" always talking over their plans: this often
takes something away from the tenderness of affection, but how much it
adds to its enjoyment!
Seated by each other, and looking on the silver Arno, Godolphin and
Constance, hand clasped in hand, surrendered themselves to the
contemplation of their future happiness. "And what would be your favorite
mode of life, dear Percy?"
"Why, I have now no schemings left me, Constance. With you obtained, I
have grown a dullard, and left off dreaming. But let me see, a house in
England--you like England--some ten or twenty miles from the great Babel:
books, pictures, statues, and old trees that shall put us in mind of our
Norman fathers who planted them; above all, a noisy, clear sunny stream
gliding amidst them--deer on the opposite bank, half hidden amongst the
fern; and rooks overhead: a privilege for eccentricity that would allow
one to be social or solitary as one pleased; and a house so full of
guests, that to shun them all now and then would be no affront to one."
"Well," said Constance, smiling, "go on."
"I have finished."
"Finished?"
"Yes, my fair Insatiable! What more would you have?"
"Why, this is but a country-life you have been talking of; very well in
its way for three months in the year."
"Italy, then, for the other nine," returned Godolphin.
"Ah, Percy!--is pleasure, mere pleasure, vulgar pleasure,--to be really
the sole end and aim of life?"
"Assuredly."
"And action, enterprise-are these as nothing?"
Godolphin was silent, but began absently to throw pebbles into the water.
The action reminded Constance of the first time she had ever seen him
among his ancestral groves; and she sighed as she now gazed on a brow from
which the effeminacy and dreaming of his life had banished much of its
early chivalric and earnest expression.
CHAPTER XLVII.
NEWS OF LUCILLA.
Godolphin was about one morning to depart for the convent to which Lucilla
had flown, when a letter was brought to him from the abbess of the convent
herself; it had followed him from Rome. Lucilla had left her
retreat--left it three days before Godolphin's marriage; the abbess knew
not whither, but believed she intended to reside in Rome. She inclosed
him a note from Lucilla, left for him before her departure. Short but
characteristic, it ran thus:
LUCILLA TO GODOLPHIN.
"I can stay here no longer; my mind will not submit to quiet; this
inactivity wears me to madness. Besides, I want to see thy wife. I shall
go to Rome; I shall witness thy wedding; and then--ah! what then? Give
me back. Godolphin, oh; give me back the young pure heart I had ere I
loved you! Then, I could take joy in all things:--now! But I will not
repine; it is beneath me. I, the daughter of the stars, am no love-sick
and nerveless minion of a vain regret; my pride is roused at last, and I
feel at least the independence of being alone. Wild and roving shall be
my future life; that lot which denies me hope, has raised me above all
fear. Love makes us all the woman; love has left me, and something hard
and venturous, something that belongs to they sex, has come in its stead.
"You have left me money--I thank you--I thank you--I thank you; my heart
almost chokes me as I write this. Could you think of me so basely?--For
shame, man! if my child--our child were living (and O, Percy, she had
thine eyes!), I would see her starve inch by inch rather than touch one
doit of thy bounty! But she is dead--thank God! Fear not for me, I shall
not starve; these hands can support life. God bless thee--loved as thou
still art! If, years hence, I should feel my end draw near, I will drag
myself to thy country, and look once more on thy face before I die."
Godolphin sank down, and covered his face with his hands. Constance took
up the letter. "Ay--read it!" said he in a hollow voice. She did so,
and when she had finished, the proud Constance, struck by a spirit like
her own, bathed the letter in her tears. This pleased--this touched--this
consoled Godolphin more than the most elaborate comforting. "Poor girl!"
said Constance, through her tears, "this must not be; she must not be left
on the wide world to her own despairing heart. Let us both go to Rome,
and seek her out. I will persuade her to accept what she refuses from
you."
Godolphin pressed his wife's hand, but spoke not. They went that day to
Rome. Lucilla had departed for Leghorn, and thence taken her passage in a
vessel bound to the northern coasts of Europe. Perhaps she had sought her
father's land? With that hope, in the absence of all others, they
attempted to console themselves.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
IN WHICH TWO PERSONS, PERMANENTLY UNITED, DISCOVER THAT NO TIE CAN PRODUCE
UNION OF MINDS.
Weeks passed on, and, apparently, Godolphin had reconciled himself to the
disappearance and precarious destiny of Lucilla. It was not in his calm
and brooding nature to show much of emotion; but there was often, even.
in the presence of Constance, a cloud on his brow, and the fits of
abstraction to which he had always been accustomed grew upon him more
frequently than ever. Constance had been inured for years to the most
assiduous, the most devoted attentions; and now, living much alone with
Godolphin, she began somewhat to miss them; for Godolphin could be a
passionate, a romantic, but he could not be a very watchful lover. He had
no petits soins. Few husbands have, it is true; nor is it necessary for
husbands in general. But Constance was not an ordinary woman; she loved
deeply, but she loved according to her nature--as a woman proud and
exacting must love. For Godolphin, her haughty step waxed timorous and
vigilant; she always sprang forward the first to meet him on his return
from his solitary ramblings, and he smiled upon her with his wonted
gentleness but not so gratefully, thought Constance, as he ought. In
truth, he had been too much accustomed to the eager love of Lucilla, to
feel greatly surprised at any proof of tenderness from Constance. Thus,
too proud to speak--to hint a complaint, Constance was nevertheless
perpetually wounded, and by degrees (although not loving her husband less)
she taught that love to be more concealed. Oh, that accursed
secretiveness in women, which makes them always belie themselves!
Godolphin, too, was not without his disappointments. There was something
so bright, so purely intellectual about Constance's character, that at
times, when brought into constant intercourse with her, you longed for
some human weakness--some wild, warm error on which to repose. Dazzling
and fair as snow, like snow your eye ached to gaze upon her. She had,
during the years of her ungenial marriage, cultivated her mind to the
utmost; few women were so accomplished--it might be learned; her
conversation flowed for ever in the same bright, flowery, adorned stream.
There were times when Godolphin recollected how hard it is to read a
volume of that Gibbon who in a page is so delightful. Her affection for
him was intense, high, devoted; but it was wholly of the same intellectual
spiritualised order; it seemed to Godolphin to want human warmth and
fondness. In fact, there never was a woman who, both by original nature
and after habits, was so purely and abstractedly "mind" as was Constance;
there was not a single trait or taste in her character that a sensualist
could have sneered at. Her heart was wholly Godolphin's; her mind was
generous, sympathising, lofty; her person unrivalled in the majesty of its
loveliness; all these, too, were Godolphin's, and yet the eternal
something was wanting still.
"I have brought you your hat, Percy," said Constance; "you forget the dews
are falling fast, and your head is uncovered."
"Thank you," said Percy, gently; yet Constance thought the tone might have
been warmer. "How beautiful is this hour! Look yonder, the sun's rays
still upon those immortal hills--that lone grey tower amongst the far
plains--the pines around--hearken to their sighing! These are indeed the
scenes of the Dryad and the Faun. These are scenes where we could melt
our whole nature down to love: Nature never meant us for the stern and
arid destinies we fulfil. Look round, Constance, in every leaf of her
gorgeous book, how glowingly is written the one sentence, 'Love and be
happy!' You answer not; to these thoughts you are cold."
"They breathe too much of the Epicurean and his roseleaves for me,"
answered Constance, smilingly. "I love better that stern old tower,
telling of glorious strife and great deeds, than all the softer landscape,
on which the present debasement of the south seems written."
"You and your English," said Godolphin, somewhat bitterly, "prate of the
debasement of my poor Italians in a jargon that I confess almost enrages
me. (Constance coloured and bit her lip.) Debasement! why debasement?
They enjoy themselves: they take from life its just moral; they do not
affect the more violent crimes; they feel their mortality, follow its
common ends, are frivolous, contented, and die! Well; this is debasement.
Be it so. But for what would you exchange it? The hard, cold, ferocious
guilt of ancient Rome; the detestable hypocrisy, the secret villany,
fraud, murder, that stamped republican Venice? The days of glory that you
lament are the days of the darkest guilt; and man shudders when he reads
what the fair moralisers over the soft and idle Italy sigh to recall!"
"You are severe," said Constance, with a pained voice. "Forgive me,
dearest; but you are often severe on my feelings."
Constance was silent; the magic of the sunset was gone; they walked back
to the house, thoughtful, and somewhat cooled towards each other.
Another day, on which the rain forbade them to stir from home, Godolphin,
after he had remained long silent and meditating, said to Constance, who
was busy writing letters to her political friends, in which, avoiding
Italy and love, the scheming countess dwelt only on busy England and its
eternal politics:
"Will you read to me, dear Constance? my spirits are sad to-day; the
weather affects them."
Constance laid aside her letters, and took up one of the many books that
strewed the table: it was a volume of one of our most popular poets.
"I hate poetry," said Godolphin, languidly.
"Here is Machiavel's history of the Prince of Lucca," said Constance,
quickly.
"Ah, read that, and see how odious is ambition," returned Godolphin.
And Constance read, but she warmed at what Godolphin's lip curled with
disdain. The sentiments, however, drew him from his apathy; and
presently, with the eloquence he could command when once excited, he
poured forth the doctrines of his peculiar philosophy. Constance
listened, delighted and absorbed; she did not sympathise with the thought,
but she was struck with the genius which clothed it. "Ah!" said she,
with enthusiasm, "why should those brilliant words be thus spoken and lost
for ever? Why not stamp them on the living page, or why not invest them
in the oratory that would render you illustrious and them immortal?"
"Excellent!" said Godolphin laughing; "the House of Commons would
sympathise with philosophy warmly!"
Yet Constance was right on the whole. But the curse of a life of pleasure
is its aversion to useful activity. Talk of the genius that lies crushed
and obscure in poverty! Wealth and station have also their mute Miltons
and inglorious Hampdens.
Alas! how much of deep and true wisdom do we meet among the triflers of
the world! How much that in the stern middle walks of life would have
obtained renown, in the withering and relaxed air of loftier ranks dies
away unheeded! The two extremes meet in this,--the destruction of mental
gifts.
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE RETURN TO LONDON.--THE ETERNAL NATURE OF DISAPPOINTMENT.--FANNY
MILLINGER.--HER HOUSE AND SUPPER.
It was in the midst of spring, and at the approach of night, that our
travellers entered London. After an absence of some duration, there is a
singular emotion on returning to the roar and tumult of that vast city.
Its bustle, its life, its wealth--the tokens of the ambition and commerce
of the Great Island Race--have something of inconceivable excitement and
power, after the comparative desertion and majestic stillness of
Continental cities. Constance leaned restlessly forth from the window of
the carriage as it whirled on.
"Oh, that I were a man!" said she, fervently.
"And why?" asked Godolphin, smilingly.
"Why! look out on this broad theatre of universal ambition, and read the
why. What a proud and various career lies open in this free city to every
citizen! Look, look yonder--the old hereditary senate, still eloquent
with high memories."
"And close by it," said Godolphin, sneering, "behold the tomb!"
"Yes, but the tomb of great men!" said Constance, eagerly.
"The victims of their greatness."
There was a pause; Constance would not reply, she would scarcely listen.
"And do you feel no excitement, Percy, in the hum and bustle--the lights,
the pomp of your native city?"
"Yes; I am in the mart where all enjoyment may be purchased."
"Ah, fie!"
Godolphin drew his cloak round him, and put up the window.
"These cursed east winds!"
Very true--they are the curse of the country!
The carriage stopped at the stately portico of Erpingham House.
Godolphin felt a little humiliated at being indebted to another--to a
woman, for so splendid a tenement; but Constance, not penetrating into
this sentiment, hastened up the broad stairs, and said, pointing to a door
that led to her boudoir,
"In that room cabinets have been formed and shaken."
Godolphin laughed; he was alive only to the vanity of the boast, because
he shared not the enthusiasm; this was Constance's weak point: her dark
eye flashed fire.
There's nothing bores a man more than the sort of uneasy quiet that
follows a day's journey. Godolphin took his hat, and yawningly stretching
himself, nodded to Constance, and moved to the door; they were in her
dressing-room at the time.
"Why, what, Percy, you cannot be going out now?"
"Indeed I am, my love."
"Where, in Heaven's name?"
"To White's, to learn the news of the Opera, and the strength of the
Ballet."
"I had just rung for lights to show you the house!" said Constance,
disappointed, and half-reproachfully.
"Mercy, Constance! damp rooms and east winds together are too much.
House, indeed! what can there be worth seeing in your English
drawing-rooms after the marble palaces of Italy? Any commands?"
"None!" said Constance, sinking back into her chair, with the tears in her
eyes. Godolphin did not perceive them; he was only displeased by the cold
tone of her answer, and he shut the door, muttering to himself--"Was there
ever such indelicate ostentation!"
"And thus," said Constance, bitterly, "I return to England; friendless,
unloved, solitary in my schemes and my heart as I was before. Awake, my
soul! thou art my sole strength, my sole support. Weak, weak that I was,
to love this man in spite of--Well, well, I am not sunk so low as to
regret."
So saying, she wiped away a few tears, and turning with a strong effort
from softer thoughts, leaned her cheek on her hand, and gazing on the
fire, surrendered herself to the sterner and more plotting meditations
which her return to the circle of her old ambition had at first called
forth.
Meanwhile Godolphin sauntered into the then arch-club of St. James's, that
reservoir of idle exquisites and kid-gloved politicians. There are two
classes of popular men in London; the sprightly, joyous, good-humoured
set; the quiet, gentle, sarcastic herd. The one are fellows called
devilish good--the other, fellows called devilish gentleman like. To the
latter class belonged Godolphin. As he had never written a book, nor set
up for a genius, his cleverness was tacitly allowed to be no impediment to
his good qualities. Nothing atones for the sin, in the eyes of those
young gentlemen who create for their contemporaries reputation, of having
in any way distinguished oneself. "He's such a d--d bore, that man with
his books and poetry," said an arch-dandy of Byron, just after Childe
Harold had turned the heads of the women. There happened to be a knot
assembled at White's when Godolphin entered; they welcomed him
affectionately.
"Wish you joy, old fellow," said one. "Bless me, Godolphin! well, I am
delighted to see you," cried another. "So, you have monopolised Lady
Erpingham!--lucky dog!" whispered a third.
Godolphin, his vanity soothed by the reception he met with, spent his
evening at the Club. The habit begun, became easy--Godolphin spent many
evenings at his club. Constance, running the round of her acquaintance,
was too proud to complain. Perhaps complaint would not have mended the
matter: but one word of delicate tenderness, or one look that asked for
his society, and White's would have been forsaken! Godolphin secretly
resented the very evenness of temper he had once almost overprized.
"Oh, Godolphin," one evening whispered a young lord, "we sup at the little
actress's,--the Millinger; you remember the Millinger? You must come; you
are an old favourite, you know: she'll be so glad to see you,--all
innocent, by the way: Lady Erpingham need not be jealous--(jealous!
Constance jealous of Fanny Millinger!) all innocent. Come, I'll drive you
there; my cab is at the door."
"Anything better than a lecture on ambition," thought Godolphin; and he
consented. Godolphin's friend was a lively young nobleman, of that
good-natured, easy, uncaptious temper, which a clever, susceptible,
indolent man often likes better than comrades more intellectual, because
he has not to put himself out of his way in the comradeship. Lord
Falconer rattled on, as they drove along the brilliant streets, through a
thousand topics, of which Godolphin heard as much as he pleased; and
Falconer was of that age and those spirits when a listener may be easily
dispensed with.