Book: Godolphin, Volume 5.
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Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Godolphin, Volume 5.
They arrived at a little villa at Brompton: there was a little garden
round it, and a little bower in one corner, all kept excessively neat; and
the outside of the house had just been painted white from top to bottom;
and there was a veranda to the house; and the windows were plate-glass,
with mahogany sashes--only, here and there, a Gothic casement was stuck in
by way of looking "tasty;" and through one window on the ground-floor, the
lights shining within, showed crimson silk and gilded chairs, and all
sorts of finery--Louis Quatorze in a nutshell! The reader knows the
sort of house as well as if he had lived in it. Ladies of Fanny
Millinger's turn of mind always choose the same kind of habitation. It
is astonishing what a unanimity of taste they have; and young men about
town call it "taste" too, and imitate the fashion in their own little
tusculums in Chapel street.
After having threaded a Gothic hall four feet by eight and an oval
conservatory with a river-god in the middle, the two visitors found
themselves in the presence of Fanny Millinger.
Godolphin had certainly felt no small curiosity to see again the frank,
fair, laughing face which had shone on his boyhood, and his mind ran
busily back to that summer evening when, with a pulse how different from
its present languid tenor, and a heart burning with ardour and the pride
of novel independence, the young adventurer first sallied on the world.
He drew back involuntarily as he now gazed on the actress: she had kept
the promise of her youth, and grown round and full in her proportions.
She was extravagantly dressed, but not with an ungraceful, although a
theatrical choice: her fair hands and arms were covered with jewels, and
that indescribable air which betrays the stage was far more visibly marked
in her deportment than when Godolphin first knew her; yet still there was
the same freedom as of old, the same joyousness, and good-humoured
carelessness in her manner, and in the silver ring of her voice as she
greeted Falconer, and turned to question him as to his friend. Godolphin
dropped his cloak, and the next moment, with a pretty scream, quite
stage-effect, and yet quite natural, the actress had thrown herself into
his arms.
"Oh! but I forgot," said she presently, with a mock salutation of respect,
"you are married now; there will be no more cakes and ale. Ah! what long
years since we met; yet I have never quite forgotten you, although the
stage requires all one's memory for one's new parts. Alas! your hair--it
was so beautiful, it has lost half its curl, and grown thin. Very rude in
me to say so, but I always speak the truth, and my heart warms to see you,
so all its thoughts thaw out."
"Well," said Lord Falconer, who had been playing with a little muffy sort
of dog, "you'll recollect me presently."
"You! Oh! one never thinks of you, except when you speak, and then one
recollects you--to look at the clock."
"Very good, Fanny--very good, Fan: and when do you expect Windsor?--He
ought to be here soon. Tell me, do you like him really?"
"Like him!--yes, excessively; just the word for him--for you all. If love
were thrown into the stream of life, my little sail would be upset in an
instant. But in truth, what with dressing, and playing, and all the grave
business of life, I am not idle enough to love. And oh, Godolphin, I'm so
improved! Ask Lord Falconer, if I don't sing like an angel, although my
voice is hardly strong enough to go round a loo-table; but on the stage,
one learns to dispense with all qualities. It is a curious thing, that
fictitious existence, side by side with the real one! We live in
enchantment, Percy, and enjoy what the poets pretend to."
The dreaming Godolphin was struck by the remark. He was surprised, also,
to see how much Fanny remained the same. A life of gaiety had not debased
her.
Tom Windsor came next, an Irishman of five-and-forty, not like his
countrymen in aught save wit. Thin, small, shrivelled, but up to his ears
in knowledge of the world, and with a jest for ever on his tongue: rich
and gay,--he was always popular, and he made the most of his little life
without being an absolute rascal. Next dropped in the handsome Frenchman
De Damville; next, the young gambler, St. John; next two ladies, both
actresses; and the party was complete.
The supper was in keeping with the house; the best wines, excellent
viands--the actress had grown rich. Wit, noise, good-humour, anecdote,
flashed round with the champagne; and Godolphin, exhilarated into a second
youth, fancied himself once more the votary of pleasure.
CHAPTER L.
GODOLPHIN'S SOLILOQUY.--HE BECOMES A MAN OF PLEASURE AND A PATRON OF THE
ARTS.--A NEW CHARACTER SHADOWED FORTH; FOR AS WE ADVANCE, WHETHER IN LIFE
OR ITS REPRESENTATIONS, CHARACTERS ARE MORE FAINT AND DIMLY DRAWN THAN IN
THE EARLIER PART OF OUR CAREER.
"Yes," said Godolphin, the next morning, as he soliloquised over his
lonely breakfast-table--lonely, for the hours of the restless Constance
were not those of the luxurious and indolent Godolphin, and she was
already in her carriage, nay, already closeted with an intriguing
ambassadress--"yes, I have passed two eras of life--the first of romance,
the second of contemplation; once my favourite study was poetry--next
philosophy. Now, returned to my native country, rich, settled, yet
young, new objects arise to me; not that vulgar and troublous ambition
(which is to make a toil of life) that Constance suggests, but a more warm
and vivid existence than that I have lately dreamed away. Let luxury and
pleasure now be to me what solitude and thought were. I have been too
long the solitary, I will learn to be social."
Agreeably to this resolution, Godolphin returned with avidity to the
enjoyment of the world; he found himself courted, he courted society in
return. Erpingham House had been for years the scene of fascination: who
does not recollect the yet greater refinement which its new lord threw
over its circles? A delicate and just conception of the fine arts had
always characterised Godolphin. He now formed that ardour for collecting,
common to the more elegant order of minds. From his beloved Italy he
imported the most beautiful statues--his cabinets were filled with
gems--his walls glowed with the triumphs of the canvas--the showy but
heterogeneous furniture of Erpingham House gave way to a more classic and
perfect taste. The same fastidiousness which, in the affairs of the
heart, had characterised Godolphin's habits and sentiments, characterised
his new pursuits; the same thirst for the Ideal, the same worship of the
Beautiful, and aspirations after the Perfect.
It was not in Constance's nature to admit this smaller ambition; her taste
was pure but not minute; she did not descend to the philosophy of detail.
But she was glad still to see that Godolphin could be aroused to the
discovery of an active object; and, although she sighed to perceive his
fine genius fritted away on the trifles of the virtuoso--although she
secretly regretted the waste of her great wealth (which afforded to
political ambition so High an advantage) on the mute marble, and what she
deemed, nor unjustly, frivolous curiosities--she still never interfered
with Godolphin's caprices, conscious that, to his delicacy, a single
objection to his wishes on the score of expense would have reminded him of
what she wished him most to forget--viz., that the means of this lavish
expenditure were derived from her. She hoped that his mind, once fairly
awakened, would soon grow sated with the acquisition of baubles, and at
length sigh for loftier objects; and, in the meanwhile, she plunged into
her old party plots and ambitions intrigues.
Erpingham House, celebrated as ever for the beauty of its queen and for
the political nature of its entertainments, received a new celebrity from
its treasures of art, and the spiritual wit and grace with which Godolphin
invested its attractions. Among the crowd of its guests there was one
whom its owners more particularly esteemed--Stainforth Radclyffe was still
considerably under thirty, but already a distinguished man. At school he
had been distinguished; at college distinguished, and now in the world of
science distinguished also. Beneath a quiet, soft, and cold exterior, he
concealed the most resolute and persevering ambition; and this ambition
was the governing faculty of his soul. His energies were undistracted by
small objects; for he went little into general society, and he especially
sought in his studies those pursuits which nerve and brace the mind. He
was a profound thinker, a deep political economist, an accurate financier,
a judge of the intricacies of morals and legislation--for to his mere book
studies he added an instinctive penetration into men; and when from time
to time he rejoined the world, he sought out those most distinguished in
the sciences he had cultivated, and by their lights corrected his own. In
him there was nothing desultory or undetermined; his conduct was perpetual
calculation. He did nothing but with an eye to a final object; and when,
to the superficial, he seemed most to wander from the road their prudence
would have suggested, he was only seeking the surest and shortest paths.
Yet his ambition was not the mere vulgar thirst for getting on in the
world; he cared little for the paltry place, the petty power which may
reward what are called aspiring young men. His clear sight penetrated to
objects that seemed wrapped in shade to all others; and to those
only--distant, but vast and towering,--he deigned to attach his desires.
He cared not for small and momentary rewards; and while always (for he
knew its necessity) uppermost on the tide of the hour, he had neither joy
nor thought for the petty honours for which he was envied, and by which he
was supposed to be elated. Always occupied and always thoughtful, he
went, as I have just said, very little into the gay world, and was not
very well formed to shine in it when there; for trifles require the whole
man as much as matters of importance. He did not want either wit or
polish, but he tasked his powers too severely on great subjects not to be
sometimes dull upon small ones: yet, when he was either excited or at
home, he was not without--what man of genius is?--his peculiar powers of
conversation. There was in this young dark, brooding, stern man, that
which had charmed Constance at first sight; she thought to recognise a
nature like her own, and Radclyffe's venturous spirit exulted in a commune
with hers. Their politics were the same; their ultimate ends not very
unlike; and their common ambition furnished them with an eternity of
topics and schemes. Radclyffe was Constance's guest;--but Godolphin soon
grew attached to the young politician, though he shrugged his shoulders at
his opinions. In youth, Godolphin had been a Tory--now, if anything, he
was a Tory still. Such a political creed was perhaps the natural result
of his philosophical belief. Constance, Whig by profession, ultra-Liberal
in reality, still however gave the character to the politics of the house;
and the easy Godolphin thought politics the veriest of all the trifles
which a man could leave to the discretion of the lady of his household.
We may judge, therefore, of the quiet, complacent amusement he felt in the
didactics of Radclyffe or the declamations of Constance.
"That is a dangerous, scheming woman, believe me," said the Duchess of
---- to her great husband, one morning, when Constance left her Grace.
"Nonsense! women are never dangerous."
CHAPTER LI.
GODOLPHIN'S COURSE OF LIFE.--INFLUENCE OF OPINION AND OF RIDICULE ON THE
MINDS OF PRIVILEGED ORDERS.--LADY EHPINGITAM'S FRIENDSHIP WITH GEORGE THE
FOURTH.--HIS MANNER OF LIVING.
The course of life which Godolphin now led, was exactly that which it is
natural for a very rich intellectual man to indulge--voluptuous but
refined. He was arriving at that age when the poetry of the heart
necessarily decays. Wealth almost unlimited was at his command; he had no
motive for exertion; and he now sought in pleasure that which he had
formerly asked from romance. As his faculties and talents had no other
circle for display than that which "society" affords; so by slow degrees,
society--its applause and its regard--became to him of greater importance
than his "philosophy dreamt of." Whatever the circle we live amongst, the
public opinion of that circle will, sooner or later, obtain a control over
us. This is the reason why a life of pleasure makes even the strongest
mind frivolous at last. The lawyer, the senator, the magi of letters, all
are insensibly guided--moulded--formed--by the judgment of the tribe they
belong to, and the circle in which they move. Still more is it the case
with the idlers of the great world, amongst whom the only main staple of
talk is "themselves."
And in the last-named set, Ridicule being more strong and fearful a deity
than she is amongst the cultivators of the graver occupations of life,
reduces the inmates, by a constant dread of incurring her displeasure, to
a more monotonous and regular subjection to the judgment of others.
Ridicule is the stifler of all energy amongst those she controls. After
man's position in society is once established--after he has arrived at a
certain age--he does not like to hazard any intellectual enterprise which
may endanger the quantum of respect or popularity at present allotted to
him. He does not like to risk a failure in parliament--a caustic
criticism in literature: he does not like to excite new jealousies, and
provoke angry rivals where he now finds complaisant inferiors. The most
admired authors, the most respected members of either house, now looked up
to Godolphin as a man of wit and genius; a man whose house, whose wealth,
whose wife, gave him an influence few individuals enjoy. Why risk all
this respect by provoking comparison? Among the first in one line, why
sink into the probability of being second-rate in another?
This motive, which secretly governs half the aristocracy--the cleverer
half, viz., the more diffident and the more esteemed; which leaves to the
obtuse and the vain, a despised and unenviable notoriety; added new force
to Godolphin's philosophical indifference to ambition. Perhaps, had his
situation been less brilliant, or had he persevered in that early
affection for solitude which youth loves as the best nurse to its dreams,
he might now, in attaining an age when ambition, often dumb before,
usually begins to make itself heard, have awakened to a more resolute and
aspiring temperament of mind. But, as it was, courted and surrounded by
all the enjoyments which are generally the reward to which exertion looks,
even an ambitious man might have forgotten his nature. No wound to his
vanity, no feeling that he was underrated (that great spur to proud minds)
excited him to those exertions we undertake in order to belie calumny. He
was "the glass of fashion," at once popular and admired; and his good
fortune in marrying the celebrated, the wealthy, the beautiful Countess of
Erpingham was, as success always is, considered the proof of his genius,
and the token of his merits.
It was certainly true, that a secret and mutual disappointment rankled
beneath the brilliant lot of the husband and wife. Godolphin exacted from
Constance more softness, more devotion, more compliance than belonged to
her nature; and Constance, on the other hand, ceased not to repine that
she found in Godolphin no sympathy with her objects, and no feeling for
her enthusiasm. As there was little congenial in their pursuits, the one
living for pleasure, the other for ambition, so there could be no
congeniality in their intercourse. They loved each other still; they
loved each other warmly; they never quarrelled; for the temper of
Constance was mild, and that of Godolphin generous: but neither believed
there was much love on the other side; and both sought abroad that
fellowship and those objects they had not in common at home.
Constance was a great favourite with the reigning king; she was constantly
invited to the narrow circle of festivities at Windsor. Godolphin, who
avoided the being bored as the greatest of earthly evils, could not bow
down his tastes and habits to any exact and precise order of life, however
distinguished the circle in which it became the rule. Thirsting to be
amused, he could not conjugate the active verb "to amuse." No man was
more fitted to adorn a court, yet no man could less play the courtier. He
admired the manners of the sovereign,--he did homage to the natural
acuteness of his understanding; but, accustomed as he was to lay down the
law in society, he was too proud to receive it from another,--a common
case among those who live with the great by right and not through
sufferance. His pride made him fear to seem a parasite; and, too
chivalrous to be disloyal, he was too haughty to be subservient. In fact,
he was thoroughly formed to be the Great Aristocrat,--a career utterly
distinct from that of the hanger-on upon a still greater man; and against
his success at court, he had an obstacle no less in the inherent fierte of
his nature, than in the acquired philosophy of his cynicism.
The king, at first, was civil enough to Lady Erpingham's husband; but he
had penetration enough to see that he was not adequately admired: and on
the first demonstration of royal coolness, Godolphin, glad of an excuse,
forswore Castle and Pavilion for ever, and left Constance to enjoy alone
the honours of the regal hospitality. The world would have insinuated
scandal; but there was that about Constance's beauty which there is said
by one of the poets to belong to an angel's--it struck the heart, but awed
the senses.
CHAPTER LII.
RADCLYFFE AND GODOLPHIN CONVERSE.--THE VARIETIES OF AMBITION.
"I don't know," said Godolphin to Radclyffe, as they were one day riding
together among the green lanes that border the metropolis--"I don't know
what to do with myself this evening. Lady Erpingham is gone to Windsor; I
have no dinner engagement, and I am wearied of balls. Shall we dine
together, and go to the play quietly, as we might have done some ten years
ago?"
"Nothing I should like better;--and the theatre--are you fond of it now?
I think I have heard you say that it once made your favorite amusement."
"I still like it passably," answered Godolphin; but the gloss is gone
from the delusion. I am grown mournfully fastidious. I must have
excellent acting--an excellent play. A slight fault--a slight deviation
from nature--robs me of my content at the whole."
"The same fault in your character pervading all things," said Radclyffe,
half smiling.
"True," said Godolphin, yawning;--"but have you seen my new Canova?"
"No: I care nothing for statues, and I know nothing of the Fine Arts."
"What a confession!"
"Yes, it is a rare confession: but I suspect that the Arts, like truffles
and olives, are an acquired taste. People talk themselves into
admiration, where at first they felt indifference. But how can you,
Godolphin, with your talents, fritter away life on these baubles?"
"You are civil," said Godolphin, impatiently. "Allow me to tell you that
it is your objects I consider baubles. Your dull, plodding, wearisome
honours; a name in the newspapers--a place, perhaps, in the
Ministry--purchased by a sacrificed youth and a degraded manhood--a youth
in labour, a manhood in schemes. No, Radclyffe! give me the bright, the
glad sparkle of existence; and, ere the sad years of age and sickness, let
me at least enjoy. That is wisdom! Your creed is--But I will not
imitate your rudeness!" and Godolphin laughed.
"Certainly," replied Radclyffe, "you do your best to enjoy yourself. You
live well and fare sumptuously: your house is superb, your villa
enchanting. Lady Erpingham is the handsomest woman of her time: and, as
if that were not enough, half the fine women in London admit you at their
feet. Yet you are not happy."
"Ay: but who is?" cried Godolphin, energetically.
"I am," said Radclyffe, drily.
"You!--humph!"
"You disbelieve me."
"I have no right to do so: but are you not ambitious? And is not ambition
full of anxiety, care,--mortification at defeat, disappointment in
success? Does not the very word ambition--that is, a desire to be
something you are not--prove you discontented with what you are?"
"You speak of a vulgar ambition," said Radclyffe.
"Most august sage!--and what species of ambition is yours?"
"Not that which you describe. You speak of the ambition for self; my
ambition is singular--it is the ambition for others. Some years ago I
chanced to form an object in what I considered the welfare of my race.
You smile. Nay, I boast no virtue in my dreams; but philanthropy was my
hobby, as statues may be yours. To effect this object, I see great
changes are necessary: I desire, I work for these great changes. I am not
blind, in the meanwhile, to glory. I desire, on the contrary, to obtain
it! But it would only please me if it came from certain sources. I want
to feel that I may realise what I attempt; and wish for that glory that
comes from the permanent gratitude of my species, not that which springs
from the momentary applause. Now, I am vain, very vain: vanity was, some
years ago, the strongest characteristic of my nature. I do not pretend to
conquer the weakness, but to turn it towards my purposes. I am vain
enough to wish to shine, but the light must come from deeds I think really
worthy."
"Well, well!" said Godolphin, a little interested in spite of himself:
"but ambition of one sort resembles ambition of another, inasmuch as it
involves perpetual harassment and humiliations."
"Not so," answered Radclyffe;--"because when a man is striving for what he
fancies a laudable object, the goodness of his intentions comforts him for
a failure in success, whereas your selfishly ambitious man has no
consolation in his defeats; he is humbled by the external world, and has
no inner world to apply to for consolation."
"Oh, man!" said Godolphin, almost bitterly, "how dost thou eternally
deceive thyself! Here is the thirst for power, and it calls itself the
love of mankind!"
"Believe me," said Radclyffe, so earnestly, and with so deep a meaning in
his grave, bright eye, that Godolphin was staggered from his
scepticism;--"believe me, they may be distinct passions, and yet can be
united."
CHAPTER LIII.
FANNY BEHIND THE SCENES.--REMINISCENCES OF YOUTH.--THE UNIVERSALITY OF
TRICK.--THE SUPPER AT FANNY MILLINGER'S.--TALK ON A THOUSAND MATTERS,
EQUALLY LIGHT AND TRUE.--FANNY'S SONG.
The play was Pizarro, and Fanny Millinger acted Cora, Godolphin and
Radclyffe went behind the scenes.
"Ah!" said Fanny, as she stood in her white Peruvian dress, waiting her
turn to re-enter the stage,--"ah, Godolphin! this reminds me of old
times. How many years have passed since you used to take such pleasure in
this mimic life! Well do I remember your musing eye and thoughtful brow
bent kindly on me from the stage-box yonder: and do you recollect how
prettily you used to moralise on the deserted scenes when the play was
over? And you sometimes waited on these very boards to escort me home.
Those times have changed. Heigh-ho!"
"Ay, Fanny, we have passed through new worlds of feeling since then.
Could life be to us now what it was at that time, we might love each other
anew: but tell me, Fanny, has not the experience of life made you a wiser
woman? Do you not seek more to enjoy the present--to pluck Tirne's fruit
on the bough, ere yet the ripeness is gone? I do. I dreamed away my
youth--I strive to enjoy my manhood."
"Then," said Fanny, with that quickness with which, in matters of the
heart, women beat all our philosophy--"then I can prophesy that, since we
parted, you have loved or lost some one. Regret, which converts the
active mind into the dreaming temper, makes the dreamer hurry into
activity, whether of business or of pleasure."
"Right," said Radclyffe, as a shade darkened his stern brow.
"Right," said Godolphin thoughtfully, and Lucille's image smote his heart
like an avenging conscience. "Right," repeated he, turning aside and
soliloquising; "and those words from an idle tongue have taught me some
of the motives of my present conduct. But away reflection! I have
resolved to forswear it. My pretty Cora!" said he, aloud, as he turned
back to the actress, "you are a very De Stael in your wisdom: but let us
not be wise; 'tis the worst of our follies. Do you not give us one of
your charming suppers to-night?"
"To be sure: your friend will join us. He was once the gayest of the gay;
but years and fame have altered him a little."
"Radclyffe gay! Bah!" said Godolphin surprised. "Ay, you may well look
astonished," said Fanny, archly; "but note that smile--it tells of old
days."
And Godolphin turning to his friend, saw indeed on the thin lip of that
earnest face a smile so buoyant, so joyous, that it seemed as if the whole
character of the man were gone: but while he gazed, the smile vanished,
and Radclyffe gravely declined the invitation.