Book: Godolphin, Volume 5.
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Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Godolphin, Volume 5.
"It is life's motto."
"Yes--a gentleman's life."
"Pish! Fanny; no satire from you: you, who are not properly speaking even
a tragic actress! But there is something about your profession sublimely
picturesque in the midst of these noisy brawls. The storms of nations
shake not the stage; you are wrapt in another life; the atmosphere of
poetry girds you. You are like the fairies who lived among men, visible
only at night, and playing their fantastic tricks amidst the surrounding
passions--the sorrow, the crime, the avarice, the love, the wrath, the
luxury, the famine, that belong to the grosser dwellers of the earth. You
are to be envied, Fanny."
"Not so; I am growing old."
"Old!" cried Saville: "Ah, talk not of it! Ugh!--Ugh! Curse this cough!
But hang politics; it always brings disagreeable reflections. Glad, my
old pupil,--glad am I to see that you still retain your august contempt
for these foolish strugglers--insects splashing and panting in the vast
stream of events, which they scarcely stir, and in which they scarcely
drop before they are drowned--"
"Or the fishes, their passions, devour them," said Godolphin.
"News!" cried Saville; "let us have real news; cut all the politics out of
the Times, Fanny, with your scissors, and then read me the rest."
Fanny obeyed.
"'Fire in Marylebone!'"
"That's not news!--skip that."
"'Letter from Padieal.'"
"Stuff! What else?"
"Emigration:--'No fewer than sixty-eight----'"
"Hold! for mercy's sake! What do I, just going out of the world, care for
people only going out of the country? Here, child, give the paper to
Godolphin; he knows exactly what interests a man of sense."
"'Sale of Lord Lysart's wines----'"
"Capital!" cried Saville: "that's news--that's interesting!"
Fanny's pretty hands returned to their knitting. When the wines had been
discussed, the following paragraph was chanced upon:--
"There is a foolish story going the round of the papers about Lord Grey
and his vision;--the vision is only in the silly heads of the inventors of
the story, and the ghost is, we suppose, the apparition of Old Sarum. By
the way, there is a celebrated fortune-teller, or prophetess, now in
London, making much noise. We conclude the discomfited Tories will next
publish her oracular discourses. She is just arrived in time to predict
the passing of the Reform Bill, without any fear of being proved an
impostor."
"Ah, by the by," said Saville, "I hear wonders of this sorceress. She
dreams and divines with the most singular accuracy; and all the old women
of both sexes flock to her in hackney-coaches, making fools of themselves
to-day in order to be wise to-morrow. Have you seen her, Fanny?"
"Yes," replied the actress, very gravely; "and, in sober earnest, she has
startled me. Her countenance is so striking, her eyes so wild, and in her
conversation there is so much enthusiasm, that she carries you away in
spite of yourself. Do you believe in astrology, Percy?"
"I almost did once," said Godolphin, with a half sigh; "but does this
female seer profess to choose astrology in preference to cards? The last
is the more convenient way of tricking the public."
"Oh, but this is no vulgar fortune-teller, I assure you," cried Fanny,
quite eagerly: "she dwells much on magnetism; insists on the effect of
your own imagination; discards all outward quackeries; and, in short, has
either discovered a new way of learning the future, or revived some
forgotten trick of deluding the public. Come and see her some day,
Godolphin."
"No, I don't like that kind of imposture," said Godolphin, quickly, and
turning away, he sank into a silent and gloomy reverie.
CHAPTER LVII.
SUPERSTITION.--ITS WONDERFUL EFFECTS.
It was perfectly true that there had appeared in London a person of the
female sex who, during the last few years, had been much noted on the
Continent for the singular boldness with which she had promulgated the
wildest doctrines, and the supposed felicity which had attended her
vaticinations. She professed belief in all the dogmas that preceded the
dawn of modern philosophy; and a strange, vivid, yet gloomy eloquence that
pervaded her language gave effect to theories which, while
incomprehensible to the many, were alluring to the few. None knew her
native country, although she was believed to come from the North of
Europe. Her way of life was lonely, her habits eccentric; she sought no
companionship; she was beautiful, but not of this earth's beauty; men
admired, but courted not; she, at least, lived apart from the reach of
human passions. In fact, the strange Liehbur, for such was the name the
prophetness was known by (and she assumed before it the French title of
Madame), was not an impostor, but a fanatic: the chords of the brain were
touched, and the sound they gave back was erring and imperfect. She was
mad, but with a certain method in her madness; a cold, and preternatural,
and fearful spirit abode within her, and spoke from her lips--its voice
froze herself, and she was more awed by her own oracles than her listeners
themselves.
In Vienna and in Paris her renown was great, and even terrible: the
greatest men in those capitals had consulted her, and spoke of her decrees
with a certain reverence; her insanity thrilled there, and they mistook
the cause. Besides, in the main, she was right in the principle she
addressed: she worked on the imagination, and the imagination afterwards
fulfilled what she predicted. Every one knows what dark things may be
done by our own fantastic persuasions; belief insures the miracles it
credits. Men dream they shall die within a certain hour; the hour comes,
and the dream is realised. The most potent wizardries are less potent
than fancy itself. Macbeth was a murderer, not because the witches
predicted, but because their prediction aroused the thoughts of murder.
And this principle of action the prophetess knew well: she appealed to
that attribute common to us all, the foolish and the wise, and on that
fruitful ground she sowed her soothsayings.
In London there are always persons to run after anything new, and Madame
Liehbur became at once the rage.--I myself have seen a minister hurrying
from her door with his cloak about his face; and one of the coldest of
living sages confesses that she told him what he believes, by mere human
means, she could not have discovered. Delusion all! But what age is free
from it?
The race of the nineteenth century boast their lights, but run as madly
after any folly as their fathers in the eighth. What are the prophecies
of St. Simon but a species of sorcery? Why believe the external more than
the inner miracle?
* * * * *
There were but a few persons present at Lady Erpingham's, and when
Radclyffe entered, Madame Liehbur was the theme of the general
conversation. So many anecdotes were told, so much that was false was
mingled with so much that seemed true, that Lady Erpingham's curiosity was
excited, and she resolved to seek the modern Cassandra with the first
opportunity. Godolphin sat apart from the talkers playing a quiet game at
ecarte. Constance's eyes stole ever and anon to his countenance; and when
she turned at length away with a sigh, she saw that Radclyffe's deep and
inscrutable gaze was bent upon her, and the proud countess blushed,
although she scarce knew why.
CHAPTER LVIII.
THE EMPIRE OF TIME AND OF LOVE.--THE PROUD CONSTANCE GROWN WEARY AND
HUMBLE.--AN ORDEAL.
About this time the fine constitution of Lady Erpingham began to feel the
effects of that life which, at once idle and busy, is the most exhausting
of all. She suffered under no absolute illness; she was free from actual
pain; but a fever crept over her at night, and a languid debility
succeeded it the next day. She was melancholy and dejected; tears came
into her eyes without a cause; a sudden noise made her tremble; her nerves
were shaken,--terrible disease, which marks a new epoch in life, which is
the first token that our youth is about to leave us!
It is in sickness that we feel our true reliance on others, especially if
it is of that vague and not dangerous character when those around us are
not ashamed or roused into attendance; when the care, and the soothing,
and the vigilance, are the result of that sympathy which true and deep
love only feels. This thought broke upon Constance as she sat alone one
morning in that mood when books cannot amuse, nor music lull, nor luxury
soothe--the mood of an aching memory and a spiritless frame. Above her,
and over the mantelpiece of her favourite room, hung that picture of her
father which I have before described; it had been long since removed from
Wendover Castle to London, for Constance wished it to be frequently in her
sight. "Alas!" thought she, gazing upon the proud and animated brow that
bent down upon her; "Alas! though in a different sphere, thy lot, my
father, has been mine;--toil unrepaid, affection slighted, sacrifices
forgotten;--a harder lot in part; for thou hadst, at least, in thy
stirring and magnificent career, continued excitement and perpetual
triumph. But I, a woman, shut out by my sex from contest, from victory,
am left only the thankless task to devise the rewards which others are to
enjoy; the petty plot, the poor intrigue, the toil without the honour, the
humiliation without the revenge;--yet have I worked in thy cause, my
father, and thou--thou, couldst thou see my heart, wouldst pity and
approve me."
As Constance turned away her eyes, they fell on the opposite mirror, which
reflected her still lofty but dimmed and faded beauty; the worn cheek, the
dejected eye, those lines and hollows which tell the progress of years!
There are certain moments when the time we have been forgetting makes its
march suddenly apparent to our own eyes; when the change we have hitherto
marked not stares upon us rude and abrupt; we almost fancy those lines,
these wrinkles, planted in a single hour so unperceived have they been
before. And such a moment was this to the beautiful Constance: she
started at her own likeness, and turned involuntarily from the
unflattering mirror. Beside it, on her table, lay a locket, given her by
Godolphin just before they married, and containing his hair; it was a
simple trifle, and the simplicity seemed yet more striking amidst the
costly and modern jewels that were scattered round it. As she looked on
it, her heart, all woman still, flew back to the day on which, whispering
eternal love, he hung it round her neck. "Ah, happy days! would that
they could return!" sighed the desolate schemer; and she took the locket,
kissed it, and softened by all the numberless recollections of the past,
wept silently over it. "And yet," she said, after a pause, and wiping
away her tears, "and yet this weakness is unworthy of me. Lone, sad,
ill, broken in frame and spirit as I am, he comes not near me; I am
nothing to him, nothing to any one in the wide world. My heart, my heart,
reconcile thyself to thy fate!--what thou hast been from thy cradle, that
shalt thou be to my grave. I have not even the tenderness of a child to
look to--the future is all blank!"
Constance was yet half yielding to, half struggling with, these thoughts,
when Stainforth Radclyffe (to whom she was never denied) was suddenly
announced. Time, which, sooner or later, repays perseverance, although in
a deceitful coin, had brought to Radclyffe a solid earnest of future
honors. His name had risen high in the science of his country; it was
equally honoured by the many and the few; he had become a marked man, one
of whom all predicted a bright hereafter. He had not yet, it is true,
entered Parliament--usually the great arena in which English reputations
are won--but it was simply because he had refused to enter it under the
auspices of any patron; and his political knowledge, his depths of
thought, and his stern, hard, ambitious mind were not the less appreciated
and acknowledged. Between him and Constance friendship had continued to
strengthen, and the more so as their political sentiments were in a great
measure the same, although originating in different causes--hers from
passion, his from reflection.
Hastily Constance turned aside her face, and brushed away her tears, as
Radclyffe approached; and then seeming to busy herself amongst some papers
that lay scattered on her escritoire, and gave her an excuse for
concealing in part her countenance, she said, with a constrained
cheerfulness, "I am happy you are come to relieve my ennui; I have been
looking over letters, written so many years ago, that I have been forced
to remember how soon I shall cease to be young; no pleasant reflection for
any one, much less a woman."
"I am at a loss for a compliment in return, as you may suppose," answered
Radclyffe; "but Lady Erpingham deserves a penance for even hinting at the
possibility of being ever less charming than she is; so I shall hold my
tongue."
"Alas!" said Constance, gravely, "how little, save the mere triumphs of
youth and beauty, is left to our sex! How much, nay, how entirely, in all
other and loftier objects, is our ambition walled in and fettered! The
human mind must have its aim, its aspiring; how can your sex blame us,
then, for being frivolous when no aim, no aspiring, save those of
frivolity, are granted us by society?"
"And is love frivolous?" said Radclyffe; "is the empire of the heart
nothing?"
"Yes!" exclaimed Constance, with energy; "for the empire never lasts. We
are slaves to the empire we would found; we wish to be loved, but we only
succeed in loving too well ourselves. We lay up our all--our thoughts,
hopes, emotions-all the treasures of our hearts--in one spot; and when we
would retire from the deceits and cares of life, we find the sanctuary
walled against us--we love, and are loved no longer!"
Constance had turned round with the earnestness of the feeling she
expressed; and her eyes, still wet with tears, her flushed cheek, her
quivering lip, struck to Radclyffe's heart more than her words. He rose
involuntarily; his own agitation was marked; he moved several steps
towards Constance, and then checked the impulse, and muttered indistinctly
to himself.
"No," said Constance, mournfully, and scarcely heeding him--"it is in vain
for us to be ambitious. We only deceive ourselves; we are not stern and
harsh enough for the passion. Touch our affections, and we are recalled
at once to the sense of our weakness; and I--I--would to God that I were a
humble peasant girl, and not--not what I am!"
So saying, the lofty Constance sank down, overpowered with the bitterness
of her feelings, and covered her face with her hands. Was Radclyffe a man
that he could see this unmoved?--that he could hear those beautiful lips
breathe complaints for the want of love, and not acknowledge the love
that burned at his own heart? Long, secretly, resolutely, had he
struggled against the passion for Constance, which his frequent
intercourse with her had fed, and which his consciousness, that in her was
the only parallel to himself that he had ever met with in her sex, had
first led him to form; and now lone, neglected, sad, this haughty woman
wept over her unloved lot in his presence, and still he was not at her
feet! He spoke not, moved not, but his breath heaved thick, and his face
was as pale as death. He conquered himself. All within Radclyffe obeyed
the idol he had worshipped, even before Constance; all within him, if
ardent and fiery, was also high and generous. The acuteness of his reason
permitted him no self-sophistried; and he would have laid his head on the
block rather than breathe a word of that love which he knew, from the
moment it was confessed, would become unworthy of Constance and himself.
There was a pause. Lady Erpingham, ashamed, confounded at her own
weakness, recovered herself slowly and in silence. Radclyffe at length
spoke; and his voice, at first trembling and indistinct, grew, as he
proceeded, clear and earnest.
"Never," said he, "shall I forget the confidence your emotions have
testified in my--my friendship; I am about to deserve it. Do not, my dear
friend (let me so call you), do not forget that life is too short for
misunderstandings in which happiness is concerned. You believe that--that
Godolphin does not repay the affection you have borne him: do not be
angry, dear Lady Erpingham; I feel it indelicate in me to approach that
subject, but my regard for you emboldens me. I know Godolphin's heart; he
may seem light, neglectful, but he loves you as deeply as ever; he loves
you entirely."
Constance, humbled as she was, listened in breathless silence; her cheek
burned with blushes, and those blushes were at once to Radclyffe a torture
and a reward.
"At this moment," continued he, with constrained calmness, "at this
moment he fancies in you that very coldness you lament in him. Pardon me,
Lady Erpingham; but Godolphin's nature is wayward, mysterious, and
exacting. Have you consulted, have you studied it sufficiently? Note it
well, soothe it; and if his love can repay you, you will be repaid. God
bless you, dearest Lady Erpingham."
In a moment more Radclyffe had left the apartment.