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GODOLPHIN, Volume 6.
By Edward Bulwer Lytton
(Lord Lytton)

CHAPTER LIX.

CONSTANCE MAKES A DISCOVERY THAT TOUCHES AND ENLIGHTENS HER AS TO
GODOLPHIN'S NATURE.--AN EVENT, ALTHOUGH IN PRIVATE LIFE, NOT WITHOUT ITS
INTEREST.

If Constance most bitterly reproached herself, or rather her slackened
nerves, her breaking health, that she had before another--that other too,
not of her own sex--betrayed her dependence upon even her husband's heart
for happiness; if her conscience instantly took alarm at the error (and it
was indeed a grave one) which had revealed to any man her domestic griefs;
yet, on the other hand, she could not control the wild thrill of delight
with which she recalled those words that had so solemnly assured her she
was still beloved by Godolphin. She had a firm respect in Radclyffe's
penetration and his sincerity, and knew that he was one neither to deceive
her nor be deceived himself. His advice, too, came home to her. Had she,
indeed, with sufficient address, sufficient softness, insinuated herself
into Godolphin's nature? Neglected herself, had she not neglected in
return? She asked herself this question, and was never weary of examining
her past conduct. That Radclyffe, the austere and chilling Radclyffe,
entertained for her any feeling warmer than friendship, she never for an
instant suspected; that suspicion alone would have driven him from her
presence for ever. And although there had been a time, in his bright and
exulting youth, when Radclyffe had not been without those arts which win,
in the opposite sex, affection from aversion itself, those arts doubled,
ay, a hundredfold, in their fascination, would not have availed him with
the pure but disappointed Constance, even had a sense of right and wrong
very different from the standard he now acknowledged permitted him to
exert them. So that his was rather the sacrifice of impulse, than of any
triumph that impulse could afterwards have gained him.

Many, and soft and sweet were now the recollections of Constance. Her
heart flew back to her early love among the shades of Wendover; to the
first confession of the fair enthusiastic boy, when he offered at her
shrine a mind, a genius, a heart capable of fruits which the indolence of
after-life, and the lethargy of disappointed hope, had blighted before
their time.

If he was now so deaf to what she considered the nobler, because more
stirring, excitements of life, was she not in some measure answerable for
the supineness? Had there not been a day in which he had vowed to toil,
to labour, to sacrifice the very character of his mind, for a union with
her? Was she, after all, was she right to adhere so rigidly to her
father's dying words, and to that vow afterwards confirmed by her own
pride and bitterness of soul? She looked to her father's portrait for an
answer; and that daring and eloquent face seemed, for the first time, cold
and unanswering to her appeal.

In such meditations the hours passed, and midnight came on without
Constance having quitted her apartment. She now summoned her woman, and
inquired if Godolphin was at home. He had come in about an hour since,
and, complaining of fatigue, had retired to rest. Constance again
dismissed her maid, and stole to his apartment. He was already asleep,
his cheek rested on his arm, and his hair fell wildly over a brow that now
worked under the influence of his dreams. Constance put the light softly
down, and seating herself beside him, watched over a sleep which, if it
had come suddenly on him, was not the less unquiet and disturbed. At
length he muttered, "Yes, Lucilla, yes; I tell you, you are avenged. I
have not forgotten you! I have not forgotten that I betrayed, deserted
you! but was it my fault? No, no! Yet I have not the less sought to
forget it. These poor excesses,--these chilling gaieties,--were they not
incurred for you?--and now you come--you--ah, no--spare me!"

Shocked and startled, Constance drew back. Here was a new key to
Godolphin's present life, his dissipation, his thirst for pleasure. Had
he indeed sought to lull the stings of conscience? And she, instead of
soothing, of reconciling him to the past, had she left him alone to
struggle with bitter and unresting thoughts, and to contrast the devotion
of the one lost with the indifference of the one gained? She crept back
to her own chamber, to commune with her heart and be still.

"My dear Percy," said she, the next day, when he carelessly sauntered
into her boudoir before he rode out, "I have a favour to ask of you."

"Who ever denied a favour to Lady Erpingham?"

"Not you, certainly; but my favour is a great one."

"It is granted."

"Let us pass the summer in ----shire."

Godolphin's brow clouded.

"At Wendover Castle?" said he, after a pause.

"We have never been there since our marriage," said Constance evasively.

"Humph!--as you will."

"It was the place," said Constance, "where you, Percy, first told me you
loved!"

The tone of his wife's voice struck on the right chord in Godolphin's
breast; he looked up, and saw her eyes full of tears and fixed upon him.

"Why, Constance," said he, much affected, "who would have thought that you
still cherished that remembrance?"

"Ah! when shall I forget it?" said Constance; "then you loved me!"

"And was rejected."

"Hush! but I believe now that I was wrong."

"No, Constance; you were wrong, for your own happiness, that the rejection
was not renewed."

"Percy!"

"Constance!" and in the accent of that last word there was something that
encouraged Constance, and she threw herself into Godolphin's arms, and
murmured:--

"If I have offended, forgive me; let us be to each other what we once
were."

Words like these from the lips of one in whom such tender supplications,
such feminine yearnings, were not common, subdued Godolphin at once. He
folded her in his arms, and kissing her passionately, whispered, "Be
always thus, Constance, and you will be more to me than ever."

CHAPTER LX.

THE REFORM BILL.--A VERY SHORT CHAPTER.

This reconcilation was not so short-lived as matters of the kind
frequently are. There is a Chinese proverb which says: "How near are two
hearts when there is no deceit between them!" And the misunderstanding of
their mutual sentiments being removed, their affection became at once
visible to each other. And Constance reproaching herself for her former
pride mingled in her manner to her husband a gentle, even an humble
sweetness, which, being exactly that which he had most desired in her, was
what most attracted him.

At this time, Lord John Russell brought forward the Bill of Parliamentary
Reform. Lady Erpingham. was in the lantern of the House of Commons on
that memorable night; like every one else, her feelings at first were all
absorbed in surprise. She went home; she hastened to Godolphin's library.
Leaning his head on his hand, that strange person, in the midst of events
that stirred the destinies of Europe, was absorbed in the old subtleties
of Spinosa. In the frank confidence of revived love, she put her hand
upon his shoulder, and told him rapidly that news which was then on its
way to terrify or delight the whole of England.

"Will this charm you, dear Constance?" said he kindly; "is it a blow to
the party you hate, and I sympathise with --or----

"My father," interrupted Constance, passionately, "would to Heaven he had
seen this day! It was this system, the patron and the nominee system,
that crushed, and debased, and killed him. And now, I shall see that
system destroyed!"

"So, then, my Constance will go over to the Whigs in earnest?"

"Yes, because I shall meet there truth and the people!"

Godolphin laughed gently at the French exaggeration of the saying, and
Constance forgave him. The fine ladies of London were a little divided as
to the merits of the "Bill;" Constance was the first that declared in its
favour. She was air important ally--as important at least as a woman can
be. A bright spirit reigned in her eye; her step grew more elastic; her
voice more glad. This was the happiest time of her life--she was happy in
the renewal of her love, happy in the approaching triumph of her hate.

CHAPTER LXI.

THE SOLILOQUY OF THE SOOTHSAYER.--AN EPISODICAL MYSTERY, INTRODUCED AS A
TYPE OF THE MANY THINGS IN LIFE THAT ARE NEVER ACCOUNTED FOR.--GRATUITOUS
DEVIATIONS FROM OUR COMMON CAREER.

In Leicester Square there is a dim old house, which I have but this
instant visited, in order to bring back more vividly to my recollection
the wild and unhappy being who, for some short time, inhabited its
old-fashioned and gloomy chambers.

In that house, at the time I now speak of, lodged the mysterious Liehbur.
It was late at noon, and she sat alone in her apartment, which was
darkened so as to exclude the broad and peering sun. There was no trick,
nor sign of the fallacious art she professed, visible in the large and
melancholy room. One or two books in the German language lay on the table
beside which she sat: but they were of the recent poetry, and not of the
departed dogmas, of the genius of that tongue. The enthusiast was alone;
and, with her hand supporting her chin, and her eyes fixed on vacancy, she
seemed feeding in silence the thoughts that flitted to and fro athwart a
brain which had for years lost its certain guide; a deserted mansion,
whence the lord had departed, and where spirits not of this common life
had taken up their haunted and desolate abode. And never was there a
countenance better suited to the character which this singular woman had
assumed. Rich, thick, auburn hair was parted loosely over a brow in which
the large and full temples would have betrayed to a phrenologist the great
preponderance which the dreaming and the imaginative bore over the sterner
faculties. Her eyes were deep, intense, but of the bright and wandering
glitter which is so powerful in its effect on the beholder, because it
betokens that thought which is not of this daily world and inspires that
fear, that sadness, that awe, which few have looked on the face of the
insane and not experienced. Her features were still noble, and of the
fair Greek symmetry of the painter's Sibyl; but the cheeks were worn and
hollow, and one bright spot alone broke their marble paleness; her lips
were, however, full, and yet red, and by their uncertain and varying play,
gave frequent glimpses of teeth lustrously white; which, while completing
the beauty of her face, aided--with somewhat of a fearful effect--the
burning light of her strange eyes, and the vague, mystic expression of her
abrupt and unjoyous smile. You might see when her features were, as now,
in a momentary repose, that her health was broken, and that she was not
long sentenced to wander over that world where the soul had already ceased
to find its home; but the instant she spoke, her colour deepened, and the
brilliant and rapid alternations of her countenance deceived the eye, and
concealed the ravages of the worm that preyed within.

"Yes," said she, at last breaking silence, and soliloquising in
the English tongue, but with somewhat of a foreign accent; "yes, I am in
his city; within a few paces of his home; I have seen him, I have heard
him. Night after night--in rain, and in the teeth of the biting winds, I
have wandered round his home. Ay! and I could have raised my voice, and
shrieked a warning and a prophecy, that should have startled him from his
sleep as the trumpet of the last angel! but I hushed the sound within my
soul, and covered the vision with a thick silence. O God! what have I
seen, and felt, and known, since he last saw me! But we shall meet again;
and ere the year has rolled round, I shall feel the touch of his lips and
die! Die! what calmness, what luxury in the word! The fiery burthen of
this dread knowledge I have heaped upon me, shuffled off; memory no more;
the past, the present, the future exorcised; and a long sleep, with bright
dreams of a lulling sky, and a silver voice, and his presence!"

The door opened, and a black girl of about ten years old, in the costume
of her Moorish tribe, announced the arrival of a new visitor. The
countenance of Madame Liehbur changed at once into an expression of cold
and settled calmness; she ordered the visitor to be admitted; and
presently, Stainforth Radclyffe entered the room.

* * * * * *
* * * * * *

"Thou mistakest me and my lore," said the diviner; "I meddle not with the
tricks and schemes of the worldly; I show the truth, not garble it."

"Pshaw!" said Radclyffe, impatiently; "this jargon cannot deceive me. You
exhibit your skill for money. I ask one exertion of it, and desire you to
name your reward. Let us talk after the fashion of this world, and leave
that of the other to our dupes."

"Yet, thou hast known grief too," said the diviner, musingly, "and those
who have sorrowed ought to judge more gently of each other. Wilt thou try
my art on thyself, ere thou askest it for others?"

"Ay, if you could restore the dead to my dreams."

"I can!" replied the soothsayer, sternly.

Radclyffe laughed bitterly. "Away with this talk to me; or, if you would
convince me, raise at once the spectre I desire to see!"

"And dost thou think, vain man," replied Liehbur, haughtily, "that I
pretend to the power thou speakest of? Yes; but not as the impostors of
old (dull and gross, appealing to outward spells, and spells wrought by
themselves alone) affected to do. I can bring the dead before thee, but
thou thyself must act upon thyself."

"Mummery! What would you drive at?"

"Wilt thou fast three days, and for three nights abstain from sleep, and
then visit me once again?"

"No, fair deluder; such a preliminary is too much to ask of a Neophyte.
Three days without food, and three nights without sleep! Why, you would
have to raise myself from the dead!"

"And canst thou," said the diviner, with great dignity, "canst thou hope
that thou wouldst be worthy of a revelation from a higher world--that for
thee the keys of the grave should unlock their awful treasure, and the
dead return to life, when thou scruplest to mortify thy flesh and.
loosen the earthly bonds that cumber and chain the spirit? I tell thee,
that only as the soul detaches itself from the frame, can its inner and
purer sense awaken, and the full consciousness of the invisible and divine
things that surround it descend upon its powers."

"And what," said Radclyffe, startled more by the countenance and voice
than the words themselves of the soothsayer; "what would you then do,
supposing that I perform this penance?"

"Awaken to their utmost sense, even to pain and torture, the naked nerves
of that Great Power thou callest the Imagination; that Power which
presides over dreams and visions, which kindles song, and lives in the
heart of Melodies; which inspired the Magian of the East and the Pythian
voices--and, in the storms and thunder of savage lands originated the
notion of a God and the seeds of human worship; that vast presiding Power
which, to the things of mind, is what the Deity is to the Universe
itself--the creator of all. I would awaken, I say, that Power from its
customary sleep where, buried in the heart, it folds its wings, and lives
but by fits and starts, unquiet, but unaroused; and by that Power thou
wouldst see, and feel, and know, and through it only thou wouldst exist.
So that it would be with thee, as if the body were not: as if thou wert
already all-spiritual, all-living. So thou wouldst learn in life that
which may be open to thee after death; and so, soul might now, as
hereafter, converse with soul, and revoke the Past, and sail prescient
down the dark tides of the Future. A brief and fleeting privilege, but
dearly purchased: be wise, and disbelieve in it; be happy, and reject it!"

Radclyffe was impressed, despite himself, by the solemn novelty of this
language, and the deep mournfulness with which the soothsayer's last
sentence died away.

"And how," said he, after a pause, "how, and by what arts would you so
awaken the imaginative faculty?"

"Ask not until the time comes for the trial," answered Liebhur.

"But can you awaken it in all?--the dull, the unideal, as in the musing
and exalted?"

"No! but the dull and unideal will not go through the necessary ordeal.
Few besides those for whom fate casts her great parts in life's drama,
ever come to that point when I can teach them the Future."

"Do you mean that your chief votaries are among the great? Pardon me, I
should have thought the most superstitious are to be found among the most
ignorant and lowly."

"Yes; but they consult only what imposes on their credulity, without
demanding stern and severe sacrifice of time and enjoyment, as I do. The
daring, the resolute, the scheming with their souls intent upon great
objects and high dreams-those are the men who despise the charms of the
moment, who are covetous of piercing the far future, who know how much of
their hitherward career has been brightened, not by genius or nature, but
some strange confluence of events, some mysterious agency of fate. The
great are always fortunate, and therefore mostly seekers into the decrees
of fortune."

So great is the influence which enthusiasm, right or wrong, always
exercises over us, that even the hard and acute Radclyffe-who had entered
the room with the most profound contempt for the pretensions of the
soothsayer, and partly from a wish to find materials for ridiculing a
folly of the day, partly, it may be from the desire to examine which
belonged to his nature--began to consider in his own mind whether he
should yield to his curiosity, now strongly excited, and pledge himself to
the preliminary penance the diviner had ordained.

The soothsayer continued:--

"The stars, and the clime, and the changing moon have power over us--why
not? Do they not have influence over the rest of nature? But we can only
unravel their more august and hidden secrets, by giving full wing to the
creative spirit which first taught us their elementary nature, and which,
when released from earth, will have full range to wander over their
brilliant fields. Know in one word, the Imagination and the Soul are one,
one indivisible and the same; on that truth rests all my lore."

"And if I followed your precepts, what other preliminaries would you
enjoin?"

"Not until thou engagest to perform them, will I tell thee more."

"I engage!"

"And swear?"

"I swear!"

The soothsayer rose--and----

* * * * *
* * * * *
* * * * *

CHAPTER LXII.

IN WHICH THE COMMON LIFE GLIDES INTO THE STRANGE.--EQUALLY TRUE, BUT THE
TRUTH NOT EQUALLY ACKNOWLEDGED.

It was on the night of this interview that Constance, coming into
Godolphin's room, found him leaning against the wall, pale, and agitated,
and almost insensible. "Percy--Percy, you are ill!" she exclaimed, and
wound her arms round his neck. He looked at her long and wistfully,
breathing hard all the time, until at length he seemed slowly to recover
his self-possession, and seating himself, motioned Constance to do the
same. After a pause, he said, clasping her hand.

"Listen to me, Constance. My health, I fear, is breaking; I am tormented
by fearful visions; I am possessed by some magic influence. For several
nights successively, before falling asleep, a cold tremor has gradually
pervaded my frame; the roots of my hair stand on end; my teeth chatter; a
vague horror seizes me; my blood seems turned to a solid substance, so
curdled and stagnant is it. I strive to speak, to cry out, but my voice
clings to the roof of my mouth; I feel that I have no longer power over
myself. Suddenly, and in the very midst of this agony, I fall into a
heavy sleep; then come strange bewildering dreams, with Volktman's
daughter for ever presiding over them; but with a changed countenance,
calm, unutterably calm, and gazing on me with eyes that burn into my soul.
The dream fades, I wake with the morning, but exhausted and enfeebled. I
have consulted physicians; I have taken drugs; but I cannot break the
spell--the previous horror and the after-dreams. And just now, Constance,
just now--you see the window is open to the park, the gate of the garden
is unclosed; I happened to lift my eyes, and lo! gazing upon me in the
sickly moonlight, was the countenance of my dreams--Lucilla's, but how
altered! Merciful Heaven! is it a mockery, or can the living Lucilla
really be in England? and have these visions, these terrors been part of
that mysterious sympathy which united us ever, and which her father
predicted should cease but with our lives?"

The emotions of Godolphin were so rarely visible, and in the present
instance they were so unaffected, and so roused, that Constance could not
summon courage to soothe, to cheer him; she herself was alarmed and
shocked, and glanced fearfully towards the window, lest the apparition he
had spoken of should reappear. All without was still, not a leaf stirred
on the trees in the Mall; no human figure was to be seen. She turned
again to Godolphin, and kissed the drops from his brow, and pressed his
cheek to her bosom.

"I have a presentiment," said he, "that something dreadful will happen
shortly. I feel as if I were near some great crisis of my life; and as if
I were about to step from the bright and palpable world into regions of
cloud and dark ness. Constance, strange misgivings as to my choice in my
past life haunt and perplex me. I have sought only the present; I have
adjured all toil, all ambition, and laughed at the future; my hand has
plucked the rose-leaves, and now they lie withered in the grasp. My youth
flies me--age scowls on me from the distance; an age of frivolities that I
once scorned; yet--yet, had I formed a different creed, how much I might
have done! But--but, out on this cant! My nerves are shattered, and I
prate nonsense. Lend me your arm, Constance, let us go into the saloon,
and send for music!"

And all that night Constance watched by the side of Godolphin, and marked
in mute terror the convulsions that wrung his sleep, the foam that
gathered to his lip, the cries that broke from his tongue. But she was
rewarded when, with the grey dawn, he awoke, and, catching her tender and
tearful gaze, flung himself upon her bosom, and bade God bless her for her
love!

CHAPTER LXIII.

A MEETING BETWEEN CONSTANCE AND THE PROPHETESS.

A strange suspicion had entered Constance's mind, and for Godolphin's sake
she resolved to put it to the proof. She drew her mantle round her
stately figure, put on a large disguising bonnet, and repaired to Madame
Liehbur's house.

The Moorish girl opened the door to the countess; and her strange dress,
her African hue and features, relieved by the long, glittering pendants in
her ears, while they seemed suited to the eccentric reputation of her
mistress, brought a slight smile to the proud lip of Lady Erpingham, as
she conceived them a part of the charlatanism practised by the soothsayer.
The girl only replied to Lady Erpingham's question by an intelligent sign;
and running lightly up the stairs, conducted the guest into an anteroom,
where she waited but for a few moments before she was admitted into Madame
Liehbur's apartment.

The effect that the personal beauty of the diviner always produced on
those who beheld her was not less powerful than usual on the surprised and
admiring gaze of Lady Erpingham. She bowed her haughty brow with
involuntary respect, and took the seat to which the enthusiast beckoned.

"And what, lady," said the soothsayer, in the foreign music of her low
voice, "what brings thee hither? Wouldst thou gain, or hast thou lost,
that gift our poor sex prizes so dearly beyond its value? Is it of love
that thou wouldst speak to the interpreter of dreams and the priestess of
the things to come?"

While the bright-eyed Liehbur thus spoke, the countess examined through
her veil the fair face before her, comparing it with that description
which Godolphin had given her of the sculptor's daughter, and her
suspicion acquired new strength.

"I seek not that which you allude to," said Constance; "but of the future,
although without any definite object, I would indeed like to question you.
All of us love to pry into dark recesses hid from our view, and over which
you profess the empire."

"Your voice is sweet, but commanding," said the oracle; and your air is
stately, as of one born in courts. Lift your veil, that I may gaze upon
your face, and tell by its lines the fate your character has shaped for
you."

"Alas!" answered Constance, "life betrays few of its past signs by outward
token. If you have no wiser art than that drawn from the lines and
features of our countenances, I shall still remain what I am now--an
unbeliever in your powers."

"The brow, and the lip, and the eye, and the expression of each and all,"
answered Liehbur, "are not the lying index you suppose them."

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