Book: Lucretia, Volume 1.

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Lucretia, Volume 1.




He bowed his head over the letter as his eye came to the last line, and
remained silent so long that the clergyman at last, moved and hopeful,
approached and took his hand. It was the impulse of a good man and a
good priest. Sir Miles looked up in surprise; but the calm, pitying face
bent on him repelled all return of pride.

"Sir," he said tremulously, and he pressed the hand that grasped his own,
"I thank you. I am not fit at this moment to decide what to do; to-
morrow you shall know. And the man died poor,--not in want, not in
want?"

"Comfort yourself, worthy sir; he had at the last all that sickness and
death require, except one assurance, which I ventured to whisper to him,-
-I trust not too rashly,--that his daughter would not be left
unprotected. And I pray you to reflect, my dear sir, that--"

Sir Miles did not wait for the conclusion of the sentence; he rose
abruptly, and left the room. Mr. Fielden (so the good priest was named)
felt confident of the success of his mission; but to win it the more
support, he sought Lucretia. She was then seventeen: it is an age when
the heart is peculiarly open to the household ties,--to the memory of a
mother, to the sweet name of sister. He sought this girl, he told his
tale, and pleaded the sister's cause. Lucretia heard in silence: neither
eye nor lip betrayed emotion; but her colour went and came. This was the
only sign that she was moved: moved, but how? Fielden's experience in
the human heart could not guess. When he had done, she went quietly to
her desk (it was in her own room that the conference took place), she
unlocked it with a deliberate hand, she took from it a pocketbook and a
case of jewels which Sir Miles had given her on her last birthday. "Let
my sister have these; while I live she shall not want!"

"My dear young lady, it is not these things that she asks from you,--it
is your affection, your sisterly heart, your intercession with her
natural protector; these, in her name, I ask for,--'non gemmis, neque
purpura venale, nec auro!'"

Lucretia then, still without apparent emotion, raised to the good man's
face deep, penetrating, but unrevealing eyes, and said slowly,--

"Is my sister like my mother, who, they say, was handsome?"

Much startled by this question, Fielden answered: "I never saw your
mother, my dear; but your sister gives promise of more than common
comeliness."

Lucretia's brows grew slightly compressed. "And her education has been,
of course, neglected?"

"Certainly, in some points,--mathematics, for instance, and theology; but
she knows what ladies generally know,--French and Italian, and such like.
Dr. Mivers was not unlearned in the polite letters. Oh, trust me, my
dear young lady, she will not disgrace your family; she will justify your
uncle's favour. Plead for her!" And the good man clasped his hands.

Lucretia's eyes fell musingly on the ground; but she resumed, after a
short pause,--

"What does my uncle himself say?"

"Only that he will decide to-morrow."

"I will see him;" and Lucretia left the room as for that object. But
when she had gained the stairs, she paused at the large embayed casement,
which formed a niche in the landing-place, and gazed over the broad
domains beyond; a stern smile settled, then, upon her lips,--the smile
seemed to say, "In this inheritance I will have no rival."

Lucretia's influence with Sir Miles was great, but here it was not
needed. Before she saw him he had decided on his course. Her precocious
and apparently intuitive knowledge of character detected at a glance the
safety with which she might intercede. She did so, and was chid into
silence.

The next morning, Sir Miles took the priest's arm and walked with him
into the gardens.

"Mr. Fielden," he said, with the air of a man who has chosen his course,
and deprecates all attempt to make him swerve from it, "if I followed my
own selfish wishes, I should take home this poor child. Stay, sir, and
hear me,--I am no hypocrite, and I speak honestly. I like young faces; I
have no family of my own. I love Lucretia, and I am proud of her; but a
girl brought up in adversity might be a better nurse and a more docile
companion,--let that pass. I have reflected, and I feel that I cannot
set to Lucretia--set to children unborn--the example of indifference to a
name degraded and a race adulterated; you may call this pride or
prejudice,--I view it differently. There are duties due from an
individual, duties due from a nation, duties due from a family; as my
ancestors thought, so think I. They left me the charge of their name, as
the fief-rent by which I hold their lands. 'Sdeath, sir!--Pardon me the
expletive; I was about to say that if I am now a childless old man, it
is because I have myself known temptation and resisted. I loved, and
denied myself what I believed my best chance of happiness, because the
object of my attachment was not my equal. That was a bitter struggle,--I
triumphed, and I rejoice at it, though the result was to leave all
thoughts of wedlock elsewhere odious and repugnant. These principles of
action have made a part of my creed as gentleman, if not as Christian.
Now to the point. I beseech you to find a fitting and reputable home for
Miss--Miss Mivers," the lip slightly curled as the name was said; "I
shall provide suitably for her maintenance. When she marries, I will
dower her, provided only and always that her choice fall upon one who
will not still further degrade her lineage on her mother's side,--in a
word, if she select a gentleman. Mr. Fielden, on this subject I have no
more to say."

In vain the good clergyman, whose very conscience, as well as reason, was
shocked by the deliberate and argumentative manner with which the baronet
had treated the abandonment of his sister's child as an absolutely moral,
almost religious, duty,--in vain he exerted himself to repel such
sophisms and put the matter in its true light. It was easy for him to
move Sir Miles's heart,--that was ever gentle; that was moved already:
but the crotchet in his head was impregnable. The more touchingly he
painted poor Susan's unfriended youth, her sweet character, and promising
virtues, the more Sir Miles St. John considered himself a martyr to his
principles, and the more obstinate in the martyrdom he became. "Poor
thing! poor child!" he said often, and brushed a tear from his eyes;
"a thousand pities! Well, well, I hope she will be happy! Mind, money
shall never stand in the way if she have a suitable offer!"

This was all the worthy clergyman, after an hour's eloquence, could
extract from him. Out of breath and out of patience, he gave in at last;
and the baronet, still holding his reluctant arm, led him back towards
the house. After a prolonged pause, Sir Miles said abruptly: "I have
been thinking that I may have unwittingly injured this man,--this
Mivers,--while I deemed only that he injured me. As to reparation to his
daughter, that is settled; and after all, though I do not publicly
acknowledge her, she is half my own niece."

"Half?"

"Half,--the father's side doesn't count, of course; and, rigidly
speaking, the relationship is perhaps forfeited on the other. However,
that half of it I grant. Zooks, sir, I say I grant it! I beg you ten
thousand pardons for my vehemence. To return,--perhaps I can show at
least that I bear no malice to this poor doctor. He has relations of his
own,--silk mercers; trade has reverses. How are they off?"

Perfectly perplexed by this very contradictory and paradoxical, yet, to
one better acquainted with Sir Miles, very characteristic, benevolence,
Fielden was some time before he answered. "Those members of Dr. Mivers's
family who are in trade are sufficiently prosperous; they have paid his
debts,--they, Sir Miles, will receive his daughter."

"By no means!" cried Sir Miles, quickly; then, recovering himself, he
added, "or, if you think that advisable, of course all interference on my
part is withdrawn."

"Festina lente!--not so quick, Sir Miles. I do not yet say that it is
advisable,--not because they are silk-mercers, the which, I humbly
conceive, is no sin to exclude them from gratitude for their proffered
kindness, but because Susan, poor child, having been brought up in
different habits, may feel a little strange, at least at first, with--"

"Strange, yes; I should hope so!" interrupted Sir Miles, taking snuff
with much energy. "And, by the way, I am thinking that it would be well
if you and Mrs. Fielden--you are married, sir? That is right; clergymen
all marry!--if you and Mrs. Fielden would take charge of her yourselves,
it would be a great comfort to me to think her so well placed. We
differ, sir, but I respect you. Think of this. Well, then, the doctor
has left no relations that I can aid in any way?"

"Strange man!" muttered Fielden. "Yes; I must not let one poor youth
lose the opportunity offered by your--your--"

"Never mind what; proceed. One poor youth,--in the shop, of course?"

"No; and by his father's side (since you so esteem such vanities) of an
ancient family,--a sister of Dr. Mivers married Captain Ardworth."

"Ardworth,--a goodish name; Ardworth of Yorkshire?"

"Yes, of that family. It was, of course, an imprudent marriage,
contracted while he was only an ensign. His family did not reject him,
Sir Miles."

"Sir, Ardworth is a good squire's family, but the name is Saxon; there is
no difference in race between the head of the Ardworths, if he were a
duke, and my gardener, John Hodge,--Saxon and Saxon, both. His family
did not reject him; go on."

"But he was a younger son in a large family; both himself and his wife
have known all the distresses common, they tell me, to the poverty of a
soldier who has no resource but his pay. They have a son. Dr. Mivers,
though so poor himself, took this boy, for he loved his sister dearly,
and meant to bring him up to his own profession. Death frustrated this
intention. The boy is high-spirited and deserving."

"Let his education be completed; send him to the University; and I will
see that he is put into some career of which his father's family would
approve. You need not mention to any one my intentions in this respect,
not even to the lad. And now, Mr. Fielden, I have done my duty,--at
least, I think so. The longer you honour my house, the more I shall be
pleased and grateful; but this topic, allow me most respectfully to say,
needs and bears no further comment. Have you seen the last news from the
army?"

"The army! Oh, fie, Sir Miles, I must speak one word more. May not my
poor Susan have at least the comfort to embrace her sister?"

Sir Miles paused a moment, and struck his crutch-stick thrice firmly on
the ground.

"I see no great objection to that; but by the address of this letter,
the poor girl is too far from Laughton to send Lucretia to her."

"I can obviate that objection, Sir Miles. It is my wish to continue to
Susan her present home amongst my own children. My wife loves her
dearly; and had you consented to give her the shelter of your own roof,
I am sure I should not have seen a smile in the house for a month after.
If you permit this plan, as indeed you honoured me by suggesting it, I
can pass through Southampton on my way to my own living in Devonshire,
and Miss Clavering can visit her sister there."

"Let it be so," said Sir Miles, briefly; and so the conversation closed.

Some weeks afterwards, Lucretia went in her uncle's carriage, with four
post-horses, with her maid and her footman,--went in the state and pomp
of heiress to Laughton,--to the small lodging-house in which the kind
pastor crowded his children and his young guest. She stayed there some
days. She did not weep when she embraced Susan, she did not weep when
she took leave of her; but she showed no want of actual kindness, though
the kindness was formal and stately. On her return, Sir Miles forbore to
question; but he looked as if he expected, and would willingly permit,
her to speak on what might naturally be uppermost at her heart.
Lucretia, however, remained silent, till at last the baronet, colouring,
as if ashamed of his curiosity, said,--

"Is your sister like your mother?"

"You forget, sir, I can have no recollection of my mother."

"Your mother had a strong family likeness to myself."

"She is not like you; they say she is like Dr. Mivers."

"Oh!" said the baronet, and he asked no more.

The sisters did not meet again; a few letters passed between them, but
the correspondence gradually ceased.

Young Ardworth went to college, prepared by Mr. Fielden, who was no
ordinary scholar, and an accurate and profound mathematician,--a more
important requisite than classical learning in a tutor for Cambridge.
But Ardworth was idle, and perhaps even dissipated. He took a common
degree, and made some debts, which were paid by Sir Miles without a
murmur. A few letters then passed between the baronet and the clergyman
as to Ardworth's future destiny; the latter owned that his pupil was not
persevering enough for the Bar, nor steady enough for the Church. These
were no great faults in Sir Miles's eyes. He resolved, after an effort,
to judge himself of the capacities of the young man, and so came the
invitation to Laughton. Ardworth was greatly surprised when Fielden
communicated to him this invitation, for hitherto he had not conceived
the slightest suspicion of his benefactor; he had rather, and naturally,
supposed that some relation of his father's had paid for his maintenance
at the University, and he knew enough of the family history to look upon
Sir Miles as the proudest of men. How was it, then, that he, who would
not receive the daughter of Dr. Mivers, his own niece, would invite the
nephew of Dr. Mivers, who was no relation to him? However, his curiosity
was excited, and Fielden was urgent that he should go; to Laughton,
therefore, had he gone.

We have now brought down to the opening of our narrative the general
records of the family it concerns; we have reserved our account of the
rearing and the character of the personage most important, perhaps, in
the development of its events,--Lucretia Clavering,--in order to place
singly before the reader the portrait of her dark, misguided, and ill-
boding youth.




CHAPTER II.

LUCRETIA.

When Lucretia first came to the house of Sir Miles St. John she was an
infant about four years old. The baronet then lived principally in
London, with occasional visits rather to the Continent or a watering-
place than to his own family mansion. He did not pay any minute
attention to his little ward, satisfied that her nurse was sedulous, and
her nursery airy and commodious. When, at the age of seven, she began to
interest him, and he himself, approaching old age, began seriously to
consider whether he should select her as his heiress, for hitherto he had
not formed any decided or definite notions on the matter, he was startled
by a temper so vehement, so self-willed and sternly imperious, so
obstinately bent upon attaining its object, so indifferently contemptuous
of warning, reproof, coaxing, or punishment, that her governess honestly
came to him in despair.

The management of this unmanageable child interested Sir Miles. It
caused him to think of Lucretia seriously; it caused him to have her much
in his society, and always in his thoughts. The result was, that by
amusing and occupying him, she forced a stronger hold on his affections
than she might have done had she been more like the ordinary run of
commonplace children. Of all dogs, there is no dog that so attaches a
master as a dog that snarls at everybody else,--that no other hand can
venture to pat with impunity; of all horses, there is none which so
flatters the rider, from Alexander downwards, as a horse that nobody else
can ride. Extend this principle to the human species, and you may
understand why Lucretia became so dear to Sir Miles St. John,--she got at
his heart through his vanity. For though, at times, her brow darkened
and her eye flashed even at his remonstrance, she was yet no sooner in
his society than she made a marked distinction between him and the
subordinates who had hitherto sought to control her. Was this affection?
He thought so. Alas! what parent can trace the workings of a child's
mind,--springs moved by an idle word from a nurse; a whispered conference
between hirelings. Was it possible that Lucretia had not often been
menaced, as the direst evil that could befall her, with her uncle's
displeasure; that long before she could be sensible of mere worldly loss
or profit, she was not impressed with a vague sense of Sir Miles's power
over her fate,--nay, when trampling, in childish wrath and scorn, upon
some menial's irritable feelings, was it possible that she had not been
told that, but for Sir Miles, she would be little better than a servant
herself? Be this as it may, all weakness is prone to dissimulate; and
rare and happy is the child whose feelings are as pure and transparent as
the fond parent deems them. There is something in children, too, which
seems like an instinctive deference to the aristocratic appearances which
sway the world. Sir Miles's stately person, his imposing dress, the
respect with which he was surrounded, all tended to beget notions of
superiority and power, to which it was no shame to succumb, as it was to
Miss Black, the governess, whom the maids answered pertly, or Martha, the
nurse, whom Miss Black snubbed if Lucretia tore her frock.

Sir Miles's affection once won, his penetration not, perhaps, blinded to
her more evident faults, but his self-love soothed towards regarding them
leniently, there was much in Lucretia's external gifts which justified
the predilection of the haughty man. As a child she was beautiful, and,
perhaps from her very imperfections of temper, her beauty had that air of
distinction which the love of command is apt to confer. If Sir Miles was
with his friends when Lucretia swept into the room, he was pleased to
hear them call her their little "princess," and was pleased yet more at a
certain dignified tranquillity with which she received their caresses or
their toys, and which he regarded as the sign of a superior mind; nor was
it long, indeed, before what we call "a superior mind" developed itself
in the young Lucretia. All children are quick till they are set
methodically to study; but Lucretia's quickness defied even that numbing
ordeal, by which half of us are rendered dunces. Rapidity and precision
in all the tasks set to her, in the comprehension of all the explanations
given to her questions, evinced singular powers of readiness and
reasoning.

As she grew older, she became more reserved and thoughtful. Seeing but
few children of her own age, and mixing intimately with none, her mind
was debarred from the usual objects which distract the vivacity, the
restless and wondrous observation, of childhood. She came in and out of
Sir Miles's library of a morning, or his drawing-room of an evening, till
her hour for rest, with unquestioned and sometimes unnoticed freedom; she
listened to the conversation around her, and formed her own conclusions
unchecked. It has a great influence upon a child, whether for good or
for evil, to mix early and habitually with those grown up,--for good to
the mere intellect always; the evil depends upon the character and
discretion of those the child sees and hears. "Reverence the greatest is
due to the children," exclaims the wisest of the Romans [Cicero. The
sentiment is borrowed by Juvenal.],--that is to say, that we must revere
the candour and inexperience and innocence of their minds.

Now, Sir Miles's habitual associates were persons of the world,--well-
bred and decorous, indeed, before children, as the best of the old school
were, avoiding all anecdotes; all allusions, for which the prudent matron
would send her girls out of the room; but with that reserve speaking of
the world as the world goes: if talking of young A----, calculating
carelessly what he would have when old A----, his father, died; naturally
giving to wealth and station and ability their fixed importance in life;
not over-apt to single out for eulogium some quiet goodness; rather
inclined to speak with irony of pretensions to virtue; rarely speaking
but with respect of the worldly seemings which rule mankind. All these
had their inevitable effect upon that keen, quick, yet moody and
reflective intellect.

Sir Miles removed at last to Laughton. He gave up London,--why, he
acknowledged not to himself; but it was because he had outlived his age.
Most of his old set were gone; new hours, new habits, had stolen in. He
had ceased to be of importance as a marrying man, as a personage of
fashion; his health was impaired; he shrank from the fatigues of a
contested election; he resigned his seat in parliament for his native
county; and once settled at Laughton, the life there soothed and
flattered him,--there all his former claims to distinction were still
fresh. He amused himself by collecting, in his old halls and chambers,
his statues and pictures, and felt that, without fatigue or trouble, he
was a greater man at Laughton in his old age than he had been in London
during his youth.

Lucretia was then thirteen. Three years afterwards, Olivier Dalibard was
established in the house; and from that time a great change became
noticeable in her. The irregular vehemence of her temper gradually
subsided, and was replaced by an habitual self-command which rendered the
rare deviations from it more effective and imposing. Her pride changed
its character wholly and permanently; no word, no look of scorn to the
low-born and the poor escaped her. The masculine studies which her
erudite tutor opened to a grasping and inquisitive mind, elevated her
very errors above the petty distinctions of class. She imbibed earnestly
what Dalibard assumed or felt,--the more dangerous pride of the fallen
angel,--and set up the intellect as a deity. All belonging to the mere
study of mind charmed and enchained her; but active and practical in her
very reveries, if she brooded, it was to scheme, to plot, to weave, web,
and mesh, and to smile in haughty triumph at her own ingenuity and
daring. The first lesson of mere worldly wisdom teaches us to command
temper; it was worldly wisdom that made the once impetuous girl calm,
tranquil, and serene. Sir Miles was pleased by a change that removed
from Lucretia's outward character its chief blot,--perhaps, as his frame
declined, he sighed sometimes to think that with so much majesty there
appeared but little tenderness; he took, however, the merits with the
faults, and was content upon the whole.

If the Provencal had taken more than common pains with his young pupil,
the pains were not solely disinterested. In plunging her mind amidst
that profound corruption which belongs only to intellect cultivated in
scorn of good and in suppression of heart, he had his own views to serve.
He watched the age when the passions ripen, and he grasped at the fruit
which his training sought to mature. In the human heart ill regulated
there is a dark desire for the forbidden. This Lucretia felt; this her
studies cherished, and her thoughts brooded over. She detected, with the
quickness of her sex, the preceptor's stealthy aim. She started not at
the danger. Proud of her mastery over herself, she rather triumphed in
luring on into weakness this master-intelligence which had lighted up her
own,--to see her slave in her teacher; to despise or to pity him whom she
had first contemplated with awe. And with this mere pride of the
understanding might be connected that of the sex; she had attained the
years when woman is curious to know and to sound her power. To inflame
Dalibard's cupidity or ambition was easy; but to touch his heart,--that
marble heart!--this had its dignity and its charm. Strange to say, she
succeeded; the passion, as well as interests, of this dangerous and able
man became enlisted in his hopes. And now the game played between them
had a terror in its suspense; for if Dalibard penetrated not into the
recesses of his pupil's complicated nature, she was far from having yet
sounded the hell that lay, black and devouring, beneath his own. Not
through her affections,--those he scarce hoped for,--but through her
inexperience, her vanity, her passions, he contemplated the path to his
victory over her soul and her fate. And so resolute, so wily, so
unscrupulous was this person, who had played upon all the subtlest keys
and chords in the scale of turbulent life, that, despite the lofty smile
with which Lucretia at length heard and repelled his suit, he had no fear
of the ultimate issue, when all his projects were traversed, all his
mines and stratagems abruptly brought to a close, by an event which he
had wholly unforeseen,--the appearance of a rival; the ardent and almost
purifying love, which, escaping a while from all the demons he had
evoked, she had, with a girl's frank heart and impulse, conceived for
Mainwaring. And here, indeed, was the great crisis in Lucretia's life
and destiny. So interwoven with her nature had become the hard
calculations of the understanding; so habitual to her now was the zest
for scheming, which revels in the play and vivacity of intrigue and plot,
and which Shakspeare has perhaps intended chiefly to depict in the
villany of Iago,--that it is probable Lucretia could never become a
character thoroughly amiable and honest. But with a happy and well-placed
love, her ambition might have had legitimate vents; her restless
energies, the woman's natural field in sympathies for another. The
heart, once opened, softens by use; gradually and unconsciously the
interchange of affection, the companionship with an upright and ingenuous
mind (for virtue is not only beautiful, it is contagious), might have had
their redeeming and hallowing influence. Happier, indeed, had it been,
if her choice had fallen upon a more commanding and lofty nature! But
perhaps it was the very meekness and susceptibility of Mainwaring's
temper, relieved from feebleness by his talents, which, once in play,
were undeniably great, that pleased her by contrast with her own hardness
of spirit and despotism of will.

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