Clermont/Chapter 10
CHAP. X.
Some melancholy thought that shuns the light,
Lurks underneath that sadness in thy visage. Rowe
She found the Countess leaning against the side of the chair, as if quite overcome by the parting with her friends. Madeline hung over her, but was too much affected to speak. In a few minutes she raised her head—"I feel rather faint (said she), and I will go upon the lawn, for I think the evening air will revive me."
She accordingly rose, but was so weak, she was obliged to lean upon the arm of Madeline in descending the stairs; and was then so exhausted by this exertion, that she had only power to reach a seat beneath the spreading branches of a chestnut;—a seat to which she had often led Madeline, as to one peculiarly dedicated to love and friendship; it owed its formation to her lord, whom the noble size and situation of the tree had charmed; and this circumstance, together with a complimentary line, devoting it to her, was carved upon its rind: in a beautiful opening of the wood it stood, commanding a fine view of the lake, and all around
The violet,
Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay
Broider'd the ground.
"I love the shelter of those venerable boughs (said the Countess); they recall a thousand tender recollections: at such an hour as this, when day was declining, often have I sat beneath them with my lord, watching the sports of our children,—the lovely boys, whose loss first taught me the frailty of human joys, first convinced me that it is hereafter we can only expect permanent felicity. 'Tis a conviction of this kind, which loosens the hold the world too often almost imperceptibly gains upon the heart; let us therefore never dare to murmur at events that draw us still closer to our God."
Madeline sighed; she felt indeed that nothing will so soon detach us from life as disappointment.
"I fear, my love (cried the Countess), that I have infected you with my gloom."
"No, madam (replied Madeline) you have not."
"I fear (resumed the Countess, regarding her with earnestness), that some secret sorrow preys upon your heart; a sorrow which, perhaps if I knew, I might be able, if not to remove, at least to lessen."
"Oh, no, madam," exclaimed Madeline with involuntary quickness, terrified at the idea of revealing her hopeless passion.
"Then heaven forbid (cried the Countess), I should seek to probe a wound I could not heal."
"Forgive me, madam (said Madeline), I spoke unthinkingly. I know of none more qualified to heal the sorrows of the heart than you are; but—but my feelings (continued she, hesitating and blushing), require more the exertions of my own reason, than the sympathy of a friend; and—and be assured, madam I, to the utmost of my power, will use those exertions."
"I trust so, my love," said the Countess, who guessed the sorrow of Madeline proceeded from the disappointment of her hopes relative to de Sevignie."
"I trust so, my love; not only on your own account, but your father's, who, from your happiness, hopes to receive some consolation for the numerous, the dreadful, the unprecedented calamities of his youth."
"Ah, Heavens (cried Madeline, starting, and forgetting, in the horror and agitation of the moment, the resolution she had once formed of never attempting to discover the nature of those calamities), you shock my very soul by your words. Oh, why, why is there such a silence observed as to his former life!—a silence which makes me tremble lest some heavy misfortunes, in consequence of the events of it, should still be hanging over him."
"Madeline (said the Countess in a solemn voice), in my concern for your father, I spoke unguardedly; and I already repent having done so from the situation I see you in: but, as some atonement for doing so, I will take this opportunity of cautioning you against all imprudent curiosity; let no incentive from it ever tempt you to seek an explanation of former occurrences; be assured your happiness depends entirely on your ignorance of them: was the dark volume of your father's fate ever opened to your view, peace would for ever forsake your breast; for its characters are marked by horror, and stained with blood."
Madeline grasped the Countess's arm in convulsive agitation;—"I swear (said she, raising her other hand, and looking up to heaven), from this moment, never, by any means, direct or indirect, to try and discover ought that my father wishes to conceal."
"I rejoice to hear this resolution (cried the Countess, kissing her cheek); I rejoice at it on your own account. And now, my love, let us change this discourse. You have promised (she continued) to try and recover your spirits; and I shall attentively watch to see whether you fulfil that promise. Oh, Madeline, grief in the early season of youth, is like frost to a tender flower, unkind and blighting; and no tongue can describe, no heart, except a parental one, conceive the bitter, the excruciating anguish which a parent feels at seeing a beloved child wasting the bloom of youth in wretchedness,—pining, drooping, sinking beneath its pressure.—From such wretchedness may heaven preserve your father! Oh, never, never may the distresses of his child precipitate him to his grave!"
Madeline almost started, she looked earnestly at the Countess; and fancied that the energy with which her words had been delivered, declared a self-experience of the sorrow which she mentioned. The idea however was but transitory; and as she dismissed, she wondered she had ever conceived it. "No," she said to herself, "the Countess has felt no sorrow but what the common casualties of life have occasioned."
Both were silent for some minutes; Madeline at length spoke:—"It grows late, my dear madam, and I fear your staying longer in the night air may hurt you."
The Countess instantly rose, thanked her for her kind solicitude about her; and, leaning on her arm, returned to the house; they supped together in her dressing-room, and parted soon after for the night.
Madeline retired to her chamber deeply affected by the incidents of the day,—incidents which had increased the dejection she felt in consequence of those she had experienced at V——— to a most painful degree. Instead of undressing, she sat down to indulge her melancholy thoughts, but was soon interrupted by a tap at the door; on desiring it to be opened, Floretta, one of the Countess's women, entered.
Whenever attendance was necessary, it was she that waited upon Madeline, who liked her much for her liveliness and good-nature; she had been in the Countess's suite at the time she stopped at Clermont's, and was daughter to an old and favourite deceased waiting-woman, whose place since her death she had filled.
"I was longing, Mademoiselle (said she with a smile and a courtesy), for an opportunity of welcoming you back to the castle. I hope you had a pleasant time at V———; but indeed I dare say you had, for Madame Chatteneuf sees a power of company they say; and she is in the right of it—company is the life of one; besides, it gives her daughter a chance of being married soon; I warrant she has a number of admirers; and I make no doubt but you, Mam'selle, came in for your share."
"You are mistaken indeed Floretta," said Madeline smiling.
"Not entirely, Mam'selle: Lord, didn't Jacques and Philippe tell me the first evening you went to Madame Chatteneuf's, there was no one there half so much admired as you were; and how you danced with the handsomest gentleman present who looked so tender on you, Monsieur—lord, I forget his name, but I dare say you recollect, Mam'selle."
Too well, thought Madeline. She sighed, but made no reply; and, rising, began to undress in order to conceal the agitation which the mention of de Sevignie had excited in her mind.
"You are come back to a dismal house, Mam'selle (said Floretta, echoing her sigh, which she imputed to regret for past pleasures), to a dismal house indeed, (shaking her head), now that my poor lady is ill."
"Its gloom on that account will soon be dissipated I trust (cried Madeline), by the perfect restoration of her health."
"Alas! I fear not (said Floretta with a greater seriousness than Madeline had ever before remarked in her countenance), her mind is too much disturbed to permit me to think it will."
"Disturbed! (repeated Madeline in an accent of the greatest surprise, and turning to her), why what has happened to disturb her mind?"
"Lord, don't you know?" asked Floretta with a kind of eager stare.
"No, I can't even conjecture," said Madeline.
"Well, I could never have supposed my lady would have been so secret with you (cried Floretta, after the pause of a minute); though after all it does not surprise me, for I know it shocks her to have any one suspect his wickedness."
"Whose wickedness (asked Madeline eagerly)? you astonish me beyond expression by your words."
"Aye, and I could astonish you much more, Mam'selle (said Floretta), if I was to tell you all I know; for, from my mother's being a favourite with the Countess, and from my being always in her service, I know more of her affairs than perhaps any other person except Agatha does; often and often she has made me promise to keep them all profoundly secret; and to be sure so I have, and would always, except (continued Floretta, whose passion for telling secrets was equal to her passion for hearing them), except with a little hesitation, to such a friend as you are to her."
Highly as the curiosity of Madeline was raised, she instantly recoiled from the idea of learning the Countess's private affairs through the channel of a servant.
"No, Floretta (said she), except from the Countess, I can never hearken to such secrets as you would impart; had she wished me to know them, she would have communicated them herself. Had I been surprised into listening to them, I should have blushed tomorrow when I beheld her face, from the consciousness of having acted meanly and basely towards her; and so would you I am confident, at the idea of having violated your promise, and betrayed what should be ever sacred to you, the confidence of your Protectress and friend."
"But I am sure (she continued, seeing the cheeks of Floretta covered with blushes, while she trembled so she could not stand), you spoke without thought, or perhaps from an idea that the disclosure of the secrets you hinted at would have gratified me; but be assured, Floretta, that would not have been the case, for I early learned, my good girl, that pleasure could never be attained by acting contrary to truth and virtue; and I hope you either do or will in future believe the justness of that saying as firmly as I do."
"Yes, that I shall to be sure, Mam'selle (cried Floretta, somewhat recovered from her confusion, and again raising her head). As you have said, Mam'selle, nothing indeed but an idea that I should have gratified you by revealing my lady's secrets could ever have tempted me to mention them."
Madeline did not appear to doubt her, but said she would no longer detain her. Floretta therefore courtesied, and retired with great humility.
Left to herself, Madeline reflected on all she had heard, and the more she reflected, the more she was astonished at it: to surmise how or by whom the Countess was distressed, was impossible.—"But to know the source of her grief could scarcely, I think, augment my regret for it (cried Madeline); alas! what an aggravation of my sorrow is it to know that the two beings I love best in the world, are oppressed by griefs which, by concealing, I must suppose they deem too dreadful for me to be acquainted with it."
She continued in melancholy meditation till the whole castle was wrapped in silence. She then retired to bed; but her rest was broken and disturbed by distressing dreams; and she longed for the return of morning to chase away the gloomy horrors of the night. She arose at an earlier hour than usual, before any of the family, except some of the inferior servants, were stirring, and walked out upon the lawn to try if the freshness of the air and exercise would revive her spirits. A solemn stillness reigned around, and the dewy landscape was yet but imperfectly revealed; but by degrees its grey veil was withdrawn, and the stillness interrupted by the twittering of birds and the carol of the early peasant. Madeline sighed at the contrast she drew between the cheerfulness of the scene and the sadness of her own mind.
"And oh, when (she cried as she saw the gloomy vapours of night flying before the beams of a rising sun), oh, when shall the clouds that involve my prospects be dispersed!"
After walking about some time, she sat down beneath the shelter of the chestnut, where she and her friend had rested the preceding night; and as she looked at the opposite but distant mountains, she thought of Madame Chatteneuf and Olivia, who had fixed on this morning to commence their journey; and her regret at their departure was augmented by believing that their presence would have been a comfort and relief to the Countess.
Full of the idea that they had already begun to ascend those stupendous precipices, which together they had so often viewed with mingled awe and veneration; she gazed upon them with a melancholy kind of pleasure, as if by doing so she could once more have beheld the travellers.
She remained thus engaged, till Agatha called to her from a window, and informed her the Countess was up. She directly returned to the house, and, going up to the Countess's dressing-room, met her just as she was entering it.
With the most anxious solicitude she enquired how she found herself. "Somewhat better," (the Countess replied). But whether the imagination of Madeline was affected by what Floretta had said the preceding night, or whether it really was the case, she thought there was no alteration in her countenance to support this assertion; the same look of languor and dejection prevailed; and she involuntarily repeated her enquiry with an earnestness that intimated the doubt she harboured, and hinted a wish of having a physician sent for.
"I thank you for this kind anxiety about me, my dear girl (said the Countess); but I can with truth assure you I am better; and even if I was not, I should never think of sending for a physician; medical skill (continued she in a low voice), could be of little avail in my malady."
"Ah! (thought Madeline) this is indeed a confirmation of all that Floretta told me; she gives me to understand by those words, that her malady is upon her mind;—would to heaven I could alleviate it!"
They sat down to breakfast; the table was laid near an open window, from whence they inhaled the sweetness of the morning air, and beheld the dewy landscape gradually brightening to their view,—beheld along the forest glades the wild deer trip, and often turning, gaze at early passenger: grey smoke arose in spiral columns from cottages scattered about its extremity, painting the rural scene with cheerful signs of inhabitation: and soon the industrious woodman was beheld commencing his toil, and the careful shepherd driving his bleating flock along the grassy paths to taste the verdure of the morn, while on every side
Music awoke
The native voice of undissembled joy,
And thick around the woodland hymns arose.
"Oh, how lovely is this scene! (said the Countess), this is Nature's hour for offering up her incense to the Supreme; and cold and unamiable indeed must be that heart which is not warmed to devotion by it. What real enjoyment do the children of indolence and dissipation forego by losing, in the bed of sloth, those moments when every blooming pleasure waits without: how cheering even to the soul of sadness itself, is the matin of the birds! how reviving to sickness or to languor this pure breeze, which, as it sweeps over tall trees of the forest, bends their leafy heads, as if in sign of grateful homage to the great Creator."
"It is an hour which I particularly love indeed (cried Madeline), one in which some of my most delightful rambles have been taken; with my father I have often brushed the dews away, and on the side of some steep and romantic mountain, caught the first beams of the sun, and watched the vapour of the valley retiring before them."
"Our friends (continued Madeline, after the pause of a few minutes), have ere this, I dare say, commenced their journey; by this time they have probably got a considerable way, and at this very moment perhaps may be sitting down to breakfast in the cottage of some mountaineer, attended by him and his family with assiduous hospitality; or else beneath the shadow of some cliff, o'er which the light chamois bound, and tall pines cast a solemn shade. Oh, how delightful must such a situation be!—how delightful, how elevating to the mind to be surrounded by the noblest works of nature,—by scenes which bring the heroes of other days to view!—how pleasing to listen to the soft melody of shepherds' pipes, to the bleating of his numerous flocks, intermingled perhaps with the lulling sound of waterfalls, and the humming of bees, intent on their delicious toil!"
"You speak like a poet, Madeline," said the Countess, smiling.
Madeline blushed at this observation, and wondered, when it was made, that she could have given such latitude to her imagination.
Fatigued by talking, the Countess lay down upon a sofa after breakfast. This debility, in a mind so nervous and a frame so active as hers had hitherto been, gave the most painful apprehensions to Madeline; and, under a trifling pretext, she left the room in order to communicate them to Agatha, and enquire from her whether she did not deem some advise requisite for her lady.
Agatha shook her head mournfully on hearing them; but relative to her enquiry, answered in the negative, saying that rest and quiet were all that was necessary for the Countess, "if those don't do her good (said she), nothing can."
"Alas! (cried Madeline, as she turned from her), 'tis too true! 'tis sorrow that undermines her health, and medicine could not reach her malady. Oh! what, what is this sorrow which so dreadfully affects her,—which is so carefully concealed that even her most intimate friends know it not, for such I know Madame Chatteneuf and her daughter to be, and they, I am confident, are ignorant of it?"
When she returned to the dressing-room, the Countess requested she would read to her; and thus employed, except at short intervals, when her ladyship made her pause to rest herself, she continued till dinner was served, at which the Countess was unable to preside; she grew better however in the evening, and again entered into conversation with Madeline.
The discourse turned upon the time she had passed at V———; and the Countess now requested to hear a particular account of it. This was a request which Madeline, if she could, would gladly have declined obeying; for, in almost every amusement, almost every scene she had partaken of, or mixed in while there, de Sevignie was so principal an object, that to describe them without mentioning him, she feared would be scarcely possible; to mention him without emotion, she knew she could not; and to betray such emotion would be, she was convinced, to confirm in the Countess's mind the suspicions she knew she already entertained of her attachment to de Sevignie; and now to have them confirmed, now, when not a hope remained of their being ever more to each other than friends, she felt would be humiliating and distressing in the extreme.
She attempted however to comply with the request of the Countess, but she faltered in her talk; and, by trying to omit what she wished to conceal, rendered what she would have told almost unintelligible.
The Countess saw and pitied her distress; she pitied, because she guessed the source from whence it proceeded. She was now more convinced than ever, from the dejection of Madeline, her confusion, and a few involuntary expressions that dropped from her, that all hope relative to de Sevignie was over, and, since terminated, she meant not to enquire concerning him, certain as she was that that termination was owing to no impropriety in the conduct of Madeline, or in his either, else she would not thus regret it. Time and kind attention, she trusted, would heal the wound which disappointed affection had given to the bosom of her youthful friend.
By degrees she turned the conversation to one more pleasing to her; and they both parted after supper with more cheerfulness than perhaps either had expected.
The next morning Madeline had the exquisite pleasure of meeting her beloved protectress at breakfast, with a greater appearance of health and spirits than she had witnessed the preceding day.
No attentions which could contribute to render this change a permanent one, were wanting on the part of Madeline; her assiduities were indeed unremitting, and the Countess received them with every indication of gratitude. A week saw her restored to her usual looks and serenity; and thus happily did the storm which had threatened the peace of her friends and family, appear overblown.
Occupied by attention and anxiety about her friend, Madeline, during her indisposition, had had no time to ruminate over past scenes; but now that her recovery allowed her more leisure, they arose in gloomy retrospection to her view. She saw herself deprived of all those hopes which had hitherto cheered her mind, assured, almost solemnly assured, that her destiny and de Sevignie's could never be united; and sad and solitary in the extreme she anticipated her life would be after such a disappointment, for de Sevignie she considered as her kindred spirit, and could not hope, or rather deemed it utterly impossible, she should again meet with one so truly congenial to her own.
Another week elapsed without any thing material happening, during which the Countess heard from her daughter; she gave the letter to Madeline to read, and the vivacity with which it was written, and the assurance it contained of her own health and happiness, clearly proved that Madame D'Alembert was entirely ignorant of her mother's late illness and disquietude.
The wonder of Madeline was increased at finding she concealed this disquietude even from her daughter. Surely, she thought, its source must indeed be painful when she thus hides it from those who are most interested about her.
In vain she tried to assign some cause for it in her own mind; the more she thought upon it, the more impossible she found it to conjecture from what or from whom it proceeded, and that she never would know, she was convinced; and now that she saw her friend had (apparently at least) overcome it, her curiosity was somewhat abated.
In about ten days after Madame D'Alembert's letter, she received one herself from Olivia (as did the Countess from Madame Chatteneuf), written in the most lively and affectionate manner, and containing a particular account of their journey over the Alps, their reception from her aunt, who was not quite in so declining a state as they apprehended, and the amusements they partook of at Verona.
She concluded by charging Madeline to write immediately; and said she expected to hear from her all that had happened in and out of the chateau since her departure, and particularly whether she had since seen de Sevignie. "But that you have, I cannot doubt (she added); and, jesting apart, believe me, my dear Madeline, I hope to learn from you that every little uneasiness which lurked in your mind, and his, is removed by the mutual acknowledgment of a passion which, to the penetrating eyes of friendship, it was evident you entertained for each other. Blush not, my dear; the secret which friends discover is guarded by them as sedulously as their own; and, should concealment be necessary, be assured of mine. But I will not harbour an idea that it is; no, I will not believe that de Sevignie will be contented with the mere possession of your heart:—ere this, perhaps, preparations are making; ere this, perhaps, the happy knot is tied; if so, accept my sincerest congratulations; every one who regards you, will congratulate you and themselves on such an event; for the wife of de Sevignie must, if not her own fault (which can never be your case), be completely happy."
Madeline's whole soul felt agitated as she read those lines; since hopeless, she was distressed that her attachment should be known; and she sighed with the heaviest sadness at the contrast which she drew between her present feelings, and what they would have been, had her friend's conjectures relative to de Sevignie and her been just.
She felt shocked at the idea of being asked to show this letter (which she had read in her own chamber) to the Countess; but that lady, perhaps from surmising some of the contents, gave not the smallest intimation of a wish to read it.
But though her fears respecting it were removed by this silence, her dejection continued. The surmises of Olivia hurt and embarrassed her; and she feared, when she declared their fallacy, that she should be regarded as a slighted object; and to pride, youthful pride, perhaps no idea could be more mortifying.
To complete her sadness, the Countess seemed relapsing into melancholy; and, though they both conversed, conversation in both appeared but as the faint effort of feeling to try and beguile the sadness of each other.
The efforts she made to converse during the day were painful in the extreme; and when the Countess retired in the evening, as was her usual custom, to the ruined monastery in the valley, for the purpose of prayer and meditation, Madeline hastily threw a scarf around her, and went out upon the lawn, as if she had feared a longer continuance in the house would subject her to society, which, in the present agitated state of her mind was irksome to her.
end of vol. i.