Ethel Churchill/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
Oh! never another dream can be
Like that early dream of ours,
When the fairy, Hope, lay down like a child,
And slept amid opening flowers.
Little we recked of our coming years,
We fancied them just what we chose;
For, whatever life's after lights may be,
It colours its first from the rose.
"So you are going to leave us?" said Ethel.
"Why, child," (they were of the same age, but Henrietta's mind had far outgone its years), "you say this in the most dolorous of tones. I really see nothing so very dreadful in going to London, where I have made up my mind to force the women to die of envy, and the men of love,—the one by my diamonds, the other by my eyes."
"None may doubt the power of the latter, at least," observed Courtenaye.
"Truce to your fine sayings," replied Henrietta; "I would not give thank-you for a compliment from a person in your position. Now, don't blush, Ethel; I am only laying down general rules. A man in love is a nonentity for the time—he is nothing; and nature, that is, my nature, abhors a vacuum. Now is not that a philosophical deduction, Mr. Maynard?"
Walter started from his reverie—he had not been listening.
"You never know what one is saying," exclaimed Lady Marchmont, pettishly.
"Nay," said he, in one of those deep melodious voices which almost startle with their peculiar sweetness, "I heard you speak, and, as one often does with songs, in the music I lost the words."
"How I should like," said Ethel, "to see you dressed on the day of your presentation. When I imagine things about you, I always fancy you 'reine d'amour' at a tournament, while
'your eyes
Rain influence, and adjudge the prize.'"
"Thank Heaven," cried Henrietta, laughing, "you do not, even in fancy, turn me into a shepherdess, with sheep on one side, and a purling brook on the other."
"And yet," said Ethel, "there is something that takes my fancy mightily in these sweet and tranquil pictures. I have always felt sorrow when my shepherdess has been taken from her green meadows, even to a palace."
"Well, my vocation is not for innocent pleasures," returned Lady Marchmont: "I own I prefer my own kind to lambs and wild flowers."
"How entirely I agree with you," cried Walter Maynard: "as yet I know little of life, excepting from the written page; but existence appears to me scarcely existence, without its struggles and its success. I should like to have some great end before me; the striving to attain, amid a crowd of competitors, would make me feel all the energies of life"
"And yet," interrupted Courtenaye, "what hours of seeming delicious reverie I have seen you pass, flung on the bank of some lonely river, where the hours were mirrored in sunshine."
"I was thinking of the future," answered Walter, "and a very pleasant thing to think about."
"If we had but one of those charming old fairies for godmothers," said Norbourne, "of whom my nurse was so fond of telling, in the vain hope of putting me to sleep; as if I did not keep myself awake as long as I could, to hear;—if such a one were to appear, I wonder what gift we shoud each choose?"
"I should so like to know," replied Lady Marchmont; "now let us be honest, and frankly confess the inmost desire of our hearts. I will set the example; for, as I am going to court, I may not need to speak truth for some time, and may therefore use up what I have now. I frankly confess that my wish would be for universal admiration."
Walter Maynard paused for a moment, looking at Ethel; it was but a glance, and a deeper melancholy came over his face.
"I would wish," said he, "for fame—glorious and enduring fame."
"And I," cried Alice, eagerly, "would wish to be a lady—have an embroidered damask gown, and ride in a coach-and-six."
"I would wish," whispered Ethel, "to be loved."
"And," added Norbourne, in a whisper almost as low, "I would wish to love."
"I think," exclaimed Lady Marchmont, "that Alice's wish is the most rational of all. Well, girl, success to your coach-and-six."
"And I wish," said a venerable old lady, who, unperceived, had joined the young circle, "that you would all come into the house—for the evening is growing damp, and supper is ready."
"My dear Mrs. Churchill," said Lady Marchmont, taking her hand, and respectfully kissing it, "you must not fancy that this is a farewell visit. I came hither to-night, for I did not know what to do with myself. The way of the world—I have had all I wanted, and must go."
"Just come in," said Mrs. Churchill, "and take one glass of my mead."
"No—not even such a golden promise tempts me. I am afraid that Lord Marchmont will be at home before me—and he is not yet accustomed to be kept waiting."
"I would not, on any account, detain you—but come and see us to-morrow," said the old lady, kindly.
Waving her hand, Henrietta ran rapidly down the path by which she came, and was soon out of sight.
"She is a sweet creature, and a lovely," said Mrs. Churchill: "I wish she may bring back the same light step and heart with which she leaves us."
Mrs. Churchill was not the first person who has been deceived by appearances. The light step there assuredly was—but the light heart, Henrietta herself would have said was a heavy one. With spirits exhausted by the forced exertion of the last hour, she came back to her room even more gloomy than when she left it.
"I have seen him for the last time:"—and perhaps that moment was the only one during their whole acquaintance, that she had thought of Walter Maynard with unmixed tenderness. Pride, mortification, and disdain of his actual position, had usually mingled with all gentler thoughts. But there is something in parting that softens the heart;—it is as if we had never felt how unutterably dear a beloved object could be, till we are about to lose it for ever.
Unconsciously to herself, she had grown accustomed to see Walter Maynard, to note the changes in his expressive face, to listen to his picturesque and impassioned discourse. It now struck her suddenly how much she should miss them. The knowledge of her own heart, and of his, had come together. Hope had never been the companion of love. Even in her most secret communings with herself, she had never admitted even the fancy of their union. But to-night she felt deeply within her secret soul the utter happiness of loving and being beloved. What were her future brilliant prospects? The truth within her whispered, that she had been happier, even in the lonely lot which she that very evening had ridiculed, with Walter Maynard, than in a palace, and not his. For the first time, she regretted her marriage. Lord Marchmont had been the cause of her drawing comparisons. Her superior mind at once detected the narrowness of his; and her warm heart shrank from his cold one. She saw that he did not love her—that he never even thought whether she loved him.
"'Tis a strange thing," she murmured, "how love which should be such a blessing, should yet cause so much misery and disunion. Ah! Ethel does not know her own happiness. I only wonder Mr. Courtenaye did not fall in love with me. It would have completed our game of cross purposes,"—and she laughed aloud. The sound of her own laughter jarred upon her ear.
"What do I laugh at?" thought she: "at wasted affection—at the consciousness that, young as I am, my heart is withered—that I look to amusement as to a resource, and to vanity as the business of an existence. Ah! love is more powerful than I deemed; for at this very moment of whom am I thinking?—my kind uncle?—no; of a stranger. It is the last time I will yield to such a weakness;" and, rising from her seat, she began to pace the room. With a struggle to escape from her own thoughts, she rang for her attendants, and, complaining of fatigue, went hastily to bed. But a crowd of heavy thoughts came to her pillow; and if, when Lord Marchmont returned, he had gazed on the beautiful face then hushed in sleep, he would have seen that the cheek was flushed, and that tears yet glistened on the long dark eyelashes.