Ethel Churchill/Chapter 45
CHAPTER X.
SUCCESS.
All things are symbols; and we find
In morning's lovely prime,
The actual history of the mind
In its own early time:
So, to the youthful poet's gaze,
A thousand colours rise,—
The beautiful which soon decays,
The buoyant which soon dies.
So does not die their influence,
The spirit owns the spell;
Memory to him is music—hence
The magic of his shell.
He sings of general hopes and fears—
A universal tone;
All weep with him, for in his tears
They recognise their own.
Yet many a one, whose lute hangs now
High on the laurel tree,
Feels that the cypress' dark bough
A fitter meed would be:
And still with weariness and wo
The fatal gift is won;
Many a radiant head lies low,
Ere half its race be run.
The group of Maynard's friends that gathered round him, only waited till Booth had changed his dress to adjourn to a neighbouring tavern for supper. The excitement needed wine and mirth to carry it off. Suppers were the ne plus ultra of human invention; it could go no further, and was obliged to degenerate; dinner is too much matter of business, it is a necessity: now, a necessity is too like a duty ever to be pleasant. Besides, it divides the day instead of winding it up. I do not think, moreover, that people were ever meant to enjoy themselves in the day time. Day belongs to the earthlier deities—the stern, the harsh, and the cold. Gnomes are the spirits of daily hours. Toil, thought, and strife, beset us: we have to work, to quarrel, and to struggle: we have to take our neighbours in; or, at least, to avoid their doing so by us. We are false, designing, and cautious; for, after all, the doom of Ishmael is the doom of the whole race of men. His hand against every one, and every one's hand against him. Talk of general benevolence and philanthropy—nonsense! We all in our hearts hate each other; and good cause have we for so doing. But night comes in with a more genial spirit: we have done our worst and our bitterest; and we need a small space to indulge any little bit of cordiality that may be left in us. A thousand gay phantasms float in on the sunny south, which has left the far-off vineyards of its birth. The taverns of our ancestors would ill bear contrasting with the clubs of to-day; but many a gay midnight was past in the former:—midnights, whose mirth has descended even to us; half the jests, whose gaiety is still contagious; half the epigrams, whose point is yet felt, were born of those brief and brilliant hours. Such a supper, and such a party, were now waiting to adjourn to a tavern near the theatre.
While they loitered till Booth doffed his theatrical costume, Norbourne's attention was attracted by the young actress to whom Maynard had been talking; she was looking earnestly at him, and he felt sure that he had seen her face before. Catching his eye, she smiled: and, approaching him, said,—
"So, Mr. Norbourne does not choose to remember an old friend."
He started, for the voice was as familiar as the face.
"Lavinia Fenton!" exclaimed he,—"impossible!"
"Not at all impossible," replied the girl; "you know I never liked the country. I had a soul above plaiting cap borders, and picking out false stitches in my lady's embroidery; so, finding that there was no chance of coming to London—you false-hearted man!—with you and my young lady, in a coach and four, I tried if a cart would not do as well."
There was something in this abrupt allusion to the treasured and hidden past, that at once shocked and silenced Norbourne. He was annoyed to find that his heart's sweetest secret was in the possession of one so little likely to keep it; and who, from the very position in which he found her, would, probably, only consider it as matter for a coarse jest.
"How, in the name of all that is wonderful, do I find you here?" asked he, less from any curiosity, than feeling it a necessity to say something.
"Why, luck's all in this world," replied she. "A company of strolling players asked leave to play in our barn; I learnt more of the world in a week than I had in all my life before. At the week's end the barn was vacant, and my place also. The Romeo of the company told me that I had the finest eyes in the world. I had myself long suspected the fact; and, after thinking Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I set off on the Monday to see what they would do for me here; and, I must say, they have done their duty. At present I have only a soubrette's part, with an apron and pockets, and a ballad; but, as I said before, luck's all in this world, and I have every requisite for being lucky. I have a handsome face, a good voice, I care for nothing and nobody; and when I am a duchess, which I have quite set my mind on being, I will be very grateful to you for having patronised my first benefit, which I shall rely upon your doing."
Half of this voluble discourse was lost upon Norbourne; it seemed as if, within the last few days, he was fated to be haunted by the image of Ethel Churchill: he could not resist making an inquiry. He glanced around, no one was attending; and, in a hurried and agitated tone, he whispered,—"For God's sake, do tell me something of Ethel—Miss Churchill, I mean?"
The girl looked at him earnestly and gravely,—even reproachfully; but there was something in the true emotion of his manner that apparently touched her.
"Mr. Courtenaye," answered she, in a voice even more guarded than his own, "I can tell you nothing that will, that ought to give you any satisfaction. It is a miserable vanity which delights in the affection it only sought to betray. I know how you sought to win that of my young mistress. Heaven is my witness, that I would not have left her could my stay have been either benefit or comfort. But Ethel Churchill's is no temper to soothe itself with words. She suffers in silence; and light and darkness are not more opposed than our natures,—there never was sympathy between us; but I do pity her. You would scarcely know her again, she is so altered; there she mopes about the house, she who used to be the life of us all. When with her grandmother, she does try and get up her spirits a little; but when out of her sight, she will sit, and not speak a word for hours. This, Mr. Courtenaye, is your doing."
The loud ringing of the prompter's bell made her spring suddenly away; and two of his companions, each taking an arm, hurried him away also. How glad would he have been to have left the party: his thoughts were in a tumult; duties and inclinations warred together—nay, his very sense of right was confounded. To see Ethel once more, to kneel at her feet, to accuse himself, and to implore her pardon, mingled indistinctly in his resolves. The scene before him seemed strangely confused; he heard nothing of what was going on, he was either silent, or his answers were wide of the mark. All at once his mood changed: he sought in his champagne glass for forgetfulness,—for that he was too excited; but it brought a wild and desperate gaiety,—his laugh was the loudest, his jest the readiest, and none did such deep justice to every toast: but within was the quick, aching sense of misery.
It is a strange thing, but so it is, that very brilliant spirits are almost always the result of mental suffering, like the fever produced by a wound. I sometimes doubt tears, I oftener doubt lamentations; but I never yet doubt the existence of that misery which flushes the cheek and kindles the eye, and which makes the lip mock, with sparkling words, the dark and hidden world within.
There is something in intense suffering that seeks concealment, something that is fain to belie itself. In Cooper's novel of the "Bravo," Jacques conceals himself and his boat, by lying where the moonlight fell dazzling on the water. We do the same with any great despair, we shroud it in a glittering atmosphere of smiles and jests; but the smiles are sneers, and the jests are sarcasms. There is always a vein of bitterness runs through these feverish spirits, they are the very delirium of sorrow seeking to escape from itself, and which cannot. Suspense and agony are hidden by the moonshine.