Ethel Churchill/Chapter 48
CHAPTER XIII.
CONFIDENCE.
She had that charming laugh which, like a song,
The song of a spring-bird, wakes suddenly
When we least look for it. It lingered long
Upon the ear, one of the sweet things we
Treasure unconsciously. As steals along
A stream in sunshine, stole its melody,
As musical as it was light and wild,
The buoyant spirit of some fairy child;
Yet mingled with soft sighs, that might express
The depth and truth of earnest tenderness.
Henrietta took a seat, and soon began a lively conversation; but it is impossible to go on talking, if your listener either cannot or will not answer. Suddenly it struck her visitor that Mrs. Courtenaye had a lurking remembrance of her cold manner to Norbourne on the day of Mrs. Howard's fête.
"It was foolish of me," thought she, " I had no right to mark resentment."
With the view of doing this away, she began to make inquiries after Mr. Courtenaye.
"I see that you are too good a wife to be tempted into gaiety during your husband's absence; but when he returns, I must persuade you to come and dine with us."
Constance rose from her seat; and, after two or three hurried turns up and down the room, came and sat down by Lady Marchmont, who noted her obvious agitation with both surprise and sympathy.
"You must forgive me," exclaimed she, in a hurried and distressed manner, unable longer to suppress the tears that fell in large slow drops, still half kept back; "but I cannot look upon you and not feel my own wretchedness. I do not wonder that Norbourne loved you!"
"Loved me!" exclaimed Henrietta, too much astonished to say more.
"I know not," continued Constance, passionately, "what parted you, but you cannot blame me; I knew it not. I thought, oh, vain folly! that it was me he loved. Why else did he marry me? But I feel now, oh, how bitterly! that I was not worthy of him. I, without beauty, grace—with nothing but a heart, whose deep love he will never know!"
She hid her face in her hands; the hysterical passion of tears, long subdued, now burst forth, and she wept bitterly, while Henrietta exhausted every effort to soothe her.
"You pity me!" at last exclaimed Constance; "will you not then leave to me the little that my unwearied affection may gain of his heart? You, so beautiful, so flattered, cannot know what it is not to have a hope or a fear but what is bound up in one beloved object! Tell me," and she knelt at Henrietta's feet, "that you will not seek to win him again from me?"
"There is some strange mistake here," said Lady Marchmont, deeply touched at the emotion she witnessed: "you speak as if some affection existed between Mr. Courtenaye and myself; I am sure that we are equally ignorant of it: but I hate mysteries, they are often miserable, and always mischievous; do tell me what you mean? Believe me that your present unhappiness originates in some misapprehension!"
"Were you never," faltered Constance, "engaged, or attached to Norbourne?"
"Me!" cried Lady Marchmont; "I never knew him till after my own marriage, and then very slightly. I know not how this strange fancy originated, but it has not the shadow of a foundation. Come, tell me candidly, what could have put it in your head?"
"I will," said Constance, who felt intuitively that Lady Marchmont spoke the truth: "I thought that there was something very peculiar in your manner at Mrs. Howard's fête; and Lady Dudley"
"Say no more," interrupted Henrietta: "the very mention of that inveterate gossip accounts for every thing. Do let me, my dear Mrs. Courtenaye," and she took her hand with a kindness that was irresistible, "let me warn you against allowing your happiness to be the sport of a woman like that; one who would not care what misery she caused, if it gave her one moment's importance, or one moment's amusement. Use your own judgment with reference to what she is!"
"I own," replied Constance, "that I certainly neither like nor respect her."
"Why then allow her to influence you?" asked her companion.
"I was wrong, very wrong," returned the other; "but she seemed kind to me, and—and I sometimes feel so lonely. I am not strong enough to go out much, and the days are very long here: in the country I had my birds and my flowers, and there were many who loved me. They were not, it is true, companions, but I returned home happier after visiting our cottages, where so many faces grew brighter to welcome mine; but in this vast place every thing is so strange and so cold, and I pass very many long and lonely hours, and pass them, perhaps, in nursing foolish fancies."
There was something in this picture that keenly touched Lady Marchmont; she, too, brilliant as her lot appeared, had many long and lonely hours—hours that craved for confidence and affection.
"Let us be friends," exclaimed she, with a sweet earnestness; "we shall do each other good. I grow too selfish, living only among the cold, the vain, and the flattering; while you grow too sensitive, living too much amid your fancies and feelings."
Constance answered by taking the hands so frankly offered, and pressing them in her own, while Lady Marchmont continued:—
"I will tell you all my faults frankly beforehand. I am very vain, for I cultivate my vanity on a principle, and cannot understand why we should neglect such a source of gratification. I take all the admiration I can on the same principle that kings take taxes: I look upon it as my right. They will tell you that I am a coquette, but it is not true; I do not care enough about people; besides, I am too impetuous, and too frank. Moreover, my opinions on love are romantic and peculiar; I never talk about them. I am a bad temper, but you will like me all the better from having occasionally to make up a quarrel with me:—And now, shall we be friends?"
"I shall only love you too much," said Constance.
"Oh, that is a fault I shall readily overlook!" replied Henrietta, laughing, as she rose to depart; and fast friends they were from that time. Constance found a resource in the gaiety of Lady Marchmont, and learnt from her something of more self-reliance, and a more accurate idea of the world in which she was to live. She daily became more attached to her: she saw her faults, though of a different kind to those Lady Marchmont herself confessed; but she loved her in despite of them; nor did the young countess attach herself less to her gentle friend. Henrietta was of a much more affectionate temper than she would have confessed even to herself: she delighted in the pleasure which she gave; and, evening after evening would she sit with Constance, who was quite incapable of further exertion.