Ethel Churchill/Chapter 52
CHAPTER XVII.
PRESENTIMENT.
I feel the shadow on my brow,
The sickness at my heart;
Alas! I look on those I love,
And am so sad to part.
If I could leave my love behind,
Or watch from yonder sky
With holy and enduring care,
I were not loath to die;
But death is terrible to Love:
And yet a love like mine
Trusts in the heaven from whence it came,
And feels it is divine.
Mrs. Courtenaye's house was, that night, the gayest in London. Lord Norbourne wished that the fête given by his daughter should be without a rival. He spared no expense, and Lady Marchmont no taste.
"I see clearly," said Constance to her, the very morning of her party, "that society is as much a science as astronomy; and, also, that, like poetry, one must be born with a genius for it. What should I have done without you? After once satisfying my anxiety that Norbourne would return in time (he looks sadly fagged with his journey), there seemed to me nothing more to care about."
"Why, my dear child, of all the people that you expect, your husband is of the least importance!" replied Henrietta, laughing.
Constance shook her head, and smiled, as she answered,—
"Give me Norbourne, my father, and yourself, and I should be only too glad to see none beside. A crowd frightens me: I feel so keenly among strangers that there is nothing in me to attract or to please, that I shrink, with sudden fear, back into the little circle who, I hope, will love me for the deep and exceeding love that I bear to them."
"I am sure," exclaimed Lady Marchmont, passing her arm caressingly round Constance's neck, "not to love you, would be to have a heart of ice, or no heart at all. But you and I go through life on different principles: you ask of life its affections; I ask its amusements: I like to be admired; you like to be loved: you would tremble at the idea of an enemy; I should only think of one as giving me an opportunity of triumph: I should confide in my success, and feel quite grateful for the victory over them, which, I am sure, I should have."
"Ah!" exclaimed Mrs. Courtenaye, timidly, "beautiful as you are, gay as you always seem, I never think of you without a sensation of fear—fear for your sake, dear Henrietta!"
"Fear!" replied the other, her dark eyes kindling with haughtier light; "I should like to know the sensation, it would be something quite new!"
"Nay," interrupted her friend, "so young, every thing must be new to you!"
"I do not know," returned Lady Marchmont, "whether I am young; I believe that I am, counting my years,—a most uncertain way of reckoning, by the by,—but I feel very old. I scarcely know any thing that really interests me, and I would give a great deal not to be so quick-sighted as I am; it would be so pleasant to believe only a tithe of the professions that are made me."
"It is a dreadful thing to doubt!" returned Constance, sadly: "I do not know why, but there is something about you that discourages me almost as much as my father's conversation sometimes does. What is there that nature has not done for you? and yet you are not happy. I have watched you in your most brilliant moments: others went away saying, what charming spirits Lady Marchmont has! but I saw that they were forced."
"You are right!" exclaimed Henrietta: "I so often feel that I am not loved, and not valued as I deserve to be. I carry the coldness of my own hearth about with me; and with the usual exaggeration of self-love, I fancy people must see the dejection under which I often labour: I disdain their pity, and put on a vizor of smiles to ward it off."
"Ours is a strange world," said Constance, in a sad and thoughtful tone; "I see little enjoyment, and much misery; for which, also, I see no remedy: I am often frightened and weary when I think of it. Every day more and more reconciles me to the idea of leaving it. I could lay my head down on my last pillow, and sleep gladly, like a tired child, but for my father."
"My dearest Constance," cried Lady Marchmont," I will not let you talk in this dejected mood; many, many happy years are before you!"
"It is not a dejected mood, dearest friend," was the answer; "it is one of faith and of hope. God has, for his own good purposes, weaned my heart from a world in which he means me to make but a brief sojourn. Only those destined for an early grave ever felt as I do: I speak not of my bodily health, though that grows weaker every day, but it is my own heart that foretells its doom. It craves for rest and for peace; here it has beat too quickly, and too vainly."
"You, my gentle and timid Constance!" interrupted Henrietta.
"Ay, for years I lived in the wild worship of an earthly idol! I loved my cousin as those love whom nothing distracts from the one cherished object! I was solitary, neglected, debarred by my health from the ordinary pursuits of my age, but one image supplied the place of all others: I have passed hours thinking of Norbourne, till his own presence was scarcely more actual than my waking dream. I married him; and, for a time, forgot that earth was not heaven! I was too happy; and, as if I were to owe all to him whom I loved so utterly, my marriage gave me a share I never before possessed in my father's affection; and I found, too, that he was happier for loving me. I forgot all but this life: it shut out eternity. I cannot tell you how I awakened from my dream, for dream it was—so gradual, but so sad was my awakening. Too soon the subtle instinct of love told me that I was not to Norbourne what he was to me!"
"No woman ever is to a man," interrupted Lady Marchmont: "your solitary education has led you to form ethereal fancies that can never be realised. It is impossible to be a more affectionate, or a kinder husband, than Mr. Courtenaye."
"He is too kind," replied Constance, mournfully; "he feels that he has to make up to me for the heart which I have not. I am punished for having worshipped too entirely an earthly idol: it has not been given to me to make that happiness which I would purchase, ah! how gladly, at the expense of my own! But he loves me not, and he loves another. Why he married me, I know not."
Lady Marchmont thought that Lord Norbourne's wealth was a too sufficient reason; but, for worlds, she would not have said so, and Constance continued:—
"Some might think that the riches of the heiress bought the hand, though it could not buy the heart; but it was not that which made me the wife of Norbourne Courtenaye. I have known him from a boy, generous and disinterested: others may judge of him even as they themselves would have acted, but I judge him by old and perfect knowledge: but I fear that my father used undue influence; perhaps he appealed to my cousin's pity. Oh, Henrietta! you talked of disdaining pity; I am thankful even for that; but it is a dreadful requital for love!"
She paused in agitated silence, and Henrietta felt that silence and caresses were at first her only answer; but, having soothed her companion into more of composure, she could not but add, "but you are married, and might both be happy yourself, and make your husband's happiness. It is not in any nature, more especially one kind and generous as his, to be insensible to your devotion, or to your many engaging qualities; why dwell on these sad and vain imaginations?"
"They are sad, but not vain," replied Constance; "but for them I should still cling too closely to a world I shall soon leave for ever! I have at last learned to say, 'Not my will, but thine, O Father! be done.' I am content to think that he will remember me with a tender grief; and how could I bear to dwell for a moment on the agony of sorrow that he must feel, did he love me with a love like mine own, and had to part? It soothes me to feel that he will be spared that bitterest, that terrible despair."
"Do not speak thus," exclaimed Henrietta, her eyes filling with tears as she gazed on the face now so lovely, with its sweet and inspired expression.
"It relieves me," replied Constance, "my spirits were over-burdened. The weakness of our nature subdues us to the last; but the time may come, when, freed from all the bitterness, all the selfishness that belongs unto mortal love, I shall watch over him even as an angel watches, and find my happiness in his, even in another and a better world!"