Ethel Churchill/Chapter 95
CHAPTER XIX.
RETURN TO COURTENAYE HALL.
Ah! never another dream can be
Like that early dream of ours,
When Hope, like a child, lay down to sleep
Amid the folded flowers.
But Hope has wakened since, and wept
Itself, like a rainbow, away;
And the flowers have faded, and fallen around,
We have none for a wreath to-day.
Now, Truth has taken the place of Hope,
And our hearts are like winter hours;
Little has after-life been worth
That early dream of ours.
Change is the universal prescription for a wounded spirit. "It will do you so much good," is the constant remark. Perhaps it may; but how reluctant is any one who is suffering mentally, to try it! There is an irritation about secret and subdued sorrow, which peculiarly unfits you for exertion; you are discontented with all that is around you, and yet you shrink from alteration; it is too much trouble; you do not feel in yourself even energy enough for the ordinary demands of life.
This was the case of Norbourne Courtenaye. The morning after her conversation with Miss Churchill, Lady Marchmont had written a note, stating its result, to Lord Norbourne, who had placed the note in his nephew's hands. Norbourne, for his uncle's sake, made a strong effort to appear indifferent; and, by a tacit consent, the plan was never made a subject of discourse between them again. But he suffered keenly and deeply; the more so, because it was no longer a duty to subdue his regrets. He had, and did, love Ethel, wholly and fondly; he felt that he could never love another, and he shrunk from the solitude of his own heart.
It had been, for some time, necessary for him to visit the Hall, and yet he had delayed his going. He shrunk from all that it would recall; he shrunk from change, because he felt that monotony was a resource. On his arrival, his mother was startled to see how ill he looked; but people who reside entirely in the country, are apt to lay a great deal to London, of which that poor, dear, ill-used city, is completely innocent. She never doubted that a little fresh country air would quite restore him; and when she saw him, as usual, pass the great part of every day out of doors, she was, for the time, quite satisfied.
Time was to work wonders; and, at least, it accustomed her to the change that had at first appeared so startling in his appearance. But could she have seen the listless manner in which he wandered through the woods, the carelessness with which he would fling himself on the damp grass, her natural anxiety would have been alive even to agony. I believe that one great reason why the suffering of the mind is so often followed by suffering of the body is, that we are so indifferent about it, that we do not care to take even those ordinary precautions which are taken almost unconsciously in general. There is nothing in life worth attention, not even ourselves.
One evening, lost in one of those melancholy reveries which had become his chief occupation, Norbourne lingered too late on the banks of his favourite lake. The twilight had been one of unusual beauty; the rich crimson, which had kindled the waters with transitory radiance, died gradually into faint violet, and the whispering of the leaves had sank into a deep silence, unbroken even by the distant sheep-bell, which had been one of the latest sounds. It was the dark quarter of the moon; but the stars came out, one after another, upon the cloudless heaven; those stars, sad and soft, which have so much fanciful, and so little real, sympathy with earth: not in their pure, calm light, can the destinies of life be written. Never had Norbourne felt more lonely; there were a thousand thoughts and fancies gushing at his heart, which he longed to share, but which must now remain forever unshared. He looked back to his hurried and feverish life in London, and felt, how much happier was the one that he had formerly planned to himself. With Ethel for his companion, he would have desired no happiness beyond his own hearth, no sphere of utility beyond his native hills.
The evening wore away, and the long grass was silvery with dew; the consequence was what might have been expected,—next day, he was laid up with a violent cold; and the fever soon ran so high, that delirium came on; and before three days were past, his life hung upon a thread.
Mrs. Courtenaye hung over him in silent despair; and despair increased by all that escaped from his lips during the delirium of fever. Till the present moment, Mrs. Courtenaye had believed that her son's attachment had been merely a boyish passion; eager and romantic at the time, but leaving no after-trace on the character. The delicate silence that he had observed on the subject, tended to confirm this impression; but now that the heart was on the lips, uncurbed, and unconscious, the secret of that heart became her own. He spoke of Ethel continually; entreated her to forgive him; deprecated her coldness; and implored her to retract her refusal.
In putting aside the various papers that were about him when taken ill, Lady Marchmont's note fell into her hands. She read it, among others, requiring immediate answer, little, till then, supposing that it had been kept, with all the bitterness of memory, for months. Its contents were as follows:—
"Dear Lord Norbourne,—I regret having to communicate what has been the result of my conversation with Miss Churchill; I am afraid that all women are a little unforgiving, when the inconstancy of a lover is to be pardoned. I see clearly that nothing will induce her to listen to Mr. Courtenaye. Ethel is gentle and timid, but there is, also, a degree of firmness, for which I did not give her credit. The sooner the matter is put an end to, the better. Life presents too brilliant an aspect to Mr. Courtenaye, not to console him for a single disappointment; that it may be his last, is the sincere wish of one who is,
"Most sincerely,
"Your obliged
"Henrietta."
The note dropped from Mrs. Courtenaye's hand. What! then her son had still cherished his old attachment! He had offered, and been refused! There was that in her own nature, which sympathised with the pride, for such she held to be the motive, dictating the refusal. Then, resentment for her son's suffering became the predominant feeling. This could not last; and, for the first time, she thought what Ethel's sorrow might have been—sorrow that might well turn to after bitterness.
To find that you have been deceived, where you trusted so entirely; trifled with, where all your deepest and sweetest emotions had been called into life, is the most acute—the most enduring sorrow of which that life is capable. Mrs. Courtenaye started to think that she had never considered the matter in this light before.