Romance and Reality (Landon)/Chapter 52
CHAPTER VI.
"I do not often talk much."
Henry VIII.
"Why weep ye by the tide, lady?
Why weep ye by the tide?
I'll find ye anither luve,
And ye sall be his bride."
Scots Song.
"The ancients referred melancholy to the mind, the moderns make it matter of digestion—to either case my plan applies," said Lady Mandeville. "I am melancholy, or, in plain prose, have a headach, to-day; therefore I propose putting in execution our long-talked-of visit to the convent of St. Valerie: if of the mind, contemplation will be of service—if of the nerves, a ride will be equally beneficial."
"'How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,'"
replied Mr. Spenser.
"You are improving," returned Lady Mandeville. "I dare say by the time your cousin, Helen Morland, is able to appreciate compliments, you will be able to pay them in 'good set terms.'"
How very unpleasant a few words can contrive to be! It was very disagreeable to be reminded of his cousin. Though Mr. Morland was the last man in the world to have acted on such a wish, Cecil was aware of his uncle's desire to see his favourite nephew and his daughter united. Now, for his very life could he picture Helen but as he last saw her—a very pretty child, whose canary was an important object. It was also very disagreeable to perceive that Lady Mandeville was not in his interests, aware as he was of her influence over Emily. For, what with a little absence—an absence passed in solitude and exaggeration—and a little opposition, enough to excite, but not enough to deter—an adventure romantic enough to make falling in love almost matter of necessity—with all these together, young Spenser had progressed considerably in his attachment.
Emily was very pretty, with a quiet gentleness that left much to the imagination, and also a sweetness which was a good beginning for it to work upon. Besides, though attached to Lorraine with all the depth and earnestness of first love—which, after all, is the only one that has those high ideal qualities ascribed to love—she could not be always "sadly thinking" of him. She thought of him whenever she saw any thing beautiful in art or nature—love links itself with the lovely: she thought of him when she sang the songs he had liked, or that she thought he would like: when they spoke of affection before her, it ever recalled her own: she turned the page of the poet as the mirror, which gave back her feelings: in short, she thought of him when she was sick, sullen, or sorry. Still, there were times when the natural gladness of youth burst into mirthfulness, and
"Her brow belied her, if her heart was sad."
At such times Cecil was quite sure he was in love. Constancy is made up of a series of small inconstancies, which never come to any thing; and the heart takes credit for its loyalty, because in the long-run it ends where it began. I doubt whether the most devoted fidelity would bear strict examination as to the short reposes even the most entire fealty permits itself.
Lady Mandeville, if not the keeper of Emily's conscience, took some care of her constancy. She had quite made up her mind, that a marriage between Miss Arundel and Mr. Lorraine was the most eligible thing in the world for both parties; and when a mind is once made up, it is very tiresome to have to unmake it. No wonder Edward had hitherto escaped heart-whole. She even exaggerated the taste whose delicacy was refined almost to fastidiousness; but that very taste would be in favour of the great improvement which had taken place in Emily. Lady Mandeville did full justice to it, and a little more—for it was her own work. Like most persons whose vivid imagination applies itself to actual things, instead of abstract creations, she gave a reality to her schemes that seemed to make failure an impossibility; and having once settled that Emily would be very happy with Lorraine, it was an absolute impossibility to allow her to be happy with any one else.
Lorraine was a great favourite—Spenser was not. The indolence which Cecil had rather permitted than indulged—for, Heaven knows, it was no indulgence at all—had at first prevented his offering that homage to which she was accustomed; and now, when he did offer it, it was marked, suspected. His admiration of Emily interfered with her arrangement; and the very circumstance of Lord Mandeville's encouraging him was any thing but an advantage: a woman must be an angel to endure being worsted in domestic tactics. Not that Lady Mandeville enacted the part of confidant—
"Cato's a proper person to intrust a love-tale with;"
besides, Emily's feelings were quite deep enough for silence. But Lorraine's memory was kept alive by slight recurrences to his opinions, and frequent allusions to the chances of meeting him. However, bright sunshine and a rapid drive did a great deal for the good humour or spirits, whichever you like to consider it, of the party on their way to St. Valerie.
All convents built in what we call the dark ages, show singular good taste in the selection of their various situations; if there was a fine view to be had, their site usually commanded it.
The convent of St. Valerie was on the very summit of a small hill, whose abruptness added to its height. A thick copsewood of dwarf oaks, intermixed with one or two slender chestnuts, covered the side even to the sea, from which it was separated by a narrow slip of smooth sand, over which, in a calm day, the small waves broke in scattered foam, something like the swelling of the unquiet human heart. The other side of the hill, whether from nature, or art of days so long past as to seem nature now, was much less steep, and, if more luxuriantly, was less thickly wooded, and with trees of larger size and more varied sorts. Through these wound a very tolerable road.
The convent was a white building, with a chapel of great antiquity, and gardens of much beauty. The last notes of the anthem were dying into tremulous silence as they entered, and a long black train of dark and veiled figures were gliding through an opposite portal, whose massive doors closed heavily, almost hopelessly, on them. At the upper end, raised by a single step from the other pavement, stood a statue of the Virgin—one of those exquisite conceptions to which an artist has given the beauty of genius developed by the labour of a life—one of those forms, which the modeller may frame, and then die.
Sculpture never seems to me like the representation of human life: its forms—pale, pure, and cold—have the shape, not the likeness, of our nature. I always personify a spirit as a statue. Paintings, however idealised as to beauty, still give the bright eye, the rosy cheek, the glossy hair, we see daily. Portraits are but the mirrors of lovely countenances. Sculpture is the incarnation of beings whose state seems higher, because calmer, than our own. The divinities of Greece owed half their divinity to the noble repose with which their sculptors invested them. The characteristic of the picture is passion—that of the statue, power.
From the chapel the party proceeded across the court to the garden, except Emily. Like all persons whose feelings are awakened through the imagination, Emily was peculiarly susceptible of outward impressions. She lingered in the chapel, watching the cold gray light—for the windows fronting the north let in daylight, but not sunshine—the white floor only marked by inscriptions whose worn letters told that the living trod over the dead—the white walls, where the carved tablets were also sacred to the memory of the departed. The extreme silence oppressed her with a sense rather of sadness than of calm. She looked on the tombs, and thought how they had been wept over. She held her breath, to be more deeply conscious of the stillness; and the beating of her heart seemed to remind her how little part she had in such quiet.
Some slight chance usually rivets the attention: it did so now. On one of the tablets were inscribed various names of an apparently large family, the dates of the different deaths singularly near to each other. Emily felt as if her own solitary situation had never weighed upon her thoughts till now. "Many are kind to me, but none care for me." Youth, with its affection an impulse and a delight, judges others by itself, and exaggerates its claims.
Strange it is that people (unless in the way of ostentation) never value the blessings they possess. But if life has a happiness over which the primeval curse has passed and harmed not, it is the early and long enduring affection of blood and habit. The passion which concentrates its strength and beauty upon one, is a rich and terrible stake, the end whereof is death;—the living light of existence is burnt out in an hour—and what remains? The dust and the darkness. But the love which is born in childhood—an instinct deepening into a principle—retains to the end something of the freshness belonging to the hour of its birth: the amusement partaken—the trifling quarrel made up—the sorrows shared together—the punishment in which all were involved—the plans for the future, so fairy-tale-like and so false, in which all indulged: so true it is that love's slightest links are its strongest!
There is something inexpressibly touching in the story of Ishmael, the youth who was sent into the wilderness of life with his bow and his arrow, "his hand against every man, and every man's hand against him." Even in our crowded, busy, and social world, on how many is this doom pronounced! What love makes allowances like household love?—what takes an interest in small sorrows and small successes like household love? God forgive those (and I would not even say forgive, were not Divine mercy illimitable,) who turn the household altar to a place of strife! Domestic dissension is the sacrilege of the heart.
Emily looked on the death-stone, and thought only of her uncle—he who had been to her as a father—a father in early kindness—in allowance for failings—in anxiety for her future—delight in her present—to whose affection she owed gratitude a thousand times beyond that due for "the bitter boon, our birth." Gratitude, forsooth!—it ought rather to ask forgiveness. She remembered how her childhood had grown up into youth, how happily!—recalled her first leaving home—then it was that she turned a new leaf in the book of life. She thought over her disappointment at first, her after brief enjoyment—her eyes opening at once to love and sorrow. How much had happened since then!—how much of mortification, how many vain hopes had flowered and then fallen! And yet her heart was still feverish with vague anticipation. With a sick, sad foreboding she thought of returning to England—to Edward Lorraine's country—but not with joy. Emily seemed to herself to have no longer spirits for hope. The quiet of the grave was scarcely too deep for her present mood.
At this moment the stillness of the chapel itself was broken "by a confusion of tongues." First, a coarse and corporeal laugh—that which rises loud at a practical joke; a smaller, shrill, and undecided one—of the sort with which young ladies reply to a compliment equally above their merits and comprehension; also a foreign tongue, like "Iser, rolling rapidly;" and a drawling, yet dictatorial voice, loud above the rest, evidently patronising the prospect:—these "did overload the air." In came the family party, the Higgs's. Mrs. Higgs instantly knew Emily. "Lord, lord, miss, who would have thought of our meeting in these here outlandish parts!"
Emily recognised her companion of the steam-boat, and replied with a good-natured inquiry, asking how she liked Italy?
First glancing round to see whether she was observed—a needless precaution, Mr. Higgs, "her eldest hope," having put himself into a position (even on paper we cannot call it an attitude) of enthusiasm before the statue of the Madonna—while the two daughters were assuring an Italian count, as they called him, that they should like monstrously to be nuns, and he, as in duty bound, dwelt upon the loss which the world would thereby sustain:—"Like Italy?" said Mrs. Higgs—"not I; I hav'n't had a meal fit for a Christian this three months. Why, Lord love you! they are as dirty as ducks—you know what dirty animals ducks are—they'll eat any thing—not but what they are very good roasted, but it's all the difference being dead and alive."
"A very just distinction," said Emily, while her companion paused to take breath and a peppermint lozenge.
"You should go into the kitchens here," resumed Mrs. Higgs. Poor woman! her daughters never allowed her to talk, for fear of her disgracing them—so, as she herself used to observe, a little rational conversation did her good. "You've no notion of the dirt, or you'd never eat nothing: but dear, dear! I dare-say you don't take on about these things yet—you must when you're married. I mind what the Bible says, 'a virtuous woman's a crown to her husband'—many a crown have I saved mine. Not that Mr. Higgs need look after a pound even, now—but, as I tell my girls, it is as well to lay up for a rainy day."
"Have you seen Rome?" asked Miss Arundel.
"Bless you! there was nothing to see—not a shop fit to spend a penny in—and as to comfort, they hav'n't a notion of it. Bob there—I mean Mr. Robert Higgs—has such a taste for the fine arts—he didn't inherit it from me, though—that he would make us go poking about all the great cold rooms to see picturs and staturs. As for those poor staturs, they always set me shivering—they look so like human creaturs froze to death: I am sure, had I been at home, I would have got up a subscription for some cheap flannel for them. You may get very good flannel to give away for sixpence a-yard at the Lunnun Emporium. But, Lord! Lord! one might as well be out of the world as out of Lunnun."
"You have stayed longer on the Continent than you intended."
"It was all on Carry's account—she would go sailing on the lake—what do ye call it?—bless my old head! it never remembers them foreign names—with a friend of ours, Mr. Simcoe—a very nice young man, but melancholic-like—and, being a great poet, he never knew what he was doing just at the time. You know, Miss, genuses are never like nobody but themselves. Carry and he were very sweet upon each other; and as his father was a comfortable man, and could afford to make his son a gentleman, Mr. Higgs and I thought his son's genus would wear off—and young people needn't be crossed in love when there's money on both sides—so Carry and he used to make a deal of love to each other. Poor fellur! he wrote her halbum all full of such beautiful verses—and she used to plait her hair, and dress, and do all sorts of things, to please him. She always used to wear a veil, for he could not abide a bonnet—he said it was so unpoetical-like. Well, well—to make short of a sad story—one evening they would go on the lake, though there was a great big black cloud coming up; but Mr. Simcoe said it would be just like the Coarse-hair, or Courser, or some such name, and spouted some poetry—which, after the sad accident, Mr. Higgs and I learnt by heart, as a warning to our young friends. But, somehow, we never, though we took a world of pains, could remember more than the first two or three lines—for we are too old to begin our schooling over again, and we were neither of us any great shakes at book learning—but two lines will do for an example—a nod's as good as a wink to a blind horse." So saying, Mrs. Higgs repeated the following lines in a most Sunday-school tone:—
"Ay, let the vild vinds vhistle e'er the deck,
So that them arms cling closer round my neck:
The deepest murmur of this mouth shall be,
No sigh for safeness, but a prayer for thee."
Here Mrs. Higgs's voice sank into "tears and forgetfulness." "It isn't, Miss, so much want of memory, as that I am overtaken by my feelings. But, Miss, before I go on with my story, you musn't think nothing of the arms round the neck, because that was only in poetry—you may be pretty sure I should never have allowed no young man whatsumever to take such a liberty with my daughter. I just name this, because, if I did not explain, it might be bad for poor Carry's next chance."
Emily instantly assured the confiding but careful mother, that she entertained no doubts of Miss Caroline Higgs's perfect propriety of conduct; and Mrs. Higgs resumed her narrative.
"Well, into the boat they got. Mr. Simcoe was quite a sailor. I remember he told us he had been on seven-and-twenty parties of pleasure to Richmond. They did look so nice—my daughter had on her best green silk and a white lace veil (real thread) thrown over her head. Mr. S. had a large straw hat, and striped jacket and trousers, and his shirt fastened at the throat by a broach with Carry's hair, for he was always quite above wearing a neckcloth. Dear, dear, they went away singing,
"Oh, come to me as soon as daylight sits;"
and well, Miss—the boat overset. Mr. Simcoe (poor Benjamin—as we have called him since—he never could abide it during his lifetime) was drowned; and my daughter was brought home wet to the skin, and all the colour gone out of her green silk—quite spoilt."
Here Mrs. Higgs paused for a moment, and drew out a huge red pocket-handkerchief, with which her face was for some minutes confounded. Emily, really shocked, remained silent, till her companion, who found talking very efficacious for her complaints, went on again.
"Besides all her sorrow, Carry had caught cold; for she had been in the water, only had got picked up by a boat that was passing, and she was very ill: so, as I said before, she has been the cause of our staying in these here foreign parts. The doctors said the climate was so mild. I am sure we should have been a deal warmer in our own parlour, with a good coal fire, and carpets and curtains. Here, all you can get is a little charcoal in a box—for all the world like a warming-pan, without a handle, and with holes in the top. We've had no Christmas pudding—the boys have been left at school—and people may talk what they please about sunshine and Italy: my say is, that a winter in Rome is no joke."
Emily duly sympathised with her; but, remembering the laughing she had witnessed, could not resist asking, "If Miss Higgs had got over her disappointment?"
"O Lord, yes! it was five months agone. You know a new nail always drives out an old one. Carry got another lover: he didn't, however, turn out very well, for he hadn't sixpence; and, of course, our eldest daughter couldn't have nothing to say to him. But it served to divert her from the thoughts of her grief; and we can look out for a proper husband when we get home; and that's one great reason why I wants to get back to the Square. Carry isn't so young as you'd think: but, bless me, she'd cut my tongue out if she thought I was talking about her age. You won't say nothing about it, will you?"
Emily vowed all imaginable discretion. Mrs. Higgs, who had not enchanted with her discourse any listener's ear so long for many a day, felt, as she herself expressed it, the very cockles of her heart warm towards her pretty and patient listener.
"I hope, my dear, I shall see you in Fitzroy Square: I won't make small beer of you, I can tell you. We'll get up a bit of a dance for you, for we know lots of nice young men."
A cold shiver ran over Emily at the very idea of Mrs. Higgs's "nice young men." Her son at that moment came up, by way of a specimen. "By Jove, mother, we thought we had lost you! rather a large loss that would have been." Seeing that the cause of her lingering was, however, a lady, and one who was both pretty and young, Mr. Robert Higgs, who was an admirer, or, to use his own favourite phrase, "always the humble servant of the ladies," thought, to employ another of his little peculiarities of speech, "his company would be as good as his place;" and, with that quiet, comfortable conviction of his own merits, which sets a man most and soonest at ease, he coolly addressed Miss Arundel:—"Quite, as our great bard says,
'Like patience on a tombstone shivering with sorrow.'
Beautiful lines those of Byron. Don't you admire him, ma'am?"
Mr. R. Higgs considered poetry an infallible topic with young ladies. Emily, however, did not feel that the courteous attention which his mother's age made in her eyes indispensable, at all necessary to be extended to her very forward son.
Mr. Higgs only thought—"Poor thing, dare say she never heard of Byron—knows nothing of poetry—I've been too deep for her;" and forthwith commenced on a lighter subject.
"So, this is a nunnery. I wonder, ma'am, how you'd like to be a nun!—shut up—not allowed to see one of our perjured sex—I suspect you'd be a little dull!"
At this moment Mr. Spenser entered. "I am sent, Miss Arundel, in search of you."
Emily took his arm with a readiness which enchanted Cecil, and left the chapel, bowing civilly to Mrs. Higgs, who, accustomed to her daughter's eternal flirtations, thought she might hold her peace as soon as a young man came, and had from her son's entrance been silent.
"A very plain and vulgar young woman that," said Mr. Robert; "but you always are picking up such horrid people."
"Lord, I thought her such a very pretty-spoken young lady!"
"Well, I don't; and you know I am a bit of a judge. But, come, let's join my sisters, and be jogging home. I feel very peckish—I made but a poor breakfast."
"Dear, dear, we shall have no dinners worth eating till we get to England. I quite long for our good Sunday smell of a piece of roast-beef and a Yorkshire pudding."
The feeling, says some writer, which turns in absence to our native country, is one of the finest in our nature. True; but it takes many forms. One exile sighs after the fair meadows of England, and another after its mutton.