by Mary Shelley
The river sped swiftly on, calm and free. There is always life in a stream, of which a lake is frequently deprived, when sleeping beneath a windless sky. A river pursues for ever its course, accomplishing the task its Creator has imposed, and its waters are for ever changing while they seem the same. It was a balmy summer evening; the air seemed to brood over the earth, warming and nourishing it. All nature reposed, and yet not as a lifeless thing, but with the same enjoyment of rest as gladdened the hearts of the two beings, who, with gratitude and love, drank in the influence of this softest hour of day. The equal splash of the oar, or its dripping when suspended, the clear reflection of tree and lawn in the river, the very colour of the stream, stolen as it was from heaven itself, the plash of the wings of the waterfowl who skimmed the waves towards their rushy nests, — every sound and every appearance was beautiful, harmonious, and soothing. Ethel’s soul was at peace; grateful to Heaven, and satisfied with every thing around her, a tenderness beamed from her eyes, and was diffused over her attitude, and attuned her voice, which acted as a spell to make Edward forget every thing but herself.
They had both been silent for some time, a sweet silence more eloquent than any words, when Ethel observed, “My aunt wishes to return to Longfield.”
Villiers started as if he had trodden upon a serpent, exclaiming, “To Longfield! O yes! that were far best — when shall you go?”
“Why is it best? Why should we go?” asked Ethel with surprise.
“Because,” replied Villiers impetuously, “it had been better that you had never left it — that we had never met! It is not thus that I can fulfil my promise to your father to guard and be kind to his child. I am practising on your ignorance, taking advantage of your loneliness, and doing you an injury, for which I should call any other a villain, were he guilty.”
It was the very delight that Edward had been a moment before enjoying, the very beauty and calmness of nature, and the serenity and kindness of the sweet face turned towards him, which stirred such bitterness; checking himself, however, he continued after a pause, in a more subsided tone.
“Are there any words by which I can lay bare my heart to you, Ethel? — None! To speak of my true and entire attachment, is almost an insult; and to tell you, that I tear myself from you for your own sake, sounds like impertinence. Yet all this is true; and it is the reverence that I have for your excellence, the idolatry which your singleness of heart and sincere nature inspires, which prompts me to speak the truth, though that be different from the usual language of gallantry, or what is called love.
“Will you hate me or pity me most, when I speak of my determination never to see you more? You cannot guess how absolutely I am a ruined man — how I am one of those despicable hangers-on of the rich and noble, who cover my rags with mere gilding. I am a beggar — I have not a shilling that I can call my own, and it is only by shifts and meannesses that I can go on from day to day, while each one menaces me with a prison or flight to a foreign country.
“I shall go — and you will regret me, Ethel, or you will despise me. It were best of all that you forgot me. I am not worthy of you — no man could be; that I have known you and loved you — and for your sake, banished myself from you, will be the solitary ray of comfort that will shed some faint glow over my chilled and darkened existence. Will you say even now one word of comfort to me?”
Ethel looked up; the pure affectionateness of her heart prevented her from feeling for herself, she thought only of her lover. “Would that I could comfort you,” she said. “You will do what you think right, and that will be your best consolation. Do not speak of hatred, or contempt, or indifference. I shall not change though we part for ever: how is it possible that I should ever cease to feel regard for one who has ever been kind, considerate, and generous to me? Go, if you think it right — I am a foolish girl, and know nothing of the world; and I will not doubt that you decide for the best.”
Villiers took her hand and held it in his; his heart was penetrated by her disinterested self-forgetfulness and confidence. He felt that he was loved, and that he was about to part from her for ever. The pain and pleasure of these thoughts mingled strangely — he had no words to express them, he felt that it would be easier to die than to give her up.
Aunt Bessy, on the river’s bank imploring their return, recalled them from the fairy region to which their spirits had wandered. For one moment they had been united in sentiment; one kindred emotion of perfect affection had, as it were, married their souls one to the other; at the alien sound of poor Bessy’s voice the spell fled away on airy wings, leaving them disenchanted. The rudder was turned, the boat reached the shore, and unable to endure frivolous talk about any subject except the one so near his heart, Villiers departed and rode back to town, miserable yet most happy — despairing yet full of joy; to such a riddle, love, which finds its completion in sympathy, and knows no desire beyond, is the only solution.
The feelings of Ethel were even more unalloyed. She had no doubts about the future, the present embraced the world. She did not attempt to unravel the dreamy confusion of her thoughts, or to clear up the golden mist that hung before, curtaining most gloriously the reality beyond. Her step was buoyant, her eyes sparkling and joyous. Love and gladness sat lightly on her bosom, and gratitude to Heaven for bestowing so deep a sense of happiness was the only sentiment that mingled with these. Villiers, on leaving them, had promised to return the next day; and on the morrow she rose, animated with such a spirit as may be kindled within the bosom of an Enchantress, when she pronounces the spell which is to controul the movements of the planetary orbs. She was more than queen of the world, for she was empress of Edward’s heart, and ruling there, she reigned over the course of destiny, and bent to her will the conflicting elements of life.
He did not come. It was strange. Now hope, now fear, were interchanged one for the other, till night and certain disappointment arrived. Yet it was not much — the morrow’s sun would light him on his way to her. To cheat the lagging hours of the morrow, she occupied herself with her painting and music, tasking herself to give so many hours to her employments, thus to add speed to the dilatory walk of time. The long day was passed in fruitless expectation — another and another succeeded. Was he ill? What strange mutation in the course of nature had occurred to occasion so inexplicable an absence?
A week went by, and even a second was nearly spent. She had not anticipated this estrangement. Day by day she went over in her mind their last conversation, and Edward’s expressions gathered decision and a gloomy reality as she pondered on them. The idea of an heroic sacrifice on his part, and submission to his will on hers, at first soothed her — but never to see him more, was an alternative that tasked her fortitude too high; and while her heart felt all the tumults of despair, she found herself asking what his love could be, that could submit to lose her? Love in a cottage is the dream of many a high-born girl, who is not allowed to dance with a younger brother at Almack’s; but asecluded, an obscure, an almost cottage life, was all that Ethel had ever known, and all that she coveted. Villiers rejected this — not for her sake, that could not be, but for the sake of a world, which he called frivolous and vain, and yet to whose tyranny he bowed. To disentwine the tangled skein of thought which was thus presented, was her task by day and night. She awoke in the morning, and her first thought was, “Will he come?” She retired at night, and sleep visited her eyes, while she was asking herself, “Why has he not been?” During the day, these questions, in every variety, forced her attention. To escape from her aunt, to seek solitude, to listen to each sound that might be his horse, and to feel her heart sicken at the still renewed disappointment, became, in spite of herself, all her occupation: she might bend over her drawing, or escape from her aunt’s conversation to the piano; but these were no longer employments, but rather means adopted to deliver herself up more entirely to her reveries.
The third, the fourth week came, and the silence of death was between Ethel and her friend. O but
for one word, one look to break the spell! Was she indeed never to see him more? Was all, all over? — was the harmony their two hearts made, jarred into discord? — was she again the orphan, alone in the world? — and was the fearless reliance she had placed upon fate and Edward’s fidelity, mere folly or insanity? — and was desecration and forgetfulness to come over and to destroy the worship she had so fondly cherished? Nothing had she to turn to — nothing to console her. Her life became one thought, it twined round her soul like a serpent, and compressed and crushed every other emotion with its folds. “I could bear all,” she thought, “were I permitted to see him only once again.”
She and Mrs. Fitzhenry were invited by Mrs. Humphries to dine with her. They were asked to the awful ceremony of spending a long day, which, in the innocence of her heart, Mrs. Fitzhenry fancied the most delightful thing in the world. She thought that kindness and friendship demanded of her that she should be in Montague-square by ten in the morning. Notwithstanding every exertion, she could not get there till two, and then, when luncheon was over, she wondered why the gap of time till seven appeared so formidable. This was to be got over by a drive in Hyde-park. Ethel had shown peculiar pleasure in the idea of visiting London; she had looked bright and happy during their journey to town, but anxiety and agitation clouded her face, at the thought of the park, of the crisis about to arrive, at the doubt and hope she entertained of finding Villiers there.
The park became crowded, but he was not in the drive; at length he entered in the midst of a bevy of fair cousins, whom Ethel did not know as such. He entered on horseback, flanked on either side by pretty equestrians, looking as gay and light-hearted, as she would have done, had she been one, the chosen one among his companions. Twice he passed. The first time his head was averted — he saw nothing, she even did not see his face: the next time, his eye caught the aspect of the well-known chariot — he glanced eagerly at those it contained, kissed his hand, and went on. Ethel’s heart died within her. It was all over. She was the neglected, the forgotten; but while she turned her face to the other window of the carriage, so to hide its saddened expression from her companion, a voice, the dearest, sweetest voice she had ever heard, the soft harmonious voice, whose accents were more melodious than music, asked, “Are you in town? have you left Richmond?” In spite of herself, a smile mantled over her countenance, dimpling it into gladness, and she turned to see the beloved speaker who had not deserted her — who was there; she turned, but there was no answering glance of pleasure in the face of Villiers — he looked grave, and bowed, as if in this act of courtesy he fulfilled all of friendly interchange that was expected of him, and rode off. He was gone — and seen no more.
CHAPTER IX.
Sure, when the separation has been tried.
That we, who part in love, shall meet again.
— Wordsworth.
This little event roused Ethel to the necessity of struggling with the sentiment to which hitherto she had permitted unquestioned power. There had been a kind of pleasure mingled with her pain, while she believed that she suffered for her lover’s sake, and in obedience to his will. To love in solitude and absence, was, she well knew, the lot of many of her sex, and all that is imaginative and tender lends poetry to the emotion. But to love without return, her father had taught her was shame and folly — a dangerous and undignified sentiment that leads many women into acts of humiliation and misery. He spoke the more warmly on this subject, because he desired to guard his daughter by every possible means from a fate too common. He knew the sensibility and constancy of her nature. He dreaded to think that these should be played upon, and that her angelic sweetness should be sacrificed at the altar of hopeless passion. That all the powers he might gift her with, all the fortitude and all the pride that he strove to instil, might be insufficient to prevent this one grand evil, he too well knew; but all that could should be done, and his own high-souled Ethel should rise uninjured from the toils of the snarer, the heartless game of the unfaithful lover.
She steeled her heart against every softer thought, she tasked herself each day to devote her entire attention to some absorbing employment; to languages and the composition of music, as occupations that would not permit her thoughts to stray. She felt a pain deep-seated in her inmost heart; but she refused to acknowledge it. When a thought, too sweet and bitter, took perforce possession of the chambers of her brain, she drove it out with stern and unshaken resolve. She pondered on the best means to subdue every rebel idea. She rose with the sun, and passed much time in the open air, that when night came, bodily fatigue might overpower mental regrets. She conversed with her aunt again about her dear lost father; that, by renewing images, so long the only ones dear to her, every subsequent idea might be driven from the place it had usurped. Always she was rewarded by the sense of doing right, often by really mitigating the anguish which rose and went to rest with her, and awakening her in the morning, stung her to renew her endeavours, while it whispered too audibly, “I am here.” She grew pale and thin, and her eyes again resumed that lustre which spoke a quick and agitated life within. Her endeavours, by being unremitting, gave too much intensity to every feeling, and made her live each moment of her existence a sensitive, conscious life, wearing out her frame, and threatening, while it accelerated the pulses, to exhaust betimes the animal functions.
She felt this; and she roused herself to contend afresh with her own heart. As a last resource she determined to quit Richmond. Her struggles, and the energy called into action by her fortitude, gave a tone of superiority to her mind, which her aunt felt and submitted to. Now when a change of residence was determined upon, she at once negatived the idea of returning to Longfield — yet whither else betake themselves? Ethel no longer concealed from herself that she and the worthy spinster were solitary wanderers on earth, cut off from human intercourse. A bitter sense of desolation had crept over her from the moment that she knew herself to be deserted by Villiers. All that was bright in her position darkened into shadow. She shrunk into herself when she reflected, that should the ground at her feet open and swallow her, not one among her fellow-creatures would be sensible that the whole universe of thought and feeling, which emanated from her breathing spirit, as water from a living spring, was shrunk up and strangled in a narrow, voiceless grave. A short time before she had regarded death without terror, for her father had been its prey, and his image was often shadowed forth in her fancy, beckoning her to join him. Now it had become more difficult to die. Nature and love were wedded in her mind, and it was a bitter pang for one so young to bid adieu to both for ever. Turning her thoughts from Villiers, she would have been glad to discover any link that might enchain her to the mass. She reverted to her mother. Her inexperience, her youth, and the timidity of her disposition, prevented her from making any endeavour to break through the wall of unnatural separation raised between them. She could only lament. One sign, one word from Lady , would have been balm to her poor heart, and she would have met it with fervent gratitude. But she feared to offend. She had no hope that any advance would have been met by other than a disdainful repulse; and she shrunk from intruding herself on her unwilling parent. She often wept to think that there was none near to support and comfort her, and yet that at the distance of but a few miles her mother lived — whose very name was the source of the dearest, sweetest, and most cruel emotions. She thought, therefore, of her surviving parent only to despair, and to shrink with terror from the mere possibility of an accidental meeting.
She earnestly desired to leave England, which had treated her with but a step-mother’s welcome, and to travel away, she knew not whither. Yet most she wished to go to Italy. Her father had often talked of taking her to that country, and it was painted in her eyes with the hues of paradise. She spoke of her desire to her aunt, who thought her mad, and believed that it was as easy to adventure to the moon, as for two solitary women to brave alps and earthquakes, banditti and volcanoes, a savage people and an unknown land. Still, even while she trembl
ed at the mere notion, she felt that Ethel might lead her thither if she pleased. It is one of the most beneficent dispensations of the Creator, that there is nothing so attractive and attaching as affection. The smile of an infant may command absolutely, because its source is in dependent love, and the human heart for ever yearns for such demonstration from another. What would this strange world be without that “touch of nature?” It is to the immaterial universe, what light is to the visible creation, scent to the flower, hue to the rainbow; hope, joy, succour, and self-forgetfulness, where otherwise all would be swallowed up in vacant and obscure egotism.
No one could approach Ethel without feeling that she possessed an irresistible charm. The overflowing and trusting affectionateness of her nature was a loadstone to draw all hearts. Each one felt, even without knowing wherefore, that it was happiness to obey, to gratify her. Thus while a journey to Italy filled Mrs. Elizabeth with alarm, a consent hovered on her lips, because she felt that any risk was preferable to disappointing a wish of her gentle niece.