by Mary Shelley
And yet even then Ethel paused. She began to repent her desire of leaving the country inhabited by her dearest friend. She felt that she should have an uncongenial companion in her aunt — the child of the wilderness and the good lady of Longfield, were like a living and dead body in conjunction — the one inquiring, eager, enthusiastic even in her contemplativeness, sensitively awake to every passing object; while the other dozed her hours away, and fancied that pitfalls and wild beasts menaced her, if she dared step one inch from the beaten way.
At this moment, while embarrassed by the very yielding to her desires, and experiencing a lingering sad regret for all that she was about to leave behind, Ethel received a letter from Villiers. Her heart beat, and her fingers trembled, when first she saw, as now she held a paper, which might be every thing, yet might be nothing to her; she opened it at last, and forced herself to consider and understand its contents. It was as follows: —
“Dear Miss Fitzhenry, “Will your aunt receive me with her wonted kindness when I call to-morrow? I fear to have offended by an appearance of neglect, while my heart has never been absent from Richmond. Plead my cause, I entreat you. I leave it in your hands.
“Ever and ever yours.
“Edward Villiers.”
Grosvenor Square, Saturday.
“Dearest Ethel, have you guessed at my sufferings? Shall you hail with half the joy that I do, a change which enables you to revoke the decree of absence so galling at least to one of us? If indeed you have not forgotten me, I shall be rewarded for the wretchedness of these last weeks.”
Ethel kissed the letter and placed it near her heart. A calm joy diffused itself over her mind; and that she could indeed trust and believe in him she loved, was the source of a grateful delight, more medicinal than all the balmy winds of Italy and its promised pleasures.
When Villiers had last quitted Richmond, he had resolved not to expose himself again to the influence of Ethel. It was necessary that they should be divided — how far better that they should never meet again! He was not worthy of her. Another, more fortunate, would replace him, if he sacrificed his own selfish feelings, and determinately absented himself from her. As if to confirm his view of their mutual interest, his elder cousin, Mr. Saville, had just offered his hand to the daughter of a wealthy Earl, and had been accepted. Villiers took refuge from his anxious thoughts among his pretty cousins, sisters of the bridegroom, and with them the discussion of estates, settlements, princely mansions, and equipages, was the order of the day. Edward sickened to reflect how opposite would be the prospect, if his marriage with Ethel were in contemplation. It was not that a noble establishment would be exchanged for a modest, humble dwelling — he loved with sufficient truth to feel that happiness with Ethel transcended the wealth of the world. It was the absolute penury, the debt, the care, that haunted him and made such miserable contrast with the tens and hundreds of thousands that were the subject of discussion on the present occasion. His resolution not to entangle Ethel in this wilderness of ills, gained strength by every chance word that fell from the lips of those around him; and the image, before so vivid, of her home at Richmond, which he might at each hour enter, of her dear face, which at any minute might again bless his sight, faded into a far-off vision of paradise, from which he was banished for ever.
For a time he persevered in his purpose, if not with ease, yet with less of struggle than he himself anticipated. That he could at any hour break the self-enacted law, and behold Ethel, enabled him day after day to continue to obey it, and to submit to the decree of banishment he had passed upon himself. He loved his pretty cousins, and their kindness and friendship soothed him; he spent his days with them, and the familiar, sisterly intercourse, hallowed by long association, and made tender by the grace and sweetness of these good girls, compensated somewhat for the absence of deeper interest. They talked of Horatio also, and that was a more touching string than all. The almost worship, joined to pity and fear for him, with which Edward regarded his cousin, made him cling fondly to those so closely related to him, and who sympathized with, and shared, his enthusiastic affection.
This state of half indifference did not last long. His meeting with Ethel in Hyde Park operated an entire change. He had seen her face but a moment — her dear face, animated with pleasure at beholding him, and adorned with more than her usual loveliness. He hurried away, but the image still pursued him. All at once the world around grew dark and blank; at every instant his heart asked for Ethel. He thirsted for the sweet delight of gazing on her soft lustrous eyes, touching her hand, listening to her voice, whose tones were so familiar and beloved. He avoided his cousins to hide his regrets; he sought solitude, to commune with memory; and the intense desire kindled within him to return to her, was all but irresistible. He had received a letter from Horace Saville entreating him to join him at Naples; he had contemplated complying, as a means of obtaining forgetfulness. Should he not, on the contrary, make this visit with Ethel for his companion? It was a picture of happiness most enticing; and then he recollected with a pang, that it was impossible for him to quit England; that it was only by being on the spot, that he obtained the supplies necessary for his existence. With bitterness of spirit he recognized once again his state of beggary, and the hopelessness that attended on all his wishes.
All at once he was surprised by a message from his father, through Lord Maristow. He was told of Colonel Villiers’s intended marriage with the only daughter of a wealthy commoner, which yet could not be arranged without the concurrence of Edward, or rather without sacrifices on his part for the making of settlements. The entire payment of his debts, and the promise of fifteen hundred a year for the future, were the bribes offered to induce him to consent. Edward at once notified his compliance. He saw the hour of freedom at hand, and the present was too full of interest, too pregnant with misery or happiness, to allow the injury done to his future prospects to weigh with him for a moment. Thus he might purchase his union with Ethel — claim her for his own. With the thought, a whole tide of tenderness and joy poured quick and warm into his heart, and it seemed as if he had never loved so devotedly as now. How false an illusion had blinded him! he fancied that he had banished hope, while indeed his soul was wedded to her image, and the very struggle to free himself, had served to make the thought of her more peremptory and indelible.
With these thoughts, he again presented himself at Richmond. He asked Mrs. Fitzhenry’s consent to address her niece, and became the accepted lover of Ethel. The meeting of their two young hearts in the security of an avowed attachment, after so many hours wasted in despondency and painful struggles, did not visit the fair girl with emotions of burning transport: she felt it rather like a return to a natural state of things, after unnatural deprivation. As if, a young nestling, she had been driven from her mother’s side, and was now restored to the dear fosterage of her care. She delivered herself up to a calm reliance upon the future, and saw in the interweaving of duty and affection, the fulfilment of her destiny, and the confirmation of her earthly happiness. They were to be joined never to part more! While each breathed the breath of life, no power could sever them; health or sickness, prosperity or adversity — these became mere words; her health and her riches were garnered in his heart, and while she bestowed the treasures of her affection upon him, could he be poor? It was not therefore to be her odious part to crush the first and single attachment of her soul — to tear at once the “painted veil of life,” delivering herself up to cheerless realities — to know that, to do right, she must banish from her recollection those inward-spoken vows which she should deem herself of a base inconstant disposition ever to forget. It was not reserved for her to pass joyless years of solitude, reconciling herself to the necessity of divorcing her dearest thoughts from their wedded image. The serene and fair-showing home she coveted was open before her — she might pass within its threshold, and listen to the closing of the doors behind, as they shut out the world from her, with pure and unalloyed delight.
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Ethel was very young, yet in youth such feelings are warmer in our hearts than in after years. We do not know then that we can ever change; or that, snake-like, casting the skin of an old, care-worn habit, a new one will come fresh and bright in seeming, as the one before had been, at the hour of its birth. We fancy then, that if our present and first hope is disappointed, our lives are a mere blank, not worth a “pin’s fee;” the singleness of our hearts has not been split into the million hair-like differences, which, woven by time into one texture, clothes us in prudence as with a garment. We are as if exposed naked to the action of passions and events, and receive their influence with keen and fearful sensitiveness. Ethel scarcely heard, and did not listen to nor understand, the change of circumstances that brought Villiers back to her — she only knew, that he was confirmed her own. Satisfied with this delightful conclusion to her sufferings, she placed her destiny in his hands, without fear or question.
Mrs. Elizabeth thought her niece very young to marry; but Villiers, who had, while hesitating, done his best to hide his sweet Ethel away from every inquisitive eye, now that she was to be his own, hastened to introduce Lord Maristow (Lady Maristow had died two years before) to her, and to bring her among his cousins, whom her regarded as sisters. The change was complete and overwhelming to the fair recluses. Where before they lived in perpetual tête-à-tête, or separated but to be alone, they were now plunged into what appeared to them a crowd. Sophia, Harriet, and Lucy Saville, were high-born, high-bred, and elegant girls, accustomed to what they called the quiet of domestic life, amidst a thousand relations and ten thousand acquaintances. No female relative had stepped into their mother’s place, and they were peculiarly independent and high-spirited; they had always lived in what they called the world, and knew nothing but what that world contained. Their manners were easy, their tempers equable and affectionate. If their dispositions were not all exactly alike, they had a family resemblance that drew them habitually near each other. They received Ethel among their number with cordiality, bestowing on her every attention which politeness and kindness dictated. Yet Ethel felt somewhat as a wild antelope among tame ones. Their language, the topics of their discourse, their very occupations, were all new to her. She lent herself to their customs with smiles and sweetness, but her eye brightened when Edward came, and she often unconsciously retreated to his side as a shelter and a refuge. Edward’s avocations had been as worldly perhaps as those of his pretty cousins; but a man is more thrown upon the reality of life, while girls live altogether in a factitious state. He had travelled much, and seen all sorts of people. Besides, between him and Ethel, there was that mute language which will make those of opposite sexes intelligible to one another, even when literally not understanding each other’s dialect. Villiers found no deficiency of intelligence or sympathy in Ethel, while the fashionable girls to whom he had introduced her felt a little at a loss how to entertain the stranger.
Lord Maristow and his family had been detained in town till after Mr. Saville’s marriage, and were now very eager to leave it. They remained out of compliment to Edward, and looked forward impatiently to his wedding as the event that would set them free. London was empty, the shooting season had begun; yet still he was delayed by his father. He wished to sign the necessary papers, and free himself from all business, that he and his bride might immediately join Horatio at Naples. Yet still Colonel Villiers’s marriage was delayed; till at last he intimated to his son, that it was postponed for the present, and begged that he would not remain in England on his account.
Edward was somewhat staggered by this intelligence. Yet as the letter that communicated it contained a considerable remittance, he quieted himself. To give up Ethel now was a thought that did not for a moment enter his mind; it was but the reflection of the difficulties that would surround them, if his prospects failed, that for a few seconds clouded his brow with care. But it was his nature usually to hope the best, and to trust to fortune. He had never been so prudent as with regard to his marriage with Ethel; but that was for her sake. This consideration could not again enter; for, like her, he would, under the near hope of making her his, have preferred the wilds of the Illinois, with her for his wife, than the position of the richest English nobleman, deprived of such a companion. His heart, delivered up to love, was complete in its devotion and tenderness. He was already wedded to her in soul, and would sooner have severed his right arm from his body, than voluntarily have divided himself from this dearer part of himself. This “other half,” towards whom he felt as if literally he had, to give her being, “Lent Out of his side to her, nearest his heart; Substantial life, to have her by his side, Henceforth an individual solace dear.”
With these feelings, an early day was urged and named; and, drawing near, Ethel was soon to become a bride. On first making his offer, Villiers had written to Lady ; and Mrs. Fitzhenry, much against her will, by the advice of her solicitor, did the same. Lady Lodore was in Scotland. No answer came. The promised day approached; but still she preserved this silence: it became necessary to proceed without her consent. Banns were published; and Ethel became the wife of Villiers on the 25th of October. Lord Maristow hastened down to his Castle to kill pheasants: while, on her part, Mrs. Fitzhenry took her solitary way to Longfield, half consoled for separating from Ethel, by this return to the habits of more than sixty years. In vain had London or Richmond wooed her stay; in vain was she pressed to pay a visit to Maristow Castle: to return to her home was a more enticing prospect. Her good old heart danced within her when she first perceived the village steeple; the chimneys of her own house made tears spring into her eyes; and when, indeed, she found herself by the familiar hearth, in the accustomed arm-chair, and her attentive housekeeper came to ask if she would not take any thing after her journey, it seemed to her as if all the delights of life were summed up in this welcome return to monotony and silence.
CHAPTER X.
Let me
Awake your love to my uncomforted brother.
— Old Play.
Meanwhile Villiers and his bride proceeded on their way to Naples. It mattered little to Ethel whither they were going, or to whom. Edward was all in all to her; and the vehicle that bore them along in their journey was a complete and perfect world, containing all that her heart desired. They avoided large towns, and every place where there was any chance of meeting an acquaintance. They passed up the Rhine, and Ethel often imaged forth, in her fancy, a dear home in a secluded nook; and longed to remain there, cut off from the world, for ever. She had no thought but for her husband, and gratitude to Heaven for the happiness showered on her. Her soul might have been laid bare, each faculty examined, each idea sifted, and one spirit, one sentiment, one love, would have been found pervading and uniting them all. The heart of a man is seldom as single and devoted as that of a woman. In the present instance, it was natural that Edward should not be so absolutely given up to one thought as was his bride. Ethel’s affections had never been called forth except by her father, and by him who was now her husband. When it has been said, that she thought of heaven to hallow and bless her happiness, it must be understood that the dead made a part of that heaven, to which she turned her eyes with such sweet thankfulness. She was constant to the first affection of her heart. She might be said to live perpetually in thought beside her father’s grave. Before she had wept and sorrowed near it; now she placed the home of her happy married life close to the sacred earth, and fancied that its mute inhabitant was the guardian angel to watch over and preserve her.
Villiers had lived among many friends, and was warmly attached to several. His cousin Horatio was dearer to him than any thing had ever been, till he knew Ethel. Even now he revered him more, and felt a kind of duteous attachment drawing him towards him. He wanted Horatio to see and approve of Ethel: — not that he doubted what his opinion of her would be; but the delight which his own adoration of her excellence imparted to him would be doubled, when he saw it shared and confirmed by his friend. Besides this,
he was anxious to see Horace on his own account. He wished to know whether he was happy in his marriage; whether Clorinda were worthy of him; and if Lady were entirely forgotten. As they advanced on their journey, his desire to see his cousin became more and more present to his mind; and he talked of him to Ethel, and imparted to her a portion of his fervent and affectionate feelings.
Entering Switzerland, they came into a world of snow. Here and there, on the southern side of a mountain, a lawny upland might disclose itself in summer verdure; and the brawling torrents, increased by the rains, were not yet made silent by frost. Edward had visited these scenes before; and he could act the guide to his enraptured Ethel, who remembered her father’s glowing descriptions; and while she gazed with breathless admiration, saw his step among the hills, and thought that his eye had rested on the wonders she now beheld. Soon the mountains, the sky-seeking “palaces of nature,” were passed, and they entered fair, joyous Italy. At each step they left winter far behind. Ethel would willingly have lingered in Florence and Rome; but once south of the Appenines, Edward was eager to reach Naples; and the letters he got from Saville spurred him on to yet greater speed.
Before leaving England, Lucy Saville had said to Ethel,—”You are now taking our other comfort from us; and what we are to do without either Horatio or Edward, I am unable to conjecture. We shall be like a house without its props. Divided, they are not either of them half what they were joined. Horace is so prudent, so wise, so considerate, so sympathizing; Edward so active and so kind-hearted. In any difficulty, we always asked Horace what we ought to do; and Edward did the thing which he pointed out.