Complete Works of Mary Shelley

by Mary Shelley

  “Horatio’s marriage was a sad blow to us all. You will bring Edward back, and we shall be the happier for your being with him; but shall we ever see our brother again? — or shall we only see him to lament the change? Not that he can ever really alter; his heart, his understanding, his goodness, are as firm as rock; but there is that about him which makes him too much the slave of those he is in immediate contact with. He abhors strife; the slightest disunion is mortal to him. He is not of this world. Pure-minded as a woman, honourable as a knight of old, he is more like a being we read of, and his match is not to be found upon earth. Horatio never loved but once, and his attachment was unfortunate. He loved Lady—” Here recollection dyed Miss Saville’s cheeks with crimson: she had forgotten that Lady was the mother of Ethel. After a moment’s hesitation she continued:—”I have no right to betray the secrets of others. Horace was a discarded lover; and he was forced to despise the lady whom he had imagined possessed of every excellence. For the first time he was absorbed in what may be termed a selfish sentiment. He could not bear to see any of us: he fled even from Edward, and wandering away, we heard at last that he was at Naples, whither he had gone quite unconscious of the spot of earth to which he was bending his steps. The first letter we got from him was dated from that place. His letter was to me; for I am his favourite sister; and God knows my devoted affection, my worship of him, deserves this preference. You shall read it; it is the most perfect specimen of enthusiastic and heart-moving eloquence ever penned. He had been as in a trance, and awoke again to life as he looked down from Pausilippo on the Bay of Naples. The attachment to one earthly object, which preyed on his being, was suddenly merged in one universal love and adoration. He saw that the “creation was good;” he purged his heart at once of the black spot which had blotted and marred its beauty; and opened his whole soul to pure, elevated, heavenly love. I tamely quote his burning and transparent expressions, through which you may discern, as in a glass, the glorious excellence of his soul.

  “But, alas! this state of holy excitement could not endure; something human will still creep in to mingle with and sully our noblest aspirations. Horatio was taken by an acquaintance to see a beautiful girl at a convent; in a fatal moment an English lady said to him, ‘Come, and I will show you what perfect beauty is:’ and those words decided my poor brother’s destiny. Of course I only know our new sister through his letters. He told us that Clorinda was shut up in this convent through the heartless vanity of her mother, who dreaded her as a rival, to wait there till her parents should find some suitable match, which she must instantly accept, or be doomed to seclusion for ever. In his younger days Horace had said, ‘I am in love with an idea, and therefore women have no power over me.’ But the time came when his heart was to be the dupe of his imagination — so was it with his first love — so now, I fear, did he deceive himself with regard to Clorinda. He declared indeed that his love for her was not an absorbing passion like his first, but a mingling of pity, admiration, and that tenderness which his warm heart was ever ready to bestow. He described her as full of genius and sensibility, a creature of fire and power, but dimmed by sorrow, and struggling with her chains. He visited her again; he tried to comfort, he offered to serve her. It was the first time that a manly, generous spirit had ever presented itself to the desponding girl. The high-souled Englishman appeared as a god beside her sordid countrymen; indeed, Horatio would have seemed such compared with any of his sex; his fascination is irresistible — Clorinda felt it; she loved him with Italian fervour, and the first word of kindness from him elicited a whole torrent of gratitude and passion. Horace had no wish to marry; his old wound was by no means healed, but rather opened, and bled afresh, when he was called upon to answer the enthusiastic ardour of the Italian girl. He felt at once the difference of his feeling for her, and the engrossing sentiment of which he had been nearly the victim. But he could rescue her from an unworthy fate, and make her happy. He acted with his usual determination and precipitancy, and within a month she became his wife. Here ends my story; his letters were more concise after his marriage. At first I attributed this to his having a new and dearer friend, but latterly when he has written he has spoken with such yearning fondness for home, that I fear — And then when I offered to visit him, he negatived my proposition. How unlike Horatio! it can only mean that his wife was averse to my coming. I have questioned slightly any travellers from Italy. Mrs. Saville seldom appears in English society except at balls, and then she is always surrounded by Italians. She is decidedly correct in her conduct, but more I cannot tell. Her letters to us are beautifully written, and of her talents, even her genius, I do not entertain a doubt. Perhaps I am prejudiced, but I fear a Neapolitan, or rather, I should say, I fear a convent education; and that taste which leads her to associate with her own demonstrative, unrefined countrymen, instead of trying to link herself to her husband’s friends. I may be wrong — I shall be glad to be found so. Will you tell me whether I am? I rather ask you than Edward, because your feminine eyes will discern the truth of these things quicker than he. Happy girl! you are going to see Horatio — to find a new, gifted, fond friend; one as superior to his fellow-creatures, as perfection is superior to frailty.”

  This account, remembered with more interest now that she approached the subject of it, excited Ethel’s curiosity, and she began, as they went on their way from Rome to Naples, in a great degree to participate in Edward’s eagerness to see his cousin.

  CHAPTER XI.

  Sad and troubled?

  How brave her anger shows! How it sets off

  Her natural beauty! Under what happy star

  Was Virolet born, to be beloved and sought

  By two incomparable women?

  — Fletcher.

  It was the month of December when the travellers arrived at this “piece of heaven dropt upon earth,” as the natives themselves name it. The moon hung a glowing orb in the heavens, and lighted up the sea to beauty. A blood-red flash shot up now and then from Vesuvius; a summer softness was in the atmosphere, while a thousand tokens presented themselves of a climate more friendly, more joyous, and more redundant than that of the northern Isle from which they came. It was very late at night when they reached their hotel, and they were heartily fatigued, so that it was not till the next morning, that immediately after breakfast, Villiers left Ethel, and went out to seek the abode of his cousin.

  He had been gone some little time, when a waiter of the hotel, throwing open Ethel’s drawing-room door, announced “Signor Orazio.” Quite new to Italy, Ethel was ignorant of the custom in that country, of designating people by their christian names; and that Horatio Saville, being a resident in Naples, and married to a Neapolitan, was known everywhere by the appellation which the servant now used. Ethel was not in the least aware that it was Lucy’s brother who presented himself to her. She saw a gentleman, tall, very slight in person, with a face denoting habitual thoughtfulness, and stamped by an individuality which she could not tell whether to think plain, and yet it was certainly open and kind. An appearance of extreme shyness, almost amounting to awkwardness, was diffused over him, and his words came hesitatingly; he spoke English, and was an Englishman — so much Ethel discovered by his first words, which were, “Villiers is not at home?” and then he began to ask her about her journey, and how she liked the view of the bay of Naples, which she beheld from her windows. They were in this kind of trivial conversation when Edward came bounding up-stairs, and with exclamations of delight greeted his cousin. Ethel, infinitely surprised, examined her guest with more care. In a few minutes she began to wonder how she came to think him plain. His deep-set, darkgrey eyes struck her as expressive, if not handsome. His features were delicately moulded, and his fine forehead betokened depth of intellect; but the charm of his face was a kind of fitful, beamy, inconstant smile, which diffused incomparable sweetness over his physiognomy. His usual look was cold and abstracted — his eye speculated with an inward thoughtfulness — a chilling seriousness sat
on his features, but this glancing and varying half-smile came to dispel gloom, and to invite and please those with whom he conversed. His voice was modulated by feeling, his language was fluent, graceful in its turns of expression, and original in the thoughts which it expressed. His manners were marked by high breeding, yet they were peculiar. They were formed by his individual disposition, and under the dominion of sensibility. Hence they were often abrupt and reserved. He forgot the world around him, and gave token, by absence of mind, of the absorbing nature of his contemplations. But at a touch this vanished, and a sweet earnestness, and a beaming kindliness of spirit, at once displaced his abstraction, rendering him attentive, cordial, and gay.

  Never had Horatio Saville appeared to so little advantage as during his short tête-à-tête with his new relative. At all times, when quiescent, he had a retiring manner, and an appearance, whose want of pretension did not at first allure, and yet which afterwards formed his greatest attraction. He was always unembarrassed, and Ethel could not guess that towards her alone he felt as timid and shy as a girl. It was with considerable effect that Horatio had commanded himself to appear before the daughter of Lady . There was something incongruous and inconceivable in the idea of the child of Cornelia a woman, married to his cousin. He feared to see in her an image of the being who had subdued his heart of hearts, and laid prostrate his whole soul; he trembled to catch the sound of her voice, lest it might echo tones which could disturb to their depths his inmost thoughts. Ethel was so unlike her mother, that by degrees he became reassured; her eyes, her hair, her stature, and tall slender shape, were the reverse of Lady Lodore; so that in a little while he ventured to raise his eyes to her face, and to listen to her, without being preoccupied by a painful sensation, which, in its violence, resembled terror. It is true that by degrees this dissimilarity to her mother became less; she had gestures, smiles, and tones, that were all Lady Lodore, and which, when discerned, struck his heart with a pang, stealing away his voice, and causing him to stand suspended in the act he was about, like one acted upon by magic.

  While this mute and curious examination was going on in the minds of Ethel and her visitant, the conversation had not tarried. Edward had never been so far south, and the wonders of Naples were as new to him as to Ethel. Saville was eager to show them, and proposed going that very day to Pompeii. For, as he said, all their winter was not like the present day, so that it was best to seize the genial weather while it lasted. Was Mrs. Villiers too much fatigued? On the contrary, Ethel was quite on the alert; but first she asked whether Mrs. Saville would not accompany them.

  “Clorinda,” said Horatio, “promises herself much pleasure from your acquaintance, and intends calling on you to-day at twenty-four o’clock, that is, at the Ave Maria: how stupid I am,” he continued, laughing, “I quite forget that you are not Italianized, as I am, and do not know the way in which the people here count their time. Clorinda will call late in the afternoon, the usual visiting hour at Naples, but she would find no pleasure in visiting a ruined city and fallen fragments. One house in the Chiaja is worth fifty Pompeiis in the eyes of a Neapolitan, and Clorinda is one, heart and soul. I hope you will be pleased with her, for she is an admirable specimen of her countrywomen, and they are wonderful and often sublime creatures in their way; but do not mistake her for an English woman, or you will be disappointed — she has not one atom of body, one particle of mind, that bears the least affinity to England. And now, is your carriage ordered? — there it is at the door; so, as I should say to one of my own dear sistes, put on your bonnet, Ethel, quickly, and do not keep us waiting; for though at Naples, days are short in December, and we have none of their light to lose.”

  When, after this explanation, Ethel first saw Clorinda, she was inclined to think that Saville had scarcely done his wife justice. Certainly she was entirely Italian, but she was very beautiful; her complexion was delicate, though dark and without much colour. Her hair silken and glossy as the raven’s wing; her large bright black eyes resplendent; the perfect arch of her brows, and the marmoreal and harmonious grace of her forehead, such as is never seen in northern lands, except in sculpture imitated from the Greeks. The lower part of her face was not so good; her smile was deficient in sweetness, her voice wanted melody, and sounded loud to an English ear. Her gestures were expressive, but quick and wanting in grace. She was more agreeable when silent and could be regarded as a picture, than when called into action. She was complimentary in her conversation, and her manners were winning by their frankness and ease. She gesticulated too much, and her features were too much in motion, — too pantomimely expressive, so to speak, not to impress disagreeably one accustomed to the composure of the English. Still she was a beautiful creature; young, artless, desirous to please, and endowed, moreover, with the vivacious genius, the imaginative talent of her country. She spoke as if she were passionately attached to her husband; but when Ethel mentioned his English home and his relations, a cloud came over the lovely Neapolitan’s countenance, and a tremor shook her frame. “Do not think hardly of me,” she said, “I do not hate England, but I fear it. I am sure I should be disliked there — I should be censured, perhaps taunted, for a thousand habits and feelings as natural to me as the air I breathe. I am proud, and I should retort impertinence, and, displeasing my husband, become miserable beyond words. Stay with us; you I love, and should be wretched to part from. Stay and enjoy this paradise with us. Intreat his sisters, if they wish to see Horatio, to come over. I will be more than a sister to them; but let us all forget that such a place as that cold, distant England exists.”

  This was Clorinda’s usual mode of speaking of her husband’s native country: but once, when Ethel had urged her going there with more earnestness than usual, suddenly her countenance became disturbed; and with a lowering and stormy expression of face, that her English friend could never afterwards forget, she said, “Say not another word, I pray. Horatio loved — he loves an Englishwoman — it is torture enough for me to know this. I would rather be torn in quarters by wild horses, broken in pieces on the rack, than set foot in England. My cousin, as you have pity for me, and value the life of Horace, use your influence to prevent his only dreaming of a return to England. Methinks I could strike him dead, if I only knew that such a thought lived for a second in his heart.”

  These words said, Clorinda resumed her smiles, and was, more than usual, desirous of flattering and pleasing Ethel; so that she softened, though she could not erase, the impression her vehemence had made. However, there appeared no necessity for Ethel to exert her influence. Horace was equally averse to going to England. He loved to talk of it; he remembered, with yearning fondness, its verdant beauty, its pretty villages, its meandering streams, its embowered groves; the spots he had inhabited, the trivial incidents of his daily life, were recalled with affection: but he did not wish to return. Villiers attributed this somewhat to his unforgotten attachment to Lady ; but it was more strange that he negatived the idea of one of his sisters visiting him:—”She would not like it,” was all the explanation he gave.

  Several months passed lightly over the heads of the new-married pair; while they, bee-like, sipped the honey of life, and, never cloyed, fed perpetually on sweets. Naples, its galleries, its classic and beautiful environs, offered an endless succession of occupation and amusement. The presence of Saville elevated their pleasures; for he added the living spirit of poetry to their sensations, and associated the treasures of human genius with the sublime beauty of nature. He had a tact, a delicacy, a kind of electric sympathy in his disposition, that endeared him to every one that approached him. His very singularities, by keeping alive an interest in him, added to the charm. Sometimes he was so abstracted as to do the most absent things in the world; and the quick alternations of his gaiety and seriousness were often ludicrous from their excess. There was one thing, indeed, to which Ethel found it difficult to accustom herself, which was his want of punctuality, which often caused hours to be lost, and their excursions spoil
ed. Nor did he ever furnish good excuses, but seemed annoyed at being questioned on the subject.

  Clorinda never joined them in their drives and rides out of the city. She feared to trust herself to winds and waves; the heat, the breeze, the dust, annoyed her; and she found no pleasure in looking at mountains, which, after all, were only mountains; or ruins, which were only ruins — stones, fit for nothing but to be removed and thrown away. But Clorinda had an empire of her own, to which she gladly admitted her English relatives, and the delights of which they fully appreciated. Music, heard in such perfection at the glory of Naples, the theatre of San Carlo, and the heavenly strains which filled the churches with an atmosphere of sound more entrancing than incense — all these were hers; and her own voice, rich, full, and well-cultivated, made a temple of melody of her own home.

  There was — it could not be called a wall — but there was certainly a paling, of separation between Ethel and Clorinda. The young English girl could not discover in what it consisted, or why she could not pass beyond. The more she saw of the Neapolitan, the more she believed that she liked her — certainly her admiration increased; — still she felt that on the first day that Clorinda had visited her, with her caressing manners and well-turned flatteries, she was quite as intimate with her as now, after several weeks. She had surely nothing to conceal; all was open in her conduct; yet often Ethel thought of her as a magician guarding a secret treasure. Something there was that she watched over and hid. There was often a look of anxiety about her which Ethel unconsciously dispelled by some chance word; or a cloud all at once dimmed her face, and her magnificent and dazzling eyes flashed sudden fire, without apparent cause. There was something in her manner that always said, “You are English, I am Italian; and there is natural war between my fire and your snow.” But no word, no act, ever betrayed alienation of feeling. Thus a sort of mystery pervaded their intercourse, which, though it might excite curiosity, and was not unakin to admiration, kept the affections in check.