by Mary Shelley
Sometimes Ethel thought that Clorinda feared to compromise her salvation, for she was a Catholic. During the revelries of the Carnival, this difference of religion was not so apparent; but when Lent began, it showed itself, and divided them, on various occasions, more than before. At last, Lent also was drawing to a close; and as Villiers and Ethel were anxious to see the ceremonies of Passion Week at Rome, it was arranged that they, and Mr. and Mrs. Saville, should visit the Eternal City together. Horatio manifested a distaste even to the short residence that it was agreed they should make together during the month they were to spend at Rome; but Clorinda showed herself particularly anxious for the fulfilment of this plan, and, the majority prevailing, the whole party left Naples together.
Full soon was the veil of mystery then withdrawn, and Villiers and his wife let into the arcana of their cousin’s life. Horatio had yielded unwillingly to Clorinda’s intreaties, and extracted many promises from her before he gave his consent; but all would not do — the natural, the uncontrollable violence of her disposition broke down every barrier; and in spite of his caution, and her struggles with herself, the reality opened fearfully upon the English pair. The lava torrent of Neapolitan blood flowed in her veins; and restraining it for some time, it at last poured itself forth with volcanic violence. It was at the inn at Terracina, on their way to Rome, that a scene took place, such as an English person must cross Alps and Apennines to behold. Ethel had seen that something was wrong. She saw the beauty of Clorinda vanished, changed, melted away and awfully transformed into actual ugliness: she saw tiger like glances from her eyes, and her lips pale and quivering. Poor Saville strove, with gentle words, to allay the storm to which some jealous freak gave rise: perceiving that his endeavours were vain, he rose to quit the room. They were at dinner: she sprung on him with a knife in her hand: Edward seized her arm; and she sunk on the floor in convulsions. Ethel was scarcely less moved. Seeing her terrified beyond all expression, Horatio led her from the room. He was pale — his voice failed him. He left her; and sending Edward to her, returned to his wife.
The same evening he said to Villiers,—”Do not ask me to stay; — let me go without another word. You see how it is. With what Herculean labour I have concealed this sad truth so long, is scarcely conceivable. When Ethel’s sweet smile has sometimes reproached my tardiness, I have escaped, but half alive, from a scene like the one you witnessed.
“In a few hours, it is true, Clorinda will be shocked — full of remorse — at my feet; — that is worse still. Her repentance is as violent as her rage; and both transform her from a woman into something too painful to dwell upon. She is generous, virtuous, full of power and talent; but this fatal vehemence more than neutralizes her good qualities. I can do nothing; I am chained to the oar. I have but one hope: time, reason, and steadiness of conduct on my part, may subdue her; and as she will at no distant period become a mother, softer feelings may develop themselves. Sometimes I am violently impelled to fly from her for ever. But she loves me, and I will not desert her. If she will permit me, I will do my duty to the end. Let us go back now. You will return to Naples next winter; and with this separation, which will gall her proud spirit to its core, as a lesson, I hope by that time that she will prove more worthy of Ethel’s society.”
Nothing could be said to this. Saville, though he asked, “Let us go back,” had decreed, irrevocably, in his own mind, not to advance another step with his companions. The parting was melancholy and ominous. He would not permit Clorinda to appear again; for, as he said, he feared her repentance more than her violence, and would not expose Ethel as the witness of a scene of humiliation and shame. A thousand times over, his friends promised to return immediately to Naples, not deferring their visit till the following winter. He was to take a house for them, for the summer, at Castel à Mare, or Sorrento; and immediately after Easter they were to return. These kind promises were a balm to his disturbed mind. He watched their carriage from the inn at Terracina, as it skimmed along the level road of the Pontine Marshes, and could not despair while he expected its quick return. Turning his eyes away, he resumed his yoke again; and, melancholy beyond his wont, joined his remorseful wife. They were soon on their way back to Naples: — she less demonstrative in her repentance, because more internally and deeply touched, than she had ever been before.
CHAPTER XII.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate;
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade.
— Shakspeare.
Parting thus sadly from their unfortunate cousin, Villiers and Ethel were drawn together yet nearer, and, if possible, with a deeper tenderness of affection than before. Here was an example before their eyes, that all their fellow-creatures were not equally fortunate in the lottery of life, and that worse than a blank befell many, while the ticket which they had drawn was a prize beyond all summing. Edward felt indeed disappointed at losing his cousin’s society, as well as deeply grieved at the wretched fate which he had selected for himself. Ethel, on the contrary, was in her heart glad that he was absent. She had no place in that heart to spare away from her husband; and however much she liked Horatio, and worthy as he was of her friendship, she felt him as an encroacher. Now she delivered herself up to Edward, and to the thought of Edward solely, with fresh and genuine delight. No one stood between her and him — none called off his attention, or forced her to pass one second of time unoccupied by his idea. When she expressed these feelings to Villiers, he called her selfish and narrow-hearted, yet his pride and his affection were gratified; for he knew how true was every word she uttered, and how without flaw or blot was her faith and her attachment.
“And yet, my Ethel,” he said, “I sometimes ask myself, how this boasted affection of yours will stand the trials which I fear are preparing for it.”
“What trials?” she asked anxiously.
“Care, poverty; the want of all the luxuries, perhaps of the comforts of life.”
Ethel smiled again. “That is your affair,” she replied, “do you rouse your courage, if you look upon these as evils. I shall feel nothing of all this, while near you; care — poverty — want! as if I needed any thing except your love — you yourself — who are mine.”
“Yes, dear,” replied Villiers, “that is all very well at this moment; rolling along in a comfortable carriage — an hotel ready to receive us, with all its luxuries; but suppose us without any of these, Ethel — suppose yourself in a melancholy, little, dingy abode, without servants, without carriage, going out on foot.”
“Not alone,” replied his wife, laughing, and kissing his hand; “I shall have you to wait on me — to wait upon—” “You take it very well now,” said Edward; “I hope that you will never be put to the trial. I am far from anticipating this excess of wretchedness, of course, but I cannot help feeling, that the prospects of to-morrow are uncertain, and I am anxious for my long-delayed letters from England.”
With Ethel’s deep and warm affection, had she been ten or only five years older, she also must have participated in Edward’s inquietude. But care is a word, not an emotion, for the very young. She was only seventeen. She had never attended to the disbursements of money — she was ignorant of the mechanism of giving and receiving, on which the course of our life depends. It was in vain that she sought in the interior of her mind for an image that should produce fear or regret, with regard to the absence or presence of money. No one reflection or association brought into being an idea on the subject. Again she kissed Edward’s hand, and looked on him with her soft clear eyes, thinking only, “He is here — and Heaven has given me all I ask.”
Left again to themselves, they were anxious to avoid acquaintances. Yet this was impossible during the Holy Week at Rome. Villiers found many persons whom he knew; women of high rank and fashion, men of wealth, or with the appea
rance of it, enjoying the present, and, while away from England, unencumbered by care. Mr. and Mrs. Villiers were among these, and of them; their rank and their style of living resembling theirs, associated them together. All this was necessary to Edward, for he had been accustomed to it — it was natural to Ethel, because, being wholly inexperienced, she did as others did, and as Villiers wished her to do, without reflection or forethought.
Yet each day added to Edward’s careful thoughts. Easter was gone, and the period approached when they had talked of returning to Naples. The covey of English had taken flight towards the north; they were almost the only strangers in the ancient and silent city, whose every stone breathes of a world gone by — whose surpassing beauty crowns her still the glory of the world. The English pair, left to themselves, roamed through the ruins and loitered in the galleries, never weary of the very ocean of beauty and grandeur which they coursed over in their summer bark. The weather grew warm, for the month of May had commenced, and they took refuge in the vast churches from the heat; at twilight they sought the neighbouring gardens, or scrambled about the Coliseum, or the more ruined and weedgrown baths of Caracalla. The fire-flies came out, and the splashing of the many fountains reached their ears from afar, while the clear azure of the Roman sky bent over them in beauty and peace.
Ethel never alluded to their proposed return to Naples — she feared each day to hear Villiers mention it — she was so happy where she was, she shrunk from any change. The majesty, the simplicity, the quiet of Rome, were in unison with the holy stillness that dwelt in her soul, absorbed as it was by one unchanging image. She had reached the summit of human happiness — she had nothing more to ask; her full heart, not bursting, yet gently overflowing in its bliss, thanked Heaven, and drew nearer Edward, and was at peace.
“God help us!” exclaimed Villiers, “I wonder what on earth will become of us!”
They were sitting together on fragment of the Coliseum; they had clambered up its fallen wall, and reached a kind of weed-grown chasm whose depth, as it was moonlight, they could not measure by the eye; so they sat beside it on a small fragment, and Villiers held Ethel close to him lest she should fall. The heartfelt and innocent caress of two united in the sight of Heaven, wedded together for the endurance of the good and ills of life, hallowed the spot and hour; and then, even while Ethel nestled nearer to him in fondness, Edward made the exclamation that she heard with a wonder which mingled with, yet could not disturb, the calm joy which she felt.
“What but good can come of us, while we are thus?” she asked.
“You will not listen to me, nor understand me,” replied her husband. “But I do assure you, that our position is more than critical. No remittances, no letters come from England; we are in debt here — in debt in Italy! A thousand miles from our resources! I grope in the dark and see no outlet — every day’s post, with the nothing that it brings, adds to my anxiety.”
“All will be well,” replied Ethel gently; “no real evil will happen to us, be assured.”
“I wish,” said Villiers, “your experience, instead of your ignorance, suggested the assertion. I would rather die a thousand deaths than apply to dear Horace, who is ill enough off himself; but every day here adds to our difficulties. Our only hope is in our instant return to England — and, by heavens! — you kiss me, Ethel, as if we lived in fairy land, and that such were our food — have you no fears?”
“I am sorry to say, none,” she answered in a soft voice; “I wish I could contrive some, because I appear unsympathizing to you — but I cannot fear; — you are in health and near me. Heaven and my dear father’s spirit will watch over us, and all will be well. This is the end and beginning of my anxiety; so dismiss yours, love — for, believe me, in a day or two, these forebodings of yours will be as a dream.”
“It is very strange,” replied Edward, “were you not so close to me, I should fancy you a spirit instead of a woman; you seem to have no touch of earthly solicitude. Well, I will do as you bid me, and hope for to-morrow. And now let us get down from this place before the moon sets and leaves us in darkness.”
As if to confirm the auguries of Ethel, the following morning brought the long-expected letters. One contained a remittance, another was from Colonel Villiers, to say, that Edward’s immediate presence was requisite in England to make the final arrangements before his marriage. With a glad heart Villiers turned his steps northward; while Ethel, if she could have regretted aught while with him, would have sighed to leave their lonely haunts in Rome. She well knew that whatever of sublime nature might display, or man might congregate of beautiful in art elsewhere, there was a calm majesty, a silent and awful repose in the ruins of Rome, joined to the delights of a southern climate, and the luxuriant vegetation of a sunny soil, more in unison with her single and devoted heart, than any other spot in the universe could boast. They would both have rejoiced to have seen Saville again; yet they were unacknowledgedly glad not to pursue their plan of domesticating near him at Naples. A remediless evil, which is for ever the source of fresh disquietude, is one that tasks human fortitude and human patience, more than those vaster misfortunes which elevate while they wound. The proud aspiring spirit of man craves something to raise him from the dust, and to adorn his insignificance; he seeks to strengthen his alliance with the lofty and the eternal, and shrinks from low-born cares, as being the fetters and bolts that link him to his baser origin. Saville, the slave of a violent woman’s caprice, struggling with passions, at once so fiery and so feeble as to excite contempt, was a spectacle which they were glad to shun. Their own souls were in perfect harmony, and discord was peculiarly abhorrent to them.
They travelled by the beaten route of Mont Cenis, Lyons, and Calais, and in less than a month arrived in England. As the presence of Villiers was requisite in London, after staying a few days at an hotel in Brook-street, they took a furnished house in the same street for a short time. The London season had passed its zenith, but its decline was scarcely perceptible. Ethel had no wish to enter into its gaieties, and it had been Edward’s plan to avoid them until they were richer. But here they were, placed by fate in the very midst of them; and as, when their affairs were settled, they intended again to return abroad, he could not refuse himself the pleasure of seeing Ethel, in the first flower of her loveliness, mingling with, and outshining, every other beauty of her country. It would have been difficult indeed, placed within the verge of the English aristocracy assembled in London, to avoid its engagements and pleasures — for he “also was an Arcadian,” and made one of the self-enthroned “world.” The next two months, therefore, while still every settlement was delayed by his father, they spent in the fashionable circles of London.
They did not indeed enter into its amusements with the zest and resolution of tyros. To Villiers the scene was not new, and therefore not exceedingly enticing; and Ethel’s mind was not of the sort to be borne along in the stream of folly. They avoided going to crowded entertainments — they were always satisfied with one or two parties in the evening. Nay, once or twice in the week they usually remained at home, and not unseldom dined tête-à-tête. The serpent fang of pleasure, and the paltry ambition of society, had no power over Ethel. She often enjoyed herself, because she often met people of either sex, whose fame, or wit, or manners, interested and pleased her. But as little vanity as mortal woman ever had fell to her share. Very young, and (to use the phrase of the day) very new, flattery and admiration glanced harmlessly by her. Her personal vanity was satisfied when Villiers was pleased, and, for the rest, she was glad to improve her mind, and to wear away the timidity, which she felt that her lonely education had induced, by mingling with the best society of her country.
She had also some curiosity, and as she promised herself but a brief sojourn in this land of lions, she wished to see several things and persons she might never come in contact with again. Various names which had reached her in the Illinois, here grew from shadows into real human beings — ministers of state, beauties, a
uthors, and wits. She visited once or twice the ventilator of St. Stephen’s, and graced a red bench of the House of Lords on the prorogation of Parliament. Villiers was very much pleased with her throughout. His pride was gratified by the approval she elicited from all. Men admired her, but distantly — as a being they could not rudely nor impertinently approach. Women were not afraid of her, because they saw, that though she made no display of conjugal attachment, she loved her husband. Her extreme youth, the perpetual sunshine of her countenance, and the gentle grace of her manners, won more the liking than the praise of her associates. They drew near her as to one too untaught to understand their mysteries, and too innocent to judge them severely; an atmosphere of kindness and of repose followed her wherever she went: this her husband felt more than any other, and he prized his Ethel at the worth she so truly deserved.
One of the reasons which caused Mrs. Villiers to avoid large assemblies, was that Lady was in town, and that in such places they sometimes met. Ethel did not well know how to act. Youth is ever fearful of making unwelcome demonstration, and false shame often acts more powerfully to influence it, than the call of duty or the voice of affection. Villiers had no desire to bring the mother and daughter together, and stood neutral. Lady Lodore had once or twice recognized her by a bow and a smile, but after such, she always vanished and was seen no more that evening. Ethel often yearned to approach, to claim her tenderness and to offer her filial affection. Villiers laughed at such flights. “The safe thing to do,” he said, “is to take the tone of Lady Lodore. She is held back by no bashfulness — she does the thing she wishes, without hesitation or difficulty. Did she desire her lovely grown-up daughter to play a child’s part towards her, she would soon contrive to bring it about. Lady Lodore is a woman of the world — she was nursed in its lessons, and piously adheres to its code; its ways are her’s, and the objects of ambition which it holds out, are those which she desires to attain. She is talked of as admired and followed by the Earl of D — . You may spoil all, if you put yourself forward.”