by Mary Shelley
The beauty of a pastoral picture has but short duration in this cloudy land, — and happiness, the sun of our moral existence, is yet more fitful in its visitations. Villiers and his young wife took their accustomed ride through shady lanes and copses, and through parks, where, though the magnificent features of nature were wanting, the eye was delighted by a various prospect of wood and lawny upland. The soft though wild west wind drove along vast masses of snowy clouds, which displayed in their intervals the deep stainless azure of the boundless sky. The shadows of the clouds now darkened the pathway of our riders, and now they saw the sunlight advance from a distance, coming on with steps of light and air, till it reached them, and they felt the warmth and gladness of sunshine descend on them. The various coloured woods were now painted brightly in the beams, and now half lost in shadow. There was life and action everywhere — yet not the awakening activity of spring, but rather a vague, uneasy restlessness, allied to languor, and pregnant with melancholy.
Villiers was silent and sad. Ethel too well knew the cause wherefore he was dispirited. He had received letters that morning which stung him into a perception of the bitter realities which were gathering about them. One was to say that no communication had been received from his father, but that it was believed that he was somewhere in London — the other was from his banker, to remind him that he had overdrawn his credit — nearly the most disagreeable intelligence a man can hear when he possesses no immediate means of replenishing his drained purse. Ethel was grieved to see him pained, but she could not acutely feel these pecuniary distresses. She tried to divert his thoughts by conversation, and pointing out the changes which the advancing season made in the aspect of the country.
“Yes,” said Villiers, “it is a beautiful world; poets tell us this, and religious men have drawn an argument for their creed from the wisdom and loveliness displayed in the external universe, which speaks to every heart and every understanding. The azure canopy fretted with golden lights, or, as now, curtained by wondrous shapes, which, though they are akin to earth, yet partake the glory of the sky — the green expanse, variegated by streams, teeming with life, and prolific of food to sustain that life, and that very food the chief cause of the beauty we enjoy — with such magnificence has the Creator set forth our table — all this, and the winds that fan us so balmily, and the flowers that enchant our sight — do not all these make earth a type of heaven?”
Ethel turned her eyes on him to read in his face the expression of the enthusiasm and enjoyment that seemed to dictate his words. But his countenance was gloomy, and as he continued to speak, his expressions took more the colour of his uneasy feelings. “How false and senseless all this really is!” he pursued. “Find a people who truly make earth, its woods and fells, and inclement sky, their unadorned dwelling-place, who pluck the spontaneous fruits of the soil, or slay the animals as they find them, attending neither to culture nor property, and we give them the name of barbarians and savages — untaught, uncivilized, miserable beings — and we, the wiser and more refined, hunt and exterminate them: — we, who spend so many words, either as preachers or philosophers, to vaunt that with which they are satisfied, we feel ourselves the greater, the wiser, the nobler, the more barriers we place between ourselves and nature, the more completely we cut ourselves off from her generous but simple munificence.”
“But is this necessary?” asked the forestbred girl: “when I lived in the wilds of the Illinois — the simplest abode, food and attire, were all I knew of human refinements, and I was satisfied.”
Villiers did not appear to heed her remark, but continued the train of his own reflections. “The first desire of man is not for wealth nor luxury, but for sympathy and applause. He desires to remove to the furthest extremity of the world contempt and degradation; and according to the ideas of the society in which he is bred, so are his desires fashioned. We, the most civilized, high-bred, prosperous people in the world, make no account of nature, unless we add the ideas of possession, and of the labours of man. We rate each individual, (and we all desire to be rated as individuals, distinct from and superior to the mass,) not by himself, but by his house, his park, his income. This is a trite observation, yet it appears new when it comes home: what is lower, humbler, more despicable than a poor man? Give him learning, give him goodness — see him with manners acquired in poverty, habits dyed in the dusky hues of penury; and if we do not despise him, yet we do not admit him to our tables or society. Refinement may only be the varnish of the picture, yet it is necessary to make apparent to the vulgar eye even the beauties of Raphael.”
“To the vulgar eye!” repeated Ethel, emphatically.
“And I seem one of those, by the way I speak,” said Edward, smiling. “Yet, indeed, I do not despise any man for being poor, except myself. I can feel pride in showing honour where honour is due, even though clad in the uncouth and forbidding garb of plebeianism; but I cannot claim this for myself — I cannot demand the justice of men, which they would nickname pity. The Illinois would be preferable far.”
“And the Illinois might be a paradise,” said Ethel.
“We hope for a better — we hope for Italy. Do you remember Rome and the Coliseum, my love? — Naples, the Chiaja, and San Carlo? — these were better than the savannas of the west. Our hopes are good; it is the present only which is so thorny, so worse than barren: like the souls of Dante, we have a fiery pass to get through before we reach our place of bliss; that we have it in prospect will gift us with fortitude. Meanwhile I must string myself to my task. Ethel, dearest, I shall go to town to-morrow.”
“And I with you, surely?”
“Do not ask it; this is your first lesson in the lore you were so ready to learn, of bearing all for me—”
“With you,” interrupted his wife.
“With me — it shall soon be,” replied Edward; “but to speak according to the ways of this world, my presence in London is necessary for a few days — for a very few days; a journey there and back for me is nothing, but it would be a real and useless expense if you went. Indeed, Ethel, you must submit to my going without you — I ask it of you, and you will not refuse.”
“A few days, you say,” answered Ethel—”a very few days? It is hard. But you will not be angry, if I should join you if your return is delayed?”
“You will not be so mad,” said Villiers. “I go with a light heart, because I leave you in security and comfort. I will return — I need not protest — you know that I shall return the moment I can. I speak of a few days; it cannot be a week: let me go then, with what satisfaction I may, to the den of darkness and toil, and not be farther annoyed by the fear that you will not support my absence with cheerfulness. As you love me, wait for me with patience — remain with your aunt till I return.”
“I will stay for a week, if it must be so,” replied Ethel.
“Indeed, my love, it must — nor will I task you beyond — before a week is gone by, you shall see me.”
Ethel looked wistfully at him, but said no more. She thought it hard — she did not think it right that he should go — that he should toil and suffer without her; but she had no words for argument or contention, so she yielded. The next morning — a cold but cheerful morning — at seven o’clock, she drove over with him in Mrs. Fitzhenry’s little pony chaise to the town, four miles off, through which the stages passed. A first parting is a kind of landmark in life — a starting post whence we begin our career out of illusion and the land of dreams, into reality and endurance. They arrived not a moment too soon: she had yet a thousand things to say — one or two very particular things, which she had reserved for the last moment; there was no time, and she was forced to concentrate all her injunctions into one word, “Write!”
“Every day — and do you.”
“It will be my only pleasure,” replied his wife. “Take care of yourself.”
He was on the top of the stage and gone; and Ethel felt that a blank loneliness had swallowed up the dearest joy of her life.
She drew her cloak round her — she gazed along the road — there were no traces of him — she gave herself up to thought, and as he was the object of all her thoughts, this was her best consolation. She reviewed the happy days they had spent together — she dwelt on the memory of his unalterable affection and endearing kindness, and then tears rushed into her eyes. “Will any ill every befall him?” she thought. “O no, none ever can! he must be rewarded for his goodness and his love. How dear he ought to be to me! Did he not take the poor friendless girl from solitude and grief; and disdaining neither her poverty nor her orphan state, give her himself, his care, his affection? O, my Edward! what would Ethel have been without you? Her father was gone — her mother repulsed her — she was alone in the wide world, till you generously made her your own!”
With the true enthusiasm of passion, Ethel delighted to magnify the benefits she had received, and to make those which she herself conferred nothing, that gratitude and love might become yet stronger duties. In her heart, though she reproached herself for what she termed selfishness, she could not regret his poverty and difficulties, if thus she should acquire an opportunity of being useful to him; but she felt herself defrauded of her best privileges, of serving and consoling, by their separation.
Thus, — now congratulating herself on her husband’s attachment, now repining at the fate that divided them, — agitated by various emotions too sweet and bitter for words, she returned to Longfield. Aunt Bessy was in her arm-chair, waiting for her to begin breakfast. Edward’s seat was empty — his cup was not placed — he was omitted in the domestic arrangements; — tears rushed into her eyes; and in vain trying to calm herself, she sobbed aloud. Aunt Bessy was astonished; and when all the explanation she got was, “He is gone!” she congratulated herself, that her single state had spared her the endurance of these conjugal distresses.
CHAPTER XIV.
How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
What freezings have I felt, what dark days seen.
What old December’s bareness every where!
— Shakspeare.
Ethel cheered herself to amuse her aunt; and, as in her days of hopeless love, she tried to shorten the hours by occupation. It was difficult; for all her thoughts were employed in conjectures as to where Edward was, what doing — in looking at her watch, and following in her mind all his actions — or in meditating how hereafter she might remedy any remissness on her part, (so tender was her conscience,) and best contribute to his happiness. Such reveries beguiled many hours, and enabled her to endure with some show of courage the pains of absence. Each day she heard from him — each day she wrote, and this entire pouring out of herself on paper formed the charm of her existence. She endeavoured to persuade him how fortunate their lot might hereafter be — how many of his fears were unfounded or misplaced.
“Remember, dearest love,” she said, “that I have nothing of the fine lady about me. I do not even feel the want of those luxuries so necessary to most women. This I owe to my father. It was his first care, while he brought me up in the most jealous retirement, to render me independent of the services of others. Solitude is to me no evil, and the delight of my life would be to wait upon you. I am not therefore an object of pity, when fortunes deprives me of the appurtenances of wealth, which rather annoy than serve me. My devotion and sacrifice, as you are pleased to call the intense wish of my heart to contribute to your happiness, are nothing. I sacrifice all, when I give up one hour of your society — there is the sting — there the merit of my permitting you to go without me. I can ill bear it. I am impatient and weak; do not then, Edward dearest, task me too far — recall me to your side, if your return is delayed — recall your fond girl to the place near your heart, where she desires to remain for ever.”
Villiers answered with few but expressive words of gratitude and fidelity. His letters breathed disappointment and anxiety. “It is too true,” he said, “as I found it announced when I first came to town, my father is married. He got the banns published in an obscure church in London; he persuaded Miss Gregory to elope with him, and they are married. Her father is furious, he returns every letter unopened; his house and heart, he says, are still open to his daughter — but the — , I will not repeat his words, who stole her from him, shall never benefit by a shilling of his money — let her return, and all shall be pardoned — let her remain with her husband, and starve, he cares not. My father has spent much time and more money on this pursuit: in the hope of securing many thousands, he raised hundreds at a prodigal and ruinous interest, which must now be paid. He has not ten pounds in the world — so he says. My belief is, that he is going abroad to secure to himself the payment of the scanty remnant of his income. I have no hopes. I would beg at the corner of a street, rather than apply to a man who never has been a parent to me, and whose last act is that of a villain. Excuse me; you will be angry that I speak thus of my father, but I know that he speaks of the poor girl he has deluded, with a bitterness and insult, which prove what his views were in marrying her. In this moment of absolute beggary, my only resource is to raise money. I believe I shall succeed; and the moment I have put things in train, with what heartfelt, what unspeakable joy, shall I leave this miserable place for my own Ethel’s side, long to remain!”
Villiers’s letters varied little, but yet they got more desponding; and Ethel grew very impatient to see him again. She had counted the days of her week — they were fulfilled, and her husband did not return. Every thing depended, he said, on his presence; and he must remain yet for another day or two. At first he implored her to be patient. He besought her, as she loved him, to endure their separation yet for a few more days. His letters were very short, but all in this style. They were imperative with his wife — she obeyed; yet she did so, she told him, against her will and against her sense of right. She ought to be at his side to cheer him under his difficulties. She had married him because she loved him, and because the first and only wish of her heart was to conduce to his happiness. To travel together, to enjoy society and the beauties of nature in each other’s society, were indeed blessings, and she valued them; but there was another dearer still, of which she felt herself defrauded, and for which she yearned. “The aim of my life, and its only real joy,” she said, “is to make your existence happier than it would have been without me. When I know and feel that such a moment or hour has been passed by you with sensations of pleasure, and that through me, I have fulfilled the purpose of my destiny. Deprived of the opportunity to accomplish this, I am bereft of that for which I breathe. You speak as if I were better off here than if I shared the inconveniences of your lot — is not this strange language, my own Edward? You talk of security and comfort; where can I be so secure as near you? And for comfort! what heart-elevating joy it would be to exchange this barren, meagre scene of absence, for the delight, the comfort of seeing you, of waiting on you! I do not ask you to hasten your return, so as to injure your prospects, but permit me to join you. Would not London itself, dismal as you describe it, become sunny and glad, if Ethel were with you?”
To these adjurations Villiers scarcely replied. Time crept on; three weeks had already elapsed. Now and then a day intervened, and he did not write, and his wife’s anxiety grew to an intolerable pitch. She did not for an instant suspect his faith, but she feared that he must be utterly miserable, since he shrunk from communicating his feelings to her. His last letter was brief; “I have just come from my solicitor,” he said, “and have but time to say, that I must go there again to-morrow, so I shall not be with you. O the heavy hours in this dark prison! You will reward me and make me forget them when I see you — but how shall I pass the time till then!”
These words made Ethel conceive the idea of joining him in town. He would not, he could not be angry? He could not bring his mind to ask her to share his discomforts — but ought she not to volunteer — to insist upon his permitting her to come? Permit! the same pr
ide that prevented his asking, would induce him to refuse her request; but should she do wrong, if, without his express permission, she were to join him? A thrill, half fear, half transport, made her heart’s blood stand still at the thought. The day after this last, she got no letter; the following day was Monday, and there would be no post from town. Her resolution was taken, and she told her aunt, that she should go up to London the following day. Mrs. Elizabeth knew little of the actual circumstances of the young pair. Villiers had made it an express condition, that she should not be informed of their difficulties, for he was resolute not to take from her little store, which, in the way she lived, was sufficient, yet barely so, for her wants. She did not question her niece as to her journey; she imagined that it was a thing arranged. But Ethel herself was full of perplexity; she remembered what Villiers had said of expense; she knew that he would be deeply hurt if she used a public conveyance, and yet to go post would consume the little money she had left, and she did not like to reach London pennyless. She began to talk to her aunt, and faltered out something about want of money for posting — the good lady’s purse was instantly in her hand. Ethel had not the same horror as her husband of pecuniary obligation — she was too inexperienced to know its annoyances; and in the present instance, to receive a small sum from her aunt, appeared to her an affair that did not merit hesitation. She took twenty pounds for her journey, and felt her heart lighter. There yet remained another question. Hitherto they had travelled in their own carriage, with a valet and lady’s maid. Villiers had taken his servant to town with him. In a postscript to one of his letters, he said, “I was able to recommend Laurie to a good place, so I have parted with him, and I shall not take another servant at this moment.” Laurie had been long and faithfully attached to her husband, who had never lived without an attendant, and who, from his careless habits, was peculiarly helpless. Ethel felt that this dismissal was a measure of economy, and that she ought to imitate it. Still as any measure to be taken always frightened her, she had not courage to discharge her maid, but resolved to go up to town without her. Aunt Bessy was shocked at her going alone, but Ethel was firm; nothing could happen to her, and she should prove to Edward her readiness to endure privation.