To this dance G.o.dolphin led Lady Margaret. All crowded round to see the performers; and, as each went through the giddy and intoxicating maze, they made remarks on the awkwardness or the singularity, or the impropriety of the dance. But when G.o.dolphin began, the murmurs changed.
The slow and stately measure then adapted to the steps, was one in which the graceful symmetry of his person might eminently display itself. Lady Margaret was at least as well acquainted with the dance: and the couple altogether so immeasurably excelled all compet.i.tors, that the rest, as if sensible of it, stopped one after the other; and when G.o.dolphin, perceiving that they were alone, stopped also, the spectators made their approbation more audible than approbation usually is in polished society.
As G.o.dolphin paused, his eyes met those of Constance. There was not there the expression he had antic.i.p.ated there was neither the anger of jealousy, nor the restlessness of offended vanity, nor the desire of conciliation, visible in those large and speaking orbs. A deep, a penetrating, a sad inquiry seemed to dwell in her gaze,--seemed anxious to pierce into his heart, and to discover whether there she possessed the power to wound, or whether each had been deceived: so at least seemed that fixed and melancholy intenseness of look to G.o.dolphin.
He left Lady Margaret abruptly: in an instant he was by the side of Constance.
"You must be delighted with this evening," said he, bitterly: "wherever I go I hear your praises: every one admires you; and he who does not admire so much as worship you, _he_ alone is beneath your notice.
He--born to such shattered fortunes,--he indeed might never _aspire_ to that which t.i.tled and wealthy idiots deem they may _command,_--the hand of Constance Vernon."
It was with a low and calm tone that G.o.dolphin spoke. Constance turned deadly pale: her frame trembled; but she did not answer immediately. She moved to a seat retired a little from the busy crowd; G.o.dolphin followed and sat himself beside her; and then, with a slight effort, Constance spoke.
"You heard what was said, Mr. G.o.dolphin, and I grieve to think you did. If I offended you, however, forgive me, I pray you; I pray sincerely--warmly. G.o.d knows I have suffered myself enough from idle words, and from the slighting opinion with which this hard world visits the poor, not to feel deep regret and shame if I wound, by like means, another, more especially"--Constance"s voice trembled,--"more especially _you!_"
As she spoke, she turned her eyes on G.o.dolphin, and they were full of tears. The tenderness of her voice, her look, melted him at once. Was it to him, indeed, that the haughty Constance addressed the words of kindness and apology?--to him whose intrinsic circ.u.mstances she had heard described as so unworthy of her, and, his reason told him, with such justice?
"Oh, Miss Vernon!" said he, pa.s.sionately; "Miss Vernon--Constance--dear, dear Constance! dare I call you so? hear me one word. I love you with a love which leaves me no words to tell it. I know my faults, my poverty, my unworthiness; but--but--may I--may I hope?"
And all the woman was in Constance"s cheek, as she listened. That cheek, how richly was it dyed! Her eyes drooped; her bosom heaved. How every word in those broken sentences sank into her heart! never was a tone forgotten. The child may forget its mother, and the mother desert the child: but never, never from a woman"s heart departs the memory of the first confession of love from him whom she first loves! She lifted her eyes, and again withdrew them, and again gazed.
"This must not be," at last she said; "no, no! it is folly, madness in both!"
"Not so; nay, not so!" whispered G.o.dolphin, in the softest notes of a voice that could never be harsh. "It may seem folly--madness if you will, that the brilliant and all-idolized Miss Vernon should listen to the vows of so lowly an adorer: but try me--prove me, and own--yes, you _will_ own some years hence, that that folly has been happy beyond the happiness of prudence or ambition."
"This!" answered Constance, struggling with her emotions; "this is no spot or hour for such a conference. Let us meet to-morrow--the western chamber."
"And the hour?"
"Twelve!"
"And I may hope--till then?"
Constance again grew pale; and in a voice that, though it scarcely left her lips, struck coldness and dismay into his sudden and delighted confidence, answered,
"No, Percy, there is no hope!--none!"
(1) Then uncommon.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE INTERVIEW.--THE CRISIS OF A LIFE.
The western chamber was that I have mentioned as the one in which Constance usually fixed her retreat, when neither sociability nor state summoned her to the more public apartments. I should have said that G.o.dolphin slept in the house; for, coming from a distance and through country roads, Lady Erpingham had proffered him that hospitality, and he had willingly accepted it. Before the appointed hour, he was at the appointed spot.
He had pa.s.sed the hours till then without even seeking his pillow. In restless strides across his chamber, he had revolved those words with which Constance had seemed to deny the hopes she herself had created.
All private and more selfish schemes or reflections had vanished, as by magic, from the mind of a man prematurely formed, but not yet wholly hardened in the mould of worldly speculation. He thought no more of what he should relinquish in obtaining her hand; with the ardour of boyish and real love, he thought only of her. It was as if there existed no world but the little spot in which she breathed and moved. Poverty, privation, toil, the change of the manners and habits of his whole previous life, to those of professional enterprise and self-denial;--to all this he looked forward, not so much with calmness as with triumph.
"Be but Constance mine!" said he again and again; and again and again those fatal words knocked at his heart, "No hope--none!" and he gnashed his teeth in very anguish, and muttered, "But mine she will not--she will never be!"
Still, however, before the hour of noon, something of his habitual confidence returned to him. He had succeeded, though but partially, in reasoning away the obvious meaning of the words; and he ascended to the chamber from the gardens, in which he had sought, by the air, to cool his mental fever, with a sentiment, ominous and doubtful indeed, but still removed from despondency and despair.
The day was sad and heavy. A low, drizzling rain, and labouring yet settled clouds, which denied all glimpse of the sky, and seemed cursed into stagnancy by the absence of all wind or even breeze, increased by those a.s.sociations we endeavour in vain to resist, the dark and oppressive sadness of his thoughts.
He paused as he laid his hand on the door of the chamber: he listened; and in the acute and painful life which seemed breathed into all his senses, he felt as if he could have heard,--though without the room,--the very breath of Constance; or known, as by an inspiration, the presence of her beauty. He opened the door gently; all was silence and desolation for him--Constance was not there!
He felt, however, as if that absence was a relief. He breathed more freely, and seemed to himself more prepared for the meeting. He took his station by the recess of the window: in vain--he could rest in no spot: he walked to and fro, pausing only for a moment as some object before him reminded him of past and more tranquil hours. The books he had admired and which, at his departure, had been left in their usual receptacle at another part of the house, he now discovered on the tables: they opened of themselves at the pa.s.sages he had read aloud to Constance: those pages, in his presence, she had not seemed to admire; he was inexpressibly touched to perceive that, in his absence, they had become dear to her. As he turned with a beating heart from this silent proof of affection, he was startled by the sudden and almost living resemblance to Constance, which struck upon him in a full-length picture opposite--the picture of her father. That picture, by one of the best of our great modern masters of the art, had been taken of Vernon in the proudest epoch of his prosperity and fame. He was portrayed in the att.i.tude in which he had uttered one of the most striking sentences of one of his most brilliant orations: the hand was raised, the foot advanced, the chest expanded. Life, energy, command, flashed from the dark eye, breathed from the dilated nostril, broke from the inspired lip. That n.o.ble brow--those modelled features--that air, so full of the royalty of genius--how startlingly did they resemble the softer lineaments of Constance!
Arrested, in spite of himself, by the skill of the limner, and the characteristic of the portrait G.o.dolphin stood, motionless and gazing, till the door opened, and Constance herself stood before him. She smiled faintly, but with sweetness as she approached; and seating herself, motioned him to a chair at a little distance. He obeyed the gesture in silence.
"G.o.dolphin!" said she, softly. At the sound of her voice he raised his eyes from the ground, and fixed them on her countenance with a look so full of an imploring and earnest meaning, so expressive of the pa.s.sion, the suspense of his heart, that Constance felt her voice cease at once. But he saw as he gazed how powerful had been his influence. Not a vestige of bloom was on her cheek: her very lips were colourless: her eyes were swollen with weeping; and though she seemed very calm and self-possessed, all her wonted majesty of mien was gone. The form seemed to shrink within itself. Humbleness and sorrow--deep, pa.s.sionate, but quiet sorrow--had supplanted the haughtiness and the elastic freshness of her beauty. "Mr. G.o.dolphin," she repeated, after a pause, "answer me truly and with candour; not with the world"s gallantry, but with a sincere, a plain avowal. Were you not--in your unguarded expressions last night--were you not excited by the surprise, the pa.s.sion, of the moment? Were you not uttering what, had you been actuated only by a calm and premeditated prudence, you would at least have suppressed?"
"Miss Vernon," replied G.o.dolphin, "all that I said last night, I now, in calmness, and with deliberate premeditation, repeat: all that I can dream of happiness is in your hands."
"I would, indeed, that I could disbelieve you," said Constance, sorrowfully; "I have considered deeply on your words. I am touched--made grateful--proud--yes, truly proud--by your confessed affection--but--"
"Oh, Constance!" cried G.o.dolphin; in a sudden and agonized voice--and rising, he flung himself impetuously at her feet--"Constance! do not reject me!"
He seized her hand: it struggled not with his. He gazed on her countenance: it was dyed in blushes; and before those blushes vanished, her agitation found relief in tears, which flowed fast and full.
"Beloved!" said G.o.dolphin, with a solemn tenderness, "why struggle with your heart? That heart I read at this moment: _that_ is not averse to me." Constance wept on. "I know what you would say, and what you feel,"
continued G.o.dolphin: "you think that I--that we both are poor: that you could ill bear the humiliations of that haughty poverty which those born to higher fortunes so irksomely endure. You tremble to link your fate with one who has been imprudent--lavish--selfish, if you will. You recoil before you intrust your happiness to a man who, if he wreck that, can offer you nothing in return: no rank--no station--nothing to heal a bruised heart, or cover its wound, at least, in the rich disguises of power and wealth. Am I not right, Constance? Do I not read your mind?"
"No!" said Constance with energy. "Had I been born any man"s daughter, but his from whom I take my name; were I the same in all things, mind and heart, save in one feeling, one remembrance, one object--that I am now; Heaven is my witness that I would not cast a thought upon poverty--upon privation: that I would--nay, I do--I do confide in your vows, your affection. If you have erred, I know it not. If any but you tell me you have erred, I believe them not. You I trust wholly and implicitly. Heaven, I say, is my witness that, did I obey the voice of my selfish heart, I would gladly, proudly, share and follow your fortunes. You mistake me if you think sordid and vulgar ambition can only influence me. No! I could be worthy of you! The daughter of John Vernon could be a worthy wife to the man of indigence and genius. In your poverty I could soothe you; in your labour I could support you; in your reverses console, in your prosperity triumph. But--but, it must not be. Go, G.o.dolphin--dear G.o.dolphin! There are thousands better and fairer than I am, who will do for you as I would have done; but who possess the power I have not--who, instead of sharing, can raise your fortunes.
Go!--and if it comfort, if it soothe you, believe that I have not been insensible to your generosity, your love. My best wishes, my fondest prayers, my dearest hopes, are yours."
Blinded by her tears, subdued by her emotions, Constance was still herself. She rose; she extricated her hand from G.o.dolphin"s; she turned to leave the room. But G.o.dolphin, still kneeling, caught hold of her robe, and gently, but effectually detained her.
"The picture you have painted," said he, "do not destroy at once. You have portrayed yourself my soother, guide, restorer. You _can,_ indeed you can, be this. You do not know me, Constance. Let me say one word for my self. Hitherto, I have shunned fame and avoided ambition. Life has seemed to me so short, and all that even glory wins so poor, that I have thought no labour worth the price of a single hour of pleasure and enjoyment. For you, how joyfully will I renounce my code! For myself I could ask no honour: for you, I will labour for all. No toil shall be dry to me--no pleasure shall decoy. I will renounce my idle and desultory pursuits. I will enter the great public arena, where all who come armed with patience and with energy are sure to win. Constance, I am not without talents, though they have slept within me; say but the word, and you know not what they can produce."
An irresolution in Constance was felt as a sympathy by G.o.dolphin; he continued,--
"We are both desolate in the world, Constance; we are orphans--friendless, fortuneless. Yet both have made our way without friends, and commanded our a.s.sociates, though without fortune. Does not this declare we have that within us which, when we are united, can still exalt or conquer our destiny? And we--we--alone in the noisy and contentious world with which we strive--we shall turn, after each effort, to our own hearts, and find there a comfort and a shelter. All things will bind us closer and closer to each other. The thought of our past solitude, the hope of our future objects, will only feed the fountain of our present love. And how much sweeter, Constance, will be honours to you, if we thus win them; sanctified as they will be by the sacrifices we have made; by the thought of the many hours in which we desponded, yet took consolation from each other; by the thought how we sweetened mortifications by sympathy, and made even the lowest successes n.o.ble by the endearing a.s.sociations with which we allied them! How much sweeter to you will be such honours than those which you might command at once, but accompanied by a cold heart; rendered wearisome because won with ease and low because undignified by fame! Oh, Constance! am I not heard? Have not love, nature, sense, triumphed?"
As he spoke, he had risen gently, and wound his arms around her not reluctant form: her head reclined upon his bosom; her hand was surrendered to his; and his kiss stole softly and unchidden to her cheek. At that instant, the fate of both hung on a very hair. How different might the lot, the character, of each have been, had Constance"s lips p.r.o.nounced the words that her heart already recorded!
And she might have done so; but as she raised her eyes, the same object that had before affected G.o.dolphin came vividly upon her, and changed, as by an electric shock, the whole current of her thoughts. Full and immediately before her was the picture of her father. The att.i.tude there delineated, so striking at all times, seemed to Constance at that moment more than ever impressive, and even awful in the _livingness_ of its command. It was the face of Vernon in the act of speech--of warning--of reproof; such as she had seen it often in private life; such as she had seen it in his bitter maledictions on his hollow friends at the close of his existence: nay, such as she had seen it,--only more fearful, and ghastly with the hues of death,--in his last hours; in those hours in which he had pledged her to the performance of his revenge, and bade her live not for love but the memory of her sire.
With the sight of the face rushed upon her the dark and solemn recollections of that time and of that vow. The weakness of love vanished before the returning force of a sentiment nursed through her earliest years, fed by her dreams, strengthened by her studies, and hardened by the daring energies of a nature lofty yet fanatical, into the rule, the end, nay, the very religion of life! She tore herself away from the surprised and dismayed G.o.dolphin; she threw herself on her knees before the picture; her lips moved rapidly; the rapid and brief prayer for forgiveness was over, and Constance rose a new being. She turned to G.o.dolphin, and, lifting her arm towards the picture, as she regarded, with her bright and kindling eyes, the face of her lover; she said:--
"As you think now, thought he whose voice speaks to you from the canvas; he, who pursued the path that you would tread; who, through the same toil, the same pursuit, that you would endure, used the same powers and the same genius you would command; he, who won,--what you might win also at last,--the smile of princes, the trust of n.o.bles, the shifting and sandy elevation which the best, the wisest, and greatest statesmen in this country, if unbacked by a sordid and caballing faction, can alone obtain;--he warns you from that hollow distinction,--from its wretched consummation. Oh, G.o.dolphin!" she continued, subdued, and sinking from a high-wrought but momentary paroxysm, uncommon to her collected character, "Oh, G.o.dolphin! I saw that man dying, deserted, lonely, cursed by his genius, ruined by his prosperity. I saw him dying,--die,--of a broken and trampled heart. Could I doom another victim to the same course, and the same perfidy, and the same fate?
Could I, with a silent heart, watch by that victim; could I, viewing his certain doom, elate him with false hopes?--No, no! fly from me,--from the thought of such a destiny. Marry one who can bring you wealth, and support you with rank; _then_ be ambitious if you will. Leave me to fulfil my doom,--my vow; and to think, however wretched I may be, that I have not inflicted a permanent wretchedness on you."
G.o.dolphin sprang forward; but the door closed upon his eyes; and he saw Constance--as Constance _Vernon_--no more.
CHAPTER XIX.