Seated by each other, and looking on the silver Arno, G.o.dolphin and Constance, hand clasped in hand, surrendered themselves to the contemplation of their future happiness. "And what would be your favorite mode of life, dear Percy?"
"Why, I have now no schemings left me, Constance. With you obtained, I have grown a dullard, and left off dreaming. But let me see, a house in England--you like England--some ten or twenty miles from the great Babel: books, pictures, statues, and old trees that shall put us in mind of our Norman fathers who planted them; above all, a noisy, clear sunny stream gliding amidst them--deer on the opposite bank, half hidden amongst the fern; and rooks overhead: a privilege for eccentricity that would allow one to be social or solitary as one pleased; and a house so full of guests, that to shun them all now and then would be no affront to one."
"Well," said Constance, smiling, "go on."
"I have finished."
"Finished?"
"Yes, my fair Insatiable! What more would you have?"
"Why, this is but a country-life you have been talking of; very well in its way for three months in the year."
"Italy, then, for the other nine," returned G.o.dolphin.
"Ah, Percy!--is pleasure, mere pleasure, vulgar pleasure,--to be really the sole end and aim of life?"
"a.s.suredly."
"And action, enterprise-are these as nothing?"
G.o.dolphin was silent, but began absently to throw pebbles into the water. The action reminded Constance of the first time she had ever seen him among his ancestral groves; and she sighed as she now gazed on a brow from which the effeminacy and dreaming of his life had banished much of its early chivalric and earnest expression.
CHAPTER XLVII.
NEWS OF LUCILLA.
G.o.dolphin was about one morning to depart for the convent to which Lucilla had flown, when a letter was brought to him from the abbess of the convent herself; it had followed him from Rome. Lucilla had left her retreat--left it three days before G.o.dolphin"s marriage; the abbess knew not whither, but believed she intended to reside in Rome. She inclosed him a note from Lucilla, left for him before her departure. Short but characteristic, it ran thus:
LUCILLA TO G.o.dOLPHIN.
"I can stay here no longer; my mind will not submit to quiet; this inactivity wears me to madness. Besides, I want to see thy wife. I shall go to Rome; I shall witness thy wedding; and then--ah! what then? Give me back. G.o.dolphin, oh; give me back the young pure heart I had ere I loved you! Then, I could take joy in all things:--now! But I will not repine; it is beneath me. I, the daughter of the stars, am no love-sick and nerveless minion of a vain regret; my pride is roused at last, and I feel at least the independence of being alone. Wild and roving shall be my future life; that lot which denies me hope, has raised me above all fear. Love makes us all the woman; love has left me, and something hard and venturous, something that belongs to they s.e.x, has come in its stead.
"You have left me money--I thank you--I thank you--I thank you; my heart almost chokes me as I write this. Could you think of me so basely?--For shame, man! if my child--our child were living (and O, Percy, she had thine eyes!), I would see her starve inch by inch rather than touch one doit of thy bounty! But she is dead--thank G.o.d! Fear not for me, I shall not starve; these hands can support life. G.o.d bless thee--loved as thou still art! If, years hence, I should feel my end draw near, I will drag myself to thy country, and look once more on thy face before I die."
G.o.dolphin sank down, and covered his face with his hands. Constance took up the letter. "Ay--read it!" said he in a hollow voice. She did so, and when she had finished, the proud Constance, struck by a spirit like her own, bathed the letter in her tears. This pleased--this touched--this consoled G.o.dolphin more than the most elaborate comforting. "Poor girl!"
said Constance, through her tears, "this must not be; she must not be left on the wide world to her own despairing heart. Let us both go to Rome, and seek her out. I will persuade her to accept what she refuses from you."
G.o.dolphin pressed his wife"s hand, but spoke not. They went that day to Rome. Lucilla had departed for Leghorn, and thence taken her pa.s.sage in a vessel bound to the northern coasts of Europe. Perhaps she had sought her father"s land? With that hope, in the absence of all others, they attempted to console themselves.
CHAPTER XLVIII.
IN WHICH TWO PERSONS, PERMANENTLY UNITED, DISCOVER THAT NO TIE CAN PRODUCE UNION OF MINDS.
Weeks pa.s.sed on, and, apparently, G.o.dolphin had reconciled himself to the disappearance and precarious destiny of Lucilla. It was not in his calm and brooding nature to show much of emotion; but there was often, even. in the presence of Constance, a cloud on his brow, and the fits of abstraction to which he had always been accustomed grew upon him more frequently than ever. Constance had been inured for years to the most a.s.siduous, the most devoted attentions; and now, living much alone with G.o.dolphin, she began somewhat to miss them; for G.o.dolphin could be a pa.s.sionate, a romantic, but he could not be a very watchful lover. He had no pet.i.ts soins. Few husbands have, it is true; nor is it necessary for husbands in general. But Constance was not an ordinary woman; she loved deeply, but she loved according to her nature--as a woman proud and exacting must love. For G.o.dolphin, her haughty step waxed timorous and vigilant; she always sprang forward the first to meet him on his return from his solitary ramblings, and he smiled upon her with his wonted gentleness but not so gratefully, thought Constance, as he ought.
In truth, he had been too much accustomed to the eager love of Lucilla, to feel greatly surprised at any proof of tenderness from Constance.
Thus, too proud to speak--to hint a complaint, Constance was nevertheless perpetually wounded, and by degrees (although not loving her husband less) she taught that love to be more concealed. Oh, that accursed secretiveness in women, which makes them always belie themselves!
G.o.dolphin, too, was not without his disappointments. There was something so bright, so purely intellectual about Constance"s character, that at times, when brought into constant intercourse with her, you longed for some human weakness--some wild, warm error on which to repose. Dazzling and fair as snow, like snow your eye ached to gaze upon her. She had, during the years of her ungenial marriage, cultivated her mind to the utmost; few women were so accomplished--it might be learned; her conversation flowed for ever in the same bright, flowery, adorned stream. There were times when G.o.dolphin recollected how hard it is to read a volume of that Gibbon who in a page is so delightful. Her affection for him was intense, high, devoted; but it was wholly of the same intellectual spiritualised order; it seemed to G.o.dolphin to want human warmth and fondness. In fact, there never was a woman who, both by original nature and after habits, was so purely and abstractedly "mind"
as was Constance; there was not a single trait or taste in her character that a sensualist could have sneered at. Her heart was wholly G.o.dolphin"s; her mind was generous, sympathising, lofty; her person unrivalled in the majesty of its loveliness; all these, too, were G.o.dolphin"s, and yet the eternal something was wanting still.
"I have brought you your hat, Percy," said Constance; "you forget the dews are falling fast, and your head is uncovered."
"Thank you," said Percy, gently; yet Constance thought the tone might have been warmer. "How beautiful is this hour! Look yonder, the sun"s rays still upon those immortal hills--that lone grey tower amongst the far plains--the pines around--hearken to their sighing! These are indeed the scenes of the Dryad and the Faun. These are scenes where we could melt our whole nature down to love: Nature never meant us for the stern and arid destinies we fulfil. Look round, Constance, in every leaf of her gorgeous book, how glowingly is written the one sentence, "Love and be happy!" You answer not; to these thoughts you are cold."
"They breathe too much of the Epicurean and his roseleaves for me,"
answered Constance, smilingly. "I love better that stern old tower, telling of glorious strife and great deeds, than all the softer landscape, on which the present debas.e.m.e.nt of the south seems written."
"You and your English," said G.o.dolphin, somewhat bitterly, "prate of the debas.e.m.e.nt of my poor Italians in a jargon that I confess almost enrages me. (Constance coloured and bit her lip.) Debas.e.m.e.nt! why debas.e.m.e.nt?
They enjoy themselves: they take from life its just moral; they do not affect the more violent crimes; they feel their mortality, follow its common ends, are frivolous, contented, and die! Well; this is debas.e.m.e.nt. Be it so. But for what would you exchange it? The hard, cold, ferocious guilt of ancient Rome; the detestable hypocrisy, the secret villiany, fraud, murder, that stamped republican Venice? The days of glory that you lament are the days of the darkest guilt; and man shudders when he reads what the fair moralisers over the soft and idle Italy sigh to recall!"
"You are severe," said Constance, with a pained voice. "Forgive me, dearest; but you are often severe on my feelings."
Constance was silent; the magic of the sunset was gone; they walked back to the house, thoughtful, and somewhat cooled towards each other.
Another day, on which the rain forbade them to stir from home, G.o.dolphin, after he had remained long silent and meditating, said to Constance, who was busy writing letters to her political friends, in which, avoiding Italy and love, the scheming countess dwelt only on busy England and its eternal politics:
"Will you read to me, dear Constance? my spirits are sad to-day; the weather affects them."
Constance laid aside her letters, and took up one of the many books that strewed the table: it was a volume of one of our most popular poets.
"I hate poetry," said G.o.dolphin, languidly.
"Here is Machiavel"s history of the Prince of Lucca," said Constance, quickly.
"Ah, read that, and see how odious is ambition," returned G.o.dolphin.
And Constance read, but she warmed at what G.o.dolphin"s lip curled with disdain. The sentiments, however, drew him from his apathy; and presently, with the eloquence he could command when once excited, he poured forth the doctrines of his peculiar philosophy. Constance listened, delighted and absorbed; she did not sympathise with the thought, but she was struck with the genius which clothed it. "Ah!" said she, with enthusiasm, "why should those brilliant words be thus spoken and lost for ever? Why not stamp them on the living page, or why not invest them in the oratory that would render you ill.u.s.trious and them immortal?"
"Excellent!" said G.o.dolphin laughing; "the House of Commons would sympathise with philosophy warmly!"
Yet Constance was right on the whole. But the curse of a life of pleasure is its aversion to useful activity. Talk of the genius that lies crushed and obscure in poverty! Wealth and station have also their mute Miltons and inglorious Hampdens.
Alas! how much of deep and true wisdom do we meet among the triflers of the world! How much that in the stern middle walks of life would have obtained renown, in the withering and relaxed air of loftier ranks dies away unheeded! The two extremes meet in this,--the destruction of mental gifts.
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE RETURN TO LONDON.--THE ETERNAL NATURE OF DISAPPOINTMENT.--f.a.n.n.y MILLINGER.--HER HOUSE AND SUPPER.
It was in the midst of spring, and at the approach of night, that our travellers entered London. After an absence of some duration, there is a singular emotion on returning to the roar and tumult of that vast city. Its bustle, its life, its wealth--the tokens of the ambition and commerce of the Great Island Race--have something of inconceivable excitement and power, after the comparative desertion and majestic stillness of Continental cities. Constance leaned restlessly forth from the window of the carriage as it whirled on.