“Now, now,” was Clara’s ardent exclamation, as she clasped her arms about her mother’s neck, “I may concentrate my energies to a better and holier purpose than the mere literature of the day; now I may indulge the dream of effecting good, more than the mere amusement of the hour; now I am no longer bound. Oh, who in this world is happier or more blessed than I am?”
And as long as she resided under her mother’s roof, in the pretty little village which had so long been her home, she was truly happy. Encouraged by the popularity which, through her literary friend, she learned that she had acquired; satisfied that he thought her capable of the work she had attempted, and blessed with a mother for whose sake alone Clara valued fame; for she knew how sweet to maternal affection were the praises of a child.
But this might not last. Before she was one-and-twenty Clara was an orphan, and long, long it was ere she could resume the employments she had so loved, or look forward to anything but loneliness and misery. Every thought, every task was associated with the departed, and could filial love have preserved the vital spark the mother had yet been spared; and had Granville Dudley known Clara in that sad time, he would have been compelled to abjure his belief in the incompatibility of literature with woman’s duties and affections.
But of such a trial both Granville and Heyward knew nothing; nor, when the latter said that she loved her profession, did he imagine the struggle it had been for her to resume it—how completely at first it had been the voice of duty, not of love. Fame had never been to her either incentive or further reward than the mere gratification of the moment, and as a source of pleasure to her mother; and how vain and hollow did fame seem now! But hers was not a spirit to be conquered by deep sorrow. She resumed her employments when health returned, with a bursting heart, indeed, but they brought reward. They drew her from herself for the time being, and energy in seeking to accomplish good gradually followed. The severity of her trial was, however, if possible, heightened by the great change in her mode of life. Her only near relation was an uncle, who lived and moved in one of those circles of high pretension and false merit with which the metropolis abounds. His wife, an ultra-fashionist, lived herself and educated her daughters for the world and its follies alone, inculcating the necessity of attracting and gaining husbands, but not of keeping them. Exterior accomplishment, superficial conversation, graceful carriage, and fashionable manners were all that were considered needful—and all of feeling or of sentiment rubbed off, as romance much too dreadful to be avowed.
To this family, at the request of her uncle, who actually made the exertion of fetching her himself, Clara removed eight months after her mother’s death. Yearning for affection, and knowing little of her relatives, Clara had given imagination vent, and hoped happiness might again be dawning for her. How greatly she was disappointed, our readers may judge by the sketch we have given. In their vocabulary, authorship and learning were synonymous with romance and folly; and worse still, as dooming their possessors, unavoidably, to a state of single blessedness, and therefore to be shunned as they would the plague itself. That Clara devoted to her literary pursuits but the same number of hours that one Miss Barclay did to music (that is its mechanical, not its mental part), another to oriental or mezzotinting, or another to the creation of wax-work, Berlin wool, etc., was not of the least consequence; their horror of blueism was such, that to prevent all supposition of their approval of Clara’s mode of life, they never lost an opportunity of bewailing her unfortunate propensity—and of so impressing all who visited at the house with the idea of her great learning and obtrusive wisdom, that the gentle, unpretending manners of the authoress could not weigh against it; and she found herself universally shunned as something too terrible to be defined.
“With all this, I write on, hope on,” she once wrote to an intimate friend; “struggling to feel that if indeed I accomplish good, I shall not live in vain; and my own personal loneliness and sorrow will be of little consequence. But, oh! how different it is to write merely for the good of others, to the same efforts, to the same goal, pursued under the influence of sympathy and affection! Because a woman has mind, she is supposed to have no heart, and has no occasion therefore for the sweet charities of life; when by her, if possible more than any other, they are imperatively needed. Others may find pleasure or satisfaction in foreign excitement; to her, home is all in all. If there be one to love her there—be it parent, husband, or friend—she needs no more; the yearnings of her heart are stilled, the mind provides her with unfading flowers, and her lot is as inexpressibly happy as without such domestic ties it is inexpressibly sad. Do not wish me, as you have sometimes done, dear Mary, to love, for it would be unreturned; simply, because it is the general belief that an authoress can have no time, no capability of any emotion save for the creations of her own mind.”
So wrote Clara; though, at the time, she knew not how soon her words would be verified. As soon as the term of mourning had expired, though little inclined for the exertion, she conquered her own shrinking repugnance to asserting and adopting her own rights; and, to the astonishment of Mr. and Mrs. Barclay, she accepted some of the invitations which courtesy had sent her. Though entered into merely as a duty, society gradually became a source of pleasure, in the discovery that all her aunt’s circle were not of the same frivolous kind; and then slowly, but surely, the pleasure deepened into intense enjoyment from the conversation and attentions of Granville Dudley, whom she met constantly, though he did not visit her uncle. Clara was so very unlike her cousins, whose endeavours to gain husbands were somewhat too broadly marked, that Dudley had been irresistibly attracted towards her; a fancy which every interview so strengthened, that he began very seriously to question his own heart as to whether he really was in love.
As Miss Stanley’s name was not generally known to the literary world, and the lady, at whose house Granville mostly met her, was herself scarcely aware that she was anything more than an amiable, sensible and strongly feeling girl, Granville Dudley knew nothing of her claims to literature and authorship till his conversation with Charles Heyward, near the close of the season, revealed them as we have said. The very next time they met, Dudley, half fearfully, half resolutely, led the subject to literature and literati, and drew from Clara’s own lips the avowal he dreaded. In the happy state of feeling which his presence always created, she at first imagined he thus spoke from interest and sympathy in all she did; and enthusiastic, as was her wont in conversation with those who she thought understood her, she said more on the subject, its enjoyment and resources, than she had ever done in London. Granville said nothing, in reply, which could have chilled her at the time. Yet, when the evening was over, Clara’s heart sunk within her; she knew not wherefore, save that a secret foreboding whispered within her that conversation had sealed her fate. Dudley would not trust his happiness with her.
At one other party she was to meet him, ere the season closed, and the veriest devotee to balls and soirées could not have longed for it more than poor Clara; who looked forward to it as the confirmer or dispenser of her fears. The morning of the day on which it was to take place, little Emily, the youngest of the family, was seized with a violent attack of fever, which increased as evening advanced. It so happened that all the Barclay family who were “out” were engaged that evening; Mr. and Mrs. Barclay, and their two elder daughters, at a card and musical soirée; the other two, and their brothers, under the chaperonage of Mrs. Smith, the gouvernante, at the ball to which Clara looked forward with so much eagerness. What was to be done? The child could not be left; and without Mrs. Smith, what was to become of her sisters? It was impossible for them to go alone, and equally impossible for mother, father, or either sister of the little sufferer, to give up a fashionable party for the dreadful doom of sitting by a sick bed.
Looks and hints of every variety were levelled at Clara; who, with her usual benevolence, had stationed herself close by her little cousin, ever ready to administer kindness or relief. At any other time, she would not have hesitated a moment; but with the restless craving to see Granville Dudley again, the giving up her only chance, for a time at least, was so exquisitely painful, she could not offer to remain. Mrs. Barclay, however, seeing hints of no avail, at length directly entreated that, as she was less fond of going out than any one else, she might be glad of the excuse, to give the time to her books and writing, and it would really be doing her (Mrs. Barclay) an especial favour if she would stay and nurse Emily. Clara’s high spirit, and strong sense of selfish indulgence, obtained such unusual dominion, that she had well-nigh proudly refused; but the little sufferer looked in her face so piteously, and entreated her so pleadingly to remain, that, ever awake to the impulse of affection, Miss Stanley consented.