Buchanan estranged himself from her confidence, and appeared jealous of her authority.—He refused to aid her in the sole remaining wish of her heart; and absolutely declined accepting the hand of Calantha. “Shall only one will,” he said, “be studied and followed; shall Calantha’s caprices and desires be daily attended to; and shall I see the best years of my life pass without pleasure or profit for me? I know—I see your intention; and, pardon me, dearest mother, if I already bitterly lament it. Is Calantha a companion fitted for one of my character; and, even if hereafter it is your resolve to unite me to her, must I now be condemned to years of inactivity on her account. Give me my liberty; send me to college, there to finish my education; and permit me to remain in England for some years.”
Lady Margaret saw, in the cool determined language of her son, that he had long meditated this escape from her thraldom:—she immediately appeared to approve his intention—she said that a noble ambition, and all the highest qualities of the heart and mind were shewn in his present desire; but one promise she must exact in return for the readiness with which she intended instantly to accede to his request:—provided he was left at liberty till a maturer age, would he promise to take no decisive step of himself, until he had once more seen Calantha after this separation? To this Buchanan willingly acceded; his plans were soon arranged; and his departure was fixed for no very distant period.
The morning before he left the castle, Lady Margaret called him to her room; and taking him and Calantha by the hand, she led them to the windows of the great gallery. From thence pointing to the vast prospect of woods and hills, which extended to a distance, the eye could scarcely reach, “all are yours my children,” she said, “if, obedient to parents who have only your welfare at heart, you persevere in your intention of being one day united to each other. Ah! let no disputes, no absence, no fancies have power to direct you from the fulfilment of this, my heart’s most fervent wish:—let this moment of parting, obliterate every unkind feeling, and bind you more than ever to each other. Here, Buchanan,” continued she, “is a bracelet with your hair: place it yourself around Calantha’s arm:—she shall wear it till you meet.” The bracelet was of gold, adorned with diamonds, and upon the clasp, under the initial letters of both their names, were engraved these words: “Stesso sangue, Stessa sorte.” “Take it,” said Buchanan, fastening it upon the arm of Calantha, “and remember that you are to wear it ever, for my sake.”
At this moment, even he was touched, as he pressed her to his heart, and remembered her as associated with all the scenes of his happiest days. Her violence, her caprices, her mad frolics, were forgotten; and as her tears streamed upon his bosom, he turned away, least his mother should witness his emotion. Yet Calantha’s tears were occasioned solely by the thought of parting from one, who had hitherto dwelt always beneath the same roof with herself; and to whom long habit had accustomed, rather than attached her.—In youth the mind is so tender, and so alive to sudden and vivid impressions, that in the moment of separation it feels regret, and melancholy at estranging itself even from those for whom before it had never felt any warmth of affection.—Still at the earliest age the difference is distinctly marked between the transient tear, that falls for imaginary woe, and the real misery which attends upon the loss of those who have been closely united to the affections by ties, stronger and dearer than those of habit.
CHAPTER VIII.
The accomplishment of her favourite views being thus disappointed, or at least deferred, Lady Margaret resolved to return to Italy, and there to seek for Viviani. Her brother, however, entreated her to remain with him. He invited his friends, his relations, his neighbours. Balls and festivities once more enlivened the castle: it seemed his desire to raze every trace of sorrow from the memory of his child; and to conceal the ravages of death under the appearance at least of wild and unceasing gaiety.—The brilliant fêtes, and the magnificence of the Duke of Altamonte and his sister, became the constant theme of admiration; from far, from near, fashion and folly poured forth their victims to grace and to enjoy them; and Lord and Lady Dartford naturally found their place amidst the various and general assemblage. To see Lord Dartford again, to triumph over his falsehood, to win him from an innocent confiding wife, and then betray him at the moment in which he fancied himself secure, this vengeance was yet wanting to satisfy the restless fever of Lady Margaret’s mind; and the contemplation of its accomplishment gave a new object, a new hope to her existence; for Lady Margaret had preferred enduring even the tortures of remorse, to the listless insipidity of stagnant life, where the passions of her heart, were without excitement, and those talents of which she felt the power, useless and obscured. What indeed would she not have preferred to the society of Mrs. Seymour and her daughters?
The Duchess of Altamonte had possessed a mind, as cultivated as her own, and a certain refinement of manner which is sometimes acquired by long intercourse with the most polished societies, but is more frequently the gift of nature, and, if it be not the constant attendant upon nobility of blood, is very rarely found in those who are not distinguished by that adventitious and accidental circumstance.
Mrs. Seymour had many of the excellent qualities, but none of the rare endowments possessed by the Duchess; she was a strict follower of the paths of custom and authority; in the steps which had been marked by others, she studiously walked, nor thought it allowable to turn aside for any object however praiseworthy and desirable. She might be said to delight in prejudice—to enjoy herself in the obscure and narrow prison to which she had voluntarily confined her intellects—to look upon the impenetrable walls around her as bulwarks against the hostile attacks by which so many had been overcome. The daughters were strictly trained in the opinions of their mother. “The season of youth,” she would say, “is the season of instruction;” —and consequently every hour had its allotted task; and every action was directed according to some established regulation.
By these means, Sophia and Frances were already highly accomplished; their manners were formed; their opinions fixed, and any contradictions of those opinions, instead of raising doubt, or urging to enquiry, only excited in their minds astonishment at the hardihood and contempt for the folly which thus opposed itself to the final determination of the majority, and ventured to disturb the settled empire and hereditary right of their sentiments and manners.—“These are your pupils,” Lady Margaret would often exultingly cry, addressing the mild Mrs. Seymour—“these paragons of propriety—these sober minded steady automatons. Well, I mean no harm to them or you. I only wish I could shake off a little of that cold formality which petrifies me. Now see how differently my Calantha shall appear, when I have opened her mind, and formed her according to my system of education—the system which nature dictates and every feeling of the heart willingly accedes to. Observe well the difference between a child of an acute understanding, before her mind has been disturbed by the absurd opinions of others, and after she has learned their hackneyed jargon: note her answer—her reflections; and you will find in them, all that philosophy can teach, and all to which science and wisdom must again return. But, in your girls and in most of those whom we meet, how narrow are the views, how little the motives, by which they are impelled. Even granting that they act rightly,—that by blindly following, where others lead, they pursue the safest course, is there any thing noble, any thing superior in the character from which such actions spring? I am ambitious for Calantha. I wish her not only to be virtuous; I will acknowledge it,—I wish her to be distinguished and great.”
Mrs. Seymour, when thus attacked, always permitted Lady Margaret to gain the victory of words and to triumph over her as much as the former thought it within the bounds of good breeding to allow herself; but she never varied, in consequence, one step in her daily course, or deviated in the slightest degree from the line of conduct which she had before laid down.