"I remained ten years in India, an officer in a regiment of the company's cavalry. I saw a good deal of service; went through much suffering; and doing my duty on the field of battle, or at the hour of attack, I gained that approbation in the field which I lost when in quarters by a sort of systematized insubordination, which was a part of my untameable nature. In action even I went beyond my orders—however, that was forgiven; but when in quarters, I took part with the weak, and showed contempt for the powerful. I was looked upon as dangerous; and the more so, that the violence of my temper often made my manner in a high degree reprehensible. I attached myself to several natives; that was a misdemeanor. I strove to inculcate European tastes and spirit, enlightened views, and liberal policy, to one or two native princes, whom, from some ill luck, the English governors wished to keep in ignorance and darkness. I was for ever entangled in the intimacy, and driven to try to serve the oppressed; while the affection I excited was considered disaffection on my part to the rulers. Sometimes also I met with ingratitude and treachery: my actions were misrepresented, either by prejudice or malice; and my situation, of a subordinate officer, without fortune, gave to the influence I acquired, through learning the language and respecting the habits and feelings of the natives, an air of something so inexplicable, as might, in the dark ages, have been attributed to witchcraft, and in these enlightened times was considered a tendency to the most dangerous intrigues. Having saved an old rajah's life, and having taken great pains to extricate him from a difficulty in which the Europeans had purposely entangled him, it became rumoured that I aspired to succeed to a native principality, and I was peremptorily ordered off to another station. My views were in diametrical opposition to the then Indian government. My conversation was heedless—my youthful imagination exalted by native magnificence; I own I often dreamed of the practicability of driving the merchant sovereigns from Hindostan. There was, as is the essence of my character, much boyish folly joined to dangerous passion; all of which took the guise in my own heart of that high heroic adventure with which I longed to adorn my life. A subaltern in the company's service, I could never gain my Alithea, or do her the honour with which I longed to crown her. The acquisition of power, of influence, of station, would exalt me in her father's eyes—so much of what was selfish mingled in my conduct—but I was too young and impetuous to succeed. Those in power watched me narrowly. The elevation of a day was always followed by a quick transfer to an unknown and distant province.
"In all my wildest schemes the thought of Alithea reigned paramount. My only object was to prove myself worthy of her; and my only dream for the future was to make her mine for ever.
"A constancy of ten years, strung perpetually up to the height of passion, may appear improbable; yet it was so. It was my nature to hold an object with tenacious grasp—to show a proud contempt of obstacles—to resolve on ultimate triumph. Besides this, the idea of Alithea was so kneaded up and incorporate with my being, that my living heart must have been searched and anatomized to its core, before the portion belonging to her could have been divided from the rest. I disdained the thought of every other woman. It was my pride to look coldly on every charm, and to shut my heart against all but Alithea. During the first years of my residence in India, I often wrote to her, and pouring out my soul on paper, I conjured her to preserve herself for me. I told her how each solitary jungle or mountain ravine spoke to me of a secluded home with her; how every palace and gorgeous hall seemed yet a shrine too humble for her. The very soul of passion breathed along the lines I traced—they were such as an affianced lover would have written, pure in their tenderness; but heartfelt, penetrating, and eloquent; they were my dearest comfort. After long, wearisome marches—after the dangers of an assault or a skirmish—after a day spent among the sick or dying—in the midst of many disappointments and harassing cares—during the storms of pride and the languor of despair, it was my consolation to fly to her image and to recall the tender happiness of reunion—to endeavour to convey to her how she was my hope and aim—my fountain in the desert—the shadowy tree to shelter me from the burning sun—the soft breeze to refresh me—the angelic visiter to the unfortunate martyr. Not one of these letters ever reached her—her father destroyed them all: on his head be the crime and the remorse of his daughter's death! Fool and coward! would I shift to other shoulders the heavy weight? No! no! crime and remorse still link me to her. Let them eat into my frame fiery torture; they are better than forgetfulness!
"I had two hopes in India: one was, to raise myself to such a station as would render me worthy of Alithea in the eyes of Captain Rivers; the other, to return to England—to find change there—to find love in her heart—and to move her to quit all for me. By turns these two dreams reigned over me; I indulged in them with complacency—I returned to them with ardour—I nourished them with perseverance. I never saw a young Indian mother with her infant, but my soul dissolved in tender fancies of domestic union and bliss with Alithea. There was something in her soft dark eye, and in the turn of her countenance, purely eastern; and many a lovely, half-veiled face I could have taken for hers; many a slight, symmetrical figure, round, elegant, and delicate, seemed her own, as, with elastic, undulating motion, they passed on their way to temple or feast. I cultivated all these fancies; they nourished my fidelity, and made the thought of her the absolute law of my life.
"Ten years passed, and then news came that altered my whole situation. My uncle and his only son died; the family estate devolved on me. I was rich and free. Rich in my own eyes, and in the eyes of all to whom competence is wealth. I felt sure that, with this inheritance, Captain Rivers would not disdain me for his child. I gave up my commission immediately, and returned to England.
"England and Alithea! How balmy, how ineffably sweet was the idea of once more beholding the rural spot where she resided; of treading the woodland paths with her—of visiting her dear mother's grave—of renewing our old associations, and knitting our destinies inextricably in one. It was a voyage of bliss. I longed for its conclusion; but feeling that a pathway was stretched across the ocean, leading even into her very presence, I blessed each wave or tract of azure sea we passed over. The limitless Atlantic was my road to her, and became glorified as the vision of the Hebrew shepherd boy; and yet loved with the same homefelt sweetness as that with which I used to regard the lime-tree walk that led to her garden-gate. I forgot the years that had elapsed since we met; it was with difficulty that I forced my imagination to remember that I should not find her pale mother beside her to sanctify our union."
[CHAPTER XXVIII]
"On landing in England, I at once set off to the far northern county where she resided. I arrived at the well-known village; all looked the same; I recognised the cottages and their flower-gardens, and even some of the elder inhabitants looking, methought, no older than when I left them. My heart hailed my return home with rapture, and I quickened my steps towards the cottage. It was shut up and abandoned. This was the first check my sanguine spirit had met. Hitherto I had not pronounced her name or asked a question—I longed to return, as from a walk, and to find all things as I had left it. Living in a dream, I had not considered the chances and the storms, or even the mere changes, of the seasons of life.
"My pen lags in its task—I dilate on things best hurried over, yet they serve as a screen between me and fate. A few inquiries revealed the truth. Captain Rivers was dead—his daughter married. I had lived in a fool's paradise. None of the obstacles existed that I expected to meet and conquer, but in their stead a fourfold brazen door had risen, locked, barred, and guarded, and I could not even shake a hinge, or put back a bolt.
"I hurried from the fatal spot; it became a hell to me. And oh, to think that I had lived in vain—vainly dreamed of the angel of my idolatry, vainly hoped—and most vainly loved; called her mine when another held her, sold myself to perpetual slavery to her shadow, while her living image enriched the shrine of another's home! The tempest that shook my soul did not permit me to give form, or, indeed, to dwell consecutively on such desolating thoughts. As a man who arrives from a pleasant journey, and turns the corner where he expects to view the dwelling in which repose his wife, his children—all dear to him—and when he gains the desired spot, beholds it smouldering in ashes, and is told that all are consumed, and that their bones lie beneath the ruins; thus was I—my imagination had created home, and bride, and fair being sprung from her side, who called me father, and one word defaced my whole future life and widowed me for ever.