Until he was twenty-one, Edward had never spent a thought upon his scanty resources. Three years had past since then—three brief years, which had a little taught him of what homely stuff the world is made; yet care and even reflection had not yet disturbed his repose. Days, months sped on, and nothing reminded him of his relative wealth or poverty in a way to annoy him, till he knew Ethel. He had been interested for her in America—he had seen her, young and lovely, drowned in grief—sorrowing with the heart's first prodigal sorrow for her adored father. He had left her, and thought of her no more—except, as a passing reflection, that in the natural course of things, she was now to become the pupil of Lady Lodore, and consequently, that her unsophisticated feelings and affectionate heart would speedily be tarnished and hardened under her influence. He anticipated meeting her hereafter in ball-rooms and assemblies, changed into a flirting, giddy, yet worldly-minded girl, intent upon a good establishment, and a fashionable partner.
He encountered her under the sober and primitive guardianship of Mrs. Fitzhenry, unchanged and unharmed. The same radiant innocence beamed from her face; her sweet voice was still true and heart-reaching in its tones; her manner mirrored the purity and lustre of a mind incapable of guile, and adorned with every generous and gentle sentiment. He drew near her with respect and admiration, and soon no other object showed fair in his eyes except Ethel. She was the star of the world, and he felt happy only when the light of her presence shone upon him. Her voice and smile visited his dreams, and spoke peace and delight to his heart. She was to him as a jewel (yet sweeter and lovelier than any gem) shut up in a casket, of which he alone possessed the key—as a pearl, of whose existence an Indian diver is aware beneath the waves of ocean, deep buried from every other eye.
There was all in Ethel that could excite and keep alive imaginative and tender love. In characterizing a race of women, a delightful writer has described her individually. "She was in her nature a superior being. Her majestic forehead, her dark, thoughtful eye, assured you that she had communed with herself. She could bear to be left in solitude—yet what a look was her's if animated by mirth or love! She was poetical, if not a poet; and her imagination was high and chivalrous."[1] The elevated tone of feeling fostered by her father, her worship of his virtues, and the loneliness of her life in the Illinois, combined to render her dissimilar to any girl Villiers had ever before known or admired. When unobserved, he watched her countenance, and marked the varying tracery of high thoughts and deep emotions pass over it; her dark eye looked out from itself on vacancy, but read there a meaning only to be discerned by vivid imagination. And then when that eye, so full of soul, turned on him, and affection and pleasure at once animated and softened its glances—when her sweet lips, so delicate in their shape, so balmy and soft in their repose, were wreathed into a smile—he felt that his whole being was penetrated with enthusiastic admiration, and that his nature had bent to a law, from which it could never again be liberated.
That she should mingle with the world—enter into its contaminating pursuits—be talked of in it with that spirit of depreciation and impertinence, which is its essence, was odious to him, and he was overjoyed to have her safe at Richmond—secure from Lady Lodore—shut up apart from all things, except nature—her unsophisticated aunt, and his own admiration—a bird of beauty, brooding in its own fair nest, unendangered by the fowler. These were his feelings; but by degrees other reflections forced themselves on him; and love which, when it has knocked and been admitted, will be a tyrant, obliged him to entertain regrets and fears which agonized him. His hourly aspiration was to make her his own. Would that dear heart open to receive into its recesses his image, and thenceforward dedicate itself to him only? Might he become her lover, guardian, husband—and they tread together the jungle of life, aiding each other to thread its mazes, and to ward off every danger that might impend over them.
Bitter worldly considerations came to mar the dainty colours of this fair picture. He could not conceal from himself the poverty that must attend him during his father's life. Lord Lodore's singular will reduced Ethel's property to almost nothing: should he then ally her to his scanty means and broken fortune? His resolution was made. He would not deny himself the present pleasure of seeing her, to spare any future pain in which he should be the only sufferer; but on the first token of exclusive regard on her side, he would withdraw for ever.
[1]Coleridge's "Six Months in the West Indies."
[CHAPTER VII]
The world is too much with us.
WORDSWORTH.
Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry's morning task was to read the newspapers—the only intercourse she held with the world, and all her knowledge of it, was derived from these daily sheets. Ethel never looked at them—her thoughts held no communion with the vulgar routine of life, and she was too much occupied by her studies and reveries to spend any time upon topics so uninteresting as the state of the nation, or the scandal of the day.