Still Ethel's imagination was relieved by the absence of the massy walls, the portentous gates, the gloomy immensity of an absolute prison. The door of the house being opened, Ethel stepped out from the chaise and asked for Mr. Villiers. The man whom she addressed hesitated, but Ethel had learnt one only worldly lesson, which was, whenever she needed the services of people of the lower orders, to disseminate money plentifully. Her purse was in her hand, and she gave a sovereign to the man, who then at once showed them upstairs; which she ascended, though every limb nearly refused to perform its office as she approached the spot where again she was to find—to see him, whose image lived eternally in her heart, and whom it was the sole joy of her life to wait on, to be sheltered by, to live near.
The door was opened. In the dingy, dusty room, beside the fire, which looked as if it could not burn, and was never meant to warm even the black neglected grate, Villiers sat, reading. His first emotion was shame when he saw Ethel enter. There was no accord between her spotless loveliness and his squalid prison-room. Any one who has seen a sunbeam suddenly enter and light up a scene of housewifely neglect, and vulgar discomfort, and felt how obtrusive it rendered all that might be half-forgotten in the shade, can picture how the simple elegance of Ethel displayed yet more distinctly to her husband the worse than beggarly scene in which she found him. His cheeks flushed, and almost he would have turned away. He would have reproached, but a tenderness and an elevation of feeling animated her expressive countenance, which turned the current of his thoughts. Whether it were their fate to suffer the extremes of fortune in the savage wilderness, or in the more appalling privations of civilized life—love, and the poetry of love accompanied her, and gilded, and irradiated the commonest forms of penury. She looked at him, and her eyes then glanced to the barred windows. As Fanny and their conductor left them, she heard the key turn in the lock with an impertinent intrusive loudness. She felt pained for him, but for herself it was as if the world and all its cares were locked out, and as if in this near association with him, she reaped the reward of all her previous anxiety. There was no repining in her thoughts, no dejection in her manner; Villiers could read in her open countenance, as plainly as through the clearest crystal, the sentiments that were passing in her mind—it was something more satisfied than resignation, more contented than fortitude. It was a knowledge that whatever evil might attend her lot, the good so far outweighed it, that, for his sake only, could she advert to any feeling of distress. It was a consciousness of being in her place, and of fulfilling her duty, accompanied by a sort of rapture in remembering how thrice dear and hallowed that duty was. Angels could not feel as she did, for they cannot sacrifice to those they love; yet there was in her that absence of all self-emanating pain, which is the characteristic of what we are told of the angelic essences.
As when at night autumnal winds are howling, and vast masses of winged clouds are driven with indescribable speed across the sky—we note the islands of dark ether, built round by the white fleecy shapes; and as we mark the stars which gem their unfathomable depth, silence and sublime tranquillity appear to have found a home in that deep vault, and we love to dwell on the peace and beauty that live there, while the clouds still rush on, and the face of the lower heaven is more mutable than water. Thus the mind of Ethel, surrounded by the world's worst forms of adversity, showed clear and serene, entirely possessed by the repose of love. It was impossible but that, in spite of shame and regret, Villiers should not participate in these feelings. He gave himself up to the softening influence: he knew not how to repine on his own account; Ethel's affection demanded to stand in place of prosperity, and he could not refuse to admit so dear a claim.
The door had closed on them, and every outlet to liberty, or the enjoyment of life, was barred up. Edward drew Ethel towards him and kissed her fondly. Their eyes met, and the speechless tenderness that beamed from hers reached his heart and soothed every ruffled feeling. Sitting together, and interchanging a few words of comfort and hope, mingled with kind looks and affectionate caresses, they neither of them remembered indignity nor privation. The tedious mechanism of civilized life, and the odious interference of their fellow-creatures were forgotten, and they were happy.
[CHAPTER VIII]
Veggo purtroppo
Che favola è la vita,
E la favola mia non è compita.
PETRARCA.
The darker months of winter had passed away, and the chilly, blighting English spring begun. Towards the end of March Lady Lodore came to town. She had long ago, in her days of wealth, fitted up a house in Park Lane, so she returned to it, as to a home—if home it might be called—where no one welcomed her—where none sat beside her at the domestic hearth.
For the first time she felt keenly this circumstance. During her mother's lifetime she had had her constantly for a companion, and afterwards as events pressed upon her, and while the anguish she felt upon Horatio Saville's marriage was still fresh, she had not reverted to her lonely position as the source of pain.
The haughty, the firm, the self-exalting soul of Cornelia had borne up long. She had often felt that she walked on the borders of a precipice, and that if once she admitted sentiments of regret, she should plunge without retrieve into a gulph, dark, portentous, inextricable. She had often repeated to herself that fate should not vanquish her, and that in spite of despair she would be happy: it is true that the misery occasioned by Saville's marriage was a canker at her heart, for which there was no cure, but she had recourse to dissipation that she might endeavour to forget it. A sad and ineffectual remedy. She was surrounded by admirers, whom she disdained, and by friends to whom she would have died rather than betray the naked misery of her soul. She had never planned nor thought of marriage. The report concerning the Earl of D——was one of those which the world always makes current, when two persons of opposite sexes are, by any chance, thrown much together. His sister was Lady Lodore's friend, and she had chaperoned her, and been of assistance to her, during the courtship of the gentleman who was at present her husband. It was their house that Lady Lodore had just quitted on arriving in town. The new-born happiness of early wedded life had been a scene to call her back to thoughts which were the sources of the bitterest anguish. She abhorred herself that she could envy, that she could desire to exchange places with, any created being. She abridged her visit, and fancied that she should regain peace in the independence of her own home. But the enjoyment of liberty was cold in her heart, and loneliness added a freezing chilliness to her feeling.