Tales from "Blackwood," Volume 3

by Various

“There at her chamber window high,
The lonely maiden sits—
Its casement fronts the western sky,
And balmy air admits.
“And while her thoughts have wandered far
From all she hears and sees,
She gazes on the evening star,
That twinkles through the trees.—
“Is it to watch the setting sun,
She does that seat prefer?
Alas! the maiden thinks of one,
Who little thinks of her.”

“Eternal fidelity”—being, of course, the first article agreed and sworn to in the lovers’ parting covenant, “Constant correspondence,” as naturally came second in the list, and never was eagerness like Walter’s to pour out the first sorrows of absence in his first letter to the beloved, or impatience like his for the appearance of her answer. After some decorous delay——(a little maiden coyness was thought decorous in those days)—it arrived, the delightful letter! Delightful it would have been to Walter, in that second effervescence of his first passion, had the penmanship of the fair writer been barely legible, and her epistolary talent not absolutely below the lowest degree of mediocrity. Walter (to say the truth) had felt certain involuntary misgivings on that subject. Himself not only an ardent admirer of nature, but an unaffected lover of elegant literature, he had been frequently mortified at Adrienne’s apparent indifference to the one, and seeming distaste to the other. Of her style of writing he had found no opportunities of judging. Albums were not the fashion in those days—and although, on the few occasions of his absence from St Hilaire after his engagement with Adrienne (Caen being still his ostensible place of residence), he had not failed to indite to her sundry billets, and even full-length letters, dispatched (as on a business of life and death) by bribed and special messengers,—either Mlle. de St Hilaire was engaged or abroad when they arrived—or otherwise prevented from replying; and still more frequently the lover trod on the heels of his despatch. So it chanced that he had not carried away with him one hoarded treasure of the fair one’s writing. And as to books—he had never detected the “dame de ses pensées” in the act of reading anything more intellectual than the words for a new Vaudeville, or a letter from her Paris milliner. He had more than once proposed to read aloud to her—but either she was seized with a fit of unconquerable yawning before he proceeded far in his attempt—or the migraine, or the vapours, to which distressing ailments she was constitutionally subject—were sure to come on at the unfortunate moment of his proposition—and thus, from a combination of untoward accidents, he was not only left in ignorance of his mistress’s higher attainments, but at certain moments of disappointed feeling reduced to form conjectures on the subject, compared to which “ignorance was bliss;” and to some lingering doubts of the like nature, as well as to lover-like impatience, might be attributable the nervous trepidation with which he broke the seal of her first letter. That letter!—The first glimpse of its contents was a glimpse of Paradise!—The first hurried reading transported him to the seventh heaven—and the twentieth (of course, dispassionately critical) confirmed him in the fruition of its celestial beatitudes. Seriously speaking, Walter Barnard must have been a fool, as well as an ingrate, if he had not been pleased—enraptured with the sweet, modest, womanly feeling that breathed through every line of that dear letter. It was no long one—no laboured production—(though perfectly correct as to style and grammar); but the artless affection that evinced itself in more than one sentence of those two short pages, would have stamped perfection on the whole, in Walter’s estimation, had it not (as was the case) been throughout characterised by a beautiful, yet singular simplicity of expression, which surprised not less than it enchanted him. And then—how he reproached himself for the mixed emotion!—Why should it surprise him that Adrienne wrote thus? His was the inconceivable dulness—the want of discernment—of intuitive penetration into the intellectual depths of a character, veiled from vulgar eyes by the retiringness of self-depreciating delicacy, but which to him would gradually have revealed itself, if he had applied himself sedulously to unravel the interesting mystery.

Thenceforward, as may well be imagined, the correspondence, so happily commenced, was established on the most satisfactory footing, and nothing could exceed the delightful interest with which Walter studied the beautiful parts of a character, which gradually developed itself as their epistolary intercourse proceeded, now enchanting him by its peculiar naïveté and innocent sportiveness, now affecting him more profoundly, and not less delightfully, by some tone of deep feeling and serious sweetness, so well in unison with all the better and higher feelings of his own nature, that it was with more than lover-like fervour he thanked Heaven for his prospects of happiness with the dear and amiable being, whose personal loveliness had now really sunk to a secondary rank in his estimation of her charms. A slight shade of the reserve which, in his personal intercourse with Adrienne, had kept him so unaccountably in the dark with respect to her true character, was still perceptible, even in her delightful letters, but only sufficiently to give a more piquant interest to their correspondence. It was evident that she hung back, as it were, to take from his letters the tone of her replies; that on any general subject, it was for him to take the lead, though, having done so, whether in allusion to books, or on any topic connected with taste or sentiment, she was ever modestly ready to take her part in the discussion, with simple good sense and unaffected feeling. It was almost unintentionally that he made a first allusion to some favourite book; and the letter, containing his remark, was despatched before he recollected that he had once been baffled in an attempt to enjoy it with Adrienne by the manner (more discouraging than indifference) with which she received his proposition, that they should read it together. He wished he had not touched upon the subject. Adrienne, excellent as was her capacity—spiritual as were her letters, might not love reading. He would, if possible, have recalled his letter. But its happy inadvertence was no longer matter of regret when the reply reached him. That very book—his favourite poet—was Adrienne’s also! and more than one sweet passage she quoted from it! His favourite passages also! Was ever sympathy so miraculous! And that the dear diffident creature should so unaccountably have avoided, when they were together, all subjects that might lead to the discovery!

The literary pretensions of the young soldier were by no means those of profound scholarship, of deep reading, or even of a very regular education; but his tastes were decidedly intellectual, and the charm of his intercourse with Adrienne was in no slight degree enhanced by the discovery that, on all subjects with which they were mutually acquainted, she was fully competent to enter with equal interest.

Absence and lengthened separation are generally allowed to be great tests of love, or, more properly speaking, of its truth. In Walter’s case, they hardly acted as such, for distance had proved to him but a lunette d’approche, bringing him acquainted with those rare qualities in his fair mistress which had been imperceptible during their personal intercourse. With what impatience, knowing her as he now did, did he anticipate the hour of their union! But it was with something like a feeling of disappointment that he remarked in her letters a degree of uneasiness on that tender subject, to which (as the period of separation drew nearer to a close) he was fain to allude more frequently and fondly. One other shade of alloy had crossed at intervals his pleasure in their correspondence. Many kind inquiries had he made for la petite Madelaine, and many affectionate messages had he sent her. But they were either wholly unnoticed, or answered in phrase the most formal and laconic,—

“Mlle. du Résnél was well, obliged to Monsieur Walter for his polite inquiries.—Desired her compliments.”

It was in vain that Walter ventured a half-sportive message in reply to this ceremonious return for his frank and affectionate remembrances—that, in playful mockery, he requested Adrienne to obtain for him “Mademoiselle du Résnél’s forgiveness for his temerity in still designating her by the familiar title of La Petite Madelaine.” The reply was, if possible, more brief and chilling—so unlike (he could not but remark) to that he might reasonably have expected from his grateful and warm-hearted little friend, that a strange surmise, or rather a revived suspicion, suggested itself as the possible solution of his conjectures. But was it possible—(Walter’s face flushed as bethought of his own possible absurdity in so suspecting)—was it in the nature of things—that Adrienne, the peerless, the lovely and beloved, should conceive one jealous thought of the poor little Madelaine? The supposition was almost too ridiculous to be harboured for a moment—and yet he remembered certain passages in their personal intercourse, when the strangeness (to use no harsher word) of Adrienne’s behaviour to her cousin, had awakened in him an indefinite consciousness that his good-humoured notice of the poor little girl, and the kind word he was ever prompt to speak in her praise when she was absent, were likely to be anything but advantageous to her in their effect on the feelings of her patroness. One circumstance, in particular, recurred to him,—the recollection of a certain jour de fête, when la petite Madelaine (who had been dancing at a village gala, kept annually at the Manoir du Résnél in honour of Madame’s name-day) presented herself, late in the evening, at St Hilaire, so blooming from the effects of her recent exhilarating exercise—her meek eyes so bright with the excitement of innocent gaiety, and her small delicate figure and youthful face set off so advantageously by her simple holiday dress, especially by her hat, à la bergère, garlanded with wild roses, that even the old people, M. and Mad. de St Hilaire, complimented her on her appearance, and himself (after whispering aside to Adrienne, “La Petite est jolie à ravir,”) had sprung forward, and whirled her round the salon in a tour de danse, the effect of which impromptu was assuredly not to lessen the bloom upon her cheeks, which flushed over neck and brow, as, with the laughing familiarity of a brother, he commended her tasteful dress, and especially the pretty hat, which she must wear, and that only, he assured her, when she wished to be perfectly irresistible. Walter’s sportive sally was soon over, and Madelaine’s flush of beauty (the magical effect of happiness) soon faded. Both yielded to the influence of another spell—that wrought by the coldly discouraging looks of Adrienne, and by the asperity of the few sentences, which were all she condescended to utter during the remainder of the evening. When la petite Madelaine reappeared the next morning with her cousin (who, on the plea of a migraine, remained till late in her own apartments), Walter failed not to remark that her eyes were red and heavy, and that her manner was more constrained than usual; neither did it escape his observation when Sunday arrived, that the tasteful little hat had been strangely metamorphosed, and that when he rallied her on her capricious love of changes, which had only spoiled what was before so becoming, she stole a half-fearful glance at Adrienne, while rather confusedly replying that “it was not her own doing, but that Ma’amselle Justine, her cousin’s femme-de-chambre, had been permitted by the latter to arrange it more fashionably.” The subject dropped then, and was never resumed; but Walter then made his own comments on it. And now that the peculiar tone of Adrienne’s letters in referring to Madelaine brought former circumstances vividly to mind, it is not surprising that he fell into a fit of musing on the possibility, which he yet rebuked himself for suspecting. It must be confessed that his reflections on the subject were of a less displeasing nature than those which had suggested themselves on former occasions, before epistolary correspondence with his fair betrothed had given him that insight into her character and feelings which, strange to say, he had failed to obtain during their personal communication. Now he felt assured, that if indeed she were susceptible of the weakness he had dared to suspect, it was mingled with no unkindly feelings towards her unoffending cousin, but sprang solely from the peculiar sensitiveness of her nature, and the exclusive delicacy of her affection for himself.

Where ever was the lover—(we say not the husband)—who could dwell but with tenderest indulgence on an infirmity of love so flattering to his own self-love and self-complacency? We suspect that Walter’s fervour was anything but cooled by the fancied discovery; and his doubts on the subject, if he still harboured any, were wholly dispelled by a postscript to Adrienne’s next letter, almost amounting, singular as was the construction, to an avowal of her own weakness.

In the three fair pages of close writing of which that letter consisted, was vouchsafed no word of reply to an interrogatory—the last, he secretly resolved, he would ever venture on that subject—whether his “little cousin Madelaine,” as he had sometimes sportively called her by anticipation, had quite forgotten her friend Walter. But on one of the outside folds, evidently an after-thought, written hurriedly, and, as it seemed, with a trembling hand, was the following postscript:—