CHAPTER IX.
A SOUL WITHOUT HOPE.
When Mr. Fielden returned home, Lucretia had quitted the house. She left
a line for him in her usual bold, clear handwriting, referring him to his
wife for explanation of the reasons that forbade a further residence
beneath his roof. She had removed to an hotel until she had leisure to
arrange her plans for the future. In a few months she should be of age;
and in the meanwhile, who now living claimed authority over her? For the
rest, she added, "I repeat what I told Mr. Mainwaring: all engagement
between us is at an end; he will not insult me either by letter or by
visit. It is natural that I should at present shrink from seeing Susan
Mivers. Hereafter, if permitted, I will visit Mrs. Mainwaring."
Though all had chanced as Mr. Fielden had desired (if, as he once half
meditated, he had spoken to Lucretia herself); though a marriage that
could have brought happiness to none, and would have made the misery of
two, was at an end,--he yet felt a bitter pang, almost of remorse, when
be learned what had occurred. And Lucretia, before secretly disliked (if
any one he could dislike), became dear to him at once, by sorrow and
compassion. Forgetting every other person, he hurried to the hotel
Lucretia had chosen; but her coldness deceived and her pride repelled
him. She listened dryly to all he said, and merely replied: "I feel only
gratitude at my escape. Let this subject now close forever."
Mr. Fielden left her presence with less anxious and commiserating
feelings,--perhaps all had chanced for the best. And on returning home,
his whole mind became absorbed in alarm for Susan. She was delirious,
and in great danger; it was many weeks before she recovered. Meanwhile,
Lucretia had removed into private apartments, of which she withheld the
address. During this time, therefore, they lost sight of her.
If amidst the punishments with which the sombre imagination of poets has
diversified the Realm of the tortured Shadows, it had depicted some soul
condemned to look evermore down into an abyss, all change to its gaze
forbidden, chasm upon chasm yawning deeper and deeper, darker and darker,
endless and infinite, so that, eternally gazing, the soul became, as it
were, a part of the abyss,--such an image would symbol forth the state of
Lucretia's mind.
It was not the mere desolation of one whom love has abandoned and
betrayed. In the abyss were mingled inextricably together the gloom of
the past and of the future,--there, the broken fortunes, the crushed
ambition, the ruin of the worldly expectations long inseparable from her
schemes; and amidst them, the angry shade of the more than father, whose
heart she had wrung, and whose old age she had speeded to the grave.
These sacrifices to love, while love was left to her, might have haunted
her at moments; but a smile, a word, a glance, banished the regret and
the remorse. Now, love being razed out of life, the ruins of all else
loomed dismal amidst the darkness; and a voice rose up, whispering: "Lo,
fool, what thou hast lost because thou didst believe and love!" And this
thought grasped together the two worlds of being,--the what has been, and
the what shall be. All hope seemed stricken from the future, as a man
strikes from the calculations of his income the returns from a property
irrevocably lost. At her age but few of her sex have parted with
religion; but even such mechanical faith as the lessons of her childhood,
and the constrained conformities with Christian ceremonies, had
instilled, had long since melted away in the hard scholastic scepticism
of her fatal tutor,--a scepticism which had won, with little effort, a
reason delighting in the maze of doubt, and easily narrowed into the
cramped and iron logic of disbelief by an intellect that scorned to
submit where it failed to comprehend. Nor had faith given place to those
large moral truths from which philosophy has sought to restore the proud
statue of Pagan Virtue as a substitute for the meek symbol of the
Christian cross. By temperament unsocial, nor readily moved to the
genial and benevolent, that absolute egotism in which Olivier Dalibard
centred his dreary ethics seemed sanctioned to Lucretia by her studies
into the motives of man and the history of the world. She had read the
chronicles of States and the memoirs of statesmen, and seen how craft
carries on the movements of an age. Those Viscontis, Castruccios, and
Medici; those Richelieus and Mazarins and De Retzs; those Loyolas and
Mohammeds and Cromwells; those Monks and Godolphins; those Markboroughs
and Walpoles; those founders of history and dynasties and sects; those
leaders and dupers of men, greater or lesser, corrupters or corrupt, all
standing out prominent and renowned from the guiltless and laurelless
obscure,--seemed to win, by the homage of posterity, the rewards that
attend the deceivers of their time. By a superb arrogance of
generalization, she transferred into private life, and the rule of
commonplace actions, the policy that, to the abasement of honour, has so
often triumphed in the guidance of States. Therefore, betimes, the whole
frame of society was changed to her eye, from the calm aspect it wears to
those who live united with their kind; she viewed all seemings with
suspicion; and before she had entered the world, prepared to live in it
as a conspirator in a city convulsed, spying and espied, schemed against
and scheming,--here the crown for the crafty, there the axe for the
outwitted.
But her love--for love is trust--had led her half way forth from this
maze of the intellect. That fair youth of inexperience and candour which
seemed to bloom out in the face of her betrothed; his very shrinking from
the schemes so natural to her that to her they seemed even innocent; his
apparent reliance on mere masculine ability, with the plain aids of
perseverance and honesty,--all had an attraction that plucked her back
from herself. If she clung to him firmly, blindly, credulously, it was
not as the lover alone. In the lover she beheld the good angel. Had he
only died to her, still the angel smile would have survived and warned.
But the man had not died; the angel itself had deceived; the wings could
uphold her no more,--they had touched the mire, and were sullied with the
soil; with the stain, was forfeited the strength. All was deceit and
hollowness and treachery. Lone again in the universe rose the eternal I.
So down into the abyss she looked, depth upon depth, and the darkness had
no relief, and the deep had no end.
Olivier Dalibard alone, of all she knew, was admitted to her seclusion.
He played his part as might be expected from the singular patience and
penetration which belonged to the genius of his character. He forbore
the most distant allusion to his attachment or his hopes. He evinced
sympathy rather by imitating her silence, than attempts to console. When
he spoke, he sought to interest her mind more than to heal directly the
deep wounds of her heart. There is always, to the afflicted, a certain
charm in the depth and bitterness of eloquent misanthropy. And Dalibard,
who professed not to be a man-hater, but a world-scorner, had powers of
language and of reasoning commensurate with his astute intellect and his
profound research. His society became not only a relief, it grew almost
a want, to that stern sorrower. But whether alarmed or not by the
influence she felt him gradually acquiring, or whether, through some
haughty desire to rise once more aloft from the state of her rival and
her lover, she made one sudden effort to grasp at the rank from which she
had been hurled. The only living person whose connection could re-open
to her the great world, with its splendours and its scope to ambition,
was Charles Vernon. She scarcely admitted to her own mind the idea that
she would now accept, if offered, the suit she had before despised; she
did not even contemplate the renewal of that suit,--though there was
something in the gallant and disinterested character of Vernon which
should have made her believe he would regard their altered fortunes
rather as a claim on his honour than a release to his engagements. But
hitherto no communication had passed between them; and this was strange
if he retained the same intentions which he had announced at Laughton.
Putting aside, we say, however, all such considerations, Vernon had
sought her friendship, called her "cousin," enforced the distant
relationship between them. Not as lover, but as kinsman,--the only
kinsman of her own rank she possessed,--his position in the world, his
connections, his brilliant range of acquaintance, made his counsel for
her future plans, his aid in the re-establishment of her consequence (if
not--as wealthy, still as well-born), and her admission amongst her
equals, of price and value. It was worth sounding the depth of the
friendship he had offered, even if his love had passed away with the
fortune on which doubtless it had been based.
She took a bold step,--she wrote to Vernon: not even to allude to what
had passed between them; her pride forbade such unwomanly vulgarity. The
baseness that was in her took at least a more delicate exterior. She
wrote to him simply and distantly, to state that there were some books
and trifles of hers left at Laughton, which she prized beyond their
trivial value, and to request, as she believed him to be absent from the
Hall, permission to call at her old home, in her way to a visit in a
neighbouring county, and point out to whomsoever he might appoint to meet
her, the effects she deemed herself privileged to claim. The letter was
one merely of business, but it was a sufficient test of the friendly
feelings of her former suitor.
She sent this letter to Vernon's house in London, and the next day came
the answer.
Vernon, we must own, entirely sympathized with Sir Miles in the solemn
injunctions the old man had bequeathed. Immediately after the death of
one to whom we owe gratitude and love, all his desires take a sanctity
irresistible and ineffable; we adopt his affection, his dislikes, his
obligations, and his wrongs. And after he had read the copy of
Lucretia's letter, inclosed to him by Sir Miles, the conquest the poor
baronet had made over resentment and vindictive emotion, the evident
effort at passionless justice with which he had provided becomingly for
his niece, while he cancelled her claims as his heiress, had filled
Vernon with a reverence for his wishes and decisions that silenced all
those inclinations to over-generosity which an unexpected inheritance is
apt to create towards the less fortunate expectants. Nevertheless,
Lucretia's direct application, her formal appeal to his common courtesy
as host and kinsman, perplexed greatly a man ever accustomed to a certain
chivalry towards the sex; the usual frankness of his disposition
suggested, however, plain dealing as the best escape from his dilemma,
and therefore he answered thus:--
MADAM,--Under other circumstances it would have given me no common
pleasure to place the house that you so long inhabited again at your
disposal; and I feel so painfully the position which my refusal of your
request inflicts upon me, that rather than resort to excuses and
pretexts, which, while conveying an impression of my sincerity, would
seem almost like an insult to yourself, I venture frankly to inform you
that it was the dying wish of my lamented kinsman, in consequence of a
letter which came under his eye, that the welcome you had hitherto
received at Laughton should be withdrawn. Pardon me, Madam, if I express
myself thus bluntly; it is somewhat necessary to the vindication of my
character in your eyes, both as regards the honour of your request and my
tacit resignation of hopes fervently but too presumptuously entertained.
In this most painful candour, Heaven forbid that I should add wantonly to
your self-reproaches for the fault of youth and inexperience, which I
should be the last person to judge rigidly, and which, had Sir Miles's
life been spared, you would doubtless have amply repaired. The feelings
which actuated Sir Miles in his latter days might have changed; but the
injunction those feelings prompted I am bound to respect.
For the mere matter of business on which you have done me the honour to
address me, I have only to say that any orders you may give to the
steward, or transmit through any person you may send to the Hall, with
regard to the effects you so naturally desire to claim, shall be
implicitly obeyed.
And believe me, Madam (though I do not presume to add those expressions
which might rather heighten the offence I fear this letter will give
you), that the assurance of your happiness in the choice you have made,
and which now no obstacle can oppose, will considerably--lighten the pain
with which I shall long recall my ungracious reply to your communication.
I have the honour to be, etc., C. VERNON ST. JOHN.
BROOK STREET, Dec. 28, 18--.
The receipt of such a letter could hardly add to the profounder grief
which preyed in the innermost core of Lucretia's heart; but in repelling
the effort she had made to distract that grief by ambition, it blackened
the sullen despondency with which she regarded the future. As the insect
in the hollow snare of the ant-lion, she felt that there was no footing
up the sides of the cave into which she had fallen; the sand gave way to
the step. But despondency in her brought no meekness; the cloud did not
descend in rain; resting over the horizon, its darkness was tinged with
the fires which it fed. The heart, already so embittered, was stung and
mortified into intolerable shame and wrath. From the home that should
have been hers, in which, as acknowledged heiress, she had smiled down on
the ruined Vernon, she was banished by him who had supplanted her, as one
worthless and polluted. Though, from motives of obvious delicacy, Vernon
had not said expressly that he had seen the letter to Mainwaring, the
unfamiliar and formal tone which he assumed indirectly declared it, and
betrayed the impression it had made, in spite of his reserve. A living
man then was in possession of a secret which justified his disdain, and
that man was master of Laughton! The suppressed rage which embraced the
lost lover extended darkly over this witness to that baffled and
miserable love. But what availed rage against either? Abandoned and
despoiled, she was powerless to avenge. It was at this time, when her
prospects seemed most dark, her pride was most crushed, and her despair
of the future at its height, that she turned to Dalibard as the only
friend left to her under the sun. Even the vices she perceived in him
became merits, for they forbade him to despise her. And now, this man
rose suddenly into another and higher aspect of character. Of late,
though equally deferential to her, there had been something more lofty in
his mien, more assured on his brow; gleams of a secret satisfaction, even
of a joy, that he appeared anxious to suppress, as ill in harmony with
her causes for dejection, broke out in his looks and words. At length,
one day, after some preparatory hesitation, he informed her that he was
free to return to France; that even without the peace between England and
France, which (known under the name of the Peace of Amiens) had been just
concluded, he should have crossed the Channel. The advocacy and interest
of friends whom he had left at Paris had already brought him under the
special notice of the wonderful man who then governed France, and who
sought to unite in its service every description and variety of
intellect. He should return to France, and then--why, then, the ladder
was on the walls of Fortune and the foot planted on the step! As he
spoke, confidently and sanguinely, with the verve and assurance of an
able man who sees clear the path to his goal, as he sketched with rapid
precision the nature of his prospects and his hopes, all that subtle
wisdom which had before often seemed but vague and general, took
practical shape and interest, thus applied to the actual circumstances of
men; the spirit of intrigue, which seemed mean when employed on mean
things, swelled into statesmanship and masterly genius to the listener
when she saw it linked with the large objects of masculine ambition.
Insensibly, therefore, her attention became earnest, her mind aroused.
The vision of a field, afar from the scenes of her humiliation and
despair,--a field for energy, stratagem, and contest,--invited her
restless intelligence. As Dalibard had profoundly calculated, there was
no new channel for her affections,--the source was dried up, and the
parched sands heaped over it; but while the heart lay dormant, the mind
rose sleepless, chafed, and perturbed. Through the mind, he indirectly
addressed and subtly wooed her.
"Such," he said, as he rose to take leave, "such is the career to which I
could depart with joy if I did not depart alone!"
"Alone!" that word, more than once that day, Lucretia repeated to
herself--"alone!" And what career was left to her?--she, too, alone!
In certain stages of great grief our natures yearn for excitement. This
has made some men gamblers; it has made even women drunkards,--it had
effect over the serene calm and would-be divinity of the poet-sage. When
his son dies, Goethe does not mourn, he plunges into the absorption of a
study uncultivated before. But in the great contest of life, in the
whirlpool of actual affairs, the stricken heart finds all,--the gambling,
the inebriation, and the study.
We pause here. We have pursued long enough that patient analysis, with
all the food for reflection that it possibly affords, to which we were
insensibly led on by an interest, dark and fascinating, that grew more
and more upon us as we proceeded in our research into the early history
of a person fated to pervert no ordinary powers into no commonplace
guilt.
The charm is concluded, the circle closed round; the self-guided seeker
after knowledge has gained the fiend for the familiar.
