CHAPTER XXIV.
THE MARRIED STATE OF CONSTANCE.
Constance, Countess of Erpingham, was young, rich, lovely as a dream,
worshipped as a goddess. Was she happy? and was her whole heart occupied
with the trifles that surrounded her?
Deep within her memory was buried one fatal image that she could not
exorcise. The reproaching and mournful countenance of Godolphin rose
before her at all times and seasons. The charm of his presence no other
human being could renew. His eloquent and noble features, living, and
glorious with genius and with passion, his sweet deep voice, his
conversation, so rich with mind and knowledge, and the subtle delicacy
with which he applied its graces to some sentiment dedicated to her,
(delicious flattery, of all flatteries the most attractive to a sensitive
and intellectual woman!)--these occurred to her again and again, and
rendered all she saw around her flat, wearisome, insipid. Nor was this
deep-seated and tender weakness the only serpent--if I may use so confused
a metaphor--in the roses of her lot.
And here I invoke the reader's graver attention. The fate of women in all
the more polished circles of society is eminently unnatural and unhappy.
The peasant and his dame are on terms of equality--equality even of
ambition: no career is open to one and shut to the other;--equality even
of hardship, and hardship is employment: no labour occupies the whole
energies of the man, but leaves those of the woman unemployed. Is this
the case with the wives in a higher station?--the wives of the lawyer, the
merchant, the senator, the noble? There, the men have their occupations;
and the women (unless, like poor Fanny, work-bags and parrots can employ
them) none. They are idle. They employ the imagination and the heart.
They fall in love and are wretched; or they remain virtuous, and are
either wearied by an eternal monotony or they fritter away intellect,
mind, character, in the minutest frivolities--frivolities being their only
refuge from stagnation. Yes! there is one very curious curse for the sex
which men don't consider! Once married, the more aspiring of them have no
real scope for ambition: the ambition gnaws away their content, and never
find elsewhere wherewithal to feed on.
This was Constance's especial misfortune. Her lofty, and restless, and
soaring spirit pined for a sphere of action, and ballrooms and boudoirs
met it on every side. One hope she did indeed cherish; that hope was the
source of her intriguings and schemes, of her care for seeming trifles,
the waste of her energies on seeming frivolities. This hope, this object,
was to diminish--to crush, not only the party which had forsaken her
father, but the power of that order to which she belonged herself; which
she had entered only to humble. But this hope was a distant and chill
vision. She was too rational to anticipate an early and effectual change
in our social state, and too rich in the treasures of mind to be the
creature of one idea. Satiety--the common curse of the great;--crept over
her day by day. The powers within her lay stagnant--the keen intellect
rusted in its sheath.
"How is it," said she to the beautiful Countess of ----, "that you seem
always so gay and so animated; that with all your vivacity and tenderness,
you are never at a loss for occupation? You never seem
weary--ennuyee--why is this?"
"I will tell you," said the pretty countess, archly; "I change my lovers
every month." Constance blushed, and asked no more.
Many women in her state, influenced by contagious example, wearied by a
life in which the heart had no share; without children, without a guide;
assailed and wooed on all sides, in all shapes;--many women might have
ventured, if not into love, at least into coquetry. But Constance
remained as bright and cold as ever--"the unsunned snow!" It might be,
indeed, that the memory of Godolphin preserved her safe from all lesser
dangers. The asbestos once conquered by fire can never be consumed by it;
but there was also another cause in Constance's very nature--it was pride!
Oh! if men could but dream of what a proud woman endures in those
caresses which humble her, they would not wonder why proud women are so
difficult to subdue. This is a matter on which we all ponder much, but we
dare not write honestly upon it. But imagine a young, haughty, guileless
beauty, married to a man whom she neither loves nor honours; and so far
from that want of love rendering her likely to fall hereafter, it is more
probable that it will make her recoil from the very name of love.
About this time the Dowager Lady Erpingham died; an event sincerely
mourned by Constance, and which broke the strongest tie that united the
young countess to her lord. Lord Erpingham and Constance, indeed, now saw
but little of each other. Like most men six feet high, with large black
whiskers, the earl was vain of his person; and, like most rich noblemen,
he found plenty of ladies who assured him he was irresistible. He had
soon grown angry at the unadmiring and calm urbanity of Constance; and,
living a great deal with single men, he formed liaisons of the same order
as they do. He was, however, sensible that he had been fortunate in the
choice of a wife. His political importance the wisdom of Constance had
quadrupled; at the least; his house she had rendered the most brilliant in
London, and his name the most courted in the lists of the peerage. Though
munificent, she was not extravagant; though a beauty, she did not
intrigue; neither, though his inconstancy was open, did she appear
jealous; nor, whatever the errors of his conduct, did she ever disregard
his interest, disobey his wishes, or waver from the smooth and continuous
sweetness of her temper. Of such a wife Lord Erpingham could not
complain: he esteemed her, praised her, asked her advice, and stood a
little in awe of her.
Ah, Constance! had you been the daughter of a noble or a peasant--had you
been the daughter of any man but John Vernon--what a treasure beyond
price, without parallel, would that heart, that beauty, that genius have
been!
