CHAPTER LVIII.
THE EMPIRE OF TIME AND OF LOVE.--THE PROUD CONSTANCE GROWN WEARY AND
HUMBLE.--AN ORDEAL.
About this time the fine constitution of Lady Erpingham began to feel the
effects of that life which, at once idle and busy, is the most exhausting
of all. She suffered under no absolute illness; she was free from actual
pain; but a fever crept over her at night, and a languid debility
succeeded it the next day. She was melancholy and dejected; tears came
into her eyes without a cause; a sudden noise made her tremble; her nerves
were shaken,--terrible disease, which marks a new epoch in life, which is
the first token that our youth is about to leave us!
It is in sickness that we feel our true reliance on others, especially if
it is of that vague and not dangerous character when those around us are
not ashamed or roused into attendance; when the care, and the soothing,
and the vigilance, are the result of that sympathy which true and deep
love only feels. This thought broke upon Constance as she sat alone one
morning in that mood when books cannot amuse, nor music lull, nor luxury
soothe--the mood of an aching memory and a spiritless frame. Above her,
and over the mantelpiece of her favourite room, hung that picture of her
father which I have before described; it had been long since removed from
Wendover Castle to London, for Constance wished it to be frequently in her
sight. "Alas!" thought she, gazing upon the proud and animated brow that
bent down upon her; "Alas! though in a different sphere, thy lot, my
father, has been mine;--toil unrepaid, affection slighted, sacrifices
forgotten;--a harder lot in part; for thou hadst, at least, in thy
stirring and magnificent career, continued excitement and perpetual
triumph. But I, a woman, shut out by my sex from contest, from victory,
am left only the thankless task to devise the rewards which others are to
enjoy; the petty plot, the poor intrigue, the toil without the honour, the
humiliation without the revenge;--yet have I worked in thy cause, my
father, and thou--thou, couldst thou see my heart, wouldst pity and
approve me."
As Constance turned away her eyes, they fell on the opposite mirror, which
reflected her still lofty but dimmed and faded beauty; the worn cheek, the
dejected eye, those lines and hollows which tell the progress of years!
There are certain moments when the time we have been forgetting makes its
march suddenly apparent to our own eyes; when the change we have hitherto
marked not stares upon us rude and abrupt; we almost fancy those lines,
these wrinkles, planted in a single hour so unperceived have they been
before. And such a moment was this to the beautiful Constance: she
started at her own likeness, and turned involuntarily from the
unflattering mirror. Beside it, on her table, lay a locket, given her by
Godolphin just before they married, and containing his hair; it was a
simple trifle, and the simplicity seemed yet more striking amidst the
costly and modern jewels that were scattered round it. As she looked on
it, her heart, all woman still, flew back to the day on which, whispering
eternal love, he hung it round her neck. "Ah, happy days! would that
they could return!" sighed the desolate schemer; and she took the locket,
kissed it, and softened by all the numberless recollections of the past,
wept silently over it. "And yet," she said, after a pause, and wiping
away her tears, "and yet this weakness is unworthy of me. Lone, sad,
ill, broken in frame and spirit as I am, he comes not near me; I am
nothing to him, nothing to any one in the wide world. My heart, my heart,
reconcile thyself to thy fate!--what thou hast been from thy cradle, that
shalt thou be to my grave. I have not even the tenderness of a child to
look to--the future is all blank!"
Constance was yet half yielding to, half struggling with, these thoughts,
when Stainforth Radclyffe (to whom she was never denied) was suddenly
announced. Time, which, sooner or later, repays perseverance, although in
a deceitful coin, had brought to Radclyffe a solid earnest of future
honors. His name had risen high in the science of his country; it was
equally honoured by the many and the few; he had become a marked man, one
of whom all predicted a bright hereafter. He had not yet, it is true,
entered Parliament--usually the great arena in which English reputations
are won--but it was simply because he had refused to enter it under the
auspices of any patron; and his political knowledge, his depths of
thought, and his stern, hard, ambitious mind were not the less appreciated
and acknowledged. Between him and Constance friendship had continued to
strengthen, and the more so as their political sentiments were in a great
measure the same, although originating in different causes--hers from
passion, his from reflection.
Hastily Constance turned aside her face, and brushed away her tears, as
Radclyffe approached; and then seeming to busy herself amongst some papers
that lay scattered on her escritoire, and gave her an excuse for
concealing in part her countenance, she said, with a constrained
cheerfulness, "I am happy you are come to relieve my ennui; I have been
looking over letters, written so many years ago, that I have been forced
to remember how soon I shall cease to be young; no pleasant reflection for
any one, much less a woman."
"I am at a loss for a compliment in return, as you may suppose," answered
Radclyffe; "but Lady Erpingham deserves a penance for even hinting at the
possibility of being ever less charming than she is; so I shall hold my
tongue."
"Alas!" said Constance, gravely, "how little, save the mere triumphs of
youth and beauty, is left to our sex! How much, nay, how entirely, in all
other and loftier objects, is our ambition walled in and fettered! The
human mind must have its aim, its aspiring; how can your sex blame us,
then, for being frivolous when no aim, no aspiring, save those of
frivolity, are granted us by society?"
"And is love frivolous?" said Radclyffe; "is the empire of the heart
nothing?"
"Yes!" exclaimed Constance, with energy; "for the empire never lasts. We
are slaves to the empire we would found; we wish to be loved, but we only
succeed in loving too well ourselves. We lay up our all--our thoughts,
hopes, emotions-all the treasures of our hearts--in one spot; and when we
would retire from the deceits and cares of life, we find the sanctuary
walled against us--we love, and are loved no longer!"
Constance had turned round with the earnestness of the feeling she
expressed; and her eyes, still wet with tears, her flushed cheek, her
quivering lip, struck to Radclyffe's heart more than her words. He rose
involuntarily; his own agitation was marked; he moved several steps
towards Constance, and then checked the impulse, and muttered indistinctly
to himself.
"No," said Constance, mournfully, and scarcely heeding him--"it is in vain
for us to be ambitious. We only deceive ourselves; we are not stern and
harsh enough for the passion. Touch our affections, and we are recalled
at once to the sense of our weakness; and I--I--would to God that I were a
humble peasant girl, and not--not what I am!"
So saying, the lofty Constance sank down, overpowered with the bitterness
of her feelings, and covered her face with her hands. Was Radclyffe a man
that he could see this unmoved?--that he could hear those beautiful lips
breathe complaints for the want of love, and not acknowledge the love
that burned at his own heart? Long, secretly, resolutely, had he
struggled against the passion for Constance, which his frequent
intercourse with her had fed, and which his consciousness, that in her was
the only parallel to himself that he had ever met with in her sex, had
first led him to form; and now lone, neglected, sad, this haughty woman
wept over her unloved lot in his presence, and still he was not at her
feet! He spoke not, moved not, but his breath heaved thick, and his face
was as pale as death. He conquered himself. All within Radclyffe obeyed
the idol he had worshipped, even before Constance; all within him, if
ardent and fiery, was also high and generous. The acuteness of his reason
permitted him no self-sophistried; and he would have laid his head on the
block rather than breathe a word of that love which he knew, from the
moment it was confessed, would become unworthy of Constance and himself.
There was a pause. Lady Erpingham, ashamed, confounded at her own
weakness, recovered herself slowly and in silence. Radclyffe at length
spoke; and his voice, at first trembling and indistinct, grew, as he
proceeded, clear and earnest.
"Never," said he, "shall I forget the confidence your emotions have
testified in my--my friendship; I am about to deserve it. Do not, my dear
friend (let me so call you), do not forget that life is too short for
misunderstandings in which happiness is concerned. You believe that--that
Godolphin does not repay the affection you have borne him: do not be
angry, dear Lady Erpingham; I feel it indelicate in me to approach that
subject, but my regard for you emboldens me. I know Godolphin's heart; he
may seem light, neglectful, but he loves you as deeply as ever; he loves
you entirely."
Constance, humbled as she was, listened in breathless silence; her cheek
burned with blushes, and those blushes were at once to Radclyffe a torture
and a reward.
"At this moment," continued he, with constrained calmness, "at this
moment he fancies in you that very coldness you lament in him. Pardon me,
Lady Erpingham; but Godolphin's nature is wayward, mysterious, and
exacting. Have you consulted, have you studied it sufficiently? Note it
well, soothe it; and if his love can repay you, you will be repaid. God
bless you, dearest Lady Erpingham."
In a moment more Radclyffe had left the apartment.
