Volume Ii Part 7 (1/2)
”The scene deserved better actors, in my opinion. I have always thought it a very tiresome story, even among that most tiresome cla.s.s--Pure love-tales.”
”What say you to the 'Bride of Lammermoor?'”
”That it is only inferior to 'Romeo and Juliet.' But how many interests are there brought up before the reader in either of these--all subordinate to the great one--but all exciting mingled and conflicting emotions! The author, in neither case, was satisfied to dwell on the daily and nightly sighings of a love-stricken pair. He knew better than to weave his web of one tissue. In fact, the Master of Ravens-wood is more the slave of his own blighted ambition than of his love, which, at best, was only an element in his feeling of abas.e.m.e.nt.”
”And yet, how faithfully was his love returned! Nothing short of a true pa.s.sion meets such requital.”
”If you said, that no heart incapable of feeling ever inspired such, I would agree with you; but I fancy that women are often imposed upon, by supposing that they possess the entire affection of those they know capable of strong attachments.”
”That may possibly be true; but I suspect that in the world--in the middle of that life where we daily meet and form friends.h.i.+ps--there is very little time or opportunity for any thing above a pa.s.sing feeling of admiration, that seldom reaches esteem. The Honourable Miss Tollemache meets Captain Fitzherbert of the Guards. They are introduced and dance together--the lady is pretty--the Captain amusing--they have a large number of mutual acquaintances, whom they quiz and praise by turns, with sufficient agreement to be mutually pleased. They separate; and the Captain asks if the lady really have 'twenty thousand pounds fortune.'
Match-making aunts and mothers arrange preliminaries; and the young people have leisure to fail in love after the most approved fas.h.i.+on: that is, they meet very often, and talk more together, than common acquaintances are wont to do; but their talk is of Grisi and Lablache, of the Duke's fete at Chiswick, and Lord Donnington's yacht excursion to Malta. If the gentleman have a confidence to evoke, it is, possibly, the state of his mind on the approaching 'Derby.' Now I would ask, How much of mutual esteem, or even knowledge, grows out of all this?”
”Pretty much the same amount as exists in a French marriage, where M. le Marquis having '_fait ses farces_,' is fain to marry, being somewhat too deep in debt to continue what his years admonish him to abandon.
Mademoiselle is brought from the convent, or the governess's apartment, to sign the contract and accept her husband. There is enough in the very emanc.i.p.ation she obtains to be pleasurable, not to speak of a grand _trousseau_, diamonds, cashmeres, and the prettiest equipage in Paris.”
”Hence,” said I, ”we seem agreed, that one must not choose a wife or husband _a la mode Anglaise ni Francaise_.
”I believe not,” said she, laughing; ”for if marriages be made in heaven, they are about the strangest employment for angels I ever heard of.”
”It entirely depends on how you regard what are commonly called accidents and chances, as to the interpretation you give that saying. If you see, in those curious coincidences that are ever occurring in life, nothing more than hazard, you at once abandon all idea of governing human actions. If, on the other hand, you read them too implicitly, and accept them as indications for the future, you rush into fatalism.
For my own part, I think less of the events themselves, than as they originate or evoke sentiments in two parties, who, though previously known to each, only discover on some sudden emergency a wonderful agreement in sentiment and feeling. In the ordinary detail of life they had gone on, each ignorant of the other's opinions: so long as the wheels of life revolved freely and noiselessly, the journey had called for nothing of mutual interest; but some chance occurrence, some accidental rencontre occurs, and they at once perceive a most fortuitous similarity in taste or thinking. Like people who have suddenly discovered a long-persisted-in mistake, they hasten to repair the past by sudden confidences. Let me give an instance, even though it be almost too bold a one for my theory. A friend of mine, who had served some years with great distinction in the East, returned to England in company with a brother officer, a man of high family, knowing and known to every one of a certain standing in London. My friend, who, from a remote province, had no town acquaintances, was, however, speedily introduced by his friend, and, heralded by his reputation, was greatly noticed in society. He soon wearied of a round of dissipations, wherein the great, if not the only interest, lies in knowledge of the actors; and was one night stealing away from a large evening party, secretly resolving that it should be his last ball. He had, by dint of great labour and perseverance, reached the last salon, and already-caught glimpse of the stair beyond, when his progress was suddenly arrested by a very sweet but excited voice, saying--'One moment, sir; may I beg you will release my scarf.' He turned and beheld a very handsome girl, who was endeavouring to disengage from her shoulders a rich scarf of lace, one end of which was caught in the star he wore on his breast--a decoration from the Nizam. He immediately began to detach the delicate tissue from its dangerous situation. But his address was inferior to his zeal, so that he continually received admonitions as to greater care and caution, with mingled laments over the inevitable mischief that must follow.
Something abashed by his own awkwardness, his nervousness made him worse, and he muttered to himself in German, thinking it was a safe tongue for soliloquy--'Why will ladies wear such preposterous finery?--the spider's web is not so fragile.' To which at once the lady replied, in the same language,--'If men are vain enough to carry a coat full of '_crachats_' and orders, ladies ought, at least, to be careful how they pa.s.s them.' He blushed at the tart rebuke, and in his eagerness he tore a little hoop or mesh of the scarf. 'Oh, pray sir, permit me! It is real Brussels!' and so saying, she at once began, with a skill very different from his, the work of disentanglement. My friend, however, did not desist, but gave what aid he could, their fingers more than once meeting. Meanwhile a running fire of pleasantry and smartness went on between them, when suddenly his brother officer came up, saying,--
”'Oh! Lydia, here is my friend Collyton. I have been so anxious you should know him; and he leaves to-morrow.'
”'I hope he will permit me to rescue my scarf first,' said the lady, taking no heed of the introduction.
”'I am so sorry--I really am in despair,' said Collyton, as the lady, growing at last impatient, tore the frail web in order to get free.
”'It was all your fault, sir, remember that--or rather that of your star, which I'm sure I wish the Sirdar, or the Nizam, had reserved for a more careful wearer.'
”'I never deemed it would have done me such service,' said Collyton, recovering courage; 'without it, I should have pa.s.sed on, and you would never have taken the trouble to notice me.'
”'There, sir, I must leave you your prize,' said she, smartly, as, taking the arm of her partner, she joined the waltzers; while Collyton stood with the folds of a Brussels veil draped gracefully on his arm.
”He went home; spent half the night disengaging the intricate web, and the next day called to restore it, and apologise for his misfortune; the acquaintance thus casually formed ripened into mutual liking, and, after a time, into a stronger feeling, and in the end they were married; the whole of the event, the great event of every life, originating in the porcupine fas.h.i.+on of the Nizam's star and the small loops of a Brussels-lace scarf! Here, then, is my case; but for this rencontre they had never met, save in the formal fas.h.i.+on people do as first acquaintances. Without a certain collision, they had not given forth the sparks that warmed into flame.”
”I call that a pure chance, just as much as--as----”
”Our own meeting this morning, you were about to say,” said I, laughingly; and she joined in the mirth, but soon after became silent and thoughtful. I tried various ways of renewing our conversation; I started new topics, miles remote from all we had been talking of: but I soon perceived that, whether from physical causes or temperament, the eager interest she exhibited when speaking, and the tone of almost excited animation in which she listened, seemed to weary and exhaust her. I therefore gradually suffered our conversation to drop down to an occasional remark on pa.s.sing objects; and so we travelled onwards till, late in the afternoon, we found ourselves at the gate of a handsome park, where an avenue of trellised vines, wide enough for two carriages to pa.s.s, led to a beautiful villa, on the terrace of which stood my old friend, Sir Gordon Howard, himself.
For a few moments he was so totally engrossed by the meeting with his grandaughter that he did not even perceive me. Indeed, his agitation was as great as it might reasonably have been had years of absence separated them, instead of the few brief hours of a twenty miles' drive; and it was only as she said, ”Are you forgetting to thank Mr. Templeton, Papa?”
that he turned round to greet me with all the warmth of his kindly nature.
It was to no purpose that I protested plans already formed, engagements made, and horses written for; he insisted on my staying, if not some weeks--some days--and at last, hours, at the Villa Cimarosa. I might still have resisted his kind entreaties, when Miss Howard, with a smile and a manner of most winning persuasiveness, said, ”I wish you would stay,”--and------here I am!
CHAPTER V. _La Villa Cimarosa, October_
How like a dream--a delicious, balmy, summer night's dream--is this life I am leading! For the first time have I tasted the soothing tranquillity of domestic life. A uniformity, that tells rather of security than sameness, pervades every thing in this well-ordered household, where all come and go as if under the guidance of some ruling genius, unseen and unheard. Sir Gordon, too, is like a father; at least as I can fancy a father to be, for I was too early left an orphan to preserve my memory of either parent. His kindness is even more than what we call friends.h.i.+p. It is actually paternal. He watches over my health with all the un.o.btrusive solicitude of true affection; and if I even hint at departure, he seizes the occasion to oppose it, not with the warmth of hospitality alone, but a more deeply-meaning interest that sometimes puzzles me. Can it be that he recognises in my weakened frame and shrunken cheek, greater ravages of disease than I yet feel or know of?