Chapter XIII

Night visions may befriend;--
Our waking dreams are fatal. How I dream’d
Of things impossible.--(Could sleep do more?)
Of joys perpetual, in perpetual change;
Of stable pleasures on the tossing wave!
Eternal sunshine in the storms of life!--
How richly were my noontide trances hung
With gorgeous tapestries of pictured joys!
Joy behind, joy in endless perspective.
YOUNG’S NIGHT THOUGHTS.

With Reginald’s departure the summer of Ernest’s life passed away, and autumn in more senses than one set in. He was left alone,--alone in his home, alone in his intellect, alone in his heart,--and his spirits sank beneath the solitude. Rousing himself from depression, he endeavoured then to turn his whole mind to his duties, to act upon his flitting dreams of improvement; but the fresh and ardent spirit which he had brought to the scene of his labours,--and which seems to have been allotted to new duties for the very purpose of overcoming the difficulties attendant upon them--superseded by a higher excitement, had died away; and it was but with a languid step and joyless eyes that he devoted himself to his tasks. He had been basking in the sun of this world’s happiness, and he was thirsting for it still; he had been blessed with a sight of this world’s beauty, and he pined for it still; he had been dreaming dreams of this world’s greatness and heroism, and his own simple duties filled him with shrinking and disgust.

But there is nothing hopeless except self-deception, and in Ernest’s sincerity there was ever the golden thread that was to draw him upward again. He had been beguiled into wastefulness of his time, and if not into absolute neglect, yet into omission of duty; but now that the time was passed, and that the voice of the charmer was still, he _felt_ what the effects had been; and in truth and humility, acknowledging his weakness and unworthiness, he resolved to arouse himself to fight and to overcome.

He resolved,--and a sincere resolution is full of strength; but almost before the resolution had passed his lips, and entered into his heart, a change in Camilla’s manner plunged him into excitement more fatal than before.

His love for her, though indulged, though acknowledged, had hitherto lain as passive and hopeless within him, as if he had indulged in devotion to a bright particular star. He did not even argue the point,--a combination of feelings, insensibly and unquestioned, pronouncing that hope was not for him. Good sense and good feeling told him that, with _her_ youth and _his_ poverty, he should not seek for it to be; natural diffidence told him that it could not be; and that possibly which gave life and strength to all the others’ voices, Camilla’s frank and fearless manner, proclaimed aloud her utter indifference. So contentedly he had been satisfied to love her, contented to yield with thoughts far removed from selfish ones, the entire and reverential devotion of an unwasted heart.

But under Miss Vincent’s influence a new era came. First, conscious and shrinking, Camilla startled the word _hope_ into his heart, then--she must, I fear, greatly fall in the estimation of my readers, but it must be owned that she began to flirt with him. She was herself unconscious of it; she was utterly indifferent to Ernest; she neither understood the kind and depth of his love, nor, indeed, understood in any degree that love was anything but an amusement at all; but, hearing the subject perpetually discussed by Miss Vincent, she began to take some interest in it,--began to be pleased with the idea of Ernest’s devotion,--began childishly to wish for some outward signs of her power. It was but too natural; but to poor Ernest it was fatal.

He did not learn to believe that she loved him; for her manner was so childish and changeable, that as fast as the idea arose it vanished again. If a blush or a sweet smile entranced him with rapture, a careless word plunged him the very next moment into despair. But this uncertainty it was that destroyed him: it led him to pass

“The night, the dawn, the noon, the dewy eve
In the sweet serious idleness of love!”

The livelong day it laid him at Camilla’s feet, in spirit not in reality, questioning the meaning of her sunny smiles, and the glances of her speaking eyes. It plunged him into that excitement from which there is no escape,--the excitement of the mind. Outward excitements leave time for rest,--the most dissipated have their moments of repose; but in the mental fever there is no pause. It bore him company in his solitary home,--it made his heart beat in the silence of night,--it entered with him into the house of God, and followed him with syren whispers even to the couch of sickness and the bed of death!

But such dreams do not last for ever: they must receive either a check, or rise into more tangible being. After a fortnight’s mad excitement Ernest awoke,--and it was his own boldness which awoke him.

He called one day at Clare Abbey while Lady Vere was driving, and was admitted by mistake. He found Camilla alone in the drawing-room.

“Mamma is out,” she said, going forward with her winning manner to meet him. “Did you know it; or did you expect to find her here?”

“I certainly expected to find her here,” he replied, with a smile.

“Ah,” she said, shaking her head laughingly, “I thought it was a new thing that you should come to see _me_. But, now that you are come, though by mistake, will you stay?”

“May I stay?” he asked, hesitatingly,--for Lady Vere was particular on points of etiquette and propriety; not more particular than she should have been, but more careful of the letter than the spirit of such rules.

“I don’t know about _may_; I only ask you if you _will_ stay? I have got a cough, and that makes me stupid; and the day is so dark, and the wind so howling, it makes one dreary; and I am reading a novel of Miss Vincent’s, which really is too melancholy. So I ask you, out of charity, to stay and cheer me a little. Will you stay?”--she smiled very sweetly as she spoke.

He sat down. He knew that he should not stay: he knew that, under his present feelings, it was dangerous to him to be alone with her,--and yet he stayed. As to refusing her anything when she looked as she then did, he could not do it. He sat down in silence, conscious of his weakness, warned that he was wrong, but with a strange feeling of pleasure.

“I ought not to be stupid and dreary to-day,” she began, after a moment; “for I have had a letter from Reginald this morning, full of his plans and his hopes, and he says he shall be here in three weeks. That is good news, is it not?--I was half afraid his degree would keep him dawdling at Oxford.”

“Good news, indeed,” Ernest said, warmly, “for me as well as for you.”

“I thought you would be glad. Do you know, Mr. De Grey, I really think you like Reginald as much as he deserves.”

“_Like_ him!” Ernest repeated gravely, for the thought of Reginald brought feelings of self-condemnation; “no! that is not what _I_ ought to say--I _reverence_ him.”

“So do I,” she said, smiling; “on that one single point we agree.”

“Only on that one?”

“Only on that one, I think; at least I cannot remember any other. I think we always disagree.”

“I should be very sorry to think so,” he said with a good deal of earnestness.

“Why, don’t you know that the strongest disagreements make the strongest friendships? so at least this book says,” touching the novel that lay beside her; “and so I suppose that _we_ are to be very great friends.”

He made no answer. She spoke so lightly, so carelessly--it was one of the moments when the vision suddenly faded; but suddenly, swiftly, and never so brightly, the next instant it rose again before him; for, leaning forward on her arm, a faint blush on her lovely face, and a faint tone of pique, or rather of reproach, in her sweet voice, she said,--

“You don’t seem to care for that. I thought you would have been glad to think that we should be friends.”

He almost started; and with more than earnestness--with agitation in voice, and look, and manner, he replied, “You do not think so: you know too well what I hope, if I could but dare to say so.”

He was leaning forward, his eyes intently resting upon her. She had forced him so to look, and so to speak: but he never had so forgotten himself before; and alarmed and displeased, and unconscious what he meant, she drew back with a quick movement, and a deep and startled blush.

And the vision suddenly and silently disappeared,--not for the moment flitting and returning again,--but the mist dispersed, he awoke.

He also drew back, and sate, his hat in his hand, in profound meditation. How wrongly had he judged her--so he mused; and how wrongly he had acted. With her careless innocent charm of manner she was but inviting him to ease and to confidence; and how had he rewarded her?--He had put a meaning to her words they did not bear; he had taken advantage of her thoughtless frankness,--of the intimacy into which circumstances had thrown them. He was a wretch, unworthy to be admitted into her society;--this was his conclusion. But he would repair what he had done,--there, in her presence, he would bind himself by the most solemn vow to be tempted to such a forgetfulness of duty no more.

The silence caused by these meditations lasted for a considerable time. It was Camilla who first recovered herself, and laughing to conceal a little embarrassment, and, as if to invite a return to their former easy footing, addressed him:

“Will you never speak again, Mr. De Grey? You are not very civil.”

“I beg your pardon!” he said, getting up with a grave smile; “but I had forgotten myself. I have a good many things to take up my thoughts; but I ought to remember that it is very rude and ill-mannered to bring my thoughts here. I ought to have remembered it before.”

“But I don’t think it rude; I hope you don’t think I do. You know,” she continued with the same enchanting blush, influenced to speak by a feeling of pity which at the moment she scarcely understood, and did not pause to analyze; “you know, if we are to be great friends, we must not be ready to take offence at every little trifle.”

“You are very kind to say so,” Ernest replied steadily and composedly, still under the influence of his new resolutions; “but I hope I shall not try you again. It is a bad day with me in every way: I know that I have offended in more ways than one.” He held out his hand, and disappeared before she had time to say more.

Camilla quickly forgot the impression of that one look and those few words which had startled her; and in their occasional meetings all went on as it had done before. She was very childish,--very thoughtless; this was her only excuse, and she needed one.

The trials of life are various. Some have one hard fight, and coming off victorious, are for ever at peace. The conquest is so complete, the root of the evil so completely cut off, that they are assailed no more. Others live in warfare all their life long,--never so yielding as utterly to fall, never so conquering as entirely to triumph! These are they who are

“Pinioned with mortality
As an entangled, hamper’d thing.”

These are they whose thirst for earthly happiness is too intense; these are they whose strong affections make strong afflictions, and raise for themselves trials in paths so peaceful and flowery, that men for the most part would pass along them with a dancing step,--and such an one was poor Ernest!

He returned with something of renewed attention to his duties. He resisted the impression of Camilla’s manner; he resisted, or thought he resisted, the risings of fresh hope; but he was restless and depressed, and as he went about his unloved tasks, he was unceasingly asking himself why object after object on which his heart was set was denied to him,--why desire after desire was withheld! And while thus repiningly pondering, he forgot--as many are apt in disappointment to forget--that while a few things were withheld from him, a shower of abundant and unmerited blessings were falling upon his head.