Chapter VI: Faint Hearts and Fair Ladies

On this old beach
For hours she sat; and evermore her eye
Was busy in the distance, shaping things
That made her heart beat quick.
WORDSWORTH.--_Excursion._

Autumn was deepening fast. The green tints were rapidly disappearing, and the advancing year "breathed a browner horror o'er the woods." Wytton still looked lovely; the great variety of tints, from the dark brown of the copper beech, to the delicate yellow of the cut-leaved hornbeam, made the grounds as splendid as a setting sun. The paths strewed with fallen leaves, spoke feelingly of the approaching change, when the huge trees would be stretching their melancholy branches out into the air, in gaunt loneliness.

Preparations were being made to quit Wytton for town, and both Marmaduke and Julius looked with regret upon the approaching separation. Town would never replace the country for them. They would see their idols there, it is true; but they would no longer see them in the charming ease and _abandon_ of Wytton Hall, or the Grange.

The country is the place for a nascent love! It affords endless opportunities of _tête-à-têtes_, and the scenery gives a tone to the whole mind. London is very well for a flirtation, or when you cannot have the country. But its riot and bustle, its endless dissipation of your time and distraction of your thoughts, would alone make it greatly inferior to the country. Shut up in a country-house you have nothing to prevent an eternal brooding over your own thoughts; and those thoughts, can they be more sweetly employed than in hovering round the image of the beloved?

One bright, sunny, brisk, autumnal afternoon, six horses stood saddled at the door of the hall. A ride to the sea-shore, about eight miles distant, had been determined on, Rose having expressed a desire for a good childish ramble on the sands to pick up shells, and crack the seaweed pops.

Meredith Vyner, Mrs. St. John, Marmaduke and Violet, Julius and Rose, formed the party. Mrs. Vyner stayed at home. All the visitors had left the Hall, so that the present party was as large as could be mustered. They formed three pleasant couples.

"I think the young people behind understand each other," said Meredith Vyner to Mrs. St. John, as they rode ahead.

"I wish they did," she replied.

"Do you then doubt it? I fancy Mr. Ashley's attentions are unmistakeable, and Violet does not seem to look coldly on them. She is less haughty to him than to most people. Don't you think she's improved? Ah! I forgot, you did not know her then. She used to be a devil: such a temper! My poor little Mary, who, you know, is the timidest, mildest creature alive, used to be frightened out of her wits at her. She never dared to suggest anything that was not perfectly agreeable, for Violet would burst out upon her--it was quite fearful! I never saw any of it myself. Violet was always well behaved enough before me. But I used constantly to find Mary in hysterics, or in tears; and although she always wished to spare Violet, and refused to specify what had been said and done, yet she could not conceal from me that my daughter's conduct was the cause of her emotion. However, thank God! sending her away from home seems to have tamed her. She is not very violent now, is she?"

"Violent! I think she is entirely charming. I know no girl possessing so much dignity and directness of mind. I quite love her."

"And what do you think of Mr. Ashley?"

"That he would make her an excellent husband. Julius, whose judgment is so good, has the highest opinion of him."

"And I," said Vyner,--"not to flatter you--have the highest opinion of your son Julius. Upon my word, madam, you have a son to be proud of, as Horace says--

Micat inter omnes
_Julium_ sidus, velut inter ignes
Luna minores.

A rare fellow; and one who, as a son-in-law---- Do you think there _is_ anything there?"

"With Rose? I am puzzled. Julius is somewhat secret on such matters, and although he admires Rose, I do not feel certain how far his admiration goes."

"Well, you may tell him that he has not only my consent, but that nothing would please me more than to call him my son. Rose is a good girl; somewhat saucy in her wit, which does not even respect her mother at all times, but there is no malice in her. Mary, who doats upon all my children as if they were her own, says she cannot wonder that such girls should exercise such empire over me; for you must know, Mary fancies I am led by the nose by my affection for the girls, and that they have the whip hand, which is by no means the case. I may have indulged them, perhaps, too much when they were younger; but I flatter myself no one ever was able to _lead_ me."

It may be supposed, that during this ride, neither Marmaduke and Violet, nor Julius and Rose, were very silent; but their talk was made up of those delicious nothings to which time, place, and circumstance give significance, and tones and looks give eloquence: what George Sand finely calls _tous les riens immenses d'un amour naissant_. Haughty and impetuous as Violet was, she had great playfulness, and could unbend with bewitching ease. Marmaduke was also lively, and his animal spirits were stimulated by his desire to please. He was charming.

Chamfort--who has written some of the wittiest and profoundest aphorisms in the French language--has said--"Un homme amoureux est un homme qui veut être plus aimable qu'il ne pent, et voilà pourquoi presque tous les amoureux sont ridicules."

True enough: lovers do appear ridiculous to lookers-on; but that desire to please which prompts their words and actions, makes them loveable in the eyes of their mistresses. After all, the great secret of being pleasant is the wish to be so. It needs no grace of manner, no splendour of beauty or talent, to make all around you pleased at your approach. It only needs the honest wish to please.

Marmaduke was therefore charming in the eyes of Violet, although he said nothing during the whole of the ride, which could possibly be read with interest. His conversation was frivolous or commonplace enough, but it had the particular seal of amiability.

So also Rose, the witty, sparkling Rose, laughed and made them laugh, without having uttered a single joke fit to be repeated; because if its wit happened to be undeniable, it would, nevertheless, ill bear transplanting.

This is the dilemma into which a novelist is forced if he chance to select a lively girl for a heroine: either he must consent to suppress her conversation, or else to give the impression of a vulgar, personal, flippant, disagreeable creature. In real life, vivacity gives point to a poor joke, and carries off the coarseness from a personal witticism. A laughing girl, with roguish eyes, and unmistakeable hilarity of manner, may utter almost anything--commonplace or personality--not only with impunity, but with positive applause. But I am certain that if the conversation of lively young ladies were printed, it would be scouted as the coarse daubing of one who knew not what ladies were. Simply because a narrator can only give the words; he cannot give tone and manner.

Be good enough to understand, therefore, that Rose was provokingly witty, though I cannot repeat what she said. Take my word for it. Repose upon the "easier-to-be-imagined-than-described" belief. Represent to yourself a young and lively girl during a delightful canter, with her lover by her side, whom she likes to tease, and then "imagine" what conversation must have passed: there _can_ be no difficulty about the wit, as you have to draw from your own stores.

A happy day they passed. The ride to the sea-shore was through pleasant lanes, strewed with fallen leaves; and the sea-shore itself presented a magnificent view. The tide was very low, and the distant sands and sea had the appearance of the early dawn of a summer's day. The sails of a fishing-smack or two dotted the horizon. A fresh, salt sea-weed fragrance saluted their nostrils; the _scrunch_ (beautiful word!) of small shells and pebbles followed their footsteps; small stranded crabs, with incoherent efforts, were hurrying here and there; huge entangled masses of weed offered their pops to Rose's delicate fingers; and a basketful of beautiful shells was soon the result of their search.

In this extremely primitive occupation, the time fled on. Meredith Vyner had wandered a long way down the shore, talking to Mrs. St. John respecting the virtues and accomplishments of his wife, and the manner in which his girls repaid her affection; which was followed up by a circumstantial history of his commentary on Horace: how the idea first came to him in reading a variorum edition: how the more he learned to know the commentators, the more he had learned to despise them, and to feel that a new edition was imperatively called for: how he had worked for years at this edition, and how, in short, he had finally got together the materials from which his monument would be built.

The tide was fast returning, and a rolling sea poured its restless waters, like the plunging of a powerful steed. Violet, seated on a rock, was contemplating it in silence; in silence Marmaduke dropped little pebbles into a tiny pool of water left in the rock. Both were sad, but with the sadness which is sweeter than joy. Both were silent, but with the silence which is more eloquent than speech. The breeze was playing with their hair, the music of "old ocean's roar" was sounding in their ears; the declining rays of an autumnal sun gave a poetic splendour to the scene, which was disturbed by no sound save the ceaseless wash of the advancing tide as it rolled upon the shingle.

It was one of those exquisite moments when the soul seems to tremble with delight at every thought which crosses it, when the susceptibility to external influences is so keen that the veriest trifles are robed in the splendour of imagination, and a scene which at other times would attract, perhaps, but little attention, has the enchantment of Armida's gardens. There are moments when the soul, with a vague but irresistible yearning, seems anxious to burst its earthly bonds, and to identify itself with the great spirit of beauty which hovers over the world--moments when the desire to love is so imperious, when the soul so eagerly seeks communion with some other soul, that the being, whom at other times we have perhaps regarded as indifferent, suddenly becomes the idol to whom a heart is offered as a sacrifice. The halo of mysterious feelings is around that being's head, and we mistake it for the luminous glory which encircles the Chosen. Just as the feeling of the moment sheds its lustre over a common-place scene, will it make an idol out of a common-place person.

How many fatal mistakes in love are attributable to such illusions?

Marmaduke and Violet were both under the spell of such a feeling. Yet neither spoke; words were too imperfect to express what passed within them. He rolled his pebbles one after the other into the pool, with mechanical precision; she watched the broad advancing sea, and listened to its music.

Had he declared his passion at that moment, he would assuredly have been accepted; and the whole course of their lives would have been altered. But he paused; he "dallied with the faint surmise;" he played with his own heart, and waited for her to break the silence.

But she kept her eyes upon the advancing sea, and a sigh, a gentle sigh heaved her bosom, for by some accidental association the current of her thoughts had become changed: she ceased to think of Marmaduke, and was communing in spirit with her departed mother. Perhaps it was the dash of the waters on the shore which brought back to her recollection those days of her unhappy childhood, when having lost her mother, she was wont to sit upon a rock, and hear the ocean speak to her wild words of comfort. There were voices in the waves then; and those voices faintly sounding through the past, spoke to her mysteriously now. The image of her dear, kind, much-loved mother, stood before her. A tear rolled over her cheek; and Marmaduke, whose attention had been attracted by her sigh, looked up and saw it. His heart was proud, for he thought that sigh and that tear were for him.

"What are you thinking of?" he tenderly asked.

She turned her full large eyes, glistening with grief, upon him, and said gently,--

"My poor mother!"

And again her eyes were fixed upon the sea.

Marmaduke was hurt; and with a movement of impatience resumed his pebble rolling. His self-love shrank, offended at this unexpected avowal, and he mentally reproached Violet with her coldness.

"She loves me not," he said. "Will she ever love me? Am I wasting my affections here as I wasted them before? Well, she shall see that I can be as cold and proud as herself."

In this frame of mind he remained seated by her side, making no attempt to withdraw her from the reverie in which she was indulging, and with the sullen bitterness of a lover, refusing to enter upon a conversation which would have dissipated all his doubts, and made him the happiest of men.

Julius and Rose having finished their collection of shells, and having immensely enjoyed each other's society, though not a word of love had crossed their lips, came up to the rock and found the silent lovers not unwilling to prepare for the ride home. As they all four walked to the spot where the servants were with the horses, Marmaduke took Julius by the arm, and falling a few paces in the rear, said hurriedly,--

"Julius, laugh and joke as much as you please, but if the warning does not come too late, take care of your heart!"

"Explain, explain."

"Do not trust yourself--do not believe that you can read a woman's heart from her behaviour--do not make the mistake I have made."

He refused to be more explicit, but Julius fancied he comprehended his meaning. With a truly human _naïveté_, Marmaduke imagined that as _he_ had been deceived, his friend would likewise be so; and in perfect sincerity he counselled Julius not to believe in Rose's manner, because Violet's manner, as he supposed, had been deceptive to him.

To another the advice would have been idle; to Julius it was agitating, and confirmed him in his natural backwardness to believe a woman could fancy him: a backwardness which Rose's manner had of late so far overcome, that he had been several times on the point of declaring himself, and would I dare say have done so during their ride home, had not Marmaduke's earnest warning held him back.

Violet, pensive and sad, rode home occupied with her own thoughts: Marmaduke at her side scarcely making an observation. Rose, as gay and fascinating as before, noticed a change in Julius, but said nothing to him about it, as she suspected love was at the bottom.

"I have finished my third reading of Leopardi's poems," she said presently, "and like them more and more. Their constant sadness is a great charm to me--I suppose, because having no sorrows of my own, I love to indulge in imaginary woes."

"Yes," he replied, "tears were given to man to purify him. So natural is sorrow to us, that if we have it not, we invent it; the heart would dry up and wither, if it were not watered by the blessed fountain of pity. But Leopardi's sorrows were in excess, and became a mental disease. Smitten as he was in body, heart, and mind, by disease, slighted love, and scepticism, no wonder that his poems are melancholy."

"Was he then slighted in love?"

"He loved--loved twice--but each time the offering of his heart was rejected. What else could the poor hunchbacked, crippled poet, expect?"

"If he was a cripple, was he not a great poet? If his back was ill-shaped, was not his mind noble?"

"His _mind_!" replied Julius, with a tinge of bitterness.

"Yes," she said, "his mind: could not a woman appreciate that?"

"Women can appreciate a mind, but they cannot love it. Love springs from sympathy, not from intelligence: its seat is in the heart, not in the reason. A woman might therefore have admired Leopardi; but she could not love the cripple."

"Yet, did not Mademoiselle d'Aubigny marry the cripple Scarron?"

"To become Madame de Maintenon," replied Julius.

"I would cite a dozen other instances. Do you know, Mr. St. John, you are very ungallant in your opinion of our sex--which sex you can know very little about, to judge from your exaggerated notion of our regard for beauty. We like to keep the beauty to ourselves. As for me, I would as soon marry a hunchback as a guardsman, as far as the mere beauty is concerned."

A strange joy filled his heart as she said this, and he was about to declare himself, when Meredith Vyner called to him to ride forward and admire a little valley which lay to their left. Rose fell back and joined her sister. The rest of the ride was performed in threes, instead of in couples. As they reached home, Vyner made his favourite quotation:--

Heu! heu! quantus equis, quantus adest viris
Sudor!

And conducted Mrs. St. John into the drawing-room. Marmaduke, Violet, and Rose, followed them. Julius went into the study to write a note.