Chapter VIII

Ay, mine own fortune is my misery.
SHAKSPEARE.

Go thither, and with unattainted eye
Compare her face with some that I shall show.
IBID.

His letters bear his mind.
IBID.

’Tis hatched and shall be so.
IBID.

The letter, which had been thus carefully forwarded by the stranger, had by no means a treasonable exterior; it was directed to “The Right Honourable ----, &c. &c. &c. &c., one of H. M. Principal Secretaries of State,” and contained an inner envelope to “Wm. St. Clair, Esq.” It began as follows:--

“MY DEAR ST. CLAIR:

“When I consider the official atmosphere in which this will be opened, and that it is to be read by a person now filling a situation with such a dry unromantic name as _précis_ writer, I can hardly hope for that sympathy in some of the feelings it wall describe, which, even in earlier days, your more worldly mind was sometimes inclined either to withhold, or to mix up with a little unwelcome ‘persiflage.’ You have often told me, that with every kind disposition to pity the peculiar hardships of high rank, and the severe burthen of a large fortune, still I was the friend whose misfortunes you would the most readily share. But the very circumstance of your quizzing me a little on this head, by showing me that you cannot flatter, makes me believe that you may feel for me, when I complain of those irksome advantages of wealth and situation which have prevented my being ever convinced that any one really cared for me for myself alone. With men, I do not so much mind that: the sterling ore of friendship is too weighty for the exchange of every-day intercourse, and the paper-currency of popularity passes just as well. But with women, from my earliest acquaintance with them, I have always been haunted with the consciousness that true love is not to be bought, and by the constant idea that I could not be loved for myself; a distrustful suspicion that, I grieve to say, experience has hitherto only tended to confirm. In every situation, wherever I have been known, I have always had the same fear, but too often the same conviction of its justice. I have fancied I could trace the same expression in every female face, from the hacknied smiles of venal beauty, in whose profusion one could plainly read ‘he pays well,’ up to the would-be attractive simper of the shy debutante, which had been already tutored to follow the maternal whisper. I have tried in foreign countries to escape the unfortunate fame of my wealth and liberality, but in vain: many half-formed illusions of the ‘grand passion’ have been dispelled by the exclamation, ‘_Milor qui est si riche_.’

“The first severe lesson of this kind I received, you will have heard in the world told in different ways. During my minority, I was induced to raise money to pay the debts of Lady Madelina Manfred,--I don’t like trusting the post with names, but about her there can be no scandal. The demand staggered me. I believe I was half cured before; however, I paid the money, and dropped the connexion. She affected indignation at my fickleness and desertion, which at her time of life was rather a blow, but secured at the same time the whole sum, (ten thousand pounds, I think it was,) and then eloped to spend it with a Captain O’Connor, in Connaught, and poor Manfred is still in the rules for her debts.

“I did not think so much of this at the time; I was then very young, and attributed it to my own folly in having allowed myself to be inveigled by a woman old enough to be my mother, all whose better feelings had been hardened by an habitual disregard of her marriage vow.

“The next year I was very much in love with----you may, perhaps, have heard the story in the scandal of the world, but I will not here publish the name, because still unchanged, for she is yet unmarried.

“My guardians asserted, which was the only reason why I doubted it, that I was then much too young to marry. But I was at that time sick of intrigue; I thought it would be a glorious thing to monopolize for ever the first affections of one then so universally admired.

“Her mother, Lady ----, was always talking to me of her daughter’s youth and innocence, to which I attributed the reserve with which my attentions had been at first received, pleased as I was to find it gradually lessening during their continuance.

“The newspapers had already hinted, in unmistakable initials, at a marriage in high life; I had as yet said nothing, but was determined, as I knew the paragraph must have been seen, to observe first what effect that had produced. The paragraph went the round of the papers uncontradicted: perhaps I ought to have contradicted it; but as I observed no diminution of cordiality in consequence, I believe I should instead have declared myself, but that just at this time a military cousin of mine returned with despatches from the Peninsula. He was a _very, very younger_ brother, that is, one of a very large family, with very little fortune to divide. I had not seen much of him lately, but as we had been together as children, and I was one of his nearest collateral relations, he came to consult me on an engagement which he said he had formed previous to his joining the army in Spain, and upon the possibility of procuring the consent of the family of the young lady, at whose house it appears he had visited from country quarters.

“He owned that he had nothing but his profession, in which, however, his hope of promotion was now great. But the young lady had herself some money, and to prove that her affections were sufficiently engaged to justify him in venturing, he showed me some letters he had received, full of assurances and unutterable attachment from the nameless beauty, who had since been receiving my addresses! The letters, it is true, were not of a very recent date, but this the time occupied in his voyage homewards had prevented his remembering.

“Here, then, was a more complete explanation of the coldness with which I had been at first received, than the mother’s palliations of youth and innocence, and an utter extinction of my own dream of monopolizing the first affections of a virgin heart. I would willingly have persuaded myself that it was sensibility to my own superior merits which had sufficed to obscure a former transient impression; but when I looked at my cousin’s handsome, sunburnt features, and thought of his honourable distinctions obtained in the field-of-battle, and compared it with my own useless, lounging life, I could not deny that the real nature of the change must have been the worldly advantages of one “_parti_,” as compared with the imprudence of the other connexion; for in no personal attractions could I flatter myself that I surpassed my cousin.

“This conviction operated as a summary cure of my passion, and left in its stead mingled feelings of disgust, at the deceit which had been practised on myself, and pity for my cousin.

“Poor fellow! when I saw how deeply his happiness was involved, I could not bear to take on myself the task of destroying his hopes; I therefore, without explaining my motives to him, hastened that departure for the Continent, which my guardians had long been anxious I should not delay, and left him master of the field to try his chance. I heard afterwards, that his suit was rejected by her friends, with an abruptness, probably increased by his being supposed to have prevented my proposals. I have reason to believe also, that he was more regretted by the girl herself than would have been expected from one whose actions were so much those of an automaton; but however that may be, the first rejection was final, for the next year my poor cousin was killed at Waterloo, where he was supposed unnecessarily to have sought danger, not unwilling to close an irksome existence with a glorious death.

“The whole of these events made a deep impression on me; and, confirming preconceived opinions, gave me a decided distaste for a London-bred wife, and extended my distrust of the disinterestedness of the affections of women in the world in general; which last feeling you have occasionally remarked upon at some of the many places abroad, when in the course of your professional attaché-ship, during the last few years, we have so often met. You will say, perhaps, that it arose from a determination to judge motives with a jaundiced eye; but I am every day more convinced, that worldliness is at the bottom of every woman’s heart whom I have known, of every country, and in all states, whether maid, wife, or widow--ay! widow worse than any. Since your return home, I have met on the Continent one of that class, perhaps at first one of the most fascinating creatures in the world. I think it very probable you may have met her. Young Lady Gayland, married at seventeen to an old man, a friend of her father’s; a widow at nineteen; and now, at one-and-twenty, her own mistress, with the vivacity of a child, and the wit of a woman of the world.

“I did hope that her’s was a situation where the affections might have fair play. Neither perverted by vicious habits, like Lady Madelina--for Lady Gayland made an excellent wife to old Sir Joseph; nor warped by maternal manœuvring--for she had no one to please but herself, and was left with a large fortune, which put her above prudential considerations,--I was in hopes that she might at once merit and appreciate that admiration which her beauty excited; but I was deceived again. I will not enter into particulars, as I have, I trust, completely escaped from her fascinations; though even at this distance I think too often of her to feel quite confident on that head. If you had seen the sudden jerk with which I dashed away my pen, which had been the instrument of conveying to you in the last sentence that profession of indifference, you might have been sceptical as to its sincerity; but a few paces up and down the smallest of country-inn parlours have brought me to my senses. It is sufficient to say she deceived me. I was fool enough to think that I had inspired her with a feeling pure and fervent as my own, when, in the midst of this vain dream, I was suddenly awakened. Within a week after the arrival of that confident coxcomb, Frank Melmoth, who only courted her for her fortune, the melodious tones of her musical laugh chiming in with all his flippant nonsense, rang on my ears as the knell of all my hopes. Perhaps, after all, I was too hasty; she might not really care for him; but I had every reason at the time to think so, and now it is all over. It is sufficient to say, that she is spoilt by the world, and can have no real feeling, for she is disposed to laugh at every thing, and to receive even sentiment with a smile. Upon one occasion--but I said I would not particularize, nor will I, because among other reasons, at this distance of time, I do not feel quite sure but that you might smile likewise. Suffice it to say, I am at length convinced, that in our rank in life, the feelings are too early perverted by the world, to hold out to a person, who thinks like me, any real prospect of happiness.

“No; I will seek something as different as possible from all that I have hitherto described. No bad second-rate copy of Lady Gayland could I tolerate; and if I am to be sustained in my fixed resolution of forgetting her, it must be by seeking contrast, and not imitation, that I must hope to succeed.

“What my present plan exactly is, I will not say; but once in my earlier days a vision crossed my path, of a simple child of nature, fresh and beauteous as the morn. Think of the delight of first winning her pure affections, as one not elevated above her own rank in life, (the case is certainly not without precedent,) and then the pleasure of declaring myself afterwards, and the consciousness thus derived, that whatever additional gratification may arise from the advantages of rank and fortune, they could not be the cause of the connexion, but from their subsequent disclosure were matter of surprise, not speculation. Now, will you be anxious to find out the scene of this plot; but even if you get hold of the cover directed to your ‘chef,’ you will be only misled by the postmark, as that is intended purposely to deceive.

“But be satisfied with a degree of confidence, such as it is--quite unusual in these close and uncommunicative days--and pardon the length to which it is fine-spun; for bulky as the packet is, the privilege of your place will prevent your paying for it, and the duties of your office will, I am sure, leave you complete leisure to read it.

“Your’s,

“CASTLETON.”