Chapter VII

For now my love is thawed,
Which, like a waxen image ’gainst a fire,
Bears no impression of the thing it was.
SHAKSPEARE.

The English winter ending in July
To recommence in August, now was done;
’Tis the postillion’s paradise; wheels fly
On roads east, south, north, west.
BYRON.

Castleton was much vexed at the danger which Lucy had incurred, of discovering all that he most wished to conceal; but she seemed to have suffered so much herself, from her imprudence, that he could not find it in his heart to upbraid her on the subject. Taking courage from this forbearance on his part, she ventured the next morning to ask him, “Would it not be better, my dear lord, that it should at least be known from how low a station your kindness raised me: when, perhaps, people would be too good-natured (or well-bred, as you call the same thing) to talk to me on such subjects, since even in attempting to conceal it, such risks are run as my imprudence is always bringing about.”

“It is too late to think of that now, Lucy; if all were to do over again, I know not how much might remain undone. However, if there had not been that unlucky adventure blended with our early connexion, it might perhaps have been better to have owned more; though I then thought your manners, which still appear to me wonderful, prevented the necessity of such an avowal. But that ill-starred cousin of yours, who has given the character of a nest of smugglers to your whole set, rendered any other course than concealment of your origin impossible. Above all, now, you have no idea of the avidity with which an awkward story about any one that is known is communicated. ‘Have you heard the strange story about Lord Castleton?’ would spread like wildfire; and I should be the laughing-stock of every one who spells a Sunday paper, from the Land’s end to John o’ Groat’s House.”

Lucy, though she would not dispute what she did not understand, felt hurt at the slighting mention of the home of her youth as a “_nest of smugglers_.” She might indeed have replied, that she was sure no one who knew her dear father at Mayton or elsewhere, would believe that _he_ could ever have any thing to say to such doings.

But Castleton, fearing nothing but anxiety from prolonging his stay in London, continued, “We have now been above two months in London, Lucy; would you dislike the idea of returning into the country?”

“O I should like it so much! One thing I should wish: do you think you could persuade Lady Gayland to come and see us there? I feel so fond of her, and I often think she is in many respects a more suitable companion for you than I am. You both understand the same things to talk about. And then, perhaps, if I wished just to go to Morden Bay, you could better spare me a little while.”

“No, my dear Lucy,” said Castleton smiling, “that would not render it at all less difficult to spare you. But about the rest do as you like; you shall have the pleasure of asking Lady Gayland herself: if she comes at all, it will be for you.”

It is not of course to be supposed but that a person of Lucy’s natural quickness, though unpractised in observation, should have made some progress during the time she was in town towards understanding the requisite qualifications for her new situation; but unfortunately this very quickness made her only more conscious of her manifold deficiencies. A little application, when she gave her attention to any one point, like a magnifying glass, made its particular form and bearing perfectly distinct to her comprehension; but that very circumstance only rendered her more thoroughly aware how vague and undefined were to her all other objects on that varied horizon, which she indistinctly surveyed from her isolated elevation, and the shape in which this consciousness of her situation most disagreeably occurred to her, was that whilst Castleton wandered freely through all these scenes to him so familiar, she was herself merely a sort of landmark of the affections, to which he returned at stated intervals, rather than his constant companion through all the mazes of society, or his active associate in the pursuits of literature.

This painful sensation of her own unfitness, which feeling increased with her efforts to diminish it, was expressed by her with much candour to her friend Lady Gayland, while persuading that lady to take up her abode with her as soon as possible at Somersby Park.

“There’s no study, dear Lady Gayland, which does me, I am sure, half so much good as hearing you talk. What I attempt to teach myself, seems only to show me how much more I have to learn. What you tell me, seems as if it ought to be as easy to me, as it plainly is to you. And yet I am afraid that you are just what I should find it most difficult to imitate: at least, so Castleton thinks.”

“Perhaps his wish is father to that thought; there may be nothing he would so little like you to resemble.”

“On the contrary, no one admires you more than he does--that I am sure of; and then, too, you are old friends.”

“For that very reason, perhaps, a little contrast--”

“How can you say so? You can’t think it. But you are always so kind, that I am sure you will let me speak a little seriously to you.”

“What about, my dear?” asked Lady Gayland, with apparently little surprise, and perhaps some uneasiness.

“About myself. I want to consult you on a point on which your advice would be of the greatest service to me. I need not say that it is my only desire, as well as my first duty, to please Castleton. Nobody so well as you could tell me how I ought to try for that,” she added, with perfect simplicity.

“Go on--that’s somewhat difficult,” answered Lady Gayland abstractedly.

“Now, when I hear any subject talked of in conversation about which I know nothing, I never show my ignorance, because that Castleton told me to avoid; but I treasure up the recollection of it, and endeavour to work out the knowledge of it for myself against another time. But there are some things I cannot learn from books. Now if you would let me come to you about them----”

“But why not ask your husband, my dear?”

“So I do sometimes, but I don’t think he much likes it. Only the other day I heard people say that one of their friends was very lucky, for that he got ten thousand pounds for his wife. I could not conceive how a man could do that. I never heard of such a thing. And I asked Castleton to explain, and he said that as I knew nothing at all about it, he should be obliged to make a very long story--that he was in a hurry, hadn’t time, and it didn’t signify. And yet, though he had not time for that, when I said just afterwards that I should like to have a little black parrot, such as I had seen, he rode a long way on purpose to try to get one, at the gardens with a long name.”

“Zoological?”

“Yes; for he is very kind to me, and I hardly can form a wish that he does not try to gratify, and yet----”

“Yet what!”

“Why, when I have taken pains to inform myself on any subject, if he is not there, I quite long for an opportunity to bring it out, and watch the conversation for that purpose only, and then every one else seems to take it quite natural from me. But if I attempt this to Castleton I feel quite awkward; and then he says, ‘Where did you pick that up, my dear Lucy?’ and that makes me worse. And though at first he used to seem surprised if I did _not_ know what others did, now it is quite the contrary: he is just as much surprised if I do. That change is not a good sign, I am afraid. Is it?”

“It is impossible to answer these questions directly,” said Lady Gayland; “difficult to answer them any how satisfactorily--delicate for any one to attempt it--perhaps most delicate for me. But yours is a singular--a lonely situation. You ask for advice and assistance from the only person who you think can be of service to you, and with the interest I feel in you, I am unwilling to refuse. I have known Lord Castleton long and well--how long and how well it is unnecessary for the present purpose to recollect. But circumstances made an observer like myself thoroughly acquainted with his character. His misfortune is not a common one. His means have always been in exaggerated proportion to his ends. Faculties, which ought to have extended their influence over society in its more extended sense of the community, he has confined to its more limited definition--company; and he would have been more perfect in all relations as a companion, had he also been a statesman, a soldier, a philosopher, or even a poet. The human mind does not, like the baser metal, accumulate in store; but like the physical organs of our frame, from empty craving it takes to feed upon itself. In the limited sphere he had chosen, as Lord Castleton could not dread defeat, he learnt to despise success, and thence to cavil at its causes. Let me see--what is there I can compare him to, that has come within your observation: we went together the other night to the pantomime.”

“Yes, thank you,” said Lucy, smiling even through the interest of this discussion, at the amusement she had then experienced.

“Well, then, his mind is something like the magic of harlequin’s wand amongst the chairs and tables, a superior power misapplied to petty purposes, and therefore as often perverting and confounding, as improving. This, however, could not apply to the exercise of the affections, except so far as his experience of women as members of the social system has filled his head with general, and in some particular instances most unwarrantable, suspicions. O if a woman could with honest pride feel herself the only object of devotion to such----But what of this? it is not to the present purpose. Disgusted with every thing he had seen and imagined of us poor women of the world, he naturally sought the reverse of that which the past had taught him. And in seeking an extreme, of the extent of which he was by no means aware, I have no doubt that the entire novelty of the attempt was originally its chief recommendation. How singularly fortunate I think he was, when, in embarking in such an undertaking, he met with you, I will not now say. I am not satisfied that you should so far exceed all that he had a right to anticipate, but wish that you should, if possible, realize his most unreasonable expectations. Purity and perfect devotion, those sterling merits whose spontaneous growth he sought in the wilderness, he has found in you in the highest perfection. Those other qualities, of which he had not previously supposed the want, because all he had hitherto seen had uniformly possessed them, are produced by cultivation, and may be engrafted. London is the place where their absence is most felt, their acquirement is most difficult. In the country, where you will have him entirely to yourself, you will soon find him again what you wish; for Castleton, though clear-sighted, is also considerate to the faults of those who interest him.”

“But, my dear Lady Gayland, I shall never be able to do any thing without your assistance. When you are by, I always feel so much bolder. I own I am at all times rather afraid of Castleton--that is, afraid more of my own feeling than of his showing that I have not pleased him. You say that I should have Castleton all to myself; and certainly I should be glad to have him without the perpetual interruptions of our present mode of life, but not without you. No; your presence gives me comfort and courage, as well as pleasure.”

There was a pause of lengthened hesitation on Lady Gayland’s part, before she replied to this appeal; but at last, to Lady Castleton’s reiterated and anxious entreaty of “Now, pray don’t refuse me--do come,” she answered,

“Well, my dear, then come I will. That is, I will stop and see you when I leave town, on my way to the watering place, where I mean to spend the autumn.”