Chapter VIII

Downward flies my lord,
Nodding beside my lady in his carriage;
Away! away! fresh horses are the word,
And changed as quickly as hearts after marriage.
BYRON.

It was with feelings of satisfaction, utterly unmixed with regret, that Lucy found herself once more cutting her way through that dense mass, which is made up of strings of carriages, and clouds of smoke, towards those suburbs which upon her entrance had struck her as interminable. She only felt that she had Castleton once more by her side--a pleasure which had daily become more rare, as their stay in London had been protracted. The impression uppermost in his mind, if not so pure and unmixed, was upon the whole of a pleasurable nature.

The same train of thought recurred to him as had produced so much effect upon his then unsettled opinions some years back, when upon leaving town at that season he had first sought Morden Bay, and had for the first time beheld the present partner of his fate; and as these feelings returned in almost their original freshness, they chased away all the more unworthy causes of repining, which the frivolous habits of the world had fostered; and for the time all anxieties dependent upon a false sense of shame at her former position no longer interfered with well-merited admiration of her excellent virtues, and transcendent beauty, and grateful confidence in her unbounded devotion to himself. He even looked back with something like contempt at the perpetual uneasiness under which he had laboured, lest the extreme lowness of her origin should be discovered, and was now ashamed of having been so much ashamed of some of her unpractised mistakes.

One littleness, though, he could not help clinging to. It was still a great satisfaction to him, that the dreaded discovery had not been gossipped amongst his servants. He would of all things have disliked that the daily talk of those from whom he looked for habitual respect, should turn upon the fact of their mistress having been, what they would call, “no better than themselves.” As for the world, he knew enough of it to be aware that there his principal difficulties and dangers were past. The world had been peculiarly disposed to criticise the first debût of a new denizen nearly connected with one to whose taste that world had long yielded a forced allegiance. Another season, and detraction would find some more stirring game than one so inoffensive as Lucy.

Amidst these topics for satisfaction, almost for self-gratulation, one unpleasant doubt did obtrude itself. Though the care of the world would no longer molest his enjoyment, was he quite certain that he should himself continue perfectly contented with the success of his experiment? Was she the companion he required? He started in anger at himself as this hitherto fleeting and shapeless suspicion assumed the form of a substantial doubt, and, as chasing it impatiently away, he cast upon her a look of affection and encouragement, she best answered the appeal, and removed for the time all traces of painful impression, by discussing with ease and spirit the pleasure she should derive from again beholding Somersby, and recalling with accuracy the favourite spots within his domain which they had together frequented, during their last residence there. As these were the outward images then uppermost in his mind, he gladly obliterated, in this fortunate reciprocity, those ideas which had before intruded themselves.

The circumstances of the first few days at Somersby, seemed to continue the illusion, (if illusion it was,) that the qualifications of his partner for life left him nothing to desire. The weather was beautiful, and with elastic step and cheerful countenance she accompanied him every where, participating in all his plans and entering into all his improvements. But persons, however strong, cannot stroll through the whole day; and Lucy before she left London had, with good reason, been recommended not to over fatigue herself; so a pony-phaeton was put in requisition, and this enabled them to extend their excursions, and protract their enjoyment; but our fickle climate will sometimes frown on pony-phaetons even in August. There came a wet week, and they were confined to the house, and immured in the library. This was an unlucky _locale_ for Lucy; but it had always been used as the common morning-room, and she felt lonely if she did not see Castleton, even though _his_ eyes were fixed on his book.

Had Castleton been alone, his study would have been all-sufficient to him; but being, as it were, thus continually in company, there was hardly any thing he read, by which some train of thought was not awakened in his ever active imagination, which he longed at once to communicate. It was not that he was anxious captiously to criticise, or to find fault, but he was often eager to illustrate and to impart the beauties that struck him; and as, with this desire, he looked upon his uninformed companion, he felt the hopelessness of such an attempt. If it was a book of science, in vain would he comment upon the extension of that, of which she neither knew the rudiments nor the terms--if of fiction, equally beyond her reach were the least soaring flights of fancy--if of satire, she was equally little cognizant of the persons portrayed, or aware of the foibles for which they were ridiculed. He had once before indulged in the social custom of blending conversation with his reading; the precedent was an ominous one. It had been at Rome. When persons familiarly known to each other live under the same roof in a foreign hotel, their intercourse is naturally on an easy footing, and much time will sometimes be spent together by that facility of gliding, unasked, in and out of apartments, which never could have been demanded under the well-drilled form of “a knock-and-ring” London visit. When the intimacy of friendship thus confirms the interest of a warmer feeling, it is a delightful, but a dangerous habit.

Castleton had in this manner spent the most of many mornings in Lady Gayland’s. They did not then think it necessary, under these circumstances, always to talk, to the exclusion of books; but they often found it agreeable to mix up reciprocal remarks on their reading. And some of these most animated and interesting discussions had arisen out of casual observations excited by some passage which had forcibly struck them in the perusal; and whether these conversations took the turn of excited enthusiasm, or refined criticism, their uniform effect was, that the parties engaged in them separated mutually better pleased with each other. In the course of the last week, Castleton had frequently ventured, in some of the lighter works with which he had been engaged, to read short extracts to Lucy, explaining and recommending the whole book to her perusal. This desire she always immediately complied with; but her attention was ever fixed, and her memory exerted in the discovery of these particular passages, which he happened accidentally to have cited; and, in this pursuit, her eye would wander over whole lines of print, as a traveller would over lines of hedge and ditch by the road side, noting nothing by the way, in search of one only object.

The fact was, as has been stated before, that her mother had always, at that age when the taste is acquired, discouraged reading as unprofitable. And her aunt, not feeling herself at liberty to interfere directly with the system of her mother, had rather selected passages adapted to her capacity, and facilitated even these by her explanations, than encouraged her in any independent course of reading. Alice Darnell’s plan had had the effect upon her niece’s mind, of a sort of intellectual “swimming in corks.” Now deprived of this artificial aid, she felt more than ever, the utter helplessness of her ignorance. She had been enabled by these means to dabble gracefully in shallows; but was utterly incapable of venturing unassisted on the wide ocean of knowledge.

A week had passed in this way; the mornings and most of the evenings devoted to study on the part of Castleton, and the same time consumed by Lucy, in vain attempts to toil after him in the few books, which, on reading himself, he thought it possible to recommend to her. She had, in making the effort, no other object in view, but endeavouring to please him, by appearing to understand his remarks; and in this she had too often failed; for, though gratified, at first, by thinking that she had remarked the same points which had struck him, he was again disappointed, when he went on to ask her opinion upon other parts, which perhaps had made as strong an impression upon himself, though, from the consciousness that she was unacquainted with the book, he had not communicated that impression. He sometimes found, that except those passages to which he had directed her attention, all the rest of the work, connected with which these isolated passages acquired a redoubled value, had produced no more effect upon her, than if her eyes had never glanced over its pages.

One afternoon, he had accidentally taken up the “Promessi Sposi” of Manzoni, (that only child of the old age of Italian literature.) The copy in his hand was the original one, which he had not seen since he had first read it with delight in Italy. The marks that had either been made by himself, or another, of admiration of the most sterling, though, perhaps, not the most palpable beauties of this work of true genius, were still visible upon the pages before him, and recalled the scene, and the occasions on which they were made; and when the thought recurred, but for his own over-fastidious feeling, and perverted imagination, what might now have been his lot, he turned on Lucy a look, in which disappointment was perhaps too legibly written; for she interpreted it at once into a desire for some change; and imagining such to be his wish, she asked him if he did not think “it was now fine enough to take a stroll out of doors?”

The weather had certainly shown symptoms of settling; the clouds had first lightened, then dispersed; and now the sun, successfully struggling through the dappled sky, already played on the sparkling drops, which the gentle breeze began to shake from the dripping leaves.

Castleton rose from his chair, glad to snap the chain of thought which bound his spirit to no good purpose; and throwing up the window, the enjoyment of all external sources of pleasure seemed suddenly restored.

Every inducement combined to tempt them forth. The mingled odour of the freshened herbage, and of the grateful flower-garden beneath, breathed through the atmosphere one varied fragrance. The cheerful song of the feathered tribe sounded as an irresistible invitation to all living things, to share with them in rejoicing at the restored reign of nature.

“Yes, dear Lucy,” said Castleton, encircling her waist, “get on your bonnet, and we shall have a delightful walk.”

As he said this, the grinding of carriage-wheels through the rain-soaked gravel was heard, and a well-packed travelling equipage appeared in sight.

“O, I do believe that is Lady Gayland,” said Lucy, clapping her hands with delight, “and now you won’t want for amusement.”

And Lady Gayland it certainly was. She had been expected shortly, but the precise day was not known; and as she had paid another visit since she left town--and no lady was ever expected to comprehend the irregularities of a cross-country post--her arrival before her own announcement of herself was very pardonable.