A Woman's Love Part 6

"He looked distressed, but rather proudly replied--

"'Well, madam, we will talk further on this subject some other time. I cannot pursue it now.' And soon after I took my leave."

"And will you not allow him to have one interview with me, before he returns to Oxford?"

"No, I will not expose you to his dangerous eloquence: as he is not really in love with you, he would have more self-possession, and plead his cause so much the better."

"_Not_ in love with me!"

"No; his attachment is now irritated by obstacles, and also stimulated by fancied duty; but could he, if he really felt a virtuous pa.s.sion, maintain a disgraceful connexion in London, as I know him to do? Helen, my child! what ails you?" Here her voice sounded like thunder in my ears, and I fainted.

I had certainly been led to believe that Seymour led a life of general dissipation, and I had not allowed myself to attempt to define the exact nature of the charges against him; but when I heard him positively accused of an improper attachment to one individual object, a mixed feeling of jealousy, disgust, misery, and indignation came over me, with the sickness of death, and for the first time in my life I lost all consciousness. How long I remained insensible, I know not; but when I recovered, I found my mother weeping over me--not because she _had_ feared for my life, but because she _did_ fear for my peace of mind. She was consoled, however, when I a.s.sured her, that from that moment I should think it my duty to drive Seymour Pendarves from my mind, and that I had no longer any difficulty in submitting to her wishes. She kissed me, called me her dear, good girl, and we parted for the night.

The next morning was the morning of the funeral. Lady Helen had desired it might be a private one, and had she not, it could not have been otherwise; for Lord Seymour, though not an old man, was fallen into a state of imbecility; Lord Mountgeorge was at Lisbon, attending his dying wife; and Mr. Pendarves, our great-uncle, was confined in Cornwall by the gout.

"Poor Seymour!" cried my mother, as she heard this account of the family; "there is much to be said in your excuse; for how completely has he been left to himself, amidst the dangers of a metropolis!"

My mother, when she said this, was certainly _thinking aloud_; but my hearing her had, at that moment, no bad effect on me, as my jealousy remained unappeased, and my mortification unsoothed, and nothing could reinstate him as yet in my estimation: nay, I believed I should see him the next day without any emotion that could be attributed to him as the cause of it.

When we reached the house of mourning, we found Seymour anxiously expecting us. On seeing me, he seized my hand, and, unable to speak, kissed it repeatedly, then turned away in tears; and, I must own, at that moment I forgot his unworthiness and my own resolution, and remembered only his sorrow and his apparent affection. My mother _might_ be right, but I began to suspect she _might be wrong_. All these feelings, however, were soon swallowed up in those of deep and tender sorrow. The procession began; and, clinging to each other's arm for support, my mother and I followed the unsteady steps of the chief mourner. But why need I dwell on the details of a scene so common?

Suffice, that Seymour did not return with us: he remained in the church, in order to give way to the lately suppressed agonies of his heart. My mother wished to do the same; but she respected the sacredness of his sorrow, and she could visit the vault at another time.

The rest of the day was spent by Seymour in visits to those who had been maintained or a.s.sisted by Lady Helen, in order that he might personally a.s.sure them that his intention was to do all she would have done, had life been spared to her. Having thus performed his duty to the utmost, he appeared to my mother's eye to have recovered some of his usual brilliancy of countenance. The next night he was to return to Oxford. In the afternoon of that day, he called at our house, and requested to see my mother and _me_.

I rose involuntarily, in great perturbation.

"Tell Mr. Pendarves," said my mother, "that I will wait on him directly.

Helen, my child! it is but one struggle more, and all the difficulty will be over; for I conclude, you, not only in obedience to my will, but in compliance with your own wise _wishes_, refuse to see him!"

What could I say? Could I tell her that the meeting of yesterday, and his subsequent conduct towards his mother's dependants, had altered my feelings? I could not do it, and I remained above stairs.

After a long conference, my mother came back to me, and I heard the hall-door close. Till this moment, I had hoped she would relent, and allow me to see him! at least, I guess so, from the cold chill which I felt at my heart, when I heard the noise of the closed door. However, I saw him from the window--I myself unseen--and his handkerchief was held to his eyes.

When my mother returned, I observed that she had been excessively moved, and the traces of recent tears were on her cheeks.

"Helen!" she at length said, "I trust I have done by Seymour Pendarves what I should wish a friend to do by a child of mine. And is he not _her_ child--the child of that lost, matchless being, whom I loved only second to yourself, since one dearer than either was removed from me?

Yes; I admonished him as a mother would have done; and though I refused his request, I did it--indeed I did--with gentleness and with anguish.

Helen," she resumed, "if ever you should doubt the affections of your mother, remember what, for your sake, she has undergone this day. She has, though her heart bled to do it, wounded that of one whom she loves now next to yourself, and that one, too, the child of her adored Lady Helen. But the sense of a mother's duty, aided by a higher power, has supported me through it."

"And he is gone!"

"Yes; and he reproached me bitterly for my cruelty, Helen; but if he could see me now, do you think he would censure me for hardness of heart?"

Mournful were the hours that followed, and we retired early to rest. But my mother rested not. I heard her walking backward and forward in her room till near day-break; and till she had ceased I was too uneasy to close my eyes.

When I rose the next day, and was walking in the garden before breakfast, I found my mother's windows still shut, and it was very late before she came down stairs. I had previously felt disposed to indulge my own dejection; but as soon as I saw her, all thought of myself vanished. For never did I see the expression of hopeless grief stronger than in her speaking face. As she did not talk, I vainly tried to converse of indifferent things. She smiled; but every smile was succeeded by a sigh; and once she exclaimed,

"No! they cannot come to _me_, but I shall go to _them_."

"Dearest mother," cried I, rising and looking up in her face, "you forget _me_. Surely you do not wish to leave me?"

"Do not ask me," she cried, clasping me fondly to her bosom; "I fear I am ungrateful for my remaining blessing."

From that time she struggled with her grief, and became, as you know, in _company_, at least, the agreeable companion; for about that time it was, I think, that your amiable husband succeeded to the living, and you came to enliven and adorn the rectory. However, as your friend, for whose inspection this is written, does not know any of the subsequent events, I shall proceed with the detail of my story.

During the ensuing six weeks we had only one letter from Seymour, but that was a pleasant one: for he told us that he had been studying very hard, and had gotten another prize, and he sent us his composition, adding in a very touching manner, that as the eye which he most wished to please by his production was for ever closed, his proudest desire now was to have it approved by those whom he and she best loved.

My mother was gratified by this compliment as well as myself; for she augured favourably of his amendment from this close application, and she owned to me in the fulness of her heart, that she had informed him, his obtaining my hand depended entirely on _himself_. I have said that my mother appeared quite recovered in company; but such was the constant recurrence of one anxious subject to her mind in private, that every thing unconnected with it soon became uninteresting to her; this was the renewal of virtuous friends.h.i.+p in another world; and she read and tried to procure every thing in the shape of a Sermon or Essay that had ever been written on the subject. One sermon, and it was a most eloquent one, bearing the t.i.tle, "The renewal of Virtuous Friends.h.i.+p in another World,"[1] delighted her so much, that it was never out of her reach; and though she found it difficult to deduce from the Scriptures any certain grounds for this consoling doctrine, still she delighted to indulge in it; and as she could never rest till she had tried to convert others to her own opinions, especially where those opinions were likely to increase individual happiness, those only with whom she was not intimate could avoid hearing her descant on this subject, with all that plausible and ingenious fluency which usually attends reasoning from a.n.a.logy and imagination. While her mind was thus employed, it ceased to prey on its own peace; and though her system sometimes failed to satisfy her, she still found a soothing conviction in the thought, that should we not be permitted "to know and love our friends in heaven," we should be sure not to be _conscious_ of the want of those who had been the dearest to us when on earth, but should find all the "ways of G.o.d"

vindicated "to man."

[Footnote 1: See a volume of Sermons written by the Rev. P. Houghton.]

It was now, while my mother was too constantly thinking of the regretted dead, and I of the still tenderly-remembered living, that a new acquaintance was introduced to us, who had power to withdraw our thoughts from these interesting speculations, and fix them for some time at least upon himself.

Methinks, my dear friend, I see you smile at this distance, and remark to your husband, "Now we shall see what she says of the impression which Count Ferdinand De Walden first made on her, for I never could understand how she could ever prefer another man to him."

_You_ forget how very early in life my affections were turned towards Pendarves, and how soon I learnt to look on constancy in love as a sort of virtue; you also forget the "fascinating graces," and the "irresistible archness," to use your own expression, of Seymour's smile.

But this is perhaps an ill-timed digression. Where was I? Oh! at the introduction of a new acquaintance.

My parents had made an acquaintance in America with the Count De Walden, the elder, whom curiosity and the love of travelling had led thither. On the breaking out of the war, he returned to his native country, Switzerland, by way of England; where he was so much pleased with the manners of the people and const.i.tution of the government, that he resolved his nephew and heir, Ferdinand De Walden, who was like himself a protestant, should come over and enter himself at one of the universities. When the time for his admission arrived, the count remembered with renewed interest his acquaintance with my parents and their cousins; and that they now resided in England. Nor was it difficult for him to obtain particulars of their present residence and situation.

His uncle heard with pain that my mother, Seymour, and myself, were the only survivors of that happy family which he had so much loved in the new world. To my mother, however, he was still anxious to introduce his nephew; and he hoped that in Seymour he would find a durable friend at college; but in this expectation he could not be gratified, as he had resolved that Ferdinand should go to the mathematical university, and Seymour was of Oxford. This impossibility my mother thought a fortunate circ.u.mstance for Ferdinand.

When De Walden came, and showed, among other letters, one of recommendation to Mr. Seymour Pendarves, she coldly observed, "That letter need not be delivered yet;" and certainly, the appearance of Ferdinand De Walden did not promise much congeniality of disposition and pursuit with Seymour; for the latter, from the light gaiety of his manner and countenance, seemed as if he never thought at all; and the former, from the grave pensiveness and reserve of his, appeared at first sight as if he did nothing but think. The open eye of Seymour invited confidence, the penetrating one of De Walden repelled it; and as the one, when first seen, was sure to inspire admiration if not love, the other was as sure to excite alarm, if not a feeling resembling aversion.

For myself, I must own that when De Walden was presented to me by my mother, I experienced towards him a little of the first, though none of the second sensation; for I had been accustomed to look on Seymour as my model for personal beauty and captivation; and the young Swiss, therefore, had not a chance of charming me at first sight. I had not seen my mother so animated for years as she was on the arrival of her foreign guest; for she had greatly esteemed his uncle, and Ferdinand strongly resembled him. With him of course were a.s.sociated the ever-remembered hours of youth and friends.h.i.+p, wedded love and happiness; and De Walden shone with a radiance not his own. But my mother, much to my annoyance, was not conscious of this: she insisted that his brilliancy was all self-derived; that if she had never known _his uncle_, she should still have admired _him_. By this admiration, I am ashamed to confess, I was piqued and mortified, because I fancied it interfered with the rights of Seymour; and I suspected that, if he should repay the regard of the mother by loving the daughter, I could not without disobedience remain constant to my first attachment.

As De Walden was not to go to college till October, he had leave to stay with us till that time, since it was rather an unusual thing for a fine young man, unless he was a relation, to be the guest of a widow lady and her daughter for so long a period. I was therefore certain that my mother must have some particular point to carry, and that point was, I believed, the alienation of my heart from Seymour Pendarves. These suspicions certainly made me regard Ferdinand the two first days of his arrival with prejudiced eyes, not unmixed with fear of his keenness of penetration. But, in spite of myself, my fear of him vanished, and much of my prejudice with it, when I found that this grave sententious personage, who talked theology with my mother, and tried, poor man! to explain to us some new German philosophy, could laugh as heartily as if he never read and never thought, and had a sense of the ridiculous, which he found sometimes dangerous and troublesome to his good-breeding.

This welcome discovery happened to me at breakfast, while he was reading to us aloud some amusing extracts from a kind of periodical paper, published in France by the Baron De Grimm, one of which was so ludicrous, that he laid down the book to laugh at his ease, while I exclaimed, "Is it possible?"

"Is what possible, my dear?" said my mother.

"That Mr. De Walden," I repeated rather uncivilly, "can laugh so very heartily."

"_N'est-il pas permis en Angleterre, Mademoiselle?_"[2] was his answer.

[Footnote 2: Is it not permitted in England?]

"Oh, yes!" said I, blus.h.i.+ng, and looking very foolish, "only--"

"Oh! Je comprends: apparemment c'est Mademoiselle qui ne veut pas qu'on rit devant elle. Helas, belle Helene! il faut rire tant qu'on le peut, quand on a le bonheur de jouir souvent de votre aimable societe; car il me semble qu'en ce cas la, on pourroit bien avoir raison de pleurer bientot, et peut-etre pour la vie."[3]

[Footnote 3: Oh! I comprehend: you do not like any should laugh in your presence. Alas! beautiful Helen, one must laugh while one can, when one has the happiness of being in your society; for one runs the risk of crying very soon, and perhaps for life.]

Here was _gallantry_ too, and returning good for evil; though I was rude, he was polite. I was humbled and ashamed, while he with increasing archness said, "_Mais qu'est-ce que vous voulez dire avec votre_--'Is it possible?'[4] What! you think me a disciple of Cra.s.sus, and fancy me never laugh till I see an a.s.s eat a thistle?" he added in his foreign English.

[Footnote 4: But what did you mean with your 'Is it possible?']