CHAPTER XLVI
Je me contente de ce qui peut s'ecrire, et je reve tout ce qui peut se rever.—DE SEVIGNE.
["I content myself with writing what I am able, and I dream all I possibly can dream."]
About a week after his wound, and the second morning of his return to sense and consciousness, when Clarence opened his eyes, they fell upon a female form seated watchfully and anxiously by his bedside. He raised himself in mute surprise, and the figure, startled by the motion, rose, drew the curtain, and vanished. With great difficulty he rang his bell. His valet, Harrison, on whose mind, though it was of no very exalted order, the kindness and suavity of his master had made a great impression, instantly appeared.
"Who was that lady?" asked Linden. "How came she here?"
Harrison smiled: "Oh, sir, pray please to lie down, and make yourself easy: the lady knows you very well and would come here; she insists upon staying in the house, so we made up a bed in the drawing-room and she has watched by you night and day. She speaks very little English to be sure, but your honour knows, begging your pardon, how well I speak French."
"French?" said Clarence, faintly,—"French? In Heaven's name, who is she?"
"A Madame—Madame—La Melonveal, or some such name, sir," said the valet.
Clarence fell back. At that moment his hand was pressed. He turned, and saw Talbot by his side. The kind old man had not suffered La Meronville to be Linden's only nurse: notwithstanding his age and peculiarity of habits, he had fixed his abode all the day in Clarence's house, and at night, instead of returning to his own home, had taken up his lodgings at the nearest hotel.
With a jealous and anxious eye to the real interest and respectability of his adopted son, Talbot had exerted all his address, and even all his power, to induce La Meronville, who had made her settlement previous to Talbot's, to quit the house, but in vain. With that obstinacy which a Frenchwoman when she is sentimental mistakes for nobility of heart, the ci-devant amante of Lord Borodaile insisted upon watching and tending one of whose sufferings she said and believed she was the unhappy though innocent cause: and whenever more urgent means of removal were hinted at La Meronville flew to the chamber of her beloved, apostrophized him in a strain worthy of one of D'Arlincourt's heroines, and in short was so unreasonably outrageous that the doctors, trembling for the safety of their patient, obtained from Talbot a forced and reluctant acquiescence in the settlement she had obtained.
Ah! what a terrible creature a Frenchwoman is, when, instead of coquetting with a caprice, she insists upon conceiving a grande passion. Little, however, did Clarence, despite his vexation when he learned of the bienveillance of La Meronville, foresee the whole extent of the consequences it would entail upon him: still less did Talbot, who in his seclusion knew not the celebrity of the handsome adventuress, calculate upon the notoriety of her motions or the ill effect her ostentatious attachment would have upon Clarence's prosperity as a lover to Lady Flora. In order to explain these consequences the more fully, let us, for the present, leave our hero to the care of the surgeon, his friends, and his would-be mistress; and while he is more rapidly recovering than the doctors either hoped or presaged, let us renew our acquaintance with a certain fair correspondent.
LETTER FROM THE LADY FLORA ARDENNE TO MISS ELEANOR TREVANION
My Dearest Eleanor,—I have been very ill, or you would sooner have received an answer to your kind,-too kind and consoling letter. Indeed I have only just left my bed: they say that I have been delirious, and I believe it; for you cannot conceive what terrible dreams I have had. But these are all over now, and everyone is so kind to me,—my poor mother above all! It is a pleasant thing to be ill when we have those who love us to watch our recovery.
I have only been in bed a few days; yet it seems to me as if a long portion of my existence were past,—as if I had stepped into a new era. You remember that my last letter attempted to express my feelings at Mamma's speech about Clarence, and at my seeing him so suddenly. Now, dearest, I cannot but look on that day, on these sensations, as on a distant dream. Every one is so kind to me, Mamma caresses and soothes me so fondly, that I fancy I must have been under some illusion. I am sure they could not seriously have meant to forbid his addresses. No, no: I feel that all will yet be well,—so well, that even you, who are of so contented a temper, will own that if you were not Eleanor you would be Flora.
I wonder whether Clarence knows that I have been ill? I wish you knew him. Well, dearest, this letter—a very unhandsome return, I own, for yours—must content you at present, for they will not let me write more; though, so far as I am concerned, I am never so weak, in frame I mean, but what I could scribble to you about him.
Addio, carissima. F. A.
I have prevailed on Mamma, who wished to sit by me and amuse me, to go to the Opera to-night, the only amusement of which she is particularly fond. Heaven forgive me for my insincerity, but he always comes into our box, and I long to hear some news of him.
LETTER II
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME
Eleanor, dearest Eleanor, I am again very ill, but not as I was before, ill from a foolish vexation of mind: no, I am now calm and even happy. It was from an increase of cold only that I have suffered a relapse. You may believe this, I assure you, in spite of your well meant but bitter jests upon my infatuation, as you very rightly call it, for Mr. Linden. You ask me what news from the Opera? Silly girl that I was, to lie awake hour after hour, and refuse even to take my draught, lest I should be surprised into sleep, till Mamma returned. I sent Jermyn down directly I heard her knock at the door (oh, how anxiously I had listened for it!) to say that I was still awake and longed to see her. So, of course, Mamma came up, and felt my pulse, and said it was very feverish, and wondered the draught had not composed me; with a great deal more to the same purpose, which I bore as patiently as I could, till it was my turn to talk; and then I admired her dress and her coiffure, and asked if it was a full house, and whether the prima donna was in voice, etc.: till, at last, I won my way to the inquiry of who were her visitors. "Lord Borodaile," said she, "and the Duke of ——, and Mr. St. George, and Captain Leslie, and Mr. De Retz, and many others." I felt so disappointed, Eleanor, but did not dare ask whether he was not of the list; till, at last, my mother observing me narrowly, said, "And by the by, Mr. Linden looked in for a few minutes. I am glad, my dearest Flora, that I spoke to you so decidedly about him the other day." "Why, Mamma?" said I, hiding my face under the clothes. "Because," said she, in rather a raised voice, "he is quite unworthy of you! but it is late now, and you should go to sleep; to-morrow I will tell you more." I would have given worlds to press the question then, but could not venture. Mamma kissed and left me. I tried to twist her words into a hundred meanings, but in each I only thought that they were dictated by some worldly information,—some new doubts as to his birth or fortune; and, though that supposition distressed me greatly, yet it could not alter my love or deprive me of hope; and so I cried and guessed, and guessed and cried, till at last I cried myself to sleep.
When I awoke, Mamma was already up, and sitting beside me: she talked to me for more than an hour upon ordinary subjects, till at last, perceiving how absent or rather impatient I appeared, she dismissed Jermyn, and spoke to me thus:—
"You know, Flora, that I have always loved you, more perhaps than I ought to have done, more certainly than I have loved your brothers and sisters; but you were my eldest child, my first-born, and all the earliest associations of a mother are blent and entwined with you. You may be sure therefore that I have ever had only your happiness in view, and that it is only with a regard to that end that I now speak to you."
I was a little frightened, Eleanor, by this opening, but I was much more touched, so I took Mamma's hand and kissed and wept silently over it; she continued: "I observed Mr. Linden's attention to you, at ——; I knew nothing more of his rank and birth then than I do at present: but his situation in the embassy and his personal appearance naturally induced me to suppose him a gentleman of family, and, therefore, if not a great at least not an inferior match for you, so far as worldly distinctions are concerned. Added to this, he was uncommonly handsome, and had that general reputation for talent which is often better than actual wealth or hereditary titles. I therefore did not check, though I would not encourage any attachment you might form for him; and nothing being declared or decisive on either side when we left—, I imagined that if your flirtation with him did even amount to a momentary and girlish phantasy, absence and change of scene would easily and rapidly efface the impression. I believe that in a great measure it was effaced when Lord Aspeden returned to England, and with him Mr. Linden. You again met the latter in society almost as constantly as before; a caprice nearly conquered was once more renewed; and in my anxiety that you should marry, not for aggrandizement, but happiness, I own to my sorrow that I rather favoured than forbade his addresses. The young man—remember, Flora— appeared in society as the nephew and heir of a gentleman of ancient family and considerable property; he was rising in diplomacy, popular in the world, and, so far as we could see, of irreproachable character; this must plead my excuse for tolerating his visits, without instituting further inquiries respecting him, and allowing your attachment to proceed without ascertaining how far it had yet extended. I was awakened to a sense of my indiscretion by an inquiry which Mr. Linden's popularity rendered general; namely, if Mr. Talbot was his uncle, who was his father? who his more immediate relations? and at that time Lord Borodaile informed us of the falsehood he had either asserted or allowed to be spread in claiming Mr. Talbot as his relation. This you will observe entirely altered the situation of Mr. Linden with respect to you. Not only his rank in life became uncertain, but suspicious. Nor was this all: his very personal respectability was no longer unimpeachable. Was this dubious and intrusive person, without a name and with a sullied honour, to be your suitor? No, Flora; and it was from this indignant conviction that I spoke to you some days since. Forgive me, my child, if I was less cautious, less confidential than I am now. I did not imagine the wound was so deep, and thought that I should best cure you by seeming unconscious of your danger. The case is now changed; your illness has convinced me of my fault, and the extent of your unhappy attachment: but will my own dear child pardon me if I still continue, if I even confirm, my disapproval of her choice? Last night at the Opera Mr. Linden entered my box. I own that I was cooler to him than usual. He soon left us, and after the Opera I saw him with the Duke of Haverfield, one of the most incorrigible roues of the day, leading out a woman of notoriously bad character and of the most ostentatious profligacy. He might have had some propriety, some decency, some concealment at least, but he passed just before me,—before the mother of the woman to whom his vows of honourable attachment were due and who at that very instant was suffering from her infatuation for him. Now, Flora, for this man, an obscure and possibly a plebeian adventurer, whose only claim to notice has been founded on falsehood, whose only merit, a love of you, has been, if not utterly destroyed, at least polluted and debased,—for this man, poor alike in fortune, character, and honour, can you any longer profess affection or esteem?"
"Never, never, never!" cried I, springing from the bed, and throwing myself upon my mother's neck. "Never: I am your own Flora once more. I will never suffer any one again to make me forget you," and then I sobbed so violently that Mamma was frightened, and bade me lie down and left me to sleep. Several hours have passed since then, and I could not sleep nor think, and I would not cry, for he is no longer worthy of my tears; so I have written to you.
Oh, how I despise and hate myself for having so utterly, in my vanity and folly, forgotten my mother, that dear, kind, constant friend, who never cost me a single tear, but for my own ingratitude! Think, Eleanor, what an affront to me,—to me, who, he so often said, had made all other women worthless in his eyes. Do I hate him? No, I cannot hate. Do I despise? No, I will not despise, but I will forget him, and keep my contempt and hatred for myself.
God bless you! I am worn out. Write soon, or rather come, if possible, to your affectionate but unworthy friend, F. A.
Good Heavens! Eleanor, he is wounded. He has fought with Lord Borodaile. I have just heard it; Jermyn told me. Can it, can it be true? What,—what have I said against him? Hate? forget? No, no: I never loved him till now.
LETTER III
FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME
(After an interval of several weeks.)
Time has flown, my Eleanor, since you left me, after your short but kind visit, with a heavy but healing wing. I do not think I shall ever again be the giddy girl I have been; but my head will change, not my heart; that was never giddy, and that shall still be as much yours as ever. You are wrong in thinking I have not forgotten, at least renounced all affection for Mr. Linden. I have, though with a long and bitter effort. The woman for whom he fought went, you know, to his house, immediately on hearing of his wound. She has continued with him ever since. He had the audacity to write to me once; my mother brought me the note, and said nothing. She read my heart aright. I returned it unopened. He has even called since his convalescence. Mamma was not at home to him. I hear that he looks pale and altered. I hope not,—at least I cannot resist praying for his recovery. I stay within entirely; the season is over now, and there are no parties: but I tremble at the thought of meeting him even in the Park or the Gardens. Papa talks of going into the country next week. I cannot tell you how eagerly I look forward to it: and you will then come and see me; will you not, dearest Eleanor?
Ah! what happy days we will have yet: we will read Italian together, as we used to do; you shall teach me your songs, and I will instruct you in mine; we will keep birds as we did, let me see, eight years ago. You will never talk to me of my folly: let that be as if it had never been; but I will wonder with you about your future choice, and grow happy in anticipating your happiness. Oh, how selfish I was some weeks ago! then I could only overwhelm you with my egotisms: now, Eleanor, it is your turn; and you shall see how patiently I will listen to yours. Never fear that you can be too prolix: the diffuser you are, the easier I shall forgive myself.
Are you fond of poetry, Eleanor? I used to say so, but I never felt that I was till lately. I will show you my favourite passages in my favourite poets when you come to see me. You shall see if yours correspond with mine. I am so impatient to leave this horrid town, where everything seems dull, yet feverish,—insipid, yet false. Shall we not be happy when we meet? If your dear aunt will come with you, she shall see how I (that is my mind) am improved.
Farewell.
Ever your most affectionate,F. A.