by Mary Shelley
So bitterly uncharitable was the unforgiving old lady towards her brother’s widow. She ruminated on these things for a minute or two, and then Margaret came to usher her into the wicked one’s presence. The sitting-room destined for the lodger was neat, though very plain. The walls were wainscotted and painted white, — the windows small and latticed, — the furniture was old black, shining mahogany; the chairs high-backed and clumsy; the table heavy and incommodious; the fire-place large and airy; and the shelf of the mantel-piece almost as high as the low ceiling: there were a few things of a more modern construction; a comfortable sofa, a rose-wood bureau and large folding screen; near the fire was a large easy chair of Gillows’s manufacture, two light cane ones, and two small tables; vases filled with hyacinths, jonquils, and other spring flowers stood on one, and an embroidery frame occupied the other. There was a perfume of fresh-gathered flowers in the room, which the open window rendered very agreeable. Lady was standing near the fire — (for Wilmot was not mistaken, and it was she indeed who now presented herself to Mrs. Fitzhenry’s eyes) — she might be agitated — she did not show it — she came forward and held out her hand. “Dear Bessy,” she said, “you are very kind to visit me; I thank you very much.”
The poor recluse was overpowered. The cordiality of the greeting frightened her: she who had come full of bitter reproach and hard purposes, to be thanked with that sweet voice and smile. “I thought,” at length she stammered out, “that you did not wish to be known. I am glad you are not offended, Cornelia.”
“Offended by kindness? O no! It is true I did not wish — I do not wish that it should be known that I am here — but since, by some strange accident, you have discovered me, how can I help being grateful for your visit? I am indeed glad to see you; it is so long since I have heard any thing. Ah! dear Bessy, tell me, how is Ethel?”
Tears glistened in the mother’s eyes: she asked many questions, and Mrs. Fitzhenry a little recovered her self-possession, as she answered them. She looked at Lady — she was changed — she could not fail of being changed after so many years, — she was no longer a beautiful girl, but she was a lovely woman. Despite the traces of years, which however lightly they impressed, yet might be discerned; expression so embellished her that it was impossible not to admire; brilliancy had given place to softness, animation to serenity; still she was fair — still her silken hair clustered on her brow, and her sweet eyes were full of fire; her smile had more than its former charm — it came from the heart.
Mrs. Fitzhenry was not, however, to be subdued by a little outward show. She was there, who had betrayed and deserted (such were the energetic words she was accustomed to employ) the noble, broken-hearted . The thought steeled her purpose, and she contrived at last to ask whether Lady Lodore was going to remain much longer in Essex?
“I have been going every day since I came here. In a few weeks I shall certainly be gone. Why do you ask?”
“Because I thought — that is — you have made a secret of your being here, and I expect Ethel in a day or two, and she would certainly discover you.”
“Why should she not?” asked Lady . “Why should you be averse to my seeing Ethel?”
It is very difficult to say a disagreeable thing, especially to one unaccustomed to society, and who is quite ignorant of the art of concealing the sting of her intentions by flowery words. Mrs. Fitzhenry said something about her sister-in-law’s own wishes, and the desire expressed by that there should be no intercourse between the mother and daughter.
Cornelia’s eyes flashed fire—”Am I,” she exclaimed, “to be always the sacrifice? Is my husband’s vengeance to pursue me beyond his grave — even till I reach mine? Unjust as he was, he would not have desired this.”
Mrs. Elizabeth coloured with anger. Lady continued—”Pardon me, Bessy, I do not wish to say any thing annoying to you or in blame of Lodore. God knows I did him great wrong — but—”
“O Cornelia,” cried the old lady, “do you indeed acknowledge that you were to blame?”
Lady smiled, and said, “I were strangely blind to the defects of my own character, and to the consequences of my actions, were I not conscious of my errors; but retrospection is useless, and the punishment has been — is — sufficiently severe. Lodore himself would not have perpetuated his resentment, had he lived only a very little while longer. But I will speak frankly to you, Bessy, as frankly as I may, and you shall decide on my further tay here. From circumstances which it is immaterial to explain, I have resolved on retiring into absolute solitude. I shall never live in London again — never again see any of my old friends and acquaintances. The course of my life is entirely changed; and whether I live here or elsewhere, I shall live in obscurity and poverty. I do not wish Ethel to know this. She would wish to assist me, and she has scarcely enough for herself. I do not like being a burthen — I do not like being pitied — I do not like being argued with, or to have my actions commented upon. You know that my disposition was always independent.”
Mrs. Elizabeth assented with a sigh, casting up her eyes to heaven.
Lady smiled, and went on. “You think this is a strange place for me to live in: whether here or elsewhere, I shall never live in any better: I shall be fortunate if I find myself as well off when I leave Essex, for the people here are good and honest, and the poor girl loves me, — it is always pleasant to be loved.”
A tear again filled Cornelia’s eyes — she tried to animate herself to smile. “I have nothing to love in all the wide world except Ethel; I do love her; every one must love her — she is so gentle — so kind — so warm-hearted and beautiful, — I love her more than my own heart’s blood; she is my child — part of that blood — part of myself — the better part; I have seen little of her, but every look and word is engraved on my heart. I love her voice — her smiles — the pressure of her soft white hand. Pity me, dear Bessy, I am never to see any of these, which are all that I love on earth, again. This idea fills me with regret — with worse — with sorrow. There is a grave not far from here which contains one you loved beyond all others, — what would you not give to see him alive once again? To visit his tomb is a consolation to you. I must not seen even the walls within which my blessed child lives. You alone can help me — can be of comfort to me. Do not refuse — do not send me away. If I leave this place, I shall go to some secluded nook in Wales, and be quite — quite alone; the sun will shine, and the grass will grow at my feet, but my heart will be dead within me, and I shall pine and die. I have intended to do this; I have waited only till the sufferings of the poor woman here should be at an end, that I may be of service to Margaret, and then go. Your visit, which I fancied meant in kindness, has put other thoughts into my head.
“Do not object to my staying here; let me remain; and do yet more for me — come to me sometimes, and bring me tidings of my daughter — tell me what she says — how she looks, — tell me that she is at each moment well and happy. Ah! do this, dear Bessy, and I will bless you. I shall never see her — at least not for years; there are many things to prevent it: yet how could I drag out those years quite estranged from her? My heart has died within me each time I have thought of it. But I can live as I say; I shall expect you every now and then to come and talk to me of her; she need never know that I am so near — she comes so seldom to Essex. I shall soon be forgotten at Longfield. Will you consent? you will do a kind action, and God will bless you.”
Mrs. Fitzhenry was one of those persons who always find it difficult to say, No; and Lady asked with so much earnestness that she commanded; she felt that her request ought to be granted, and therefore it was impossible to refuse it. Before she well knew what she had said, the good lady had yielded her consent and received her sister-in-law’s warm and heart-felt thanks.
Mrs. Fitzhenry looked round the room: “But how can you think of staying here, Cornelia?” she said; “this place is not fit for you. I should have thought that you could never have endured such homely rooms.”
“Do you
think them so bad?” replied the lady; “I think them very pleasant, for I have done with pride, and I find peace and comfort here. Look,” she continued, throwing open a door that led into the garden, “is not that delightful? This garden is very pretty: that clear rivulet murmurs by with so lulling a sound; — and look at these violets, are they not beautiful? I have planted a great many flowers, and they will soon come up. Do you not know how pleasant it is to watch the shrubs we plant, and water, and rear ourselves? — to see the little green shoots peep out, and the leaves unfold, and then the flower blossom and expand, diffusing its delicious odour around, — all, as it were, created by oneself, by one’s own nursing, out of a bit of stick or an ugly bulb? This place is very pretty, I assure you: when the leaves are on the trees they make a bower, and the grove behind the house is shady, and leads to lanes and fields more beautiful than any I ever saw. I have loitered for hours in this garden, and been quite happy. Now I shall be happier than ever, thanks to you. You will not forget me. Come as often as you can. You say that you expect Ethel soon?”
Lady Ladore walked with her sister-in-law to the garden-gate, and beyond, through the little copse, still talking of her daughter. “I cannot go further,” she said, at last, “without a bonnet — so good-bye, dear Bessy. Come soon. Thank you — thank you for this visit.”
She held out her hand: Mrs. Fitzhenry took it, pressed it, a half feeling came over her as if she were about to kiss the check of her offeneding relative, but her heart hardened, she blushed, and muttering a hasty good-bye, she hurried away. She was bewildered, and after walking a few steps, she turned round, and saw again the white dress of Cornelia, as a turn in the path hid her. The grand, the exclusive Lady — the haughty, fashionable, worldly-heartless wife thus metamorphosed into a tender-hearted mother — suing to her for crumbs of charitable love — and hiding all her boasted advantages in that low-roofed cottage! What could it all mean?
Mrs. Fitzhenry walked on. Again she thought, “How odd! I went there, determining to persuade her to go away, and miserable at the thoughts of seeing her only once; and now I have promised to visit her often, and agreed that she shall live here. Have I not done wrong? What would my poor brother say? Yet I could not refuse. Poor thing! how could I refuse, when she said that she had nothing else to live for? Besides, to go away and live alone in Wales — it would be too dreadful; and she thanked me as if she were so grateful. I hope I have not done wrong.
“But how strange it is that Henry’s widow should have become so poor; she has given up a part of her income to Ethel, but a great deal remains. What can she have done with it? She is mysterious, and there is never any good in mystery. Who knows what she may have to conceal?” Mrs. Elizabeth got in her carriage, and each step of the horses took her farther from the web of enchantment which Cornelia had thrown over her. “She is always strange,” — thus ran her meditations; “and how am I to see her, and no one find it out? and what a story for Longfield, that Lady should be living in poverty in dame Nixon’s cottage. I forgot to tell her that — I forgot to say so many things I meant to say — I don’t know why, except that she talked so much, and I did not know how to bring in my objections. But it cannot be right: and Ethel in her long rambles and rides with Miss Derham or Mr. Villiers, will be sure to find her out. I wish I had not seen her — I will write and tell her I have changed my mind, and entreat her to go away.”
As it occurs to all really good-natured persons, it was very disagreeable to Mrs. Fitzhenry to be angry, and she visited the ill-temper so engendered on the head of poor Cornelia. She disturbed herself by the idea of all the disagreeable things that might happen — of her sister-in-law’s positive refusal to go; the very wording which she imagined for her intended letter puzzled and irritated her. She no longer felt the breath of spring as pleasant, but sat back in the chariot, “nursing her wrath to keep it warm.” When she reached her home, Ethel’s carriage was at her door.
The meeting, as ever, between aunt and niece was affectionate. Fanny was welcomed, the baby was kissed, and little Clorinda admired, but the theme nearest Ethel’s heart was speedily introduced — her mother. The disquietudes she felt on her account — Mr. Saville’s journey to Paris — the visit of Villiers to Wales to discover her place of concealment — the inutility of all their endeavours.
“But why are they so anxious?” asked her aunt; “I can understand you: you have some fantastic notion about your mother, but how can Mr. Villiers desire so very much to find her?”
“I could almost say,” said Ethel, “that Edward is more eager than myself, though I should wrong my own affection and gratitude; but he was more unjust towards her, and thus he feels the weight of obligation more keenly; but, perhaps, dear aunt, you do not know all that my dearest mother has done for us — the unparalleled sacrifices she has made.”
Then Ethel went on to tell her all that Mr. Gayland had communicated — the sale of her jointure — the very small residue of money she had kept for herself — the entire payment of Villiers’s debts — and afterwards the surrender of the remainder of her income and of her house to them. Her eyes glistened as she spoke; her heart, overflowing with admiration and affection, shone in her beautiful face, her voice was pregnant with sensibility, and her expressions full of deep feeling.
Mrs. Elizabeth’s heart was not of stone — far from it; it was, except in the one instance of her sister-in-law, made of pliable materials. She heard Ethel’s story — she caught by sympathy the tenderness and pity she poured forth — she thought of Lady at the cottage, a dwelling so unlike any she had ever inhabited before — poverty-stricken and mean; she remembered her praises of it — her cheerfulness — the simplicity of taste which she displayed — the light-hearted content with which she spoke of every privation except the absence of Ethel. What before was mysterious wrong, was now manifest heroism. The loftiness and generosity of her mind rose upon the old lady unclouded; her own uncharitable deductions stung her with remorse; she continued to listen, and Ethel to narrate, and the big tears gathered in her eyes, and rolled down her venerable cheeks, — tears at once of repentance and admiration.
CHAPTER XX.
Repentance is a tender sprite;
If aught on earth have heavenly might.
‘Tis lodged within her silent tear.
— Wordsworth.
Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry was not herself aware of all that Lady had suffered, or the extent of her sacrifices. She guessed darkly at them, but it was the detail that rendered them so painful, and, but for their motive, humiliating to one nursed in luxury, and accustomed to all those intermediate servitors and circumstances, which stand between the rich and the bare outside of the working-day world. Cornelia shrunk from the address of those she did not know, and from the petty acts of daily life, which had gone on before without her entering into their detail.
Her illness at Newbury had been severe. She was attacked by the scarlet fever; the doctor had ordered her to be removed from the bustle of the inn, and a furnished villa had been taken for her, while she could only give a languid assent to propositions which she understood confusedly. She was a long time very ill — a long time weak and slowly convalescent. At length health dawned on her, accompanied by a disposition attuned to content and a wish for tranquillity. Her residence was retired, commodious, and pretty; she was pleased with it, she did not wish to remove, and was glad to procrastinate from day to day any consideration of the future. Thus it was a long time before the strength of her thoughts and purposes was renewed, or that she began to think seriously of where she was, and what she was going to do.
During the half delirium, the disturbed and uncontrollable, but not unmeaning reveries, of her fever, the idea of visiting ‘s grave had haunted her pertinaciously. She had often dreamt of it: at one time the tomb seemed to rise in a lonely desert; and the dead slept peacefully beneath sunshine or starlight. At another, storms and howling winds were around, groans and sighs, mingled with the sound of the tempest, and menaces and
reproaches against her were breathed from the cold marble. Now her imagination pictured it within the aisles of a magnificent cathedral; and now again the real scene — the rustic church of Longfield was vividly present to her mind. She saw the pathway through the green churchyard — the ruined ivy-mantled tower, which showed how much larger the edifice had been in former days, near which might be still discerned on high a niche containing the holy mother and divine child — the half-defaced porch on which rude monkish imagery was carved — the time-worn pews, and painted window. She had never entered this church but once, many, many years ago; and it was strange how in sleep and fever-troubled reverie, each portion of it presented itself distinctly and vividly to her imagination. During these perturbed visions, one other form and voice perpetually recurred. She heard Ethel continually repeat, “Come! come!” and often her figure flitted round the tomb or sat beside it. Once, on awakening from a dream, which impressed her deeply by the importunity and earnestness of her daughter’s appeal, she was forcibly impelled to consider it her duty to obey, and she made a vow that on recovering from her illness, she would visit her husband’s grave.
Now while pondering on the humiliations and cheerless necessities which darkened her future, and rousing herself to form some kind of resolution concerning them, this dream was repeated, and on awakening, the memory of her forgotten vow renewed itself in her. She dwelt on it with pleasure. Here was something to be done that was not mere wretchedness and lonely wandering — something that, connecting her with the past, took away the sense of desertion and solitude, so hard to bear. In the morning, at breakfast, it so chanced that she read in the Morning Herald a little paragraph announcing that Viscount Maristow was entertaining a party of friends at Maristow Castle, among whom were Mr. and Mrs. Villiers, and the Hon. Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzhenry. This was a fortunate coincidence. The dragon ceased for a moment to watch the garden, and she might avail herself of its absence to visit its treasure unnoticed and unknown. She put her project into immediate execution. She crossed the country, passing through London on her way to Longfield — she arrived. Without delay she fulfilled her purpose. She entered the church and viewed the tablet, inscribed simply with the name of , and the date of his birth and death. The words were few and common-place, but they were eloquent to her. They told her that the cold decaying shape lay beneath, which in the pride of life and love had clasped her in its arms as its own for evermore. Short-lived had been the possession. She had loosened the tie even while thought and feeling ruled the now insentient brain — he had been scarcely less dead to her while inhabiting the distant Illinois, than now that a stone placed above him, gave visible token of his material presence, and the eternal absence of his immortal part. Cornelia had never before felt so sensibly that she had been a wife neglecting her duties, despising a vow she had solemnly pledged, estranging herself from him, who by religious ordinance, and the laws of society, alone had privilege to protect and love her. Nor had she before felt so intimately the change — that she was a widow; that her lover, her husband, the father of her child, the forsaken, dead Lodore, was indeed no part of the tissue of life, action, and feeling to which she belonged.
