Godolphin, Complete

Lady Margaret looked down, and laughed prettily.

“I thought till now,” said Constance, with grave composure, “that no person could be more contemptible than one who collects idle reports: I now find I was wrong: a person infinitely more contemptible is one who invents them.”

The rude duchess beat at her own weapons, blushed with anger even through her rouge: but Constance turned away, and, still leaning on Lord Erpingham’s arm, sought another seat;—that seat, on the opposite side of the pillar behind which Godolphin sat, was still within his hearing.

“Upon my word, Miss Vernon,” said Erpingham, “I admire your spirit. Nothing like setting down those absurd people who try to tease one, and think one dares not retort. But pray—I hope I’m not impertinent—pray, may I ask if this rumour have any truth in it?”

“Certainly not,” said Constance, with great effort, but in a clear tone.

“No: I should have thought not—I should have thought not. Godolphin’s much too poor—much too poor for you. Miss Vernon is not born to marry for love in a cottage,—is she?”

Constance sighed.

That soft, low tone thrilled to Godolphin’s very heart. He bent forward: he held his breath: he thirsted for her voice; for some tone, some word in answer; it came not at that moment.

“You remember,” renewed the earl,—“you remember Miss L–? no: she was before your time. Well! she married S–, much such another fellow as Godolphin. He had not a shilling: but he lived well: had a house in Mayfair; gave dinners; hunted at Melton, and so forth: in short, he played high. She had about ten thousand pounds. They married, and lived for two years so comfortably, you have no idea. Every one envied them. They did not keep a close carriage, but he used to drive her out to dinners in his French cabriolet.[3 - Then uncommon.] There was no show—no pomp: everything deuced neat, though; quite love in a cottage—only the cottage was in Curzon Street. At length, however, the cards turned; S– lost everything; owed more than he could ever pay: we were forced to cut him; and his relation, Lord –, coming into the ministry a year afterwards, got him a place in the Customs. They live at Brompton: he wears a pepper-and-salt coat, and she a mob-cap, with pink ribands: they have five hundred a year, and ten children. Such was the fate of S–‘s wife; such may be the fate of Godolphin’s. Oh, Miss Vernon could not marry him!”

“You are right, Lord Erpingham,” said Constance with emphasis; “but you take too much licence in expressing your opinion.”

Before Lord Erpingham could stammer forth his apology they heard a slight noise behind: they turned; Godolphin had risen. His countenance, always inclined to a calm severity—for thought is usually severe in its outward aspect—bent now on both the speakers with so dark and menacing an aspect that the stout earl felt his heart stand still for a moment; and Constance was appalled as if it had been the apparition, and not the living form, of her lover that she beheld. But scarcely had they seen this expression of countenance ere it changed. With a cold and polished smile, a relaxed brow and profound inclination of his form Godolphin greeted the two: and passing from his seat with a slow step glided among the crowd and vanished.

What a strange thing, after all, is a great assembly! An immense mob of persons, who feel for each other the profoundest indifference—met together to join in amusements which the large majority of them consider wearisome beyond conception. How unintellectual, how uncivilised, such a scene, and such actors! What a remnant of barbarous times, when people danced because they had nothing to say! Were there nothing ridiculous in dancing, there would be nothing ridiculous in seeing wise men dance. But that sight would be ludicrous because of the disparity between the mind and the occupation. However, we have some excuse; we go to these assemblies to sell our daughters, or flirt with our neighbours’ wives. A ballroom is nothing more or less than a great market-place of beauty. For my part, were I a buyer, I should like making my purchases in a less public mart.

“Come, Godolphin, a glass of champagne,” cried the young Lord Belvoir, as they sat near each other at the splendid supper.

“With all my heart; but not from that bottle! We must have a new one; for this glass is pledged to Lady Delmour, and I would not drink to her health but from the first sparkle! Nothing tame, nothing insipid, nothing that has lost its first freshness, can be dedicated to one so beautiful and young.”

The fresh bottle was opened, and Godolphin bowed over his glass to Lord Belvoir’s sister—a Beauty and a Blue. Lady Delmour admired Godolphin, and she was flattered by a compliment that no one wholly educated in England would have had the gallant courage to utter across a crowded table.

“You have been dancing?” said she.

“No!”

“What then?”

“What then?” said Godolphin. “Ah, Lady Delmour, do not ask.” The look that accompanied the word, supplied them with a meaning. “Need I add,” said he, in a lower voice, “that I have been thinking of the most beautiful person present?”

“Pooh,” said Lady Delmour, turning away her head. Now, that pooh is a very significant word. On the lips of a man of business, it denotes contempt for romance; on the lips of a politician it rebukes a theory. With that monosyllable, a philosopher massacres a fallacy: by those four letters a rich man gets rid of a beggar. But in the rosy mouth of a woman the harshness vanishes, the disdain becomes encouragement. “Pooh!” says the lady when you tell her she is handsome; but she smiles when she says it. With the same reply she receives your protestation of love, and blushes as she receives. With men it is the sternest, with women the softest, exclamation in the language.

“Pooh!” said Lady Delmour, turning away her head:—and Godolphin was in singular spirits. What a strange thing that we should call such hilarity from our gloom! The stroke induces the flash; excite the nerves by jealousy, by despair, and with the proud you only trace the excitement by the mad mirth and hysterical laughter it creates. Godolphin was charming comme un amour, and the young countess was delighted with his gallantry.

“Did you ever love?” asked she, tenderly, as they sat alone after supper.

“Alas, yes!” said he.

“How often?”

“Read Marmontel’s story of the Four Phials: I have no other answer.”

“Oh, what a beautiful tale that is! The whole history of a man’s heart is contained in it.”

While Godolphin was thus talking with Lady Delmour, his whole soul was with Constance; of her only he thought, and on her he thirsted for revenge. There is a curious phenomenon in love, showing how much vanity has to do with even the best species of it; when, for your mistress to prefer another, changes all your affection into hatred:—is it the loss of the mistress, or her preference to the other? The last, to be sure: for if the former, you would only grieve—but jealousy does not make you grieve, it makes you enraged; it does not sadden, it stings. After all, as we grow old, and look back on the “master passion,” how we smile at the fools it made of us—at the importance we attach to it—of the millions that have been governed by it! When we examine the passion of love, it is like examining the character of some great roan; we are astonished to perceive the littlenesses that belong to it. We ask in wonder, “How come such effects from such a cause?”

Godolphin continued talking sentiment with Lady Delmour, until her lord, who was very fond of his carriage horses, came up and took her away; and then, perhaps glad to be relieved, Percy sauntered into the ballroom, where, though the crowd was somewhat thinned, the dance was continued with that spirit which always seems to increase as the night advances.

For my own part, I now and then look late in at a ball as a warning and grave memento of the flight of time. No amusement belongs of right so essentially to the young, in their first youth,—to the unthinking, the intoxicated,—to those whose blood is an elixir.

“If Constance be woman,” said Godolphin to himself, as he returned to the ballroom, “I will yet humble her to my will. I have not learned the science so long, to be now foiled in the first moment I have seriously wished to triumph.”

As this thought inspired and excited him, he moved along at some distance from, but carefully within the sight of Constance. He paused by Lady Margaret Midgecombe. He addressed her. Notwithstanding the insolence and the ignorance of the Duchess of Winstoun, he was well received by both mother and daughter. Some persons there are, in all times and in all spheres, who command a certain respect, bought neither by riches, rank, nor even scrupulous morality of conduct. They win it by the reputation that talent alone can win them, and which yet is not always the reputation of talent. No man, even in the frivolous societies of the great, obtains homage without certain qualities, which, had they been happily directed, would have conducted him to fame. Had the attention of a Grammont, or of a –, been early turned towards what ought to be the objects desired, who can doubt that, instead of the heroes of a circle, they might have been worthy of becoming names of posterity?

Thus the genius of Godolphin had drawn around him an eclat which made even the haughtiest willing to receive and to repay his notice; and Lady Margaret actually blushed with pleasure when he asked her to dance. A foreign dance, then only very partially known in England, had been called for: few were acquainted with it,—those only who had been abroad; and as the movements seemed to require peculiar grace of person, some even among those few declined, through modesty, the exhibition.

To this dance Godolphin led Lady Margaret. All crowded round to see the performers; and, as each went through the giddy and intoxicating maze, they made remarks on the awkwardness or the singularity, or the impropriety of the dance. But when Godolphin began, the murmurs changed. The slow and stately measure then adapted to the steps, was one in which the graceful symmetry of his person might eminently display itself. Lady Margaret was at least as well acquainted with the dance: and the couple altogether so immeasurably excelled all competitors, that the rest, as if sensible of it, stopped one after the other; and when Godolphin, perceiving that they were alone, stopped also, the spectators made their approbation more audible than approbation usually is in polished society.

As Godolphin paused, his eyes met those of Constance. There was not there the expression he had anticipated there was neither the anger of jealousy, nor the restlessness of offended vanity, nor the desire of conciliation, visible in those large and speaking orbs. A deep, a penetrating, a sad inquiry seemed to dwell in her gaze,—seemed anxious to pierce into his heart, and to discover whether there she possessed the power to wound, or whether each had been deceived: so at least seemed that fixed and melancholy intenseness of look to Godolphin. He left Lady Margaret abruptly: in an instant he was by the side of Constance.

“You must be delighted with this evening,” said he, bitterly: “wherever I go I hear your praises: every one admires you; and he who does not admire so much as worship you, he alone is beneath your notice. He—born to such shattered fortunes,—he indeed might never aspire to that which titled and wealthy idiots deem they may command,—the hand of Constance Vernon.”

It was with a low and calm tone that Godolphin spoke. Constance turned deadly pale: her frame trembled; but she did not answer immediately. She moved to a seat retired a little from the busy crowd; Godolphin followed and sat himself beside her; and then, with a slight effort, Constance spoke.

“You heard what was said, Mr. Godolphin, and I grieve to think you did. If I offended you, however, forgive me, I pray you; I pray sincerely—warmly. God knows I have suffered myself enough from idle words, and from the slighting opinion with which this hard world visits the poor, not to feel deep regret and shame if I wound, by like means, another, more especially”—Constance’s voice trembled,—“more especially you!”

As she spoke, she turned her eyes on Godolphin, and they were full of tears. The tenderness of her voice, her look, melted him at once. Was it to him, indeed, that the haughty Constance addressed the words of kindness and apology?—to him whose intrinsic circumstances she had heard described as so unworthy of her, and, his reason told him, with such justice?

“Oh, Miss Vernon!” said he, passionately; “Miss Vernon—Constance—dear, dear Constance! dare I call you so? hear me one word. I love you with a love which leaves me no words to tell it. I know my faults, my poverty, my unworthiness; but—but—may I—may I hope?”

And all the woman was in Constance’s cheek, as she listened. That cheek, how richly was it dyed! Her eyes drooped; her bosom heaved. How every word in those broken sentences sank into her heart! never was a tone forgotten. The child may forget its mother, and the mother desert the child: but never, never from a woman’s heart departs the memory of the first confession of love from him whom she first loves! She lifted her eyes, and again withdrew them, and again gazed.

“This must not be,” at last she said; “no, no! it is folly, madness in both!”

“Not so; nay, not so!” whispered Godolphin, in the softest notes of a voice that could never be harsh. “It may seem folly—madness if you will, that the brilliant and all-idolized Miss Vernon should listen to the vows of so lowly an adorer: but try me—prove me, and own—yes, you will own some years hence, that that folly has been happy beyond the happiness of prudence or ambition.”

“This!” answered Constance, struggling with her emotions; “this is no spot or hour for such a conference. Let us meet to-morrow—the western chamber.”

“And the hour?”

“Twelve!”

“And I may hope—till then?”

Constance again grew pale; and in a voice that, though it scarcely left her lips, struck coldness and dismay into his sudden and delighted confidence, answered,

“No, Percy, there is no hope!—none!”

CHAPTER XVIII

THE INTERVIEW.—THE CRISIS OF A LIFE