Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete
had seemed to me beautiful of old. Hers was a love that accompanied and
dignified the schemes and aspirations of manhood,--a love that was an
incarnation of ambition itself; and all the evils and disappointments
that belong to ambition seemed to crowd around my heart like vultures
to a feast allured and invited by the dead. But this at length was
over; the barbarous state restored me to the civilized. I returned to
my equals, prepared no more to be an actor in the strife, but a calm
spectator of the turbulent arena. I once more laid my head beneath the
roof of my fathers; and if without any clear and definite object, I
at least hoped to find amidst "my old hereditary trees" the charm
of contemplation and repose. And scarce--in the first hours of my
arrival--had I indulged that dream, when a fair face, a sweet voice,
that had once before left deep and unobliterated impressions on my
heart, scattered all my philosophy to the winds. I saw Evelyn! and if
ever there was love at first sight, it was that which I felt for her: I
lived in her presence, and forgot the Future! Or, rather, I was with
the Past,--in the bowers of my springtide of life and hope! It was an
after-birth of youth--my love for that young heart!
It is, indeed, only in maturity that we know how lovely were our
earliest years! What depth of wisdom in the old Greek myth, that
allotted Hebe as the prize to the god who had been the arch-labourer of
life! and whom the satiety of all that results from experience had made
enamoured of all that belongs to the Hopeful and the New!
This enchanting child, this delightful Evelyn, this ray of undreamed
of sunshine, smiled away all my palaces of ice. I loved, Cleveland,--I
loved more ardently, more passionately, more wildly than ever I did of
old! But suddenly I learned that she was affianced to another, and felt
that it was not for me to question, to seek the annulment of the bond. I
had been unworthy to love Evelyn if I had not loved honour more! I
fled from her presence, honestly and resolutely; I sought to conquer a
forbidden passion; I believed that I had not won affection in return;
I believed, from certain expressions that I overheard Evelyn utter to
another, that her heart as well as her hand was given to Vargrave. I
came hither; you know how sternly and resolutely I strove to eradicate
a weakness that seemed without even the justification of hope! If I
suffered, I betrayed it not. Suddenly Evelyn appeared again before
me!--and suddenly I learned that she was free! Oh, the rapture of that
moment! Could you have seen her bright face, her enchanting smile, when
we met again! Her ingenuous innocence did not conceal her gladness
at seeing me! What hopes broke upon me! Despite the difference of our
years, I think she loves me! that in that love I am about at last to
learn what blessings there are in life.
Evelyn has the simplicity, the tenderness, of Alice, with the refinement
and culture of Florence herself; not the genius, not the daring spirit,
not the almost fearful brilliancy of that ill-fated being,--but with a
taste as true to the Beautiful, with a soul as sensitive to the Sublime!
In Evelyn's presence I feel a sense of peace, of security, of home!
Happy! thrice happy! he who will take her to his breast! Of late she has
assumed a new charm in my eyes,--a certain pensiveness and abstraction
have succeeded to her wonted gayety. Ah, Love is pensive,--is it not,
Cleveland? How often I ask myself that question! And yet, amidst all my
hopes, there are hours when I tremble and despond! How can that innocent
and joyous spirit sympathize with all that mine has endured and known?
How, even though her imagination be dazzled by some prestige around my
name, how can I believe that I have awakened her heart to that deep and
real love of which it is capable, and which youth excites in youth? When
we meet at her home, or amidst the quiet yet brilliant society which is
gathered round Madame de Ventadour or the Montaignes, with whom she is
an especial favourite; when we converse; when I sit by her, and her soft
eyes meet mine,--I feel not the disparity of years; my heart speaks
to her, and _that_ is youthful still! But in the more gay and crowded
haunts to which her presence allures me, when I see that fairy form
surrounded by those who have not outlived the pleasures that so
naturally dazzle and captivate her, then, indeed, I feel that my tastes,
my habits, my pursuits, belong to another season of life, and ask myself
anxiously if my nature and my years are those that can make _her_ happy?
Then, indeed, I recognize the wide interval that time and trial place
between one whom the world has wearied, and one for whom the world is
new. If she should discover hereafter that youth should love only youth,
my bitterest anguish would be that of remorse! I know how deeply I love
by knowing how immeasurably dearer her happiness is than my own! I will
wait, then, yet a while, I will examine, I will watch well that I do not
deceive myself. As yet I think that I have no rivals whom I need fear:
surrounded as she is by the youngest and the gayest, she still turns
with evident pleasure to me, whom she calls her friend. She will forego
the amusements she most loves for society in which we can converse more
at ease. You remember, for instance, young Legard? He is here; and,
before I met Evelyn, was much at Lady Doltimore's house. I cannot be
blind to his superior advantages of youth and person; and there is
something striking and prepossessing in the gentle yet manly frankness
of his manner,--and yet no fear of his rivalship ever haunts me. True,
that of late he has been little in Evelyn's society; nor do I think,
in the frivolity of his pursuits, he can have educated his mind to
appreciate Evelyn, or be possessed of those qualities which would render
him worthy of her. But there is something good in the young man, despite
his foibles,--something that wins upon me; and you will smile to learn,
that he has even surprised from _me_--usually so reserved on such
matters--the confession of my attachment and hopes! Evelyn often talks
to me of her mother, and describes her in colours so glowing that I feel
the greatest interest in one who has helped to form so beautiful and
pure a mind. Can you learn who Lady Vargrave was? There is evidently
some mystery thrown over her birth and connections; and, from what I
can hear, this arises from their lowliness. You know that, though I have
been accused of family pride, it is a pride of a peculiar sort. I
am proud, not of the length of a mouldering pedigree, but of some
historical quarterings in my escutcheon,--of some blood of scholars and
of heroes that rolls in my veins; it is the same kind of pride that
an Englishman may feel in belonging to a country that has produced
Shakspeare and Bacon. I have never, I hope, felt the vulgar pride that
disdains want of birth in others; and I care not three straws whether my
friend or my wife be descended from a king or a peasant. It is myself,
and not my connections, who alone can disgrace my lineage; therefore,
however humble Lady Vargrave's parentage, do not scruple to inform me,
should you learn any intelligence that bears upon it.
I had a conversation last night with Evelyn that delighted me. By some
accident we spoke of Lord Vargrave; and she told me, with an enchanting
candour, of the position in which she stood with him, and the
conscientious and noble scruples she felt as to the enjoyment of a
fortune, which her benefactor and stepfather had evidently intended
to be shared with his nearest relative. In these scruples I cordially
concurred; and if I marry Evelyn, my first care will be to carry them
into effect,--by securing to Vargrave, as far as the law may permit,
the larger part of the income; I should like to say all,--at least till
Evelyn's children would have the right to claim it: a right not to be
enforced during her own, and, therefore, probably not during Vargrave's
life. I own that this would be no sacrifice, for I am proud enough to
recoil from the thought of being indebted for fortune to the woman I
love. It was that kind of pride which gave coldness and constraint to my
regard for Florence; and for the rest, my own property (much increased
by the simplicity of my habits of life for the last few years) will
suffice for all Evelyn or myself could require. Ah, madman that I am!
I calculate already on marriage, even while I have so much cause for
anxiety as to love. But my heart beats,--my heart has grown a dial that
keeps the account of time; by its movements I calculate the moments--in
an hour I shall see her!
Oh, never, never, in my wildest and earliest visions, could I have
fancied that I should love as I love now! Adieu, my oldest and kindest
friend! If I am happy at last, it will be something to feel that at last
I shall have satisfied your expectations of my youth.
Affectionately yours,
E. MALTRAVERS.
RUE DE -----, PARIS,
January --, 18--.
CHAPTER II.
IN her youth
There is a prone and speechless dialect--
Such as moves men.--_Measure for Measure_.
_Abbess_. Haply in private-) _Adriana_.
And in assemblies too.--_Comedy of Errors_.
IT was true, as Maltravers had stated, that Legard had of late been
little at Lady Doltimore's, or in the same society as Evelyn. With the
vehemence of an ardent and passionate nature, he yielded to the jealous
rage and grief that devoured him. He saw too clearly, and from the
first, that Maltravers adored Evelyn; and in her familiar kindness of
manner towards him, in the unlimited veneration in which she appeared
to hold his gifts and qualities, he thought that that love might become
reciprocal. He became gloomy and almost morose; he shunned Evelyn,
he forbore to enter into the lists against his rival. Perhaps the
intellectual superiority of Maltravers, the extraordinary conversational
brilliancy that he could display when he pleased, the commanding dignity
of his manners, even the matured authority of his reputation and years,
might have served to awe the hopes, as well as to wound the vanity, of
a man accustomed himself to be the oracle of a circle. These might have
strongly influenced Legard in withdrawing himself from Evelyn's society;
but there was one circumstance, connected with motives much more
generous, that mainly determined his conduct. It happened that
Maltravers, shortly after his first interview with Evelyn, was riding
alone one day in the more sequestered part of the Bois de Boulogne,
when he encountered Legard, also alone, and on horseback. The latter, on
succeeding to his uncle's fortune, had taken care to repay his debt to
Maltravers; he had done so in a short but feeling and grateful letter,
which had been forwarded to Maltravers at Paris, and which pleased and
touched him. Since that time he had taken a liking to the young man, and
now, meeting him at Paris, he sought, to a certain extent, Legard's more
intimate acquaintance. Maltravers was in that happy mood when we are
inclined to be friends with all men. It is true, however, that, though
unknown to himself, that pride of bearing, which often gave to the very
virtues of Maltravers an unamiable aspect, occasionally irritated one
who felt he had incurred to him an obligation of honour and of
life never to be effaced; it made the sense of this obligation more
intolerable to Legard; it made him more desirous to acquit himself of
the charge. But on this day there was so much cordiality in the greeting
of Maltravers, and he pressed Legard in so friendly a manner to join
him in his ride, that the young man's heart was softened, and they rode
together, conversing familiarly on such topics as were in common between