Henrietta Temple: A Love Story
the chamber; he looked with a feeling of delight and pride over the
broad and beautiful park; the tall trees rising and flinging their
taller shadows over the bright and dewy turf, and the last mists
clearing away from the distant woods and blending with the spotless sky.
Everything was sweet and still, save, indeed, the carol of the birds, or
the tinkle of some restless bellwether. It was a rich autumnal morn. And
yet with all the excitement of his new views in life, and the blissful
consciousness of the happiness of those he loved, he could not but feel
that a great change had come over his spirit since the days he was wont
to ramble in this old haunt of his boyhood. His innocence was gone. Life
was no longer that deep unbroken trance of duty and of love from which
he had been roused to so much care; and if not remorse, at least to
so much compunction. He had no secrets then. Existence was not then a
subterfuge, but a calm and candid state of serene enjoyment. Feelings
then were not compromised for interests; and then it was the excellent
that was studied, not the expedient. ‘Yet such I suppose is life,’
murmured Ferdinand; ‘we moralise when it is too late; nor is there
anything more silly than to regret. One event makes another: what we
anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens; and
time can only prove which is most for our advantage. And surely I am
the last person who should look grave. Our ancient house rises from
its ruins; the beings I love most in the world are not only happy, but
indebted to me for their happiness; and I, I myself, with every gift
of fortune suddenly thrown at my feet, what more can I desire? Am I
not satisfied? Why do I even ask the question? I am sure I know not. It
rises like a devil in my thoughts, and spoils everything. The girl is
young, noble, and fair, and loves me. And her? I love her, at least I
suppose I love her. I love her at any rate as much as I love, or ever
did love, woman. There is no great sacrifice, then, on my part; there
should be none; there is none; unless indeed it be that a man does
not like to give up without a struggle all his chance of romance and
rapture.
‘I know not how it is, but there are moments I almost wish that I had no
father and no mother; ay! not a single friend or relative in the world,
and that Armine were sunk into the very centre of the earth. If I stood
alone in the world methinks I might find the place that suits me; now
everything seems ordained for me, as it were, beforehand. My spirit has
had no play. Something whispers me that, with all its flush prosperity,
this is neither wise nor well. God knows I am not heartless, and would
be grateful; and yet if life can afford me no deeper sympathy than I
have yet experienced, I cannot but hold it, even with all its sweet
reflections, as little better than a dull delusion.’
While Ferdinand was thus moralising at the casement, Glastonbury
appeared beneath; and his appearance dissipated this gathering gloom.
‘Let us breakfast together,’ proposed Ferdinand. ‘I have breakfasted
these two hours,’ replied the hermit of the gate. ‘I hope that on the
first night of your return to Armine you have proved auspicious dreams.’
‘My bed and I are old companions,’ said Ferdinand, ‘and we agreed
very well. I tell you what, my dear Glastonbury, we will have a stroll
together this morning and talk over our plans of last night. Go into
the library and look over my sketch-books: you will find them on my
pistol-case, and I will be with you anon.’
In due time the friends commenced their ramble. Ferdinand soon became
excited by Glastonbury’s various suggestions for the completion of
the castle; and as for the old man himself, between his architectural
creation and the restoration of the family to which he had been so long
devoted, he was in a rapture of enthusiasm, which afforded an amusing
contrast to his usual meek and subdued demeanour.
‘Your grandfather was a great man,’ said Glastonbury, who in old days
seldom ventured to mention the name of the famous Sir Ferdinand: ‘there
is no doubt he was a very great man. He had great ideas. How he would
glory in our present prospects! ‘Tis strange what a strong confidence I
have ever had in the destiny of your house. I felt sure that Providence
would not desert us. There is no doubt we must have a portcullis.’
‘Decidedly, a portcullis,’ said Ferdinand; ‘you shall make all the
drawings yourself, my dear Glastonbury, and supervise everything. We
will not have a single anachronism. It shall be perfect.’
‘Perfect,’ echoed Glastonbury; ‘really perfect. It shall be a perfect
Gothic castle. I have such treasures for the work. All the labours of
my life have tended to this object. I have all the emblazonings of your
house since the Conquest. There shall be three hundred shields in the
hall. I will paint them myself. Oh! there is no place in the world like
Armine!’
‘Nothing,’ said Ferdinand; ‘I have seen a great deal, but after all
there is nothing like Armine.’
‘Had we been born to this splendour,’ said Glastonbury, ‘we should have
thought little of it. We have been mildly and wisely chastened. I cannot
sufficiently admire the wisdom of Providence, which has tempered, by
such a wise dispensation, the too-eager blood of your race.’
‘I should be sorry to pull down the old place,’ said Ferdinand.
‘It must not be,’ said Glastonbury; ‘we have lived there happily, though
humbly.’
‘I would we could move it to another part of the park, like the house of
Loretto,’ said Ferdinand with a smile.
‘We can cover it with ivy,’ observed Glastonbury, looking somewhat
grave.
The morning stole away in these agreeable plans and prospects. At
length the friends parted, agreeing to meet again at dinner. Glastonbury
repaired to his tower, and Ferdinand, taking his gun, sauntered into the
surrounding wilderness.
But he felt no inclination for sport. The conversation with Glastonbury
had raised a thousand thoughts over which he longed to brood. His
life had been a scene of such constant excitement since his return to
England, that he had enjoyed little opportunity of indulging in calm
self-communion; and now that he was at Armine, and alone, the contrast
between his past and his present situation struck him so forcibly that
he could not refrain from falling into a reverie upon his fortunes. It
was wonderful, all wonderful, very, very wonderful. There seemed indeed,
as Glastonbury affirmed, a providential dispensation in the whole
transaction. The fall of his family, the heroic, and, as it now
appeared, prescient firmness with which his father had clung, in all
their deprivations, to his unproductive patrimony, his own education,
the extinction of his mother’s house, his very follies, once to him a
cause of so much unhappiness, but which it now seemed were all the time
compelling him, as it were, to his prosperity; all these and a thousand
other traits and circumstances flitted over his mind, and were each in
turn the subject of his manifold meditation. Willing was he to credit
that destiny had reserved for him the character of restorer; that duty
indeed he had accepted, and yet----
He looked around him as if to see what devil was whispering in his
ear. He was alone. No one was there or near. Around him rose the
silent bowers, and scarcely the voice of a bird or the hum of an insect
disturbed the deep tranquillity. But a cloud seemed to rest on the fair
and pensive brow of Ferdinand Armine. He threw himself on the turf,
leaning his head on one hand, and with the other plucking the wild
flowers, which he as hastily, almost as fretfully, flung away.
‘Conceal it as I will,’ he exclaimed, ‘I am a victim; disguise them as
I may, all the considerations are worldly. There is, there must be,
something better in this world than power and wealth and rank; and
surely there must be felicity more rapturous even than securing the
happiness of a parent. Ah! dreams in which I have so oft and so fondly
indulged, are ye, indeed, after all, but fantastical and airy visions?
Is love indeed a delusion, or am I marked out from men alone to be
exempted from its delicious bondage? It must be a delusion. All laugh
at it, all jest about it, all agree in stigmatising it the vanity of
vanities. And does my experience contradict this harsh but common fame?
Alas! what have I seen or known to give the lie to this ill report?
No one, nothing. Some women I have met more beautiful, assuredly, than
Kate, and many, many less fair; and some have crossed my path with a
wild and brilliant grace, that has for a moment dazzled my sight, and
perhaps for a moment lured me from my way. But these shooting stars
have but glittered transiently in my heaven, and only made me, by their
evanescent brilliancy, more sensible of its gloom. Let me believe then,
oh! let me of all men then believe, that the forms that inspire
the sculptor and the painter have no models in nature; that that
combination of beauty and grace, of fascinating intelligence and
fond devotion, over which men brood in the soft hours of their young
loneliness, is but the promise of a better world, and not the charm of
this one.
‘But, what terror in that truth! what despair! what madness! Yes!
at this moment of severest scrutiny, how profoundly I feel that life
without love is worse than death! How vain and void, how flat and
fruitless, appear all those splendid accidents of existence for which
men struggle, without this essential and pervading charm! What a world
without a sun! Yes! without this transcendent sympathy, riches and rank,
and even power and fame, seem to me at best but jewels set in a coronet
of lead!
‘And who knows whether that extraordinary being, of whose magnificent
yet ruinous career this castle is in truth a fitting emblem--I say, who
knows whether the secret of his wild and restless course is not hidden
in this same sad lack of love? Perhaps while the world, the silly,
superficial world, marvelled and moralised at his wanton life, and
poured forth its anathemas against his heartless selfishness, perchance
he all the time was sighing for some soft bosom whereon to pour his
overwhelming passion, even as I am!
‘O Nature! why art thou beautiful? My heart requires not, imagination
cannot paint, a sweeter or a fairer scene than these surrounding bowers.
This azazure vault of heaven, this golden sunshine, this deep and
blending shade, these rare and fragrant shrubs, yon grove of green and
tallest pines, and the bright gliding of this swan-crowned lake; my
soul is charmed with all this beauty and this sweetness; I feel no
disappointment here; my mind does not here outrun reality; here there
is no cause to mourn over ungratified hopes and fanciful desires. Is it
then my destiny that I am to be baffled only in the dearest desires of
my heart?’
At this moment the loud and agitated barking of his dogs at some little
distance roused Ferdinand from his reverie. He called them to him,
and soon one of them obeyed his summons, but instantly returned to his
companion with such significant gestures, panting and yelping, that
Ferdinand supposed that Basto was caught, perhaps, in some trap: so,
taking up his gun, he proceeded to the dog’s rescue.
To his surprise, as he was about to emerge from a berceau on to a plot
of turf, in the centre of which grew a large cedar, he beheld a lady
in a riding-habit standing before the tree, and evidently admiring its
beautiful proportions.
Her countenance was raised and motionless. It seemed to him that it was
more radiant than the sunshine. He gazed with rapture on the dazzling
brilliancy of her complexion, the delicate regularity of her features,
and the large violet-tinted eyes, fringed with the longest and the