Henrietta Temple: A Love Story
‘A precious trust, my Henrietta, and dearer to me than all the glory of
my ancestors.’
The clock sounded eleven. Miss Temple rose. ‘It is so late, and we
in darkness here! What will they think? Ferdinand, sweetest, rouse
the fire. I ring the bell. Lights will come, and then------’ Her voice
faltered.
‘And then------’ echoed Ferdinand. He took up his guitar, but he could
not command his voice.
‘’Tis your guitar,’ said Henrietta; ‘I am happy that it is left behind.’
The servant entered with lights, drew the curtains, renewed the fire,
arranged the room, and withdrew.
‘Little knows he our misery,’ said Henrietta. ‘It seemed strange, when I
felt my own mind, that there could be anything so calm and mechanical in
the world.’
Ferdinand was silent. He felt that the hour of departure had indeed
arrived, yet he had not courage to move. Henrietta, too, did not
speak. She reclined on the sofa, as it were, exhausted, and placed her
handkerchief over her face. Ferdinand leant over the fire. He was nearly
tempted to give up his project, confess all to his father by letter, and
await his decision. Then he conjured up the dreadful scenes at Bath, and
then he remembered that, at all events, tomorrow he must not appear at
Ducie. ‘Henrietta!’ he at length said.
‘A minute, Ferdinand, yet a minute,’ she exclaimed in an excited tone;
‘do not speak, I am preparing myself.’
He remained in his leaning posture; and in a few moments Miss Temple
rose and said, ‘Now, Ferdinand, I am ready.’ He looked round. Her
countenance was quite pale, but fixed and calm.
‘Let us embrace,’ she said, ‘but let us say nothing.’
He pressed her to his arms. She trembled. He imprinted a thousand kisses
on her cold lips; she received them with no return. Then she said in a
low voice, ‘Let me leave the room first;’ and, giving him one kiss upon
his forehead, Henrietta Temple disappeared.
When Ferdinand with a sinking heart and a staggering step quitted
Ducie, he found the night so dark that it was with extreme difficulty
he traced, or rather groped, his way through the grove. The absolute
necessity of watching every step he took in some degree diverted his
mind from his painful meditations. The atmosphere of the wood was so
close, that he congratulated himself when he had gained its skirts; but
just as he was about to emerge upon the common, and was looking forward
to the light of some cottage as his guide in this gloomy wilderness, a
flash of lightning that seemed to cut the sky in twain, and to descend
like a flight of fiery steps from the highest heavens to the lowest
earth, revealed to him for a moment the whole broad bosom of the common,
and showed to him that nature to-night was as disordered and perturbed
as his own heart. A clap of thunder, that might have been the herald of
Doomsday, woke the cattle from their slumbers. They began to moan and
low to the rising wind, and cluster under the trees, that sent forth
with their wailing branches sounds scarcely less dolorous and wild.
Avoiding the woods, and striking into the most open part of the country,
Ferdinand watched the progress of the tempest.
For the wind had now risen to such a height that the leaves and branches
of the trees were carried about in vast whirls and eddies, while the
waters of the lake, where in serener hours Ferdinand was accustomed
to bathe, were lifted out of their bed, and inundated the neighbouring
settlements. Lights were now seen moving in the cottages, and then the
forked lightning, pouring down at the same time from opposite quarters
of the sky, exposed with an awful distinctness, and a fearful splendour,
the wide-spreading scene of danger and devastation.
Now descended the rain in such overwhelming torrents, that it was as
if a waterspout had burst, and Ferdinand gasped for breath beneath its
oppressive power; while the blaze of the variegated lightning, the
crash of the thunder, and the roar of the wind, all simultaneously
in movement, indicated the fulness of the storm. Succeeded then that
strange lull that occurs in the heart of a tempest, when the unruly
and disordered elements pause, as it were, for breath, and seem to
concentrate their energies for an increased and final explosion. It
came at last; and the very earth seemed to rock in the passage of the
hurricane.
Exposed to all the awful chances of the storm, one solitary being alone
beheld them without terror. The mind of Ferdinand Armine grew calm,
as nature became more disturbed. He moralised amid the whirlwind.
He contrasted the present tumult and distraction with the sweet and
beautiful serenity which the same scene had presented when, a short time
back, he first beheld it. His love, too, had commenced in stillness and
in sunshine; was it, also, to end in storm and in destruction?
BOOK IV.
CHAPTER I.
_Which Contains a Love-Letter_.
LET us pause. We have endeavoured to trace, in the preceding portion
of this history, the development of that passion which is at once the
principle and end of our existence; that passion compared to whose
delights all the other gratifications of our nature--wealth, and power,
and fame, sink into insignificance; and which, nevertheless, by the
ineffable beneficence of our Creator, is open to his creatures of all
conditions, qualities, and climes. Whatever be the lot of man, however
unfortunate, however oppressed, if he only love and be loved, he must
strike a balance in favour of existence; for love can illumine the dark
roof of poverty, and can lighten the fetters of the slave.
But, if the most miserable position of humanity be tolerable with its
support, so also the most splendid situations of our life are wearisome
without its inspiration. The golden palace requires a mistress as
magnificent; and the fairest garden, besides the song of birds and the
breath of flowers, calls for the sigh of sympathy. It is at the foot of
woman that we lay the laurels that without her smile would never have
been gained: it is her image that strings the lyre of the poet, that
animates our voice in the blaze of eloquent faction, and guides our
brain in the august toils of stately councils.
But this passion, so charming in its nature, so equal in its
dispensation, so universal in its influence, never assumes a power so
vast, or exerts an authority so captivating, as when it is experienced
for the first time. Then it is truly irresistible and enchanting,
fascinating and despotic; and, whatever may be the harsher feelings that
life may develop, there is no one, however callous or constrained he may
have become, whose brow will not grow pensive at the memory of _first
love_.
The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end. It is
the dark conviction that feelings the most ardent may yet grow cold, and
that emotions the most constant and confirmed are, nevertheless, liable
to change, that taints the feebler spell of our later passions, though
they may spring from a heart that has lost little of its original
freshness, and be offered to one infinitely more worthy of the devotion
than was our first idol. To gaze upon a face, and to believe that for
ever we must behold it with the same adoration; that those eyes, in
whose light we live, will for ever meet ours with mutual glances of
rapture and devotedness; to be conscious that all conversation with
others sounds vapid and spiritless, compared with the endless expression
of our affection; to feel our heart rise at the favoured voice; and to
believe that life must hereafter consist of a ramble through the world,
pressing but one fond hand, and leaning but upon one faithful breast;
oh! must this sweet credulity indeed be dissipated? Is there no hope for
them so full of hope? no pity for them so abounding with love?
And can it be possible that the hour can ever arrive when the former
votaries of a mutual passion so exquisite and engrossing can meet each
other with indifference, almost with unconsciousness, and recall with
an effort their vanished scenes of felicity, that quick yet profound
sympathy, that ready yet boundless confidence, all that charming
abandonment of self, and that vigilant and prescient fondness that
anticipates all our wants and all our wishes? It makes the heart ache
but to picture such vicissitudes to the imagination. They are images
full of distress, and misery, and gloom. The knowledge that such changes
can occur flits over the mind like the thought of death, obscuring
all our gay fancies with its bat-like wing, and tainting the healthy
atmosphere of our happiness with its venomous expirations. It is not so
much ruined cities that were once the capital glories of the world, or
mouldering temples breathing with oracles no more believed, or arches
of triumph which have forgotten the heroic name they were piled up to
celebrate, that fill the mind with half so mournful an expression of
the instability of human fortunes, as these sad spectacles of exhausted
affections, and, as it were, traditionary fragments of expired passion.
The morning, which broke sweet, and soft, and clear, brought Ferdinand,
with its first glimmer, a letter from Henrietta.
_Henrietta to Ferdinand._
Mine own! I have not lain down the whole night. What a terrible, what
an awful night! To think that he was in the heart of that fearful storm!
What did, what could you do? How I longed to be with you! And I could
only watch the tempest from my window, and strain my eyes at every flash
of lightning, in the vain hope that it might reveal him! Is he well, is
he unhurt? Until my messenger return I can imagine only evil. How often
I was on the point of sending out the household, and yet I thought it
must be useless, and might displease him! I knew not what to do. I beat
about my chamber like a silly bird in a cage. Tell me the truth, my
Ferdinand; conceal nothing. Do not think of moving to-day. If you feel
the least unwell, send immediately for advice. Write to me one line,
only one line, to tell me you are well. I shall be in despair until I
hear from you. Do not keep the messenger an instant. He is on my pony.
He promises to return in a very, very short time. I pray for you, as I
prayed for you the whole long night, that seemed as if it would never
end. God bless you, my Ferdinand! Write only one word to your own
Henrietta.
_Ferdinand to Henrietta_.
Sweetest, dearest Henrietta!
I am quite well, and love you, if that could be, more than ever.
Darling, to send to see after her Ferdinand! A wet jacket, and I
experienced no greater evil, does not frighten me. The storm was
magnificent; I would not have missed it for the world. But I regret it
now, because my Henrietta did not sleep. Sweetest love, let me come on
to you! Your page is inexorable. He will not let me write another line.
God bless you, my Henrietta, my beloved, my matchless Henrietta! Words
cannot tell you how I love you, how I dote upon you, my darling. Thy
Ferdinand.
_Henrietta to Ferdinand._
No! you must not come here. It would be unwise, it would be silly.
We could only be together a moment, and, though a moment with you is
heaven, I cannot endure again the agony of parting. O Ferdinand! what
has that separation not cost me! Pangs that I could not conceive any
human misery could occasion. My Ferdinand, may we some day be happy! It
seems to me now that happiness can never come again. And yet I ought to
be grateful that he was uninjured last night. I dared not confess to
you before what evils I anticipated. Do you know I was so foolish that
I thought every flash of lightning must descend on your head. I dare
not now own how foolish I was. God be praised that he is well. But is he
sure that he is _quite_ well? If you have the slightest cold, dearest,