 | CHAPTER XXIV. Arthur Mervyn, or, Memoirs of the year 1793 |  |
24. CHAPTER XXIV.
None will be surprized, that to a woman thus unfortunate
and thus deserving, my heart willingly rendered
up all its sympathies; that as I partook of all her
grief, I hailed, with equal delight, those omens of felicity
which now, at length, seemed to play in her fancy.
I saw her often, as often as my engagements would
permit, and oftener than I allowed myself to visit any
other. In this I was partly selfish. So much entertainment,
so much of the best instruction did her conversation
afford me, that I never had enough of it.
Her experience had been so much larger than mine, and
so wholly different, and she possessed such unbounded
facility of recounting all she had seen and felt, and absolute
sincerity and unreserve in this respect, were so
fully established between us, that I can imagine nothing
equally instructive and delightful with her conversation.
Books are cold, jejune, vexatious in their sparingness
of information at one time, and their impertinent loquacity
at another. Besides, all they chuse to give,
they give at once; they allow no questions; offer no
further explanations, and bend not to the caprices of
our curiosity. They talk to us behind a screen. Their
tone is lifeless and monotonous. They charm not our
attention by mute significances of gesture and looks;
and emphasis and pause.
How different was Mrs. Fielding's discourse! So
versatile; so bending to the changes of occasion; so
obsequious to my curiosity, and so abundant in that very
knowledge in which I was most deficient, and on which
I set the most value, the knowledge of the human
heart; of society as it existed in another world, more
abundant in the varieties of customs and characters,
than I had ever had the power to witness.
Partly selfish I have said my motives were, but not
wholly so, as long as I saw that my friend derived pleasure,
in her turn, from my company. Not that I
could add directly to her knowledge or pleasure, but
that expansion of heart, that ease of utterance and
flow of ideas which always were occasioned by my approach,
were sources of true pleasure of which she had
been long deprived, and for which her privation had given
her a higher relish than ever.
She lived in great affluence and independence, but
made use of her privileges of fortune chiefly to secure
to herself the command of her own time. She had been
long ago tired and disgusted with the dull and fulsome
uniformity and parade of the play-house and ball-room.
Formal visits were endured as mortifications and penances,
by which the delights of privacy and friendly
intercourse were by contrast increased. Music she
loved, but never sought it in place of public resort, or
from the skill of mercenary performers, and books
were not the least of her pleasures.
As to me, I was wax in her hand. Without design
and without effort, I was always of that form she
wished me to assume. My own happiness became a
secondary passion, and her gratification the great end of
my being. When with her, I thought not of myself.
I had scarcely a separate or independent existence,
since my senses were occupied by her, and my mind was
full of those ideas which her discourse communicated.
To meditate on her looks and words, and to pursue the
means suggested by my own thoughts, or by her, conducive,
in any way, to her good, was all my business.
What a fate, said I, at the conclusion of one of our
interviews, has been yours. But, thank Heaven, the
storm has disappeared before the age of sensibility has
gone past, and without drying up every source of happiness.
You are still young: all your powers unimpaired;
rich in the compassion and esteem of the world;
wholly independent of the claims and caprices of others;
amply supplied with that mean of usefulness,
called money; wise in that experience which only adversity
can give. Past evils and sufferings, if incurred
and endured without guilt, if called to view without
remorse, make up the materials of present joy.
They cheer our most dreary hours with the whispered
accents of “well done,” and they heighten our pleasures
into somewhat of celestial brilliancy, by furnishing
a deep, a ruefully deep contrast.
From this moment, I will cease to weep for you. I
will call you the happiest of women. I will share with
you your happiness by witnessing it—but that shall not
content me. I must someway contribute to it. Tell
me how I shall serve you? What can I do to make you
happier? Poor am I in every thing but zeal, but still I
may do something. What—pray tell me what can I
do?
She looked at me with sweet and solemn significance.
What it was exactly, I could not divine, yet I was
strangely affected by it. It was but a glance, instantly
withdrawn. She made me no answer.
You must not be silent; you must tell me what I
can do for you. Hitherto I have done nothing. All
the service is on your side. Your conversation has
been my study, a delightful study, but the profit has
only been mine. Tell me how I can be grateful—my
voice and manner, I believe, seldom belye my feelings.
At this time, I had almost done what a second thought
made me suspect to be unauthorized. Yet I cannot
tell why. My heart had nothing in it but reverence
and admiration. Was she not the substitute of my
lost mamma. Would I not have clasped that beloved
shade? Yet the two beings were not just the same, or
pressed her hand to my lips.
Tell me, repeated I, what can I do to serve you? I
read to you a little now, and you are pleased with my
reading. I copy for you when you want the time. I
guide the reins for you when you chuse to ride. Humble
offices, indeed, though, perhaps, all that a raw
youth like me can do for you; but I can be still more
assiduous. I can read several hours in the day, instead
of one. I can write ten times as much as now.
Are you not my lost mamma come back again? And
yet, not exactly her, I think. Something different;
something better, I believe, if that be possible. At
any rate, methinks I would be wholly yours. I shall
be impatient and uneasy till every act, every thought,
every minute, someway does you good.
How! said I—her eye stil averted, seemed to hold
back the tear with difficulty, and she made a motion
as if to rise—have I grieved you? Have I been importunate?
Forgive me if I have offended you.
Her eyes now overflowed without restraint. She articulated
with difficulty—Tears are too prompt with
me of late; but they did not upbraid you. Pain has
often caused them to flow, but now it—is—pleasure.
What an heart must yours be, I resumed. When susceptible
of such pleasures, what pangs must formerly
have rent it!—But you are not displeased, you say,
with my importunate zeal. You will accept me as your
own in every thing. Direct me: prescribe to me.
There must be something in which I can be of still
more use to you: some way in which I can be wholly
yours—
Wholly mine! she repeated, in a smothered voice,
and rising—leave me, Arthur. It is too late for you
to be here. It was wrong to stay so late.
I have been wrong, but how too late! I entered but
this moment. It is twilight still: Is it not?
No—it is almost twelve. You have been here a
long four hours; short ones, I would rather say—but
indeed you must go.
What made me so thoughtless of the time! But I
will go, yet not till you forgive me. I approached her
with a confidence, and for a purpose at which, upon reflection,
I am not a little surprized, but the being called
Mervyn is not the same in her company and in that
of another. What is the difference, and whence comes
it? Her words and looks engross me. My mind wants
room for any other object. But why enquire whence
the difference? The superiority of her merits and attractions
to all those whom I knew, would surely account
for my fervor. Indifference, if I felt it, would be the
only just occasion of wonder.
The hour was, indeed too late, and I hastened home.
Stevens was waiting my return with some anxiety. I
apologized for my delay, and recounted to him what had
just passed. He listened with more than usual interest.
When I had finished,
Mervyn, said he, you seem not to be aware of your
present situation. From what you now tell me, and
from what you have formerly told me, one thing seems
very plain to me.
Pry'thee, what is it?
Eliza Hadwin—do you wish—could you bear to see
her the wife of another?
Five years hence I will answer you. Then my answer
may be—“No: I wish her only to he mine.”
Till then, I wish her only to be my pupil, my ward,
my sister.
But these are remote considerations: they are bars
to marriage, but not to love. Would it not molest and
disquiet you to observe in her a passion for another?
It would, but only on her own account: not on mine. At
a suitable age it is very likely I may love her, because,
it is likely, if she holds on in her present career, she will
then be worthy, but, at present, though I would die
to ensure her happiness, I have no wish to ensure it by
marriage with her.
Is there no other whom you love?
No. There is one worthier than all others: one
whom I wish the woman who shall be my wife to resemble
in all things.
And who is this model?
You know I can only mean Achsa Fielding.
If you love her likeness, why not love herself?
I felt my heart leap.—What a thougt is that! Love
her I do as I love my God; as I love virtue. To love
her in another sense, would brand me for a lunatic.
To love her as a woman, then, appears to you an act
of folly.
In me it would be worse than folly. 'Twould be
frenzy.
And why?
Why? Really, my friend, you astonish me. Nay,
you startle me—for a question like that implies a doubt
in you whether I have not actually harbored the tho't.
No, said he, smiling, presumtuous though you be,
you have not, to be sure, reached so high a pitch.
But still, though I think you innocent of so heinous an
offence, there is no harm in asking why you might not
love her, and even seek her for a wife.
Achsa Fielding my wife! Good Heaven!—The very
sound threw my soul into unconquerable tumults.—
Take care, my friend, continued I, in beseeching accents,
you may do me more injury than you conceive, by
even starting such a thought.
True, said he, as long as such obstacles exist to your
success; so many incurable objections; for instance,
she is six years older than you—
That is an advantage. Her age is what it ought to
be.
But she has been a wife and mother already.
That is likewise an advantage. She has wisdom,
because she has experience. Her sensibilities are stronger,
because they have been exercised and chastened.
Her first marriage was unfortunate. The purer is the
felicity she will taste in a second! If her second choice
be propitious, the greater her tenderness and gratitude.
But she is a foreigner: independent of controul, and
rich.
All which, are blessings to herself and to him for
whom her hand is reserved; especially if like me, he is
indigent.
But then she is unsightly as a night-hag, tawney as
a moor, the eye of a gypsey, low in stature, contemptibly
diminutive, scarcely bulk enough to cast a shadow
as she walks, less luxuriance than a charred log,
fewer elasticities than a sheet pebble.
Hush! hush! blasphemer!—and I put my hand before
his mouth—have I not told you that in mind, person
and condition, she is the type after which my enamored
fancy has modelled my wife.
O ho! Then the objection does not lie with you.
It lies with her, it seems. She can find nothing in you
to esteem! And pray, for what faults do you think
she would reject you?
I cannot tell. That she can ever balance for a moment,
on such a question, is incredible. Me! me!
That Achsa Fielding should think of me!
Incredible, indeed! You who are loathsome in your
person, an ideot in your understanding, a villain in your
morals! deformed! withered! vain, stupid and malignant.
That such an one should chuse you for an idol!
Pray, my friend, said I, anxiously, jest not. What
mean you by an hint of this kind?
I will not jest then, but will soberly enquire, what
faults are they which make this lady's choice of you so
incredible? You are younger than she, though no one,
who merely observed your manners, and heard you talk,
would take you to be under thirty. You are poor; are
these impediments?
I should think not. I have heard her reason with
admirable eloquence, against the vain distinctions of
property and nation and rank. They were once of moment
in her eyes; but the sufferings, humiliations and
reflections of years, have cured her of the folly. Her
nation has suffered too much by the inhuman antipathies
of religious and political faction; she, herself, has
felt so often the contumelies of the rich, the high-born,
and the bigotted, that—
Pry'thee then, what dost imagine her objections to
be?
Why—I don't know. The thought was so aspiring;
to call her my wife, was an height of bliss; the
very far-off view of which made my head dizzy.
An height, however, to attain which you suppose
only her consent, her love, to be necessary?
Without doubt, her love is indispensible.
Sit down, Arthur, and let us no longer treat this
matter lightly. I clearly see the importance of this
moment to this lady's happiness and yours. It is plain
that you love this woman. How could you help it?
A brilliant skin is not her's; nor elegant proportions;
nor majestic stature; yet no creature had ever more
power to bewitch. Her manners have grace and dignity
that flow from exquisite feeling, delicate taste,
and the quickest and keenest penetration. She has the
wisdom of men and of books. Her sympathies are enforced
by reason, and her charities regulated by knowledge.
She has a woman's age, fortune more than you
wish, and a spotless fame. How could you fail to love
her?
You, who are her chosen friend, who partake her
pleasures, and share her employments, on whom she
almost exclusively bestows her society and confidence,
and to whom she thus affords the strongest of all indirect
proofs of impassioned esteem. How could you,
with all that firmness to love, joined with all that discernment
of her excellence, how could you escape the
enchantment?
You have not thought of marriage. You have
not suspected your love. From the purity of your mind,
from the idolatry with which this woman has inspired
you, you have imaged no delight beyond that of enjoying
her society as you now do, and have never fostered
an hope beyond this privilege.
How quickly would this tranquillity vanish, and the
true state of your heart be evinced, if a rival should enter
the scene and be entertained with preference; then
would the seal be removed, the spell be broken, and you
would awaken to terror and to anguish.
Of this, however, there is no danger. Your passion
is not felt by you alone. From her treatment of you,
your diffidence disables you from seeing, but nothing
can be clearer to me than, that she loves you.
I started on my feet. A flush of scorching heat
flowed to every part of my frame. My temples began
to throb like my heart. I was half delirious, and my
delirium was strangely compounded of fear and hope,
of delight and of terror.
What have you done, my friend? You have overturned
my peace of mind. Till now the image of this
woman has been followed by complacency and sober
rapture; but your words have dashed the scene with
disinay and confusion. You have raised up wishes and
dreams and doubts, which possess me in spite of my reason,
in spite of a thousand proofs.
Good God! You say she loves; loves me! me, a boy
in age; bred in clownish ignorance; scarcely ushered
into the world; more than childishly unlearned and
raw; a barn-door simpleton; a plow-tail, kitchen-hearth,
turnip-hoeing novice! She, thus splendidly
endowed; thus allied to nobles; thus gifted with arts,
and adorned with graces; that she should chuse me,
me for the partner of her fortune; her affections; and
her life! It cannot be. Yet, if it were; if your guesses
should—prove—Oaf! madman! To indulge so fatal
a chimera! So rash a dream!
My friend! my friend! I feel that you have done
me an irreparable injury. I can never more look her
in the face. I can never more frequent her society.
These new thoughts will beset and torment me. My
disquiet will chain up my tongue. That overflowing
gratitude; that innocent joy, unconscious of offence,
and knowing no restraint, which have hitherto been
my titles to her favor, will fly from my features and
manners. I shall be anxious, vacant and unhappy in
her presence. I shall dread to look at her, or to open
my lips lest my mad and unhallowed ambition should
betray itself.
Well, replied Stevens, this scene is quite new. I
could almost find it in my heart to pity you. I did not
expect this; and yet from my knowledge of your character,
I ought, perhaps, to have foressen it. This is
a necessary part of the drama. A joyous certainty, on
these occasions, must always be preceded by suspenses
and doubts, and the close will be joyous in proportion
as the preludes are excruciating. Go to bed, my good
friend, and think of this. Time and a few more interviews
with Mrs. Fielding, will, I doubt not, set all to
rights.
| CHAPTER XXIV. Arthur Mervyn, or, Memoirs of the year 1793 | |