University of Virginia Library

I.

There, in yon gabled house amongst the oaks
Which shut it off from this, the highway road
That skirts the park towards the village side,
They used to dwell together; he was old,
And she, his wife, a very child in looks,—
Her woman's soul, as yet an unfledg'd thing
Seem'd waiting almost wearily for wings.—
Most dutiful, and kind, and seeming gay
She moved about, the sunbeam of the house,
But like a temp'rate sunbeam, such as here
Warms us in England; she knew no extremes
Of passionate grief or boisterous merriment
Such as so often stormily unite
In the untutor'd natures of the young,—
It was as tho' the day she wore the ring
And took the name of him, her wither'd lord,
She had put by her youth with some old dress
And left it by mistake in her past home
Amongst her toys. She did not know the world
This orphan daughter of a ruin'd man,
Whose only friends had been the birds and flow'rs,
She only knew what they would have her know
Who taught her as they would, and only read
As they would have her read, and then at length
The guardian who had guarded her from far
(One she had never seen), plann'd out her life
And when the question of her marriage rose
Clench'd it at once because Sir John was rich.
And then it was a lifeless life began,
For Constance (thus it was that she was named),
To her not seeming so, who had not liv'd
As yet but for her dolls and lesson-books—
To be the mistress of the grandest house
For many miles, to fuss about the poor,
To teach the villagers, to dress and dine,
And meet the same dull neighbours ev'ry night—
This was her life; to London now and then,
But only for a time, for to Sir John
The air seem'd echoing with a dragon's hiss,—
The Hydra-headed monster call'd “Reform”
That met him as he threaded thro' the streets
And seem'd to glare defiance as he pass'd—
His blear, distorting, ultra-Tory eye
Saw danger in a thousand harmless things
Unfear'd by Constance, to whom all seem'd noise
And hurry and excitement and fatigue,—
The world seem'd rushing to some hidden goal,—
All went so fast, and 'ere she ceased to stare
They were at home and life dragg'd on again.
The neighbours 'round her all led dreary lives
Yet did not know it; stagnant tedious hours
Crawl'd from the rising to the setting sun;—
Such small ambitions, such a narrow creed
All held, and yet, withal, self-satisfied,
Each saw the mote within his brother's eye
As thro' a microscope, and hailing it
With joy, proclaim'd it to the little world
Of waiting Pharisees, whose open mouths
Could mutter other things besides their pray'rs.
Amongst these mouldy human vegetables
Constance rais'd up her head and seem'd a rose,
And when compared with their's, she deem'd her home
A garden, for not only did they live
Their dull, respectable and tedious lives
Apart from thoughts of Beauty, Art, or Love,
But many liv'd them too in enmity
One with another; many too, were poor,
And liv'd in dwellings desolate and damp,
Empty of all save the provincial pride
Of Squire and Squiress; others too, were ill,
For sometimes to the village where they liv'd
Came fevers;—from the chast'ning hand of God,
(So said Sir John, altho' a meddling man
Who came from London, made him build anew
Some cottages he thought were good enough
For such as had been born and bred in them;
And tho' this meddling man had also said
The fever had not been if good Sir John
Had mov'd more with the times).—But what of this?
Some infidels will always see a cause—
A cause of bricks and mortar, in the curse
Sent down by God upon our sinful race!
(So said the parson, and advised a pray'r,
But thought the drainage should be left alone,
As heretofore;) and so they pray'd and pray'd,
And drank the water of polluted wells,
Whilst on the fever raged, and had its course;
Then, strange to say, abated; many homes
Made desolate, and in the village church
Were many mourning forms, and Constance, sad
And humbled, felt ashamed of being well,
Yet thank'd her God the fever spared her home.
So, looking not to those whose lives were bright—
Fairer than her's, she look'd around and saw
How sad life was for many; thus she made
Her's seem the best;—so free, she thought, from toil,
Exempt from pain and squalor, affluent,
And deck'd around with many pleasant things—
The woods, the lake, the cheerful summer-room.
The careless moments,—nothing going wrong,—
This calmly negative and passive life
Seem'd good to her, and so the days went by.
To Constance had been born a seeming son
Without the torture of the “pains of hell”
(As saith the pray'r book), unto him she clung
This childless second mother, young and fair;
Roland his name; he was the child of one
Who might, maybe, have seem'd a rival now
To Constance, had she lov'd kind old Sir John
With that unjust, impassion'd jealousy
Which reaches from the Present to the Past,—
His dead first wife had died before the boy
Had learnt her face, and Constance was to him
Playmate, and friend, and mother all in one.
To her he was the only link that bound
Her life to what was gay, and fresh, and free
From dull restraint; a dear excuse for youth
And secret romping; he was champion, friend,
And little lover, jealous, wayward, fond,
And brooking no control save from her hand.—
“Oh, had he been my son,” she often thought,
“I could not love him more than now I do.”
(Thus oft these self-anointed mothers speak,
With such a tender tremor in their voice,
They almost think their foolish words are true!)
Often in summer days these two would go
And gather cowslips in the dewy fields
Before the hay was mown. The cuckoo-flow'r
Here rais'd her fragile head, and here and there
With joyous cry, the happy child would hail
The rarer blossom of the orchis, prim
And purple, with its spotted snake-like leaves.
As the cool meadow sloped towards the lake,
The grass grew rank and tall and bulrushy,
And giant buttercups and pigmy frogs,
And all the wondrous sprawling water-flies,
Made little Roland clap his hands in glee—
Here was a boat, wherein the youthful friends
Would row at eventide, and watch the sun
Sink down behind the western woodland ridge;
Then all the water grew a pink surprise
To Roland—pink at first, then pale and wan
And yellow as the primroses, then white,
A shining, dazzling, oval mirror, set
In the dim, dark'ning purple of the night.
Sir John, meanwhile, was busy at the town,—
The nearest town, dispensing justice there,
Or corresponding in his library
With some one of the friends who lagg'd behind
The wheels of Progress. “This and this was good,
“But that was dangerous, and might do harm—
“It might do good, but good would come in time,
“No need to hurry it;—the poor man's life
“Was happier and calmer when his mind
“Look'd not beyond the clods from whence he sprung;
“Why, let him plough, and thresh, and sow and reap,
“And let the better people of the world
“Trouble their wiser heads about his weal.”
This was the usual strain in which he wrote
To those in London who were then in power;
“A useful county man,” they said of him,
“Not brilliant,—taking people by the ear,
“But staunch, and true, and English to the bone!”
Of him they spoke the truth, for he was true
And honest in that most dishonest cause—
The war against the liberty of man,—
The war against the liberty of thought,—
The war against the poor the rich have made,—
The temporising for the little while
During the which God holds responsible
The living man, then after “Come what may!
“So long as all the evils that ensue
“Come not in this, my time, it matters not,
“Starvation comes but once,—let well alone!”
This was his argument, could he have look'd
Into the selfish secrets of his soul;
But being kind and just in smaller things,
His very self suspected not himself
Of holding other than a party creed
Respectable and fair; if to himself
And those like him most fair, what matter then?
“Each for himself! He was an Englishman!”
To church together on the Sabbath morn
Constance and Roland used to wend their way,
All thro' the deeply-rutted Sussex lanes,
And o'er the fields, whilst on his sturdy cob,
Sir John would jog along the highway road.
In Constance had been born a passionate love
Of Nature, all that was not made by man
Seem'd sacred, beautiful, and good to see.
Thus, tho' a Christian, in her gentle breast
Some unsuspected germ of Pantheism
Lay dormant; much the easiest gate to Heav'n
Seem'd to be thro' the lovely works of God—
The flow'rs—the trees; she often felt in church
How good it would have been to worship there
Amongst the oaks, as once the Druids did,
With nothing roofing off the blue of Heav'n,
And nothing interfering to distract
The heart from God! Here, in the mouldy church,
So many sights arrested her young mind,
Seeming to drag it back again to earth,
And oftentimes she rais'd her timid eyes
To see the neighbours enter, one by one.
“And who is that?” or “Why is she in black?”
“Oh, yes, I know, the son who was at school!”
“She is in mourning for his grandmother;
“And that's the Captain, who is going to wed
“With Helen.” Often worldly thoughts like these
Constance would try to check, but still they came;
Then there were sadder thoughts,—above the pew
The mildew'd hatchments of her husband's race
Hung in a gloomy row upon the wall,
The one that hung over the entrance hall
The year that little Roland's mother died,
Eight years ago, when she was only twelve,
(Roland was eight years old,) she saw it then
And ask'd her maid the reason it was there,
That painted piebald sign-board, and half thought
That Farleigh Court had turn'd into an inn.
“Some day,” poor Constance thought, “I too must die
“And lie forgotten, nothing will be left
“To make these simple peasants think of me
“Save some such dismal diamond on the wall
“Of this old church! My side will be in black
“With three poor greyhounds madly rushing on,
“Ah, rushing whither? But Death comes to all
“And Life is very often very sad!”
Sometimes they skirted Geoffrey Denzil's park
(Their absent nearest neighbour, then abroad,
Unknown as yet to Constance, tho' Sir John
Had been his guardian when he was a boy,
Their fathers being kinsmen). From the wall
That fenced it round, the ivy-tresses hung,
And served to help young Roland when he climb'd
Follow'd by Constance, into Denzil park,
There would they wander, for the tangled shade
Unthinn'd for many years, possess'd a charm
For her young heart she scarce could understand,
The gnarlèd limbs of those neglected trees
Seem'd weirdly twisting into human shapes,
And nowhere did the ferns and mosses grow
In such luxuriance; the rooks, too, built
Whole cities, she could scarcely call them nests,
And Roland once had said, on seeing them,
He thought the weight of them must make the heads
Of the poor heavy-laden fir-trees ache—
They often waded ankle-deep in leaves
Scatter'd by many winters;—here the air
Seem'd heavy with the Past, from man to leaf,
But by and bye the tangled thicket ceased,
And evergreens, and winding gravel walks
(Untended now) led to the sloping lawn—
Quaint shapes of nymph and satyr guarded it,
And further on, a gate of filagree
Sided by Denzil dragons, open'd full
On the deserted terrace. Here and there
Forming the centre of a garden bed,
A yew-tree (pointed once, and duly trimm'd
As are the toy-trees of a Noah's Ark,)
Uprear'd its head, all ragged and unshorn,
And seem'd to show the garden's plan had been
Italian. With doors and windows barr'd,
Sometimes the trespassers would peep and mark
The silent, low, Elizabethan house
Behind the bowling-green; thro' screening boughs
They often watch'd its only sign of life—
The kitchen chimney's faint blue smoke, that curl'd
Over the cedars when the wind was east.
One day (it was a Friday) they were thus
Roaming about, and playing hide and seek,
Spring-time was near, and all the noisy rooks
Were busy with their nests,—the day was fine,
And on the leafless trees the little buds
Were green with tender promises of spring.
The old house seemed to wear a brighter look,
The shutters were unbarr'd, an agèd man,
A gardener, was passing to and fro
Rolling the gravel walks;—some carpets hung
Upon the garden-gate;—the breath of life
Seem'd once more waking with the budding spring;
A groom rode by them on a chestnut horse,
They look'd, and saw that ev'ry chimney smoked,
And Constance said, “He must be coming home.”
They linger'd on till almost eventide,
Constance, unconsciously, whilst Roland play'd,
Lost in her aimless, nameless, day-dreaming,
And building many castles in the air.
Her years, so few, so pure, so soon arrang'd
Into this unemotional, dull, shape,
Not to be chang'd, had never known as yet
Those violent alternate lights and shades
Which many lives have weather'd, yet at times
She seem'd to feel the spray of coming storms,
Or bask beneath the rays of unknown suns,
Whilst something softly whisper'd to her heart
That life as yet had not begun for her—
She seemed to wait, and often with a smile
She woke to chide her foolish maiden-dreams
And wonder'd how she ever could forget
That she had been the wife of good Sir John
For three whole years, and liv'd at Farleigh Court.
This day it was the trotting of a horse
And all the cawing cloud of frighten'd rooks
That call'd the gentle dreamer back to life,—
Roland had wander'd from her, and in sport
She waited for him, hiding in the shade
Of tangled laurels, near the avenue.
So thickly grown was all the underwood,
That Constance, dress'd in sombre color'd serge,
Was lost and hidden; as she waited there
A rider on a chestnut horse pass'd by
(The same she noticed ridden by a groom
Two hours ago). From out her hiding-place
She watch'd him pass her;—tho' unseen till then
His was a face she seem'd to know before,
And she felt glad the master had return'd
To light the fires, and let the sunshine in,
To plant the terraces with glowing flow'rs,
To sweep away the wither'd winter leaves,
And bring the breath of life to Denzil Place.
There are some scenes in this our little life
Which the uncertain light of memory
Seems to illumine with more vivid glow
Than all the rest, as in old banquet halls
Dim with oak-panelling, ere candles beam,
Some falling log will raise a transient flame
To light one pictured face upon the wall
When all the space around is indistinct,—
Thus Constance, looking back upon her youth,
At what she was, and what she was not yet,
In after years, saw Geoffrey Denzil ride
As she had seen him first, thro' long arcades
Of evergreens; his head a little bow'd,
As tho' to shun the overhanging leaves,
And sitting somewhat forward on his horse,
His eager profile as he pass'd her by—
A little hawk-like—looking far to front,
His boyish head, with all its cluster'd curls
And trace of southern suns upon his cheek,—
Then, she had heard the trotting of the horse
Upon the shingly English avenue
Long after that young rider had pass'd by;
And after, when so many more had pass'd
(The horsemen who had left her on Life's road),
She often seem'd to hear that trotting steed.