CHAPTER XVI.

When all is done and said, In the end, this shall you find, He most of all doth bathe in bliss That hath a quiet mind.

Our wealth leaves us at death, Our kinsmen at the grave; But virtues of the mind unto The Heavens with us we have.

THOMAS LORD VAUX, 1521.

“Il n’y a rien qui rafraîchisse le sang comme avoir su éviter de faire une sottise.”—LA BRUYERE.

Lord Montreville was sitting before a table, covered with papers and books, with a novel open before him, of which he had not turned over a leaf for at least thirty-six minutes. He was thinking how innocent Lucy had been when first he had married her; he was lamenting the total change which he believed had taken place in her; he was wondering how far she had become acquainted with his connexion with Alicia Mowbray, and he confessed to himself that he could date the alteration which he had perceived in her, from the period when she had an opportunity of perceiving that fatal letter. That she had read it, was now evident, from her taunting allusion the preceding day. He was persuading himself that pique and jealousy might have driven her to flirtation, and he did not feel so chilled, so awed, so daunted, as when her measured, cold, though dutiful behaviour had made him painfully aware of his own errors, and of her merits. Neither was he so indignant, as when, in his anger, he attributed the whole change to mere indifference to himself, and love of the admiration of others.

As Lucy approached him, her cheek was slightly flushed; her clear blue eyes looked full at him, with a gentle but determined expression which seemed to say, I have no thought which shuns the light, inquire, and my heart shall be laid open before you.

“Lord Montreville,” she said, “you were angry with me yesterday for seeing so much of your cousin, Mr. Delville. You have asked him to dine here to-day, and I want to know how you would wish me to conduct myself towards him. I wish to be guided by you. I wish to see those whom you approve, and I wish to see no more of them than you approve. I value my own good name as much as you can do; and although I yesterday felt very angry at the manner in which you took me to task, my anger has subsided, and I only want to do what is right. You will find me willing and anxious to follow your directions, whatever they may be.”

Lord Montreville was taken by surprise. He could not look in her face and refuse to believe in the perfect candour and sincerity of her address to him. Her manner was neither humble, as if she had any thing to be forgiven; nor was it bold, as if she meant to brave him. The train of his own thoughts had rather tended to soften than to inflame him, and simple truth generally carries conviction with it.

“Lucy! I own I was angry yesterday, and can you assure me I had no cause for being so?”

“None that I know of.”

“Answer me honestly,—Has not Lionel Delville made love to you?”

“I have no wish but to answer honestly. Yesterday morning I should have said, never; and even now I can scarcely say he has, though yesterday evening, when I met him at the Duchess’s, his manner was changed. I think that if I had given him any encouragement, he would have made love to me; and it is in consequence of finding you were so far justified in your suspicions, that I now come to you, and beg you will direct my conduct. My wish is to fulfil my duties. I am convinced that by so doing alone one can know happiness,—or rather contentment (for she felt at that moment that life presented but a blank and cheerless prospect to her)—happiness I have long ceased to look for.”

“Lucy! this is not kind or flattering to me.”

“I am very sorry for it, but it is the fact!” She sat down, half overcome by her feelings of determined duty and of self-commiseration.

“Lucy, why should you not be happy?”

“Can _you_ ask, Lord Montreville?” and she gave him a glance, in which the flash of indignation was tempered by a reproachful tear, which swam in her eye.

“Oh, Lucy! do you allude to that—that letter—which you so unfortunately——?”

“Yes, I do allude to that letter, which I so unfortunately saw; and to that woman, that shameless woman, whom you prefer to me. But I do not wish to reproach you—the time is gone by. I have made up my mind to being the neglected wife of a faithless husband. But I wish to do my duty, for my own sake, for the sake of my conscience. Tell me what to do, and I will do it!”

“Lucy, I never preferred that woman to you. I have never seen her since we left Wales, and I never will see her again as long as I live.”

“I am very glad for your own sake to hear you say so. For whatever you and other fashionable men may think, you may rest assured it is a great sin—though I have latterly been so bewildered about right and wrong, and I have tried so to find excuses for those around me, that I believe, if it had not been for the Duchess, and for Milly, I should scarcely have known which was which.”

Lord Montreville, though not a strict moralist, could not help being struck with these few words, which so forcibly expressed the mode by which the most amiable become contaminated by bad examples. He felt he had been the cause of her thus trying to reconcile morality to practice, instead of practice to morality.

A pause ensued. Had Lucy been in love with her husband, most likely her heart would have entirely softened towards him; and though she would have poured forth a much more vehement torrent of reproaches, she would have been more ready to restore him to his former place in her affections. As it was, she heard his assurance with satisfaction, but with calmness. It did not produce any instantaneous revulsion in her feelings. It did not now affect her as it would have done on the evening at Caërwhwyddwth Castle, when his silence had so seared her heart. Since then she had had leisure to look back upon her marriage, and to decipher what her feelings had then been, and to become convinced how little of real love there was in her preference of him. She now knew how easily we can deceive ourselves. The spell was broken! The halo her own imagination had thrown around him was dispersed.

Although with a mind so naturally well disposed as hers, if his conduct had always been such as to ensure her respect, the spell would never have been broken, the halo never dispersed; still it was not at her option again to conjure up the one, or to invest him with the other. She saw him as he was; but he was the father of her child, and she rejoiced that the silence and reserve which had so long been maintained between them, was at length broken through. She did not wish it should ever be resumed, and she continued,—

“I hope we now both wish to perform our duties, and I really need your instructions with respect to my behaviour to Mr. Delville.”

At this moment Lord Montreville felt his own errors had been so much more serious than hers, that he was grateful to her for expressing herself as if they each had something to forget and to forgive; and his jealous feelings had vanished into thin air before her candour and sincerity, in a manner which surprised himself.

“Lucy,” he said, “I trust to you; there can be no deceit under that open brow. I have known many women, but none so free from guile, so single-hearted as yourself. You are now aware that Lionel’s attentions to you have given me uneasiness, and I feel convinced you will conduct yourself as you ought to do. I only wish you felt the same confidence in me.”

“Indeed, Lord Montreville, if you assure me you have broken off all connection with that woman, I implicitly believe what you say. But, to tell the honest truth, I cannot get over your having ever done any thing so wicked. I may be able to forgive the insult to myself, but how can I look up to you as I once did, when I know you have been led into such wickedness?”

“Dear Lucy, you do not know with what free notions men are educated; you do not know how difficult it is for a man to shake off a woman who has once acquired power over him, and who tries to get him back into her toils, even although the inclination he has once felt for her has long, long passed away.”

“Then it was not since your marriage that you first became acquainted with her?”

“No. When I married, I meant never to see her again. It was her distress, and mere pity for her wants and miseries, that ever led me back to her. I did not then know what you really were. I thought you beautiful and gentle, but it was not till later that I learned to honour you as a being of a holier, higher nature than any I had yet met with. At the very time when you shut up your heart from me, mine was filled with admiration, respect, and affection for you. Half the jealousy I felt was, I believe, sorrow to see the first and only being in whose unsullied purity I had firmly believed, on the point of becoming contaminated by collision with the world.”

Lucy was touched by this homage to the rectitude of her intentions, and she thought there would be something satisfactory in redeeming her whole sex in his estimation. She also thought if she could lead him to see the real guilt of those errors which he had hitherto looked upon as so venial, she should be promoting his welfare in this world and the next. With these feelings she answered smilingly, “I am glad you entertained such a good opinion of me, and I should be very, very sorry to forfeit it. You shall continue to respect me.”

“And to love you, dearest Lucy. Though I could not have reached the age at which I married without having been in love before, still, to love you as I never loved any woman but you——”

“Thank you,” answered Lucy, and she sighed to think that his tenderness awakened no corresponding emotion in her bosom; that it was forgiveness, satisfaction, kindness, that she felt, but no responsive love.

On the contrary, the word rather chilled her; for she felt it impossible to return the sentiment expressed; and she hastily added, “Well, good by; I see your horses in the street, and I am going to take the child to play with the Duchess of Altonworth’s grandchildren.”

They parted in kindness, and they met again before dinner in the same frame of mind.

Lionel Delville, who had calculated upon finding Lucy alone, as Lord Montreville was apt to be late for dinner, entered the apartment before any of the rest of the company had arrived. At first he thought the old fellow must be very jealous to have made so unusual an exertion; but he soon perceived that a perfect understanding subsisted between them, and that Lord Montreville’s countenance no longer betrayed any sign of uneasiness at his approach.

He sat, as usual, by Lady Montreville at dinner, and he again found the open, straightforward manner which, when first he met her, had so completely baffled him. The _gêne_ and shyness which were the consequence of feeling herself suspected, had completely vanished. She knew that her husband now had perfect confidence in her; she knew that he did justice to the purity of her intentions, and she mentally resolved he should never, never have cause to doubt them.

Lord Montreville’s knowledge of the sex, which rendered him jealous and umbrageous when there was any, the remotest, cause for being so, also enabled him to understand and to appreciate her behaviour on the present occasion. Lionel saw the game was up, and had the tact to slip back into the open conventional gallantry, from which he had been gradually advancing into serious gallantry.

Lucy that night retired to her room satisfied with herself, thoroughly convinced that every effort made in the cause of virtue produces its own reward, resolved to be thankful for the blessings she possessed, and strong in the determination to do her duty in that state of life in which she was placed; while at the same time she could not deny to herself that the duties of those who are united to a person suited to them in age, disposition, and pursuits, are the most easy to fulfil.

Lord and Lady Montreville have lived many years in comfort and good fellowship. Lady Montreville is the best of mothers, and finds in the sportive tenderness of her children, happiness far beyond the contentment which at one time was all to which she dared aspire. Yet sometimes, as she watches the innocent gambols of her two lovely little girls, she sighs to think those halcyon days of youth, which to herself were days of such unalloyed joyousness, cannot last for ever, and that the time must assuredly come when they too will think of love and marriage.

Such reflections were passing through her mind, when she one day exclaimed to Milly, “Nurse, how sorry I shall be when those children grow up, and one has to go through for them all the agitations attendant upon lovers, and going to be married. Marriage is such a lottery, you know!”

“Ah, well! I shall be dead and buried before ever that time comes; but whatever you do, my lady, be sure they choose gentlemen that have the fear of God before their eyes. Ah, bless their little hearts!” she added, as she followed their light, graceful forms with eyes of pride and tenderness, “they may grow up ever so pretty—as pretty as yourself, my lady, and they can’t be much prettier, but it’s a poor hold a woman has over a man if it’s only the hold her own beautiful face, sweet manners, and gentle temper can have. It is to the man’s good principles a woman must look, to keep her husband constant and true to her.”

WARENNE;

OR,

THE PIPING TIMES OF PEACE.