CHAPTER XXIV.
AN ACT OF PARLIAMENT.
Love is a thing of frail and delicate growth;
Soon checked, soon fostered; feeble, and yet strong:
It will endure much, suffer long, and bear
What would weigh down an angel's wing to earth,
And yet mount heavenward; but not the less
It dieth of a word, a look, a thought;
And when it dies, it dies without a sign
To tell how fair it was in happier hours:
It leaves behind reproaches and regrets,
And bitterness within affection's well,
For which there is no healing.
Lady Marchmont rose from her seat, and unfastened the riband, less black than the hair that it bound.
"So, my poor Constance," said she, "I am not permitted even this memorial of her; and even Ethel I cannot serve. Of what avail," and her eyes wandered mechanically round, "is all the luxury by which I am surrounded, if it serve only as a barrier to all kindly feelings?"
Never had Lady Marchmont felt so lonely. Disdain for her husband was mingled with the bitterness of restraint; restraint, too, where her own heart told her she was right. There never was a finer nor a higher nature than Henrietta's: she was completely carried away by impulse; but then her impulses were all generous and lofty. She was enthusiastic, and keenly susceptible; a word, a look, would send the blush to her cheek, and the light to her eye: she was eager in whatever she undertook, and yet soon and easily discouraged: she was proud, and hence impatient of authority; but kindness could have done any thing with her. She needed to love, and to be beloved; her heart was full of warmth and emotion, to which some object was a sweet necessity. The destiny of one like Henrietta is made by the affections; these repressed or disgusted, checked the growth of all good, and the life that she was now leading was calculated to do any thing but foster any more lofty or kindly feeling.
Unbroken worldly prosperity has a natural tendency to harden the sympathies: when life comes so easily to ourselves, it is difficult to fancy it going hardly with others. Without any permanent object for exertion of any kind, we are apt soon to sink into habits of indolent indulgence, and such are inevitably selfish. Vanity was Lady Marchmont's chief stimulus in the absence of a better one; and vanity is like a creeping plant, which begins by turning its lithe foliage round a single window, and ends by covering the whole edifice: but Henrietta was a difficult person to spoil, it would take many bitter lessons from experience before her passionate feelings could become cold and hardened. Her discontent at this moment was of no selfish order, but her tears fell heavily—as she dwelt on the unkindness of not offering the aid that could have been so easily extended to her first and earliest friend. There is not a more bitter pang than that which accompanies the desire to befriend, and the inability of so doing.
At this moment the door of the closet opened, and Lady Mary Wortley Montague was announced. Their first intimacy had more than slackened, still a very decent appearance of civility was preserved. Henrietta had long since discovered that she had been much more grateful for Lady Mary's earlier attentions than was at all needed. This is one of the most unpleasant lessons that experience gives; and one, moreover, that it is perpetually giving; namely, that what we fancied was liking for ourselves, was in reality, the result of calculation, or of amusement. We fancied we were liked, when we were only useful or entertaining. Moreoyer, there was that in Lady Mary Wortley's mind, which effectually prevented all sympathy between Henrietta and herself, and sympathy is the basis of all friendship. There was a coarseness in the one which revolted the almost fastidious delicacy of the other; and Lady Marchmont, full of poetry, touched with romance and sentiment, had nothing in common with the harsh and hard worldliness of Lady Mary; still, as they moved in the same circle, they met often, and were almost as polite as if they had never been friendly. Now, few friendships die a natural death, they generally come to a violent end; and it shewed no little tact in our rival beauties, that they allowed theirs to grow
"Fine by degrees, and beautifully less."
"I met Lord Marchmont on the staircase," said Lady Mary, "or else I should ask why you are looking so dull."
"I am so disappointed," replied Henrietta, who was young enough in grievances, to be eager to talk about them: "I wanted to ask some friends, who are coming up to London under very disagreeable circumstances, to stay with us, and Lord Marchmont will not hear of it."
"For once," exclaimed her companion, " I take the husband's side; remember, that my so doing, is not to be considered a precedent: when they are in unpleasant circumstances, the less we see of our friends the better!"
"I beg to differ with you," returned Henrietta, colouring.
"You need not look so angry," returned Lady Mary; "at all events, not at me; I am not responsible for the established principles of society; I only stated what they are."
"The more I see of society," interrupted Lady Marchmont, "the more disgusted I am with it!"
"Fortunately for you, it does not return the compliment!" said Lady Mary: "but do send for Lord Marchmont again, if you want somebody to quarrel with: a husband is the only legitimate resource on such occasions!"
"What do you say to a lover?" asked Henrietta, laughing.
"Oh, you quarrel with your lover on his own account, he is not a resource! A lover's quarrel is made up of jealousies, doubts, hopes, fears, and all sorts of fantastic fancies: a matrimonial dispute, on the contrary, is composed of familiar and ordinary matter, a sort of ventilator to the temper!"
"But," said the young countess, "Lord Marchmont and I never quarrel."
"Oh!" returned her ladyship, with a sneer, "you are 'Content to dwell in decencies for ever!'
Well, for my part, I should prefer any thing to a perpetual calm."
Henrietta only thought how completely she agreed with her.
"It is very odd," continued her visitor, "that quarrels, which are so pleasant in love, should be so odious in marriage. I believe it is that, in the first instance, they may have consequences; in the last, they have none: your lover may fear to lose you; your husband can only hope, and hope in vain: the lover dreads that every quarrel may be the last; the husband knows he may go on quarrelling to eternity!"
"A pleasant prospect!" exclaimed Lady Marchmont.
"Lawgivers were never more mistaken," said Lady Mary, "than when they ordained that the conjugal tie should last through life for better and worse; the last injunction being strictly complied with. There should be septennial marriages, as well as septennial parliaments!"
"Why, my dear Lady Mary," exclaimed Henrietta, laughing, "do you not represent one of your father's boroughs?"
"Why, indeed!" returned her companion. "I would bring in a bill every session; people grant more favours from being tired of refusing, than from any other motive. In life it is the irrevocable that is terrible: while there is change, there is hope. We should keep each other in much better order if, at the end of seven years, there were to be a reckoning of grievances. It would be a good moral lesson to many a husband, to come down on the seventh anniversary and find his tea not made, and his muffin not buttered. These are the things that come home to a man's feelings!"
"And what," asked Henrietta, "if it were the gentleman who was reported missing?"
"Upon my honour," cried Lady Mary, "I cannot look on that in any other point of view than as a relief!"
Henrietta did not say how entirely she was of the same way of thinking.
"What is a woman's stronghold? Her coquetry! Now, coquetry cannot exist without uncertainty," continued the fair philosopher, "and a husband is so dreadfully secure! I am myself a coquette on principles, and some of them—not needful now to enumerate—very scientific ones. We have no influence but by our influence over those called our masters; how do we acquire that influence? By flattering a man's vanity, and by playing on his hopes and fears! These are all put hors de combat in marriage. We have already flattered to the utmost by our choice, and what is there for a husband to hope or to fear? Were my plan carried into execution, think of the delightful uncertainty of the seventh year!"
"As you cannot make a speech, you must," said Henrietta, "put it into a treatise."
"It is more than half finished," answered her ladyship, "and I have some thoughts of adding a few notes to my own sex, 'On the best methods of acquiring influence:' all might, however, be condensed into a single word—Love!"
"Which has," exclaimed Lady Marchmont, "the greatest power over ourselves!"
"And there lies our great mistake," replied Lady Mary: "it is the greatest folly to care for a lover, but as they give you influence, and contribute to your vanity: for a woman to love, is turning her arrows on herself!"
"All you say," answered Henrietta, "would be very true, if life were a game of chess, to be played by certain given rules; but think how we are governed by our feelings, and carried away by our impulses. I cannot, nay, would not, lower, as you do, the divinity of affection, for all the triumphs in the world! I would rather have been Egeria, beloved in the sweet silence of her shadowy grotto, than the goddess of Beauty, fresh risen from her native waters, with all the gods for her slaves!"
"Good morning, my dear!" exclaimed Lady Mary, rising: "I cannot endanger my morals by staying; I may grow romantic too: 'evil communication corrupts good manners.' Well, well, I see Sir George Kingston is the only lover for you, who pleads, as the excuse for his perpetual inconstancy, that no woman appreciates the poetry of his love!"