Christabel R. Coleridge

“ Arthur looked surprised and disappointed; and James, who had been hitherto utterly silenced by the horror of Hugh’s avowal, hastily drew him away, seeing that he could hardly bear up any longer. Hugh followed them up the garden and into the study, and then broke out into a torrent of self-reproach, so violent and so uncontrollable that Arthur vainly tried to silence it.
“I have broken your heart,” he cried. “There is no atonement I can make—none. My life can’t make it up to you. The sight of your grief will kill me! I have destroyed her, the beautiful, innocent creature. ”

“ Oh, dear, if I had your voice—”
“I wish you had it!”
“Hugh—I won’t have you say that; but it seems so strange. Why, don’t you want to say the words rightly?”
“Oh, yes!” said Violante, misunderstanding.
“I mean,” cried Rosa, eagerly, “don’t you feel as if you were Zerlina, as if it had all happened to yourself—doesn’t it seem real to you?”
“No!”
“Why, it carries me away even to see you do it. Why! I could express so all sorts of feelings. Don’t you know, Violante, there is so much within us that cannot come out, and art—music—acting is a means of expressing it. ”

“ Miss Venning spoke somewhat as if Flossy had been a naughty child; but the girl was glad of the respite, and hurried away to her own room. There she soon began to recover herself. A lover in the flesh is a startling novelty to many maidens of this latter nineteenth century, and Flossy’s heart had not prepared her so to regard Mr Blandford. Her sisters were unmarried, and she had thought it very likely that she should not marry herself. But she had no doubt as to her own feelings, and too much sense to reproach herself after the first flutter was over. ”

“ Flossy,” said Clarissa. “I thought you considered matrimony a mistake.”
“By no means,” emphatically returned Flossy; “when everything is suitable and people are fond of each other. I don’t think I shall ever wish to marry anyone myself; and how anyone can say life is wanting in interest I can’t conceive; but I should never be so absurd as to lay down general principles. That is where people fall into error. And besides,” she concluded heartily, “anyone could see dear little Mysie was fond of Arthur, and I am so glad she will be happy!” ”

“ During the weeks that were so comfortless and disturbed at Redhurst, Violante’s school-life went on, on the whole, peacefully; but, still, with various ups and downs of feeling—fits of longing for Rosa, of loneliness and discouragement; times when she could not learn her lessons nor interest herself in the little trifles that interested her companions. Yet she never thought of giving in and going away from Oxley Manor. When she was unhappy she dreaded lest Rosa should discover it. All the interest of life lay close at hand—here anything might happen, elsewhere the scene was closed. ”

“ Violante was alone in the drawing-room, and she started up flushing and trembling, then, without heeding Hugh, she went right up to Mrs Crichton and put her little hand in hers.
“I will try so hard to please you, Signora,” she said, with faltering lips.
“My dear, I am not difficult to please,” said Mrs Crichton, and somehow her fears of incongruity and incompleteness went into the background before the charm of the soft eyes and the sweet humility of the heroine of her son’s romance, which, for good or for evil, was to be the one great reality of his life. ”

“ He thought that Hugh looked aged, and, though he did not appear to be exactly ill or miserable, there was an absence of brightness or comfortableness about him, which Jem hardly thought accounted for by the fact that he was probably cold and hungry.
But Hugh, by word and letter, was imperturbably silent as to the history of those three solitary months, their morbid imaginings, their tortures of self-reproach, their loneliness and dulness, without the cheerful family life to which he was unconsciously accustomed. ”

“ Her love was the strongest thing about her: would it hold her up? She thought with a kind of ardour of resisting and refusing, of holding out and dying rather than yielding. But all the time she knew that she should yield; that she could not act and sing between the two fires of father and suitor; that the long days of conflict would not kill her all at once, but would each one be very miserable and hard to endure, and would each one wear out a little of her strength. For Violante had some experience of troublous times, and knew very well what it meant to be unhappy and in disgrace. ”

“ Could he ride into Oxley with him every day, when every weary look and dispirited tone would be like the thrust of a dagger. The more generous and unselfish Arthur was, the bitterer seemed the reproach. The idea of constant association was so terrible to him that, just in judgment as Hugh was, it almost seemed to him as if a choice so unlike his own must be dictated by feelings less intense and a memory less keen. “How can he bear the sight of me?” he thought. “I would have gone to the ends of the earth sooner than come back. If he has any feeling he will not be able to endure it! ”

“ How did she feel when she sat and looked on at “Il Don Giovanni,” and saw another, and how superior, performer playing her old part of Zerlina? Her voice, at its sweetest and clearest, had never been quite such as this, and she seemed for the first time to know what was meant by acting, as she looked on at the world-famous prima donna.
This power, this popularity, this applause was what the father had looked for; the loss of this was what he had mourned. Could she ever have had it, or anything like it? Did she regret now that she could not? ”

“ Flossy was too devoid of sentiment and of vanity and too full of her own concerns to be a favourite with young men. James thought her overpowering; and though Hugh was at ease with her, no one ever having suggested that he ought to marry her—since Flossy, handsome as she was, was just the sort of girl who does not easily get credited with a lover—he rarely gave her a second thought. But she and Arthur were excellent friends, and she was much more intimate with the whole family than was Clarissa, in whose younger days no girls had existed at Redhurst to afford an excuse for intercourse. ”

“ It is not always wise to ignore passionate feeling, even when it is supposed to be unreasonable. Hugh felt keenly that his mother gave him no sympathy in the trial which he believed to be more bitter than that of Arthur, whom he had seen her soothe and caress. He had neither the tact to conceive nor the unselfishness to carry out the idea that, as the miserable truth did greatly add to the pain of all concerned, it would be better to bury it and his remorse in his own breast. Rather would he do penance for it in every way that he could. ”

“ If Hugh did not somehow set it right for her what remained but submission? “I had rather die; but I shall be so frightened, I shall say yes,” she thought. “They have always made me do what they wish. I could not help it! There’s no one to help me—no one!” Her cowardice and weakness had been so often cast in the poor child’s teeth that she had lost every scrap of confidence in her own powers. Her father said, “You shall give in,” Rosa said, “You cannot hold out;” and Violante knew nothing of a Strength not her own, of a Hand that would hold hers more firmly than sister’s or lover’s. ”

“ And what right have I to any happiness of my own? Oh, I have been very miserable; the only softness, the only sweetness, was the thought of her!” said Hugh, vehemently.
“My dear boy,” said Mrs Crichton, “that view was wrong. You could not give Arthur back what he lost. I think you blame yourself unduly; but, be that as it may, though we cannot undo the consequences of our actions, you seem to have forgotten that pardon was granted to the greatest of sinners not for any atonement that they could make, but for their repentance and love. ”

“ Hugh had rehearsed a thousand greetings; what he uttered was a new one—
“Violante—Violante! will you forgive me?—can you love me still?”
He held out both hands imploringly. Violante looked up in his face; she dropped the wreath, and in a moment, neither knew how, he held her in his arms, and the long year of parting was a year that was past. He had come back; what had she to do with mistrust or pride?
“My darling—oh, my darling! I have not been so faithless as I seemed,” he said. ”

“ However different things might be with him from what he had once desired, Signor Mattei had not been a discontented man. Small successes which he would once have despised were much pleasanter than small failures; and he had grown to limit his desires to such as were possible of fulfilment; when ambition, desire of gain, and burning enthusiasm were all reawakened by the discovery of Violante’s wonderful voice. Here was his chance again. His daughter’s name should be heard in every capital in Europe: the fortunes of the whole family should be assured. ”

“ I think I can make her happy, and I will do my best to be helpful to you, and to place myself in a less unequal position as regards her fortune.”
“As mother consents,” said Hugh, “I cannot have a different opinion; but as regards the Bank, you must know your own mind, and I shall not consent to your taking any place there till you have taken time to consider of it. It is not exciting work nor satisfying, if you are ambitious.”
“I repeat,” said Arthur, “I have chosen my lot in life. I want Mysie, and Oxley, and the Bank, if you’ll have me; and Heaven knows I think myself a lucky fellow!” ”

“ Hugh Crichton was at this time in the sort of humour which, dignified by the name of misanthropy, would have admirably suited, one of those interesting and uncomfortable heroes who stalk through the pages of romance with masks over their faces, under a vow to speak to no one; or who, like Lara, cloaked and with folded arms, look on at life from an altitude of melancholy and disenchantment. The world seems to have watched such vagaries in former days with much patience ”

“ He would not have believed beforehand how little he would have thought about his cousin on that first day of meeting, which he had dreaded so much beforehand. His cold, short answers had come, not from embarrassment, but because he was wholly absorbed in something else. Had he avoided Violante to find her close at his side? Had he really passed her every morning and evening? Ah—and the violets—he had thrown them away! Perhaps this fact gave to the sensible Mr Spencer Crichton the keenest sense of lost opportunity that he had ever experienced. She had not, then, forgotten him. ”

“ But she knew nothing of self-conquest or of self-control, and when she was unhappy had no thought but to cling to Rosa, and cry till she was comforted; while under all her timidity lay the power of a certain fervour of feeling against which she had never dreamed of struggling. Sweet and humble, innocent and tender, yet with a most passionate nature, how could she contend with feelings which were more
“Than would bear
Of daily life the wear and tear,”
how endure the pangs of disappointment, added to the strain of an uncongenial life? ”

“ The eldest son, Charlie, was at Oxford, and the youngest, Ned, in the Navy. Such were the relations who were now preparing to welcome Rosa and Violante among them.
It was early in November; many a tint of gold and russet was still brightening the woods round Oxley, but in the squares of Kensington scarcely a leaf was lingering; fogs began to prevail, and the streets looked more cheerful after the gas was lit than during the hours of dim and struggling daylight. Nothing outside could make the Greys’ drawing-room otherwise than bright and cheerful. ”

“ Signor Mattei said. “You know what my wish has been. You were not free to promise yourself; and to-day I have made my arrangements with Signor Vasari and have promised you to him.”
“Father, father, I would kill myself first!” cried Violante, dropping on her knees and hiding her face. “Oh, Rosa—Rosa—help me!”
“Hugh, hush, my child. Stand up and control yourself,” said Rosa, with English dislike to a scene—a kind of self-consciousness shared by neither father nor sister. “Go away—go into our room. I will talk to father first.” ”

“ Mysie might do better, perhaps, but there is no use in making her miserable if she does not think so herself. Surely people must choose for themselves in these matters,” said Mrs Crichton, uttering this sentiment—so often practically ignored—as if it were such a truism that Flossy felt as if life was really so easy as to be quite flat.
“I am sure Arthur will get on,” she said.
“Oh, yes; and I don’t know a nicer fellow anywhere. Dear children, how surprised Hugh will be! I wish he would follow their example. But, dear me! I cannot expect him to see with my eyes. There is Arthur!” ”

“ For Violante was all that Hugh needed, and what more could she need herself? His love and his happiness made her own.
But there never came a day that Hugh forgot to look for Arthur’s letters, or to feel responsible for his fortunes; never a day when the incompleteness of Arthur’s life did not mar the perfection of his own. Nor ever will, till, amid the scenes of the sorrow that closed his youth, Arthur finds the happiness of his manhood. ”

“ A new generation of girls, among whom Emily Tollemache was for a short time numbered, found Miss Florence still bright and enthusiastic, Miss Clarissa full of her little nephews, while, away in London, Rosa Fairfax congratulated herself that teaching was over for her for ever. Signor Mattei, in sunny Italy, dreamed over and composed the opera that was to be more famous than his daughter’s voice; while the precious china bowl held the place of honour in the Bank House drawing-room, and was discovered by Jem to be quite in the highest style of art, and worth anything to a collector. ”

“ Childish as Violante was she had grown up too much in the constant discussion of ways and means not to be quite aware of the worldly advantages of Signor Vasari’s offer. Those attaching to Hugh Crichton’s were like a dim and distant dream, scarcely to be realised; nor had she, in the abstract, any sense that she would be unfairly treated by being deprived of her right of choice. Perhaps no creature ever entered on a conflict with less hope of success. ”

“ Hugh stood like a shy boy in his first quadrille, trying to think of something that would do to say. Arthur had strolled away towards the primrose-pickers, and he decided that it would look too marked to walk on without him. At last he said: “Oh! Miss Venning, about that gas. I believe I shall get it arranged as you wish.”
“I always knew, Hugh, that no sensible person could see it in any other light,” said Miss Venning.
“I don’t think gas is injurious to human life,” said Hugh, looking round the wood. Rosa almost pitied him, he seemed so ill at ease. ”

“ He knew the violence with which Hugh’s feelings were apt to overpower him in the first moments of a great shock, and also how completely he was soon able to govern and conceal them. James had little doubt of his speedy return; but it was less wretched to walk rapidly away with Wood, who wanted to return to his children—Alice having been left with the maids at Redhurst—than to sit at home and begin to realise what a blow had fallen on the home which had always seemed, in the few holiday weeks that he spent there, the realisation of sunshine and peace. ”

“ There is one person whose feelings I think you have forgotten—Violante herself.”
“When I believed she loved me it seemed too good a thing for me to put out my hand to take,” said Hugh, in a low voice.
“Oh, Hugh,” said Arthur, sadly and earnestly, “don’t throw away a great love. Neither she nor you will ever most likely feel the like again. It is much too good to lose. It’s the best thing in the world, you know.” ”

“ So they vexed each other sorely; but Violante, forlorn and sorrowful as she was, could nestle in Rosa’s arms, and had Rosa’s pity, if not sympathy, in her grief; while her father, unkind and unreasonable as he might be, suffered alone a pang of disappointment all the keener because the baffled desire had been so vehement that to indulge it he had undertaken the one impossible task of life—to inspire an alien nature with his own ideal of happiness, his own loves, and his own ambitions. ”

“ Against such reproaches Violante had no defence, and she was so well used to them that she was more frightened than grieved.
“Father,” cried Rosa, “you have been mistaken, you cannot change her nature, nor make her what you wish. She is herself, take her for that. Violante mia! my child, my darling, as if it was not enough to have you safe. What matters your voice, or your success, or anything?” ”

“ Whatever sorrow it had brought, however unwise it might be, it had kept Hugh from despair, and she could not scorn it.
“My dear,” she said, “it is too late for me to oppose what has survived so much. Nor have I the right; at your age you must please yourself. Of course, I wish you had chosen otherwise.”
“I think you will not wish so for long,” said Hugh, as he kissed her warmly.
Mrs Crichton was not ready to accede to this remark; she was troubled and anxious; and when Arthur presently came to see her and Hugh left him with her she expressed her doubts strongly. ”

“ I get dull by myself,” said Mrs Crichton, with a sigh. “Not that we have much amusement to offer them.”
“I don’t know that they mind about amusements,” said James.
He was dying for a confidant; for Jem could never keep his affairs to himself, but he did not quite dare to enlighten his mother as to his wishes, for fear she should betray them by over-zeal to the Miss Haywards. It had not quite come to the point of announcing his intentions to Hugh, who would not easily have been convinced of their seriousness. ”