Constance

“ But Constance formed the chief attraction. White men were no novelty to her, but a pale-face woman was something new, and worth studying. She had seen her every Sunday at the church, sitting at the little harmonium, and had been held spellbound by her sweet rich voice joining in the singing. She associated Constance with that strange world, the glorious dreamland, which filled so much of her life, and of which the bell was an important factor. ”

“ Constance had long ago convinced herself that his bark was worse than his bite; that he believed more than he really admitted of the essentials of religion; that he acknowledged his responsibility to God and was devoting his days to advancing the useful work of the world, and incidentally providing for her happiness at the same time. His plea for credit to the independent soul which overcame temptation and obstacles was, at least, manly, and a sign of courage. ”

“ Look here, Constance: you knew my mother; you know then what it means to live nobly and truly in the light of a greater goodness than the world yet understands. God, or whoever made you, made your soul very white; how dare you let the smuts fall upon it? How dare you tread among falsehoods, you that have heard of Truth?
Try, my dearest, try to be brave; surely it is the duty of each one of us to live the noblest life he can. The world is so beautiful! It is only ourselves and our mistakes that lie foul upon it. ”

“ Better a thousand times to be laughed at by the critics than to see a pained look of disappointment in Constance’s eyes. Nevertheless he considered his promise sacred, and, after all, it was Constance who had driven him to make it. ”

“ You, Constance, in the pride of your lofty station, your strengthened mind, your regulated virtue (fenced in by the hundred barriers of custom) , you cannot, perhaps, conceive how pure and devoted the soul of this poor girl is! She is not one whom I could heap riches upon and leave:—my love is all the riches she knows. Earth has not a consolation or a recompense for the loss of my affection: and even Heaven itself she has never learned to think of, except as a place in which we shall be united for ever. ”

“ Constance, I would not have you think he was an absolutely perfect man. He was too sensitively organized for that. A touch, a look that was not in harmony with his thoughts, would make him turn pale at times, and I have seen him put to such suffering by petty physical causes, that I have sometimes wondered where his great soul got its strength to carry him through the exigencies of his somewhat trying calling. But whatever his weaknesses—and they were very few,—he was conscientious in the extreme, and suffered agony where other men would be affected but slightly. ”

“ And to be thrown with her daily—to spend the bright summer mornings in the cool, old drawing-room with Constance, listening to the pleasant, languid talk of people in a country house, the shady afternoons in driving over the rich, green, placid country, sometimes with Constance by his side—the deep, blue nights, sitting on the great stone porch, watching the silver moon rise over the distant pine-crowned mountain-peaks, and looking at Constance, in a thin white gown, seeming as young by night as in those sweet Italian nights long past—it would have been bliss but for two things. ”

“ And why should you rob me of the remembrance of that brief moment—that wild embrace? How often shall I recall it!—How often when the light step of her to whom I return glides around me, shall I cheat myself, and think it yours; when I feel her breath at night, shall I not start—and dream it comes from your lips? and in returning her unconscious caress, let me fancy it is you whispers me the assurances of unutterable love! Forgive me, Constance, my yet adored Constance, whom I shall never see more, for these wild words—this momentary weakness. Farewell! ”

“ Many, and soft and sweet were now the recollections of Constance. Her heart flew back to her early love among the shades of Wendover; to the first confession of the fair enthusiastic boy, when he offered at her shrine a mind, a genius, a heart capable of fruits which the indolence of after-life, and the lethargy of disappointed hope, had blighted before their time. ”

“ Since then, life had set its mark on Constance. Often now, as a woman of forty-two, she felt a dull melancholy in pondering on her life; she let her life, one woman's life, glide past her gaze once more; she began with her childish years in India; saw once more the splendour and grandeur of Buitenzorg; criticized her own vanity during her girlhood at the Hague; saw her marriage as the great mistake of her life; saw, as the second, irrevocable mistake of her life, all that had happened with Van der Welcke.... ”

“ She obeyed, as she ever did, the impulse of the moment, and read what follows:
“Constance—As I write that word how many remembrances rush upon me!—for how many years has that name been a talisman to my heart, waking its emotions at will! You are the first woman I ever really loved: you rejected me, yet I could not disdain you. You became another’s but my love could not desert you. Your hand wrote the history of my life after the period when we met,—my habits—my thoughts—you influenced and coloured them all! And now, Constance, you are free; and I love you more fervently than ever! ”

“ A cry of astonishment burst simultaneously from the French prisoners and Neapolitans around, and the latter rushed forward and prostrated themselves before her, clasping her robe, her feet, ’mid sobs and tears calling on heaven to bless the daughter of their king, the being whom from her cradle they had well-nigh worshipped—the Princess Constance! but one alone stood speechless; one alone had no power to go forward, for all seemed to him a dream, whose bewildering light and bliss would be for ever lost in darkness. ”

“ They are just at the castle gates. Now, Constance," he continued, for his lordship would sometimes venture an insipid joke, "now, Constance, if you would win a rich and noble husband, put on your brightest smiles."
"Who may he be, my lord?" asked Constance, who as well as Iola was ignorant of the names of the persons expected.
"Nay, nay, you will see," said Lord Calverly. "Did not his young lordship tell you?"
"No, indeed!" answered Constance quietly; "but I can wait in patience, my good lord. Time brings all things to light." ”

“ Constance, in whom fierce
passion is not the result, but the cause of madness, could only have been from the beginning, what she is plainly
o shewn to have been, a haughty, irascible woman, whose tongue and temper were dreaded by friend and foe. Although accurate history has little to do with dramatic representation of character, it is worthy of remark, that the imperious claim of Constance to the crown of England for her son, was not founded upon that indefeasible right which would have been recognized at a later period. ”

“ Recording a love that drew sorrow upon The woman he loved, for himself dare he seek Surcease to that sorrow, which thus held him weak, Beat him down, and destroy'd him? News reach'd him indeed, Through a comrade, who brought him a letter to read From the dame who had care of Constance (it was one To whom, when at Paris, the boy had been known, A Frenchman, and friend of the Faubourg) , which said That Constance, although never a murmur betray'd What she suffer'd, in silence grew paler each day, And seem'd visibly drooping and dying away. ”

“ Are they all safely here?" cried Constance.
"Every man of them; we had a fine expedition, not a misfortune, perfect weather, and we saw wonders of noble country: streams and hills and plains," said Giles, and instantly Constance felt a new manhood and self-confidence in him, steadier, less assertive than his boyish pride, the self-reliance that is won through encountering realities, in conquering self and hence things outside of self. ”

“ These are scenes where we could melt our whole nature down to love: Nature never meant us for the stern and arid destinies we fulfil. Look round, Constance, in every leaf of her gorgeous book, how glowingly is written the one sentence, ‘Love and be happy!’ You answer not; to these thoughts you are cold.”
“They breathe too much of the Epicurean and his rose-leaves for me,” answered Constance, smilingly. “I love better that stern old tower, telling of glorious strife and great deeds, than all the softer landscape, on which the present debasement of the south seems written.” ”

“ In these days, when Constance felt herself becoming so strangely young and alive—she who for so long believed that she had never, never lived—she was compelled to step outside that life dominated purely by feeling. ”

“ For the first time since her mourning, a thrill of pleasure swelled the bosom of Constance. She hailed the emotion with double joy. It cannot be, she thought, that Heaven will forbid me to love one so brave, so generous, and so good as the noble Gaspar. Another I can never love; I shall die if divided from him; and this heart, these limbs, so alive with glowing sensation, are they already predestined to an early grave? Oh no! life speaks aloud within them. I shall live to love. Do not all things love?—the winds as they whisper to the rushing waters? ”

“ During the weeks that have intervened between his arrest and this day of his trial, Constance has been his bravest champion and truest friend; she has stimulated him to hope, and incited him to courage, with loving, cheerful words, while clinging desperately to a last remnant of her own sinking hope. ”

“ Too thoughtful to be without a leading principle in life, the one principle I adopted has been one error. I have tasted all that imagination can give to earthly possession: youth, health, liberty, knowledge, love, luxury, pomp. Woman was my first passion,—what woman have I wooed in vain? I imagined that my career hung upon Constance’s breath—Constance loved and refused me. I attributed my errors to that refusal; Constance became mine—how have I retrieved them? A vague, a dim, an unconfessed remorse has pursued me in the memory of Lucilla ”

“ He hath brought me now to Constance without let or hindrance; for although I rode the whole way dressed as a priest without disguise, and in all the towns called out my name in a loud voice, I met no open enemy; in fact, I should not have many enemies in Constance if the Bohemian clergy, in their greed for livings and their bondage to avarice, had not been leading people astray on the journey. [5] Yet I trust to the mercy of the Saviour and to your prayers that I shall stand firm in God’s truth unto death. ”

“ With stately dignity Constance courtesied her greeting and spoke: “Welcome, illustrious Queen! and excuse us for not going out to receive you. We are surprised, having received no intimation of this visit, although we sent messengers with invitations.” ”

“ To a taste intuitively fine and noble the essential vulgarities—the fierceness to-day, the cringing to-morrow; the veneration for power; the indifference to virtue, which characterised the framers and rulers of “society”—could not but bring contempt as well as anger; and amidst the brilliant circles, to which so many aspirers looked up with hopeless ambition, Constance moved only to ridicule, to loathe, to despise. ”

“ Her lips have hardly moved since we sat down to the board; but methinks that question might be put of every one round. It is not the gay smile, or the cheerful laugh, that shows a happy heart within; and I doubt much, if you could see into every bosom along these two ranks of human things, whether you would not find some hidden care, or some sorrow that flies the light."
"That is to say," replied Constance, "that every one who mingles with the world finds unhappiness in it; a fine argument to keep me out of a convent, truly. ”

“ This King, Alla, was very tender and good, and when he saw Constance standing in the midst of the people, with her frightened eyes looking appealingly from one to another like a wounded deer who is chased to its death, his heart was moved with pity.
The governor and all his people told how Constance had loved the murdered lady, and what holy words she had taught. All except the real murderer, who kept declaring she was the guilty one.
The king asked her, “Have you any champion who could fight for you?” ”

“ Now, fair Constance, Almighty God thee guide!
Now woulde some men waiten, as I guess,
That I should tellen all the purveyance,
The which the emperor of his noblesse
Hath shapen for his daughter, Dame Constance.
Well may men know that so great ordinance
May no man tellen in a little clause,
As was arrayed for so high a cause. ”

“ Constance bent a searching gaze upon her friend, and read her state of mind with a woman's keen intuition. The tensely strung nerves, the dread of this interview, the determination to have it over, and to bear her part bravely; a proud and stubborn nature, battling with despair, and unspeakable heartache. ”

“ And now to make a conclusion to my tale, this child, Maurice, was afterwards anointed Emperor by the Pope, and did high honour to the Christian church:—but my story is especially of Constance.
King Alla after due time returned to England with his sweet and holy wife, where they lived together in peace and happiness, although, alas! but for a short, though blissful season: happiness in this world is ever fleeting, and so it was with Alla and Constance; for, at the end of a year, death removed him from her; and she, in grief and heaviness at his loss, returned to the land of her birth. ”

“ Tea had been daintily spread for them under a birch-tree near the keeper’s lodge. The keeper’s wife served them with smiles and curtsies, and then discreetly disappeared. Falloden waited on Constance as a squire on his princess; and all round them lay the green encircling rampart of the wood. In the man’s every action, there was the homage of one who only keeps silence because the woman he loves imposes it. But Constance again felt that recurrent fear creeping over her. ”