CHAPTER XV.
THE MOTHER AND SON.--VIRTUE SHOULD BE THE SOVEREIGN OF THE FEELINGS, NOTTHEIR DESTROYER.
I TOOK the first opportunity to escape from the good company who were sodivided in opinion as to my mental accomplishments, and repaired tomy mother; for whom, despite of her evenness of disposition, vergingtowards insensibility, I felt a powerful and ineffaceable affection.Indeed, if purity of life, rectitude of intentions, and fervour of pietycan win love, none ever deserved it more than she. It was a pity that,with such admirable qualities, she had not more diligently cultivatedher affections. The seed was not wanting; but it had been neglected.Originally intended for the veil, she had been taught, early in life,that much feeling was synonymous with much sin; and she had so long andso carefully repressed in her heart every attempt of the forbidden fruitto put forth a single blossom, that the soil seemed at last to havebecome incapable of bearing it. If, in one corner of this barren butsacred spot, some green and tender verdure of affection did exist,it was, with a partial and petty reserve for my twin-brother, keptexclusive, and consecrated to Aubrey. His congenial habits of pioussilence and rigid devotion; his softness of temper; his utter freedomfrom all boyish excesses, joined to his almost angelic beauty,--aquality which, in no female heart, is ever without its value,--wereexactly calculated to attract her sympathy, and work themselves into herlove. Gerald was also regular in his habits, attentive to devotion,and had, from an early period, been high in the favour of her spiritualdirector. Gerald, too, if he had not the delicate and dream-like beautyof Aubrey, possessed attractions of a more masculine and decided order;and for Gerald, therefore, the Countess gave the little of love thatshe could spare from Aubrey. To me she manifested the most utterindifference. My difficult and fastidious temper; my sarcastic turn ofmind; my violent and headstrong passions; my daring, reckless and, whenroused, almost ferocious nature,--all, especially, revolted the evenand polished and quiescent character of my maternal parent. The littleextravagances of my childhood seemed to her pure and inexperienced mindthe crimes of a heart naturally distorted and evil; my jesting vein,which, though it never, even in the wantonness of youth, attacked thesubstances of good, seldom respected its semblances and its forms, sheconsidered as the effusions of malignity; and even the bursts of love,kindness, and benevolence, which were by no means unfrequent in my wildand motley character, were so foreign to her stillness of temperamentthat they only revolted her by their violence, instead of affecting herby their warmth.
Nor did she like me the better for the mutual understanding between myuncle and myself. On the contrary, shocked by the idle and gay turnof the knight's conversation, the frivolities of his mind, and hisheretical disregard for the forms of the religious sect which she sozealously espoused, she was utterly insensible to the points whichredeemed and ennobled his sterling and generous character; utterlyobtuse to his warmth of heart,--his overflowing kindness ofdisposition,--his charity,--his high honour,--his justice of principle,that nothing save benevolence could warp,--and the shrewd, penetratingsense, which, though often clouded by foibles and humorous eccentricity,still made the stratum of his intellectual composition. Nevertheless,despite her prepossessions against us both, there was in her tempersomething so gentle, meek, and unupbraiding, that even the sense ofinjustice lost its sting, and one could not help loving the softness ofher character, while one was most chilled by its frigidity. Anger, hope,fear, the faintest breath or sign of passion, never seemed to stir thebreezeless languor of her feelings; and quiet was so inseparable fromher image that I have almost thought, like that people described byHerodotus, her very sleep could never be disturbed by dreams.
Yes! how fondly, how tenderly I loved her! What tears, secret but deep,bitter but unreproaching, have I retired to shed, when I caught hercold and unaffectionate glance! How (unnoticed and uncared for) have Iwatched and prayed and wept without her door when a transitory sicknessor suffering detained her within; and how, when stretched myself uponthe feverish bed to which my early weakness of frame often condemnedme,--how have I counted the moments to her punctilious and brief visit,and started as I caught her footstep, and felt my heart leap within meas she approached! and then, as I heard her cold tone and lookedupon her unmoved face, how bitterly have I turned away with all thatrepressed and crushed affection which was construed into sullennessor disrespect! O mighty and enduring force of early associations, thatalmost seems, in its unconquerable strength, to partake of an innateprepossession, that binds the son to the mother who concealed him in herwomb and purchased life for him with the travail of death?--fountain offilial love, which coldness cannot freeze, nor injustice embitter, norpride divert into fresh channels, nor time, and the hot suns of ourtoiling manhood, exhaust,--even at this moment, how livingly do you gushupon my heart, and water with your divine waves the memories that yetflourish amidst the sterility of years?
I approached the apartments appropriated to my mother: I knocked ather door; one of her women admitted me. The Countess was sitting on ahigh-backed chair, curiously adorned with tapestry. Her feet, whichwere remarkable for their beauty, were upon a velvet cushion; threehand-maids stood round her, and she herself was busily employed in apiece of delicate embroidery, an art in which she eminently excelled.
"The Count, Madam!" said the woman who had admitted me, placing a chairbeside my mother, and then retiring to join her sister maidens.
"Good day to you, my son," said the Countess, lifting her eyes for amoment, and then dropping them again upon her work.
"I have come to seek you, dearest mother, as I know not, if, among thecrowd of guests and amusements which surround us, I shall enjoy anotheropportunity of having a private conversation with you: will it pleaseyou to dismiss your women?"
My mother again lifted up her eyes. "And why, my son? surely there_can_ be nothing between us which requires their absence; what is yourreason?"
"I leave you to-morrow, Madam: is it strange that a son should wish tosee his mother alone before his departure?"
"By no means, Morton; but your absence will not be very long, will it?"
"Forgive my importunity, dear Mother; but _will_ you dismiss yourattendants?"
"If you wish it, certainly; but I dislike feeling alone, especially inthese large rooms; nor did I think being unattended quite consistentwith our rank: however, I never contradict you, my son," and theCountess directed her women to wait in the anteroom.
"Well, Morton, what is your wish?"
"Only to bid you farewell, and to ask if London contains nothing whichyou will commission me to obtain for you?"
The Countess again raised her eyes from her work. "I am greatly obligedto you, my dear son; this is a very delicate attention on your part. Iam informed that stomachers are worn a thought less pointed than theywere. I care not, you well know, for such vanities; but respect for thememory of your illustrious father renders me desirous to retain aseemly appearance to the world, and my women shall give you writteninstructions thereon to Madame Tourville; she lives in St. James'sStreet, and is the only person to be employed in these matters. She isa woman who has known misfortune, and appreciates the sorrowful andsubdued tastes of those whom an exalted station has not preserved fromlike afflictions. So you go to-morrow: will you get me the scissors?They are on the ivory table yonder. When do you return?"
"Perhaps never!" said I, abruptly.
"Never, Morton; how singular--why?"
"I may join the army, and be killed."
"I hope not. Dear, how cold it is: will you shut the window? prayforgive my troubling you, but you _would_ send away the women. Join thearmy, you say? It is a very dangerous profession; your poor father mightbe alive now but for having embraced it; nevertheless, in a righteouscause, under the Lord of Hosts, there is great glory to be obtainedbeneath its banners. Alas, however, for its private evils! alas, for theorphan and the widow! You will be sure, my dear son, to give the noteto Madame Tourville herself? Her assistants have not her knowledge of mymisfortunes, nor indeed o
f my exact proportions; and at my age, and inmy desolate state, I would fain be decorous in these things, and thatreminds me of dinner. Have you aught else to say, Morton?"
"Yes!" said I, suppressing my emotions, "yes, Mother! do bestow on meone warm wish, one kind word, before we part: see,--I kneel for yourblessing,--will you not give it me?"
"Bless you, my child,--bless you! look you now; I have dropped myneedle!"
I rose hastily, bowed profoundly (my mother returned the courtesy withthe grace peculiar to herself), and withdrew. I hurried into thegreat drawing-room, found Lady Needleham alone, rushed out in despair,encountered the Lady Hasselton, and coquetted with her the rest of theevening. Vain hope! to forget one's real feelings by pretending thoseone never felt!
The next morning, then, after suitable adieux to all (Gerald excepted)whom I left behind; after some tears too from my uncle, which, had itnot been for the presence of the Lady Hasselton, I could have returnedwith interest; and after a long caress to his dog Ponto, which now, inparting with that dear old man, seemed to me as dog never seemed before,I hurried into the Beauty's carriage, bade farewell forever to theRubicon of Life, and commenced my career of manhood and citizenship bylearning, under the tuition of the prettiest coquette of her time, thedignified duties of a Court Gallant and a Town Beau.
BOOK II.