CHAPTER VI.

The sun was just risen. Oswald supposed that no one was yet stirring, till he perceived Lucy already drawing in a balcony. Her hair, not yet fastened, was waving in the gale: she looked so like his dream, that for a moment he started, as if he had beheld a spirit; and though soon ashamed at having been so affected by such a natural circumstance, he remained for some time beneath her station, but she did not perceive him. As he pursued his walk, he wished more than ever for the presence that would have dissipated these half-formed impressions. Lucy was an enigma, which Corinne's genius could have solved; without her aid, it took a thousand changeful forms in his mind's eye. He re-entered the drawing-room, and found Lucy placing her morning's work in a little brown frame, facing her mother's tea-table. It was a white rose, on its leafy stalk, finished to perfection. "You draw, then?" he said.--"No, my Lord," she answered; "I merely copy the easiest flowers I can find: there is no master near us: the little I ever learned I owe to a sister who used to give me lessons." She sighed.--"And what is become of her?" asked Oswald.--"She is dead; but I shall always regret her."--He found that _she_, too had been deceived;[1] but her confession of regret evinced so amiable a disposition, that he felt more pleased, more affected, than before. Lucy was about to retire, remembering that she was alone with Lord Nevil, when Lady Edgarmond joined them. She looked on her daughter with surprise and displeasure, and motioned her to withdraw. This first informed Oswald that Lucy had done something very extraordinary, in remaining a few minutes with a man out of her mother's presence; and he was as much gratified as he would have been by a decided mark of preference under other auspices. Lady Edgarmond took her seat, and dismissed the servant who had supported her to the sofa. She was pale, and her lips trembled as she offered a cup of tea to Lord Nevil. These symptoms increased his own embarrassment, yet, animated by zeal for her he loved, he began: "Lady Edgarmond, I have often in Italy seen a female particularly interesting to you."--"I cannot believe it," she answered, dryly: "no one there interests me."--"I should think that the daughter of your husband had some claim on your affection."--"If the daughter of my husband be indifferent to her duties and reputation, though I surely cannot wish her any ill, I shall be very glad to hear no more of her."--"But," said Oswald, quickly, "if the woman your Ladyship deserts is celebrated by the world for her great and varied talents, will you forever thus disdain her?"--"Not the less, sir, for the abilities that wean her from her rightful occupations. There are plenty of actresses, artists, and musicians, to amuse society: in our rank, a woman's only becoming station is that which devotes her to her husband and children."--"Madam," returned Oswald, "such talents cannot exist without an elevated character and a generous heart: do you censure them for extending the mind, and giving a more vast, more general influence to virtue itself?"--"Virtue!" she repeated, with a bitter smile; "I know not what you mean by the word, so applied. The virtue of a young woman, who flies from her father's home, establishes herself in Italy, leads the _freest_ life, receives all kinds of homage, to say no worse, sets an example pernicious to others as to herself, abandoning her rank, her family, her name----"--"Madam," interrupted Oswald, "she sacrificed her name to you, and to your daughter, whom she feared to injure."--"She knew that she dishonored it, then," replied the step-mother.--"This is too much," said Oswald, violently: "Corinne Edgarmond will soon be Lady Nevil, and we shall then see if you blush to acknowledge the daughter of your Lord. You confound with the vulgar herd a being gifted like no other woman--an angel of goodness, tender and diffident at heart, as she is sublime of soul. She may have had her faults, if that innate superiority that could not conform with common rules be one, but a single deed or word of hers might well efface them all. She will more honor the man she chooses to protect her than could the empress of a world."--"Be that man, then, my Lord!" said Lady Edgarmond, making an effort to restrain her feelings: "satirize me as narrow-minded; nothing you say can change me. I understand by morality, an exact observance of established rules; beyond which, fine qualities misapplied deserve at best but pity."--"The world would have been very sterile, my Lady," said Oswald, "had it always thoughts you do of genius and enthusiasm: human nature would have become a thing of mere formalities. But, not to continue this fruitless discussion, I will only ask, if you mean to acknowledge your daughter-in-law, when she is my wife?"--"Still less on that account," answered her Ladyship: "I owe your father's memory my exertions to prevent so fatal a union if I can."--"My father!" repeated Nevil, always agitated by that name.--"Are you ignorant," she continued, "that he refused her, ere she had committed any actual fault? foreseeing, with the perfect sagacity that so characterized him, what she would one day become?"--"How, madam! what more know you of this?"--"Your father's letter to Lord Edgarmond on the subject," interrupted the lady, "is in the hands of his old friend, Mr. Dickson. I sent it to him, when I heard of your connection with this Corinne, that you might read it on your return: it would not have become me to retain it." Oswald, after a few moments' silence, resumed: "I ask your Ladyship but for an act of justice, due to yourself, that is, to receive your husband's daughter as she deserves."--"I _shall_ not, in any way, my Lord, contribute to your misery. If her present nameless and unmatronized existence be an obstacle to your marrying her, God, and your father, forbid that I should remove it!"--"Madam," he exclaimed, "her misfortunes are but added chains that bind me to her."--"Well," replied Lady Edgarmond, with an impetuosity to which she would not have given way had not her own child been thus deprived of a suitable husband, "well, render yourself wretched, then! she will be so too: she hates this country, and never will comply with its manners: this is no theatre for the versatile talents you so prize, and which render her so fastidious. She will carry you back to Italy: you will forswear your friends and native land, for a lovely foreigner, I confess, but for one who could forget you, if you wished it. Those flighty brains are ever changeful: deep griefs were made for the women you deem so common-place, those who live but for their homes and families." This was, perhaps, the first time in her life that Lady Edgarmond had spoken on impulse: it shook her weakened nerves; and, as she ceased, she sank back, half fainting. Oswald rang loudly for help. Lucy ran in alarmed, hastened to revive her parent, and cast on Nevil an uneasy look, that seemed to say: "Is it you who have made mamma so ill?" He felt this deeply, and strove to atone by attentions to Lady Edgarmond; but she repulsed him coldly, blushing to think that she had seemed to pride but little in her girl, by betraying this anxiety to secure her a reluctant bridegroom. She bade Lucy leave them, and said calmly: "My Lord, at all events, I beg that you will consider yourself free. My daughter is so young, that she is no way concerned in the project formed by your father and myself; but that being changed, it would be an indecorum for me to receive you until she is married." Nevil bowed.--"I will content myself, then," he said, "with writing to you on the fate of a person whom I can never desert."--"You are the master of that fate," concluded Lady Edgarmond, in a smothered voice; and Oswald departed. In riding down the avenue, he perceived, at a distance, the elegant figure of young Lucy. He checked his horse to look on her once more, and it appeared that she took the same direction with himself. The high road passed before a summer-house, at the end of the park; he saw her enter it, and went by with some reluctance, unable to discern her: he frequently turned his head, and, at a point from which the road was best commanded, observed a slight movement among the trees. He stopped; it ceased: uncertain whether he had guessed correctly, he proceeded, then abruptly rode back with the speed of lightning, as if he had dropped something by the way; there, indeed, he saw her, on the edge of the bank, and bowed respectfully: she drew down her veil, and hastily concealed herself in the thicket, forgetting that she thus tacitly avowed the motive which had brought her there. The poor child had never felt so guilty in her life; and far from thinking of simply returning his salute, she feared that she must have lost his good opinion by having been so forward. Oswald felt flattered by this blameless and timorous sincerity. "No one," thought he, "could be more candid than Corinne; but then, no one better knew herself or others. Lucy had all to learn. Yet this charm of the day, could it suffice for a life? this pretty ignorance cannot endure; and since we must penetrate the secrets of our own hearts at last, is not the candor which survives such examination worth more than that which precedes it?" This comparison, he believed, was but an amusement to his mind, which could never occupy it more gravely.

[1] A religious, moral, English gentlewoman propose a romantic falsehood, so likely to wreck its theme on the dangers against which Lady Edgarmond warned Corinne! This anti-national inconsistency neutralizes all the rest of Madame de Staël's intended satire.--TR.