Chapter 19

MOWBRAY OPENS HIS HEART TO HIS NEW FRIEND.

Instead of following the melancholy Jacques to his chamber, let us return to the meadow in which he had been saluted by the invisible voice. A brook ran sparkling like a silver thread across the emerald expanse, and along this brook were sauntering two students, one of whom had spoken to the abstracted lover.

He who had addressed Jacques was Mowbray; the other was Hoffland, the young student who had just arrived at Williamsburg.

Hoffland is much younger than his companion--indeed, seems scarcely to have passed beyond boyhood; his stature is low, his figure is slender, his hair flaxen and curling, his face ornamented only with a peach-down mustache. He is clad in a suit of black richly embroidered; wraps a slight cloak around him spite of the warmth of the pleasant May afternoon; and his cocked hat, apparently too large for him, droops over his face, falling low down upon his brow.

They walk on for a moment in silence.

Then Hoffland says, in a musical voice like that of a boy before his tone undergoes the disagreeable change of manhood:

"You have not said how strange you thought this sudden friendship I express, Mr. Mowbray, but I am afraid you think me very strange."

"No, indeed," replies Mowbray; "I know not why, but you have already taken a strong hold upon me. Singular! we are almost strangers, but I feel as though I had known you all my life!"

"That can scarcely be, for I am but seventeen or eighteen," says Hoffland smiling.

"A frank, true age. I regret that I have passed it."

"Why?"

"Ah, can you ask, Mr. Hoffland?"

"Please do not call me Mr. Hoffland. We are friends: say Charles; and then I will call you Ernest. I cannot unless you set me the example."

"Ernest? How did you discover my name?"

"Oh!" said Hoffland, somewhat embarrassed, "does not every body know Ernest Mowbray?"

"Very well--as you are determined to give me compliments instead of reasons, I will not persist. Charles be it then, but you must call me Ernest."

"Yes, Ernest."

The low musical words went to his heart, and broke down every barrier. They were bosom friends from that moment, and walked on in perfect confidence.

"Why did you regret your youth, Ernest?" said Hoffland. "I thought young men looked forward impatiently to their full manhood--twenty-five or thirty; though I do not," he added with a smile.

"They do; but it is only another proof of the blindness of youth."

"Is youth blind?"

"Blind, because it cannot see that all the delights of ambition, the victories of mind, the triumphs and successes of the brain, are mere dust and ashes compared with what it costs to obtain them--the innocence of the heart, the illusions of its youthful hope."

"Ah! are illusions to be desired?"

"At least they are a sweet suffering, a bitter delight."

"Even when one wakes from them to find every thing untrue--despair alone left?"

"You paint the reverse truly; but still I hold that the happiness of life is in what I have styled illusions. Listen, Charles," he continued, gazing kindly at the boy, who turned away his head. "Life is divided into three portions--three stages, which we must all travel before we can lie down in that silent bed prepared for us at our journey's end. In the first, Youth, every thing is rosy, brilliant, hopeful; life is a dream of happiness which deadens the senses with its delirious rapture--deadens them so perfectly that the thorns Youth treads on are such no longer, they are flowers! stones are as soft as the emerald grass, and if a mountain or a river rise before it, all Youth thinks is, What a beautiful summit, or, How fair a river! and straightway it darts joyously up the ascent, or throws itself laughing into the bright sparkling waters. The mountain and the river are not obstacles--they are delights. Then comes the second portion of life, Manhood, when the obstacles are truly what they seem--hard to ascend, trying to swim over. Then comes Age, when the sobered heart hesitates long before commencing the ascent or essaying the crossing--when _duty_ only prompts. Say that duty is greater than hope, and you are right; but say that duty carries men as easily over obstacles as joy, which loves those obstacles, and you are mistaken. Well, all this prosing is meant to show that the real happiness of life is in illusions. Doubtless you are convinced of it, however: already one learns much by the time he has reached eighteen."

Hoffland mused.

Mowbray drove away his thoughts, and said, smiling sadly:

"Have you ever loved, Charles?"

"Never," murmured the boy.

"That is the master illusion," sighed Mowbray.

"And is it a happy one?"

"A painful happiness."

These short words were uttered with so much sadness, that the boy stole a look of deep interest at his companion's face.

"Do not be angry with me, Ernest," he said, "but may I ask you if you have ever loved?"

His head drooped, and he murmured, "Yes."

"Deeply?"

"Yes."

"Were you disappointed?"

"Yes."

And there was a long pause. They walked on in silence.

"It is a beautiful afternoon," said Mowbray at length.

"Lovely," murmured the boy.

"This stream is so fresh and pure--no bitterness in it."

"Is there in love?"

Mowbray was silent for a moment. Then he raised his head, and said to his companion:

"Charles, listen! What I am going to tell you, may serve to place you upon your guard against what may cause you great suffering. I know not why, but I take a strange interest in you--coming alone into the great world a mere youth as you are, leaving in the mountains from which you say you come all those friends whose counsel might guide you. Listen to me, then, as to an elder brother--a brother who has grown old early in thought and feeling, who at twenty-five has already lived half the life of man--at least in the brain and heart. Listen. I was always impulsive and sanguine, always proud and self-reliant. My father was wealthy. I was told from my boyhood that I was a genius--that I had only to extend my hand, and the slaves of the lamp, as the Orientals say, would drop into it all the jewels of the universe. Success in politics, poetry, law, or letters--the choice lay with me, but the event was certain whichever I should select. Well, my father died--his property was absorbed by his debts--I was left with an orphan sister to struggle with the world.

"I arranged our affairs--we had a small competence after all debts were paid. We live yonder in a small cottage, and in half an hour I shall be there. I seldom take these strolls. Half my time is study--the rest, work upon our small plot of ground. This was necessary to prepare you for what I have to say.

"I had never been in love until I was twenty-four and a half--that is to say, half a year ago. But one day I saw upon a race-course a young girl who strongly attracted my attention, and I went home thinking of her. I did not know her name, but I recognised in her bright, frank, bold face--it was almost bold--that clear, strong nature which has ever had an inexpressible charm for me. I had studied that strange volume called Woman, and had easily found out this fact: that the wildest and most careless young girls are often far more delicate, feminine, and innocent than those whose eyes are always demurely cast down, and whose lips are drawn habitually into a prudish and prim reserve. Do you understand my awkward words?"

"Yes," said the boy quietly.

"Well," pursued Mowbray, "in forty-eight hours the dream of my life was to find and woo that woman. I instinctively felt that she would make me supremely happy--that the void which every man feels in his heart, no matter what his love for relatives may be, could be filled by this young girl alone--that she would perfect my life. Very well--now listen, Charles."

"Yes," said the boy, in a low tone.

"I became acquainted with her--for when did a lover ever fail to discover the place which contained his mistress?--and I found that this young girl whom I had fallen so deeply in love with was a great heiress."

"Unhappy chance!" exclaimed the boy; "I understand easily that this threw an ignoble obstacle in the way. Her friends----"

"No--there you are mistaken, Charles," said Mowbray "the obstacle was from herself."

"Did she not love you?"

Mowbray smiled sadly.

"You say that in a tone of great surprise," he replied; "there is scarcely ground for such astonishment."

"I should think any woman might love you," murmured the boy.

Mowbray smiled again as sadly as before, and said:

"Well, I see you are determined to make me your devoted friend, by reaching my heart through my vanity. But let me continue. I said that the obstacles in my way were not objections on the part of Philippa's friends--that was her name, Philippa: do not ask me more."

"No," said the boy.

"The barrier was her own nature. I had mistaken it; in the height of my pride I had dreamed that my vision had pierced to the bottom of her nature, to the inmost recesses of her heart: I was mistaken. I had gazed upon the woman, throwing the heiress out of the question; you see I was hopelessly enslaved by the woman before dreaming of the heiress," he added, with a melancholy smile.

Hoffland made no reply.

"Now I come to the end, and I shall not detain you much longer from the moral. I visited her repeatedly. I found more to admire than I expected even--more to be repelled by, however, than my mind had prepared me for. I found this young girl with many noble qualities--but these qualities seemed to me obscured by her eternal consciousness of riches: her suspicion, in itself an unwomanly trait, was intense."

"Oh, sir!" cried the boy, "but surely there is some excuse! Of course," he added, with an effort to control his feelings, "I do not know Miss Philippa, but assuredly a young girl who is cursed with great wealth must discriminate between those who love her for herself and those who come to woo her because she is wealthy. Oh, believe me, it is, it must be very painful to be wealthy, to have to suspect and doubt--to run the hazard of wounding some noble nature, who may be by chance among the sordid crowd who come to kneel to her because she is an heiress--who would turn their backs upon her were she portionless. Indeed, we should excuse much."

"Yes," said Mowbray, "and you defend the cause of heiresses well. But let me come back to my narrative. The suspicion of this young girl was immense--as her fortune was. That fortune chilled me whenever I thought of it. I did not want it. I could have married her--I had quite enough for both. Heaven decreed that she should be wealthy, however--that the glitter of gold should blind her heart--that she should suspect my motives. Do not understand me to say that she placed any value upon that wealth herself. No; I believe she despised, almost regretted it: but still, who can tell? At least I love her too much still to hazard what may be unjust--ah! the cinder is not cold."

And Mowbray's head drooped. They walked on in silence.

"Well, well," he continued at length, "I saw her often. I could not strangle my feelings. I loved her--in spite of her wealth--not on account of it. But gradually my sentiment moderated: like a whip of scorpions, this suspicion she felt struck me, wounding my heart and inflaming my pride. I tried to stay away; I dragged through life for a week without seeing her; then, impelled by a violent impulse, I went to her again, armed with an impassible pride, and determined to converse upon the most indifferent subjects--to test her nature fully, and--to make the test complete--bend all the energies of my mind to the task of weighing her words, her looks, her tones, that I might make a final decision. Well, she almost distinctly intimated, fifteen minutes after our interview commenced, that I was a fortune-hunter whom she regarded with a mixture of amusement and contempt."

"Oh, sir! could it have been that you----"

The boy stopped.

"How unhappy she must be--to have to suspect such noble natures as your own," he added in a low voice.

Mowbray turned away his head; then by a powerful effort went on.

"You shall judge, Charles," he said in a voice which he mastered only by a struggle; "you shall say whether I am correct in my opinion of her thoughts. She asked me plainly if I was poor; to which question I replied with a single word--'Very.' Next, did I hope to become rich! I did hope so. Her advice then was, she said, that I should marry some heiress, since that was a surer and more rapid means than law or politics. She said it very satirically, and with a glance which killed my love----"

"Oh, sir!" the boy murmured.

"Yes; and though I was calm, my face not paler, I believe, than usual, I was led to say what I bitterly regret--not because it was untrue, for it was not, rather was it profoundly true--but because it might have been misunderstood. It was disgraceful to marry for mere wealth, I said; and I added, 'too expensive'--since unhappiness at any price was dear. I added that money would never purchase my own heart--school-boy fashion, you perceive; and then I left her--never to return."

A long silence followed these words. Mowbray then added calmly:

"You deduce from this narrative, Charles, one lesson. Never give your affections to a woman suddenly; never make a young girl whom you do not know the queen of your heart--the fountain of your illusions and your dreams. The waking will be unpleasant; pray Heaven you may never wake as I have with a mind which is becoming sour--a heart which is learning to distrust whatever is most fair in human nature. Let us dismiss the subject now. I am glad I felt this impulse to open my heart to you, a stranger, though a friend. We often whisper into a strange ear what our closest friends would ask in vain. See, there is his Excellency's chariot with its six white horses, and look what a graceful bow he makes us!"

Mowbray walked on without betraying the least evidence of emotion. He seemed perfectly calm.