She moved my envy. Yes—base, mean, low, unartistic, degrading as is this passion, I felt it rise up like a snake in my breast when I saw that feeble woman. She was splendidly dressed—wrapped in furs of the most costly kind, trailing behind; her velvets and lace worth a countess's dowry. She was attended by obsequious menials; surrounded by luxuries; her compartment of the carriage was a perfect palace in all the accessories which it was possible to collect in so small a space; and it seemed as though 'Cleopatra's cup' would have been no impracticable draught for her. She gave me more fully the impression of luxury, than any person I had ever met with before; and I thought I had reason when I envied her.
She was lifted into the carriage carefully; carefully swathed in her splendid furs and lustrous velvets; and placed gently, like a wounded bird, in her warm nest of down. But she moved languidly, and fretfully thrust aside her servants' busy hands, indifferent to her comforts, and annoyed by her very blessings. I looked into her face: it was a strange face, which had once been beautiful; but ill-health, and care, and grief, had marked it now with deep lines, and coloured it with unnatural tints. Tears had washed out the roses from her cheeks, and set large purple rings about her eyes; the mouth was hard and pinched, but the eyelids swollen; while the crossed wrinkles on her brow told the same tale of grief grown petulant, and of pain grown soured, as the thin lip, quivering and querulous, and the nervous hand, never still and never strong.
The train-bell rang, the whistle sounded, the lady's servitors stood bareheaded and courtesying to the ground, and the rapid rush of the iron giant bore off the high-born dame and the starveling painter in strange companionship. Unquiet and unresting—now shifting her place—now letting down the glass for the cold air to blow full upon her withered face—then drawing it up, and chafing her hands and feet by the warm-water apparatus concealed in her chauffe-pied, while shivering as if in an ague-fit—sighing deeply—lost in thought—wildly looking out and around for distraction—she soon made me ask myself whether my envy of her was as true as deep sympathy and pity would have been.
'But her wealth—her wealth!' I thought. 'True she may suffer, but how gloriously she is solaced! She may weep, but the angels of social life wipe off her tears with perfumed linen, gold embroidered; she may grieve, but her grief makes her joys so much the more blissful. Ah! she is to be envied after all!—envied, while I, a very beggar, might well scorn my place now!'
Something of this might have been in my face, as I offered my sick companion some small attention—I forget what—gathering up one of her luxurious trifles, or arranging her cushions. She seemed almost to read my thoughts as her eyes rested on my melancholy face; and saying abruptly: 'I fear you are unhappy, young man?' she settled herself in her place like a person prepared to listen to a pleasant tale.
'I am unfortunate, madam,' I answered.
'Unfortunate?' she said impatiently. 'What! with youth and health, can you call yourself unfortunate? When the whole world lies untried before you, and you still live in the golden atmosphere of hope, can you pamper yourself with sentimental sorrows? Fie upon you!—fie upon you! What are your sorrows compared with mine?'
'I am ignorant of yours, madam,' I said respectfully; 'but I know my own; and, knowing them, I can speak of their weight and bitterness. By your very position, you cannot undergo the same kind of distress as that overwhelming me at this moment: you may have evils in your path of life, but they cannot equal mine.'
'Can anything equal the evils of ruined health and a desolated hearth?' she cried, still in the same impatient manner. 'Can the worst griefs of wayward youth equal the bitterness of that cup which you drink at such a time of life as forbids all hope of after-assuagement? Can the first disappointment of a strong heart rank with the terrible desolation of a wrecked old age? You think because you see about me the evidences of wealth, that I must be happy. Young man, I tell you truly, I would gladly give up every farthing of my princely fortune, and be reduced to the extreme of want, to bring back from the grave the dear ones lying there, or pour into my veins one drop of the bounding blood of health and energy which used to make life a long play-hour of delight. Once, no child in the fields, no bird in the sky, was more blessed than I; and what am I now?—a sickly, lonely old woman, whose nerves are shattered and whose heart is broken, without hope or happiness on the earth! Even death has passed me by in forgetfulness and scorn!'
Her voice betrayed the truth of her emotion. Still, with an accent of bitterness and complaint, rather than of simple sorrow, it was the voice of one fighting against her fate, more than of one suffering acutely and in despair: it was petulant rather than melancholy; angry rather than grieving; shewing that her trials had hardened, not softened her heart.
'Listen to me,' she then said, laying her hand on my arm, 'and perhaps my history may reconcile you to the childish depression, from what cause soever it may be, under which you are labouring. You are young and strong, and can bear any amount of pain as yet: wait until you reach my age, and then you will know the true meaning of the word despair! I am rich, as you may see,' she continued, pointing to her surroundings—'in truth, so rich that I take no account either of my income or my expenditure. I have never known life under any other form; I have never known what it was to be denied the gratification of one desire which wealth could purchase, or obliged to calculate the cost of a single undertaking. I can scarcely realise the idea of poverty. I see that all people do not live in the same style as myself, but I cannot understand that it is from inability: it always seems to me to be from their own disinclination. I tell you, I cannot fully realise the idea of poverty; and you think this must make me happy, perhaps?' she added sharply, looking full in my face.
'I should be happy, madam, if I were rich,' I replied. 'Suffering now from the strain of poverty, it is no marvel if I place an undue value on plenty.'
'Yet see what it does for me!' continued my companion. 'Does it give me back my husband, my brave boys, my beautiful girl? Does it give rest to this weary heart, or relief to this aching head? Does it soothe my mind or heal my body? No! It but oppresses me, like a heavy robe thrown round weakened limbs: it is even an additional misfortune, for if I were poor, I should be obliged to think of other things beside myself and my woes; sand the very mental exertion necessary to sustain my position would lighten my miseries. I have seen my daughter wasting year by year and day by day, under the warm sky of the south—under the warm care of love! Neither climate nor affection could save her: every effort was made—the best advice procured—the latest panacea adopted; but to no effect. Her life was prolonged, certainly; but this simply means, that she was three years in dying, instead of three months. She was a gloriously lovely creature, like a fair young saint for beauty and purity—quite an ideal thing, with her golden hair and large blue eyes! She was my only girl—my youngest, my darling, my best treasure! My first real sorrow—now fifteen years ago—was when I saw her laid, on her twenty-first birthday, in the English burial-ground at Madeira. It is on the gravestone, that she died of consumption: would that it had been added—and her mother of grief! From the day of her death, my happiness left me!'