THE MOTHER AND SON.—VIRTUE SHOULD BE THE SOVEREIGN OF THE FEELINGS, NOT THEIR DESTROYER.
I TOOK the first opportunity to escape from the good company who were so divided in opinion as to my mental accomplishments, and repaired to my mother; for whom, despite of her evenness of disposition, verging towards insensibility, I felt a powerful and ineffaceable affection. Indeed, if purity of life, rectitude of intentions, and fervour of piety can win love, none ever deserved it more than she. It was a pity that, with such admirable qualities, she had not more diligently cultivated her 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 and so carefully repressed in her heart every attempt of the forbidden fruit to put forth a single blossom, that the soil seemed at last to have become incapable of bearing it. If, in one corner of this barren but sacred spot, some green and tender verdure of affection did exist, it was, with a partial and petty reserve for my twin-brother, kept exclusive, and consecrated to Aubrey. His congenial habits of pious silence and rigid devotion; his softness of temper; his utter freedom from all boyish excesses, joined to his almost angelic beauty,—a quality which, in no female heart, is ever without its value,—were exactly calculated to attract her sympathy, and work themselves into her love. Gerald was also regular in his habits, attentive to devotion, and had, from an early period, been high in the favour of her spiritual director. Gerald, too, if he had not the delicate and dream-like beauty of Aubrey, possessed attractions of a more masculine and decided order; and for Gerald, therefore, the Countess gave the little of love that she could spare from Aubrey. To me she manifested the most utter indifference. My difficult and fastidious temper; my sarcastic turn of mind; my violent and headstrong passions; my daring, reckless and, when roused, almost ferocious nature,—all, especially, revolted the even and polished and quiescent character of my maternal parent. The little extravagances of my childhood seemed to her pure and inexperienced mind the crimes of a heart naturally distorted and evil; my jesting vein, which, though it never, even in the wantonness of youth, attacked the substances of good, seldom respected its semblances and its forms, she considered as the effusions of malignity; and even the bursts of love, kindness, and benevolence, which were by no means unfrequent in my wild and motley character, were so foreign to her stillness of temperament that they only revolted her by their violence, instead of affecting her by their warmth.
Nor did she like me the better for the mutual understanding between my uncle and myself. On the contrary, shocked by the idle and gay turn of the knight’s conversation, the frivolities of his mind, and his heretical disregard for the forms of the religious sect which she so zealously espoused, she was utterly insensible to the points which redeemed and ennobled his sterling and generous character; utterly obtuse to his warmth of heart,—his overflowing kindness of disposition,—his charity,—his high honour,—his justice of principle, that nothing save benevolence could warp,—and the shrewd, penetrating sense, 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 temper something so gentle, meek, and unupbraiding, that even the sense of injustice lost its sting, and one could not help loving the softness of her character, while one was most chilled by its frigidity. Anger, hope, fear, the faintest breath or sign of passion, never seemed to stir the breezeless languor of her feelings; and quiet was so inseparable from her image that I have almost thought, like that people described by Herodotus, 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 her cold and unaffectionate glance! How (unnoticed and uncared for) have I watched and prayed and wept without her door when a transitory sickness or suffering detained her within; and how, when stretched myself upon the feverish bed to which my early weakness of frame often condemned me,—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 me as she approached! and then, as I heard her cold tone and looked upon her unmoved face, how bitterly have I turned away with all that repressed and crushed affection which was construed into sullenness or disrespect! O mighty and enduring force of early associations, that almost seems, in its unconquerable strength, to partake of an innate prepossession, that binds the son to the mother who concealed him in her womb and purchased life for him with the travail of death?—fountain of filial love, which coldness cannot freeze, nor injustice embitter, nor pride divert into fresh channels, nor time, and the hot suns of our toiling manhood, exhaust,—even at this moment, how livingly do you gush upon my heart, and water with your divine waves the memories that yet flourish amidst the sterility of years?
I approached the apartments appropriated to my mother: I knocked at her door; one of her women admitted me. The Countess was sitting on a high-backed chair, curiously adorned with tapestry. Her feet, which were remarkable for their beauty, were upon a velvet cushion; three hand-maids stood round her, and she herself was busily employed in a piece of delicate embroidery, an art in which she eminently excelled.
“The Count, Madam!” said the woman who had admitted me, placing a chair beside my mother, and then retiring to join her sister maidens.
“Good day to you, my son,” said the Countess, lifting her eyes for a moment, and then dropping them again upon her work.
“I have come to seek you, dearest mother, as I know not, if, among the crowd of guests and amusements which surround us, I shall enjoy another opportunity of having a private conversation with you: will it please you 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 your reason?”
“I leave you to-morrow, Madam: is it strange that a son should wish to see 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 your attendants?”
“If you wish it, certainly; but I dislike feeling alone, especially in these large rooms; nor did I think being unattended quite consistent with our rank: however, I never contradict you, my son,” and the Countess 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 which you will commission me to obtain for you?”
The Countess again raised her eyes from her work. “I am greatly obliged to you, my dear son; this is a very delicate attention on your part. I am informed that stomachers are worn a thought less pointed than they were. I care not, you well know, for such vanities; but respect for the memory of your illustrious father renders me desirous to retain a seemly appearance to the world, and my women shall give you written instructions thereon to Madame Tourville; she lives in St. James’s Street, and is the only person to be employed in these matters. She is a woman who has known misfortune, and appreciates the sorrowful and subdued tastes of those whom an exalted station has not preserved from like 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? pray forgive my troubling you, but you would send away the women. Join the army, you say? It is a very dangerous profession; your poor father might be alive now but for having embraced it; nevertheless, in a righteous cause, under the Lord of Hosts, there is great glory to be obtained beneath its banners. Alas, however, for its private evils! alas, for the orphan and the widow! You will be sure, my dear son, to give the note to Madame Tourville herself? Her assistants have not her knowledge of my misfortunes, nor indeed of my exact proportions; and at my age, and in my desolate state, I would fain be decorous in these things, and that reminds me of dinner. Have you aught else to say, Morton?”
“Yes!” said I, suppressing my emotions, “yes, Mother! do bestow on me one warm wish, one kind word, before we part: see,—I kneel for your blessing,—will you not give it me?”
“Bless you, my child,—bless you! look you now; I have dropped my needle!”
I rose hastily, bowed profoundly (my mother returned the courtesy with the grace peculiar to herself), and withdrew. I hurried into the great drawing-room, found Lady Needleham alone, rushed out in despair, encountered the Lady Hasselton, and coquetted with her the rest of the evening. Vain hope! to forget one’s real feelings by pretending those one 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 it not been for the presence of the Lady Hasselton, I could have returned with interest; and after a long caress to his dog Ponto, which now, in parting with that dear old man, seemed to me as dog never seemed before, I hurried into the Beauty’s carriage, bade farewell forever to the Rubicon of Life, and commenced my career of manhood and citizenship by learning, under the tuition of the prettiest coquette of her time, the dignified duties of a Court Gallant and a Town Beau.
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