# Ethel Churchill/Chapter 89

CHAPTER XIII.
A DECLARATION.
I cannot choose, but marvel at the way In which we pass our lives from day to day; Learning strange lessons in the human heart; And yet, like shadows, letting them depart. Is misery so familiar, that we bring Ourselves to view it as "a usual thing?" We do too little feel each other's pain; We do too much relax the social chain That binds us to each other; slight the care There is for grief, in which we have no share.
Amid the many contrasts produced by our forced unions of nature and art, there is no contrast so strange as that between the exterior and the internal world of society. It would seem as if the one existed only to give the lie to the other. The one—so dark, so deep, so difficult of access; the other—so covered with glittering falsehoods, and all ​seeming so smooth and so easy. Only an occasional sarcasm reveals the unquiet of the subdued, but feverish heart. Nothing could be gayer in appearance than the little circle assembled at Lady Harvey's villa. It was a very warm evening; and the moonlight turned the Thames to an unbroken mirror of silver, and gave to the soft shadows of the shrubs, and the creepers that wound among the trellises, an appearance almost Italian. Watteau might have painted the group on the lawn; and, assuredly, Lady Marchmont, Lady Mary Wortley, and Miss Churchill, were each exquisite specimens of different styles of beauty.
"I am not sure," exclaimed Lady Mary, "that I like moonlight; it makes one look so pale."
"Well, if it does," returned Sir George Kingston, glancing at Lady Marchmont, whose regular features seemed outlined on the air like those of a statue,—
"'Paleur qui marque une ame tendre A bien son prix.'"
Lady Mary observed the look, and it put ​her in what is best expressed by an ill-humour. Her liking for Henrietta had long since passed away; jealousy had, as usual, been followed by envy, whose companion is sure to be dislike. She had not yet forgiven her for Lord Harvey; and now there was Sir George Kingston, whose homage she had quite resolved on making her own.
"Une ame tendre" said she: which, being translated into plain English, means 'a tender heart.' "Why, instead of coming from Paris, I shall believe you come from Utopia. There are no hearts in our world."
"For 'ours,' say 'yours,'" replied Sir George.
"No; I mean what I say," interrupted Lady Mary.
"An unusual occurrence," muttered Lord Harvey.
Without attending to the remark, Lady Mary went on.
"We might have had hearts in our cradles; but, as I don't pretend to remember mine, I cannot say. Perhaps at sixteen, too, there is ​a sort of imagination of one; but it is a phantom which flits at the cockcrowing of reality. We soon learn,
'That the worth of any thing Is just as much as it will bring:'
and we value a lover by the estimate of others, not by our own. Our own suffrage is nothing."
"This is making love a mere question of vanity," said Henrietta.
"A question, my dear, I should have thought you could have answered as well as any one," returned Lady Mary. "Love is society's Alexander the Great, only intent on making conquests; and we care for no captives but those who follow the track of our triumphs in chains."
"I utterly disagree with you," exclaimed Henrietta; "I have always thought mystery the very atmosphere of love!"
"Oh! you would like a cavalier, with the dramatic accompaniments of moonlight and mask. Well, the two first are quite ready; ​and," added she, with her peculiar sneer, "I dare say Lady Harvey could furnish a mask."
"I think," retorted her ladyship, who cared little what she said, "a muzzle seems more necessary."
"But to resume a subject," said Sir George, "which, whether it be felt or not, is universally interesting. Why, if there be no such thing as love, do we all affect to believe in it?"
"Pray," replied Lady Mary, "don't ask me to account for human inconsistency. Why do people, who would never look at a picture by themselves, pretend to a taste for art?"
"But," interrupted Lady Marchmont, "because some affect a taste, that is no reason that there should not be many who really have it. I, for one, believe both in love, and the love of art."
"Charming credulity!" exclaimed the other:
"'Catch, ere she change, the Cynthia of the minute!'
but we all know that you are
'Every thing by fits, and nothing long.'"
"It is quite curious to observe," said Lady Harvey, "how accurately you remember all Pope's lines. I do believe that he was your grande passion; and that you only gave him up for the sake of appearances, which, I admit were not in his favour."
This was a disagreeable subject—one woman always knows how to plague another; but it had the desired effect: the conversation languished, and the party began to disperse about the garden.
"How very lovely the river is just now, with its dark ripples growing so silvery wherever the moonlight touches them!" exclaimed Lady Marchmont.
"Lovely, indeed!" said her companion; but she saw that her companion's gaze was fixed upon herself. "Perhaps, from having always stayed so quietly in England," said she, at last, to break a silence, growing every moment more embarrassing,—"I may exaggerate its delight; but I have the greatest wish to see foreign countries. Did you enjoy travelling much?"
​ "I never," whispered Sir George, "knew what enjoyment was till this moment."
"A very pretty piece of flattery," replied Henrietta, trying to laugh it off; "but not true."
"You feel it to be true," replied he: "I cannot talk to you as I do to other women."
Ah, how subtle is the flattery which at once separates you from the rest of your sex!
"Do you know," continued he, "I sometimes think I fear you?"
"Fear me!" exclaimed Lady Marchmont.
"Yes," returned he, in a low, earnest tone: "or, rather, I should fear you, did I not see how different you are to the gay, the careless triflers around you. Do you think that I could talk to Lady Mary as I talk to you?—she would not understand me."
"Yet, how clever she is!" replied Lady Marchmont.
"And so are you," continued her companion; "but you have, what she has not, a heart—a heart full of all high and kindly qualities."
​ "Oh, pray, go on! it is," said she, smiling, "so pleasant to hear one's own praises."
"Ah!" exclaimed Sir George, "do not, even for one moment, imitate her, in laughing at all that is serious and true."
It was not pleasant to be supposed imitating Lady Mary, so Henrietta was silent; and her companion continued:—
"I said that I feared you—ah, beautiful, beloved, as you are!—and you know it!" exclaimed he, passionately, interrupting the words he saw trembling on her lip. "It is no light thing to know that all control over my own happiness is gone from me for ever; that my very life depends upon your will."
And what did Henrietta say? Nothing; but she listened.
They were soon rejoined by the society; and Lady Marchmont strove to still the reproach, which would make itself heard, by forcing the gayest spirits: affection became suddenly matter of the lightest raillery.
It is said that ridicule is the test of truth: it is never applied, but when we wish to ​deceive ourselves; when, if we cannot exclude the light, we are fain to draw a curtain before it. The sneer springs out of the wish to deny; and wretched must be the state of that mind which desires to take refuge in doubt! But the instinct of right and wrong is immutable; all other voices may be silenced, but not that in ourselves.