Godolphin | Page 4

don't forget you, mon cher. Ah! how we missed you at the Beefsteak!
Never shall we know again so glorious a bona vivant. You would laugh
to hear L---- attempting to echo your old jokes. But time presses: I must
be off to the House. You know what a motion it is! Would to Heaven
you were to bring it on instead of that ass T----. Adieu! I wish I could
come and see you; but it would break my heart. Can I send you any
books from Hookham's? "Yours ever, "FLAMBOROUGH."
"This is the man whom I made Secretary of State," said Vernon. "Very
well!--oh, it's very well,--very well indeed. Let me kiss thee, my girl.
Poor Constance! You will have good friends when I am dead! they will
be proud enough to be kind to Vernon's daughter, when Death has
shown them that Vernon is a loss. You are very handsome. Your poor
mother's eyes and hair--my father's splendid brow and lip; and your
figure, even now so stately! They will court you: you will have lords
and great men enough at your feet; but you will never forget this night,
nor the agony of your father's death-bed face, and the brand they have
burned in his heart. And now, Constance, give me the Bible in which
you read to me this morning: that will do:--stand away from the light
and fix your eyes on mine, and listen as if your soul were in your ears.
"When I was a young man, toiling my way to fortune through the
labours of the Bar,--prudent, cautious, indefatigable, confident of
success,--certain lords, who heard I possessed genius, and thought I
might become their tool, came to me, and besought me to enter
parliament. I told them I was poor--was lately married--that my public
ambition must not be encouraged at the expense of my private fortunes.
They answered, that they pledged themselves those fortunes should be
their care. I yielded; I deserted my profession; I obeyed their wishes; I
became famous--and a ruined man! They could not dine without me;
they could not sup without me; they could not get drunk without me; no
pleasure was sweet but in my company. What mattered it that, while I
ministered to their amusement, I was necessarily heaping debt upon
debt--accumulating miseries for future years--laying up bankruptcy,
and care, and shame, and a broken heart, and an early death? But listen,
Constance! Are you listening?--attentively?--Well! note now, I am a

just man. I do not blame my noble friends, my gentle patrons, for this.
No: if I were forgetful of my interests, if I preferred their pleasure to
my happiness and honour, that was any crime, and I deserve the
punishment! But, look you,--time went by, and my constitution was
broken; debts came upon me; I could not pay; men mistrusted my word;
my name in the country fell: With my health, my genius deserted me; I
was no longer useful to my party; I lost my seat in parliament; and
when I was on a sick-bed--you remember it, Constancy--the bailiffs
came, and tore me away for a paltry debt--the value of one of those
suppers the Prince used to beg me to give him. From that time my
familiars forsook me!--not a visit, not a kind act, not a service for him
whose day of work was over! 'Poor Vernon's character was gone!
Shockingly involved--could not perform his promises to his
creditors--always so extravagant--quite unprincipled--must give him
up!'
"In those sentences lies the secret of their conduct. They did not
remember that for them, by them, the character was gone, the promises
broken, the ruin incurred! They thought not how I had served them;
how my best years had been devoted to advance them--to ennoble their
cause in the lying page of History! All this was not thought of: my life
was reduced to two epochs--that of use to them--that not. During the
first, I was honoured; during the last, I was left to starve--to rot! Who
freed me from prison?--who protects me now? One of my 'party'--my
'noble friends'--my 'honourable, right honourable friends'? No! a
tradesman whom I once served in my holyday, and who alone, of all
the world, forgets me not in my penance. You see gratitude, friendship,
spring up only in middle life; they grow not in high stations!
"And now, come nearer, for my voice falters, and I would have these
words distinctly heard. Child, girl as you are--you I consider pledged to
record, to fulfil my desire--my curse! Lay your hand on mine: swear
that through life to death,--swear! You speak not! repeat my words
after me:"--Constance obeyed:--"through life to death; through good,
through ill, through weakness, through power, you will devote yourself
to humble, to abase that party