Godolphin | Page 6

her the elements of the two
great languages of the ancient world. The treasures of those languages
she afterwards conquered of her own accord.
Lady Erpingham had one daughter, who married when Constance had
reached the age of sixteen. The advantages Lady Eleanor Erpingham
possessed in her masters and her governess Constance shared. Miss
Vernon drew well, and sang divinely; but she made no very great
proficiency in the science of music. To say truth, her mind was
somewhat too stern, and somewhat too intent on other subjects, to
surrender to that most jealous of accomplishments the exclusive
devotion it requires.
But of all her attractions, and of all the evidences of her cultivated mind,
none equalled the extraordinary grace of her conversation. Wholly
disregarding the conventional leading-strings in which the minds of
young ladies are accustomed to be held--leading-strings, disguised by
the name of "proper diffidence" and "becoming modesty,"--she never
scrupled to share, nay, to lead, discussions even of a grave and solid
nature. Still less did she scruple to adorn the common trifles that make
the sum of conversation with the fascinations of a wit, which, playful,
yet deep, rivalled even the paternal source from which it was inherited.

It seems sometimes odd enough to me, that while young ladies are so
sedulously taught the accomplishments that a husband disregards, they
are never taught the great one he would prize. They are taught to be
_exhibitors_; he wants a companion. He wants neither a singing animal,
nor a drawing animal, nor a dancing animal: he wants a talking animal.
But to talk they are never taught; all they know of conversation is
slander, and that "comes by nature."
But Constance did talk _beautifully_; not like a pedant, or a blue, or a
Frenchwoman. A child would have been as much charmed with her as a
scholar; but both would have been charmed. Her father's eloquence had
descended to her; but in him eloquence commanded, in her it won.
There was another trait she possessed in common with her father:
Vernon (as most disappointed men are wont) had done the world
injustice by his accusations. It was not his poverty and his distresses
alone which had induced his party to look coolly on his declining day.
They were not without some apparent excuse for desertion--they
doubted his sincerity. It is true that it was without actual cause. No
modern politician had ever been more consistent. He had refused bribes,
though poor; and place, though ambitious. But he was essentially--here
is the secret--essentially an intriguant. Bred in the old school of policy,
he thought that manoeuvring was wisdom, and duplicity the art of
governing. Like Lysander,[1] he loved plotting, yet neglected
self-interest. There was not a man less open, or more honest. This
character, so rare in all countries, is especially so in England. Your
blunt squires, your politicians at Bellamy's, do not comprehend it. They
saw in Vernon the arts which deceive enemies, and they dreaded lest,
though his friends, they themselves should be deceived. This
disposition, so fatal to Vernon, his daughter inherited. With a dark,
bold, and passionate genius, which in a man would have led to the
highest enterprises, she linked the feminine love of secrecy and
scheming. To borrow again from Plutarch and Lysander, "When the
skin of the lion fell short, she was quite of opinion that it should be
eked out with the fox's."
[1] Plutarch's Life of Lysander.

CHAPTER III.
THE HERO INTRODUCED TO OUR READER'S
NOTICE.--DIALOGUE BETWEEN HIMSELF AND HIS
FATHER.--PERCY GODOLPHIN's CHARACTER AS A BOY.--THE
CATASTROPHE OF HIS SCHOOL LIFE.
"Percy, remember that it is to-morrow you will return to school," said
Mr. Godolphin to his only son.
Percy pouted, and after a momentary silence replied, "No, father, I
think I shall go to Mr. Saville's. He has asked me to spend a month with
him; and he says rightly that I shall learn more with him than at Dr.
Shallowell's, where I am already head of the sixth form."
"Mr. Saville is a coxcomb, and you are another!" replied the father,
who, dressed in an old flannel dressing-gown, with a worn velvet cap
on his head, and cowering gloomily over a wretched fire, seemed no
bad personification of that mixture of half-hypochondriac, half-miser,
which he was in reality. "Don't talk to me of going to town, sir, or--"
"Father," interrupted Percy, in a cool and nonchalant tone, as he folded
his arms, and looked straight and shrewdly on the paternal face--"father,
let us understand each other. My schooling, I suppose, is rather an
expensive affair?"
"You may well say that, sir! Expensive!--It is frightful, horrible,
ruinous!--Expensive! Twenty pounds a year board and Latin; five
guineas washing; five more for writing and arithmetic. Sir, if I were not
resolved that you should