Godolphin | Page 4

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 from whom your father received ingratitude, mortification, and death! Swear that you will not marry a poor and powerless man, who cannot minister to the ends of that solemn retribution I invoke! Swear that you will seek to marry from amongst the great; not through love,