Lucretia — Complete. Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон
Читать онлайн книгу.
whist-players: “If you had but trumped that diamond, ma’am!” “Bless me, sir, it was the best heart!” And somehow or other, both the laughter and the exclamations affected him alike with what then was called “the spleen,”—for the one reminded him of his own young days of joyless, careless mirth, of which his mechanical gayety now was but a mocking ghost; and the other seemed a satire, a parody, on the fierce but noiseless rapture of gaming, through which his passions had passed, when thousands had slipped away with a bland smile, provoking not one of those natural ebullitions of emotion which there accompanied the loss of a shilling point. And besides this, Vernon had been so accustomed to the success of the drawing-room, to be a somebody and a something in the company of wits and princes, that he felt, for the first time, a sense of insignificance in this provincial circle. Those fat squires had heard nothing of Mr. Vernon, except that he would not have Laughton,—he had no acres, no vote in their county; he was a nobody to them. Those ruddy maidens, though now and then, indeed, one or two might steal an admiring glance at a figure of elegance so unusual, regarded him not with the female interest he had been accustomed to inspire. They felt instinctively that he could be nothing to them, nor they to him,—a mere London fop, and not half so handsome as Squires Bluff and Chuff.
Rousing himself from this little vexation to his vanity with a conscious smile at his own weakness, Vernon turned his looks towards the door, waiting for Lucretia’s entrance, and since her uncle’s address to him, feeling that new and indescribable interest in her appearance which is apt to steal into every breast when what was before but an indifferent acquaintance, is suddenly enhaloed with the light of a possible wife. At length the door opened, and Lucretia entered. Mr. Vernon lowered his book, and gazed with an earnestness that partook both of doubt and admiration.
Lucretia Clavering was tall,—tall beyond what is admitted to be tall in woman; but in her height there was nothing either awkward or masculine,—a figure more perfect never served for model to a sculptor. The dress at that day, unbecoming as we now deem it, was not to her—at least, on the whole disadvantageous. The short waist gave greater sweep to her majestic length of limb, while the classic thinness of the drapery betrayed the exact proportion and the exquisite contour. The arms then were worn bare almost to the shoulder, and Lucretia’s arms were not more faultless in shape than dazzling in their snowy colour; the stately neck, the falling shoulders, the firm, slight, yet rounded bust,—all would have charmed equally the artist and the sensualist. Fortunately, the sole defect of her form was not apparent at a distance: that defect was in the hand; it had not the usual faults of female youthfulness,—the superfluity of flesh, the too rosy healthfulness of colour,—on the contrary, it was small and thin; but it was, nevertheless, more the hand of a man than a woman: the shape had a man’s nervous distinctness, the veins swelled like sinews, the joints of the fingers were marked and prominent. In that hand it almost seemed as if the iron force of the character betrayed itself. But, as we have said, this slight defect, which few, if seen, would hypercritically notice, could not, of course, be perceptible as she moved slowly up the room; and Vernon’s eye, glancing over the noble figure, rested upon the face. Was it handsome? Was it repelling? Strange that in feature it had pretensions to the highest order of beauty, and yet even that experienced connoisseur in female charms was almost as puzzled what sentence to pronounce. The hair, as was the fashion of the day, clustered in profuse curls over the forehead, but could not conceal a slight line or wrinkle between the brows; and this line, rare in women at any age, rare even in men at hers, gave an expression at once of thought and sternness to the whole face. The eyebrows themselves were straight, and not strongly marked, a shade or two perhaps too light,—a fault still more apparent in the lashes; the eyes were large, full, and though bright, astonishingly calm and deep,—at least in ordinary moments; yet withal they wanted the charm of that steadfast and open look which goes at once to the heart and invites its trust,—their expression was rather vague and abstracted. She usually looked aslant while she spoke, and this, which with some appears but shyness, in one so self-collected had an air of falsehood. But when, at times, if earnest, and bent rather on examining those she addressed than guarding herself from penetration, she fixed those eyes upon you with sudden and direct scrutiny, the gaze impressed you powerfully, and haunted you with a strange spell. The eye itself was of a peculiar and displeasing colour,—not blue, nor gray, nor black, nor hazel, but rather of that cat-like green which is drowsy in the light, and vivid in the shade. The profile was purely Greek, and so seen, Lucretia’s beauty seemed incontestable; but in front face, and still more when inclined between the two, all the features took a sharpness that, however regular, had something chilling and severe: the mouth was small, but the lips were thin and pale, and had an expression of effort and contraction which added to the distrust that her sidelong glance was calculated to inspire. The teeth were dazzlingly white, but sharp and thin, and the eye-teeth were much longer than the rest. The complexion was pale, but without much delicacy,—the paleness seemed not natural to it, but rather that hue which study and late vigils give to men; so that she wanted the freshness and bloom of youth, and looked older than she was,—an effect confirmed by an absence of roundness in the cheek not noticeable in the profile, but rendering the front face somewhat harsh as well as sharp. In a word, the face and the figure were not in harmony: the figure prevented you from pronouncing her to be masculine; the face took from the figure the charm of feminacy. It was the head of the young Augustus upon the form of Agrippina. One touch more, and we close a description which already perhaps the reader may consider frivolously minute. If you had placed before the mouth and lower part of the face a mask or bandage, the whole character of the upper face would have changed at once,—the eye lost its glittering falseness, the brow its sinister contraction; you would have pronounced the face not only beautiful, but sweet and womanly. Take that bandage suddenly away and the change would have startled you, and startled you the more because you could detect no sufficient defect or disproportion in the lower part of the countenance to explain it. It was as if the mouth was the key to the whole: the key nothing without the text, the text uncomprehended without the key.
Such, then, was Lucretia Clavering in outward appearance at the age of twenty,—striking to the most careless eye; interesting and perplexing the student in that dark language never yet deciphered,—the human countenance. The reader must have observed that the effect every face that he remarks for the first time produces is different from the impression it leaves upon him when habitually seen. Perhaps no two persons differ more from each other than does the same countenance in our earliest recollection of it from the countenance regarded in the familiarity of repeated intercourse. And this was especially the case with Lucretia Clavering’s: the first impulse of nearly all who beheld it was distrust that partook of fear; it almost inspired you with a sense of danger. The judgment rose up against it; the heart set itself on its guard. But this uneasy sentiment soon died away, with most observers, in admiration at the chiselled outline, which, like the Grecian sculpture, gained the more the more it was examined, in respect for the intellectual power of the expression, and in fascinated pleasure at the charm of a smile, rarely employed, it is true, but the more attractive both for that reason and for its sudden effect in giving brightness and persuasion to an aspect that needed them so much. It was literally like the abrupt breaking out of a sunbeam; and the repellent impression of the face thus familiarized away, the matchless form took its natural influence; so that while one who but saw Lucretia for a moment might have pronounced her almost plain, and certainly not prepossessing in appearance, those with whom she lived, those whom she sought to please, those who saw her daily, united in acknowledgment of her beauty; and if they still felt awe, attributed it only to the force of her understanding.
As she now came midway up the room, Gabriel started from his seat and ran to her caressingly. Lucretia bent down, and placed her hand upon his fair locks. As she did so, he whispered,—
“Mr. Vernon has been watching for you.”
“Hush! Where is your father?”
“Behind the screen, at chess with Sir Miles.”
“With Sir Miles!” and Lucretia’s eye fell, with the direct gaze we have before referred to, upon the boy’s face.
“I have been looking over them pretty often,” said he, meaningly: “they have talked of nothing but the game.” Lucretia lifted her head, and glanced round with her furtive eye; the boy divined the search,