diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4410.txt | 4083 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4410.zip | bin | 0 -> 80488 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
5 files changed, 4099 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4410.txt b/4410.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9e8e13 --- /dev/null +++ b/4410.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4083 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel by Meredith, v5 +#16 in our series by George Meredith + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. Do not change or edit it without written permission. +The words are carefully chosen to provide users with the +information they need to understand what they may and may not +do with the etext. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These Etexts Are Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get etexts, and +further information, is included below. We need your donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 + + + +Title: The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, v5 + +Author: George Meredith + +Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4410] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on December 28, 2001] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Project Gutenberg Etext The Ordeal of Richard Feverel by Meredith, v5 +********This file should be named 4410.txt or 4410.zip********* + +This etext was produced by Pat Castevans <patcat@ctnet.net> +and David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep etexts in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our etexts one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our sites at: +https://gutenberg.org or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +etexts, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2001 as we release over 50 new Etext +files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 4000+ +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third +of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 4,000 Etexts. We need +funding, as well as continued efforts by volunteers, to maintain +or increase our production and reach our goals. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of November, 2001, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, +Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, +Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, +Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, +Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, +Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in about 45 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +All donations should be made to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fundraising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fundraising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etexts, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by Pat Castevans <patcat@ctnet.net> +and David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL + +By George Meredith + +1905 + + + +BOOK 5. + +XXXIV. CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE +XXXV. CLARE'S MARRIAGE +XXXVI. A DINNER-PARTY AT RICHMOND +XXXVII. MRS. BERRY ON MATRIMONY +XXXVIII. AN ENCHANTRESS + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + + +It was the month of July. The Solent ran up green waves before a full- +blowing South-wester. Gay little yachts bounded out like foam, and +flashed their sails, light as sea-nymphs. A crown of deep Summer blue +topped the flying mountains of cloud. + +By an open window that looked on the brine through nodding roses, our +young bridal pair were at breakfast, regaling worthily, both of them. +Had the Scientific Humanist observed them, he could not have contested +the fact, that as a couple who had set up to be father and mother of +Britons, they were doing their duty. Files of egg-cups with +disintegrated shells bore witness to it, and they were still at work, +hardly talking from rapidity of exercise. Both were dressed for an +expedition. She had her bonnet on, and he his yachting-hat. His sleeves +were turned over at the wrists, and her gown showed its lining on her +lap. At times a chance word might spring a laugh, but eating was the +business of the hour, as I would have you to know it always will be where +Cupid is in earnest. Tribute flowed in to them from the subject land. +Neglected lies Love's penny-whistle on which they played so prettily and +charmed the spheres to hear them. What do they care for the spheres, who +have one another? Come, eggs! come, bread and butter! come, tea with +sugar in it and milk! and welcome, the jolly hours. That is a fair +interpretation of the music in them just now. Yonder instrument was good +only for the overture. After all, what finer aspiration can lovers have, +than to be free man and woman in the heart of plenty? And is it not a +glorious level to have attained? Ah, wretched Scientific Humanist! not +to be by and mark the admirable sight of these young creatures feeding. +It would have been a spell to exorcise the Manichee, methinks. + +The mighty performance came to an end, and then, with a flourish of his +table-napkin, husband stood over wife, who met him on the confident +budding of her mouth. The poetry of mortals is their daily prose. Is it +not a glorious level to have attained? A short, quick-blooded kiss, +radiant, fresh, and honest as Aurora, and then Richard says without lack +of cheer, "No letter to-day, my Lucy!" whereat her sweet eyes dwell on +him a little seriously, but he cries, "Never mind! he'll be coming down +himself some morning. He has only to know her, and all's well! eh?" and +so saying he puts a hand beneath her chin, and seems to frame her fair +face in fancy, she smiling up to be looked at. + +"But one thing I do want to ask my darling," says Lucy, and dropped into +his bosom with hands of petition. "Take me on board his yacht with him +to-day--not leave me with those people! Will he? I'm a good sailor, he +knows!" + +"The best afloat!" laughs Richard, hugging her, "but, you know, you +darling bit of a sailor, they don't allow more than a certain number on +board for the race, and if they hear you've been with me, there'll be +cries of foul play! Besides, there's Lady Judith to talk to you about +Austin, and Lord Mountfalcon's compliments for you to listen to, and Mr. +Morton to take care of you." + +Lucy's eyes fixed sideways an instant. + +"I hope I don't frown and blush as I did?" she said, screwing her pliable +brows up to him winningly, and he bent his cheek against hers, and +murmured something delicious. + +"And we shall be separated for--how many hours? one, two, three hours!" +she pouted to his flatteries. + +"And then I shall come on board to receive my bride's congratulations." + +"And then my husband will talk all the time to Lady Judith." + +"And then I shall see my wife frowning and blushing at Lord Mountfalcon." + +"Am I so foolish, Richard?" she forgot her trifling to ask in an earnest +way, and had another Aurorean kiss, just brushing the dew on her lips, +for answer. + +After hiding a month in shyest shade, the pair of happy sinners had +wandered forth one day to look on men and marvel at them, and had chanced +to meet Mr. Morton of Poer Hall, Austin Wentworth's friend, and Ralph's +uncle. Mr. Morton had once been intimate with the baronet, but had given +him up for many years as impracticable and hopeless, for which reason he +was the more inclined to regard Richard's misdemeanour charitably, and to +lay the faults of the son on the father; and thinking society to be the +one thing requisite to the young man, he had introduced him to the people +he knew in the island; among others to the Lady Judith Felle, a fair +young dame, who introduced him to Lord Mountfalcon, a puissant nobleman; +who introduced him to the yachtsmen beginning to congregate; so that in a +few weeks he found himself in the centre of a brilliant company, and for +the first time in his life tasted what it was to have free intercourse +with his fellow-creatures of both sews. The son of a System was, +therefore, launched; not only through the surf, but in deep waters. + +Now the baronet had so far compromised between the recurrence of his +softer feelings and the suggestions of his new familiar, that he had +determined to act toward Richard with justness. The world called it +magnanimity, and even Lady Blandish had some thoughts of the same kind +when she heard that he had decreed to Richard a handsome allowance, and +had scouted Mrs. Doria's proposal for him to contest the legality of the +marriage; but Sir Austin knew well he was simply just in not withholding +money from a youth so situated. And here again the world deceived him by +embellishing his conduct. For what is it to be just to whom we love! He +knew it was not magnanimous, but the cry of the world somehow fortified +him in the conceit that in dealing perfect justice to his son he was +doing all that was possible, because so much more than common fathers +would have done. He had shut his heart. + +Consequently Richard did not want money. What he wanted more, and did +not get, was a word from his father, and though he said nothing to sadden +his young bride, she felt how much it preyed upon him to be at variance +with the man whom, now that he had offended him and gone against him, he +would have fallen on his knees to; the man who was as no other man to +him. She heard him of nights when she lay by his side, and the darkness, +and the broken mutterings, of those nights clothed the figure of the +strange stern man in her mind. Not that it affected the appetites of the +pretty pair. We must not expect that of Cupid enthroned and in +condition; under the influence of sea-air, too. The files of egg-cups +laugh at such an idea. Still the worm did gnaw them. Judge, then, of +their delight when, on this pleasant morning, as they were issuing from +the garden of their cottage to go down to the sea, they caught sight of +Tom Bakewell rushing up the road with a portmanteau on his shoulders, +and, some distance behind him, discerned Adrian. + +"It's all right!" shouted Richard, and ran off to meet him, and never +left his hand till he had hauled him up, firing questions at him all the +way, to where Lucy stood. + +"Lucy! this is Adrian, my cousin."--"Isn't he an angel?" his eyes seemed +to add; while Lucy's clearly answered, "That he is!" + +The full-bodied angel ceremoniously bowed to her, and acted with reserved +unction the benefactor he saw in their greetings. "I think we are not +strangers," he was good enough to remark, and very quickly let them know +he had not breakfasted; on hearing which they hurried him into the house, +and Lucy put herself in motion to have him served. + +"Dear old Rady," said Richard, tugging at his hand again, "how glad I am +you've come! I don't mind telling you we've been horridly wretched." + +"Six, seven, eight, nine eggs," was Adrian's comment on a survey of the +breakfast-table. + +"Why wouldn't he write? Why didn't he answer one of my letters? But +here you are, so I don't mind now. He wants to see us, does he? We'll +go up to-night. I've a match on at eleven; my little yacht--I've called +her the 'Blandish'--against Fred Cuirie's 'Begum.' I shall beat, but +whether I do or not, we'll go up to-night. What's the news? What are +they all doing?" + +"My dear boy!" Adrian returned, sitting comfortably down, "let me put +myself a little more on an equal footing with you before I undertake to +reply. Half that number of eggs will be sufficient for an unmarried man, +and then we'll talk. They're all very well, as well as I can recollect +after the shaking my total vacuity has had this morning. I came over by +the first boat, and the sea, the sea has made me love mother earth, and +desire of her fruits." + +Richard fretted restlessly opposite his cool relative. + +"Adrian! what did he say when he heard of it? I want to know exactly +what words he said." + +"Well says the sage, my son! 'Speech is the small change of Silence.' +He said less than I do." + +"That's how he took it!" cried Richard, and plunged in meditation. + +Soon the table was cleared, and laid out afresh, and Lucy preceded the +maid bearing eggs on the tray, and sat down unbonneted, and like a +thorough-bred housewife, to pour out the tea for him. + +"Now we'll commence," said Adrian, tapping his egg with meditative +cheerfulness; but his expression soon changed to one of pain, all the +more alarming for his benevolent efforts to conceal it. Could it be +possible the egg was bad? oh, horror! Lucy watched him, and waited in +trepidation. + +"This egg has boiled three minutes and three-quarters," he observed, +ceasing to contemplate it. + +"Dear, dear!" said Lucy, "I boiled them myself exactly that time. +Richard likes them so. And you like them hard, Mr. Harley?" + +"On the contrary, I like them soft. Two minutes and a half, or three- +quarters at the outside. An egg should never rashly verge upon hardness- +-never. Three minutes is the excess of temerity." + +"If Richard had told me! If I had only known!" the lovely little hostess +interjected ruefully, biting her lip. + +"We mustn't expect him to pay attention to such matters," said Adrian, +trying to smile. + +"Hang it! there are more eggs in the house," cried Richard, and pulled +savagely at the bell. + +Lucy jumped up, saying, "Oh, yes! I will go and boil some exactly the +time you like. Pray let me go, Mr. Harley." + +Adrian restrained her departure with a motion of his hand. "No," he +said, "I will be ruled by Richard's tastes, and heaven grant me his +digestion!" + +Lucy threw a sad look at Richard, who stretched on a sofa, and left the +burden of the entertainment entirely to her. The eggs were a melancholy +beginning, but her ardour to please Adrian would not be damped, and she +deeply admired his resignation. If she failed in pleasing this glorious +herald of peace, no matter by what small misadventure, she apprehended +calamity; so there sat this fair dove with brows at work above her +serious smiling blue eyes, covertly studying every aspect of the plump- +faced epicure, that she might learn to propitiate him. "He shall not +think me timid and stupid," thought this brave girl, and indeed Adrian +was astonished to find that she could both chat and be useful, as well as +look ornamental. When he had finished one egg, behold, two fresh ones +came in, boiled according to his prescription. She had quietly given her +orders to the maid, and he had them without fuss. Possibly his look of +dismay at the offending eggs had not been altogether involuntary, and her +woman's instinct, inexperienced as she was, may have told her that he had +come prepared to be not very well satisfied with anything in Love's +cottage. There was mental faculty in those pliable brows to see through, +and combat, an unwitting wise youth. + +How much she had achieved already she partly divined when Adrian said: "I +think now I'm in case to answer your questions, my dear boy--thanks to +Mrs. Richard," and he bowed to her his first direct acknowledgment of her +position. Lucy thrilled with pleasure. + +"Ah!" cried Richard, and settled easily on his back. + +"To begin, the Pilgrim has lost his Note-book, and has been persuaded to +offer a reward which shall maintain the happy finder thereof in an asylum +for life. Benson--superlative Benson--has turned his shoulders upon +Raynham. None know whither he has departed. It is believed that the +sole surviving member of the sect of the Shaddock-Dogmatists is under a +total eclipse of Woman." + +"Benson gone?" Richard exclaimed. "What a tremendous time it seems since +I left Raynham!" + +"So it is, my dear boy. The honeymoon is Mahomet's minute; or say, the +Persian King's water-pail that you read of in the story: You dip your +head in it, and when you draw it out, you discover that you have lived a +life. To resume your uncle Algernon still roams in pursuit of the lost +one--I should say, hops. Your uncle Hippias has a new and most +perplexing symptom; a determination of bride-cake to the nose. Ever +since your generous present to him, though he declares he never consumed +a morsel of it, he has been under the distressing illusion that his nose +is enormous, and I assure you he exhibits quite a maidenly timidity in +following it--through a doorway, for instance. He complains of its +terrible weight. I have conceived that Benson invisible might be sitting +on it. His hand, and the doctor's, are in hourly consultation with it, +but I fear it will not grow smaller. The Pilgrim has begotten upon it a +new Aphorism: that Size is a matter of opinion." + +"Poor uncle Hippy!" said Richard, "I wonder he doesn't believe in magic. +There's nothing supernatural to rival the wonderful sensations he does +believe in. Good God! fancy coming to that!" + +"I'm sure I'm very sorry," Lucy protested, "but I can't help laughing." + +Charming to the wise youth her pretty laughter sounded. + +"The Pilgrim has your notion, Richard. Whom does he not forestall? +'Confirmed dyspepsia is the apparatus of illusions,' and he accuses the +Ages that put faith in sorcery, of universal indigestion, which may have +been the case, owing to their infamous cookery. He says again, if you +remember, that our own Age is travelling back to darkness and ignorance +through dyspepsia. He lays the seat of wisdom in the centre of our +system, Mrs. Richard: for which reason you will understand how sensible I +am of the vast obligation I am under to you at the present moment, for +your especial care of mine." + +Richard looked on at Lucy's little triumph, attributing Adrian's +subjugation to her beauty and sweetness. She had latterly received a +great many compliments on that score, which she did not care to hear, and +Adrian's homage to a practical quality was far pleasanter to the young +wife, who shrewdly guessed that her beauty would not help her much in the +struggle she had now to maintain. Adrian continuing to lecture on the +excelling virtues of wise cookery, a thought struck her: Where, where had +she tossed Mrs. Berry's book? + +"So that's all about the home-people?" said Richard. + +"All!" replied Adrian. "Or stay: you know Clare's going to be married? +Not? Your Aunt Helen"-- + +"Oh, bother my Aunt Helen! What do you think she had the impertinence to +write--but never mind! Is it to Ralph?" + +"Your Aunt Helen, I was going to say, my dear boy, is an extraordinary +woman. It was from her originally that the Pilgrim first learnt to call +the female the practical animal. He studies us all, you know. The +Pilgrim's Scrip is the abstract portraiture of his surrounding relatives. +Well, your Aunt Helen"-- + +"Mrs. Doria Battledoria!" laughed Richard. + +"--being foiled in a little pet scheme of her own--call it a System if +you like--of some ten or fifteen years' standing, with regard to Miss +Clare!"-- + +The fair Shuttlecockiana!" + +"--instead of fretting like a man, and questioning +Providence, and turning herself and everybody else inside out, and seeing +the world upside down, what does the practical animal do? She wanted to +marry her to somebody she couldn't marry her to, so she resolved +instantly to marry her to somebody she could marry her to: and as old +gentlemen enter into these transactions with the practical animal the +most readily, she fixed upon an old gentleman; an unmarried old +gentleman, a rich old gentleman, and now a captive old gentleman. The +ceremony takes place in about a week from the present time. No doubt you +will receive your invitation in a day or two." + +"And that cold, icy, wretched Clare has consented to marry an old man!" +groaned Richard. "I'll put a stop to that when I go to town." + +Richard got up and strode about the room. Then he bethought him it was +time to go on board and make preparations. + +"I'm off," he said. "Adrian, you'll take her. She goes in the Empress, +Mountfalcon's vessel. He starts us. A little schooner-yacht--such a +beauty! I'll have one like her some day. Good-bye, darling!" he +whispered to Lucy, and his hand and eyes lingered on her, and hers on +him, seeking to make up for the priceless kiss they were debarred from. +But she quickly looked away from him as he held her:--Adrian stood +silent: his brows were up, and his mouth dubiously contracted. He spoke +at last. + +"Go on the water?" + +"Yes. It's only to St. Helen's. Short and sharp." + +"Do you grudge me the nourishment my poor system has just received, my +son?" + +"Oh, bother your system! Put on your hat, and come along. I'll put you +on board in my boat." + +"Richard! I have already paid the penalty of them who are condemned to +come to an island. I will go with you to the edge of the sea, and I will +meet you there when you return, and take up the Tale of the Tritons: but, +though I forfeit the pleasure of Mrs. Richard's company, I refuse to quit +the land." + +"Yes, oh, Mr. Harley!" Lucy broke from her husband, "and I will stay with +you, if you please. I don't want to go among those people, and we can +see it all from the shore. + +"Dearest! I don't want to go. You don't mind? Of course, I will go if +you wish, but I would so much rather stay;" and she lengthened her plea +in her attitude and look to melt the discontent she saw gathering. + +Adrian protested that she had much better go; that he could amuse himself +very well till their return, and so forth; but she had schemes in her +pretty head, and held to it to be allowed to stay in spite of Lord +Mountfalcon's disappointment, cited by Richard, and at the great risk of +vexing her darling, as she saw. Richard pished, and glanced +contemptuously at Adrian. He gave way ungraciously. + +"There, do as you like. Get your things ready to leave this evening. +No, I'm not angry."--Who could be? he seemed as he looked up from her +modest fondling to ask Adrian, and seized the indemnity of a kiss on her +forehead, which, however, did not immediately disperse the shade of +annoyance he felt. + +"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "Such a day as this, and a fellow refuses +to come on the water! Well, come along to the edge of the sea." +Adrian's angelic quality had quite worn off to him. He never thought of +devoting himself to make the most of the material there was: but somebody +else did, and that fair somebody succeeded wonderfully in a few short +hours. She induced Adrian to reflect that the baronet had only to see +her, and the family muddle would be smoothed at once. He came to it by +degrees; still the gradations were rapid. Her manner he liked; she was +certainly a nice picture: best of all, she was sensible. He forgot the +farmer's niece in her, she was so very sensible. She appeared really to +understand that it was a woman's duty to know how to cook. + +But the difficulty was, by what means the baronet could be brought to +consent to see her. He had not yet consented to see his son, and Adrian, +spurred by Lady Blandish, had ventured something in coming down. He was +not inclined to venture more. The small debate in his mind ended by his +throwing the burden on time. Time would bring the matter about. +Christians as well as Pagans are in the habit of phrasing this excuse for +folding their arms; "forgetful," says The Pilgrim's Scrip, "that the +devil's imps enter into no such armistice." + +As she loitered along the shore with her amusing companion, Lucy had many +things to think of. There was her darling's match. The yachts were +started by pistol-shot by Lord Mountfalcon on board the Empress, and her +little heart beat after Richard's straining sails. Then there was the +strangeness of walking with a relative of Richard's, one who had lived by +his side so long. And the thought that perhaps this night she would have +to appear before the dreaded father of her husband. + +"O Mr. Harley!" she said, "is it true--are we to go tonight? And me," +she faltered, "will he see me?" + +"Ah! that is what I wanted to talk to you about," said Adrian. "I made +some reply to our dear boy which he has slightly misinterpreted. Our +second person plural is liable to misconstruction by an ardent mind. I +said 'see you,' and he supposed--now, Mrs. Richard, I am sure you will +understand me. Just at present perhaps it would be advisable--when the +father and son have settled their accounts, the daughter-in-law can't be +a debtor."... + +Lucy threw up her blue eyes. A half-cowardly delight at the chance of a +respite from the awful interview made her quickly apprehensive. + +"O Mr. Harley! you think he should go alone first?" + +"Well, that is my notion. But the fact is, he is such an excellent +husband that I fancy it will require more than a man's power of +persuasion to get him to go." + +"But I will persuade him, Mr. Harley." +"Perhaps, if you would..." + +"There is nothing I would not do for his happiness," murmured Lucy. + +The wise youth pressed her hand with lymphatic approbation. They walked +on till the yachts had rounded the point. + +"Is it to-night, Mr. Harley?" she asked with some trouble in her voice +now that her darling was out of sight. + +"I don't imagine your eloquence even will get him to leave you to-night," +Adrian replied gallantly. "Besides, I must speak for myself. To achieve +the passage to an island is enough for one day. No necessity exists for +any hurry, except in the brain of that impetuous boy. You must correct +it, Mrs. Richard. Men are made to be managed, and women are born +managers. Now, if you were to let him know that you don't want to go to- +night, and let him guess, after a day or two, that you would very much +rather... you might affect a peculiar repugnance. By taking it on +yourself, you see, this wild young man will not require such frightful +efforts of persuasion. Both his father and he are exceedingly delicate +subjects, and his father unfortunately is not in a position to be managed +directly. It's a strange office to propose to you, but it appears to +devolve upon you to manage the father through the son. Prodigal having +made his peace, you, who have done all the work from a distance, +naturally come into the circle of the paternal smile, knowing it due to +you. I see no other way. If Richard suspects that his father objects +for the present to welcome his daughter-in-law, hostilities will be +continued, the breach will be widened, bad will grow to worse, and I see +no end to it." + +Adrian looked in her face, as much as to say: Now are you capable of this +piece of heroism? And it did seem hard to her that she should have to +tell Richard she shrank from any trial. But the proposition chimed in +with her fears and her wishes: she thought the wise youth very wise: the +poor child was not insensible to his flattery, and the subtler flattery +of making herself in some measure a sacrifice to the home she had +disturbed. She agreed to simulate as Adrian had suggested. + +Victory is the commonest heritage of the hero, and when Richard came on +shore proclaiming that the Blandish had beaten the Begum by seven minutes +and three-quarters, he was hastily kissed and congratulated by his bride +with her fingers among the leaves of Dr. Kitchener, and anxiously +questioned about wine. + +"Dearest! Mr. Harley wants to stay with us a little, and he thinks we +ought not to go immediately--that is, before he has had some letters, and +I feel... I would so much rather..." + +"Ah! that's it, you coward!" said Richard. "Well, then, to-morrow. We +had a splendid race. Did you see us?" + +"Oh, yes! I saw you and was sure my darling would win." And again she +threw on him the cold water of that solicitude about wine. "Mr. Harley +must have the best, you know, and we never drink it, and I'm so silly, I +don't know good wine, and if you would send Tom where he can get good +wine. I have seen to the dinner." + +"So that's why you didn't come to meet me?" + +"Pardon me, darling." + +Well, I do, but Mountfalcon doesn't, and Lady Judith thinks you ought to +have been there." + +"Ah, but my heart was with you!" + +Richard put his hand to feel for the little heart: her eyelids softened, +and she ran away. + +It is to say much of the dinner that Adrian found no fault with it, and +was in perfect good-humour at the conclusion of the service. He did not +abuse the wine they were able to procure for him, which was also much. +The coffee, too, had the honour of passing without comment. These were +sound first steps toward the conquest of an epicure, and as yet Cupid did +not grumble. + +After coffee they strolled out to see the sun set from Lady Judith's +grounds. The wind had dropped. The clouds had rolled from the zenith, +and ranged in amphitheatre with distant flushed bodies over sea and land: +Titanic crimson head and chest rising from the wave faced Hyperion +falling. There hung Briareus with deep-indented trunk and ravined brows, +stretching all his hands up to unattainable blue summits. North-west the +range had a rich white glow, as if shining to the moon, and westward, +streams of amber, melting into upper rose, shot out from the dipping +disk. + +"What Sandoe calls the passion-flower of heaven," said Richard under his +breath to Adrian, who was serenely chanting Greek hexameters, and +answered, in the swing of the caesura, "He might as well have said +cauliflower." + +Lady Judith, with a black lace veil tied over her head, met them in the +walk. She was tall and dark; dark-haired, dark-eyed, sweet and +persuasive in her accent and manner. "A second edition of the Blandish," +thinks Adrian. She welcomed him as one who had claims on her affability. +She kissed Lucy protectingly, and remarking on the wonders of the +evening, appropriated her husband. Adrian and Lucy found themselves +walking behind them. + +The sun was under. All the spaces of the sky were alight, and Richard's +fancy flamed. + +"So you're not intoxicated with your immense triumph this morning?" said +Lady Judith + +"Don't laugh at me. When it's over I feel ashamed of the trouble I've +taken. Look at that glory!--I'm sure you despise me for it." + +"Was I not there to applaud you? I only think such energies should be +turned into some definitely useful channel. But you must not go into the +Army." + +"What else can I do?" + +"You are fit for so much that is better." + +"I never can be anything like Austin." + +"But I think you can do more." + +"Well, I thank you for thinking it, Lady Judith. Something I will do. +A man must deserve to live, as you say. + +"Sauces," Adrian was heard to articulate distinctly in the rear, "Sauces +are the top tree of this science. A woman who has mastered sauces sits +on the apex of civilization." + +Briareus reddened duskily seaward. The West was all a burning rose. + +"How can men see such sights as those, and live idle?" Richard resumed. +"I feel ashamed of asking my men to work for me.--Or I feel so now." + +"Not when you're racing the Begum, I think. There's no necessity for you +to turn democrat like Austin. Do you write now?" + +"No. What is writing like mine? It doesn't deceive me. I know it's +only the excuse I'm making to myself for remaining idle. I haven't +written a line since--lately." + +"Because you are so happy." + +"No, not because of that. Of course I'm very happy..." He did not +finish. + +Vague, shapeless ambition had replaced love in yonder skies. No +Scientific Humanist was by to study the natural development, and guide +him. This lady would hardly be deemed a very proper guide to the +undirected energies of the youth, yet they had established relations of +that nature. She was five years older than he, and a woman, which may +explain her serene presumption. + +The cloud-giants had broken up: a brawny shoulder smouldered over the +sea. + +"We'll work together in town, at all events," said Richard, + +"Why can't we go about together at night and find out people who want +help?" + +Lady Judith smiled, and only corrected his nonsense by saying, "I think +we mustn't be too romantic. You will become a knight-errant, I suppose. +You have the characteristics of one." + +"Especially at breakfast," Adrian's unnecessarily emphatic gastronomical +lessons to the young wife here came in. + +"You must be our champion," continued Lady Judith: "the rescuer and +succourer of distressed dames and damsels. We want one badly." + +"You do," said Richard, earnestly: "from what I hear: from what I know!" +His thoughts flew off with him as knight-errant hailed shrilly at +exceeding critical moment by distressed dames and damsels. Images of +airy towers hung around. His fancy performed miraculous feats. The +towers crumbled. The stars grew larger, seemed to throb with lustre. +His fancy crumbled with the towers of the air, his heart gave a leap, he +turned to Lucy. + +"My darling! what have you been doing?" And as if to compensate her for +his little knight-errant infidelity, he pressed very tenderly to her. + +"We have been engaged in a charming conversation on domestic cookery," +interposed Adrian. + +"Cookery! such an evening as this?" His face was a handsome likeness of +Hippias at the presentation of bridecake. + +"Dearest! you know it's very useful," Lucy mirthfully pleaded. + +"Indeed I quite agree with you, child," said Lady Judith, and I think you +have the laugh of us. I certainly will learn to cook some day." + +"Woman's mission, in so many words," ejaculated Adrian. + +"And pray, what is man's?" + +"To taste thereof, and pronounce thereupon." + +"Let us give it up to them," said Lady Judith to Richard. "You and I +never will make so delightful and beautifully balanced a world of it." + +Richard appeared to have grown perfectly willing to give everything up to +the fair face, his bridal Hesper. + +Neat day Lucy had to act the coward anew, and, as she did so, her heart +sank to see how painfully it affected him that she should hesitate to go +with him to his father. He was patient, gentle; he sat down by her side +to appeal to her reason, and used all the arguments he could think of to +persuade her. + +"If we go together and make him see us both: if he sees he has nothing to +be ashamed of in you--rather everything to be proud of; if you are only +near him, you will not have to speak a word, and I'm certain--as certain +as that I live--that in a week we shall be settled happily at Raynham. I +know my father so well, Lucy. Nobody knows him but I." + +Lucy asked whether Mr. Harley did not. + +"Adrian? Not a bit. Adrian only knows a part of people, Lucy; and not +the best part." + +Lucy was disposed to think more highly of the object of her conquest. + +"Is it he that has been frightening you, Lucy?" + +"No, no, Richard; oh, dear no!" she cried, and looked at him more +tenderly because she was not quite truthful. + +"He doesn't know my father at all," said Richard. But Lucy had another +opinion of the wise youth, and secretly maintained it. She could not be +won to imagine the baronet a man of human mould, generous, forgiving, +full of passionate love at heart, as Richard tried to picture him, and +thought him, now that he beheld him again through Adrian's embassy. To +her he was that awful figure, shrouded by the midnight. "Why are you so +harsh?" she had heard Richard cry more than once. She was sure that +Adrian must be right. + +"Well, I tell you I won't go without you," said Richard, and Lucy begged +for a little more time. + +Cupid now began to grumble, and with cause. Adrian positively refused to +go on the water unless that element were smooth as a plate. The South- +west still joked boisterously at any comparison of the sort; the days +were magnificent; Richard had yachting engagements; and Lucy always +petitioned to stay to keep Adrian company, concerning it her duty as +hostess. Arguing with Adrian was an absurd idea. If Richard hinted at +his retaining Lucy, the wise youth would remark: "It's a wholesome +interlude to your extremely Cupidinous behaviour, my dear boy." + +Richard asked his wife what they could possibly find to talk about. + +"All manner of things," said Lucy; "not only cookery. He is so amusing, +though he does make fun of The Pilgrim's Scrip, and I think he ought not. +And then, do you know, darling--you won't think me vain?--I think he is +beginning to like me a little." + +Richard laughed at the humble mind of his Beauty. + +"Doesn't everybody like you, admire you? Doesn't Lord Mountfalcon, and +Mr. Morton, and Lady Judith?" + +"But he is one of your family, Richard." + +"And they all will, if she isn't a coward." + +"Ah, no!" she sighs, and is chidden. + +The conquest of an epicure, or any young wife's conquest beyond her +husband, however loyally devised for their mutual happiness, may be +costly to her. Richard in his hours of excitement was thrown very much +with Lady Judith. He consulted her regarding what he termed Lucy's +cowardice. Lady Judith said: "I think she's wrong, but you must learn to +humour little women." + +"Then would you advise me to go up alone?" he asked, with a cloudy +forehead. + +"What else can you do? Be reconciled yourself as quickly as you can. +You can't drag her like a captive, you know?" + +It is not pleasant for a young husband, fancying his bride the peerless +flower of Creation, to learn that he must humour a little woman in her. +It was revolting to Richard. + +"What I fear," he said, "is, that my father will make it smooth with me, +and not acknowledge her: so that whenever I go to him, I shall have to +leave her, and tit for tat--an abominable existence, like a ball on a +billiard-table. I won't bear that ignominy. And this I know, I know! +she might prevent it at once, if she would only be brave, and face it. +You, you, Lady Judith, you wouldn't be a coward?" + +"Where my old lord tells me to go, I go," the lady coldly replied. +"There's not much merit in that. Pray, don't cite me. Women are born +cowards, you know." + +"But I love the women who are not cowards." + +"The little thing--your wife has not refused to go?" + +"No--but tears! Who can stand tears?" + +Lucy had come to drop them. Unaccustomed to have his will thwarted, and +urgent where he saw the thing to do so clearly, the young husband had +spoken strong words: and she, who knew that she would have given her life +by inches for him; who knew that she was playing a part for his +happiness, and hiding for his sake the nature that was worthy his esteem; +the poor little martyr had been weak a moment. + +She had Adrian's support. The wise youth was very comfortable. He liked +the air of the Island, and he liked being petted. "A nice little woman! +a very nice little woman!" Tom Bakewell heard him murmur to himself +according to a habit he had; and his air of rather succulent patronage as +he walked or sat beside the innocent Beauty, with his head thrown back +and a smile that seemed always to be in secret communion with his marked +abdominal prominence, showed that she was gaining part of what she played +for. Wise youths who buy their loves, are not unwilling, when +opportunity offers, to try and obtain the commodity for nothing. +Examinations of her hand, as for some occult purpose, and unctuous +pattings of the same, were not infrequent. Adrian waxed now and then +Anacreontic in his compliments. Lucy would say: "That's worse than Lord +Mountfalcon." + +"Better English than the noble lord deigns to employ--allow that?" quoth +Adrian. + +"He is very kind," said Lucy. + +"To all, save to our noble vernacular," added Adrian. "He seems to scent +a rival to his dignity there." + +It may be that Adrian scented a rival to his lymphatic emotions. + +"We are at our ease here in excellent society," he wrote to Lady +Blandish. "I am bound to confess that the Huron has a happy fortune, or +a superlative instinct. Blindfold he has seized upon a suitable mate. +She can look at a lord, and cook for an epicure. Besides Dr. Kitchener, +she reads and comments on The Pilgrim's Scrip. The `Love' chapter, of +course, takes her fancy. That picture of Woman, `Drawn by Reverence and +coloured by Love,' she thinks beautiful, and repeats it, tossing up +pretty eyes. Also the lover's petition: 'Give me purity to be worthy the +good in her, and grant her patience to reach the good in me.' 'Tis quite +taking to hear her lisp it. Be sure that I am repeating the petition! I +make her read me her choice passages. She has not a bad voice. + +"The Lady Judith I spoke of is Austin's Miss Menteith, married to the +incapable old Lord Felle, or Fellow, as the wits here call him. Lord +Mountfalcon is his cousin, and her--what? She has been trying to find +out, but they have both got over their perplexity, and act respectively +the bad man reproved and the chaste counsellor; a position in which our +young couple found them, and haply diverted its perils. They had quite +taken them in hand. Lady Judith undertakes to cure the fair Papist of a +pretty, modest trick of frowning and blushing when addressed, and his +lordship directs the exuberant energies of the original man. 'Tis thus +we fulfil our destinies, and are content. Sometimes they change pupils; +my lord educates the little dame, and my lady the hope of Raynham. Joy +and blessings unto all! as the German poet sings. Lady Judith accepted +the hand of her decrepit lord that she might be of potent service to her +fellow-creatures. Austin, you know, had great hopes of her. + +"I have for the first time in my career a field of lords to study. I +think it is not without meaning that I am introduced to it by a yeoman's +niece. The language of the two social extremes is similar. I find it to +consist in an instinctively lavish use of vowels and adjectives. My lord +and Farmer Blaize speak the same tongue, only my lord's has lost its +backbone, and is limp, though fluent. Their pursuits are identical; but +that one has money, or, as the Pilgrim terms it, vantage, and the other +has not. Their ideas seem to have a special relationship in the +peculiarity of stopping where they have begun. Young Tom Blaize with +vantage would be Lord Mountfalcon. Even in the character of their +parasites I see a resemblance, though I am bound to confess that the Hon. +Peter Brayder, who is my lord's parasite, is by no means noxious. + +"This sounds dreadfully democrat. Pray, don't be alarmed. The discovery +of the affinity between the two extremes of the Royal British Oak has +made me thrice conservative. I see now that the national love of a lord +is less subservience than a form of self-love; putting a gold-lace hat on +one's image, as it were, to bow to it. I see, too, the admirable wisdom +of our system:--could there be a finer balance of power than in a +community where men intellectually nil, have lawful vantage and a gold- +lace hat on? How soothing it is to intellect--that noble rebel, as the +Pilgrim has it--to stand, and bow, and know itself superior! This +exquisite compensation maintains the balance: whereas that period +anticipated by the Pilgrim, when science shall have produced an +intellectual aristocracy, is indeed horrible to contemplate. For what +despotism is so black as one the mind cannot challenge? 'Twill be an +iron Age. Wherefore, madam, I cry, and shall continue to cry, 'Vive Lord +Mountfalcon! long may he sip his Burgundy! long may the bacon-fed carry +him on their shoulders!' + +"Mr. Morton (who does me the honour to call me Young Mephisto, and +Socrates missed) leaves to-morrow to get Master Ralph out of a scrape. +Our Richard has just been elected member of a Club for the promotion of +nausea. Is he happy? you ask. As much so as one who has had the +misfortune to obtain what he wanted can be. Speed is his passion. He +races from point to point. In emulation of Leander and Don Juan, he +swam, I hear, to the opposite shores the other day, or some world-shaking +feat of the sort: himself the Hero whom he went to meet: or, as they who +pun say, his Hero was a Bet. A pretty little domestic episode occurred +this morning. He finds her abstracted in the fire of his caresses: she +turns shy and seeks solitude: green jealousy takes hold of him: he lies +in wait, and discovers her with his new rival--a veteran edition of the +culinary Doctor! Blind to the Doctor's great national services, deaf to +her wild music, he grasps the intruder, dismembers him, and performs upon +him the treatment he has recommended for dressed cucumber. Tears and +shrieks accompany the descent of the gastronome. Down she rushes to +secure the cherished fragments: he follows: they find him, true to his +character, alighted and straggling over a bed of blooming flowers. Yet +ere a fairer flower can gather him, a heel black as Pluto stamps him into +earth, flowers and all:--happy burial! Pathetic tribute to his merit is +watering his grave, when by saunters my Lord Mountfalcon. 'What's the +mattah?' says his lordship, soothing his moustache. They break apart, +and 'tis left to me to explain from the window. My lord looks shocked, +Richard is angry with her for having to be ashamed of himself, Beauty +dries her eyes, and after a pause of general foolishness, the business of +life is resumed. I may add that the Doctor has just been dug up, and we +are busy, in the enemy's absence, renewing old Aeson with enchanted +threads. By the way, a Papist priest has blest them." + +A month had passed when Adrian wrote this letter. He was very +comfortable; so of course he thought Time was doing his duty. Not a word +did he say of Richard's return, and for some reason or other neither +Richard nor Lucy spoke of it now. + +Lady Blandish wrote back: "His father thinks he has refused to come to +him. By your utter silence on the subject, I fear that it must be so. +Make him come. Bring him by force. Insist on his coming. Is he mad? +He must come at once." + +To this Adrian replied, after a contemplative comfortable lapse of a day +or two, which might be laid to his efforts to adopt the lady's advice, +"The point is that the half man declines to come without the whole man. +The terrible question of sex is our obstruction." + +Lady Blandish was in despair. She had no positive assurance that the +baronet would see his son; the mask put them all in the dark; but she +thought she saw in Sir Austin irritation that the offender, at least when +the opening to come and make his peace seemed to be before him, should +let days and weeks go by. She saw through the mask sufficiently not to +have any hope of his consenting to receive the couple at present; she was +sure that his equanimity was fictitious; but she pierced no farther, or +she might have started and asked herself, Is this the heart of a woman? + +The lady at last wrote to Richard. She said: "Come instantly, and come +alone." Then Richard, against his judgment, gave way. "My father is not +the man I thought him!" he exclaimed sadly, and Lucy felt his eyes saying +to her: "And you, too, are not the woman I thought you." Nothing could +the poor little heart reply but strain to his bosom and sleeplessly pray +in his arms all the night. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + + +Three weeks after Richard arrived in town, his cousin Clare was married, +under the blessings of her energetic mother, and with the approbation of +her kinsfolk, to the husband that had been expeditiously chosen for her. +The gentleman, though something more than twice the age of his bride, had +no idea of approaching senility for many long connubial years to come. +Backed by his tailor and his hairdresser, he presented no such bad figure +at the altar, and none would have thought that he was an ancient admirer +of his bride's mama, as certainly none knew he had lately proposed for +Mrs. Doria before there was any question of her daughter. These things +were secrets; and the elastic and happy appearance of Mr. John Todhunter +did not betray them at the altar. Perhaps he would rather have married +the mother. He was a man of property, well born, tolerably well +educated, and had, when Mrs. Doria rejected him for the first time, the +reputation of being a fool--which a wealthy man may have in his youth; +but as he lived on, and did not squander his money--amassed it, on the +contrary, and did not seek to go into Parliament, and did other negative +wise things, the world's opinion, as usual, veered completely round, and +John Todhunter was esteemed a shrewd, sensible man--only not brilliant; +that he was brilliant could not be said of him. In fact, the man could +hardly talk, and it was a fortunate provision that no impromptu +deliveries were required of him in the marriage-service. + +Mrs. Doria had her own reasons for being in a hurry. She had discovered +something of the strange impassive nature of her child; not from any +confession of Clare's, but from signs a mother can read when, her eyes +are not resolutely shut. She saw with alarm and anguish that Clare had +fallen into the pit she had been digging for her so laboriously. In vain +she entreated the baronet to break the disgraceful, and, as she said, +illegal alliance his son had contracted. Sir Austin would not even stop +the little pension to poor Berry. "At least you will do that, Austin," +she begged pathetically. "You will show your sense of that horrid +woman's conduct?" He refused to offer up any victim to console her. +Then Mrs. Doria told him her thoughts,--and when an outraged energetic +lady is finally brought to exhibit these painfully hoarded treasures, she +does not use half words as a medium. His System, and his conduct +generally were denounced to him, without analysis. She let him +understand that the world laughed at him; and he heard this from her at a +time when his mask was still soft and liable to be acted on by his +nerves. "You are weak, Austin! weak, I tell you!" she said, and, like +all angry and self-interested people, prophecy came easy to her. In her +heart she accused him of her own fault, in imputing to him the wreck of +her project. The baronet allowed her to revel in the proclamation of a +dire future, and quietly counselled her to keep apart from him, which his +sister assured him she would do. + +But to be passive in calamity is the province of no woman. Mark the race +at any hour. "What revolution and hubbub does not that little +instrument, the needle, avert from us!" says The Pilgrim's Scrip. Alas, +that in calamity women cannot stitch! Now that she saw Clare wanted +other than iron, it struck her she must have a husband, and be made +secure as a woman and a wife. This seemed the thing to do: and, as she +had forced the iron down Clare's throat, so she forced the husband, and +Clare gulped at the latter as she had at the former. On the very day +that Mrs. Doria had this new track shaped out before her, John Todhunter +called at the Foreys'. "Old John!" sang out Mrs. Doria, "show him up to +me. I want to see him particularly." He sat with her alone. He was a +man multitudes of women would have married--whom will they not?--and who +would have married any presentable woman: but women do want asking, and +John never had the word. The rape of such men is left to the practical +animal. So John sat alone with his old flame. He had become resigned to +her perpetual lamentation and living Suttee for his defunct rival. But, +ha! what meant those soft glances now--addressed to him? His tailor and +his hairdresser gave youth to John, but they had not the art to bestow +upon him distinction, and an undistinguished man what woman looks at? +John was an indistinguishable man. For that reason he was dry wood to a +soft glance. + +And now she said: "It is time you should marry; and you are the man to be +the guide and helper of a young woman, John. You are well preserved-- +younger than most of the young men of our day. You are eminently +domestic, a good son, and will be a good husband and good father. Some +one you must marry.--What do you think of Clare for a wife for you?" + +At first John Todhunter thought it would be very much like his marrying a +baby. However, he listened to it, and that was enough for Mrs. Doria. + +She went down to John's mother, and consulted with her on the propriety +of the scheme of wedding her daughter to John in accordance with his +proposition. Mrs. Todhunter's jealousy of any disturbing force in the +influence she held over her son Mrs. Doria knew to be one of the causes +of John's remaining constant to the impression she had afore-time +produced on him. She spoke so kindly of John, and laid so much stress on +the ingrained obedience and passive disposition of her daughter, that +Mrs. Todhunter was led to admit she did think it almost time John should +be seeking a mate, and that he--all things considered--would hardly find +a fitter one. And this, John Todhunter--old John no more--heard to his +amazement when, a day or two subsequently, he instanced the probable +disapproval of his mother. + +The match was arranged. Mrs. Doria did the wooing. It consisted in +telling Clare that she had come to years when marriage was desirable, and +that she had fallen into habits of moping which might have the worse +effect on her future life, as it had on her present health and +appearance, and which a husband would cure. Richard was told by Mrs. +Doria that Clare had instantaneously consented to accept Mr. John +Todhunter as lord of her days, and with more than obedience--with +alacrity. At all events, when Richard spoke to Clare, the strange +passive creature did not admit constraint on her inclinations. Mrs. +Doria allowed Richard to speak to her. She laughed at his futile +endeavours to undo her work, and the boyish sentiments he uttered on the +subject. "Let us see, child," she said, "let us see which turns out the +best; a marriage of passion, or a marriage of common sense." + +Heroic efforts were not wanting to arrest the union. Richard made +repeated journeys to Hounslow, where Ralph was quartered, and if Ralph +could have been persuaded to carry off a young lady who did not love him, +from the bridegroom her mother averred she did love, Mrs. Doria might +have been defeated. But Ralph in his cavalry quarters was cooler than +Ralph in the Bursley meadows. "Women are oddities, Dick," he remarked, +running a finger right and left along his upper lip. "Best leave them to +their own freaks. She's a dear girl, though she doesn't talk: I like her +for that. If she cared for me I'd go the race. She never did. It's no +use asking a girl twice. She knows whether she cares a fig for a +fellow." + +The hero quitted him with some contempt, As Ralph Morton was a young man, +and he had determined that John Todhunter was an old man, he sought +another private interview with Clare, and getting her alone, said: +"Clare, I've come to you for the last time. Will you marry Ralph +Morton?" + +To which Clare replied, "I cannot marry two husbands, Richard." + +"Will you refuse to marry this old man?" + +"I must do as mama wishes." + +"Then you're going to marry an old man--a man you don't love, and can't +love! Oh, good God! do you know what you're doing?" He flung about in a +fury. "Do you know what it is? Clare!" he caught her two hands +violently, "have you any idea of the horror you're going to commit?" + +She shrank a little at his vehemence, but neither blushed nor stammered: +answering: "I see nothing wrong in doing what mama thinks right, +Richard." + +"Your mother! I tell you it's an infamy, Clare! It's a miserable sin! +I tell you, if I had done such a thing I would not live an hour after it. +And coldly to prepare for it! to be busy about your dresses! They told +me when I came in that you were with the milliner. To be smiling over +the horrible outrage! decorating yourself!"... + +"Dear Richard," said Clare, "you will make me very unhappy." + +"That one of my blood should be so debased!" he cried, brushing angrily +at his face. "Unhappy! I beg you to feel for yourself, Clare. But I +suppose," and he said it scornfully, "girls don't feel this sort of +shame." + +She grew a trifle paler. + +"Next to mama, I would wish to please you, dear Richard." + +"Have you no will of your own?" he exclaimed. + +She looked at him softly; a look he interpreted for the meekness he +detested in her. + +"No, I believe you have none!" he added. "And what can I do? I can't +step forward and stop this accursed marriage. If you would but say a +word I would save you; but you tie my hands. And they expect me to stand +by and see it done!" + +"Will you not be there, Richard?" said Clare, following the question with +her soft eyes. It was the same voice that had so thrilled him on his +marriage morn. + +"Oh, my darling Clare!" he cried in the kindest way he had ever used to +her, "if you knew how I feel this!" and now as he wept she wept, and came +insensibly into his arms. + +"My darling Clare!" he repeated. + +She said nothing, but seemed to shudder, weeping. + +"You will do it, Clare? You will be sacrificed? So lovely as you are, +too!... Clare! you cannot be quite blind. If I dared speak to you, and +tell you all.... Look up. Can you still consent?" + +"I must not disobey mama," Clare murmured, without looking up from the +nest her cheek had made on his bosom. + +"Then kiss me for the last time," said Richard. "I'll never kiss you +after it, Clare." + +He bent his head to meet her mouth, and she threw her arms wildly round +him, and kissed him convulsively, and clung to his lips, shutting her +eyes, her face suffused with a burning red. + +Then he left her, unaware of the meaning of those passionate kisses. + +Argument with Mrs. Doria was like firing paper-pellets against a stone +wall. To her indeed the young married hero spoke almost indecorously, +and that which his delicacy withheld him from speaking to Clare. He +could provoke nothing more responsive from the practical animal than +"Pooh-pooh! Tush, tush! and Fiddlededee!" + +"Really," Mrs. Doria said to her intimates, "that boy's education acts +like a disease on him. He cannot regard anything sensibly. He is for +ever in some mad excess of his fancy, and what he will come to at last +heaven only knows! I sincerely pray that Austin will be able to bear +it." + +Threats of prayer, however, that harp upon their sincerity, are not very +well worth having. Mrs. Doria had embarked in a practical controversy, +as it were, with her brother. Doubtless she did trust he would be able +to bear his sorrows to come, but one who has uttered prophecy can barely +help hoping to see it fulfilled: she had prophecied much grief to the +baronet. + +Poor John Todhunter, who would rather have married the mother, and had +none of your heroic notions about the sacred necessity for love in +marriage, moved as one guiltless of offence, and deserving his happiness. +Mrs. Doria shielded him from the hero. To see him smile at Clare's +obedient figure, and try not to look paternal, was touching. + +Meantime Clare's marriage served one purpose. It completely occupied +Richard's mind, and prevented him from chafing at the vexation of not +finding his father ready to meet him when he came to town. A letter had +awaited Adrian at the hotel, which said, "Detain him till you hear +further from me. Take him about with you into every form of society." +No more than that. Adrian had to extemporize, that the baronet had gone +down to Wales on pressing business, and would be back in a week or so. +For ulterior inventions and devices wherewith to keep the young gentleman +in town, he applied to Mrs. Doria. "Leave him to me," said Mrs. Doria, +"I'll manage him." And she did. + +"Who can say," asks The Pilgrim's Scrip, "when he is not walking a puppet +to some woman?" + +Mrs. Doria would hear no good of Lucy. "I believe," she observed, as +Adrian ventured a shrugging protest in her behalf,--"it is my firm +opinion, that a scullery-maid would turn any of you men round her little +finger--only give her time and opportunity." By dwelling on the arts of +women, she reconciled it to her conscience to do her best to divide the +young husband from his wife till it pleased his father they should live +their unhallowed union again. Without compunction, or a sense of +incongruity, she abused her brother and assisted the fulfilment of his +behests. + +So the puppets were marshalled by Mrs. Doria, happy, or sad, or +indifferent. Quite against his set resolve and the tide of his feelings, +Richard found himself standing behind Clare in the church--the very +edifice that had witnessed his own marriage, and heard, "I, Clare Doria, +take thee John Pemberton," clearly pronounced. He stood with black brows +dissecting the arts of the tailor and hairdresser on unconscious John. +The back, and much of the middle, of Mr. Todhunter's head was bald; the +back shone like an egg-shell, but across the middle the artist had drawn +two long dabs of hair from the sides, and plastered them cunningly, so +that all save wilful eyes would have acknowledged the head to be covered. +The man's only pretension was to a respectable juvenility. He had a good +chest, stout limbs, a face inclined to be jolly. Mrs. Doria had no cause +to be put out of countenance at all by the exterior of her son-in-law: +nor was she. Her splendid hair and gratified smile made a light in the +church. Playing puppets must be an immense pleasure to the practical +animal. The Forey bridesmaids, five in number, and one Miss Doria, their +cousin, stood as girls do stand at these sacrifices, whether happy, sad, +or indifferent; a smile on their lips and tears in attendance. Old Mrs. +Todhunter, an exceedingly small ancient woman, was also there. "I can't +have my boy John married without seeing it done," she said, and +throughout the ceremony she was muttering audible encomiums on her John's +manly behaviour. + +The ring was affixed to Clare's finger; there was no ring lost in this +common-sense marriage. The instant the clergyman bade him employ it, +John drew the ring out, and dropped it on the finger of the cold passive +hand in a businesslike way, as one who had studied the matter. Mrs. +Doria glanced aside at Richard. Richard observed Clare spread out her +fingers that the operation might be the more easily effected. + +He did duty in the vestry a few minutes, and then said to his aunt: + +"Now I'll go." + +"You'll come to the breakfast, child? The Foreys"-- + +He cut her short. "I've stood for the family, and I'll do no more. I +won't pretend to eat and make merry over it." + +"Richard!" + +"Good-bye." + +She had attained her object and she wisely gave way. + +"Well. Go and kiss Clare, and shake his hand. Pray, pray be civil." + +She turned to Adrian, and said: "He is going. You must go with him, and +find some means of keeping him, or he'll be running off to that woman. +Now, no words--go!" + +Richard bade Clare farewell. She put up her mouth to him humbly, but he +kissed her on the forehead. + +"Do not cease to love me," she said in a quavering whisper in his ear. + +Mr. Todhunter stood beaming and endangering the art of the hairdresser +with his pocket-handkerchief. Now he positively was married, he thought +he would rather have the daughter than the mother, which is a reverse of +the order of human thankfulness at a gift of the Gods. + +"Richard, my boy!" he said heartily, "congratulate me." + +"I should be happy to, if I could," sedately replied the hero, to the +consternation of those around. Nodding to the bridesmaids and bowing to +the old lady, he passed out. + +Adrian, who had been behind him, deputed to watch for a possible +unpleasantness, just hinted to John: "You know, poor fellow, he has got +into a mess with his marriage." + +"Oh! ah! yes!" kindly said John, "poor fellow!" + +All the puppets then rolled off to the breakfast. + +Adrian hurried after Richard in an extremely discontented state of mind. +Not to be at the breakfast and see the best of the fun, disgusted him. +However, he remembered that he was a philosopher, and the strong disgust +he felt was only expressed in concentrated cynicism on every earthly +matter engendered by the conversation. They walked side by side into +Kensington Gardens. The hero was mouthing away to himself, talking by +fits. + +Presently he faced Adrian, crying: "And I might have stopped it! I see +it now! I might have stopped it by going straight to him, and asking him +if he dared marry a girl who did not love him. And I never thought of +it. Good heaven! I feel this miserable affair on my conscience." + +"Ah!" groaned Adrian. "An unpleasant cargo for the conscience, that! I +would rather carry anything on mine than a married couple. Do you +purpose going to him now?" + +The hero soliloquized: "He's not a bad sort of man."... + +"Well, he's not a Cavalier," said Adrian, "and that's why you wonder your +aunt selected him, no doubt? He's decidedly of the Roundhead type, with +the Puritan extracted, or inoffensive, if latent." + +"There's the double infamy!" cried Richard, "that a man you can't call +bad, should do this damned thing!" + +"Well, it's hard we can't find a villain." + +"He would have listened to me, I'm sure." + +"Go to him now, Richard, my son. Go to him now. It's not yet too late. +Who knows? If he really has a noble elevated superior mind--though not a +Cavalier in person, he may be one at heart--he might, to please you, and +since you put such stress upon it, abstain...perhaps with some loss of +dignity, but never mind. And the request might be singular, or seem so, +but everything has happened before in this world, you know, my dear boy. +And what an infinite consolation it is for the eccentric, that +reflection!" + +The hero was impervious to the wise youth. He stared at him as if he +were but a speck in the universe he visioned. + +It was provoking that Richard should be Adrian's best subject for cynical +pastime, in the extraordinary heterodoxies he started, and his worst in +the way he took it; and the wise youth, against his will, had to feel as +conscious of the young man's imaginative mental armour, as he was of his +muscular physical. + +"The same sort of day!" mused Richard, looking up. "I suppose my +father's right. We make our own fates, and nature has nothing to do with +it." + +Adrian yawned. + +"Some difference in the trees, though," Richard continued abstractedly. + +"Growing bald at the top," said Adrian. + +"Will you believe that my aunt Helen compared the conduct of that +wretched slave Clare to Lucy's, who, she had the cruel insolence to say, +entangled me into marriage?" the hero broke out loudly and rapidly. "You +know--I told you, Adrian--how I had to threaten and insist, and how she +pleaded, and implored me to wait." + +"Ah! hum!" mumbled Adrian. + +"You remember my telling you?" Richard was earnest to hear her +exonerated. + +"Pleaded and implored, my dear boy? Oh, no doubt she did. Where's the +lass that doesn't." + +"Call my wife by another name, if you please." + +"The generic title can't be cancelled because of your having married one +of the body, my son." + +"She did all she could to persuade me to wait!" emphasized Richard. + +Adrian shook his head with a deplorable smile. + +"Come, come, my good Ricky; not all! not all!" + +Richard bellowed: "What more could she have done?" + +"She could have shaved her head, for instance." + +This happy shaft did stick. With a furious exclamation Richard shot in +front, Adrian following him; and asking him (merely to have his +assumption verified), whether he did not think she might have shaved her +head? and, presuming her to have done so, whether, in candour, he did not +think he would have waited--at least till she looked less of a rank +lunatic? + +After a minute or so, the wise youth was but a fly buzzing about +Richard's head. Three weeks of separation from Lucy, and an excitement +deceased, caused him to have soft yearnings for the dear lovely home- +face. He told Adrian it was his intention to go down that night. Adrian +immediately became serious. He was at a loss what to invent to detain +him, beyond the stale fiction that his father was coming to-morrow. He +rendered homage to the genius of woman in these straits. "My aunt," he +thought, "would have the lie ready; and not only that, but she would take +care it did its work." + +At this juncture the voice of a cavalier in the Row hailed them, proving +to be the Honourable Peter Brayder, Lord Mountfalcon's parasite. He +greeted them very cordially; and Richard, remembering some fun they had +in the Island, asked him to dine with them; postponing his return till +the next day. Lucy was his. It was even sweet to dally with the delight +of seeing her. + +The Hon. Peter was one who did honour to the body he belonged to. Though +not so tall as a west of London footman, he was as shapely; and he had a +power of making his voice insinuating, or arrogant, as it suited the +exigencies of his profession. He had not a rap of money in the world; +yet he rode a horse, lived high, expended largely. The world said that +the Hon. Peter was salaried by his Lordship, and that, in common with +that of Parasite, he exercised the ancient companion profession. This +the world said, and still smiled at the Hon. Peter; for he was an +engaging fellow, and where he went not Lord Mountfalcon would not go. + +They had a quiet little hotel dinner, ordered by Adrian, and made a +square at the table, Ripton Thompson being the fourth. Richard sent down +to his office to fetch him, and the two friends shook hands for the first +time since the great deed had been executed. Deep was the Old Dog's +delight to hear the praises of his Beauty sounded by such aristocratic +lips as the Hon. Peter Brayder's. All through the dinner he was throwing +out hints and small queries to get a fuller account of her; and when the +claret had circulated, he spoke a word or two himself, and heard the Hon. +Peter eulogize his taste, and wish him a bride as beautiful; at which +Ripton blushed, and said, he had no hope of that, and the Hon. Peter +assured him marriage did not break the mould. + +After the wine this gentleman took his cigar on the balcony, and found +occasion to get some conversation with Adrian alone. + +"Our young friend here--made it all right with the governor?" he asked +carelessly. + +"Oh yes!" said Adrian. But it struck him that Brayder might be of +assistance in showing Richard a little of the `society in every form' +required by his chief's prescript. "That is," he continued, "we are not +yet permitted an interview with the august author of our being, and I +have rather a difficult post. 'Tis mine both to keep him here, and also +to find him the opportunity to measure himself with his fellow-man. In +other words, his father wants him to see something of life before he +enters upon housekeeping. Now I am proud to confess that I'm hardly +equal to the task. The demi, or damnedmonde--if it's that lie wants him +to observe--is one that I leave not got the walk to." + +"Ha! ha!" laughed Brayder. "You do the keeping, I offer to parade the +demi. I must say, though, it's a queer notion of the old gentleman." + +"It's the continuation of a philosophic plan," said Adrian. + +Brayder followed the curvings of the whiff of his cigar with his eyes, +and ejaculated, "Infernally philosophic!" + +"Has Lord Mountfalcon left the island?" Adrian inquired. + +"Mount? to tell the truth I don't know where he is. Chasing some light +craft, I suppose. That's poor Mount's weakness. It's his ruin, poor +fellow! He's so confoundedly in earnest at the game." + +"He ought to know it by this time, if fame speaks true," remarked Adrian. + +"He's a baby about women, and always will be," said Brayder. "He's been +once or twice wanting to marry them. Now there's a woman--you've heard +of Mrs. Mount? All the world knows her.--If that woman hadn't +scandalized."--The young man joined them, and checked the communication. +Brayder winked to Adrian, and pitifully indicated the presence of an +innocent. + +"A married man, you know," said Adrian. + +"Yes, yes!--we won't shock him," Brayder observed. He appeared to study +the young man while they talked. + +Next morning Richard was surprised by a visit from his aunt. Mrs. Doria +took a seat by his side and spoke as follows: + +"My dear nephew. Now you know I have always loved you, and thought of +your welfare as if you had been my own child. More than that, I fear. +Well, now, you are thinking of returning to--to that place--are you not? +Yes. It is as I thought. Very well now, let me speak to you. You are +in a much more dangerous position than you imagine. I don't deny your +father's affection for you. It would be absurd to deny it. But you are +of an age now to appreciate his character. Whatever you may do he will +always give you money. That you are sure of; that you know. Very well. +But you are one to want more than money: you want his love. Richard, I +am convinced you will never be happy, whatever base pleasures you may be +led into, if he should withhold his love from you. Now, child, you know +you have grievously offended him. I wish not to animadvert on your +conduct.--You fancied yourself in love, and so on, and you were rash. +The less said of it the better now. But you must now--it is your duty +now to do something--to do everything that lies in your power to show him +you repent. No interruptions! Listen to me. You must consider him. +Austin is not like other men. Austin requires the most delicate +management. You must--whether you feel it or no--present an appearance +of contrition. I counsel it for the good of all. He is just like a +woman, and where his feelings are offended he wants utter subservience. +He has you in town, and he does not see you:--now you know that he and I +are not in communication: we have likewise our differences:--Well, he has +you in town, and he holds aloof:--he is trying you, my dear Richard. No: +he is not at Raynham: I do not know where he is. He is trying you, +child, and you must be patient. You must convince him that you do not +care utterly for your own gratification. If this person--I wish to speak +of her with respect, for your sake--well, if she loves you at all--if, I +say, she loves you one atom, she will repeat my solicitations for you to +stay and patiently wait here till he consents to see you. I tell you +candidly, it's your only chance of ever getting him to receive her. That +you should know. And now, Richard, I may add that there is something +else you should know. You should know that it depends entirely upon your +conduct now, whether you are to see your father's heart for ever divided +from you, and a new family at Raynham. You do not understand? I will +explain. Brothers and sisters are excellent things for young people, but +a new brood of them can hardly be acceptable to a young man. In fact, +they are, and must be, aliens. I only tell you what I have heard on good +authority. Don't you understand now? Foolish boy! if you do not humour +him, he will marry her. Oh! I am sure of it. I know it. And this you +will drive him to. I do not warn you on the score of your prospects, but +of your feelings. I should regard such a contingency, Richard, as a +final division between you. Think of the scandal! but alas, that is the +least of the evils." + +It was Mrs. Doria's object to produce an impression, and avoid an +argument. She therefore left him as soon as she had, as she supposed, +made her mark on the young man. Richard was very silent during the +speech, and save for an exclamation or so, had listened attentively. He +pondered on what his aunt said. He loved Lady Blandish, and yet he did +not wish to see her Lady Feverel. Mrs. Doria laid painful stress on the +scandal, and though he did not give his mind to this, he thought of it. +He thought of his mother. Where was she? But most his thoughts recurred +to his father, and something akin to jealousy slowly awakened his heart +to him. He had given him up, and had not latterly felt extremely filial; +but he could not bear the idea of a division in the love of which he had +ever been the idol and sole object. And such a man, too! so good! so +generous! If it was jealousy that roused the young man's heart to his +father, the better part of love was also revived in it. He thought of +old days: of his father's forbearance, his own wilfulness. He looked on +himself, and what he had done, with the eyes of such a man. He +determined to do all he could to regain his favour. + +Mrs. Doria learnt from Adrian in the evening that her nephew intended +waiting in town another week. + +"That will do," smiled Mrs. Doria. "He will be more patient at the end +of a week." + +"Oh! does patience beget patience?" said Adrian. "I was not aware it was +a propagating virtue. I surrender him to you. I shan't be able to hold +him in after one week more. I assure you, my dear aunt, he's already"... + +"Thank you, no explanation," Mrs. Doria begged. + +When Richard saw her nest, he was informed that she had received a most +satisfactory letter from Mrs. John Todhunter: quite a glowing account of +John's behaviour: but on Richard's desiring to know the words Clare had +written, Mrs. Doria objected to be explicit, and shot into worldly +gossip. + +"Clare seldom glows," said Richard. + +"No, I mean for her," his aunt remarked. "Don't look like your father, +child." + +"I should like to have seen the letter," said Richard. + +Mrs. Doria did not propose to show it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +A Lady driving a pair of greys was noticed by Richard in his rides and +walks. She passed him rather obviously and often. She was very +handsome; a bold beauty, with shining black hair, red lips, and eyes not +afraid of men. The hair was brushed from her temples, leaving one of +those fine reckless outlines which the action of driving, and the pace, +admirably set off. She took his fancy. He liked the air of petulant +gallantry about her, and mused upon the picture, rare to him, of a +glorious dashing woman. He thought, too, she looked at him. He was not +at the time inclined to be vain, or he might have been sure she did. +Once it struck him she nodded slightly. + +He asked Adrian one day in the park--who she was. + +"I don't know her," said Adrian. "Probably a superior priestess of +Paphos." + +"Now that's my idea of Bellona," Richard exclaimed. "Not the fury they +paint, but a spirited, dauntless, eager-looking creature like that." + +"Bellona?" returned the wise youth. "I don't think her hair was black. +Red, wasn't it? I shouldn't compare her to Bellona; though, no doubt, +she's as ready to spill blood. Look at her! She does seem to scent +carnage. I see your idea. No; I should liken her to Diana emerged from +the tutorship of Master Endymion, and at nice play among the gods. +Depend upon it--they tell us nothing of the matter--Olympus shrouds the +story--but you may be certain that when she left the pretty shepherd she +had greater vogue than Venus up aloft." + +Brayder joined them. + +"See Mrs. Mount go by?" he said. + +"Oh, that's Mrs. Mount!" cried Adrian. + +"Who's Mrs. Mount?" Richard inquired. + +"A sister to Miss Random, my dear boy." + +"Like to know her?" drawled the Hon. Peter. + +Richard replied indifferently, "No," and Mrs. Mount passed out of sight +and out of the conversation. + +The young man wrote submissive letters to his father. "I have remained +here waiting to see you now five weeks," he wrote. "I have written to +you three letters, and you do not reply to them. Let me tell you again +how sincerely I desire and pray that you will come, or permit me to come +to you and throw myself at your feet, and beg my forgiveness, and hers. +She as earnestly implores it. Indeed, I am very wretched, sir. Believe +me, there is nothing I would not do to regain your esteem and the love I +fear I have unhappily forfeited. I will remain another week in the hope +of hearing from you, or seeing you. I beg of you, sir, not to drive me +mad. Whatever you ask of me I will consent to." + +"Nothing he would not do!" the baronet commented as he read. "There is +nothing he would not do! He will remain another week and give me that +final chance! And it is I who drive him mad! Already he is beginning to +cast his retribution on my shoulders." + +Sir Austin had really gone down to Wales to be out of the way. A +Shaddock-Dogmatist does not meet misfortune without hearing of it, and +the author of The Pilgrim'S Scrip in trouble found London too hot for +him. He quitted London to take refuge among the mountains; living there +in solitary commune with a virgin Note-book. + +Some indefinite scheme was in his head in this treatment of his son. Had +he construed it, it would have looked ugly; and it settled to a vague +principle that the young man should be tried and tested. + +"Let him learn to deny himself something. Let him live with his equals +for a term. If he loves me he will read my wishes." Thus he explained +his principle to Lady Blandish. + +The lady wrote: "You speak of a term. Till when? May I name one to him? +It is the dreadful uncertainty that reduces him to despair. That, and +nothing else. Pray be explicit." + +In return, he distantly indicated Richard's majority. + +How could Lady Blandish go and ask the young man to wait a year away from +his wife? Her instinct began to open a wide eye on the idol she +worshipped. + +When people do not themselves know what they mean, they succeed in +deceiving and imposing upon others. Not only was Lady Blandish +mystified; Mrs. Doria, who pierced into the recesses of everybody's mind, +and had always been in the habit of reading off her brother from infancy, +and had never known herself to be once wrong about him, she confessed she +was quite at a loss to comprehend Austin's principle. "For principle he +has," said Mrs. Doria; "he never acts without one. But what it is, I +cannot at present perceive. If he would write, and command the boy to +await his return, all would be clear. He allows us to go and fetch him, +and then leaves us all in a quandary. It must be some woman's influence. +That is the only way to account for it." + +"Singular!" interjected Adrian, "what pride women have in their sex! +Well, I have to tell you, my dear aunt, that the day after to-morrow I +hand my charge over to your keeping. I can't hold him in an hour longer. +I've had to leash him with lies till my invention's exhausted. I +petition to have them put down to the chief's account, but when the +stream runs dry I can do no more. The last was, that I had heard from +him desiring me to have the South-west bedroom ready for him on Tuesday +proximate. 'So!' says my son, 'I'll wait till then,' and from the +gigantic effort he exhibited in coming to it, I doubt any human power's +getting him to wait longer." + +"We must, we must detain him," said Mrs. Doria. "If we do not, I am +convinced Austin will do something rash that he will for ever repent. He +will marry that woman, Adrian. Mark my words. Now with any other young +man!... But Richard's education! that ridiculous System!... Has he no +distraction? nothing to amuse him?" + +"Poor boy! I suppose he wants his own particular playfellow." + +The wise youth had to bow to a reproof. + +"I tell you, Adrian, he will marry that woman." + +"My dear aunt! Can a chaste man do aught more commendable?" + +"Has the boy no object we can induce him to follow?--If he had but a +profession!" + +"What say you to the regeneration of the streets of London, and the +profession of moral-scavenger, aunt? I assure you I have served a +month's apprenticeship with him. We sally forth on the tenth hour of the +night. A female passes. I hear him groan. 'Is she one of them, +Adrian?' I am compelled to admit she is not the saint he deems it the +portion of every creature wearing petticoats to be. Another groan; an +evident internal, 'It cannot be--and yet!'...that we hear on the stage. +Rollings of eyes: impious questionings of the Creator of the universe; +savage mutterings against brutal males; and then we meet a second young +person, and repeat the performance--of which I am rather tired. It would +be all very well, but he turns upon me, and lectures me because I don't +hire a house, and furnish it for all the women one meets to live in in +purity. Now that's too much to ask of a quiet man. Master Thompson has +latterly relieved me, I'm happy to say." + +Mrs. Doria thought her thoughts. + +"Has Austin written to you since you were in town?" + +"Not an Aphorism!" returned Adrian. + +"I must see Richard to-morrow morning," Mrs. Doria ended the colloquy by +saying. + +The result of her interview with her nephew was, that Richard made no +allusion to a departure on the Tuesday; and for many days afterward he +appeared to have an absorbing business on his hands: but what it was +Adrian did not then learn, and his admiration of Mrs. Doria's genius for +management rose to a very high pitch. + +On a morning in October they had an early visitor in the person of the +Hon. Peter, whom they had not seen for a week or more. + +"Gentlemen," he said, flourishing his cane in his most affable manner, +"I've come to propose to you to join us in a little dinner-party at +Richmond. Nobody's in town, you know. London's as dead as a stock-fish. +Nothing but the scrapings to offer you. But the weather's fine: I +flatter myself you'll find the company agreeable, What says my friend +Feverel?" + +Richard begged to be excused. + +"No, no: positively you must come," said the Hon. Peter. "I've had some +trouble to get them together to relieve the dulness of your +incarceration. Richmond's within the rules of your prison. You can be +back by night. Moonlight on the water--lovely woman. We've engaged a +city-barge to pull us back. Eight oars--I'm not sure it isn't sixteen. +Come--the word!" + +Adrian was for going. Richard said he had an appointment with Ripton. + +"You're in for another rick, you two," said Adrian. "Arrange that we go. +You haven't seen the cockney's Paradise. Abjure Blazes, and taste of +peace, my son." + +After some persuasion, Richard yawned wearily, and got up, and threw +aside the care that was on him, saying, "Very well. Just as you like. +We'll take old Rip with us." + +Adrian consulted Brayder's eye at this. The Hon. Peter briskly declared +he should be delighted to have Feverel's friend, and offered to take them +all down in his drag. + +"If you don't get a match on to swim there with the tide--eh, Feverel, my +boy?" + +Richard replied that he had given up that sort of thing, at which Brayder +communicated a queer glance to Adrian, and applauded the youth. + +Richmond was under a still October sun. The pleasant landscape, bathed +in Autumn, stretched from the foot of the hill to a red horizon haze. +The day was like none that Richard vividly remembered. It touched no +link in the chain of his recollection. It was quiet, and belonged to the +spirit of the season. + +Adrian had divined the character of the scrapings they were to meet. +Brayder introduced them to one or two of the men, hastily and in rather +an undervoice, as a thing to get over. They made their bow to the first +knot of ladies they encountered. Propriety was observed strictly, even +to severity. The general talk was of the weather. Here and there a lady +would seize a button-hole or any little bit of the habiliments, of the +man she was addressing; and if it came to her to chide him, she did it +with more than a forefinger. This, however, was only here and there, and +a privilege of intimacy. + +Where ladies are gathered together, the Queen of the assemblage may be +known by her Court of males. The Queen of the present gathering leaned +against a corner of the open window, surrounded by a stalwart Court, in +whom a practised eye would have discerned guardsmen, and Ripton, with a +sinking of the heart, apprehended lords. They were fine men, offering +inanimate homage. The trim of their whiskerage, the cut of their coats, +the high-bred indolence in their aspect, eclipsed Ripton's sense of self- +esteem. But they kindly looked over him. Occasionally one committed a +momentary outrage on him with an eye-glass, seeming to cry out in a voice +of scathing scorn, "Who's this?" and Ripton got closer to his hero to +justify his humble pretensions to existence and an identity in the shadow +of him. Richard gazed about. Heroes do not always know what to say or +do; and the cold bath before dinner in strange company is one of the +instances. He had recognized his superb Bellona in the lady by the +garden window. For Brayder the men had nods and yokes, the ladies a +pretty playfulness. He was very busy, passing between the groups, +chatting, laughing, taking the feminine taps he received, and sometimes +returning them in sly whispers. Adrian sat down and crossed his legs, +looking amused and benignant. + +"Whose dinner is it?" Ripton heard a mignonne beauty ask of a cavalier. + +"Mount's, I suppose," was the answer. + +"Where is he? Why don't he come?" + +"An affaire, I fancy." + +"There he is again! How shamefully he treats Mrs. Mount!" + +"She don't seem to cry over it." + +Mrs. Mount was flashing her teeth and eyes with laughter at one of her +Court, who appeared to be Fool. + +Dinner was announced. The ladies proclaimed extravagant appetites. +Brayder posted his three friends. Ripton found himself under the lee of +a dame with a bosom. On the other aide of him was the mignonne. Adrian +was at the lower end of the table. Ladies were in profusion, and he had +his share. Brayder drew Richard from seat to seat. A happy man had +established himself next to Mrs. Mount. Him Brayder hailed to take the +head of the table. The happy man objected, Brayder continued urgent, the +lady tenderly insisted, the happy man grimaced, dropped into the post of +honour, strove to look placable. Richard usurped his chair, and was not +badly welcomed by his neighbour. + +Then the dinner commenced, and had all the attention of the company, till +the flying of the first champagne-cork gave the signal, and a hum began +to spread. Sparkling wine, that looseneth the tongue, and displayeth the +verity, hath also the quality of colouring it. The ladies laughed high; +Richard only thought them gay and natural. They flung back in their chairs +and laughed to tears; Ripton thought only of the pleasure he had in their +society. The champagne-corks continued a regular file-firing. + +"Where have you been lately? I haven't seen you in the park," said Mrs. +Mount to Richard. + +"No," he replied, "I've not been there." The question seemed odd: she +spoke so simply that it did not impress him. He emptied his glass, and +had it filled again. + +The Hon. Peter did most of the open talking, which related to horses, +yachting, opera, and sport generally: who was ruined; by what horse, or +by what woman. He told one or two of Richard's feats. Fair smiles +rewarded the hero. + +"Do you bet?" said Mrs. Mount. + +"Only on myself," returned Richard. + +"Bravo!" cried his Bellona, and her eye sent a lingering delirious +sparkle across her brimming glass at him. + +"I'm sure you're a safe one to back," she added, and seemed to scan his +points approvingly. + +Richard's cheeks mounted bloom. + +"Don't you adore champagne?" quoth the dame with a bosom to Ripton. + +"Oh, yes!" answered Ripton, with more candour than accuracy, "I always +drink it." + +"Do you indeed?" said the enraptured bosom, ogling him. "You would be a +friend, now! I hope you don't object to a lady joining you now and then. +Champagne's my folly." + +A laugh was circling among the ladies of whom Adrian was the centre; +first low, and as he continued some narration, peals resounded, till +those excluded from the fun demanded the cue, and ladies leaned behind +gentlemen to take it up, and formed an electric chain of laughter. Each +one, as her ear received it, caught up her handkerchief, and laughed, and +looked shocked afterwards, or looked shocked and then spouted laughter. +The anecdote might have been communicated to the bewildered cavaliers, +but coming to a lady of a demurer cast, she looked shocked without +laughing, and reproved the female table, in whose breasts it was +consigned to burial: but here and there a man's head was seen bent, and a +lady's mouth moved, though her face was not turned toward him, and a +man's broad laugh was presently heard, while the lady gazed unconsciously +before her, and preserved her gravity if she could escape any other +lady's eyes; failing in which, handkerchiefs were simultaneously seized, +and a second chime arose, till the tickling force subsided to a few +chance bursts. + +What nonsense it is that my father writes about women! thought Richard. +He says they can't laugh, and don't understand humour. It comes, he +reflected, of his shutting himself from the world. And the idea that he +was seeing the world, and feeling wiser, flattered him. He talked +fluently to his dangerous Bellona. He gave her some reminiscences of +Adrian's whimsies. + +"Oh!" said she, "that's your tutor, is it!" She eyed the young man as if +she thought he must go far and fast. + +Ripton felt a push. "Look at that," said the bosom, fuming utter +disgust. He was directed to see a manly arm round the waist of the +mignonne. "Now that's what I don't like in company," the bosom inflated +to observe with sufficient emphasis. "She always will allow it with +everybody. Give her a nudge." + +Ripton protested that he dared not; upon which she said, "Then I will"; +and inclined her sumptuous bust across his lap, breathing wine in his +face, and gave the nudge. The mignonne turned an inquiring eye on +Ripton; a mischievous spark shot from it. She laughed, and said; "Aren't +you satisfied with the old girl?" + +"Impudence!" muttered the bosom, growing grander and redder. + +"Do, do fill her glass, and keep her quiet--she drinks port when there's +no more champagne," said the mignonne. + +The bosom revenged herself by whispering to Ripton scandal of the +mignonne, and between them he was enabled to form a correcter estimate of +the company, and quite recovered from his original awe: so much so as to +feel a touch of jealousy at seeing his lively little neighbour still held +in absolute possession. + +Mrs. Mount did not come out much; but there was a deferential manner in +the bearing of the men toward her, which those haughty creatures accord +not save to clever women; and she contrived to hold the talk with three +or four at the head of the table while she still had passages aside with +Richard. + +The port and claret went very well after the champagne. The ladies here +did not ignominiously surrender the field to the gentlemen; they +maintained their position with honour. Silver was seen far out on +Thames. The wine ebbed, and the laughter. Sentiment and cigars took up +the wondrous tale. + +"Oh, what a lovely night!" said the ladies, looking above. + +"Charming," said the gentlemen, looking below. + +The faint-smelling cool Autumn air was pleasant after the feast. +Fragrant weeds burned bright about the garden. + +"We are split into couples," said Adrian to Richard, who was standing +alone, eying the landscape. "Tis the influence of the moon! Apparently +we are in Cyprus. How has my son enjoyed himself? How likes he the +society of Aspasia? I feel like a wise Greek to-night." + +Adrian was jolly, and rolled comfortably as he talked. Ripton had been +carried off by the sentimental bosom. He came up to them and whispered: +"By Jove, Ricky! do you know what sort of women these are?" + +Richard said he thought them a nice sort. + +"Puritan!" exclaimed Adrian, slapping Ripton on the back. "Why didn't +you get tipsy, sir? Don't you ever intoxicate yourself except at lawful +marriages? Reveal to us what you have done with the portly dame?" + +Ripton endured his bantering that he might hang about Richard, and watch +over him. He was jealous of his innocent Beauty's husband being in +proximity with such women. Murmuring couples passed them to and fro. + +"By Jove, Ricky!" Ripton favoured his friend with another hard whisper, +"there's a woman smoking!" + +"And why not, O Riptonus?" said Adrian. "Art unaware that woman +cosmopolitan is woman consummate? and dost grumble to pay the small price +for the splendid gem?" + +"Well, I don't like women to smoke," said plain Ripton. + +"Why mayn't they do what men do?" the hero cried impetuously. "I hate +that contemptible narrow-mindedness. It's that makes the ruin and +horrors I see. Why mayn't they do what men do? I like the women who are +brave enough not to be hypocrites. By heaven! if these women are bad, I +like them better than a set of hypocritical creatures who are all show, +and deceive you in the end." + +"Bravo!" shouted Adrian. "There speaks the regenerator." + +Ripton, as usual, was crushed by his leader. He had no argument. He +still thought women ought not to smoke; and he thought of one far away, +lonely by the sea, who was perfect without being cosmopolitan. + +The Pilgrim's Scrip remarks that: "Young men take joy in nothing so much +as the thinking women Angels: and nothing sours men of experience more +than knowing that all are not quite so." + +The Aphorist would have pardoned Ripton Thompson his first Random +extravagance, had he perceived the simple warm-hearted worship of +feminine goodness Richard's young bride had inspired in the breast of the +youth. It might possibly have taught him to put deeper trust in our +nature. + +Ripton thought of her, and had a feeling of sadness. He wandered about +the grounds by himself, went through an open postern, and threw himself +down among some bushes on the slope of the hill. Lying there, and +meditating, he became aware of voices conversing. + +"What does he want?" said a woman's voice. "It's another of his +villanies, I know. Upon my honour, Brayder, when I think of what I have +to reproach him for, I think I must go mad, or kill him." + +"Tragic!" said the Hon. Peter. "Haven't you revenged yourself, Bella, +pretty often? Best deal openly. This is a commercial transaction. You +ask for money, and you are to have it--on the conditions: double the sum, +and debts paid." + +"He applies to me!" + +"You know, my dear Bella, it has long been all up between you. I think +Mount has behaved very well, considering all he knows. He's not easily +hoodwinked, you know. He resigns himself to his fate and follows other +game." + +"Then the condition is, that I am to seduce this young man?" + +"My dear Bella! you strike your bird like a hawk. I didn't say seduce. +Hold him in--play with him. Amuse him." + +"I don't understand half-measures." + +"Women seldom do." + +"How I hate you, Brayder!" + +"I thank your ladyship." + +The two walked farther. Ripton had heard some little of the colloquy. +He left the spot in a serious mood, apprehensive of something dark to the +people he loved, though he had no idea of what the Hon. Peter's +stipulation involved. + +On the voyage back to town, Richard was again selected to sit by Mrs. +Mount. Brayder and Adrian started the jokes. The pair of parasites got +on extremely well together. Soft fell the plash of the oars; softly the +moonlight curled around them; softly the banks glided by. The ladies +were in a state of high sentiment. They sang without request. All +deemed the British ballad-monger an appropriate interpreter of their +emotions. After good wine, and plenty thereof, fair throats will make +men of taste swallow that remarkable composer. Eyes, lips, hearts; darts +and smarts and sighs; beauty, duty; bosom, blossom; false one, farewell! +To this pathetic strain they melted. Mrs. Mount, though strongly +requested, declined to sing. She preserved her state. Under the tall +aspens of Brentford-ait, and on they swept, the white moon in their wake. +Richard's hand lay open by his side. Mrs. Mount's little white hand by +misadventure fell into it. It was not pressed, or soothed for its fall, +or made intimate with eloquent fingers. It lay there like a bit of snow +on the cold ground. A yellow leaf wavering down from the aspens struck +Richard's cheek, and he drew away the very hand to throw back his hair +and smooth his face, and then folded his arms, unconscious of offence. +He was thinking ambitiously of his life: his blood was untroubled, his +brain calmly working. + +"Which is the more perilous?" is a problem put by the Pilgrim: "To meet +the temptings of Eve, or to pique her?" + +Mrs. Mount stared at the young man as at a curiosity, and turned to flirt +with one of her Court. The Guardsmen were mostly sentimental. One or +two rattled, and one was such a good-humoured fellow that Adrian could +not make him ridiculous. The others seemed to give themselves up to a +silent waxing in length of limb. However far they sat removed, everybody +was entangled in their legs. Pursuing his studies, Adrian came to the +conclusion, that the same close intellectual and moral affinity which he +had discovered to exist between our nobility and our yeomanry, is to be +observed between the Guardsman class, and that of the corps de ballet: +they both live by the strength of their legs, where also their wits, if +they do not altogether reside there, are principally developed: both are +volage; wine, tobacco, and the moon, influence both alike; and admitting +the one marked difference that does exist, it is, after all, pretty +nearly the same thing to be coquetting and sinning on two legs as on the +point of a toe. + +A long Guardsman with a deep bass voice sang a doleful song about the +twining tendrils of the heart ruthlessly torn, but required urgent +persuasions and heavy trumpeting of his lungs to get to the end: before +he had accomplished it, Adrian had contrived to raise a laugh in his +neighbourhood, so that the company was divided, and the camp split: +jollity returned to one-half, while sentiment held the other. Ripton, +blotted behind the bosom, was only lucky in securing a higher degree of +heat than was possible for the rest. "Are you cold?" she would ask, +smiling charitably. + +"I am," said the mignonne, as if to excuse her conduct. + +"You always appear to be," the fat one sniffed and snapped. + +"Won't you warm two, Mrs. Mortimer?" said the naughty little woman. + +Disdain prevented any further notice of her. Those familiar with the +ladies enjoyed their sparring, which was frequent. The mignonne was +heard to whisper: "That poor fellow will certainly be stewed." + +Very prettily the ladies took and gave warmth, for the air on the water +was chill and misty. Adrian had beside him the demure one who had +stopped the circulation of his anecdote. She in nowise objected to the +fair exchange, but said "Hush!" betweenwhiles. + +Past Kew and Hammersmith, on the cool smooth water; across Putney reach; +through Battersea bridge; and the City grew around them, and the shadows +of great mill-factories slept athwart the moonlight. + +All the ladies prattled sweetly of a charming day when they alighted on +land. Several cavaliers crushed for the honour of conducting Mrs. Mount +to her home. + +"My brougham's here; I shall go alone," said Mrs. Mount. "Some one +arrange my shawl." + +She turned her back to Richard, who had a view of a delicate neck as he +manipulated with the bearing of a mailed knight. + +"Which way are you going?" she asked carelessly, and, to his reply as to +the direction, said: "Then I can give you a lift," and she took his arm +with a matter-of-course air, and walked up the stairs with him. + +Ripton saw what had happened. He was going to follow: the portly dame +retained him, and desired him to get her a cab. + +"Oh, you happy fellow!" said the bright-eyed mignonne, passing by. + +Ripton procured the cab, and stuffed it full without having to get into +it himself. + +"Try and let him come in too?" said the persecuting creature, again +passing. + +"Take liberties with pour men--you shan't with me," retorted the angry +bosom, and drove off. + +"So she's been and gone and run away and left him after all his trouble!" +cried the pert little thing, peering into Ripton's eyes. "Now you'll +never be so foolish as to pin your faith to fat women again. There! he +shall be made happy another time." She gave his nose a comical tap, and +tripped away with her possessor. + +Ripton rather forgot his friend for some minutes: Random thoughts laid +hold of him. Cabs and carriages rattled past. He was sure he had been +among members of the nobility that day, though when they went by him now +they only recognized him with an effort of the eyelids. He began to +think of the day with exultation, as an event. Recollections of the +mignonne were captivating. "Blue eyes--just what I like! And such a +little impudent nose, and red lips, pouting--the very thing I like! And +her hair? darkish, I think--say brown. And so saucy, and light on her +feet. And kind she is, or she wouldn't have talked to me like that." +Thus, with a groaning soul, he pictured her. His reason voluntarily +consigned her to the aristocracy as a natural appanage: but he did +amorously wish that Fortune had made a lord of him. + +Then his mind reverted to Mrs. Mount, and the strange bits of the +conversation he had heard on the hill. He was not one to suspect anybody +positively. He was timid of fixing a suspicion. It hovered +indefinitely, and clouded people, without stirring him to any resolve. +Still the attentions of the lady toward Richard were queer. He +endeavoured to imagine they were in the nature of things, because Richard +was so handsome that any woman must take to him. "But he's married," +said Ripton, "and he mustn't go near these people if he's married." Not +a high morality, perhaps better than none at all: better for the world +were it practised more. He thought of Richard along with that sparkling +dame, alone with her. The adorable beauty of his dear bride, her pure +heavenly face, swam before him. Thinking of her, he lost sight of the +mignonne who had made him giddy. + +He walked to Richard's hotel, and up and down the street there, hoping +every minute to hear his step; sometimes fancying he might have returned +and gone to bed. Two o'clock struck. Ripton could not go away. He was +sure he should not sleep if he did. At last the cold sent him homeward, +and leaving the street, on the moonlight side of Piccadilly he met his +friend patrolling with his head up and that swing of the feet proper to +men who are chanting verses. + +"Old Rip!" cried Richard, cheerily. "What on earth are you doing here at +this hour of the morning?" + +Ripton muttered of his pleasure at meeting him. "I wanted to shake your +hand before I went home." + +Richard smiled on him in an amused kindly way. "That all? You may shake +my hand any day, like a true man as you are, old Rip! I've been speaking +about you. Do you know, that--Mrs. Mount--never saw you all the time at +Richmond, or in the boat!" + +"Oh!" Ripton said, well assured that he was a dwarf "you saw her safe +home?" + +"Yes. I've been there for the last couple of hours--talking. She talks +capitally: she's wonderfully clever. She's very like a man, only much +nicer. I like her." + +"But, Richard, excuse me--I'm sure I don't mean to offend you--but now +you're married...perhaps you couldn't help seeing her home, but I think +you really indeed oughtn't to have gone upstairs." + +Ripton delivered this opinion with a modest impressiveness. + +"What do you mean?" said Richard. "You don't suppose I care for any +woman but my little darling down there." He laughed. + +"No; of course not. That's absurd. What I mean is, that people perhaps +will--you know, they do--they say all manner of things, and that makes +unhappiness; and I do wish you were going home to-morrow, Ricky. I mean, +to your dear wife." Ripton blushed and looked away as he spoke. + +The hero gave one of his scornful glances. "So you're anxious about my +reputation. I hate that way of looking on women. Because they have been +once misled--look how much weaker they are!--because the world has given +them an ill fame, you would treat them as contagious and keep away from +them for the sake of your character! + +"It would be different with me," quoth Ripton. + +"How?" asked the hero. + +"Because I'm worse than you," was all the logical explanation Ripton was +capable of. + +"I do hope you will go home soon," he added. + +"Yes," said Richard, "and I, so do I hope so. But I've work to do now. +I dare not, I cannot, leave it. Lucy would be the last to ask me;--you +saw her letter yesterday. Now listen to me, Rip. I want to make you be +just to women." + +Then he read Ripton a lecture on erring women, speaking of them as if he +had known them and studied them for years. Clever, beautiful, but +betrayed by love, it was the first duty of all true men to cherish and +redeem them. "We turn them into curses, Rip; these divine creatures." +And the world suffered for it. That--that was the root of all the evil +in the world! + +"I don't feel anger or horror at these poor women, Rip! It's strange. I +knew what they were when we came home in the boat. But I do--it tears my +heart to see a young girl given over to an old man--a man she doesn't +love. That's shame!--Don't speak of it." + +Forgetting to contest the premiss, that all betrayed women are betrayed +by love, Ripton was quite silenced. He, like most young men, had +pondered somewhat on this matter, and was inclined to be sentimental when +be was not hungry. They walked in the moonlight by the railings of the +park. Richard harangued at leisure, while Ripton's teeth chattered. +Chivalry might be dead, but still there was something to do, went the +strain. The lady of the day had not been thrown in the hero's path +without an object, he said; and he was sadly right there. He did not +express the thing clearly; nevertheless Ripton understood him to mean, he +intended to rescue that lady from further transgressions, and show a +certain scorn of the world. That lady, and then other ladies unknown, +were to be rescued. Ripton was to help. He and Ripton were to be the +knights of this enterprise. When appealed to, Ripton acquiesced, and +shivered. Not only were they to be knights, they would have to be +Titans, for the powers of the world, the spurious ruling Social Gods, +would have to be defied and overthrown. And Titan number one flung up +his handsome bold face as if to challenge base Jove on the spot; and +Titan number two strained the upper button of his coat to meet across his +pocket-handkerchief on his chest, and warmed his fingers under his coat- +tails. The moon had fallen from her high seat and was in the mists of +the West, when he was allowed to seek his blankets, and the cold acting +on his friend's eloquence made Ripton's flesh very contrite. The poor +fellow had thinner blood than the hero; but his heart was good. By the +time he had got a little warmth about him, his heart gratefully strove to +encourage him in the conception of becoming a knight and a Titan; and so +striving Ripton fell asleep and dreamed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + + +Behold the hero embarked in the redemption of an erring beautiful woman. + +"Alas!" writes the Pilgrim at this very time to Lady Blandish, "I cannot +get that legend of the Serpent from me, the more I think. Has he not +caught you, and ranked you foremost in his legions? For see: till you +were fashioned, the fruits hung immobile on the boughs. They swayed +before us, glistening and cold. The hand must be eager that plucked +them. They did not come down to us, and smile, and speak our language, +and read our thoughts, and know when to fly, when to follow! how surely +to have us! + +"Do but mark one of you standing openly in the track of the Serpent. +What shall be done with her? I fear the world is wiser than its judges! +Turn from her, says the world. By day the sons of the world do. It +darkens, and they dance together downward. Then comes there one of the +world's elect who deems old counsel devilish; indifference to the end of +evil worse than its pursuit. He comes to reclaim her. From deepest bane +will he bring her back to highest blessing. Is not that a bait already? +Poor fish! 'tis wondrous flattering. The Serpent has slimed her so to +secure him! With slow weary steps he draws her into light: she clings to +him; she is human; part of his work, and he loves it. As they mount +upward, he looks on her more, while she, it may be, looks above. What +has touched him? What has passed out of her, and into him? The Serpent +laughs below. At the gateways of the Sun they fall together!" + +This alliterative production was written without any sense of the peril +that makes prophecy. + +It suited Sir Austin to write thus. It was a channel to his acrimony +moderated through his philosophy. The letter was a reply to a vehement +entreaty from Lady Blandish for him to come up to Richard and forgive him +thoroughly: Richard's name was not mentioned in it. + +"He tries to be more than he is," thought the lady: and she began +insensibly to conceive him less than he was. + +The baronet was conscious of a certain false gratification in his son's +apparent obedience to his wishes and complete submission; a gratification +he chose to accept as his due, without dissecting or accounting for it. +The intelligence reiterating that Richard waited, and still waited; +Richard's letters, and more his dumb abiding and practical penitence; +vindicated humanity sufficiently to stop the course of virulent +aphorisms. He could speak, we have seen, in sorrow for this frail nature +of ours, that he had once stood forth to champion. "But how long will +this last?" he demanded, with the air of Hippias. He did not reflect how +long it had lasted. Indeed, his indigestion of wrath had made of him a +moral Dyspepsy. + +It was not mere obedience that held Richard from the aims of his young +wife: nor was it this new knightly enterprise he had presumed to +undertake. Hero as he was, a youth, open to the insane promptings of hot +blood, he was not a fool. There had been talk between him and Mrs. Doria +of his mother. Now that he had broken from his father, his heart spoke +for her. She lived, he knew: he knew no more. Words painfully hovering +along the borders of plain speech had been communicated to him, filling +him with moody imaginings. If he thought of her, the red was on his +face, though he could not have said why. But now, after canvassing the +conduct of his father, and throwing him aside as a terrible riddle, he +asked Mrs. Doria to tell him of his other parent. As softly as she could +she told the story. To her the shame was past: she could weep for the +poor lady. Richard dropped no tears. Disgrace of this kind is always +present to a son, and, educated as he had been, these tidings were a +vivid fire in his brain. He resolved to hunt her out, and take her from +the man. Here was work set to his hand. All her dear husband did was +right to Lucy. She encouraged him to stay for that purpose, thinking it +also served another. There was Tom Bakewell to watch over Lucy: there +was work for him to do. Whether it would please his father he did not +stop to consider. As to the justice of the act, let us say nothing. + +On Ripton devolved the humbler task of grubbing for Sandoe's place of +residence; and as he was unacquainted with the name by which the poet now +went in private, his endeavours were not immediately successful. The +friends met in the evening at Lady Blandish's town-house, or at the +Foreys', where Mrs. Doria procured the reverer of the Royal Martyr, and +staunch conservative, a favourable reception. Pity, deep pity for +Richard's conduct Ripton saw breathing out of Mrs. Doria. Algernon +Feverel treated his nephew with a sort of rough commiseration, as a young +fellow who had run off the road. + +Pity was in Lady Blandish's eyes, though for a different cause. She +doubted if she did well in seconding his father's unwise scheme-- +supposing him to have a scheme. She saw the young husband encompassed by +dangers at a critical time. Not a word of Mrs. Mount had been breathed +to her, but the lady had some knowledge of life. She touched on delicate +verges to the baronet in her letters, and he understood her well enough. +"If he loves this person to whom he has bound himself, what fear for him? +Or are you coming to think it something that bears the name of love +because we have to veil the rightful appellation?" So he responded, +remote among the mountains. She tried very hard to speak plainly. +Finally he came to say that he denied himself the pleasure of seeing his +son specially, that he for a time might be put to the test the lady +seemed to dread. This was almost too much for Lady Blandish. Love's +charity boy so loftily serene now that she saw him half denuded--a thing +of shanks and wrists--was a trial for her true heart. + +Going home at night Richard would laugh at the faces made about his +marriage. "We'll carry the day, Rip, my Lucy and I! or I'll do it alone- +-what there is to do." He slightly adverted to a natural want of courage +in women, which Ripton took to indicate that his Beauty was deficient in +that quality. Up leapt the Old Dog; "I'm sure there never was a braver +creature upon earth, Richard! She's as brave as she's lovely, I'll swear +she is! Look how she behaved that day! How her voice sounded! She was +trembling... Brave? She'd follow you into battle, Richard!" + +And Richard rejoined: "Talk on, dear old Rip! She's my darling love, +whatever she is! And she is gloriously lovely. No eyes are like hers. +I'll go down to-morrow morning the first thing." + +Ripton only wondered the husband of such a treasure could remain apart +from it. So thought Richard for a space. + +"But if I go, Rip," he said despondently, "if I go for a day even I shall +have undone all my work with my father. She says it herself--you saw it +in her last letter." + +"Yes," Ripton assented, and the words "Please remember me to dear Mr. +Thompson," fluttered about the Old Dog's heart. + +It came to pass that Mrs. Berry, having certain business that led her +through Kensington Gardens, spied a figure that she had once dandled in +long clothes, and helped make a man of, if ever woman did. He was +walking under the trees beside a lady, talking to her, not indifferently. +The gentleman was her bridegroom and her babe. "I know his back," said +Mrs. Berry, as if she had branded a mark on it in infancy. But the lady +was not her bride. Mrs. Berry diverged from the path, and got before +them on the left flank; she stared, retreated, and came round upon the +right. There was that in the lady's face which Mrs. Berry did not like. +Her innermost question was, why he was not walking with his own wife? +She stopped in front of them. They broke, and passed about her. The +lady made a laughing remark to him, whereat he turned to look, and Mrs. +Berry bobbed. She had to bob a second time, and then he remembered the +worthy creature, and hailed her Penelope, shaking her hand so that he put +her in countenance again. Mrs. Berry was extremely agitated. He +dismissed her, promising to call upon her in the evening. She heard the +lady slip out something from a side of her lip, and they both laughed as +she toddled off to a sheltering tree to wipe a corner of each eye. "I +don't like the looks of that woman," she said, and repeated it +resolutely. + +"Why doesn't he walk arm-in-arm with her?" was her neat inquiry. +"Where's his wife?" succeeded it. After many interrogations of the sort, +she arrived at naming the lady a bold-faced thing; adding subsequently, +brazen. The lady had apparently shown Mrs. Berry that she wished to get +rid of her, and had checked the outpouring of her emotions on the breast +of her babe. "I know a lady when I see one," said Mrs. Berry. "I +haven't lived with 'em for nothing; and if she's a lady bred and born, I +wasn't married in the church alive." + +Then, if not a lady, what was she? Mrs. Berry desired to know: "She's +imitation lady, I'm sure she is!" Berry vowed. "I say she don't look +proper." + +Establishing the lady to be a spurious article, however, what was one to +think of a married man in company with such? "Oh no! it ain't that!" +Mrs. Berry returned immediately on the charitable tack. "Belike it's +some one of his acquaintance 've married her for her looks, and he've +just met her.... Why it'd be as bad as my Berry!" the relinquished +spouse of Berry ejaculated, in horror at the idea of a second man being +so monstrous in wickedness. "Just coupled, too!" Mrs. Berry groaned on +the suspicious side of the debate. "And such a sweet young thing for his +wife! But no, I'll never believe it. Not if he tell me so himself! And +men don't do that," she whimpered. + +Women are swift at coming to conclusions in these matters; soft women +exceedingly swift: and soft women who have been betrayed are rapid beyond +measure. Mrs. Berry had not cogitated long ere she pronounced distinctly +and without a shadow of dubiosity: "My opinion is--married or not +married, and wheresomever he pick her up--she's nothin' more nor less +than a Bella Donna!" as which poisonous plant she forthwith registered +the lady in the botanical note-book of her brain. It would have +astonished Mrs. Mount to have heard her person so accurately hit off at a +glance. + +In the evening Richard made good his promise, accompanied by Ripton. +Mrs. Berry opened the door to them. She could not wait to get him into +the parlour. "You're my own blessed babe; and I'm as good as your +mother, though I didn't suck ye, bein' a maid!" she cried, falling into +his arms, while Richard did his best to support the unexpected burden. +Then reproaching him tenderly for his guile--at mention of which Ripton +chuckled, deeming it his own most honourable portion of the plot--Mrs. +Berry led them into the parlour, and revealed to Richard who she was, and +how she had tossed him, and hugged him, and kissed him all over, when he +was only that big--showing him her stumpy fat arm. "I kissed ye from +head to tail, I did," said Mrs. Berry, "and you needn't be ashamed of it. +It's be hoped you'll never have nothin' worse come t'ye, my dear!" + +Richard assured her he was not a bit ashamed, but warned her that she +must not do it now, Mrs. Berry admitting it was out of the question now, +and now that he had a wife, moreover. The young men laughed, and Ripton +laughing over-loudly drew on himself Mrs. Berry's attention: "But that +Mr. Thompson there--however he can look me in the face after his +inn'cence! helping blindfold an old woman! though I ain't sorry for what +I did--that I'm free for to say, and its' over, and blessed be all! +Amen! So now where is she and how is she, Mr. Richard, my dear--it's +only cuttin' off the 's' and you are as you was.--Why didn't ye bring her +with ye to see her old Berry?" + +Richard hurriedly explained that Lucy was still in the Isle of Wight. + +"Oh! and you've left her for a day or two?" said Mrs. Berry. + +"Good God! I wish it had been a day or two," cried Richard. + +"Ah! and how long have it been?" asked Mrs. Berry, her heart beginning to +beat at his manner of speaking. + +"Don't talk about it," said Richard. + +"Oh! you never been dudgeonin' already? Oh! you haven't been peckin' at +one another yet?" Mrs. Berry exclaimed. + +Ripton interposed to tell her such fears were unfounded. + +"Then how long ha' you been divided?" + +In a guilty voice Ripton stammered "since September." + +"September!" breathed Mrs. Berry, counting on her fingers, "September, +October, Nov--two months and more! nigh three! A young married husband +away from the wife of his bosom nigh three months! Oh my! Oh my! what +do that mean?" + +"My father sent for me--I'm waiting to see him," said Richard. A few +more words helped Mrs. Berry to comprehend the condition of affairs. +Then Mrs. Berry spread her lap, flattened out her hands, fixed her eyes, +and spoke. + +"My dear young gentleman!--I'd like to call ye my darlin' babe! I'm +going to speak as a mother to ye, whether ye likes it or no; and what old +Berry says, you won't mind, for she's had ye when there was no +conventionals about ye, and she has the feelin's of a mother to you, +though humble her state. If there's one that know matrimony it's me, my +dear, though Berry did give me no more but nine months of it and I've +known the worst of matrimony, which, if you wants to be woeful wise, +there it is for ye. For what have been my gain? That man gave me +nothin' but his name; and Bessy Andrews was as good as Bessy Berry, +though both is 'Bs,' and says he, you was 'A,' and now you's 'B,' so +you're my A B, he says, write yourself down that, he says, the bad man, +with his jokes!--Berry went to service." Mrs. Berry's softness came upon +her. "So I tell ye, Berry went to service. He left the wife of his +bosom forlorn and he went to service; because he were allays an ambitious +man, and wasn't, so to speak, happy out of his uniform--which was his +livery--not even in my arms: and he let me know it. He got among them +kitchen sluts, which was my mournin' ready made, and worse than a widow's +cap to me, which is no shame to wear, and some say becoming. There's no +man as ever lived known better than my Berry how to show his legs to +advantage, and gals look at 'em. I don't wonder now that Berry was +prostrated. His temptations was strong, and his flesh was weak. Then +what I say is, that for a young married man--be he whomsoever he may be-- +to be separated from the wife of his bosom--a young sweet thing, and he +an innocent young gentleman!--so to sunder, in their state, and be kep' +from each other, I say it's as bad as bad can be! For what is matrimony, +my dears? We're told it's a holy Ordnance. And why are ye so +comfortable in matrimony? For that ye are not a sinnin'! And they that +severs ye they tempts ye to stray: and you learn too late the meanin' o' +them blessin's of the priest--as it was ordained. Separate--what comes? +Fust it's like the circulation of your blood a-stoppin'--all goes wrong. +Then there's misunderstandings--ye've both lost the key. Then, behold +ye, there's birds o' prey hoverin' over each on ye, and it's which'll be +snapped up fust. Then--Oh, dear! Oh, dear! it be like the devil come +into the world again." Mrs. Berry struck her hands and moaned. "A day +I'll give ye: I'll go so far as a week: but there's the outside. Three +months dwellin' apart! That's not matrimony, it's divorcin'! what can it +be to her but widowhood? widowhood with no cap to show for it! And what +can it be to you, my dear? Think! you been a bachelor three months! and +a bachelor man," Mrs. Berry shook her head most dolefully, "he ain't +widow woman. I don't go to compare you to Berry, my dear young +gentleman. Some men's hearts is vagabonds born--they must go astray-- +it's their natur' to. But all men are men, and I know the foundation of +'em, by reason of my woe." + +Mrs. Berry paused. Richard was humorously respectful to the sermon. The +truth in the good creature's address was not to be disputed, or despised, +notwithstanding the inclination to laugh provoked by her quaint way of +putting it. Ripton nodded encouragingly at every sentence, for he saw +her drift, and wished to second it. + +Seeking for an illustration of her meaning, Mrs. Berry solemnly +continued: "We all know what checked prespiration is." But neither of +the young gentlemen could resist this. Out they burst in a roar of +laughter. + +"Laugh away," said Mrs. Berry. "I don't mind ye. I say again, we all do +know what checked prespiration is. It fly to the lungs, it gives ye +mortal inflammation, and it carries ye off. Then I say checked matrimony +is as bad. It fly to the heart, and it carries off the virtue that's in +ye, and you might as well be dead! Them that is joined it's their +salvation not to separate! It don't so much matter before it. That Mr. +Thompson there--if he go astray, it ain't from the blessed fold. He hurt +himself alone--not double, and belike treble, for who can say now what +may be? There's time for it. I'm for holding back young people so that +they knows their minds, howsomever they rattles about their hearts. I +ain't a speeder of matrimony, and good's my reason! but where it's been +done--where they're lawfully joined, and their bodies made one, I do say +this, that to put division between 'em then, it's to make wanderin' +comets of 'em--creatures without a objeck, and no soul can say what +they's good for but to rush about!" + +Mrs. Berry here took a heavy breath, as one who has said her utmost for +the time being. + +"My dear old girl," Richard went up to her and, applauding her on the +shoulder, "you're a very wise old woman. But you mustn't speak to me as +if I wanted to stop here. I'm compelled to. I do it for her good +chiefly." + +"It's your father that's doin' it, my dear?" + +"Well, I'm waiting his pleasure." + +"A pretty pleasure! puttin' a snake in the nest of young turtle-doves! +And why don't she come up to you?" + +"Well, that you must ask her. The fact is, she's a little timid girl-- +she wants me to see him first, and when I've made all right, then she'll +come." + +"A little timid girl!" cried Mrs. Berry. "Oh, lor', how she must ha' +deceived ye to make ye think that! Look at that ring," she held out her +finger, "he's a stranger: he's not my lawful! You know what ye did to +me, my dear. Could I get my own wedding-ring back from her? "No!" says +she, firm as a rock, 'he said, with this ring I thee wed'--I think I +see her now, with her pretty eyes and lovesome locks--a darlin'!--And +that ring she'd keep to, come life, came death. And she must ha' been a +rock for me to give in to her in that. For what's the consequence? Here +am I," Mrs. Berry smoothed down the back of her hand mournfully, "here am +I in a strange ring, that's like a strange man holdin' of me, and me a- +wearin' of it just to seem decent, and feelin' all over no better than a +b--a big--that nasty came I can't abide!--I tell you, my dear, she ain't +soft, no!--except to the man of her heart; and the best of women's too +soft there--mores our sorrow!" + +"Well, well!" said Richard, who thought he knew. + +"I agree with you, Mrs. Berry," Ripton struck in, "Mrs. Richard would do +anything in the world her husband asked her, I'm quite sure." + +"Bless you for your good opinion, Mr. Thompson! Why, see her! she ain't +frail on her feet; she looks ye straight in the eyes; she ain't one of +your hang-down misses. Look how she behaved at the ceremony!" + +"Ah!" sighed Ripton. + +"And if you'd ha' seen her when she spoke to me about my ring! Depend +upon it, my dear Mr. Richard, if she blinded you about the nerve she've +got, it was somethin' she thought she ought to do for your sake, and I +wish I'd been by to counsel her, poor blessed babe!--And how much longer, +now, can ye stay divided from that darlin'?" + +Richard paced up and down. + +"A father's will," urged Mrs. Berry, "that's a son's law; but he mustn't +go again' the laws of his nature to do it." + +"Just be quiet at present--talk of other things, there's a good woman," +said Richard. + +Mrs. Berry meekly folded her arms. + +"How strange, now, our meetin' like this! meetin' at all, too!" she +remarked contemplatively. "It's them advertisements! They brings people +together from the ends of the earth, for good or for bad. I often say, +there's more lucky accidents, or unlucky ones, since advertisements was +the rule, than ever there was before. They make a number of romances, +depend upon it! Do you walk much in the Gardens, my dear?" + +"Now and then," said Richard. + +"Very pleasant it is there with the fine folks and flowers and titled +people," continued Mrs. Berry. "That was a handsome woman you was a- +walkin' beside, this mornin'." + +Very," said Richard. + +"She was a handsome woman! or I should say, is, for her day ain't past, +and she know it. I thought at first--by her back--it might ha' been your +aunt, Mrs. Forey; for she do step out well and hold up her shoulders: +straight as a dart she be! But when I come to see her face--Oh, dear me! +says I, this ain't one of the family. They none of 'em got such bold +faces--nor no lady as I know have. But she's a fine woman--that nobody +can gainsay." + +Mrs. Berry talked further of the fine woman. It was a liberty she took +to speak in this disrespectful tone of her, and Mrs. Berry was quite +aware that she was laying herself open to rebuke. She had her end in +view. No rebuke was uttered, and during her talk she observed +intercourse passing between the eyes of the young men. + +"Look here, Penelope," Richard stopped her at last. "Will it make you +comfortable if I tell you I'll obey the laws of my nature and go down at +the end of the week?" + +"I'll thank the Lord of heaven if you do!" she exclaimed. + +"Very well, then--be happy--I will. Now listen. I want you to keep your +rooms for me--those she had. I expect, in a day or two, to bring a lady +here"-- + +"A lady?" faltered Mrs. Berry. + +"Yes. A lady." + +"May I make so bold as to ask what lady?" + +"You may not. Not now. Of course you will know." + +Mrs. Berry's short neck made the best imitation it could of an offended +swan's action. She was very angry. She said she did not like so many +ladies, which natural objection Richard met by saying that there was only +one lady. + +"And Mrs. Berry," he added, dropping his voice. "You will treat her as +you did my dear girl, for she will require not only shelter but kindness. +I would rather leave her with you than with any one. She has been very +unfortunate." + +His serious air and habitual tone of command fascinated the softness of +Berry, and it was not until he had gone that she spoke out. +"Unfort'nate! He's going to bring me an unfort'nate female! Oh! not +from my babe can I bear that! Never will I have her here! I see it. +It's that bold-faced woman he's got mixed up in, and she've been and made +the young man think he'll go for to reform her. It's one o' their arts-- +that is; and he's too innocent a young man to mean anythin' else. But I +ain't a house of Magdalens no! and sooner than have her here I'd have the +roof fall over me, I would." + +She sat down to eat her supper on the sublime resolve. + +In love, Mrs. Berry's charity was all on the side of the law, and this is +the case with many of her sisters. The Pilgrim sneers at them for it, +and would have us credit that it is their admirable instinct which, at +the expense of every virtue save one, preserves the artificial barrier +simply to impose upon us. Men, I presume, are hardly fair judges, and +should stand aside and mark. + +Early next day Mrs. Berry bundled off to Richard's hotel to let him know +her determination. She did not find him there. Returning homeward +through the park, she beheld him on horseback riding by the side of the +identical lady. + +The sight of this public exposure shocked her more than the secret walk +under the trees... "You don't look near your reform yet," Mrs. Berry +apostrophized her. "You don't look to me one that'd come the Fair +Penitent till you've left off bein' fair--if then you do, which some of +ye don't. Laugh away and show yet airs! Spite o' your hat and feather, +and your ridin' habit, you're a Belle Donna." Setting her down again +absolutely for such, whatever it might signify, Mrs. Berry had a virtuous +glow. + +In the evening she heard the noise of wheels stopping at the door. +"Never!" she rose from her chair to exclaim. "He ain't rided her out in +the mornin', and been and made a Magdalen of her afore dark?" + +A lady veiled was brought into the house by Richard. Mrs. Berry feebly +tried to bar his progress in the passage. He pushed past her, and +conducted the lady into the parlour without speaking. Mrs. Berry did not +follow. She heard him murmur a few sentences within. Then he came out. +All her crest stood up, as she whispered vigorously, "Mr. Richard! if +that woman stay here, I go forth. My house ain't a penitentiary for +unfort'nate females, sir"-- + +He frowned at her curiously; but as she was on the point of renewing her +indignant protest, he clapped his hand across her mouth, and spoke words +in her ear that had awful import to her. She trembled, breathing low: +"My God, forgive, me! + +"Richard?" And her virtue was humbled. "Lady Feverel is it? Your +mother, Mr. Richard?" And her virtue was humbled. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +One may suppose that a prematurely aged, oily little man; a poet in bad +circumstances; a decrepit butterfly chained to a disappointed inkstand, +will not put out strenuous energies to retain his ancient paramour when a +robust young man comes imperatively to demand his mother of him in her +person. The colloquy was short between Diaper Sandoe and Richard. The +question was referred to the poor spiritless lady, who, seeing that her +son made no question of it, cast herself on his hands. Small loss to her +was Diaper; but he was the loss of habit, and that is something to a +woman who has lived. The blood of her son had been running so long alien +from her that the sense of her motherhood smote he now with strangeness, +and Richard's stern gentleness seemed like dreadful justice come upon +her. Her heart had almost forgotten its maternal functions. She called +him Sir, till he bade her remember he was her son. Her voice sounded to +him like that of a broken-throated lamb, so painful and weak it was, with +the plaintive stop in the utterance. When he kissed her, her skin was +cold. Her thin hand fell out of his when his grasp related. "Can sin +hunt one like this?" he asked, bitterly reproaching himself for the shame +she had caused him to endure, and a deep compassion filled his breast. + +Poetic justice had been dealt to Diaper the poet. He thought of all he +had sacrificed for this woman--the comfortable quarters, the friend, the +happy flights. He could not but accuse her of unfaithfulness in leaving +him in his old age. Habit had legalized his union with her. He wrote as +pathetically of the break of habit as men feel at the death of love, and +when we are old and have no fair hope tossing golden locks before us, a +wound to this our second nature is quite as sad. I know not even if it +be not actually sadder. + +Day by day Richard visited his mother. Lady Blandish and Ripton alone +were in the secret. Adrian let him do as he pleased. He thought proper +to tell him that the public recognition he accorded to a particular lady +was, in the present state of the world, scarcely prudent. + +"'Tis a proof to me of your moral rectitude, my son, but the world will +not think so. No one character is sufficient to cover two--in a +Protestant country especially. The divinity that doth hedge a Bishop +would have no chance, in contact with your Madam Danae. Drop the woman, +my son. Or permit me to speak what you would have her hear." + +Richard listened to him with disgust. "Well, you've had my doctorial +warning," said Adrian; and plunged back into his book. + +When Lady Feverel had revived to take part in the consultations Mrs. +Berry perpetually opened on the subject of Richard's matrimonial duty, +another chain was cast about him. "Do not, oh, do not offend your +father!" was her one repeated supplication. Sir Austin had grown to be a +vindictive phantom in her mind. She never wept but when she said this. + +So Mrs. Berry, to whom Richard had once made mention of Lady Blandish as +the only friend he had among women, bundled off in her black-satin dress +to obtain an interview with her, and an ally. After coming to an +understanding on the matter of the visit, and reiterating many of her +views concerning young married people, Mrs. Berry said: "My lady, if I +may speak so bold, I'd say the sin that's bein' done is the sin o' the +lookers-on. And when everybody appear frightened by that young +gentleman's father, I'll say--hopin' your pardon--they no cause be +frighted at all. For though it's nigh twenty year since I knew him, and +I knew him then just sixteen months--no more--I'll say his heart's as +soft as a woman's, which I've cause for to know. And that's it. That's +where everybody's deceived by him, and I was. It's because he keeps his +face, and makes ye think you're dealin' with a man of iron, and all the +while there's a woman underneath. And a man that's like a woman he's the +puzzle o' life! We can see through ourselves, my lady, and we can see +through men, but one o' that sort--he's like somethin' out of nature. +Then I say--hopin' be excused--what's to do is for to treat him like a +woman, and not for to let him have his own way--which he don't know +himself, and is why nobody else do. Let that sweet young couple come +together, and be wholesome in spite of him, I say; and then give him time +to come round, just like a woman; and round he'll come, and give 'em his +blessin', and we shall know we've made him comfortable. He's angry +because matrimony have come between him and his son, and he, woman-like, +he's wantin' to treat what is as if it isn't. But matrimony's a holier +than him. It began long long before him, and it's be hoped will endoor +longs the time after, if the world's not coming to rack--wishin' him no +harm." + +Now Mrs. Berry only put Lady Blandish's thoughts in bad English. The +lady took upon herself seriously to advise Richard to send for his wife. +He wrote, bidding her come. Lucy, however, had wits, and inexperienced +wits are as a little knowledge. In pursuance of her sage plan to make +the family feel her worth, and to conquer the members of it one by one, +she had got up a correspondence with Adrian, whom it tickled. Adrian +constantly assured her all was going well: time would heal the wound if +both the offenders had the fortitude to be patient: he fancied he saw +signs of the baronet's relenting: they must do nothing to arrest those +favourable symptoms. Indeed the wise youth was languidly seeking to +produce them. He wrote, and felt, as Lucy's benefactor. So Lucy replied +to her husband a cheerful rigmarole he could make nothing of, save that +she was happy in hope, and still had fears. Then Mrs. Berry trained her +fist to indite a letter to her bride. Her bride answered it by saying +she trusted to time. "You poor marter" Mrs. Berry wrote back, "I know +what your sufferin's be. They is the only kind a wife should never hide +from her husband. He thinks all sorts of things if she can abide being +away. And you trusting to time, why it's like trusting not to catch cold +out of your natural clothes." There was no shaking Lucy's firmness. + +Richard gave it up. He began to think that the life lying behind him was +the life of a fool. What had he done in it? He had burnt a rick and got +married! He associated the two acts of his existence. Where was the +hero he was to have carved out of Tom Bakewell!--a wretch he had taught +to lie and chicane: and for what? Great heavens! how ignoble did a flash +from the light of his aspirations make his marriage appear! The young +man sought amusement. He allowed his aunt to drag him into society, and +sick of that he made late evening calls on Mrs. Mount, oblivious of the +purpose he had in visiting her at all. Her man-like conversation, which +he took for honesty, was a refreshing change on fair lips. + +"Call me Bella: I'll call you Dick," said she. And it came to be Bella +and Dick between them. No mention of Bella occurred in Richard's letters +to Lucy. + +Mrs. Mount spoke quite openly of herself. "I pretend to be no better +than I am," she said, "and I know I'm no worse than many a woman who +holds her head high." To back this she told him stories of blooming +dames of good repute, and poured a little social sewerage into his ears. + +Also she understood him. "What you want, my dear Dick, is something to +do. You went and got married like a--hum!--friends must be respectful. +Go into the Army. Try the turf. I can put you up to a trick or two-- +friends should make themselves useful." + +She told him what she liked in him. "You're the only man I was ever +alone with who don't talk to me of love and make me feel sick. I hate +men who can't speak to a woman sensibly.--Just wait a minute." She left +him and presently returned with, "Ah, Dick! old fellow! how are you?"-- +arrayed like a cavalier, one arm stuck in her side, her hat jauntily +cocked, and a pretty oath on her lips to give reality to the costume. +"What do you think of me? Wasn't it a shame to make a woman of me when I +was born to be a man?" + +"I don't know that," said Richard, for the contrast in her attire to +those shooting eyes and lips, aired her sex bewitchingly. + +"What! you think I don't do it well?" + +"Charming! but I can't forget..." + +"Now that is too bad!" she pouted. + +Then she proposed that they should go out into the midnight streets arm- +in-arm, and out they went and had great fits of laughter at her +impertinent manner of using her eyeglass, and outrageous affectation of +the supreme dandy. + +"They take up men, Dick, for going about in women's clothes, and vice +versaw, I suppose. You'll bail me, old fellaa, if I have to make my bow +to the beak, won't you? Say it's becas I'm an honest woman and don't +care to hide the--a--unmentionables when I wear them--as the t'others +do," sprinkled with the dandy's famous invocations. + +He began to conceive romance in that sort of fun. + +"You're a wopper, my brave Dick! won't let any peeler take me? by Jove!" + +And he with many assurances guaranteed to stand by her, while she bent +her thin fingers trying the muscle of his arm; and reposed upon it more. +There was delicacy in her dandyism. She was a graceful cavalier. + +"Sir Julius," as they named the dandy's attire, was frequently called for +on his evening visits to Mrs. Mount. When he beheld Sir Julius he +thought of the lady, and "vice versaw," as Sir Julius was fond of +exclaiming. + +Was ever hero in this fashion wooed? + +The woman now and then would peep through Sir Julius. Or she would sit, +and talk, and altogether forget she was impersonating that worthy fop. + +She never uttered an idea or a reflection, but Richard thought her the +cleverest woman he had ever met. + +All kinds of problematic notions beset him. She was cold as ice, she +hated talk about love, and she was branded by the world. + +A rumour spread that reached Mrs. Doria's ears. She rushed to Adrian +first. The wise youth believed there was nothing in it. She sailed down +upon Richard. "Is this true? that you have been seen going publicly +about with an infamous woman, Richard? Tell me! pray, relieve me!" + +Richard knew of no person answering to his aunt's description in whose +company he could have been seen. + +"Tell me, I say! Don't quibble. Do you know any woman of bad +character?" + +The acquaintance of a lady very much misjudged and ill-used by the world, +Richard admitted to. + +Urgent grave advice Mrs. Doria tendered her nephew, both from the moral +and the worldly point of view, mentally ejaculating all the while: "That +ridiculous System! That disgraceful marriage!" Sir Austin in his +mountain solitude was furnished with serious stuff to brood over. + +The rumour came to Lady Blandish. She likewise lectured Richard, and +with her he condescended to argue. But he found himself obliged to +instance something he had quite neglected. "Instead of her doing me +harm, it's I that will do her good." + +Lady Blandish shook her head and held up her finger. "This person must +be very clever to have given you that delusion, dear." + +"She is clever. And the world treats her shamefully." + +"She complains of her position to you?" + +"Not a word. But I will stand by her. She has no friend but me." + +"My poor boy! has she made you think that?" + +"How unjust you all are!" cried Richard. + +"How mad and wicked is the man who can let him be tempted so!" thought +Lady Blandish. + +He would pronounce no promise not to visit her, not to address her +publicly. The world that condemned her and cast her out was no better-- +worse for its miserable hypocrisy. He knew the world now, the young man +said. + +"My child! the world may be very bad. I am not going to defend it. But +you have some one else to think of. Have you forgotten you have a wife, +Richard?" + +"Ay! you all speak of her now. There's my aunt: 'Remember you have a +wife!' "Do you think I love any one but Lucy? poor little thing! +Because I am married am I to give up the society of women?" + +"Of women!" + +"Isn't she a woman?" + +"Too much so!" sighed the defender of her sex. + +Adrian became more emphatic in his warnings. Richard laughed at him. +The wise youth sneered at Mrs. Mount. The hero then favoured him with a +warning equal to his own in emphasis, and surpassing it in sincerity. + +"We won't quarrel, my dear boy," said Adrian. "I'm a man of peace. +Besides, we are not fairly proportioned for a combat. Ride your steed to +virtue's goal! All I say is, that I think he'll upset you, and it's +better to go at a slow pace and in companionship with the children of the +sun. You have a very nice little woman for a wife--well, good-bye!" + +To have his wife and the world thrown at his face, was unendurable to +Richard; he associated them somewhat after the manner of the rick and the +marriage. Charming Sir Julius, always gay, always honest, dispersed his +black moods. + +"Why, you're taller," Richard made the discovery. + +"Of course I am. Don't you remember you said I was such a little thing +when I came out of my woman's shell?" + +"And how have you done it?" + +"Grown to please you." + +"Now, if you can do that, you can do anything." + +"And so I would do anything." + +"You would?" + +"Honour!" + +"Then"...his project recurred to him. But the incongruity of speaking +seriously to Sir Julius struck him dumb. + +"Then what?" asked she. + +"Then you're a gallant fellow." + +"That all?" + +"Isn't it enough?" + +"Not quite. You were going to say something. I saw it in your eyes." + +"You saw that I admired you." + +"Yes, but a man mustn't admire a man." + +"I suppose I had an idea you were a woman." + +"What! when I had the heels of my boots raised half an inch," Sir Julius +turned one heel, and volleyed out silver laughter. + +"I don't come much above your shoulder even now," she said, and proceeded +to measure her height beside him with arch up-glances. + +"You must grow more." + +"'Fraid I can't, Dick! Bootmakers can't do it." + +"I'll show you how," and he lifted Sir Julius lightly, and bore the fair +gentleman to the looking-glass, holding him there exactly on a level with +his head. "Will that do?" + +"Yes! Oh but I can't stay here." + +"Why can't you?" + +"Why can't I?" + +He should have known then--it was thundered at a closed door in him, that +he played with fire. But the door being closed, he thought himself +internally secure. + +Their eyes met. He put her down instantly. + +Sir Julius, charming as he was, lost his vogue. Seeing that, the wily +woman resumed her shell. The memory, of Sir Julius breathing about her +still, doubled the feminine attraction. + +"I ought to have been an actress," she said. + +Richard told her he found all natural women had a similar wish. + +"Yes! Ah! then! if I had been!" sighed Mrs. Mount, gazing on the pattern +of the carpet. + +He took her hand, and pressed it. + +"You are not happy as you are?" + +"No." + +"May I speak to you?" + +"Yes." + +Her nearest eye, setting a dimple of her cheek in motion, slid to the +corner toward her ear, as she sat with her head sideways to him, +listening. When he had gone, she said to herself: "Old hypocrites talk +in that way; but I never heard of a young man doing it, and not making +love at the same time." + +Their next meeting displayed her quieter: subdued as one who had been set +thinking. He lauded her fair looks. + +"Don't make me thrice ashamed," she petitioned. + +But it was not only that mood with her. Dauntless defiance, that +splendidly befitted her gallant outline and gave a wildness to her bright +bold eyes, when she would call out: "Happy? who dares say I'm not happy? +D'you think if the world whips me I'll wince? D'you think I care for +what they say or do? Let them kill me! they shall never get one cry out +of me!" and flashing on the young man as if he were the congregated +enemy, add: "There! now you know me!"--that was a mood that well became +her, and helped the work. She ought to have been an actress. + +"This must not go on," said Lady Blandish and Mrs. Doria in unison. A +common object brought them together. They confined their talk to it, and +did not disagree. Mrs. Doria engaged to go down to the baronet. Both +ladies knew it was a dangerous, likely to turn out a disastrous, +expedition. They agreed to it because it was something to do, and doing +anything is better than doing nothing. "Do it," said the wise youth, +when they made him a third, "do it, if you want him to be a hermit for +life. You will bring back nothing but his dead body, ladies--a Hellenic, +rather than a Roman, triumph. He will listen to you--he will accompany +you to the station--he will hand you into the carriage--and when you +point to his seat he will bow profoundly, and retire into his congenial +mists." + +Adrian spoke their thoughts. They fretted; they relapsed. + +"Speak to him, you, Adrian," said Mrs. Doria. "Speak to the boy +solemnly. It would be almost better he should go back to that little +thing he has married." + +"Almost?" Lady Blandish opened her eyes. "I have been advising it for +the last month and more." + +"A choice of evils," said Mrs. Doria's sour-sweet face and shake of the +head. + +Each lady saw a point of dissension, and mutually agreed, with heroic +effort, to avoid it by shutting their mouths. What was more, they +preserved the peace in spite of Adrian's artifices. + +"Well, I'll talk to him again," he said. "I'll try to get the Engine on +the conventional line." + +"Command him!" exclaimed Mrs. Doria. + +"Gentle means are, I think, the only means with Richard," said Lady +Blandish. + +Throwing banter aside, as much as he could, Adrian spoke to Richard. +"You want to reform this woman. Her manner is open--fair and free--the +traditional characteristic. We won't stop to canvass how that particular +honesty of deportment that wins your approbation has been gained. In her +college it is not uncommon. Girls, you know, are not like boys. At a +certain age they can't be quite natural. It's a bad sign if they don't +blush, and fib, and affect this and that. It wears off when they're +women. But a woman who speaks like a man, and has all those excellent +virtues you admire--where has she learned the trick? She tells you. You +don't surely approve of the school? Well, what is there in it, then? +Reform her, of course. The task is worthy of your energies. But, if you +are appointed to do it, don't do it publicly, and don't attempt it just +now. May I ask you whether your wife participates in this undertaking?" + +Richard walked away from the interrogation. The wise youth, who hated +long unrelieved speeches and had healed his conscience, said no more. + +Dear tender Lucy! Poor darling! Richard's eyes moistened. Her letters +seemed sadder latterly. Yet she never called to him to come, or he would +have gone. His heart leapt up to her. He announced to Adrian that he +should wait no longer for his father. Adrian placidly nodded. + +The enchantress observed that her knight had a clouded brow and an absent +voice. + +"Richard--I can't call you Dick now, I really don't know why"--she said, +"I want to beg a favour of you." + +"Name it. I can still call you Bella, I suppose?" + +"If you care to. What I want to say is this: when you meet me out--to +cut it short--please not to recognize me." + +"And why?" + +"Do you ask to be told that?" + +"Certainly I do." + +"Then look: I won't compromise you." + +"I see no harm, Bella." + +"No," she caressed his hand, "and there is none. I know that. But," +modest eyelids were drooped, "other people do," struggling eyes were +raised. + +"What do we care for other people?" + +"Nothing. I don't. Not that!" snapping her finger, "I care for you, +though." A prolonged look followed the declaration. + +"You're foolish, Bella." + +"Not quite so giddy--that's all." + +He did not combat it with his usual impetuosity. Adrian's abrupt inquiry +had sunk in his mind, as the wise youth intended it should. He had +instinctively refrained from speaking to Lucy of this lady. But what a +noble creature the woman was! + +So they met in the park; Mrs. Mount whipped past him; and secresy added a +new sense to their intimacy. + +Adrian was gratified at the result produced by his eloquence. + +Though this lady never expressed an idea, Richard was not mistaken in her +cleverness. She could make evenings pass gaily, and one was not the +fellow to the other. She could make you forget she was a woman, and then +bring the fact startlingly home to you. She could read men with one +quiver of her half-closed eye-lashes. She could catch the coming mood in +a man, and fit herself to it. What does a woman want with ideas, who can +do thus much? Keenness of perception, conformity, delicacy of handling, +these be all the qualities necessary to parasites. + +Love would have scared the youth: she banished it from her tongue. It +may also have been true that it sickened her. She played on his higher +nature. She understood spontaneously what would be most strange and +taking to him in a woman. Various as the Serpent of old Nile, she acted +fallen beauty, humorous indifference, reckless daring, arrogance in ruin. +And acting thus, what think you?--She did it so well because she was +growing half in earnest. + +"Richard! I am not what I was since I knew you. You will not give me up +quite?" + +"Never, Bella." + +"I am not so bad as I'm painted!" + +"You are only unfortunate." + +"Now that I know you I think so, and yet I am happier." + +She told him her history when this soft horizon of repentance seemed to +throw heaven's twilight across it. A woman's history, you know: certain +chapters expunged. It was dark enough to Richard. + +"Did you love the man?" he asked. "You say you love no one now." + +"Did I love him? He was a nobleman and I a tradesman's daughter. No. I +did not love him. I have lived to learn it. And now I should hate him, +if I did not despise him." + +"Can you be deceived in love?" said Richard, more to himself than to her. + +"Yes. When we're young we can be very easily deceived. If there is such +a thing as love, we discover it after we have tossed about and roughed +it. Then we find the man, or the woman, that suits us:--and then it's +too late! we can't have him." + +"Singular!" murmured Richard, "she says just what my father said." + +He spoke aloud: "I could forgive you if you had loved him." + +"Don't be harsh, grave judge! How is a girl to distinguish?" + +"You had some affection for him? He was the first?" + +She chose to admit that. "Yes. And the first who talks of love to a +girl must be a fool if he doesn't blind her." + +"That makes what is called first love nonsense." + +"Isn't it?" + +He repelled the insinuation. "Because I know it is not, Bella." + +Nevertheless she had opened a wider view of the world to him, and a +colder. He thought poorly of girls. A woman a sensible, brave, +beautiful woman seemed, on comparison, infinitely nobler than those weak +creatures. + +She was best in her character of lovely rebel accusing foul injustice. +"What am I to do? You tell me to be different. How can I? What am I to +do? Will virtuous people let me earn my bread? I could not get a +housemaid's place! They wouldn't have me--I see their noses smelling! +Yes I can go to the hospital and sing behind a screen! Do you expect me +to bury myself alive? Why, man, I have blood: I can't become a stone. +You say I am honest, and I will be. Then let me till you that I have +been used to luxuries, and I can't do without them. I might have married +men--lots would have had me. But who marries one like me but a fool? and +I could not marry a fool. The man I marry I must respect. He could not +respect me--I should know him to be a fools and I should be worse off +than I am now. As I am now, they may look as pious as they like--I laugh +at them!" + +And so forth: direr things. Imputations upon wives: horrible exultation +at the universal peccancy of husbands. This lovely outcast almost made +him think she had the right on her side, so keenly her Parthian arrows +pierced the holy centres of society, and exposed its rottenness. + +Mrs. Mount's house was discreetly conducted: nothing ever occurred to +shock him there. The young man would ask himself where the difference +was between her and the Women of society? How base, too, was the army of +banded hypocrites! He was ready to declare war against them on her +behalf. His casus beli, accurately worded, would have read curiously. +Because the world refused to lure the lady to virtue with the offer of a +housemaid's place, our knight threw down his challenge. But the lady had +scornfully rebutted this prospect of a return to chastity. Then the form +of the challenge must be: Because the world declined to support the lady +in luxury for nothing! But what did that mean? In other words: she was +to receive the devil's wages without rendering him her services. Such an +arrangement appears hardly fair on the world or on the devil. Heroes +will have to conquer both before they will get them to subscribe to it. + +Heroes, however, are not in the habit of wording their declarations of +war at all. Lance in rest they challenge and they charge. Like women +they trust to instinct, and graft on it the muscle of men. Wide fly the +leisurely-remonstrating hosts: institutions are scattered, they know not +wherefore, heads are broken that have not the balm of a reason why. 'Tis +instinct strikes! Surely there is something divine in instinct. + +Still, war declared, where were these hosts? The hero could not charge +down on the ladies and gentlemen in a ballroom, and spoil the quadrille. +He had sufficient reticence to avoid sounding his challenge in the Law +Courts; nor could he well go into the Houses of Parliament with a +trumpet, though to come to a tussle with the nation's direct +representatives did seem the likelier method. It was likewise out of the +question that he should enter every house and shop, and battle with its +master in the cause of Mrs. Mount. Where, then, was his enemy? +Everybody was his enemy, and everybody was nowhere! Shall he convoke +multitudes on Wimbledon Common? Blue Policemen, and a distant dread of +ridicule, bar all his projects. Alas for the hero in our day! + +Nothing teaches a strong arm its impotence so much as knocking at empty +air. + +"What can I do for this poor woman?" cried Richard, after fighting his +phantom enemy till he was worn out. + +"O Rip! old Rip!" he addressed his friend, "I'm distracted. I wish I was +dead! What good am I for? Miserable! selfish! What have I done but +make every soul I know wretched about me? I follow my own inclinations-- +I make people help me by lying as hard as they can--and I'm a liar. And +when I've got it I'm ashamed of myself. And now when I do see something +unselfish for me to do, I come upon grins--I don't know where to turn-- +how to act--and I laugh at myself like a devil!" + +It was only friend Ripton's ear that was required, so his words went for +little: but Ripton did say he thought there was small matter to be +ashamed of in winning and wearing the Beauty of Earth. Richard added his +customary comment of "Poor little thing!" + +He fought his duello with empty air till he was exhausted. A last letter +written to his father procured him no reply. Then, said he, I have tried +my utmost. I have tried to be dutiful--my father won't listen to me. +One thing I can do--I can go down to my dear girl, and make her happy, +and save her at least from some of the consequences of my rashness. + +"There's nothing better for me!" he groaned. His great ambition must be +covered by a house-top: he and the cat must warm themselves on the +domestic hearth! The hero was not aware that his heart moved him to +this. His heart was not now in open communion with his mind. + +Mrs. Mount heard that her friend was going--would go. She knew he was +going to his wife. Far from discouraging him, she said nobly: "Go--I +believe I have kept you. Let us have an evening together, and then go: +for good, if you like. If not, then to meet again another time. Forget +me. I shan't forget you. You're the best fellow I ever knew, Richard. +You are, on my honour! I swear I would not step in between you and your +wife to cause either of you a moment's unhappiness. When I can be +another woman I will, and I shall think of you then." + +Lady Blandish heard from Adrian that Richard was positively going to his +wife. The wise youth modestly veiled his own merit in bringing it about +by saying: "I couldn't see that poor little woman left alone down there +any longer." + +"Well! Yes!" said Mrs. Doria, to whom the modest speech was repeated, "I +suppose, poor boy, it's the best he can do now." + +Richard bade them adieu, and went to spend his last evening with Mrs. +Mount. + +The enchantress received him in state. + +"Do you know this dress? No? It's the dress I wore when I first met +you--not when I first saw you. I think I remarked you, sir, before you +deigned to cast an eye upon humble me. When we first met we drank +champagne together, and I intend to celebrate our parting in the same +liquor. Will you liquor with me, old boy?" + +She was gay. She revived Sir Julius occasionally. He, dispirited, left +the talking all to her. + +Mrs. Mount kept a footman. At a late hour the man of calves dressed the +table for supper. It was a point of honour for Richard to sit down to it +and try to eat. Drinking, thanks to the kindly mother nature, who loves +to see her children made fools of, is always an easier matter. The +footman was diligent; the champagne corks feebly recalled the file-firing +at Richmond. + +"We'll drink to what we might have been, Dick," said the enchantress. + +Oh, the glorious wreck she looked. + +His heart choked as he gulped the buzzing wine. + +"What! down, my boy?" she cried. "They shall never see me hoist signals +of distress. We must all die, and the secret of the thing is to die +game, by Jove! Did you ever hear of Laura Fern? a superb girl! +handsomer than your humble servant--if you'll believe it--a 'Miss' in the +bargain, and as a consequence, I suppose, a much greater rake. She was +in the hunting-field. Her horse threw her, and she fell plump on a +stake. It went into her left breast. All the fellows crowded round her, +and one young man, who was in love with her--he sits in the House of +Peers now--we used to call him `Duck' because he was such a dear--he +dropped from his horse to his knees: 'Laura! Laura! my darling! speak a +word to me!--the last!' She turned over all white and bloody! 'I--I +shan't be in at the death!' and gave up the ghost! Wasn't that dying +game? Here's to the example of Laura Fenn! Why, what's the matter? +See! it makes a man turn pale to hear how a woman can die. Fill the +glasses, John. Why, you're as bad!" + +"It's give me a turn, my lady," pleaded John, and the man's hand was +unsteady as he poured out the wine. + +"You ought not to listen. Go, and, drink some brandy." + +John footman went from the room. + +"My brave Dick! Richard! what a face you've got!" + +He showed a deep frown on a colourless face. + +"Can't you bear to hear of blood? You know, it was only one naughty +woman out of the world. The clergyman of the parish didn't refuse to +give her decent burial. We Christians! Hurrah!" + +She cheered, and laughed. A lurid splendour glanced about her like +lights from the pit. + +"Pledge me, Dick! Drink, and recover yourself. Who minds? We must all +die--the good and the bad. Ashes to ashes--dust to dust--and wine for +living lips! That's poetry--almost. Sentiment: `May we never say die +till we've drunk our fill! Not bad--eh? A little vulgar, perhaps, by +Jove! Do you think me horrid?" + +"Where's the wine?" Richard shouted. He drank a couple of glasses in +succession, and stared about. Was he in hell, with a lost soul raving to +him? + +"Nobly spoken! and nobly acted upon, my brave Dick! Now we'll be +companions." She wished that heaven had made her such a man. "Ah! Dick! +Dick! too late! too late!" + +Softly fell her voice. Her eyes threw slanting beams. + +"Do you see this?" + +She pointed to a symbolic golden anchor studded with gems and coiled with +a rope of hair in her bosom. It was a gift of his. + +"Do you know when I stole the lock? Foolish Dick! you gave me an anchor +without a rope. Come and see." + +She rose from the table, and threw herself on the sofa. + +"Don't you recognize your own hair! I should know a thread of mine among +a million." + +Something of the strength of Samson went out of him as he inspected his +hair on the bosom of Delilah. + +"And you knew nothing of it! You hardly know it now you see it! What +couldn't a woman steal from you? But you're not vain, and that's a +protection. You're a miracle, Dick: a man that's not vain! Sit here." +She curled up her feet to give him place on the sofa. "Now let us talk +like friends that part to meet no more. You found a ship with fever on +board, and you weren't afraid to come alongside and keep her company. +The fever isn't catching, you see. Let us mingle our tears together. +Ha! ha! a man said that once to me. The hypocrite wanted to catch the +fever, but he was too old. How old are you, Dick?" + +Richard pushed a few months forward. + +"Twenty-one? You just look it, you blooming boy. Now tell me my age, +Adonis!--Twenty--what?" + +Richard had given the lady twenty-five years. + +She laughed violently. "You don't pay compliments, Dick. Best to be +honest; guess again. You don't like to? Not twenty-five, or twenty- +four, or twenty-three, or see how he begins to stare!---twenty-two. Just +twenty-one, my dear. I think my birthday's somewhere in next month. +Why, look at me, close--closer. Have I a wrinkle?" + +"And when, in heaven's name!"...he stopped short. + +"I understand you. When did I commence for to live? At the ripe age of +sixteen I saw a nobleman in despair because of my beauty. He vowed he'd +die. I didn't want him to do that. So to save the poor man for his +family, I ran away with him, and I dare say they didn't appreciate the +sacrifice, and he soon forgot to, if he ever did. It's the way of the +world!" + +Richard seized some dead champagne, emptied the bottle into a tumbler, +and drank it off. + +John footman entered to clear the table, and they were left without +further interruption. + +"Bella! Bella!" Richard uttered in a deep sad voice, as he walked the +room. + +She leaned on her arm, her hair crushed against a reddened cheek, her +eyes half-shut and dreamy. + +"Bella!" he dropped beside her. "You are unhappy." + +She blinked and yawned, as one who is awakened suddenly. "I think you +spoke," said she. + +"You are unhappy, Bella. You can't conceal it. Your laugh sounds like +madness. You must be unhappy. So young, too! Only twenty-one!" + +"What does it matter? Who cares for me?" + +The mighty pity falling from his eyes took in her whole shape. She did +not mistake it for tenderness, as another would have done. + +"Who cares for you, Bella? I do. What makes my misery now, but to see +you there, and know of no way of helping you? Father of mercy! it seems +too much to have to stand by powerless while such ruin is going on!" + +Her hand was shaken in his by the passion of torment with which his frame +quaked. + +Involuntarily a tear started between her eyelids. She glanced up at him +quickly, then looked down, drew her hand from his, and smoothed it, eying +it. + +"Bella! you have a father alive!" + +"A linendraper, dear. He wears a white neck-cloth." + +This article of apparel instantaneously changed the tone of the +conversation, for he, rising abruptly, nearly squashed the lady's lap- +dog, whose squeaks and howls were piteous, and demanded the most fervent +caresses of its mistress. It was: "Oh, my poor pet Mumpsy, and he didn't +like a nasty great big ugly heavy foot an his poor soft silky--mum--mum-- +back, he didn't, and he soodn't that he--mum--mum--soodn't; and he cried +out and knew the place to come to, and was oh so sorry for what had +happened to him--mum--mum--mum--and now he was going to be made happy, +his mistress make him happy--mum--mum--mum--moo-o-o-o." + +"Yes!" said Richard, savagely, from the other end of the room, "you care +for the happiness of your dog." + +"A course se does," Mumpsy was simperingly assured in the thick of his +silky flanks. + +Richard looked for his hat. Mumpsy was deposited on the sofa in a +twinkling. + +"Now," said the lady, "you must come and beg Mumpsy's pardon, whether you +meant to do it or no, because little doggies can't tell that--how should +they? And there's poor Mumpsy thinking you're a great terrible rival +that tries to squash him all flat to nothing, on purpose, pretending you +didn't see; and he's trembling, poor dear wee pet! And I may love my +dog, sir, if I like; and I do; and I won't have him ill-treated, for he's +never been jealous of you, and he is a darling, ten times truer than men, +and I love him fifty times better. So come to him with me." + +First a smile changed Richard's face; then laughing a melancholy laugh, +he surrendered to her humour, and went through the form of begging +Mumpsy's pardon. + +"The dear dog! I do believe he saw we were getting dull," said she. + +"And immolated himself intentionally? Noble animal!" + +"Well, we'll act as if we thought so. Let us be gay, Richard, and not +part like ancient fogies. Where's your fun? You can rattle; why don't +you? You haven't seen me in one of my characters--not Sir Julius: wait a +couple of minutes." She ran out. + +A white visage reappeared behind a spring of flame. Her black hair was +scattered over her shoulders and fell half across her brows. She moved +slowly, and came up to him, fastening weird eyes on him, pointing a +finger at the region of witches. Sepulchral cadences accompanied the +representation. He did not listen, for he was thinking what a deadly +charming and exquisitely horrid witch she was. Something in the way her +underlids worked seemed to remind him of a forgotten picture; but a veil +hung on the picture. There could be no analogy, for this was beautiful +and devilish, and that, if he remembered rightly, had the beauty of +seraphs. + +His reflections and her performance were stayed by a shriek. The spirits +of wine had run over the plate she held to the floor. She had the +coolness to put the plate down on the table, while he stamped out the +flame on the carpet. Again she shrieked: she thought she was on fire. +He fell on his knees and clasped her skirts all round, drawing his arms +down them several times. + +Still kneeling, he looked up, and asked, "Do you feel safe now?" + +She bent her face glaring down till the ends of her hair touched his +cheek. + +Said she, "Do you?" + +Was she a witch verily? There was sorcery in her breath; sorcery in her +hair: the ends of it stung him like little snakes. + +"How do I do it, Dick?" she flung back, laughing. + +"Like you do everything, Bella," he said, and took breath. + +"There! I won't be a witch; I won't be a witch: they may burn me to a +cinder, but I won't be a witch!" + +She sang, throwing her hair about, and stamping her feet. + +"I suppose I look a figure. I must go and tidy myself." + +"No, don't change. I like to see you so." He gazed at her with a +mixture of wonder and admiration. "I can't think you the same person-- +not even when you laugh." + +"Richard," her tone was serious, "you were going to speak to me of my +parents." + +"How wild and awful you looked, Bella!" + +"My father, Richard, was a very respectable man." + +"Bella, you'll haunt me like a ghost." + +"My mother died in my infancy, Richard." + +"Don't put up your hair, Bella." + +"I was an only child!" + +Her head shook sorrowfully at the glistening fire-irons. He followed the +abstracted intentness of her look, and came upon her words. + +"Ah, yes! speak of your father, Bella. Speak of him." + +"Shall I haunt you, and come to your bedside, and cry, '`Tis time'?" + +"Dear Bella! if you will tell me where he lives, I will go to him. He +shall receive you. He shall not refuse--he shall forgive you." + +"If I haunt you, you can't forget me, Richard." + +"Let me go to your father, Bella let me go to him to-morrow. I'll give +you my time. It's all I can give. O Bella! let me save you." + +"So you like me best dishevelled, do you, you naughty boy! Ha! ha!" and +away she burst from him, and up flew her hair, as she danced across the +room, and fell at full length on the sofa. + +He felt giddy: bewitched. + +"We'll talk of everyday things, Dick," she called to him from the sofa. +"It's our last evening. Our last? Heigho! It makes me sentimental. +How's that Mr. Ripson, Pipson, Nipson?--it's not complimentary, but I +can't remember names of that sort. Why do you have friends of that sort? +He's not a gentleman. Better is he? Well, he's rather too insignificant +for me. Why do you sit off there? Come to me instantly. There--I'll +sit up, and be proper, and you'll have plenty of room. Talk, Dick!" + +He was reflecting on the fact that her eyes were brown. They had a +haughty sparkle when she pleased, and when she pleased a soft languor +circled them. Excitement had dyed her cheeks deep red. He was a youth, +and she an enchantress. He a hero; she a female will-o'-the-wisp. + +The eyes were languid now, set in rosy colour. + +"You will not leave me yet, Richard? not yet?" + +He had no thought of departing: + +"It's our last night--I suppose it's our last hour together in this +world--and I don't want to meet you in the next, for poor Dick will have +to come to such a very, very disagreeable place to make the visit." + +He grasped her hand at this. + +"Yes, he will! too true! can't be helped: they say I'm handsome." + +"You're lovely, Bella." + +She drank in his homage. + +"Well, we'll admit it. His Highness below likes lovely women, I hear +say. A gentleman of taste! You don't know all my accomplishments yet, +Richard." + +"I shan't be astonished at anything new, Bella." + +"Then hear, and wonder." Her voice trolled out some lively roulades. +"Don't you think he'll make me his prima donna below? It's nonsense to +tell me there's no singing there. And the atmosphere will be favourable +to the voice. No damp, you know. You saw the piano--why didn't you ask +me to sing before? I can sing Italian. I had a master--who made love to +me. I forgave him because of the music-stool--men can't help it on a +music-stool, poor dears!" + +She went to the piano, struck the notes, and sang-- + + "'My heart, my heart--I think 'twill break.' + +"Because I'm such a rake. I don't know any other reason. No; I hate +sentimental songs. Won't sing that. Ta-tiddy-tiddy-iddy--a...e! How +ridiculous those women were, coming home from Richmond! + + 'Once the sweet romance of story + Clad thy moving form with grace; + Once the world and all its glory + Was but framework to thy face. + Ah, too fair!--what I remember + Might my soul recall--but no! + To the winds this wretched ember + Of a fire that falls so low!' + +"Hum! don't much like that. Tum-te-tum-tum--accanto al fuoco--heigho! I +don't want to show off, Dick--or to break down--so I won't try that. + + 'Oh! but for thee, oh! but for thee, + I might have been a happy wife, + And nursed a baby on my knee, + And never blushed to give it life.' + +"I used to sing that when I was a girl, sweet Richard, and didn't know at +all, at all, what it meant. Mustn't sing that sort of song in company. +We're oh! so proper--even we! + + 'If I had a husband, what think you I'd do? + I'd make it my business to keep him a lover; + For when a young gentleman ceases to woo, + Some other amusement he'll quickly discover.' + +"For such are young gentlemen made of--made of: such are young gentlemen +made of!" + +After this trifling she sang a Spanish ballad sweetly. He was in the +mood when imagination intensely vivifies everything. Mere suggestions of +music sufficed. The lady in the ballad had been wronged. Lo! it was the +lady before him; and soft horns blew; he smelt the languid night-flowers; +he saw the stars crowd large and close above the arid plain this lady +leaning at her window desolate, pouring out her abandoned heart. + +Heroes know little what they owe to champagne. + +The lady wandered to Venice. Thither he followed her at a leap. In +Venice she was not happy. He was prepared for the misery of any woman +anywhere. But, oh! to be with her! To glide with phantom-motion through +throbbing street; past houses muffled in shadow and gloomy legends; under +storied bridges; past palaces charged with full life in dead quietness; +past grand old towers, colossal squares, gleaming quays, and out, and on +with her, on into the silver infinity shaking over seas! + +Was it the champagne? the music? or the poetry? Something of the two +former, perhaps: but most the enchantress playing upon him. How many +instruments cannot clever women play upon at the same moment! And this +enchantress was not too clever, or he might have felt her touch. She was +no longer absolutely bent on winning him, or he might have seen a +manoeuvre. She liked him--liked none better. She wished him well. Her +pique was satisfied. Still he was handsome, and he was going. What she +liked him for, she rather--very slightly--wished to do away with, or see +if it could be done away with: just as one wishes to catch a pretty +butterfly, without hurting its patterned wings. No harm intended to the +innocent insect, only one wants to inspect it thoroughly, and enjoy the +marvel of it, in one's tender possession, and have the felicity of +thinking one could crush it, if one would. + +He knew her what she was, this lady. In Seville, or in Venice, the spot +was on her. Sailing the pathways of the moon it was not celestial light +that illumined her beauty. Her sin was there: but in dreaming to save, +he was soft to her sin--drowned it in deep mournfulness. + +Silence, and the rustle of her dress, awoke him from his musing. She +swam wave-like to the sofa. She was at his feet. + +"I have been light and careless to-night, Richard. Of course I meant it. +I must be happy with my best friend going to leave me." + +Those witch underlids were working brightly. + +"You will not forget me? and I shall try...try..." + +Her lips twitched. She thought him such a very handsome fellow. + +"If I change--if I can change... Oh! if you could know what a net I'm +in, Richard!" + +Now at those words, as he looked down on her haggard loveliness, not +divine sorrow but a devouring jealousy sprang like fire in his breast, +and set him rocking with horrid pain. He bent closer to her pale +beseeching face. Her eyes still drew him down. + +"Bella! No! no! promise me! swear it!" + +"Lost, Richard! lost for ever! give me up!" + +He cried: "I never will!" and strained her in his arms, and kissed her +passionately on the lips. + +She was not acting now as she sidled and slunk her half-averted head with +a kind of maiden shame under his arm, sighing heavily, weeping, clinging +to him. It was wicked truth. + +Not a word of love between them! + +Was ever hero in this fashion won? + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A woman who has mastered sauces sits on the apex of civilization +Behold the hero embarked in the redemption of an erring beauty +Come prepared to be not very well satisfied with anything +Habit had legalized his union with her +Hero embarked in the redemption of an erring beautiful woman +His equanimity was fictitious +His fancy performed miraculous feats +How many instruments cannot clever women play upon +I ain't a speeder of matrimony +Opened a wider view of the world to him, and a colder +Serene presumption +The Pilgrim's Scrip remarks that: Young men take joy in nothing +Threats of prayer, however, that harp upon their sincerity +To be passive in calamity is the province of no woman +Unaccustomed to have his will thwarted +Women are swift at coming to conclusions in these matters + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Ordeal Richard Feverel, v5 +by George Meredith + diff --git a/4410.zip b/4410.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..503bfa1 --- /dev/null +++ b/4410.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fb79045 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #4410 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4410) |