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diff --git a/4412-h/4412-h.htm b/4412-h/4412-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a3dd01 --- /dev/null +++ b/4412-h/4412-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,27609 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, by George Meredith</title> + +<style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + </head> + <body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, by George Meredith</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Ordeal of Richard Feverel</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: George Meredith</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 28, 2001 [eBook #4412]<br /> +[Most recently updated: December 4, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Pat Castevans and David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL ***</div> + +<h1>THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">By George Meredith</h2> + +<h3>1905</h3> + +<hr /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">CHAPTER I. THE INMATES OF RAYNHAM ABBEY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">CHAPTER II. THE FOURTEENTH BIRTHDAY TO TRY THE STRENGTH OF THE SYSTEM</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">CHAPTER III. THE MAGIAN CONFLICT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">CHAPTER IV. ARSON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">CHAPTER V. ADRIAN PLIES HIS HOOK</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">CHAPTER VI. JUVENILE STRATAGEMS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">CHAPTER VII. DAPHNE’S BOWER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII. THE BITTER CUP</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">CHAPTER IX. A FINE DISTINCTION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">CHAPTER X. RICHARD PASSES THROUGH HIS PRELIMINARY ORDEAL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CHAPTER XI. THE LAST ACT OF THE BAKEWELL COMEDY IS CLOSED IN A LETTER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHAPTER XII. THE BLOSSOMING SEASON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII. THE MAGNETIC AGE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV. AN ATTRACTION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">CHAPTER XV. FERDINAND AND MIRANDA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI. UNMASKING OF MASTER RIPTON THOMPSON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII. GOOD WINE AND GOOD BLOOD</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII. THE SYSTEM ENCOUNTERS THE WILD OATS SPECIAL PLEA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX. A DIVERSION PLAYED ON A PENNY WHISTLE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">CHAPTER XX. CELEBRATES THE TIME-HONOURED TREATMENT OF A DRAGON BY THE HERO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI. RICHARD IS SUMMONED TO TOWN TO HEAR A SERMON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII. INDICATES THE APPROACHES OF FEVER</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII. CRISIS IN THE APPLE-DISEASE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV. OF THE SPRING PRIMROSE AND THE AUTUMNAL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV. IN WHICH THE HERO TAKES A STEP</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI. RECORDS THE RAPID DEVELOPMENT OF THE HERO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">CHAPTER XXVII. CONTAINS AN INTERCESSION FOR THE HEROINE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">CHAPTER XXVIII. PREPARATIONS FOR ACTION WERE CONDUCTED UNDER THE APRIL OF LOVERS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">CHAPTER XXIX. IN WHICH THE LAST ACT OF THE COMEDY TAKES THE PLACE OF THE FIRST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">CHAPTER XXX. CELEBRATES THE BREAKFAST</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31">CHAPTER XXXI. THE PHILOSOPHER APPEARS IN PERSON</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap32">CHAPTER XXXII. PROCESSION OF THE CAKE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap33">CHAPTER XXXIII. NURSING THE DEVIL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap34">CHAPTER XXXIV. CONQUEST OF AN EPICURE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap35">CHAPTER XXXV. CLARE’S MARRIAGE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap36">CHAPTER XXXVI. A DINNER-PARTY AT RICHMOND</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap37">CHAPTER XXXVII. MRS. BERRY ON MATRIMONY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap38">CHAPTER XXXVIII. AN ENCHANTRESS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap39">CHAPTER XXXIX. THE LITTLE BIRD AND THE FALCON: A BERRY TO THE RESCUE!</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap40">CHAPTER XL. CLARE’S DIARY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap41">CHAPTER XLI. AUSTIN RETURNS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap42">CHAPTER XLII. NATURE SPEAKS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap43">CHAPTER XLIII. AGAIN THE MAGIAN CONFLICT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap44">CHAPTER XLIV. THE LAST SCENE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap45">CHAPTER XLV. LADY BLANDISH TO AUSTIN WENTWORTH</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a> +CHAPTER I</h2> + +<p> +Some years ago a book was published under the title of “The +Pilgrim’s Scrip.” It consisted of a selection of original aphorisms +by an anonymous gentleman, who in this bashful manner gave a bruised heart to +the world. +</p> + +<p> +He made no pretension to novelty. “Our new thoughts have thrilled dead +bosoms,” he wrote; by which avowal it may be seen that youth had +manifestly gone from him, since he had ceased to be jealous of the ancients. +There was a half-sigh floating through his pages for those days of intellectual +coxcombry, when ideas come to us affecting the embraces of virgins, and swear +to us they are ours alone, and no one else have they ever visited: and we +believe them. +</p> + +<p> +For an example of his ideas of the sex he said: +</p> + +<p> +“I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man.” +</p> + +<p> +Some excitement was produced in the bosoms of ladies by so monstrous a scorn of +them. +</p> + +<p> +One adventurous person betook herself to the Heralds’ College, and there +ascertained that a Griffin between two Wheatsheaves, which stood on the +title-page of the book, formed the crest of Sir Austin Absworthy Bearne +Feverel, Baronet, of Raynham Abbey, in a certain Western county folding Thames: +a man of wealth and honour, and a somewhat lamentable history. +</p> + +<p> +The outline of the baronet’s story was by no means new. He had a wife, +and he had a friend. His marriage was for love; his wife was a beauty; his +friend was a sort of poet. His wife had his whole heart, and his friend all his +confidence. When he selected Denzil Somers from among his college chums, it was +not on account of any similarity of disposition between them, but from his +intense worship of genius, which made him overlook the absence of principle in +his associate for the sake of such brilliant promise. Denzil had a small +patrimony to lead off with, and that he dissipated before he left college; +thenceforth he was dependent upon his admirer, with whom he lived, filling a +nominal post of bailiff to the estates, and launching forth verse of some +satiric and sentimental quality; for being inclined to vice, and occasionally, +and in a quiet way, practising it, he was of course a sentimentalist and a +satirist, entitled to lash the Age and complain of human nature. His earlier +poems, published under the pseudonym of Diaper Sandoe, were so pure and +bloodless in their love passages, and at the same time so biting in their moral +tone, that his reputation was great among the virtuous, who form the larger +portion of the English book-buying public. Election-seasons called him to +ballad-poetry on behalf of the Tory party. Diaper possessed undoubted fluency, +but did little, though Sir Austin was ever expecting much of him. +</p> + +<p> +A languishing, inexperienced woman, whose husband in mental and in moral +stature is more than the ordinary height above her, and who, now that her first +romantic admiration of his lofty bearing has worn off, and her fretful little +refinements of taste and sentiment are not instinctively responded to, is +thrown into no wholesome household collision with a fluent man, fluent in prose +and rhyme. Lady Feverel, when she first entered on her duties at Raynham, was +jealous of her husband’s friend. By degrees she tolerated him. In time he +touched his guitar in her chamber, and they played Rizzio and Mary together. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“For I am not the first who found<br/> +The name of Mary fatal!” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +says a subsequent sentimental alliterative love-poem of Diaper’s. +</p> + +<p> +Such was the outline of the story. But the baronet could fill it up. He had +opened his soul to these two. He had been noble Love to the one, and to the +other perfect Friendship. He had bid them be brother and sister whom he loved, +and live a Golden Age with him at Raynham. In fact, he had been prodigal of the +excellences of his nature, which it is not good to be, and, like Timon, he +became bankrupt, and fell upon bitterness. +</p> + +<p> +The faithless lady was of no particular family; an orphan daughter of an +admiral who educated her on his half-pay, and her conduct struck but at the man +whose name she bore. +</p> + +<p> +After five years of marriage, and twelve of friendship, Sir Austin was left to +his loneliness with nothing to ease his heart of love upon save a little baby +boy in a cradle. He forgave the man: he put him aside as poor for his wrath. +The woman he could not forgive; she had sinned every way. Simple ingratitude to +a benefactor was a pardonable transgression, for he was not one to recount and +crush the culprit under the heap of his good deeds. But her he had raised to be +his equal, and he judged her as his equal. She had blackened the world’s +fair aspect for him. +</p> + +<p> +In the presence of that world, so different to him now, he preserved his wonted +demeanor, and made his features a flexible mask. Mrs. Doria Forey, his widowed +sister, said that Austin might have retired from his Parliamentary career for a +time, and given up gaieties and that kind of thing; her opinion, founded on +observation of him in public and private, was, that the light thing who had +taken flight was but a feather on her brother’s Feverel-heart, and his +ordinary course of life would be resumed. There are times when common men +cannot bear the weight of just so much. Hippias Feverel, one of his brothers, +thought him immensely improved by his misfortune, if the loss of such a person +could be so designated; and seeing that Hippias received in consequence free +quarters at Raynham, and possession of the wing of the Abbey she had inhabited, +it is profitable to know his thoughts. If the baronet had given two or three +blazing dinners in the great hall he would have deceived people generally, as +he did his relatives and intimates. He was too sick for that: fit only for +passive acting. +</p> + +<p> +The nursemaid waking in the night beheld a solitary figure darkening a lamp +above her little sleeping charge, and became so used to the sight as never to +wake with a start. One night she was strangely aroused by a sound of sobbing. +The baronet stood beside the cot in his long black cloak and travelling cap. +His fingers shaded a lamp, and reddened against the fitful darkness that ever +and anon went leaping up the wall. She could hardly believe her senses to see +the austere gentleman, dead silent, dropping tear upon tear before her eyes. +She lay stone-still in a trance of terror and mournfulness, mechanically +counting the tears as they fell, one by one. The hidden face, the fall and +flash of those heavy drops in the light of the lamp he held, the upright, awful +figure, agitated at regular intervals like a piece of clockwork by the low +murderous catch of his breath: it was so piteous to her poor human nature that +her heart began wildly palpitating. Involuntarily the poor girl cried out to +him, “Oh, sir!” and fell a-weeping. Sir Austin turned the lamp on +her pillow, and harshly bade her go to sleep, striding from the room forthwith. +He dismissed her with a purse the next day. +</p> + +<p> +Once, when he was seven years old, the little fellow woke up at night to see a +lady bending over him. He talked of this the next day, but it was treated as a +dream; until in the course of the day his uncle Algernon was driven home from +Lobourne cricket-ground with a broken leg. Then it was recollected that there +was a family ghost; and, though no member of the family believed in the ghost, +none would have given up a circumstance that testified to its existence; for to +possess a ghost is a distinction above titles. +</p> + +<p> +Algernon Feverel lost his leg, and ceased to be a gentleman in the Guards. Of +the other uncles of young Richard, Cuthbert, the sailor, perished in a spirited +boat expedition against a slaving negro chief up the Niger. Some of the gallant +lieutenant’s trophies of war decorated the little boy’s play-shed +at Raynham, and he bequeathed his sword to Richard, whose hero he was. The +diplomatist and beau, Vivian, ended his flutterings from flower to flower by +making an improper marriage, as is the fate of many a beau, and was struck out +of the list of visitors. Algernon generally occupied the baronet’s +disused town-house, a wretched being, dividing his time between horse and card +exercise: possessed, it was said, of the absurd notion that a man who has lost +his balance by losing his leg may regain it by sticking to the bottle. At +least, whenever he and his brother Hippias got together, they never failed to +try whether one leg, or two, stood the bottle best. Much of a puritan as Sir +Austin was in his habits, he was too good a host, and too thorough a gentleman, +to impose them upon his guests. The brothers, and other relatives, might do as +they would while they did not disgrace the name, and then it was final: they +must depart to behold his countenance no more. +</p> + +<p> +Algernon Feverel was a simple man, who felt, subsequent to his misfortune, as +he had perhaps dimly fancied it before, that his career lay in his legs, and +was now irrevocably cut short. He taught the boy boxing, and shooting, and the +arts of fence, and superintended the direction of his animal vigour with a +melancholy vivacity. The remaining energies of Algernon’s mind were +devoted to animadversions on swift bowling. He preached it over the county, +struggling through laborious literary compositions, addressed to sporting +newspapers, on the Decline of Cricket. It was Algernon who witnessed and +chronicled young Richard’s first fight, which was with young Tom Blaize +of Belthorpe Farm, three years the boy’s senior. +</p> + +<p> +Hippias Feverel was once thought to be the genius of the family. It was his ill +luck to have strong appetites and a weak stomach; and, as one is not altogether +fit for the battle of life who is engaged in a perpetual contention with his +dinner, Hippias forsook his prospects at the Bar, and, in the embraces of +dyspepsia, compiled his ponderous work on the Fairy Mythology of Europe. He had +little to do with the Hope of Raynham beyond what he endured from his juvenile +tricks. +</p> + +<p> +A venerable lady, known as Great-Aunt Grantley, who had money to bequeath to +the heir, occupied with Hippias the background of the house and shared her +candles with him. These two were seldom seen till the dinner hour, for which +they were all day preparing, and probably all night remembering, for the +Eighteenth Century was an admirable trencherman, and cast age aside while there +was a dish on the table. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doris Foray was the eldest of the three sisters of the baronet, a florid +affable woman, with fine teeth, exceedingly fine light wavy hair, a Norman +nose, and a reputation for understanding men; and that, with these practical +creatures, always means the art of managing them. She had married an expectant +younger son of a good family, who deceased before the fulfilment of his +prospects; and, casting about in her mind the future chances of her little +daughter and sole child, Clare, she marked down a probability. The far sight, +the deep determination, the resolute perseverance of her sex, where a daughter +is to be provided for and a man to be overthrown, instigated her to invite +herself to Raynham, where, with that daughter, she fixed herself. +</p> + +<p> +The other two Feverel ladies were the wife of Colonel Wentworth and the widow +of Mr. Justice Harley: and the only thing remarkable about them was that they +were mothers of sons of some distinction. +</p> + +<p> +Austin Wentworth’s story was of that wretched character which to be +comprehended, that justice should be dealt him, must be told out and openly; +which no one dares now do. +</p> + +<p> +For a fault in early youth, redeemed by him nobly, according to his light, he +was condemned to undergo the world’s harsh judgment: not for the +fault—for its atonement. +</p> + +<p> +“—Married his mother’s housemaid,” whispered Mrs. +Doria, with a ghastly look, and a shudder at young men of republican +sentiments, which he was reputed to entertain. “‘The compensation +for Injustice,’ says the ‘Pilgrim’s Scrip,’ is, that in +that dark Ordeal we gather the worthiest around us.” +</p> + +<p> +And the baronet’s fair friend, Lady Blandish, and some few true men and +women, held Austin Wentworth high. +</p> + +<p> +He did not live with his wife; and Sir Austin, whose mind was bent on the +future of our species, reproached him with being barren to posterity, while +knaves were propagating. +</p> + +<p> +The principal characteristic of the second nephew, Adrian Harley, was his +sagacity. He was essentially the wise youth, both in counsel and in action. +</p> + +<p> +“In action,” the “Pilgrim’s Scrip” observes, +“Wisdom goes by majorities.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian had an instinct for the majority, and, as the world invariably found him +enlisted in its ranks, his appellation of wise youth was acquiesced in without +irony. +</p> + +<p> +The wise youth, then, had the world with him, but no friends. Nor did he wish +for those troublesome appendages of success. He caused himself to be required +by people who could serve him; feared by such as could injure. Not that he went +out of the way to secure his end, or risked the expense of a plot. He did the +work as easily as he ate his daily bread. Adrian was an epicurean; one whom +Epicurus would have scourged out of his garden, certainly: an epicurean of our +modern notions. To satisfy his appetites without rashly staking his character, +was the wise youth’s problem for life. He had no intimates except Gibbon +and Horace, and the society of these fine aristocrats of literature helped him +to accept humanity as it had been, and was; a supreme ironic procession, with +laughter of Gods in the background. Why not laughter of mortals also? Adrian +had his laugh in his comfortable corner. He possessed peculiar attributes of a +heathen God. He was a disposer of men: he was polished, luxurious, and +happy—at their cost. He lived in eminent self-content, as one lying on +soft cloud, lapt in sunshine. Nor Jove, nor Apollo, cast eye upon the maids of +earth with cooler fire of selection, or pursued them in the covert with more +sacred impunity. And he enjoyed his reputation for virtue as something +additional. Stolen fruits are said to be sweet; undeserved rewards are +exquisite. +</p> + +<p> +The best of it was, that Adrian made no pretences. He did not solicit the +favourable judgment of the world. Nature and he attempted no other concealment +than the ordinary mask men wear. And yet the world would proclaim him moral, as +well as wise, and the pleasing converse every way of his disgraced cousin +Austin. +</p> + +<p> +In a word, Adrian Harley had mastered his philosophy at the early age of +one-and-twenty. Many would be glad to say the same at that age twice-told: they +carry in their breasts a burden with which Adrian’s was not loaded. Mrs. +Doria was nearly right about his heart. A singular mishap (at his birth, +possibly, or before it) had unseated that organ, and shaken it down to his +stomach, where it was a much lighter, nay, an inspiring weight, and encouraged +him merrily onward. Throned there it looked on little that did not arrive to +gratify it. Already that region was a trifle prominent in the person of the +wise youth, and carried, as it were, the flag of his philosophical tenets in +front of him. He was charming after dinner, with men or with women: +delightfully sarcastic: perhaps a little too unscrupulous in his moral tone, +but that his moral reputation belied him, and it must be set down to generosity +of disposition. +</p> + +<p> +Such was Adrian Harley, another of Sir Austin’s intellectual favourites, +chosen from mankind to superintend the education of his son at Raynham. Adrian +had been destined for the Church. He did not enter into Orders. He and the +baronet had a conference together one day, and from that time Adrian became a +fixture in the Abbey. His father died in his promising son’s college +term, bequeathing him nothing but his legal complexion, and Adrian became +stipendiary officer in his uncle’s household. +</p> + +<p> +A playfellow of Richard’s occasionally, and the only comrade of his age +that he ever saw, was Master Ripton Thompson, the son of Sir Austin’s +solicitor, a boy without a character. +</p> + +<p> +A comrade of some description was necessary, for Richard was neither to go to +school nor to college. Sir Austin considered that the schools were corrupt, and +maintained that young lads might by parental vigilance be kept pretty secure +from the Serpent until Eve sided with him: a period that might be deferred, he +said. He had a system of education for his son. How it worked we shall see. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a> +CHAPTER II</h2> + +<p> +October shone royally on Richard’s fourteenth birthday. The brown +beechwoods and golden birches glowed to a brilliant sun. Banks of moveless +cloud hung about the horizon, mounded to the west, where slept the wind. +Promise of a great day for Raynham, as it proved to be, though not in the +manner marked out. +</p> + +<p> +Already archery-booths and cricketing-tents were rising on the lower grounds +towards the river, whither the lads of Bursley and Lobourne, in boats and in +carts, shouting for a day of ale and honour, jogged merrily to match themselves +anew, and pluck at the living laurel from each other’s brows, like manly +Britons. The whole park was beginning to be astir and resound with holiday +cries. Sir Austin Feverel, a thorough good Tory, was no game-preserver, and +could be popular whenever he chose, which Sir Males Papworth, on the other side +of the river, a fast-handed Whig and terror to poachers, never could be. Half +the village of Lobourne was seen trooping through the avenues of the park. +Fiddlers and gipsies clamoured at the gates for admission: white smocks, and +slate, surmounted by hats of serious brim, and now and then a scarlet cloak, +smacking of the old country, dotted the grassy sweeps to the levels. +</p> + +<p> +And all the time the star of these festivities was receding further and +further, and eclipsing himself with his reluctant serf Ripton, who kept asking +what they were to do and where they were going, and how late it was in the day, +and suggesting that the lads of Lobourne would be calling out for them, and Sir +Austin requiring their presence, without getting any attention paid to his +misery or remonstrances. For Richard had been requested by his father to submit +to medical examination like a boor enlisting for a soldier, and he was in great +wrath. +</p> + +<p> +He was flying as though he would have flown from the shameful thought of what +had been asked of him. By-and-by he communicated his sentiments to Ripton, who +said they were those of a girl: an offensive remark, remembering which, +Richard, after they had borrowed a couple of guns at the bailiff’s farm, +and Ripton had fired badly, called his friend a fool. +</p> + +<p> +Feeling that circumstances were making him look wonderfully like one, Ripton +lifted his head and retorted defiantly, “I’m not!” +</p> + +<p> +This angry contradiction, so very uncalled for, annoyed Richard, who was still +smarting at the loss of the birds, owing to Ripton’s bad shot, and was +really the injured party. He, therefore bestowed the abusive epithet on Ripton +anew, and with increase of emphasis. +</p> + +<p> +“You shan’t call me so, then, whether I am or not,” says +Ripton, and sucks his lips. +</p> + +<p> +This was becoming personal. Richard sent up his brows, and stared at his defier +an instant. He then informed him that he certainly should call him so, and +would not object to call him so twenty times. +</p> + +<p> +“Do it, and see!” returns Ripton, rocking on his feet, and +breathing quick. +</p> + +<p> +With a gravity of which only boys and other barbarians are capable, Richard +went through the entire number, stressing the epithet to increase the defiance +and avoid monotony, as he progressed, while Ripton bobbed his head every time +in assent, as it were, to his comrade’s accuracy, and as a record for his +profound humiliation. The dog they had with them gazed at the extraordinary +performance with interrogating wags of the tail. +</p> + +<p> +Twenty times, duly and deliberately, Richard repeated the obnoxious word. +</p> + +<p> +At the twentieth solemn iteration of Ripton’s capital shortcoming, Ripton +delivered a smart back-hander on Richard’s mouth, and squared +precipitately; perhaps sorry when the deed was done, for he was a kind-hearted +lad, and as Richard simply bowed in acknowledgment of the blow he thought he +had gone too far. He did not know the young gentleman he was dealing with. +Richard was extremely cool. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall we fight here?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Anywhere you like,” replied Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +“A little more into the wood, I think. We may be interrupted.” And +Richard led the way with a courteous reserve that somewhat chilled +Ripton’s ardour for the contest. On the skirts of the wood, Richard threw +off his jacket and waistcoat, and, quite collected, waited for Ripton to do the +same. The latter boy was flushed and restless; older and broader, but not so +tight-limbed and well-set. The Gods, sole witnesses of their battle, betted +dead against him. Richard had mounted the white cockade of the Feverels, and +there was a look in him that asked for tough work to extinguish. His brows, +slightly lined upward at the temples, converging to a knot about the well-set +straight nose; his full grey eyes, open nostrils, and planted feet, and a +gentlemanly air of calm and alertness, formed a spirited picture of a young +combatant. As for Ripton, he was all abroad, and fought in school-boy +style—that is, he rushed at the foe head foremost, and struck like a +windmill. He was a lumpy boy. When he did hit, he made himself felt; but he was +at the mercy of science. To see him come dashing in, blinking and puffing and +whirling his arms abroad while the felling blow went straight between them, you +perceived that he was fighting a fight of desperation, and knew it. For the +dreaded alternative glared him in the face that, if he yielded, he must look +like what he had been twenty times calumniously called; and he would die rather +than yield, and swing his windmill till he dropped. Poor boy! he dropped +frequently. The gallant fellow fought for appearances, and down he went. The +Gods favour one of two parties. Prince Turnus was a noble youth; but he had not +Pallas at his elbow. Ripton was a capital boy; he had no science. He could not +prove he was not a fool! When one comes to think of it, Ripton did choose the +only possible way, and we should all of us have considerable difficulty in +proving the negative by any other. Ripton came on the unerring fist again and +again; and if it was true, as he said in short colloquial gasps, that he +required as much beating as an egg to be beaten thoroughly, a fortunate +interruption alone saved our friend from resembling that substance. The boys +heard summoning voices, and beheld Mr. Morton of Poer Hall and Austin Wentworth +stepping towards them. +</p> + +<p> +A truce was sounded, jackets were caught up, guns shouldered, and off they +trotted in concert through the depths of the wood, not stopping till that and +half-a-dozen fields and a larch plantation were well behind them. +</p> + +<p> +When they halted to take breath, there was a mutual study of faces. +Ripton’s was much discoloured, and looked fiercer with its natural +war-paint than the boy felt. Nevertheless, he squared up dauntlessly on the new +ground, and Richard, whose wrath was appeased, could not refrain from asking +him whether he had not really had enough. +</p> + +<p> +“Never!” shouts the noble enemy. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, look here,” said Richard, appealing to common sense, +“I’m tired of knocking you down. I’ll say you’re not a +fool, if you’ll give me your hand.” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton demurred an instant to consult with honour, who bade him catch at his +chance. +</p> + +<p> +He held out his hand. “There!” and the boys grasped hands and were +fast friends. Ripton had gained his point, and Richard decidedly had the best +of it. So, they were on equal ground. Both, could claim a victory, which was +all the better for their friendship. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton washed his face and comforted his nose at a brook, and was now ready to +follow his friend wherever he chose to lead. They continued to beat about for +birds. The birds on the Raynham estates were found singularly cunning, and +repeatedly eluded the aim of these prime shots, so they pushed their expedition +into the lands of their neighbors, in search of a stupider race, happily +oblivious of the laws and conditions of trespass; unconscious, too, that they +were poaching on the demesne of the notorious Farmer Blaize, the free-trade +farmer under the shield of the Papworths, no worshipper of the Griffin between +two Wheatsheaves; destined to be much allied with Richard’s fortunes from +beginning to end. Farmer Blaize hated poachers, and, especially young chaps +poaching, who did it mostly from impudence. He heard the audacious shots +popping right and left, and going forth to have a glimpse at the intruders, and +observing their size, swore he would teach my gentlemen a thing, lords or no +lords. +</p> + +<p> +Richard had brought down a beautiful cock-pheasant, and was exulting over it, +when the farmer’s portentous figure burst upon them, cracking an avenging +horsewhip. His salute was ironical. +</p> + +<p> +“Havin’ good sport, gentlemen, are ye?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just bagged a splendid bird!” radiant Richard informed him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” Farmer Blaize gave an admonitory flick of the whip. +</p> + +<p> +“Just let me clap eye on’t, then.” +</p> + +<p> +“Say, please,” interposed Ripton, who was not blind to doubtful +aspects. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize threw up his chin, and grinned grimly. +</p> + +<p> +“Please to you, sir? Why, my chap, you looks as if ye didn’t much +mind what come t’yer nose, I reckon. You looks an old poacher, you do. +Tall ye what ’tis!” He changed his banter to business, “That +bird’s mine! Now you jest hand him over, and sheer off, you dam young +scoundrels! I know ye!” And he became exceedingly opprobrious, and +uttered contempt of the name of Feverel. +</p> + +<p> +Richard opened his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“If you wants to be horsewhipped, you’ll stay where +y’are!” continued the farmer. “Giles Blaize never stands +nonsense!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then we’ll stay,” quoth Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“Good! so be’t! If you will have’t, have’t, my +men!” +</p> + +<p> +As a preparatory measure, Farmer Blaize seized a wing of the bird, on which +both boys flung themselves desperately, and secured it minus the pinion. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s your game,” cried the farmer. “Here’s a +taste of horsewhip for ye. I never stands nonsense!” and sweetch went the +mighty whip, well swayed. The boys tried to close with him. He kept his +distance and lashed without mercy. Black blood was made by Farmer Blaize that +day! The boys wriggled, in spite of themselves. It was like a relentless +serpent coiling, and biting, and stinging their young veins to madness. +Probably they felt the disgrace of the contortions they were made to go through +more than the pain, but the pain was fierce, for the farmer laid about from a +practised arm, and did not consider that he had done enough till he was well +breathed and his ruddy jowl inflamed. He paused, to receive the remainder of +the cock-pheasant in his face. +</p> + +<p> +“Take your beastly bird,” cried Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“Money, my lads, and interest,” roared the farmer, lashing out +again. +</p> + +<p> +Shameful as it was to retreat, there was but that course open to them. They +decided to surrender the field. +</p> + +<p> +“Look! you big brute,” Richard shook his gun, hoarse with passion, +“I’d have shot you, if I’d been loaded. Mind if I come across +you when I’m loaded, you coward, I’ll fire!” The un-English +nature of this threat exasperated Farmer Blaize, and he pressed the pursuit in +time to bestow a few farewell stripes as they were escaping tight-breeched into +neutral territory. At the hedge they parleyed a minute, the farmer to inquire +if they had had a mortal good tanning and were satisfied, for when they wanted +a further instalment of the same they were to come for it to Belthorpe Farm, +and there it was in pickle: the boys meantime exploding in menaces and threats +of vengeance, on which the farmer contemptuously turned his back. Ripton had +already stocked an armful of flints for the enjoyment of a little skirmishing. +Richard, however, knocked them all out, saying, “No! Gentlemen +don’t fling stones; leave that to the blackguards.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just one shy at him!” pleaded Ripton, with his eye on Farmer +Blaize’s broad mark, and his whole mind drunken with a sudden revelation +of the advantages of light troops in opposition to heavies. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Richard, imperatively, “no stones,” and +marched briskly away. Ripton followed with a sigh. His leader’s +magnanimity was wholly beyond him. A good spanking mark at the farmer would +have relieved Master Ripton; it would have done nothing to console Richard +Feverel for the ignominy he had been compelled to submit to. Ripton was +familiar with the rod, a monster much despoiled of his terrors by intimacy. +Birch-fever was past with this boy. The horrible sense of shame, self-loathing, +universal hatred, impotent vengeance, as if the spirit were steeped in abysmal +blackness, which comes upon a courageous and sensitive youth condemned for the +first time to taste this piece of fleshly bitterness, and suffer what he feels +is a defilement, Ripton had weathered and forgotten. He was seasoned wood, and +took the world pretty wisely; not reckless of castigation, as some boys become, +nor oversensitive as to dishonour, as his friend and comrade beside him was. +</p> + +<p> +Richard’s blood was poisoned. He had the fever on him severely. He would +not allow stone-flinging, because it was a habit of his to discountenance it. +Mere gentlemanly considerations has scarce shielded Farmer Blaize, and certain +very ungentlemanly schemes were coming to ghastly heads in the tumult of his +brain; rejected solely from their glaring impracticability even to his young +intelligence. A sweeping and consummate vengeance for the indignity alone +should satisfy him. Something tremendous must be done; and done without delay. +At one moment he thought of killing all the farmer’s cattle; next of +killing him; challenging him to single combat with the arms, and according to +the fashion of gentlemen. But the farmer was a coward; he would refuse. Then +he, Richard Feverel, would stand by the farmer’s bedside, and rouse him; +rouse him to fight with powder and ball in his own chamber, in the cowardly +midnight, where he might tremble, but dare not refuse. +</p> + +<p> +“Lord!” cried simple Ripton, while these hopeful plots were raging +in his comrade’s brain, now sparkling for immediate execution, and anon +lapsing disdainfully dark in their chances of fulfilment, “how I wish +you’d have let me notch him, Ricky! I’m a safe shot. I never miss. +I should feel quite jolly if I’d spanked him once. We should have had the +beat of him at that game. I say!” and a sharp thought drew Ripton’s +ideas nearer home, “I wonder whether my nose is as bad as he says! Where +can I see myself?” +</p> + +<p> +To these exclamations Richard was deaf, and he trudged steadily forward, facing +but one object. +</p> + +<p> +After tearing through innumerable hedges, leaping fences, jumping dykes, +penetrating brambly copses, and getting dirty, ragged, and tired, Ripton awoke +from his dream of Farmer Blaize and a blue nose to the vivid consciousness of +hunger; and this grew with the rapidity of light upon him, till in the course +of another minute he was enduring the extremes of famine, and ventured to +question his leader whither he was being conducted. Raynham was out of sight. +They were a long way down the valley, miles from Lobourne, in a country of sour +pools, yellow brooks, rank pasturage, desolate heath. Solitary cows were seen; +the smoke of a mud cottage; a cart piled with peat; a donkey grazing at +leisure, oblivious of an unkind world; geese by a horse-pond, gabbling as in +the first loneliness of creation; uncooked things that a famishing boy cannot +possibly care for, and must despise. Ripton was in despair. +</p> + +<p> +“Where are you going to?” he inquired with a voice of the last time +of asking, and halted resolutely. +</p> + +<p> +Richard now broke his silence to reply, “Anywhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“Anywhere!” Ripton took up the moody word. “But ain’t +you awfully hungry?” he gasped vehemently, in a way that showed the total +emptiness of his stomach. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” was Richard’s brief response. +</p> + +<p> +“Not hungry!” Ripton’s amazement lent him increased +vehemence. “Why, you haven’t had anything to eat since breakfast! +Not hungry? I declare I’m starving. I feel such a gnawing I could eat dry +bread and cheese!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard sneered: not for reasons that would have actuated a similar +demonstration of the philosopher. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” cried Ripton, “at all events, tell us where +you’re going to stop.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard faced about to make a querulous retort. The injured and hapless visage +that met his eye disarmed him. The lad’s nose, though not exactly of the +dreaded hue, was really becoming discoloured. To upbraid him would be cruel. +Richard lifted his head, surveyed the position, and exclaiming +“Here!” dropped down on a withered bank, leaving Ripton to +contemplate him as a puzzle whose every new move was a worse perplexity. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a> +CHAPTER III</h2> + +<p> +Among boys there are laws of honour and chivalrous codes, not written or +formally taught, but intuitively understood by all, and invariably acted upon +by the loyal and the true. The race is not nearly civilized, we must remember. +Thus, not to follow your leader whithersoever he may think proper to lead; to +back out of an expedition because the end of it frowns dubious, and the present +fruit of it is discomfort; to quit a comrade on the road, and return home +without him: these are tricks which no boy of spirit would be guilty of, let +him come to any description of mortal grief in consequence. Better so than have +his own conscience denouncing him sneak. Some boys who behave boldly enough are +not troubled by this conscience, and the eyes and the lips of their fellows +have to supply the deficiency. They do it with just as haunting, and even more +horrible pertinacity, than the inner voice, and the result, if the probation be +not very severe and searching, is the same. The leader can rely on the +faithfulness of his host: the comrade is sworn to serve. Master Ripton Thompson +was naturally loyal. The idea of turning off and forsaking his friend never +once crossed his mind, though his condition was desperate, and his +friend’s behaviour that of a Bedlamite. He announced several times +impatiently that they would be too late for dinner. His friend did not budge. +Dinner seemed nothing to him. There he lay plucking grass, and patting the old +dog’s nose, as if incapable of conceiving what a thing hunger was. Ripton +took half-a-dozen turns up and down, and at last flung himself down beside the +taciturn boy, accepting his fate. +</p> + +<p> +Now, the chance that works for certain purposes sent a smart shower from the +sinking sun, and the wet sent two strangers for shelter in the lane behind the +hedge where the boys reclined. One was a travelling tinker, who lit a pipe and +spread a tawny umbrella. The other was a burly young countryman, pipeless and +tentless. They saluted with a nod, and began recounting for each other’s +benefit the daylong-doings of the weather, as it had affected their individual +experience and followed their prophecies. Both had anticipated and foretold a +bit of rain before night, and therefore both welcomed the wet with +satisfaction. A monotonous betweenwhiles kind of talk they kept droning, in +harmony with the still hum of the air. From the weather theme they fell upon +the blessings of tobacco; how it was the poor man’s friend, his company, +his consolation, his comfort, his refuge at night, his first thought in the +morning. +</p> + +<p> +“Better than a wife!” chuckled the tinker. “No +curtain-lecturin’ with a pipe. Your pipe an’t a shrew.” +</p> + +<p> +“That be it!” the other chimed in. “Your pipe doan’t +mak’ ye out wi’ all the cash Saturday evenin’.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take one,” said the tinker, in the enthusiasm of the moment, +handing a grimy short clay. Speed-the-Plough filled from the tinker’s +pouch, and continued his praises. +</p> + +<p> +“Penny a day, and there y’are, primed! Better than a wife? Ha, +ha!” +</p> + +<p> +“And you can get rid of it, if ye wants for to, and when ye wants,” +added tinker. +</p> + +<p> +“So ye can!” Speed-the-Plough took him up. “And ye +doan’t want for to. Leastways, t’other case. I means pipe.” +</p> + +<p> +“And,” continued tinker, comprehending him perfectly, “it +don’t bring repentance after it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not nohow, master, it doan’t! And”—Speed-the-Plough +cocked his eye—“it doan’t eat up half the victuals, your pipe +doan’t.” +</p> + +<p> +Here the honest yeoman gesticulated his keen sense of a clincher, which the +tinker acknowledged; and having, so to speak, sealed up the subject by saying +the best thing that could be said, the two smoked for some time in silence to +the drip and patter of the shower. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton solaced his wretchedness by watching them through the briar hedge. He +saw the tinker stroking a white cat, and appealing to her, every now and then, +as his missus, for an opinion or a confirmation; and he thought that a curious +sight. Speed-the-Plough was stretched at full length, with his boots in the +rain, and his head amidst the tinker’s pots, smoking, profoundly +contemplative. The minutes seemed to be taken up alternately by the grey puffs +from their mouths. +</p> + +<p> +It was the tinker who renewed the colloquy. Said he, “Times is +bad!” +</p> + +<p> +His companion assented, “Sure-ly!” +</p> + +<p> +“But it somehow comes round right,” resumed the tinker. “Why, +look here. Where’s the good o’ moping? I sees it all come round +right and tight. Now I travels about. I’ve got my beat. ’Casion +calls me t’other day to Newcastle!—Eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Coals!” ejaculated Speed-the-Plough sonorously. +</p> + +<p> +“Coals!” echoed the tinker. “You ask what I goes there for, +mayhap? Never you mind. One sees a mort o’ life in my trade. Not for +coals it isn’t. And I don’t carry ’em there, neither. Anyhow, +I comes back. London’s my mark. Says I, I’ll see a bit o’ the +sea, and steps aboard a collier. We were as nigh wrecked as the prophet +Paul.” +</p> + +<p> +“—A—who’s him?” the other wished to know. +</p> + +<p> +“Read your Bible,” said the tinker. “We pitched and +tossed—’tain’t that game at sea ’tis on land, I can +tell ye! I thinks, down we’re a-going—say your prayers, Bob Tiles! +That was a night, to be sure! But God’s above the devil, and here I am, +ye see.” Speed-the-Plough lurched round on his elbow and regarded him +indifferently. “D’ye call that doctrin’? He bean’t +al’ays, or I shoo’n’t be scrapin’ my heels wi’ +nothin’ to do, and, what’s warse, nothin’ to eat. Why, look +heer. Luck’s luck, and bad luck’s the con-trary. Varmer Bollop, +t’other day, has’s rick burnt down. Next night his +gran’ry’s burnt. What do he tak’ and go and do? He takes and +goes and hangs unsel’, and turns us out of his employ. God warn’t +above the devil then, I thinks, or I can’t make out the +reckonin’.” +</p> + +<p> +The tinker cleared his throat, and said it was a bad case. +</p> + +<p> +“And a darn’d bad case. I’ll tak’ my oath +on’t!” cried Speed-the-Plough. “Well, look heer! Heer’s +another darn’d bad case. I threshed for Varmer Blaize Blaize o’ +Beltharpe afore I goes to Varmer Bollop. Varmer Blaize misses pilkins. He +swears our chaps steals pilkins. ’Twarn’t me steals ’em. What +do he tak’ and go and do? He takes and tarns us off, me and another, neck +and crop, to scuffle about and starve, for all he keers. God warn’t above +the devil then, I thinks. Not nohow, as I can see!” +</p> + +<p> +The tinker shook his head, and said that was a bad case also. +</p> + +<p> +“And you can’t mend it,” added Speed-the-Plough. +“It’s bad, and there it be. But I’ll tell ye what, master. +Bad wants payin’ for.” He nodded and winked mysteriously. +“Bad has its wages as well’s honest work, I’m thinkin’. +Varmer Bollop I don’t owe no grudge to: Varmer Blaize I do. And I shud +like to stick a Lucifer in his rick some dry windy night.” +Speed-the-Plough screwed up an eye villainously. “He wants hittin’ +in the wind,—jest where the pocket is, master, do Varmer Blaize, and +he’ll cry out ‘O Lor’!’ Varmer Blaize will. You +won’t get the better o’ Varmer Blaize by no means, as I makes out, +if ye doan’t hit into him jest there.” +</p> + +<p> +The tinker sent a rapid succession of white clouds from his mouth, and said +that would be taking the devil’s side of a bad case. Speed-the-Plough +observed energetically that, if Farmer Blaize was on the other, he should be on +that side. +</p> + +<p> +There was a young gentleman close by, who thought with him. The hope of Raynham +had lent a careless half-compelled attention to the foregoing dialogue, wherein +a common labourer and a travelling tinker had propounded and discussed one of +the most ancient theories of transmundane dominion and influence on mundane +affairs. He now started to his feet, and came tearing through the briar hedge, +calling out for one of them to direct them the nearest road to Bursley. The +tinker was kindling preparations for his tea, under the tawny umbrella. A loaf +was set forth, on which Ripton’s eyes, stuck in the edge, fastened +ravenously. Speed-the-Plough volunteered information that Bursley was a good +three mile from where they stood, and a good eight mile from Lobourne. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll give you half-a-crown for that loaf, my good fellow,” +said Richard to the tinker. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a bargain;” quoth the tinker, “eh, missus?” +</p> + +<p> +His cat replied by humping her back at the dog. +</p> + +<p> +The half-crown was tossed down, and Ripton, who had just succeeded in freeing +his limbs from the briar, prickly as a hedgehog, collared the loaf. +</p> + +<p> +“Those young squires be sharp-set, and no mistake,” said the tinker +to his companion. “Come! we’ll to Bursley after ’em, and talk +it out over a pot o’ beer.” Speed-the-Plough was nothing loath, and +in a short time they were following the two lads on the road to Bursley, while +a horizontal blaze shot across the autumn and from the Western edge of the +rain-cloud. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a> +CHAPTER IV</h2> + +<p> +Search for the missing boys had been made everywhere over Raynham, and Sir +Austin was in grievous discontent. None had seen them save Austin Wentworth and +Mr. Morton. The baronet sat construing their account of the flight of the lads +when they were hailed, and resolved it into an act of rebellion on the part of +his son. At dinner he drank the young heir’s health in ominous silence. +Adrian Harley stood up in his place to propose the health. His speech was a +fine piece of rhetoric. He warmed in it till, after the Ciceronic model, +inanimate objects were personified, and Richard’s table-napkin and vacant +chair were invoked to follow the steps of a peerless father, and uphold with +his dignity the honour of the Feverels. Austin Wentworth, whom a +soldier’s death compelled to take his father’s place in support of +the toast, was tame after such magniloquence. But the reply, the thanks which +young Richard should have delivered in person were not forthcoming. +Adrian’s oratory had given but a momentary life to napkin and chair. The +company of honoured friends, and aunts and uncles, remotest cousins, were glad +to disperse and seek amusement in music and tea. Sir Austin did his utmost to +be hospitably cheerful, and requested them to dance. If he had desired them to +laugh he would have been obeyed, and in as hearty a manner. +</p> + +<p> +“How triste!” said Mrs. Doria Forey to Lobourne’s curate, as +that most enamoured automaton went through his paces beside her with +professional stiffness. +</p> + +<p> +“One who does not suffer can hardly assent,” the curate answered, +basking in her beams. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you are good!” exclaimed the lady. “Look at my Clare. +She will not dance on her cousin’s birthday with anyone but him. What are +we to do to enliven these people?” +</p> + +<p> +“Alas, madam! you cannot do for all what you do for one,” the +curate sighed, and wherever she wandered in discourse, drew her back with +silken strings to gaze on his enamoured soul. +</p> + +<p> +He was the only gratified stranger present. The others had designs on the young +heir. Lady Attenbury of Longford House had brought her highly-polished specimen +of market-ware, the Lady Juliana Jaye, for a first introduction to him, +thinking he had arrived at an age to estimate and pine for her black eyes and +pretty pert mouth. The Lady Juliana had to pair off with a dapper Papworth, and +her mama was subjected to the gallantries of Sir Miles, who talked land and +steam-engines to her till she was sick, and had to be impertinent in +self-defence. Lady Blandish, the delightful widow, sat apart with Adrian, and +enjoyed his sarcasms on the company. By ten at night the poor show ended, and +the rooms were dark, dark as the prognostics multitudinously hinted by the +disappointed and chilled guests concerning the probable future of the hope of +Raynham. Little Clare kissed her mama, curtsied to the lingering curate, and +went to bed like a very good girl. Immediately the maid had departed, little +Clare deliberately exchanged night attire for that of day. She was noted as an +obedient child. Her light was allowed to burn in her room for half-an-hour, to +counteract her fears of the dark. She took the light, and stole on tiptoe to +Richard’s room. No Richard was there. She peeped in further and further. +A trifling agitation of the curtains shot her back through the door and along +the passage to her own bedchamber with extreme expedition. She was not much +alarmed, but feeling guilty she was on her guard. In a short time she was +prowling about the passages again. Richard had slighted and offended the little +lady, and was to be asked whether he did not repent such conduct toward his +cousin; not to be asked whether he had forgotten to receive his birthday kiss +from her; for, if he did not choose to remember that, Miss Clare would never +remind him of it, and to-night should be his last chance of a reconciliation. +Thus she meditated, sitting on a stair, and presently heard Richard’s +voice below in the hall, shouting for supper. +</p> + +<p> +“Master Richard has returned,” old Benson the butler tolled out +intelligence to Sir Austin. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +“He complains of being hungry,” the butler hesitated, with a look +of solemn disgust. +</p> + +<p> +“Let him eat.” +</p> + +<p> +Heavy Benson hesitated still more as he announced that the boy had called for +wine. It was an unprecedented thing. Sir Austin’s brows were portending +an arch, but Adrian suggested that he wanted possibly to drink his birthday, +and claret was conceded. +</p> + +<p> +The boys were in the vortex of a partridge-pie when Adrian strolled in to them. +They had now changed characters. Richard was uproarious. He drank a health with +every glass; his cheeks were flushed and his eyes brilliant. Ripton looked very +much like a rogue on the tremble of detection, but his honest hunger and the +partridge-pie shielded him awhile from Adrian’s scrutinizing glance. +Adrian saw there was matter for study, if it were only on Master Ripton’s +betraying nose, and sat down to hear and mark. +</p> + +<p> +“Good sport, gentlemen, I trust to hear?” he began his quiet +banter, and provoked a loud peal of laughter from Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha, ha! I say, Rip: ‘Havin’ good sport, gentlemen, are +ye?’ You remember the farmer! Your health, parson! We haven’t had +our sport yet. We’re going to have some first-rate sport. Oh, well! we +haven’t much show of birds. We shot for pleasure, and returned them to +the proprietors. You’re fond of game, parson! Ripton is a dead shot in +what Cousin Austin calls the Kingdom of ‘would-have-done’ and +‘might-have-been.’ Up went the birds, and cries Rip, +‘I’ve forgotten to load!’ Oh, ho!—Rip! some more +claret.—Do just leave that nose of yours alone.—Your health, Ripton +Thompson! The birds hadn’t the decency to wait for him, and so, parson, +it’s their fault, and not Rip’s, you haven’t a dozen brace at +your feet. What have you been doing at home, Cousin Rady?” +</p> + +<p> +“Playing Hamlet, in the absence of the Prince of Denmark. The day without +you, my dear boy, must be dull, you know.” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘He speaks: can I trust what he says is sincere?<br/> +There’s an edge to his smile that cuts much like a sneer.’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“Sandoe’s poems! You know the couplet, Mr. Rady. Why +shouldn’t I quote Sandoe? You know you like him, Rady. But, if +you’ve missed me, I’m sorry. Rip and I have had a beautiful day. +We’ve made new acquaintances. We’ve seen the world. I’m the +monkey that has seen the world, and I’m going to tell you all about it. +First, there’s a gentleman who takes a rifle for a fowling-piece. Next, +there’s a farmer who warns everybody, gentleman and beggar, off his +premises. Next, there’s a tinker and a ploughman, who think that God is +always fighting with the devil which shall command the kingdoms of the earth. +The tinker’s for God, and the ploughman”— +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll drink your health, Ricky,” said Adrian, interrupting. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I forgot, parson;—I mean no harm, Adrian. I’m only +telling what I’ve heard.” +</p> + +<p> +“No harm, my dear boy,” returned Adrian. “I’m perfectly +aware that Zoroaster is not dead. You have been listening to a common creed. +Drink the Fire-worshippers, if you will.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s to Zoroaster, then!” cried Richard. “I say, +Rippy! we’ll drink the Fire-worshippers to-night won’t we?” +</p> + +<p> +A fearful conspiratorial frown, that would not have disgraced Guido Fawkes, was +darted back from the plastic features of Master Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +Richard gave his lungs loud play. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what did you say about Blaizes, Rippy? Didn’t you say it was +fun?” +</p> + +<p> +Another hideous and silencing frown was Ripton’s answer. Adrian matched +the innocent youths, and knew that there was talking under the table. +“See,” thought he, “this boy has tasted his first scraggy +morsel of life today, and already he talks like an old stager, and has, if I +mistake not, been acting too. My respected chief,” he apostrophized Sir +Austin, “combustibles are only the more dangerous for compression. This +boy will be ravenous for Earth when he is let loose, and very soon make his +share of it look as foolish as yonder game-pie!”—a prophecy Adrian +kept to himself. +</p> + +<p> +Uncle Algernon shambled in to see his nephew before the supper was finished, +and his more genial presence brought out a little of the plot. +</p> + +<p> +“Look here, uncle!” said Richard. “Would you let a churlish +old brute of a farmer strike you without making him suffer for it?” +</p> + +<p> +“I fancy I should return the compliment, my lad,” replied his +uncle. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you would! So would I. And he shall suffer for it.” The +boy looked savage, and his uncle patted him down. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve boxed his son; I’ll box him,” said Richard, +shouting for more wine. +</p> + +<p> +“What, boy! Is it old Blaize has been putting you up!” +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind, uncle!” The boy nodded mysteriously. +</p> + +<p> +‘Look there!’ Adrian read on Ripton’s face, he says +‘never mind,’ and lets it out! +</p> + +<p> +“Did we beat to-day, uncle?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, boy; and we’d beat them any day they bowl fair. I’d +beat them on one leg. There’s only Watkins and Featherdene among them +worth a farthing.” +</p> + +<p> +“We beat!” cries Richard. “Then we’ll have some more +wine, and drink their healths.” +</p> + +<p> +The bell was rung; wine ordered. Presently comes in heavy Benson, to say +supplies are cut off. One bottle, and no more. The Captain whistled: Adrian +shrugged. +</p> + +<p> +The bottle, however, was procured by Adrian subsequently. He liked studying +intoxicated urchins. +</p> + +<p> +One subject was at Richard’s heart, about which he was reserved in the +midst of his riot. Too proud to inquire how his father had taken his absence, +he burned to hear whether he was in disgrace. He led to it repeatedly, and it +was constantly evaded by Algernon and Adrian. At last, when the boy declared a +desire to wish his father good-night, Adrian had to tell him that he was to go +straight to bed from the supper-table. Young Richard’s face fell at that, +and his gaiety forsook him. He marched to his room without another word. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian gave Sir Austin an able version of his son’s behaviour and +adventures; dwelling upon this sudden taciturnity when he heard of his +father’s resolution not to see him. The wise youth saw that his chief was +mollified behind his moveless mask, and went to bed, and Horace, leaving Sir +Austin in his study. Long hours the baronet sat alone. The house had not its +usual influx of Feverels that day. Austin Wentworth was staying at Poer Hall, +and had only come over for an hour. At midnight the house breathed sleep. Sir +Austin put on his cloak and cap, and took the lamp to make his rounds. He +apprehended nothing special, but with a mind never at rest he constituted +himself the sentinel of Raynham. He passed the chamber where the Great-Aunt +Grantley lay, who was to swell Richard’s fortune, and so perform her +chief business on earth. By her door he murmured, “Good creature! you +sleep with a sense of duty done,” and paced on, reflecting, “She +has not made money a demon of discord,” and blessed her. He had his +thoughts at Hippias’s somnolent door, and to them the world might have +subscribed. +</p> + +<p> +A monomaniac at large, watching over sane people in slumber! thinks Adrian +Harley, as he hears Sir Austin’s footfall, and truly that was a strange +object to see.—Where is the fortress that has not one weak gate? where +the man who is sound at each particular angle? Ay, meditates the recumbent +cynic, more or less mad is not every mother’s son? Favourable +circumstances—good air, good company, two or three good rules rigidly +adhered to—keep the world out of Bedlam. But, let the world fly into a +passion, and is not Bedlam the safest abode for it? +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin ascended the stairs, and bent his steps leisurely toward the chamber +where his son was lying in the left wing of the Abbey. At the end of the +gallery which led to it he discovered a dim light. Doubting it an illusion, Sir +Austin accelerated his pace. This wing had aforetime a bad character. +Notwithstanding what years had done to polish it into fair repute, the Raynham +kitchen stuck to tradition, and preserved certain stories of ghosts seen there, +that effectually blackened it in the susceptible minds of new house-maids and +under-crooks, whose fears would not allow the sinner to wash his sins. Sir +Austin had heard of the tales circulated by his domestics underground. He +cherished his own belief, but discouraged theirs, and it was treason at Raynham +to be caught traducing the left wing. As the baronet advanced, the fact of a +light burning was clear to him. A slight descent brought him into the passage, +and he beheld a poor human candle standing outside his son’s chamber. At +the same moment a door closed hastily. He entered Richard’s room. The boy +was absent. The bed was unpressed: no clothes about: nothing to show that he +had been there that night. Sir Austin felt vaguely apprehensive. Has he gone to +my room to await me? thought the father’s heart. Something like a tear +quivered in his arid eyes as he meditated and hoped this might be so. His own +sleeping-room faced that of his son. He strode to it with a quick heart. It was +empty. Alarm dislodged anger from his jealous heart, and dread of evil put a +thousand questions to him that were answered in air. After pacing up and down +his room he determined to go and ask the boy Thompson, as he called Ripton, +what was known to him. +</p> + +<p> +The chamber assigned to Master Ripton Thompson was at the northern extremity of +the passage, and overlooked Lobourne and the valley to the West. The bed stood +between the window and the door. Six Austin found the door ajar, and the +interior dark. To his surprise, the boy Thompson’s couch, as revealed by +the rays of his lamp, was likewise vacant. He was turning back when he fancied +he heard the sibilation of a whispering in the room. Sir Austin cloaked the +lamp and trod silently toward the window. The heads of his son Richard and the +boy Thompson were seen crouched against the glass, holding excited converse +together. Sir Austin listened, but he listened to a language of which he +possessed not the key. Their talk was of fire, and of delay: of expected +agrarian astonishment: of a farmer’s huge wrath: of violence exercised +upon gentlemen, and of vengeance: talk that the boys jerked out by fits, and +that came as broken links of a chain impossible to connect. But they awake +curiosity. The baronet condescended to play the spy upon his son. +</p> + +<p> +Over Lobourne and the valley lay black night and innumerable stars. +</p> + +<p> +“How jolly I feel!” exclaimed Ripton, inspired by claret; and then, +after a luxurious pause—“I think that fellow has pocketed his +guinea, and cut his lucky.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard allowed a long minute to pass, during which the baronet waited +anxiously for his voice, hardly recognizing it when he heard its altered tones. +</p> + +<p> +“If he has, I’ll go; and I’ll do it myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would?” returned Master Ripton. “Well, I’m +hanged!—I say, if you went to school, wouldn’t you get into rows! +Perhaps he hasn’t found the place where the box was stuck in. I think he +funks it. I almost wish you hadn’t done it, upon my honour—eh? Look +there! what was that? That looked like something.—I say! do you think we +shall ever be found out?” +</p> + +<p> +Master Ripton intoned this abrupt interrogation verb seriously. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think about it,” said Richard, all his faculties +bent on signs from Lobourne. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but,” Ripton persisted, “suppose we are found +out?” +</p> + +<p> +“If we are, I must pay for it.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin breathed the better for this reply. He was beginning to gather a +clue to the dialogue. His son was engaged in a plot, and was, moreover, the +leader of the plot. He listened for further enlightenment. +</p> + +<p> +“What was the fellow’s name?” inquired Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +His companion answered, “Tom Bakewell.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll tell you what,” continued Ripton. “You let it all +clean out to your cousin and uncle at supper.—How capital claret is with +partridge-pie! What a lot I ate!—Didn’t you see me frown?” +</p> + +<p> +The young sensualist was in an ecstasy of gratitude to his late refection, and +the slightest word recalled him to it. Richard answered him: +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; and felt your kick. It doesn’t matter. Rady’s safe, and +uncle never blabs.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my plan is to keep it close. You’re never safe if you +don’t.—I never drank much claret before,” Ripton was off +again. “Won’t I now, though! claret’s my wine. You know, it +may come out any day, and then we’re done for,” he rather +incongruously appended. +</p> + +<p> +Richard only took up the business-thread of his friend’s rambling +chatter, and answered: +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve got nothing to do with it, if we are.” +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t I, though! I didn’t stick-in the box but I’m +an accomplice, that’s clear. Besides,” added Ripton, “do you +think I should leave you to bear it all on your shoulders? I ain’t that +sort of chap, Ricky, I can tell you.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin thought more highly of the boy Thompson. Still it looked a +detestable conspiracy, and the altered manner of his son impressed him +strangely. He was not the boy of yesterday. To Sir Austin it seemed as if a +gulf had suddenly opened between them. The boy had embarked, and was on the +waters of life in his own vessel. It was as vain to call him back as to attempt +to erase what Time has written with the Judgment Blood! This child, for whom he +had prayed nightly in such a fervour and humbleness to God, the dangers were +about him, the temptations thick on him, and the devil on board piloting. If a +day had done so much, what would years do? Were prayers and all the +watchfulness he had expended of no avail? +</p> + +<p> +A sensation of infinite melancholy overcame the poor gentleman—a thought +that he was fighting with a fate in this beloved boy. +</p> + +<p> +He was half disposed to arrest the two conspirators on the spot, and make them +confess, and absolve themselves; but it seemed to him better to keep an unseen +eye over his son: Sir Austin’s old system prevailed. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian characterized this system well, in saying that Sir Austin wished to be +Providence to his son. +</p> + +<p> +If immeasurable love were perfect wisdom, one human being might almost +impersonate Providence to another. Alas! love, divine as it is, can do no more +than lighten the house it inhabits—must take its shape, sometimes +intensify its narrowness—can spiritualize, but not expel, the old +lifelong lodgers above-stairs and below. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin decided to continue quiescent. +</p> + +<p> +The valley still lay black beneath the large autumnal stars, and the +exclamations of the boys were becoming fevered and impatient. By-and-by one +insisted that he had seen a twinkle. The direction he gave was out of their +anticipations. Again the twinkle was announced. Both boys started to their +feet. It was a twinkle in the right direction now. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s done it!” cried Richard, in great heat. “Now you +may say old Blaize’ll soon be old Blazes, Rip. I hope he’s +asleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure he’s snoring!—Look there! He’s alight +fast enough. He’s dry. He’ll burn.—I say,” Ripton +re-assumed the serious intonation, “do you think they’ll ever +suspect us?” +</p> + +<p> +“What if they do? We must brunt it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course we will. But, I say! I wish you hadn’t given them the +scent, though. I like to look innocent. I can’t when I know people +suspect me. Lord! look there! Isn’t it just beginning to flare up!” +</p> + +<p> +The farmer’s grounds were indeed gradually standing out in sombre +shadows. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll fetch my telescope,” said Richard. Ripton, somehow not +liking to be left alone, caught hold of him. +</p> + +<p> +“No; don’t go and lose the best of it. Here, I’ll throw open +the window, and we can see.” +</p> + +<p> +The window was flung open, and the boys instantly stretched half their bodies +out of it; Ripton appearing to devour the rising flames with his mouth: Richard +with his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Opaque and statuesque stood the figure of the baronet behind them. The wind was +low. Dense masses of smoke hung amid the darting snakes of fire, and a red +malign light was on the neighbouring leafage. No figures could be seen. +Apparently the flames had nothing to contend against, for they were making +terrible strides into the darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” shouted Richard, overcome by excitement, “if I had my +telescope! We must have it! Let me go and fetch it! I Will!” +</p> + +<p> +The boys struggled together, and Sir Austin stepped back. As he did so, a cry +was heard in the passage. He hurried out, closed the chamber, and came upon +little Clare lying senseless along the door. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a> +CHAPTER V</h2> + +<p> +In the morning that followed this night, great gossip was interchanged between +Raynham and Lobourne. The village told how Farmer Blaize, of Belthorpe Farm, +had his Pick feloniously set fire to; his stables had caught fire, himself had +been all but roasted alive in the attempt to rescue his cattle, of which +numbers had perished in the flames. Raynham counterbalanced arson with an +authentic ghost seen by Miss Clare in the left wing of the Abbey—the +ghost of a lady, dressed in deep mourning, a scar on her forehead and a bloody +handkerchief at her breast, frightful to behold! and no wonder the child was +frightened out of her wits, and lay in a desperate state awaiting the arrival +of the London doctors. It was added that the servants had all threatened to +leave in a body, and that Sir Austin to appease them had promised to pull down +the entire left wing, like a gentleman; for no decent creature, said Lobourne, +could consent to live in a haunted house. +</p> + +<p> +Rumour for the nonce had a stronger spice of truth than usual. Poor little +Clare lay ill, and the calamity that had befallen Farmer Blaize, as regards his +rick, was not much exaggerated. Sir Austin caused an account of it be given him +at breakfast, and appeared so scrupulously anxious to hear the exact extent of +injury sustained by the farmer that heavy Benson went down to inspect the +scene. Mr. Benson returned, and, acting under Adrian’s malicious advice, +framed a formal report of the catastrophe, in which the farmer’s breeches +figured, and certain cooling applications to a part of the farmer’s +person. Sir Austin perused it without a smile. He took occasion to have it read +out before the two boys, who listened very demurely, as to an ordinary +newspaper incident; only when the report particularized the garments damaged, +and the unwonted distressing position Farmer Blaize was reduced to in his bed, +an indecorous fit of sneezing laid hold of Master Ripton Thompson, and Richard +bit his lip and burst into loud laughter, Ripton joining him, lost to +consequences. +</p> + +<p> +“I trust you feel for this poor man,” said Sir Austin to his son, +somewhat sternly. He saw no sign of feeling. +</p> + +<p> +It was a difficult task for Sir Austin to keep his old countenance toward the +hope of Raynham, knowing him the accomplice-incendiary, and believing the deed +to have been unprovoked and wanton. But he must do so, he knew, to let the boy +have a fair trial against himself. Be it said, moreover, that the +baronet’s possession of his son’s secret flattered him. It allowed +him to act, and in a measure to feel, like Providence; enabled him to observe +and provide for the movements of creatures in the dark. He therefore treated +the boy as he commonly did, and Richard saw no change in his father to make him +think he was suspected. +</p> + +<p> +The youngster’s game was not so easy against Adrian. Adrian did not shoot +or fish. Voluntarily he did nothing to work off the destructive nervous fluid, +or whatever it may be, which is in man’s nature; so that two culprit boys +once in his power were not likely to taste the gentle hand of mercy; and +Richard and Ripton paid for many a trout and partridge spared. At every minute +of the day Ripton was thrown into sweats of suspicion that discovery was +imminent, by some stray remark or message from Adrian. He was as a fish with +the hook in his gills, mysteriously caught without having nibbled; and dive +into what depths he would he was sensible of a summoning force that compelled +him perpetually towards the gasping surface, which he seemed inevitably +approaching when the dinner-bell sounded. There the talk was all of Farmer +Blaize. If it dropped, Adrian revived it, and his caressing way with Ripton was +just such as a keen sportsman feels toward the creature that had owned his +skill, and is making its appearance for the world to acknowledge the same. Sir +Austin saw the manoeuvres, and admired Adrian’s shrewdness. But he had to +check the young natural lawyer, for the effect of so much masked examination +upon Richard was growing baneful. This fish also felt the hook in his gills, +but this fish was more of a pike, and lay in different waters, where there were +old stumps and black roots to wind about, and defy alike strong pulling and +delicate handling. In other words, Richard showed symptoms of a disposition to +take refuge in lies. +</p> + +<p> +“You know the grounds, my dear boy,” Adrian observed to him. +“Tell me; do you think it easy to get to the rick unperceived? I hear +they suspect one of the farmer’s turned-off hands.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you I don’t know the grounds,” Richard sullenly +replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Not?” Adrian counterfeited courteous astonishment. “I +thought Mr. Thompson said you were over there yesterday?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton, glad to speak the truth, hurriedly assured Adrian that it was not he +had said so. +</p> + +<p> +“Not? You had good sport, gentlemen, hadn’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes!” mumbled the wretched victims, reddening as they +remembered, in Adrian’s slightly drawled rusticity of tone, Farmer +Blaize’s first address to them. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you were among the Fire-worshippers last night, too?” +persisted Adrian. “In some countries, I hear, they manage their best +sport at night-time, and beat up for game with torches. It must be a fine +sight. After all, the country would be dull if we hadn’t a rip here and +there to treat us to a little conflagration.” +</p> + +<p> +“A rip!” laughed Richard, to his friend’s disgust and alarm +at his daring. “You don’t mean this Rip, do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Thompson fire a rick? I should as soon suspect you, my dear +boy.—You are aware, young gentlemen, that it is rather a serious thing +eh? In this country, you know, the landlord has always been the pet of the +Laws. By the way,” Adrian continued, as if diverging to another topic, +“you met two gentlemen of the road in your explorations yesterday, +Magians. Now, if I were a magistrate of the county, like Sir Miles Papworth, my +suspicions would light upon those gentlemen. A tinker and a ploughman, I think +you said, Mr. Thompson. Not? Well, say two ploughmen.” +</p> + +<p> +“More likely two tinkers,” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! if you wish to exclude the ploughman—was he out of +employ?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton, with Adrian’s eyes inveterately fixed on him, stammered an +affirmative. +</p> + +<p> +“The tinker, or the ploughman?” +</p> + +<p> +“The ploughm—” Ingenuous Ripton looking about, as if to aid +himself whenever he was able to speak the truth, beheld Richard’s face +blackening at him, and swallowed back half the word. +</p> + +<p> +“The ploughman!” Adrian took him up cheerily. “Then we have +here a ploughman out of employ. Given a ploughman out of employ, and a rick +burnt. The burning of a rick is an act of vengeance, and a ploughman out of +employ is a vengeful animal. The rick and the ploughman are advancing to a +juxtaposition. Motive being established, we have only to prove their proximity +at a certain hour, and our ploughman voyages beyond seas.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it transportation for rick-burning?” inquired Ripton aghast. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian spoke solemnly: “They shave your head. You are manacled. Your diet +is sour bread and cheese-parings. You work in strings of twenties and thirties. +ARSON is branded on your backs in an enormous A. Theological works are the sole +literary recreation of the well-conducted and deserving. Consider the fate of +this poor fellow, and what an act of vengeance brings him to! Do you know his +name?” +</p> + +<p> +“How should I know his name?” said Richard, with an assumption of +innocence painful to see. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin remarked that no doubt it would soon be known, and Adrian perceived +that he was to quiet his line, marvelling a little at the baronet’s +blindness to what was so clear. He would not tell, for that would ruin his +influence with Richard; still he wanted some present credit for his discernment +and devotion. The boys got away from dinner, and, after deep consultation, +agreed upon a course of conduct, which was to commiserate with Farmer Blaize +loudly, and make themselves look as much like the public as it was possible for +two young malefactors to look, one of whom already felt Adrian’s enormous +A devouring his back with the fierceness of the Promethean eagle, and isolating +him forever from mankind. Adrian relished their novel tactics sharply, and led +them to lengths of lamentation for Farmer Blaize. Do what they might, the hook +was in their gills. The farmer’s whip had reduced them to bodily +contortions; these were decorous compared with the spiritual writhings they had +to perform under Adrian’s manipulation. Ripton was fast becoming a +coward, and Richard a liar, when next morning Austin Wentworth came over from +Poer Hall bringing news that one Mr. Thomas Bakewell, yeoman, had been arrested +on suspicion of the crime of Arson and lodged in jail, awaiting the magisterial +pleasure of Sir Miles Papworth. Austin’s eye rested on Richard as he +spoke these terrible tidings. The hope of Raynham returned his look, perfectly +calm, and had, moreover, the presence of mind not to look at Ripton. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a> +CHAPTER VI</h2> + +<p> +As soon as they could escape, the boys got together into an obscure corner of +the park, and there took counsel of their extremity. +</p> + +<p> +“Whatever shall we do now?” asked Ripton of his leader. +</p> + +<p> +Scorpion girt with fire was never in a more terrible prison-house than poor +Ripton, around whom the raging element he had assisted to create seemed to be +drawing momently narrower circles. +</p> + +<p> +“There’s only one chance,” said Richard, coming to a dead +halt, and folding his arms resolutely. +</p> + +<p> +His comrade inquired with the utmost eagerness what that chance might be. +</p> + +<p> +Richard fixed his eyes on a flint, and replied: “We must rescue that +fellow from jail.” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton gazed at his leader, and fell back with astonishment. “My dear +Ricky! but how are we to do it?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard, still perusing his flint, replied: “We must manage to get a file +in to him and a rope. It can be done, I tell you. I don’t care what I +pay. I don’t care what I do. He must be got out.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bother that old Blaize!” exclaimed Ripton, taking off his cap to +wipe his frenzied forehead, and brought down his friend’s reproof. +</p> + +<p> +“Never mind old Blaize now. Talk about letting it out! Look at you. +I’m ashamed of you. You talk about Robin Hood and King Richard! Why, you +haven’t an atom of courage. Why, you let it out every second of the day. +Whenever Rady begins speaking you start; I can see the perspiration rolling +down you. Are you afraid?—And then you contradict yourself. You never +keep to one story. Now, follow me. We must risk everything to get him out. Mind +that! And keep out of Adrian’s way as much as you can. And keep to one +story.” +</p> + +<p> +With these sage directions the young leader marched his companion-culprit down +to inspect the jail where Tom Bakewell lay groaning over the results of the +super-mundane conflict, and the victim of it that he was. +</p> + +<p> +In Lobourne Austin Wentworth had the reputation of the poor man’s friend; +a title he earned more largely ere he went to the reward God alone can give to +that supreme virtue. Dame Bakewell, the mother of Tom, on hearing of her +son’s arrest, had run to comfort him and render him what help she could; +but this was only sighs and tears, and, oh deary me! which only perplexed poor +Tom, who bade her leave an unlucky chap to his fate, and not make himself a +thundering villain. Whereat the dame begged him to take heart, and he should +have a true comforter. “And though it’s a gentleman that’s +coming to you, Tom—for he never refuses a poor body,” said Mrs. +Bakewell, “it’s a true Christian, Tom! and the Lord knows if the +sight of him mayn’t be the saving of you, for he’s light to look +on, and a sermon to listen to, he is!” +</p> + +<p> +Tom was not prepossessed by the prospect of a sermon, and looked a sullen dog +enough when Austin entered his cell. He was surprised at the end of +half-an-hour to find himself engaged in man-to-man conversation with a +gentleman and a Christian. When Austin rose to go Tom begged permission to +shake his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Take and tell young master up at the Abbey that I an’t the chap to +peach. He’ll know. He’s a young gentleman as’ll make any man +do as he wants ’em! He’s a mortal wild young gentleman! And +I’m a Ass! That’s where ’tis. But I an’t a blackguard. +Tell him that, sir!” +</p> + +<p> +This was how it came that Austin eyed young Richard seriously while he told the +news at Raynham. The boy was shy of Austin more than of Adrian. Why, he did not +know; but he made it a hard task for Austin to catch him alone, and turned +sulky that instant. Austin was not clever like Adrian: he seldom divined other +people’s ideas, and always went the direct road to his object; so instead +of beating about and setting the boy on the alert at all points, crammed to the +muzzle with lies, he just said, “Tom Bakewell told me to let you know he +does not intend to peach on you,” and left him. +</p> + +<p> +Richard repeated the intelligence to Ripton, who cried aloud that Tom was a +brick. +</p> + +<p> +“He shan’t suffer for it,” said Richard, and pondered on a +thicker rope and sharper file. +</p> + +<p> +“But will your cousin tell?” was Ripton’s reflection. +</p> + +<p> +“He!” Richard’s lip expressed contempt. “A ploughman +refuses to peach, and you ask if one of our family will?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton stood for the twentieth time reproved on this point. +</p> + +<p> +The boys had examined the outer walls of the jail, and arrived at the +conclusion that Tom’s escape might be managed if Tom had spirit, and the +rope and file could be anyway reached to him. But to do this, somebody must +gain admittance to his cell, and who was to be taken into their confidence? +</p> + +<p> +“Try your cousin,” Ripton suggested, after much debate. +</p> + +<p> +Richard, smiling, wished to know if he meant Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” Ripton hurriedly reassured him. “Austin.” +</p> + +<p> +The same idea was knocking at Richard’s head. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s get the rope and file first,” said he, and to Bursley +they went for those implements to defeat the law, Ripton procuring the file at +one shop and Richard the rope at another, with such masterly cunning did they +lay their measures for the avoidance of every possible chance of detection. And +better to assure this, in a wood outside Bursley Richard stripped to his shirt +and wound the rope round his body, tasting the tortures of anchorites and +penitential friars, that nothing should be risked to make Tom’s escape a +certainty. Sir Austin saw the marks at night as his son lay asleep, through the +half-opened folds of his bed-gown. +</p> + +<p> +It was a severe stroke when, after all their stratagems and trouble, Austin +Wentworth refused the office the boys had zealously designed for him. Time +pressed. In a few days poor Tom would have to face the redoubtable Sir Miles, +and get committed, for rumours of overwhelming evidence to convict him were +rife about Lobourne, and Farmer Blaize’s wrath was unappeasable. Again +and again young Richard begged his cousin not to see him disgraced, and to help +him in this extremity. Austin smiled on him. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Ricky,” said he, “there are two ways of getting out +of a scrape: a long way and a short way. When you’ve tried the roundabout +method, and failed, come to me, and I’ll show you the straight +route.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard was too entirely bent upon the roundabout method to consider this +advice more than empty words, and only ground his teeth at Austin’s +unkind refusal. +</p> + +<p> +He imparted to Ripton, at the eleventh hour, that they must do it themselves, +to which Ripton heavily assented. +</p> + +<p> +On the day preceding poor Tom’s doomed appearance before the magistrate, +Dame Bakewell had an interview with Austin, who went to Raynham immediately, +and sought Adrian’s counsel upon what was to be done. Homeric laughter +and nothing else could be got out of Adrian when he heard of the doings of +these desperate boys: how they had entered Dame Bakewell’s smallest of +retail shops, and purchased tea, sugar, candles, and comfits of every +description, till the shop was clear of customers: how they had then hurried +her into her little back-parlour, where Richard had torn open his shirt and +revealed the coils of rope, and Ripton displayed the point of a file from a +serpentine recess in his jacket: how they had then told the astonished woman +that the rope she saw and the file she saw were instruments for the liberation +of her son; that there existed no other means on earth to save him, they, the +boys, having unsuccessfully attempted all: how upon that Richard had tried with +the utmost earnestness to persuade her to disrobe and wind the rope round her +own person: and Ripton had aired his eloquence to induce her to secrete the +file: how, when she resolutely objected to the rope, both boys began backing +the file, and in an evil hour, she feared, said Dame Bakewell, she had rewarded +the gracious permission given her by Sir Miles Papworth to visit her son, by +tempting Tom to file the Law. Though, thanks be to the Lord! Dame Bakewell +added, Tom had turned up his nose at the file, and so she had told young Master +Richard, who swore very bad for a young gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +“Boys are like monkeys,” remarked Adrian, at the close of his +explosions, “the gravest actors of farcical nonsense that the world +possesses. May I never be where there are no boys! A couple of boys left to +themselves will furnish richer fun than any troop of trained comedians. No: no +Art arrives at the artlessness of nature in matters of comedy. You can’t +simulate the ape. Your antics are dull. They haven’t the charming +inconsequence of the natural animal. Look at these two! Think of the shifts +they are put to all day long! They know I know all about it, and yet their +serenity of innocence is all but unruffled in my presence. You’re sorry +to think about the end of the business, Austin? So am I! I dread the idea of +the curtain going down. Besides, it will do Ricky a world of good. A practical +lesson is the best lesson.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sinks deepest,” said Austin, “but whether he learns good or +evil from it is the question at stake.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian stretched his length at ease. +</p> + +<p> +“This will be his first nibble at experience, old Time’s fruit, +hateful to the palate of youth! for which season only hath it any nourishment! +Experience! You know Coleridge’s capital simile?—Mournful you call +it? Well! all wisdom is mournful. ’Tis therefore, coz, that the wise do +love the Comic Muse. Their own high food would kill them. You shall find great +poets, rare philosophers, night after night on the broad grin before a row of +yellow lights and mouthing masks. Why? Because all’s dark at home. The +stage is the pastime of great minds. That’s how it comes that the stage +is now down. An age of rampant little minds, my dear Austin! How I hate that +cant of yours about an Age of Work—you, and your Mortons, and your +parsons Brawnley, rank radicals all of you, base materialists! What does Diaper +Sandoe sing of your Age of Work? Listen! +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘An Age of petty tit for tat,<br/> + An Age of busy gabble:<br/> +An Age that’s like a brewer’s vat,<br/> + Fermenting for the rabble!<br/> +<br/> +‘An Age that’s chaste in Love, but lax<br/> + To virtuous abuses:<br/> +Whose gentlemen and ladies wax<br/> + Too dainty for their uses.<br/> +<br/> +‘An Age that drives an Iron Horse,<br/> + Of Time and Space defiant;<br/> +Exulting in a Giant’s Force,<br/> + And trembling at the Giant.<br/> +<br/> +‘An Age of Quaker hue and cut,<br/> + By Mammon misbegotten;<br/> +See the mad Hamlet mouth and strut!<br/> + And mark the Kings of Cotton!<br/> +<br/> +‘From this unrest, lo, early wreck’d,<br/> + A Future staggers crazy,<br/> +Ophelia of the Ages, deck’d<br/> + With woeful weed and daisy!’” +</p> + +<p> +Murmuring, “Get your parson Brawnley to answer that!” Adrian +changed the resting-place of a leg, and smiled. The Age was an old battle-field +between him and Austin. +</p> + +<p> +“My parson Brawnley, as you call him, has answered it,” said +Austin, “not by hoping his best, which would probably leave the Age to go +mad to your satisfaction, but by doing it. And he has and will answer your +Diaper Sandoe in better verse, as he confutes him in a better life.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t see Sandoe’s depth,” Adrian replied. +“Consider that phrase, ‘Ophelia of the Ages’! Is not +Brawnley, like a dozen other leading spirits—I think that’s your +term—just the metaphysical Hamlet to drive her mad? She, poor maid! asks +for marriage and smiling babes, while my lord lover stands questioning the +Infinite, and rants to the Impalpable.” +</p> + +<p> +Austin laughed. “Marriage and smiling babes she would have in abundance, +if Brawnley legislated. Wait till you know him. He will be over at Poer Hall +shortly, and you will see what a Man of the Age means. But now, pray, consult +with me about these boys.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, those boys!” Adrian tossed a hand. “Are there boys of +the Age as well as men? Not? Then boys are better than men: boys are for all +Ages. What do you think, Austin? They’ve been studying Latude’s +Escape. I found the book open in Ricky’s room, on the top of Jonathan +Wild. Jonathan preserved the secrets of his profession, and taught them +nothing. So they’re going to make a Latude of Mr. Tom Bakewell. +He’s to be Bastille Bakewell, whether he will or no. Let them. Let the +wild colt run free! We can’t help them. We can only look on. We should +spoil the play.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian always made a point of feeding the fretful beast Impatience with +pleasantries—a not congenial diet; and Austin, the most patient of human +beings, began to lose his self-control. +</p> + +<p> +“You talk as if Time belonged to you, Adrian. We have but a few hours +left us. Work first, and joke afterwards. The boy’s fate is being decided +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“So is everybody’s, my dear Austin!” yawned the epicurean. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but this boy is at present under our guardianship—under yours +especially.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet! not yet!” Adrian interjected languidly. “No getting +into scrapes when I have him. The leash, young hound! the collar, young colt! +I’m perfectly irresponsible at present.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may have something different to deal with when you are responsible, +if you think that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I take my young prince as I find him, coz: a Julian, or a Caracalla: a +Constantine, or a Nero. Then, if he will play the fiddle to a conflagration, he +shall play it well: if he must be a disputatious apostate, at any rate he shall +understand logic and men, and have the habit of saying his prayers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you leave me to act alone?” said Austin, rising. +</p> + +<p> +“Without a single curb!” Adrian gesticulated an acquiesced +withdrawal. “I’m sure you would not, still more certain you cannot, +do harm. And be mindful of my prophetic words: Whatever’s done, old +Blaize will have to be bought off. There’s the affair settled at once. I +suppose I must go to the chief to-night and settle it myself. We can’t +see this poor devil condemned, though it’s nonsense to talk of a boy +being the prime instigator.” +</p> + +<p> +Austin cast an eye at the complacent languor of the wise youth, his cousin, and +the little that he knew of his fellows told him he might talk forever here, and +not be comprehended. The wise youth’s two ears were stuffed with his own +wisdom. One evil only Adrian dreaded, it was clear—the action of the law. +</p> + +<p> +As he was moving away, Adrian called out to him, “Stop, Austin! There! +don’t be anxious! You invariably take the glum side. I’ve done +something. Never mind what. If you go down to Belthorpe, be civil, but not +obsequious. You remember the tactics of Scipio Africanus against the Punic +elephants? Well, don’t say a word—in thine ear, coz: I’ve +turned Master Blaize’s elephants. If they charge, ’twill be a +feint, and back to the destruction of his serried ranks! You understand. Not? +Well, ’tis as well. Only, let none say that I sleep. If I must see him +to-night, I go down knowing he has not got us in his power.” The wise +youth yawned, and stretched out a hand for any book that might be within his +reach. Austin left him to look about the grounds for Richard. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a> +CHAPTER VII</h2> + +<p> +A little laurel-shaded temple of white marble looked out on the river from a +knoll bordering the Raynham beechwoods, and was dubbed by Adrian Daphne’s +Bower. To this spot Richard had retired, and there Austin found him with his +head buried in his hands, a picture of desperation, whose last shift has been +defeated. He allowed Austin to greet him and sit by him without lifting his +head. Perhaps his eyes were not presentable. +</p> + +<p> +“Where’s your friend?” Austin began. +</p> + +<p> +“Gone!” was the answer, sounding cavernous from behind hair and +fingers. An explanation presently followed, that a summons had come for him in +the morning from Mr. Thompson; and that Mr. Ripton had departed against his +will. +</p> + +<p> +In fact, Ripton had protested that he would defy his parent and remain by his +friend in the hour of adversity and at the post of danger. Sir Austin signified +his opinion that a boy should obey his parent, by giving orders to Benson for +Ripton’s box to be packed and ready before noon; and Ripton’s +alacrity in taking the baronet’s view of filial duty was as little +feigned as his offer to Richard to throw filial duty to the winds. He rejoiced +that the Fates had agreed to remove him from the very hot neighbourhood of +Lobourne, while he grieved, like an honest lad, to see his comrade left to face +calamity alone. The boys parted amicably, as they could hardly fail to do, when +Ripton had sworn fealty to the Feverels with a warmth that made him declare +himself bond, and due to appear at any stated hour and at any stated place to +fight all the farmers in England, on a mandate from the heir of the house. +</p> + +<p> +“So you’re left alone,” said Austin, contemplating the +boy’s shapely head. “I’m glad of it. We never know +what’s in us till we stand by ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +There appeared to be no answer forthcoming. Vanity, however, replied at last, +“He wasn’t much support.” +</p> + +<p> +“Remember his good points now he’s gone, Ricky.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! he was staunch,” the boy grumbled. +</p> + +<p> +“And a staunch friend is not always to be found. Now, have you tried your +own way of rectifying this business, Ricky?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have done everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“And failed!” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause, and then the deep-toned evasion— +</p> + +<p> +“Tom Bakewell’s a coward!” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose, poor fellow,” said Austin, in his kind way, “he +doesn’t want to get into a deeper mess. I don’t think he’s a +coward.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a coward,” cried Richard. “Do you think if I had a +file I would stay in prison? I’d be out the first night! And he might +have had the rope, too—a rope thick enough for a couple of men his size +and weight. Ripton and I and Ned Markham swung on it for an hour, and it +didn’t give way. He’s a coward, and deserves his fate. I’ve +no compassion for a coward.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor I much,” said Austin. +</p> + +<p> +Richard had raised his head in the heat of his denunciation of poor Tom. He +would have hidden it had he known the thought in Austin’s clear eyes +while he faced them. +</p> + +<p> +“I never met a coward myself,” Austin continued. “I have +heard of one or two. One let an innocent man die for him.” +</p> + +<p> +“How base!” exclaimed the boy. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it was bad,” Austin acquiesced. +</p> + +<p> +“Bad!” Richard scorned the poor contempt. “How I would have +spurned him! He was a coward!” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe he pleaded the feelings of his family in his excuse, and tried +every means to get the man off. I have read also in the confessions of a +celebrated philosopher, that in his youth he committed some act of pilfering, +and accused a young servant-girl of his own theft, who was condemned and +dismissed for it, pardoning her guilty accuser.” +</p> + +<p> +“What a coward!” shouted Richard. “And he confessed it +publicly?” +</p> + +<p> +“You may read it yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“He actually wrote it down, and printed it?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have the book in your father’s library. Would you have done so +much?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard faltered. No! he admitted that he never could have told people. +</p> + +<p> +“Then who is to call that man a coward?” said Austin. “He +expiated his cowardice as all who give way in moments of weakness, and are not +cowards, must do. The coward chooses to think ‘God does not see. I shall +escape.’ He who is not a coward, and has succumbed, knows that God has +seen all, and it is not so hard a task for him to make his heart bare to the +world. Worse, I should fancy it, to know myself an impostor when men praised +me.” +</p> + +<p> +Young Richard’s eyes were wandering on Austin’s gravely cheerful +face. A keen intentness suddenly fixed them, and he dropped his head. +</p> + +<p> +“So I think you’re wrong, Ricky, in calling this poor Tom a coward +because he refuses to try your means of escape,” Austin resumed. “A +coward hardly objects to drag in his accomplice. And, where the person involved +belongs to a great family, it seems to me that for a poor plough-lad to +volunteer not to do so speaks him anything but a coward.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard was dumb. Altogether to surrender his rope and file was a fearful +sacrifice, after all the time, trepidation, and study he had spent on those two +saving instruments. If he avowed Tom’s manly behaviour, Richard Feverel +was in a totally new position. Whereas, by keeping Tom a coward, Richard +Feverel was the injured one, and to seem injured is always a luxury; sometimes +a necessity, whether among boys or men. +</p> + +<p> +In Austin the Magian conflict would not have lasted long. He had but a blind +notion of the fierceness with which it raged in young Richard. Happily for the +boy, Austin was not a preacher. A single instance, a cant phrase, a fatherly +manner, might have wrecked him, by arousing ancient or latent opposition. The +born preacher we feel instinctively to be our foe. He may do some good to the +wretches that have been struck down and lie gasping on the battlefield: he +rouses antagonism in the strong. Richard’s nature, left to itself, wanted +little more than an indication of the proper track, and when he said, +“Tell me what I can do, Austin?” he had fought the best half of the +battle. His voice was subdued. Austin put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“You must go down to Farmer Blaize.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” said Richard, sullenly divining the deed of penance. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll know what to say to him when you’re there.” +</p> + +<p> +The boy bit his lip and frowned. “Ask a favour of that big brute, Austin? +I can’t!” +</p> + +<p> +“Just tell him the whole case, and that you don’t intend to stand +by and let the poor fellow suffer without a friend to help him out of his +scrape.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, Austin,” the boy pleaded, “I shall have to ask him to +help off Tom Bakewell! How can I ask him, when I hate him?” +</p> + +<p> +Austin bade him go, and think nothing of the consequences till he got there. +</p> + +<p> +Richard groaned in soul. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve no pride, Austin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps not.” +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t know what it is to ask a favour of a brute you +hate.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard stuck to that view of the case, and stuck to it the faster the more +imperatively the urgency of a movement dawned upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” continued the boy, “I shall hardly be able to keep my +fists off him!” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely you’ve punished him enough, boy?” said Austin. +</p> + +<p> +“He struck me!” Richard’s lip quivered. “He dared not +come at me with his hands. He struck me with a whip. He’ll be telling +everybody that he horsewhipped me, and that I went down and begged his pardon. +Begged his pardon! A Feverel beg his pardon! Oh, if I had my will!” +</p> + +<p> +“The man earns his bread, Ricky. You poached on his grounds. He turned +you off, and you fired his rick.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I’ll pay him for his loss. And I won’t do any +more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because you won’t ask a favour of him?” +</p> + +<p> +“No! I will not ask a favour of him.” +</p> + +<p> +Austin looked at the boy steadily. “You prefer to receive a favour from +poor Tom Bakewell?” +</p> + +<p> +At Austin’s enunciation of this obverse view of the matter Richard raised +his brow. Dimly a new light broke in upon him. “Favour from Tom Bakewell, +the ploughman? How do you mean, Austin?” +</p> + +<p> +“To save yourself an unpleasantness you permit a country lad to sacrifice +himself for you? I confess I should not have so much pride.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pride!” shouted Richard, stung by the taunt, and set his sight +hard at the blue ridges of the hills. +</p> + +<p> +Not knowing for the moment what else to do, Austin drew a picture of Tom in +prison, and repeated Tom’s volunteer statement. The picture, though his +intentions were far from designing it so, had to Richard, whose perception of +humour was infinitely keener, a horrible chaw-bacon smack about it. Visions of +a grinning lout, open from ear to ear, unkempt, coarse, splay-footed, rose +before him and afflicted him with the strangest sensations of disgust and +comicality, mixed up with pity and remorse—a sort of twisted pathos. +There lay Tom; hobnail Tom! a bacon-munching, reckless, beer-swilling animal! +and yet a man; a dear brave human heart notwithstanding; capable of devotion +and unselfishness. The boy’s better spirit was touched, and it kindled +his imagination to realize the abject figure of poor clodpole Tom, and surround +it with a halo of mournful light. His soul was alive. Feelings he had never +known streamed in upon him as from an ethereal casement, an unwonted +tenderness, an embracing humour, a consciousness of some ineffable glory, an +irradiation of the features of humanity. All this was in the bosom of the boy, +and through it all the vision of an actual hob-nail Tom, coarse, unkempt, open +from ear to ear; whose presence was a finger of shame to him and an oppression +of clodpole; yet toward whom he felt just then a loving-kindness beyond what he +felt for any living creature. He laughed at him, and wept over him. He prized +him, while he shrank from him. It was a genial strife of the angel in him with +constituents less divine; but the angel was uppermost and led the +van—extinguished loathing, humanized laughter, transfigured +pride—pride that would persistently contemplate the corduroys of gaping +Tom, and cry to Richard, in the very tone of Adrian’s ironic voice, +“Behold your benefactor!” +</p> + +<p> +Austin sat by the boy, unaware of the sublimer tumult he had stirred. Little of +it was perceptible in Richard’s countenance. The lines of his mouth were +slightly drawn; his eyes hard set into the distance. He remained thus many +minutes. Finally he jumped to his legs, saying, “I’ll go at once to +old Blaize and tell him.” +</p> + +<p> +Austin grasped his hand, and together they issued out of Daphne’s Bower, +in the direction of Lobourne. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a> +CHAPTER VIII</h2> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize was not so astonished at the visit of Richard Feverel as that +young gentleman expected him to be. The farmer, seated in his easy-chair in the +little low-roofed parlour of an old-fashioned farm-house, with a long clay pipe +on the table at his elbow, and a veteran pointer at his feet, had already given +audience to three distinguished members of the Feverel blood, who had come +separately, according to their accustomed secretiveness, and with one object. +In the morning it was Sir Austin himself. Shortly after his departure, arrived +Austin Wentworth; close on his heels, Algernon, known about Lobourne as the +Captain, popular wherever he was known. Farmer Blaize reclined in considerable +elation. He had brought these great people to a pretty low pitch. He had +welcomed them hospitably, as a British yeoman should; but not budged a foot in +his demands: not to the baronet: not to the Captain: not to good young Mr. +Wentworth. For Farmer Blaize was a solid Englishman; and, on hearing from the +baronet a frank confession of the hold he had on the family, he determined to +tighten his hold, and only relax it in exchange for tangible +advantages—compensation to his pocket, his wounded person, and his still +more wounded sentiments: the total indemnity being, in round figures, three +hundred pounds, and a spoken apology from the prime offender, young Mister +Richard. Even then there was a reservation. Provided, the farmer said, nobody +had been tampering with any of his witnesses. In that ease Farmer Blaize +declared the money might go, and he would transport Tom Bakewell, as he had +sworn he would. And it goes hard, too, with an accomplice, by law, added the +farmer, knocking the ashes leisurely out of his pipe. He had no wish to bring +any disgrace anywhere; he respected the inmates of Raynham Abbey, as in duty +bound; he should be sorry to see them in trouble. Only no tampering with his +witnesses. He was a man for Law. Rank was much: money was much: but Law was +more. In this country Law was above the sovereign. To tamper with the Law was +treason to the realm. +</p> + +<p> +“I come to you direct,” the baronet explained. “I tell you +candidly what way I discovered my son to be mixed up in this miserable affair. +I promise you indemnity for your loss, and an apology that shall, I trust, +satisfy your feelings, assuring you that to tamper with witnesses is not the +province of a Feverel. All I ask of you in return is, not to press the +prosecution. At present it rests with you. I am bound to do all that lies in my +power for this imprisoned man. How and wherefore my son was prompted to +suggest, or assist in, such an act, I cannot explain, for I do not know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hum!” said the farmer. “I think I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“You know the cause?” Sir Austin stared. “I beg you to +confide it to me.” +</p> + +<p> +“‘Least, I can pretty nigh neighbour it with a guess,” said +the farmer. “We an’t good friends, Sir Austin, me and your son, +just now—not to say cordial. I, ye see, Sir Austin, I’m a man as +don’t like young gentlemen a-poachin’ on his grounds without his +permission,—in special when birds is plentiful on their own. It appear he +do like it. Consequently I has to flick this whip—as them fellers at the +races: All in this ’ere Ring’s mine! as much as to say; and +who’s been hit, he’s had fair warnin’. I’m sorry +for’t, but that’s just the case.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin retired to communicate with his son, when he should find him. +</p> + +<p> +Algernon’s interview passed off in ale and promises. He also assured +Farmer Blaize that no Feverel could be affected by his proviso. +</p> + +<p> +No less did Austin Wentworth. The farmer was satisfied. +</p> + +<p> +“Money’s safe, I know,” said he; “now for the +’pology!” and Farmer Blaize thrust his legs further out, and his +head further back. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer naturally reflected that the three separate visits had been +conspired together. Still the baronet’s frankness, and the +baronet’s not having reserved himself for the third and final charge, +puzzled him. He was considering whether they were a deep, or a shallow lot, +when young Richard was announced. +</p> + +<p> +A pretty little girl with the roses of thirteen springs in her cheeks, and +abundant beautiful bright tresses, tripped before the boy, and loitered shyly +by the farmer’s arm-chair to steal a look at the handsome new-comer. She +was introduced to Richard as the farmer’s niece, Lucy Desborough, the +daughter of a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and, what was better, though the +farmer did not pronounce it so loudly, a real good girl. +</p> + +<p> +Neither the excellence of her character, nor her rank in life, tempted Richard +to inspect the little lady. He made an awkward bow, and sat down. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer’s eyes twinkled. “Her father,” he continued, +“fought and fell for his coontry. A man as fights for’s +coontry’s a right to hould up his head—ay! with any in the land. +Desb’roughs o’ Dorset! d’ye know that family, Master +Feverel?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard did not know them, and, by his air, did not desire to become acquainted +with any offshoot of that family. +</p> + +<p> +“She can make puddens and pies,” the farmer went on, regardless of +his auditor’s gloom. “She’s a lady, as good as the best of +’em. I don’t care about their being Catholics—the +Desb’roughs o’ Dorset are gentlemen. And she’s good for the +pianer, too! She strums to me of evenin’s. I’m for the old tunes: +she’s for the new. Gal-like! While she’s with me she shall be +taught things use’l. She can parley-voo a good ’un and foot it, as +it goes; been in France a couple of year. I prefer the singin’ of +’t to the talkin’ of ’t. Come, Luce! toon +up—eh?—Ye wun’t? That song abort the Viffendeer—a +female”—Farmer Blaize volunteered the translation of the +title—“who wears the—you guess what! and marches along with +the French sojers: a pretty brazen bit o’ goods, I sh’d +fancy.” +</p> + +<p> +Mademoiselle Lucy corrected her uncle’s French, but objected to do more. +The handsome cross boy had almost taken away her voice for speech, as it was, +and sing in his company she could not; so she stood, a hand on her +uncle’s chair to stay herself from falling, while she wriggled a dozen +various shapes of refusal, and shook her head at the farmer with fixed eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Aha!” laughed the farmer, dismissing her, “they soon learn +the difference ’twixt the young ’un and the old ’un. Go +along, Luce! and learn yer lessons for to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Reluctantly the daughter of the Royal Navy glided away. Her uncle’s head +followed her to the door, where she dallied to catch a last impression of the +young stranger’s lowering face, and darted through. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize laughed and chuckled. “She an’t so fond of her uncle +as that, every day! Not that she an’t a good nurse—the kindest +little soul you’d meet of a winter’s walk! She’ll read +t’ ye, and make drinks, and sing, too, if ye likes it, and she +won’t be tired. A obstinate good ’un, she be! Bless her!” +</p> + +<p> +The farmer may have designed, by these eulogies of his niece, to give his +visitor time to recover his composure, and establish a common topic. His +diversion only irritated and confused our shame-eaten youth. Richard’s +intention had been to come to the farmer’s threshold: to summon the +farmer thither, and in a loud and haughty tone then and there to take upon +himself the whole burden of the charge against Tom Bakewell. He had strayed, +during his passage to Belthorpe, somewhat back to his old nature; and his being +compelled to enter the house of his enemy, sit in his chair, and endure an +introduction to his family, was more than he bargained for. He commenced +blinking hard in preparation for the horrible dose to which delay and the +farmer’s cordiality added inconceivable bitters. Farmer Blaize was quite +at his ease; nowise in a hurry. He spoke of the weather and the harvest: of +recent doings up at the Abbey: glanced over that year’s cricketing; hoped +that no future Feverel would lose a leg to the game. Richard saw and heard +Arson in it all. He blinked harder as he neared the cup. In a moment of +silence, he seized it with a gasp. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Blaize! I have come to tell you that I am the person who set fire to +your rick the other night.” +</p> + +<p> +An odd consternation formed about the farmer’s mouth. He changed his +posture, and said, “Ay? that’s what ye’re come to tell me +sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” said Richard, firmly. +</p> + +<p> +“And that be all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” Richard reiterated. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer again changed his posture. “Then, my lad, ye’ve come to +tell me a lie!” +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize looked straight at the boy, undismayed by the dark flush of ire +he had kindled. +</p> + +<p> +“You dare to call me a liar!” cried Richard, starting up. +</p> + +<p> +“I say,” the farmer renewed his first emphasis, and smacked his +thigh thereto, “that’s a lie!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard held out his clenched fist. “You have twice insulted me. You have +struck me: you have dared to call me a liar. I would have apologized—I +would have asked your pardon, to have got off that fellow in prison. Yes! I +would have degraded myself that another man should not suffer for my +deed”— +</p> + +<p> +“Quite proper!” interposed the farmer. +</p> + +<p> +“And you take this opportunity of insulting me afresh. You’re a +coward, sir! nobody but a coward would have insulted me in his own +house.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sit ye down, sit ye down, young master,” said the farmer, +indicating the chair and cooling the outburst with his hand. “Sit ye +down. Don’t ye be hasty. If ye hadn’t been hasty t’other day, +we sh’d a been friends yet. Sit ye down, sir. I sh’d be sorry to +reckon you out a liar, Mr. Feverel, or anybody o’ your name. I respects +yer father though we’re opp’site politics. I’m willin’ +to think well o’ you. What I say is, that as you say an’t the +trewth. Mind! I don’t like you none the worse for’t. But it +an’t what is. That’s all! You knows it as well’s I!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard, disdaining to show signs of being pacified, angrily reseated himself. +The farmer spoke sense, and the boy, after his late interview with Austin, had +become capable of perceiving vaguely that a towering passion is hardly the +justification for a wrong course of conduct. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” continued the farmer, not unkindly, “what else have +you to say?” +</p> + +<p> +Here was the same bitter cup he had already once drained brimming at +Richard’s lips again! Alas, poor human nature! that empties to the dregs +a dozen of these evil drinks, to evade the single one which Destiny, less +cruel, had insisted upon. +</p> + +<p> +The boy blinked and tossed it off. +</p> + +<p> +“I came to say that I regretted the revenge I had taken on you for your +striking me.” +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“And now ye’ve done, young gentleman?” +</p> + +<p> +Still another cupful! +</p> + +<p> +“I should be very much obliged,” Richard formally began, but his +stomach was turned; he could but sip and sip, and gather a distaste which +threatened to make the penitential act impossible. “Very much +obliged,” he repeated: “much obliged, if you would be so +kind,” and it struck him that had he spoken this at first he would have +given it a wording more persuasive with the farmer and more worthy of his own +pride: more honest, in fact: for a sense of the dishonesty of what he was +saying caused him to cringe and simulate humility to deceive the farmer, and +the more he said the less he felt his words, and, feeling them less, he +inflated them more. “So kind,” he stammered, “so kind” +(fancy a Feverel asking this big brute to be so kind!) “as to do me the +favour” (me the favour!) “to exert yourself” (it’s all +to please Austin) “to endeavour to—hem! to” (there’s no +saying it!)— +</p> + +<p> +The cup was full as ever. Richard dashed at it again. +</p> + +<p> +“What I came to ask is, whether you would have the kindness to try what +you could do” (what an infamous shame to have to beg like this!) +“do to save—do to ensure—whether you would have the +kindness” It seemed out of all human power to gulp it down. The draught +grew more and more abhorrent. To proclaim one’s iniquity, to apologize +for one’s wrongdoing; thus much could be done; but to beg a favour of the +offended party—that was beyond the self-abasement any Feverel could +consent to. Pride, however, whose inevitable battle is against itself, drew +aside the curtains of poor Tom’s prison, crying a second time, +“Behold your Benefactor!” and, with the words burning in his ears, +Richard swallowed the dose: +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, I want you, Mr. Blaize,—if you don’t +mind—will you help me to get this man Bakewell off his punishment?” +</p> + +<p> +To do Farmer Blaize justice, he waited very patiently for the boy, though he +could not quite see why he did not take the gate at the first offer. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said he, when he heard and had pondered on the request. +“Hum! ha! we’ll see about it t’morrow. But if he’s +innocent, you know, we shan’t mak’n guilty.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was I did it!” Richard declared. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer’s half-amused expression sharpened a bit. +</p> + +<p> +“So, young gentleman! and you’re sorry for the night’s +work?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall see that you are paid the full extent of your losses.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thank’ee,” said the farmer drily. +</p> + +<p> +“And, if this poor man is released to-morrow, I don’t care what the +amount is.” +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize deflected his head twice in silence. “Bribery,” one +motion expressed: “Corruption,” the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said he, leaning forward, and fixing his elbows on his +knees, while he counted the case at his fingers’ ends, “excuse the +liberty, but wishin’ to know where this ’ere money’s to come +from, I sh’d like jest t’ask if so be Sir Austin know o’ +this?” +</p> + +<p> +“My father knows nothing of it,” replied Richard. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer flung back in his chair. “Lie number Two,” said his +shoulders, soured by the British aversion to being plotted at, and not dealt +with openly. +</p> + +<p> +“And ye’ve the money ready, young gentleman?” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall ask my father for it.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he’ll hand’t out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly he will!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard had not the slightest intention of ever letting his father into his +counsels. +</p> + +<p> +“A good three hundred pounds, ye know?” the farmer suggested. +</p> + +<p> +No consideration of the extent of damages, and the size of the sum, affected +young Richard, who said boldly, “He will not object when I tell him I +want that sum.” +</p> + +<p> +It was natural Farmer Blaize should be a trifle suspicious that a youth’s +guarantee would hardly be given for his father’s readiness to disburse +such a thumping bill, unless he had previously received his father’s +sanction and authority. +</p> + +<p> +“Hum!” said he, “why not ’a told him before?” +</p> + +<p> +The farmer threw an objectionable shrewdness into his query, that caused +Richard to compress his mouth and glance high. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize was positive ’twas a lie. +</p> + +<p> +“Hum! Ye still hold to’t you fired the rick?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“The blame is mine!” quoth Richard, with the loftiness of a patriot +of old Rome. +</p> + +<p> +“Na, na!” the straightforward Briton put him aside. “Ye +did’t, or ye didn’t do’t. Did ye do’t, or no?” +</p> + +<p> +Thrust in a corner, Richard said, “I did it.” +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize reached his hand to the bell. It was answered in an instant by +little Lucy, who received orders to fetch in a dependent at Belthorpe going by +the name of the Bantam, and made her exit as she had entered, with her eyes on +the young stranger. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said the farmer, “these be my principles. I’m a +plain man, Mr. Feverel. Above board with me, and you’ll find me handsome. +Try to circumvent me, and I’m a ugly customer. I’ll show you +I’ve no animosity. Your father pays—you apologize. That’s +enough for me! Let Tom Bakewell fight’t out with the Law, and I’ll +look on. The Law wasn’t on the spot, I suppose? so the Law ain’t +much witness. But I am. Leastwise the Bantam is. I tell you, young gentleman, +the Bantam saw’t! It’s no moral use whatever your denyin’ +that ev’dence. And where’s the good, sir, I ask? What comes of +’t? Whether it be you, or whether it be Tom Bakewell—ain’t +all one? If I holds back, ain’t it sim’lar? It’s the trewth I +want! And here’t comes,” added the farmer, as Miss Lucy ushered in +the Bantam, who presented a curious figure for that rare divinity to enliven. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a> +CHAPTER IX</h2> + +<p> +In build of body, gait and stature, Giles Jinkson, the Bantam, was a tolerably +fair representative of the Punic elephant, whose part, with diverse +anticipations, the generals of the Blaize and Feverel forces, from opposing +ranks, expected him to play. Giles, surnamed the Bantam, on account of some +forgotten sally of his youth or infancy, moved and looked elephantine. It +sufficed that Giles was well fed to assure that Giles was faithful—if +uncorrupted. The farm which supplied to him ungrudging provender had all his +vast capacity for work in willing exercise: the farmer who held the farm his +instinct reverenced as the fountain source of beef and bacon, to say nothing of +beer, which was plentiful at Belthorpe, and good. This Farmer Blaize well knew, +and he reckoned consequently that here was an animal always to be relied +on—a sort of human composition out of dog, horse, and bull, a cut above +each of these quadrupeds in usefulness, and costing proportionately more, but +on the whole worth the money, and therefore invaluable, as everything worth its +money must be to a wise man. When the stealing of grain had been made known at +Belthorpe, the Bantam, a fellow-thresher with Tom Bakewell, had shared with him +the shadow of the guilt. Farmer Blaize, if he hesitated which to suspect, did +not debate a second as to which he would discard; and, when the Bantam said he +had seen Tom secreting pilkins in a sack, Farmer Blaize chose to believe him, +and off went poor Tom, told to rejoice in the clemency that spared his +appearance at Sessions. +</p> + +<p> +The Bantam’s small sleepy orbits saw many things, and just at the right +moment, it seemed. He was certainly the first to give the clue at Belthorpe on +the night of the conflagration, and he may, therefore, have seen poor Tom +retreating stealthily from the scene, as he averred he did. Lobourne had its +say on the subject. Rustic Lobourne hinted broadly at a young woman in the +case, and, moreover, told a tale of how these fellow-threshers had, in noble +rivalry, one day turned upon each other to see which of the two threshed the +best; whereof the Bantam still bore marks, and malice, it was said. However, +there he stood, and tugged his forelocks to the company, and if Truth really +had concealed herself in him she must have been hard set to find her +unlikeliest hiding-place. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said the farmer, marshalling forth his elephant with the +confidence of one who delivers his ace of trumps, “tell this young +gentleman what ye saw on the night of the fire, Bantam!” +</p> + +<p> +The Bantam jerked a bit of a bow to his patron, and then swung round, fully +obscuring him from Richard. +</p> + +<p> +Richard fixed his eyes on the floor, while the Bantam in rudest Doric commenced +his narrative. Knowing what was to come, and thoroughly nerved to confute the +main incident, Richard barely listened to his barbarous locution: but when the +recital arrived at the point where the Bantam affirmed he had seen +“T’m Baak’ll wi’s owen hoies,” Richard faced him, +and was amazed to find himself being mutely addressed by a series of intensely +significant grimaces, signs, and winks. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean? Why are you making those faces at me?” cried the +boy indignantly. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize leaned round the Bantam to have a look at him, and beheld the +stolidest mask ever given to man. +</p> + +<p> +“Bain’t makin’ no faces at nobody,” growled the sulky +elephant. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer commanded him to face about and finish. +</p> + +<p> +“A see T’m Baak’ll,” the Bantam recommenced, and again +the contortions of a horrible wink were directed at Richard. The boy might well +believe this churl was lying, and he did, and was emboldened to exclaim— +</p> + +<p> +“You never saw Tom Bakewell set fire to that rick!” +</p> + +<p> +The Bantam swore to it, grimacing an accompaniment. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you,” said Richard, “I put the lucifers there +myself!” +</p> + +<p> +The suborned elephant was staggered. He meant to telegraph to the young +gentleman that he was loyal and true to certain gold pieces that had been given +him, and that in the right place and at the right time he should prove so. Why +was he thus suspected? Why was he not understood? +</p> + +<p> +“A thowt I see ’un, then,” muttered the Bantam, trying a +middle course. +</p> + +<p> +This brought down on him the farmer, who roared, “Thought! Ye thought! +What d’ye mean? Speak out, and don’t be thinkin’. Thought? +What the devil’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +“How could he see who it was on a pitch-dark night?” Richard put +in. +</p> + +<p> +“Thought!” the farmer bellowed louder. “Thought—Devil +take ye, when ye took ye oath on’t. Hulloa! What are ye screwin’ +yer eye at Mr. Feverel for?—I say, young gentleman, have you spoke to +this chap before now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I?” replied Richard. “I have not seen him before.” +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize grasped the two arms of the chair he sat on, and glared his +doubts. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” said he to the Bantam, “speak out, and ha’ done +wi’t. Say what ye saw, and none o’ yer thoughts. Damn yer thoughts! +Ye saw Tom Bakewell fire that there rick!” The farmer pointed at some +musk-pots in the window. “What business ha’ you to be +a-thinkin’? You’re a witness? Thinkin’ an’t +ev’dence. What’ll ye say to morrow before magistrate! Mind! what +you says today, you’ll stick by to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus adjured, the Bantam hitched his breech. What on earth the young gentleman +meant he was at a loss to speculate. He could not believe that the young +gentleman wanted to be transported, but if he had been paid to help that, why, +he would. And considering that this day’s evidence rather bound him down +to the morrow’s, he determined, after much ploughing and harrowing +through obstinate shocks of hair, to be not altogether positive as to the +person. It is possible that he became thereby more a mansion of truth than he +previously had been; for the night, as he said, was so dark that you could not +see your hand before your face; and though, as he expressed it, you might be +mortal sure of a man, you could not identify him upon oath, and the party he +had taken for Tom Bakewell, and could have sworn to, might have been the young +gentleman present, especially as he was ready to swear it upon oath. +</p> + +<p> +So ended the Bantam. +</p> + +<p> +No sooner had he ceased, than Farmer Blaize jumped up from his chair, and made +a fine effort to lift him out of the room from the point of his toe. He failed, +and sank back groaning with the pain of the exertion and disappointment. +</p> + +<p> +“They’re liars, every one!” he cried. “Liars, +perj’rers, bribers, and c’rrupters!—Stop!” to the +Bantam, who was slinking away. “You’ve done for yerself already! +You swore to it!” +</p> + +<p> +“A din’t!” said the Bantam, doggedly. +</p> + +<p> +“You swore to’t!” the farmer vociferated afresh. +</p> + +<p> +The Bantam played a tune upon the handle of the door, and still affirmed that +he did not; a double contradiction at which the farmer absolutely raged in his +chair, and was hoarse, as he called out a third time that the Bantam had sworn +to it. +</p> + +<p> +“Noa!” said the Bantam, ducking his poll. “Noa!” he +repeated in a lower note; and then, while a sombre grin betokening idiotic +enjoyment of his profound casuistical quibble worked at his jaw: +</p> + +<p> +“Not up’n o-ath!” he added, with a twitch of the shoulder and +an angular jerk of the elbow. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize looked vacantly at Richard, as if to ask him what he thought of +England’s peasantry after the sample they had there. Richard would have +preferred not to laugh, but his dignity gave way to his sense of the ludicrous, +and he let fly a shout. The farmer was in no laughing mood. He turned a wide +eye back to the door, “Lucky for’m,” he exclaimed, seeing the +Bantam had vanished, for his fingers itched to break that stubborn head. He +grew very puffy, and addressed Richard solemnly: +</p> + +<p> +“Now, look ye here, Mr. Feverel! You’ve been a-tampering with my +witness. It’s no use denyin’! I say y’ ’ave, sir! You, +or some of ye. I don’t care about no Feverel! My witness there has been +bribed. The Bantam’s been bribed,” and he shivered his pipe with an +energetic thump on the table—“bribed! I knows it! I could swear +to’t!”— +</p> + +<p> +“Upon oath?” Richard inquired, with a grave face. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, upon oath!” said the farmer, not observing the impertinence. +</p> + +<p> +“I’d take my Bible oath on’t! He’s been corrupted, my +principal witness! Oh! it’s dam cunnin’, but it won’t do the +trick. I’ll transport Tom Bakewell, sure as a gun. He shall travel, that +man shall. Sorry for you, Mr. Feverel—sorry you haven’t seen how to +treat me proper—you, or yours. Money won’t do everything—no! +it won’t. It’ll c’rrupt a witness, but it won’t clear a +felon. I’d ha’ ’soused you, sir! You’re a boy +and’ll learn better. I asked no more than payment and apology; and that +I’d ha’ taken content—always provided my witnesses +weren’t tampered with. Now you must stand yer luck, all o’ +ye.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard stood up and replied, “Very well, Mr. Blaize.” +</p> + +<p> +“And if,” continued the farmer, “Tom Bakewell don’t +drag you into’t after ’m, why, you’re safe, as I hope +ye’ll be, sincere!” +</p> + +<p> +“It was not in consideration of my own safety that I sought this +interview with you,” said Richard, head erect. +</p> + +<p> +“Grant ye that,” the farmer responded. “Grant ye that! Yer +bold enough, young gentleman—comes of the blood that should be! If +y’ had only ha’ spoke trewth!—I believe yer +father—believe every word he said. I do wish I could ha’ said as +much for Sir Austin’s son and heir.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” cried Richard, with an astonishment hardly to be feigned, +“you have seen my father?” +</p> + +<p> +But Farmer Blaize had now such a scent for lies that he could detect them where +they did not exist, and mumbled gruffly, +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, we knows all about that!” +</p> + +<p> +The boy’s perplexity saved him from being irritated. Who could have told +his father? An old fear of his father came upon him, and a touch of an old +inclination to revolt. +</p> + +<p> +“My father knows of this?” said he, very loudly, and staring, as he +spoke, right through the farmer. “Who has played me false? Who would +betray me to him? It was Austin! No one knew it but Austin. Yes, and it was +Austin who persuaded me to come here and submit to these indignities. Why +couldn’t he be open with me? I shall never trust him again!” +</p> + +<p> +“And why not you with me, young gentleman?” said the farmer. +“I sh’d trust you if ye had.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard did not see the analogy. He bowed stiffly and bade him good afternoon. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize pulled the bell. “Company the young gentleman out, +Lucy,” he waved to the little damsel in the doorway. “Do the +honours. And, Mr. Richard, ye might ha’ made a friend o’ me, sir, +and it’s not too late so to do. I’m not cruel, but I hate lies. I +whipped my boy Tom, bigger than you, for not bein’ above board, only +yesterday,—ay! made ’un stand within swing o’ this chair, and +take’s measure. Now, if ye’ll come down to me, and speak trewth +before the trial—if it’s only five minutes before’t; or if +Sir Austin, who’s a gentleman, ’ll say there’s been no +tamperin’ with any o’ my witnesses, his word for’t—well +and good! I’ll do my best to help off Tom Bakewell. And I’m glad, +young gentleman, you’ve got a conscience about a poor man, though +he’s a villain. Good afternoon, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard marched hastily out of the room, and through the garden, never so much +as deigning a glance at his wistful little guide, who hung at the garden gate +to watch him up the lane, wondering a world of fancies about the handsome proud +boy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a> +CHAPTER X</h2> + +<p> +To have determined upon an act something akin to heroism in its way, and to +have fulfilled it by lying heartily, and so subverting the whole structure +built by good resolution, seems a sad downfall if we forget what human nature, +in its green weedy spring, is composed of. Young Richard had quitted his cousin +Austin fully resolved to do his penance and drink the bitter cup; and he had +drunk it; drained many cups to the dregs; and it was to no purpose. Still they +floated before him, brimmed, trebly bitter. Away from Austin’s influence, +he was almost the same boy who had slipped the guinea into Tom Bakewell’s +hand, and the lucifers into Farmer Blaize’s rick. For good seed is long +ripening; a good boy is not made in a minute. Enough that the seed was in him. +He chafed on his road to Raynham at the scene he had just endured, and the +figure of Belthorpe’s fat tenant burnt like hot copper on the tablet of +his brain, insufferably condescending, and, what was worse, in the right. +Richard, obscured as his mind’s eye was by wounded pride, saw that +clearly, and hated his enemy for it the more. +</p> + +<p> +Heavy Benson’s tongue was knelling dinner as Richard arrived at the +Abbey. He hurried up to his room to dress. Accident, or design, had laid the +book of Sir Austin’s aphorisms open on the dressing-table. Hastily +combing his hair, Richard glanced down and read— +</p> + +<p> +“The Dog returneth to his vomit: the Liar must eat his Lie.” +</p> + +<p> +Underneath was interjected in pencil: “The Devil’s mouthful!” +</p> + +<p> +Young Richard ran downstairs feeling that his father had struck him in the +face. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin marked the scarlet stain on his son’s cheekbones. He sought +the youth’s eye, but Richard would not look, and sat conning his plate, +an abject copy of Adrian’s succulent air at that employment. How could he +pretend to the relish of an epicure when he was painfully endeavouring to +masticate The Devil’s mouthful? +</p> + +<p> +Heavy Benson sat upon the wretched dinner. Hippias usually the silent member, +as if awakened by the unnatural stillness, became sprightly, like the +goatsucker owl at night and spoke much of his book, his digestion, and his +dreams, and was spared both by Algernon and Adrian. One inconsequent dream he +related, about fancying himself quite young and rich, and finding himself +suddenly in a field cropping razors around him, when, just as he had, by steps +dainty as those of a French dancing-master, reached the middle, he to his +dismay beheld a path clear of the bloodthirsty steel-crop, which he might have +taken at first had he looked narrowly; and there he was. +</p> + +<p> +Hippias’s brethren regarded him with eyes that plainly said they wished +he had remained there. Sir Austin, however, drew forth his note-book, and +jotted down a reflection. A composer of aphorisms can pluck blossoms even from +a razor-crop. Was not Hippias’s dream the very counterpart of +Richard’s position? He, had he looked narrowly, might have taken the +clear path: he, too, had been making dainty steps till he was surrounded by the +grinning blades. And from that text Sir Austin preached to his son when they +were alone. Little Clare was still too unwell to be permitted to attend the +dessert, and father and son were soon closeted together. +</p> + +<p> +It was a strange meeting. They seemed to have been separated so long. The +father took his son’s hand; they sat without a word passing between them. +Silence said most. The boy did not understand his father: his father frequently +thwarted him: at times he thought his father foolish: but that paternal +pressure of his hand was eloquent to him of how warmly he was beloved. He tried +once or twice to steal his hand away, conscious it was melting him. The spirit +of his pride, and old rebellion, whispered him to be hard, unbending, resolute. +Hard he had entered his father’s study: hard he had met his +father’s eyes. He could not meet them now. His father sat beside him +gently; with a manner that was almost meekness, so he loved this boy. The poor +gentleman’s lips moved. He was praying internally to God for him. +</p> + +<p> +By degrees an emotion awoke in the boy’s bosom. Love is that blessed wand +which wins the waters from the hardness of the heart. Richard fought against +it, for the dignity of old rebellion. The tears would come; hot and struggling +over the dams of pride. Shamefully fast they began to fall. He could no longer +conceal them, or check the sobs. Sir Austin drew him nearer and nearer, till +the beloved head was on his breast. +</p> + +<p> +An hour afterwards, Adrian Harley, Austin Wentworth, and Algernon Feverel were +summoned to the baronet’s study. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian came last. There was a style of affable omnipotence about the wise youth +as he slung himself into a chair, and made an arch of the points of his +fingers, through which to gaze on his blundering kinsmen. Careless as one may +be whose sagacity has foreseen, and whose benevolent efforts have forestalled, +the point of danger at the threshold, Adrian crossed his legs, and only +intruded on their introductory remarks so far as to hum half audibly at +intervals, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Ripton and Richard were two pretty men,” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +in parody of the old ballad. Young Richard’s red eyes, and the +baronet’s ruffled demeanour, told him that an explanation had taken +place, and a reconciliation. That was well. The baronet would now pay +cheerfully. Adrian summed and considered these matters, and barely listened +when the baronet called attention to what he had to say: which was elaborately +to inform all present, what all present very well knew, that a rick had been +fired, that his son was implicated as an accessory to the fact, that the +perpetrator was now imprisoned, and that Richard’s family were, as it +seemed to him, bound in honour to do their utmost to effect the man’s +release. +</p> + +<p> +Then the baronet stated that he had himself been down to Belthorpe, his son +likewise: and that he had found every disposition in Blaize to meet his wishes. +</p> + +<p> +The lamp which ultimately was sure to be lifted up to illumine the acts of this +secretive race began slowly to dispread its rays; and, as statement followed +statement, they saw that all had known of the business: that all had been down +to Belthorpe: all save the wise youth Adrian, who, with due deference and a +sarcastic shrug, objected to the proceeding, as putting them in the hands of +the man Blaize. His wisdom shone forth in an oration so persuasive and +aphoristic that had it not been based on a plea against honour, it would have +made Sir Austin waver. But its basis was expediency, and the baronet had a +better aphorism of his own to confute him with. +</p> + +<p> +“Expediency is man’s wisdom, Adrian Harley. Doing right is +God’s.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian curbed his desire to ask Sir Austin whether an attempt to counteract the +just working of the law was doing right. The direct application of an aphorism +was unpopular at Raynham. +</p> + +<p> +“I am to understand then,” said he, “that Blaize consents not +to press the prosecution.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course he won’t,” Algernon remarked. “Confound him! +he’ll have his money, and what does he want besides?” +</p> + +<p> +“These agricultural gentlemen are delicate customers to deal with. +However, if he really consents”— +</p> + +<p> +“I have his promise,” said the baronet, fondling his son. +</p> + +<p> +Young Richard looked up to his father, as if he wished to speak. He said +nothing, and Sir Austin took it as a mute reply to his caresses; and caressed +him the more. Adrian perceived a reserve in the boy’s manner, and as he +was not quite satisfied that his chief should suppose him to have been the only +idle, and not the most acute and vigilant member of the family, he commenced a +cross-examination of him by asking who had last spoken with the tenant of +Belthorpe? +</p> + +<p> +“I think I saw him last,” murmured Richard, and relinquished his +father’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian fastened on his prey. “And left him with a distinct and +satisfactory assurance of his amicable intentions?” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“Not?” the Feverels joined in astounded chorus. +</p> + +<p> +Richard sidled away from his father, and repeated a shamefaced +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was he hostile?” inquired Adrian, smoothing his palms, and +smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” the boy confessed. +</p> + +<p> +Here was quite another view of their position. Adrian, generally patient of +results, triumphed strongly at having evoked it, and turned upon Austin +Wentworth, reproving him for inducing the boy to go down to Belthorpe. Austin +looked grieved. He feared that Richard had faded in his good resolve. +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it his duty to go,” he observed. +</p> + +<p> +“It was!” said the baronet, emphatically. +</p> + +<p> +“And you see what comes of it, sir,” Adrian struck in. “These +agricultural gentlemen, I repeat, are delicate customers to deal with. For my +part I would prefer being in the hands of a policeman. We are decidedly +collared by Blaize. What were his words, Ricky? Give it in his own +Doric.” +</p> + +<p> +“He said he would transport Tom Bakewell.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian smoothed his palms, and smiled again. Then they could afford to defy Mr. +Blaize, he informed them significantly, and made once more a mysterious +allusion to the Punic elephant, bidding his relatives be at peace. They were +attaching, in his opinion, too much importance to Richard’s complicity. +The man was a fool, and a very extraordinary arsonite, to have an accomplice at +all. It was a thing unknown in the annals of rick-burning. But one would be +severer than law itself to say that a boy of fourteen had instigated to crime a +full-grown man. At that rate the boy was ‘father of the man’ with a +vengeance, and one might hear next that ‘the baby was father of the +boy.’ They would find common sense a more benevolent ruler than poetical +metaphysics. +</p> + +<p> +When he had done, Austin, with his customary directness, asked him what he +meant. +</p> + +<p> +“I confess, Adrian,” said the baronet, hearing him expostulate with +Austin’s stupidity, “I for one am at a loss. I have heard that this +man, Bakewell, chooses voluntarily not to inculpate my son. Seldom have I heard +anything that so gratified me. It is a view of innate nobleness in the +rustic’s character which many a gentleman might take example from. We are +bound to do our utmost for the man.” And, saying that he should pay a +second visit to Belthorpe, to inquire into the reasons for the farmer’s +sudden exposition of vindictiveness, Sir Austin rose. +</p> + +<p> +Before he left the room, Algernon asked Richard if the farmer had vouchsafed +any reasons, and the boy then spoke of the tampering with the witnesses, and +the Bantam’s “Not upon oath!” which caused Adrian to choke +with laughter. Even the baronet smiled at so cunning a distinction as that +involved in swearing a thing, and not swearing it upon oath. +</p> + +<p> +“How little,” he exclaimed, “does one yeoman know another! To +elevate a distinction into a difference is the natural action of their minds. I +will point that out to Blaize. He shall see that the idea is native +born.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard saw his father go forth. Adrian, too, was ill at ease. +</p> + +<p> +“This trotting down to Belthorpe spoils all,” said he. “The +affair would pass over to-morrow—Blaize has no witnesses. The old rascal +is only standing out for more money.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, he isn’t,” Richard corrected him. “It’s not +that. I’m sure he believes his witnesses have been tampered with, as he +calls it.” +</p> + +<p> +“What if they have, boy?” Adrian put it boldly. “The ground +is cut from under his feet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Blaize told me that if my father would give his word there had been +nothing of the sort, he would take it. My father will give his word.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” said Adrian, “you had better stop him from going +down.” +</p> + +<p> +Austin looked at Adrian keenly, and questioned him whether he thought the +farmer was justified in his suspicions. The wise youth was not to be entrapped. +He had only been given to understand that the witnesses were tolerably +unstable, and, like the Bantam, ready to swear lustily, but not upon the Book. +How given to understand, he chose not to explain, but he reiterated that the +chief should not be allowed to go down to Belthorpe. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin was in the lane leading to the farm when he heard steps of some one +running behind him. It was dark, and he shook off the hand that laid hold of +his cloak, roughly, not recognizing his son. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s I, sir,” said Richard panting. “Pardon me. You +mustn’t go in there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” said the baronet, putting his arm about him. +</p> + +<p> +“Not now,” continued the boy. “I will tell you all to-night. +I must see the farmer myself. It was my fault, sir. I-I lied to him—the +Liar must eat his Lie. Oh, forgive me for disgracing you, sir. I did it—I +hope I did it to save Tom Bakewell. Let me go in alone, and speak the +truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go, and I will wait for you here,” said his father. +</p> + +<p> +The wind that bowed the old elms, and shivered the dead leaves in the air, had +a voice and a meaning for the baronet during that half-hour’s lonely +pacing up and down under the darkness, awaiting his boy’s return. The +solemn gladness of his heart gave nature a tongue. Through the desolation +flying overhead—the wailing of the Mother of Plenty across the bare-swept +land—he caught intelligible signs of the beneficent order of the +universe, from a heart newly confirmed in its grasp of the principle of human +goodness, as manifested in the dear child who had just left him; confirmed in +its belief in the ultimate victory of good within us, without which nature has +neither music nor meaning, and is rock, stone, tree, and nothing more. +</p> + +<p> +In the dark, the dead leaves beating on his face, he had a word for his +note-book: “There is for the mind but one grasp of happiness: from that +uppermost pinnacle of wisdom, whence we see that this world is well +designed.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a> +CHAPTER XI</h2> + +<p> +Of all the chief actors in the Bakewell Comedy, Master Ripton Thompson awaited +the fearful morning which was to decide Tom’s fate, in dolefullest mood, +and suffered the gravest mental terrors. Adrian, on parting with him, had taken +casual occasion to speak of the position of the criminal in modern Europe, +assuring him that International Treaty now did what Universal Empire had +aforetime done, and that among Atlantic barbarians now, as among the Scythians +of old, an offender would find precarious refuge and an emissary haunting him. +</p> + +<p> +In the paternal home, under the roofs of Law, and removed from the influence of +his conscienceless young chief, the staggering nature of the act he had put his +hand to, its awful felonious aspect, overwhelmed Ripton. He saw it now for the +first time. “Why, it’s next to murder!” he cried out to his +amazed soul, and wandered about the house with a prickly skin. Thoughts of +America, and commencing life afresh as an innocent gentleman, had crossed his +disordered brain. He wrote to his friend Richard, proposing to collect +disposable funds, and embark, in case of Tom’s breaking his word, or of +accidental discovery. He dared not confide the secret to his family, as his +leader had sternly enjoined him to avoid any weakness of that kind; and, being +by nature honest and communicative, the restriction was painful, and melancholy +fell upon the boy. Mama Thompson attributed it to love. +</p> + +<p> +The daughters of parchment rallied him concerning Miss Clare Forey. His hourly +letters to Raynham, and silence as to everything and everybody there, his +nervousness, and unwonted propensity to sudden inflammation of the cheeks, were +set down for sure signs of the passion. Miss Letitia Thompson, the pretty and +least parchmenty one, destined by her Papa for the heir of Raynham, and +perfectly aware of her brilliant future, up to which she had, since +Ripton’s departure, dressed and grimaced, and studied cadences (the +latter with such success, though not yet fifteen, that she languished to her +maid, and melted the small factotum footman)—Miss Letty, whose insatiable +thirst for intimations about the young heir Ripton could not satisfy, tormented +him daily in revenge, and once, quite unconsciously, gave the lad a fearful +turn; for after dinner, when Mr. Thompson read the paper by the fire, +preparatory to sleeping at his accustomed post, and Mama Thompson and her +submissive female brood sat tasking the swift intricacies of the needle, and +emulating them with the tongue, Miss Letty stole behind Ripton’s chair, +and introduced between him and his book the Latin initial letter, large and +illuminated, of the theme she supposed to be absorbing him, as it did herself. +The unexpected vision of this accusing Captain of the Alphabet, this +resplendent and haunting A. fronting him bodily, threw Ripton straight back in +his chair, while Guilt, with her ancient indecision what colours to assume on +detection, flew from red to white, from white to red, across his fallen chaps. +Letty laughed triumphantly. Amor, the word she had in mind, certainly has a +connection with Arson. +</p> + +<p> +But the delivery of a letter into Master Ripton’s hands, furnished her +with other and likelier appearances to study. For scarce had Ripton plunged his +head into the missive than he gave way to violent transports, such as the +healthy-minded little damsel, for all her languishing cadences, deemed she +really could express were a downright declaration to be made to her. The boy +did not stop at table. Quickly recollecting the presence of his family, he +rushed to his own room. And now the girl’s ingenuity was taxed to gain +possession of that letter. She succeeded, of course, she being a huntress with +few scruples and the game unguarded. With the eyes of amazement she read this +foreign matter: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Dear Ripton,—If Tom had been committed I would have shot old +Blaize. Do you know my father was behind us that night when Clare saw the ghost +and heard all we said before the fire burst out. It is no use trying to conceal +anything from him. Well as you are in an awful state I will tell you all about +it. After you left Ripton I had a conversation with Austin and he persuaded me +to go down to old Blaize and ask him to help off Tom. I went for I would have +done anything for Tom after what he said to Austin and I defied the old churl +to do his worst. Then he said if my father paid the money and nobody had +tampered with his witnesses he would not mind if Tom did get off and he had his +chief witness in called the Bantam very like his master I think and the Bantam +began winking at me tremendously as you say, and said he had sworn he saw Tom +Bakewell but not upon oath. He meant not on the Bible. He could swear to it but +not on the Bible. I burst out laughing and you should have seen the rage old +Blaize was in. It was splendid fun. Then we had a consultation at home Austin +Rady my father Uncle Algernon who has come down to us again and your friend in +prosperity and adversity R.D.F. My father said he would go down to old Blaize +and give him the word of a gentleman we had not tampered with his witnesses and +when he was gone we were all talking and Rady says he must not see the farmer. +I am as certain as I live that it was Rady bribed the Bantam. Well I ran and +caught up my father and told him not to go in to old Blaize but I would and eat +my words and tell him the truth. He waited for me in the lane. Never mind what +passed between me and old Blaize. He made me beg and pray of him not to press +it against Tom and then to complete it he brought in a little girl a niece of +his and says to me, she’s your best friend after all and told me to thank +her. A little girl twelve years of age. What business had she to mix herself up +in my matters. Depend upon it Ripton, wherever there is mischief there are +girls I think. She had the insolence to notice my face, and ask me not to be +unhappy. I was polite of course but I would not look at her. Well the morning +came and Tom was had up before Sir Miles Papworth. It was Sir Miles gout gave +us the time or Tom would have been had up before we could do anything. Adrian +did not want me to go but my father said I should accompany him and held my +hand all the time. I shall be careful about getting into these scrapes again. +When you have done anything honourable you do not mind but getting among +policemen and magistrates makes you ashamed of yourself. Sir Miles was very +attentive to my father and me and dead against Tom. We sat beside him and Tom +was brought in, Sir Miles told my father that if there was one thing that +showed a low villain it was rick-burning. What do you think of that. I looked +him straight in the face and he said to me he was doing me a service in getting +Tom committed and clearing the country of such fellows and Rady began laughing. +I hate Rady. My father said his son was not in haste to inherit and have +estates of his own to watch and Sir Miles laughed too. I thought we were +discovered at first. Then they began the examination of Tom. The Tinker was the +first witness and he proved that Tom had spoken against old Blaize and said +something about burning his rick. I wished I had stood in the lane to Bursley +with him alone. Our country lawyer we engaged for Tom cross-questioned him and +then he said he was not ready to swear to the exact words that had passed +between him and Tom. I should think not. Then came another who swore he had +seen Tom lurking about the farmer’s grounds that night. Then came the +Bantam and I saw him look at Rady. I was tremendously excited and my father +kept pressing my hand. Just fancy my being brought to feel that a word from +that fellow would make me miserable for life and he must perjure himself to +help me. That comes of giving way to passion. My father says when we do that we +are calling in the devil as doctor. Well the Bantam was told to state what he +had seen and the moment he began Rady who was close by me began to shake and he +was laughing I knew though his face was as grave as Sir Miles. You never heard +such a rigmarole but I could not laugh. He said he thought he was certain he +had seen somebody by the rick and it was Tom Bakewell who was the only man he +knew who had a grudge against Farmer Blaize and if the object had been a little +bigger he would not mind swearing to Tom and would swear to him for he was dead +certain it was Tom only what he saw looked smaller and it was pitch-dark at the +time. He was asked what time it was he saw the person steal away from the rick +and then he began to scratch his head and said supper-time. Then they asked +what time he had supper and he said nine o’clock by the clock and we +proved that at nine o’clock Tom was drinking in the ale-house with the +Tinker at Bursley and Sir Miles swore and said he was afraid he could not +commit Tom and when he heard that Tom looked up at me and I say he is a noble +fellow and no one shall sneer at Tom while I live. Mind that. Well Sir Miles +asked us to dine with him and Tom was safe and I am to have him and educate him +if I like for my servant and I will. And I will give money to his mother and +make her rich and he shall never repent he knew me. I say Rip. The Bantam must +have seen me. It was when I went to stick in the lucifers. As we were all going +home from Sir Miles’s at night he has lots of red-faced daughters but I +did not dance with them though they had music and were full of fun and I did +not care to I was so delighted and almost let it out. When we left and rode +home Rady said to my father the Bantam was not such a fool as he was thought +and my father said one must be in a state of great personal exaltation to apply +that epithet to any man and Rady shut his mouth and I gave my pony a clap of +the heel for joy. I think my father suspects what Rady did and does not approve +of it. And he need not have done it after all and might have spoilt it. I have +been obliged to order him not to call me Ricky for he stops short at Rick so +that everybody knows what he means. My dear Austin is going to South America. +My pony is in capital condition. My father is the cleverest and best man in the +world. Clare is a little better. I am quite happy. I hope we shall meet soon my +dear Old Rip and we will not get into any more tremendous scrapes will +we.—I remain, Your sworn friend, +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“R<small>ICHARD</small> D<small>ORIA</small> +F<small>EVEREL</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +“P.S. I am to have a nice River Yacht. Good-bye, Rip. Mind you learn to +box. Mind you are not to show this to any of your friends on pain of my +displeasure. +</p> + +<p> +“N.B. Lady B. was so angry when I told her that I had not come to her +before. She would do anything in the world for me. I like her next best to my +father and Austin. Good-bye old Rip.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Poor little Letitia, after three perusals of this ingenuous epistle, where the +laws of punctuation were so disregarded, resigned it to one of the pockets of +her brother Ripton’s best jacket, deeply smitten with the careless +composer. And so ended the last act of the Bakewell Comedy, in which the +curtain closes with Sir Austin’s pointing out to his friends the +beneficial action of the System in it from beginning to end. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a> +CHAPTER XII</h2> + +<p> +Laying of ghosts is a public duty, and, as the mystery of the apparition that +had frightened little Clare was never solved on the stage of events at Raynham, +where dread walked the Abbey, let us go behind the scenes a moment. Morally +superstitious as the baronet was, the character of his mind was opposed to +anything like spiritual agency in the affairs of men, and, when the matter was +made clear to him, it shook off a weight of weakness and restored his mental +balance; so that from this time he went about more like the man he had once +been, grasping more thoroughly the great truth, that This World is well +designed. Nay, he could laugh on hearing Adrian, in reminiscence of the ill +luck of one of the family members at its first manifestation, call the uneasy +spirit, Algernon’s Leg. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria was outraged. She maintained that her child had seen ——. +Not to believe in it was almost to rob her of her personal property. After +satisfactorily studying his old state of mind in her, Sir Austin, moved by +pity, took her aside one day and showed her that her Ghost could write words in +the flesh. It was a letter from the unhappy lady who had given Richard +birth,—brief cold lines, simply telling him his house would be disturbed +by her no more. Cold lines, but penned by what heart-broken abnegation, and +underlying them with what anguish of soul! Like most who dealt with him, Lady +Feverel thought her husband a man fatally stern and implacable, and she acted +as silly creatures will act when they fancy they see a fate against them: she +neither petitioned for her right nor claimed it: she tried to ease her +heart’s yearning by stealth, and, now she renounced all. Mrs. Doria, not +wanting in the family tenderness and softness, shuddered at him for accepting +the sacrifice so composedly: but he bade her to think how distracting to this +boy would be the sight of such relations between mother and father. A few +years, and as man he should know, and judge, and love her. “Let this be +her penance, not inflicted by me!” Mrs. Doria bowed to the System for +another, not opining when it would be her turn to bow for herself. +</p> + +<p> +Further behind the scenes we observe Rizzio and Mary grown older, much +disenchanted: she discrowned, dishevelled,—he with gouty fingers on a +greasy guitar. The Diaper Sandoe of promise lends his pen for small hires. His +fame has sunk; his bodily girth has sensibly increased. What he can do, and +will do, is still his theme; meantime the juice of the juniper is in +requisition, and it seems that those small hires cannot be performed without +it. Returning from her wretched journey to her wretcheder home, the lady had to +listen to a mild reproof from easy-going Diaper,—a reproof so mild that +he couched it in blank verse: for, seldom writing metrically now, he took to +talking it. With a fluent sympathetic tear, he explained to her that she was +damaging her interests by these proceedings; nor did he shrink from undertaking +to elucidate wherefore. Pluming a smile upon his succulent mouth, he told her +that the poverty she lived in was utterly unbefitting her gentle nurture, and +that he had reason to believe—could assure her—that an annuity was +on the point of being granted her by her husband. And Diaper broke his bud of a +smile into full flower as he delivered this information. She learnt that he had +applied to her husband for money. It is hard to have one’s prop of +self-respect cut away just when we are suffering a martyr’s agony at the +stake. There was a five minutes’ tragic colloquy in the recesses behind +the scenes,—totally tragic to Diaper, who had fondly hoped to bask in the +warm sun of that annuity, and re-emerge from his state of grub. The lady then +wrote the letter Sir Austin held open to his sister. The atmosphere behind the +scenes is not wholesome, so, having laid the Ghost, we will return and face the +curtain. +</p> + +<p> +That infinitesimal dose of The World which Master Ripton Thompson had furnished +to the System with such instantaneous and surprising effect was considered by +Sir Austin to have worked well, and to be for the time quite sufficient, so +that Ripton did not receive a second invitation to Raynham, and Richard had no +special intimate of his own age to rub his excessive vitality against, and +wanted none. His hands were full enough with Tom Bakewell. Moreover, his father +and he were heart in heart. The boy’s mind was opening, and turned to his +father affectionately reverent. At this period, when the young savage grows +into higher influences, the faculty of worship is foremost in him. At this +period Jesuits will stamp the future of their chargeling flocks; and all who +bring up youth by a System, and watch it, know that it is the malleable moment. +Boys possessing any mental or moral force to give them a tendency, then +predestinate their careers; or, if under supervision, take the impress that is +given them: not often to cast it off, and seldom to cast it off altogether. +</p> + +<p> +In Sir Austin’s Note-book was written: “Between Simple Boyhood and +Adolescence—The Blossoming Season—on the threshold of Puberty, +there is one Unselfish Hour—say, Spiritual Seed-time.” +</p> + +<p> +He took care that good seed should be planted in Richard, and that the most +fruitful seed for a youth, namely, Example, should be of a kind to germinate in +him the love of every form of nobleness. +</p> + +<p> +“I am only striving to make my son a Christian,” he said, answering +them who persisted in expostulating with the System. And to these instructions +he gave an aim: “First be virtuous,” he told his son, “and +then serve your country with heart and soul.” The youth was instructed to +cherish an ambition for statesmanship, and he and his father read history and +the speeches of British orators to some purpose; for one day Sir Austin found +him leaning cross-legged, and with his hand to his chin, against a pedestal +supporting the bust of Chatham, contemplating the hero of our Parliament, his +eyes streaming with tears. +</p> + +<p> +People said the baronet carried the principle of Example so far that he only +retained his boozing dyspeptic brother Hippias at Raynham in order to exhibit +to his son the woeful retribution nature wreaked upon a life of indulgence; +poor Hippias having now become a walking complaint. This was unjust, but there +is no doubt he made use of every illustration to disgust or encourage his son +that his neighbourhood afforded him, and did not spare his brother, for whom +Richard entertained a contempt in proportion to his admiration of his father, +and was for flying into penitential extremes which Sir Austin had to soften. +</p> + +<p> +The boy prayed with his father morning and night. +</p> + +<p> +“How is it, sir,” he said one night, “I can’t get Tom +Bakewell to pray?” +</p> + +<p> +“Does he refuse?” Sir Austin asked. +</p> + +<p> +“He seems to be ashamed to,” Richard replied. “He wants to +know what is the good? and I don’t know what to tell him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m afraid it has gone too far with him,” said Sir Austin, +“and until he has had some deep sorrows he will not find the divine want +of Prayer. Strive, my son, when you represent the people, to provide for their +education. He feels everything now through a dull impenetrable rind. Culture is +half-way to heaven. Tell him, my son, should he ever be brought to ask how he +may know the efficacy of Prayer, and that his prayer will be answered, tell him +(he quoted The Pilgrim’s Scrip): +</p> + +<p> +“‘Who rises from Prayer a better man, his prayer is +answered.’” +</p> + +<p> +“I will, sir,” said Richard, and went to sleep happy. +</p> + +<p> +Happy in his father and in himself, the youth now lived. Conscience was +beginning to inhabit him, and he carried some of the freightage known to men; +though in so crude a form that it overweighed him, now on this side, now on +that. +</p> + +<p> +The wise youth Adrian observed these further progressionary developments in his +pupil, soberly cynical. He was under Sir Austin’s interdict not to banter +him, and eased his acrid humours inspired by the sight of a felonious young +rick-burner turning saint, by grave affectations of sympathy and extreme +accuracy in marking the not widely-distant dates of his various changes. The +Bread-and-water phase lasted a fortnight: the Vegetarian (an imitation of his +cousin Austin), little better than a month: the religious, somewhat longer: the +religious-propagandist (when he was for converting the heathen of Lobourne and +Burnley, and the domestics of the Abbey, including Tom Bakewell), longer still, +and hard to bear;—he tried to convert Adrian! All the while Tom was being +exercised like a raw recruit. Richard had a drill-sergeant from the nearest +barracks down for him, to give him a proper pride in himself, and marched him +to and fro with immense satisfaction, and nearly broke his heart trying to get +the round-shouldered rustic to take in the rudiments of letters: for the boy +had unbounded hopes for Tom, as a hero in grain. +</p> + +<p> +Richard’s pride also was cast aside. He affected to be, and really +thought he was, humble. Whereupon Adrian, as by accident, imparted to him the +fact that men were animals, and he an animal with the rest of them. +</p> + +<p> +“I an animal!” cries Richard in scorn, and for weeks he was as +troubled by this rudiment of self-knowledge as Tom by his letters. Sir Austin +had him instructed in the wonders of anatomy, to restore his self-respect. +</p> + +<p> +Seed-Time passed thus smoothly, and adolescence came on, and his cousin Clare +felt what it was to be of an opposite sex to him. She too was growing, but +nobody cared how she grew. Outwardly even her mother seemed absorbed in the +sprouting of the green off-shoot of the Feverel tree, and Clare was his +handmaiden, little marked by him. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish honestly loved the boy. She would tell him: “If I had been +a girl, I would have had you for my husband.” And he with the frankness +of his years would reply: “And how do you know I would have had +you?” causing her to laugh and call him a silly boy, for had he not heard +her say she would have had him? Terrible words, he knew not then the meaning +of! +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t read your father’s Book,” she said. Her own +copy was bound in purple velvet, gilt-edged, as decorative ladies like to have +holier books, and she carried it about with her, and quoted it, and (Adrian +remarked to Mrs. Doria) hunted a noble quarry, and deliberately aimed at him +therewith, which Mrs. Doria chose to believe, and regretted her brother would +not be on his guard. +</p> + +<p> +“See here,” said Lady Blandish, pressing an almondy finger-nail to +one of the Aphorisms, which instanced how age and adversity must clay-enclose +us ere we can effectually resist the magnetism of any human creature in our +path. “Can you understand it, child?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard informed her that when she read he could. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, my squire,” she touched his cheek and ran her fingers +through his hair, “learn as quick as you can not to be all hither and yon +with a hundred different attractions, as I was before I met a wise man to guide +me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is my father very wise?” Richard asked. +</p> + +<p> +“I think so,” the lady emphasized her individual judgment. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you—” Richard broke forth, and was stopped by a beating +of his heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I—what?” she calmly queried. +</p> + +<p> +“I was going to say, do you—I mean, I love him so much.” +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish smiled and slightly coloured. +</p> + +<p> +They frequently approached this theme, and always retreated from it; always +with the same beating of heart to Richard, accompanied by the sense of a +growing mystery, which, however, did not as yet generally disturb him. +</p> + +<p> +Life was made very pleasant to him at Raynham, as it was part of Sir +Austin’s principle of education that his boy should be thoroughly joyous +and happy; and whenever Adrian sent in a satisfactory report of his +pupil’s advancement, which he did pretty liberally, diversions were +planned, just as prizes are given to diligent school-boys, and Richard was +supposed to have all his desires gratified while he attended to his studies. +The System flourished. Tall, strong, bloomingly healthy, he took the lead of +his companions on land and water, and had more than one bondsman in his service +besides Ripton Thompson—the boy without a Destiny! Perhaps the boy with a +Destiny was growing up a trifle too conscious of it. His generosity to his +occasional companions was princely, but was exercised something too much in the +manner of a prince; and, notwithstanding his contempt for baseness, he would +overlook that more easily than an offence to his pride, which demanded an utter +servility when it had once been rendered susceptible. If Richard had his +followers he had also his feuds. The Papworths were as subservient as Ripton, +but young Ralph Morton, the nephew of Mr. Morton, and a match for Richard in +numerous promising qualities, comprising the noble science of fisticuffs, this +youth spoke his mind too openly, and moreover would not be snubbed. There was +no middle course for Richard’s comrades between high friendship or +absolute slavery. He was deficient in those cosmopolite habits and feelings +which enable boys and men to hold together without caring much for each other; +and, like every insulated mortal, he attributed the deficiency, of which he was +quite aware, to the fact of his possessing a superior nature. Young Ralph was a +lively talker: therefore, argued Richard’s vanity, he had no intellect. +He was affable: therefore he was frivolous. The women liked him: therefore he +was a butterfly. In fine, young Ralph was popular, and our superb prince, +denied the privilege of despising, ended by detesting him. +</p> + +<p> +Early in the days of their contention for leadership, Richard saw the absurdity +of affecting to scorn his rival. Ralph was an Eton boy, and hence, being +robust, a swimmer and a cricketer. A swimmer and a cricketer is nowhere to be +scorned in youth’s republic. Finding that manoeuvre would not do, Richard +was prompted once or twice to entrench himself behind his greater wealth and +his position; but he soon abandoned that also, partly because his chilliness to +ridicule told him he was exposing himself, and chiefly that his heart was too +chivalrous. And so he was dragged into the lists by Ralph, and experienced the +luck of champions. For cricket, and for diving, Ralph bore away the belt: +Richard’s middle-stump tottered before his ball, and he could seldom pick +up more than three eggs underwater to Ralph’s half-dozen. He was beaten, +too, in jumping and running. Why will silly mortals strive to the painful +pinnacles of championship? Or why, once having reached them, not have the +magnanimity and circumspection to retire into private life immediately? Stung +by his defeats, Richard sent one of his dependent Papworths to Poer Hall, with +a challenge to Ralph Barthrop Morton; matching himself to swim across the +Thames and back, once, twice, or thrice, within a less time than he, Ralph +Barthrop Morton, would require for the undertaking. It was accepted, and a +reply returned, equally formal in the trumpeting of Christian names, wherein +Ralph Barthrop Morton acknowledged the challenge of Richard Doria Feverel, and +was his man. The match came off on a midsummer morning, under the direction of +Captain Algernon. Sir Austin was a spectator from the cover of a plantation by +the river-side, unknown to his son, and, to the scandal of her sex, Lady +Blandish accompanied the baronet. He had invited her attendance, and she, +obeying her frank nature, and knowing what The Pilgrim’s Scrip said about +prudes, at once agreed to view the match, pleasing him mightily. For was not +here a woman worthy the Golden Ages of the world? one who could look upon man +as a creature divinely made, and look with a mind neither tempted, nor taunted, +by the Serpent! Such a woman was rare. Sir Austin did not discompose her by +uttering his praises. She was conscious of his approval only in an increased +gentleness of manner, and something in his voice and communications, as if he +were speaking to a familiar, a very high compliment from him. While the lads +were standing ready for the signal to plunge from the steep decline of +greensward into the shining waters, Sir Austin called upon her to admire their +beauty, and she did, and even advanced her head above his shoulder delicately. +In so doing, and just as the start was given, a bonnet became visible to +Richard. Young Ralph was heels in air before he moved, and then he dropped like +lead. He was beaten by several lengths. +</p> + +<p> +The result of the match was unaccountable to all present, and Richard’s +friends unanimously pressed him to plead a false start. But though the youth, +with full confidence in his better style and equal strength, had backed himself +heavily against his rival, and had lost his little river-yacht to Ralph, he +would do nothing of the sort. It was the Bonnet had beaten him, not Ralph. The +Bonnet, typical of the mystery that caused his heart those violent +palpitations, was his dear, detestable enemy. +</p> + +<p> +And now, as he progressed from mood to mood, his ambition turned towards a +field where Ralph could not rival him, and where the Bonnet was etherealized, +and reigned glorious mistress. A check to the pride of a boy will frequently +divert him to the path where lie his subtlest powers. Richard gave up his +companions, servile or antagonistic: he relinquished the material world to +young Ralph, and retired into himself, where he was growing to be lord of +kingdoms where Beauty was his handmaid, and History his minister and Time his +ancient harper, and sweet Romance his bride; where he walked in a realm vaster +and more gorgeous than the great Orient, peopled with the heroes that have +been. For there is no princely wealth, and no loftiest heritage, to equal this +early one that is made bountifully common to so many, when the ripening blood +has put a spark to the imagination, and the earth is seen through rosy mists of +a thousand fresh-awakened nameless and aimless desires; panting for bliss and +taking it as it comes; making of any sight or sound, perforce of the +enchantment they carry with them, a key to infinite, because innocent, +pleasure. The passions then are gambolling cubs; not the ravaging gluttons they +grow to. They have their teeth and their talons, but they neither tear nor +bite. They are in counsel and fellowship with the quickened heart and brain. +The whole sweet system moves to music. +</p> + +<p> +Something akin to the indications of a change in the spirit of his son, which +were now seen, Sir Austin had marked down to be expected, as due to his plan. +The blushes of the youth, his long vigils, his clinging to solitude, his +abstraction, and downcast but not melancholy air, were matters for rejoicing to +the prescient gentleman. “For it comes,” said he to Dr. Clifford of +Lobourne, after consulting him medically on the youth’s behalf and being +assured of his soundness, “it comes of a thoroughly sane condition. The +blood is healthy, the mind virtuous: neither instigates the other to evil, and +both are perfecting toward the flower of manhood. If he reach that +pure—in the untainted fulness and perfection of his natural +powers—I am indeed a happy father! But one thing he will owe to me: that +at one period of his life he knew paradise, and could read God’s +handwriting on the earth! Now those abominations whom you call precocious +boys—your little pet monsters, doctor!—and who can wonder that the +world is what it is? when it is full of them—as they will have no divine +time to look back upon in their own lives, how can they believe in innocence +and goodness, or be other than sons of selfishness and the Devil? But my +boy,” and the baronet dropped his voice to a key that was touching to +hear, “my boy, if he fall, will fall from an actual region of purity. He +dare not be a sceptic as to that. Whatever his darkness, he will have the +guiding light of a memory behind him. So much is secure.” +</p> + +<p> +To talk nonsense, or poetry, or the dash between the two, in a tone of profound +sincerity, and to enunciate solemn discordances with received opinion so +seriously as to convey the impression of a spiritual insight, is the peculiar +gift by which monomaniacs, having first persuaded themselves, contrive to +influence their neighbours, and through them to make conquest of a good half of +the world, for good or for ill. Sir Austin had this gift. He spoke as if he saw +the truth, and, persisting in it so long, he was accredited by those who did +not understand him, and silenced them that did. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall see,” was all the argument left to Dr. Clifford, and +other unbelievers. +</p> + +<p> +So far certainly the experiment had succeeded. A comelier, bracer, better boy +was nowhere to be met. His promise was undeniable. The vessel, too, though it +lay now in harbour and had not yet been proved by the buffets of the elements +on the great ocean, had made a good trial trip, and got well through stormy +weather, as the records of the Bakewell Comedy witnessed to at Raynham. No +augury could be hopefuller. The Fates must indeed be hard, the Ordeal severe, +the Destiny dark, that could destroy so bright a Spring! But, bright as it was, +the baronet relaxed nothing of his vigilant supervision. He said to his +intimates: “Every act, every fostered inclination, almost every thought, +in this Blossoming Season, bears its seed for the Future. The living Tree now +requires incessant watchfulness.” And, acting up to his light, Sir Austin +did watch. The youth submitted to an examination every night before he sought +his bed; professedly to give an account of his studies, but really to +recapitulate his moral experiences of the day. He could do so, for he was pure. +Any wildness in him that his father noted, any remoteness or richness of fancy +in his expressions, was set down as incidental to the Blossoming Season. There +is nothing like a theory for binding the wise. Sir Austin, despite his rigid +watch and ward, knew less of his son than the servant of his household. And he +was deaf, as well as blind. Adrian thought it his duty to tell him that the +youth was consuming paper. Lady Blandish likewise hinted at his mooning +propensities. Sir Austin from his lofty watch-tower of the System had foreseen +it, he said. But when he came to hear that the youth was writing poetry, his +wounded heart had its reasons for being much disturbed. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely,” said Lady Blandish, “you knew he scribbled?” +</p> + +<p> +“A very different thing from writing poetry,” said the baronet. +“No Feverel has ever written poetry.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t think it’s a sign of degeneracy,” the lady +remarked. “He rhymes very prettily to me.” +</p> + +<p> +A London phrenologist, and a friendly Oxford Professor of poetry, quieted Sir +Austin’s fears. +</p> + +<p> +The phrenologist said he was totally deficient in the imitative faculty; and +the Professor, that he was equally so in the rhythmic, and instanced several +consoling false quantities in the few effusions submitted to him. Added to +this, Sir Austin told Lady Blandish that Richard had, at his best, done what no +poet had ever been known to be capable of doing: he had, with his own hands, +and in cold blood, committed his virgin manuscript to the flames: which made +Lady Blandish sigh forth, “Poor boy!” +</p> + +<p> +Killing one’s darling child is a painful imposition. For a youth in his +Blossoming Season, who fancies himself a poet, to be requested to destroy his +first-born, without a reason (though to pretend a reason cogent enough to +justify the request were a mockery), is a piece of abhorrent despotism, and +Richard’s blossoms withered under it. A strange man had been introduced +to him, who traversed and bisected his skull with sagacious stiff fingers, and +crushed his soul while, in an infallible voice, declaring him the animal he +was: making him feel such an animal! Not only his blossoms withered, his being +seemed to draw in its shoots and twigs. And when, coupled thereunto (the +strange man having departed, his work done), his father, in his tenderest +manner, stated that it would give him pleasure to see those same precocious, +utterly valueless, scribblings among the cinders, the last remaining mental +blossoms spontaneously fell away. Richard’s spirit stood bare. He +protested not. Enough that it could be wished! He would not delay a minute in +doing it. Desiring his father to follow him, he went to a drawer in his room, +and from a clean-linen recess, never suspected by Sir Austin, the secretive +youth drew out bundle after bundle: each neatly tied, named, and numbered: and +pitched them into flames. And so Farewell my young Ambition! and with it +farewell all true confidence between Father and Son. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a> +CHAPTER XIII</h2> + +<p> +It was now, as Sir Austin had written it down, The Magnetic Age: the Age of +violent attractions, when to hear mention of love is dangerous, and to see it, +a communication of the disease. People at Raynham were put on their guard by +the baronet, and his reputation for wisdom was severely criticized in +consequence of the injunctions he thought fit to issue through butler and +housekeeper down to the lower household, for the preservation of his son from +any visible symptom of the passion. A footman and two housemaids are believed +to have been dismissed on the report of heavy Benson that they were in or +inclining to the state; upon which an undercook and a dairymaid voluntarily +threw up their places, averring that “they did not want no young men, but +to have their sex spied after by an old wretch like that,” indicating the +ponderous butler, “was a little too much for a Christian woman,” +and then they were ungenerous enough to glance at Benson’s well-known +marital calamity, hinting that some men met their deserts. So intolerable did +heavy Benson’s espionage become, that Raynham would have grown +depopulated of its womankind had not Adrian interfered, who pointed out to the +baronet what a fearful arm his butler was wielding. Sir Austin acknowledged it +despondently. “It only shows,” said he, with a fine spirit of +justice, “how all but impossible it is to legislate where there are +women!” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not object,” he added; “I hope I am too just to object +to the exercise of their natural inclinations. All I ask from them is +discreetness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay,” said Adrian, whose discreetness was a marvel. +</p> + +<p> +“No gadding about in couples,” continued the baronet, “no +kissing in public. Such occurrences no boy should witness. Whenever people of +both sexes are thrown together, they will be silly; and where they are +high-fed, uneducated, and barely occupied, it must be looked for as a matter of +course. Let it be known that I only require discreetness.” +</p> + +<p> +Discreetness, therefore, was instructed to reign at the Abbey. Under +Adrian’s able tuition the fairest of its domestics acquired that virtue. +</p> + +<p> +Discreetness, too, was enjoined to the upper household. Sir Austin, who had not +previously appeared to notice the case of Lobourne’s hopeless curate, now +desired Mrs. Doria to interdict, or at least discourage, his visits, for the +appearance of the man was that of an embodied sigh and groan. +</p> + +<p> +“Really, Austin!” said Mrs. Doria, astonished to find her brother +more awake than she had supposed, “I have never allowed him to +hope.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let him see it, then,” replied the baronet; “let him see +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“The man amuses me,” said Mrs. Doria. “You know, we have few +amusements here, we inferior creatures. I confess I should like a barrel-organ +better; that reminds one of town and the opera; and besides, it plays more than +one tune. However, since you think my society bad for him, let him stop +away.” +</p> + +<p> +With the self-devotion of a woman she grew patient and sweet the moment her +daughter Clare was spoken of, and the business of her life in view. Mrs. +Doria’s maternal heart had betrothed the two cousins, Richard and Clare; +had already beheld them espoused and fruitful. For this she yielded the +pleasures of town; for this she immured herself at Raynham; for this she bore +with a thousand follies, exactions, inconveniences, things abhorrent to her, +and heaven knows what forms of torture and self-denial, which are smilingly +endured by that greatest of voluntary martyrs—a mother with a daughter to +marry. Mrs. Doria, an amiable widow, had surely married but for her daughter +Clare. The lady’s hair no woman could possess without feeling it her +pride. It was the daily theme of her lady’s-maid,—a natural aureole +to her head. She was gay, witty, still physically youthful enough to claim a +destiny; and she sacrificed it to accomplish her daughter’s! sacrificed, +as with heroic scissors, hair, wit, gaiety—let us not attempt to +enumerate how much! more than may be said. And she was only one of thousands; +thousands who have no portion of the hero’s reward; for he may reckon on +applause, and condolence, and sympathy, and honour; they, poor slaves! must +look for nothing but the opposition of their own sex and the sneers of ours. O, +Sir Austin! had you not been so blinded, what an Aphorism might have sprung +from this point of observation! Mrs. Doria was coolly told, between sister and +brother, that during the Magnetic Age her daughter’s presence at Raynham +was undesirable. Instead of nursing offence, her sole thought was the mountain +of prejudice she had to contend against. She bowed, and said, Clare wanted +sea-air—she had never quite recovered the shock of that dreadful night. +How long, Mrs. Doria wished to know, might the Peculiar Period be expected to +last? +</p> + +<p> +“That,” said Sir Austin, “depends. A year, perhaps. He is +entering on it. I shall be most grieved to lose you, Helen. Clare is +now—how old?” +</p> + +<p> +“Seventeen.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is marriageable.” +</p> + +<p> +“Marriageable, Austin! at seventeen! don’t name such a thing. My +child shall not be robbed of her youth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Our women marry early, Helen.” +</p> + +<p> +“My child shall not!” +</p> + +<p> +The baronet reflected a moment. He did not wish to lose his sister. +</p> + +<p> +“As you are of that opinion, Helen,” said he, “perhaps we may +still make arrangements to retain you with us. Would you think it advisable to +send Clare—she should know discipline—to some establishment for a +few months?” +</p> + +<p> +“To an asylum, Austin?” cried Mrs. Doria, controlling her +indignation as well as she could. +</p> + +<p> +“To some select superior seminary, Helen. There are such to be +found.” +</p> + +<p> +“Austin!” Mrs. Doria exclaimed, and had to fight with a moisture in +her eyes. “Unjust! absurd!” she murmured. The baronet thought it a +natural proposition that Clare should be a bride or a schoolgirl. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot leave my child.” Mrs. Doria trembled. “Where she +goes, I go. I am aware that she is only one of our sex, and therefore of no +value to the world, but she is my child. I will see, poor dear, that you have +no cause to complain of her.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought,” Sir Austin remarked, “that you acquiesced in my +views with regard to my son.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—generally,” said Mrs. Doria, and felt culpable that she +had not before, and could not then, tell her brother that he had set up an Idol +in his house—an Idol of flesh! more retributive and abominable than wood +or brass or gold. But she had bowed to the Idol too long—she had too +entirely bound herself to gain her project by subserviency. She had, and she +dimly perceived it, committed a greater fault in tactics, in teaching her +daughter to bow to the Idol also. Love of that kind Richard took for tribute. +He was indifferent to Clare’s soft eyes. The parting kiss he gave her was +ready and cold as his father could desire. Sir Austin now grew eloquent to him +in laudation of manly pursuits: but Richard thought his eloquence barren, his +attempts at companionship awkward, and all manly pursuits and aims, life +itself, vain and worthless. To what end? sighed the blossomless youth, and +cried aloud, as soon as he was relieved of his father’s society, what was +the good of anything? Whatever he did—whichever path he selected, led +back to Raynham. And whatever he did, however wretched and wayward he showed +himself, only confirmed Sir Austin more and more in the truth of his +previsions. Tom Bakewell, now the youth’s groom, had to give the baronet +a report of his young master’s proceedings, in common with Adrian, and +while there was no harm to tell, Tom spoke out. “He do ride like fire +every day to Pig’s Snout,” naming the highest hill in the +neighbourhood, “and stand there and stare, never movin’, like a mad +’un. And then hoam agin all slack as if he’d been beaten in a race +by somebody.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is no woman in that!” mused the baronet. “He would +have ridden back as hard as he went,” reflected this profound scientific +humanist, “had there been a woman in it. He would shun vast expanses, and +seek shade, concealment, solitude. The desire for distances betokens emptiness +and undirected hunger: when the heart is possessed by an image we fly to wood +and forest, like the guilty.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian’s report accused his pupil of an extraordinary access of cynicism. +</p> + +<p> +“Exactly,” said the baronet. “As I foresaw. At this period an +insatiate appetite is accompanied by a fastidious palate. Nothing but the +quintessences of existence, and those in exhaustless supplies, will satisfy +this craving, which is not to be satisfied! Hence his bitterness. Life can +furnish no food fitting for him. The strength and purity of his energies have +reached to an almost divine height, and roam through the Inane. Poetry, love, +and such-like, are the drugs earth has to offer to high natures, as she offers +to low ones debauchery. ’Tis a sign, this sourness, that he is subject to +none of the empiricisms that are afloat. Now to keep him clear of them!” +</p> + +<p> +The Titans had an easier task in storming Olympus. As yet, however, it could +not be said that Sir Austin’s System had failed. On the contrary, it had +reared a youth, handsome, intelligent, well-bred, and, observed the ladies, +with acute emphasis, innocent. Where, they asked, was such another young man to +be found? +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said Lady Blandish to Sir Austin, “if men could give +their hands to women unsoiled—how different would many a marriage be! She +will be a happy girl who calls Richard husband.” +</p> + +<p> +“Happy, indeed!” was the baronet’s caustic ejaculation. +“But where shall I meet one equal to him, and his match?” +</p> + +<p> +“I was innocent when I was a girl,” said the lady. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin bowed a reserved opinion. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think no girls innocent?” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin gallantly thought them all so. +</p> + +<p> +“No, that you know they are not,” said the lady, stamping. +“But they are more innocent than boys, I am sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because of their education, madam. You see now what a youth can be. +Perhaps, when my System is published, or rather—to speak more +humbly—when it is practised, the balance may be restored, and we shall +have virtuous young men.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s too late for poor me to hope for a husband from one of +them,” said the lady, pouting and laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“It is never too late for beauty to waken love,” returned the +baronet, and they trifled a little. They were approaching Daphne’s Bower, +which they entered, and sat there to taste the coolness of a descending +midsummer day. +</p> + +<p> +The baronet seemed in a humour for dignified fooling; the lady for serious +converse. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall believe again in Arthur’s knights,” she said. +“When I was a girl I dreamed of one.” +</p> + +<p> +“And he was in quest of the San Greal?” +</p> + +<p> +“If you like.” +</p> + +<p> +“And showed his good taste by turning aside for the more tangible San +Blandish?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you consider it would have been so,” sighed the lady, +ruffling. +</p> + +<p> +“I can only judge by our generation,” said Sir Austin, with a bend +of homage. +</p> + +<p> +The lady gathered her mouth. “Either we are very mighty or you are very +weak.” +</p> + +<p> +“Both, madam.” +</p> + +<p> +“But whatever we are, and if we are bad, bad! we love virtue, and truth, +and lofty souls, in men: and, when we meet those qualities in them, we are +constant, and would die for them—die for them. Ah! you know men but not +women.” +</p> + +<p> +“The knights possessing such distinctions must be young, I +presume?” said Sir Austin. +</p> + +<p> +“Old, or young!” +</p> + +<p> +“But if old, they are scarce capable of enterprise?” +</p> + +<p> +“They are loved for themselves, not for their deeds.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—ah!” said the lady. “Intellect may subdue +women—make slaves of them; and they worship beauty perhaps as much as you +do. But they only love for ever and are mated when they meet a noble +nature.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin looked at her wistfully. +</p> + +<p> +“And did you encounter the knight of your dream?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not then.” She lowered her eyelids. It was prettily done. +</p> + +<p> +“And how did you bear the disappointment?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dream was in the nursery. The day my frock was lengthened to a gown I +stood at the altar. I am not the only girl that has been made a woman in a day, +and given to an ogre instead of a true knight.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good God!” exclaimed Sir Austin, “women have much to +bear.” +</p> + +<p> +Here the couple changed characters. The lady became gay as the baronet grew +earnest. +</p> + +<p> +“You know it is our lot,” she said. “And we are allowed many +amusements. If we fulfil our duty in producing children, that, like our virtue, +is its own reward. Then, as a widow, I have wonderful privileges.” +</p> + +<p> +“To preserve which, you remain a widow?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” she responded. “I have no trouble now in +patching and piecing that rag the world calls—a character. I can sit at +your feet every day unquestioned. To be sure, others do the same, but they are +female eccentrics, and have cast off the rag altogether.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin drew nearer to her. “You would have made an admirable mother, +madam.” +</p> + +<p> +This from Sir Austin was very like positive wooing. +</p> + +<p> +“It is,” he continued, “ten thousand pities that you are not +one.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think so?” She spoke with humility. +</p> + +<p> +“I would,” he went on, “that heaven had given you a +daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you have thought her worthy of Richard?” +</p> + +<p> +“Our blood, madam, should have been one!” +</p> + +<p> +The lady tapped her toe with her parasol. “But I am a mother,” she +said. “Richard is my son. Yes! Richard is my boy,” she reiterated. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin most graciously appended, “Call him ours, madam,” and +held his head as if to catch the word from her lips, which, however, she chose +to refuse, or defer. They made the coloured West a common point for their eyes, +and then Sir Austin said: +</p> + +<p> +“As you will not say ‘ours,’ let me. And, as you have +therefore an equal claim on the boy, I will confide to you a project I have +lately conceived.” +</p> + +<p> +The announcement of a project hardly savoured of a coming proposal, but for Sir +Austin to confide one to a woman was almost tantamount to a declaration. So +Lady Blandish thought, and so said her soft, deep-eyed smile, as she perused +the ground while listening to the project. It concerned Richard’s +nuptials. He was now nearly eighteen. He was to marry when he was +five-and-twenty. Meantime a young lady, some years his junior, was to be sought +for in the homes of England, who would be every way fitted by education, +instincts, and blood—on each of which qualifications Sir Austin +unreservedly enlarged—to espouse so perfect a youth and accept the +honourable duty of assisting in the perpetuation of the Feverels. The baronet +went on to say that he proposed to set forth immediately, and devote a couple +of months, to the first essay in his Coelebite search. +</p> + +<p> +“I fear,” said Lady Blandish, when the project had been fully +unfolded, “you have laid down for yourself a difficult task. You must not +be too exacting.” +</p> + +<p> +“I know it.” The baronet’s shake of the head was piteous. +</p> + +<p> +“Even in England she will be rare. But I confine myself to no class. If I +ask for blood it is for untainted, not what you call high blood. I believe many +of the middle classes are frequently more careful—more +pure-blooded—than our aristocracy. Show me among them a God-fearing +family who educate their children—I should prefer a girl without brothers +and sisters—as a Christian damsel should be educated—say, on the +model of my son, and she may be penniless, I will pledge her to Richard +Feverel.” +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish bit her lip. “And what do you do with Richard while you are +absent on this expedition?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said the baronet, “he accompanies his father.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then give it up. His future bride is now pinafored and +bread-and-buttery. She romps, she cries, she dreams of play and pudding. How +can he care for her? He thinks more at his age of old women like me. He will be +certain to kick against her, and destroy your plan, believe me, Sir +Austin.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay? ay? do you think that?” said the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish gave him a multitude of reasons. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! true,” he muttered. “Adrian said the same. He must not +see her. How could I think of it! The child is naked woman. He would despise +her. Naturally!” +</p> + +<p> +“Naturally!” echoed the lady. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, madam,” and the baronet rose, “there is one thing for +me to determine upon. I must, for the first time in his life, leave him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you, indeed?” said the lady. +</p> + +<p> +“It is my duty, having thus brought him up, to see that he is properly +mated,—not wrecked upon the quicksands of marriage, as a youth so +delicately trained might be; more easily than another! Betrothed, he will be +safe from a thousand snares. I may, I think, leave him for a term. My +precautions have saved him from the temptations of his season.” +</p> + +<p> +“And under whose charge will you leave him?” Lady Blandish +inquired. +</p> + +<p> +She had emerged from the temple, and stood beside Sir Austin on the upper +steps, under a clear summer twilight. +</p> + +<p> +“Madam!” he took her hand, and his voice was gallant and tender, +“under whose but yours?” +</p> + +<p> +As the baronet said this, he bent above her hand, and raised it to his lips. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish felt that she had been wooed and asked in wedlock. She did not +withdraw her hand. The baronet’s salute was flatteringly reverent. He +deliberated over it, as one going through a grave ceremony. And he, the scorner +of women, had chosen her for his homage! Lady Blandish forgot that she had +taken some trouble to arrive at it. She received the exquisite compliment in +all its unique honey-sweet: for in love we must deserve nothing or the fine +bloom of fruition is gone. +</p> + +<p> +The lady’s hand was still in durance, and the baronet had not recovered +from his profound inclination, when a noise from the neighbouring beechwood +startled the two actors in this courtly pantomime. They turned their heads, and +beheld the hope of Raynham on horseback surveying the scene. The next moment he +had galloped away. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a> +CHAPTER XIV</h2> + +<p> +All night Richard tossed on his bed with his heart in a rapid canter, and his +brain bestriding it, traversing the rich untasted world, and the great Realm of +Mystery, from which he was now restrained no longer. Months he had wandered +about the gates of the Bonnet, wondering, sighing, knocking at them, and +getting neither admittance nor answer. He had the key now. His own father had +given it to him. His heart was a lightning steed, and bore him on and on over +limitless regions bathed in superhuman beauty and strangeness, where cavaliers +and ladies leaned whispering upon close green swards, and knights and ladies +cast a splendour upon savage forests, and tilts and tourneys were held in +golden courts lit to a glorious day by ladies’ eyes, one pair of which, +dimly visioned, constantly distinguishable, followed him through the boskage +and dwelt upon him in the press, beaming while he bent above a hand glittering +white and fragrant as the frosted blossom of a May night. +</p> + +<p> +Awhile the heart would pause and flutter to a shock: he was in the act of +consummating all earthly bliss by pressing his lips to the small white hand. +Only to do that, and die! cried the Magnetic Youth: to fling the Jewel of Life +into that one cup and drink it off! He was intoxicated by anticipation. For +that he was born. There was, then, some end in existence, something to live +for! to kiss a woman’s hand, and die! He would leap from the couch, and +rush to pen and paper to relieve his swarming sensations. Scarce was he seated +when the pen was dashed aside, the paper sent flying with the exclamation, +“Have I not sworn I would never write again?” Sir Austin had shut +that safety-valve. The nonsense that was in the youth might have poured +harmlessly out, and its urgency for ebullition was so great that he was +repeatedly oblivious of his oath, and found himself seated under the lamp in +the act of composition before pride could speak a word. Possibly the pride even +of Richard Feverel had been swamped if the act of composition were easy at such +a time, and a single idea could stand clearly foremost; but myriads were +demanding the first place; chaotic hosts, like ranks of stormy billows, pressed +impetuously for expression, and despair of reducing them to form, quite as much +as pride, to which it pleased him to refer his incapacity, threw down the +powerless pen, and sent him panting to his outstretched length and another +headlong career through the rosy-girdled land. +</p> + +<p> +Toward morning the madness of the fever abated somewhat, and he went forth into +the air. A lamp was still burning in his father’s room, and Richard +thought, as he looked up, that he saw the ever-vigilant head on the watch. +Instantly the lamp was extinguished, the window stood cold against the hues of +dawn. +</p> + +<p> +Strong pulling is an excellent medical remedy for certain classes of fever. +Richard took to it instinctively. The clear fresh water, burnished with +sunrise, sparkled against his arrowy prow; the soft deep shadows curled smiling +away from his gliding keel. Overhead solitary morning unfolded itself, from +blossom to bud, from bud to flower; still, delicious changes of light and +colour, to whose influences he was heedless as he shot under willows and +aspens, and across sheets of river-reaches, pure mirrors to the upper glory, +himself the sole tenant of the stream. Somewhere at the founts of the world lay +the land he was rowing toward; something of its shadowed lights might be +discerned here and there. It was not a dream, now he knew. There was a secret +abroad. The woods were full of it; the waters rolled with it, and the winds. +Oh, why could not one in these days do some high knightly deed which should +draw down ladies’ eyes from their heaven, as in the days of Arthur! To +such a meaning breathed the unconscious sighs of the youth, when he had pulled +through his first feverish energy. +</p> + +<p> +He was off Bursley, and had lapsed a little into that musing quietude which +follows strenuous exercise, when he heard a hail and his own name called. It +was no lady, no fairy, but young Ralph Morton, an irruption of miserable +masculine prose. Heartily wishing him abed with the rest of mankind, Richard +rowed in and jumped ashore. Ralph immediately seized his arm, saying that he +desired earnestly to have a talk with him, and dragged the Magnetic Youth from +his water-dreams, up and down the wet mown grass. That he had to say seemed to +be difficult of utterance, and Richard, though he barely listened, soon had +enough of his old rival’s gladness at seeing him, and exhibited signs of +impatience; whereat Ralph, as one who branches into matter somewhat foreign to +his mind, but of great human interest and importance, put the question to him: +</p> + +<p> +“I say, what woman’s name do you like best?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know any,” quoth Richard, indifferently. “Why +are you out so early?” +</p> + +<p> +In answer to this, Ralph suggested that the name of Mary might be considered a +pretty name. +</p> + +<p> +Richard agreed that it might be; the housekeeper at Raynham, half the women +cooks, and all the housemaids enjoyed that name; the name of Mary was +equivalent for women at home. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I know,” said Ralph. “We have lots of Marys. It’s +so common. Oh! I don’t like Mary best. What do you think?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard thought it just like another. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know,” Ralph continued, throwing off the mask and plunging +into the subject, “I’d do anything on earth for some +names—one or two. It’s not Mary, nor Lucy. Clarinda’s pretty, +but it’s like a novel. Claribel, I like. Names beginning with +‘Cl’ I prefer. The ‘Cl’s’ are always gentle and +lovely girls you would die for! Don’t you think so?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard had never been acquainted with any of them to inspire that emotion. +Indeed these urgent appeals to his fancy in feminine names at five +o’clock in the morning slightly surprised him, though he was but half +awake to the outer world. By degrees he perceived that Ralph was changed. +Instead of the lusty boisterous boy, his rival in manly sciences, who spoke +straightforwardly and acted up to his speech, here was an abashed and +blush-persecuted youth, who sued piteously for a friendly ear wherein to pour +the one idea possessing him. Gradually, too, Richard apprehended that Ralph +likewise was on the frontiers of the Realm of Mystery, perhaps further toward +it than he himself was; and then, as by a sympathetic stroke, was revealed to +him the wonderful beauty and depth of meaning in feminine names. The theme +appeared novel and delicious, fitted to the season and the hour. But the +hardship was, that Richard could choose none from the number; all were the same +to him; he loved them all. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you really prefer the ‘Cl’s’?” said +Ralph, persuasively. +</p> + +<p> +“Not better than the names ending in ‘a’ and ‘y,’ +Richard replied, wishing he could, for Ralph was evidently ahead of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Come under these trees,” said Ralph. And under the trees Ralph +unbosomed. His name was down for the army: Eton was quitted for ever. In a few +months he would have to join his regiment, and before he left he must say +goodbye to his friends.... Would Richard tell him Mrs. Forey’s address? +he had heard she was somewhere by the sea. Richard did not remember the +address, but said he would willingly take charge of any letter and forward it. +</p> + +<p> +Ralph dived his hand into his pocket. “Here it is. But don’t let +anybody see it.” +</p> + +<p> +“My aunt’s name is not Clare,” said Richard, perusing what +was composed of the exterior formula. “You’ve addressed it to Clare +herself.” +</p> + +<p> +That was plain to see. +</p> + +<p> +“Emmeline Clementina Matilda Laura, Countess Blandish,” Richard +continued in a low tone, transferring the names, and playing on the musical +strings they were to him. Then he said: “Names of ladies! How they +sweeten their names!” +</p> + +<p> +He fixed his eyes on Ralph. If he discovered anything further he said nothing, +but bade the good fellow good-bye, jumped into his boat, and pulled down the +tide. The moment Ralph was hidden by an abutment of the banks, Richard perused +the address. For the first time it struck him that his cousin Clare was a very +charming creature: he remembered the look of her eyes, and especially the last +reproachful glance she gave him at parting. What business had Ralph to write to +her? Did she not belong to Richard Feverel? He read the words again and again: +Clare Doria Forey. Why, Clare was the name he liked best—nay, he loved +it. Doria, too—she shared his own name with him. Away went his heart, not +at a canter now, at a gallop, as one who sights the quarry. He felt too weak to +pull. Clare Doria Forey—oh, perfect melody! Sliding with the tide, he +heard it fluting in the bosom of the hills. +</p> + +<p> +When nature has made us ripe for love, it seldom occurs that the Fates are +behindhand in furnishing a temple for the flame. +</p> + +<p> +Above green-flashing plunges of a weir, and shaken by the thunder below, +lilies, golden and white, were swaying at anchor among the reeds. Meadow-sweet +hung from the banks thick with weed and trailing bramble, and there also hung a +daughter of earth. Her face was shaded by a broad straw hat with a flexible +brim that left her lips and chin in the sun, and, sometimes nodding, sent forth +a light of promising eyes. Across her shoulders, and behind, flowed large loose +curls, brown in shadow, almost golden where the ray touched them. She was +simply dressed, befitting decency and the season. On a closer inspection you +might see that her lips were stained. This blooming young person was regaling +on dewberries. They grew between the bank and the water. Apparently she found +the fruit abundant, for her hand was making pretty progress to her mouth. +Fastidious youth, which revolts at woman plumping her exquisite proportions on +bread-and-butter, and would (we must suppose) joyfully have her scraggy to have +her poetical, can hardly object to dewberries. Indeed the act of eating them is +dainty and induces musing. The dewberry is a sister to the lotus, and an +innocent sister. You eat: mouth, eye, and hand are occupied, and the undrugged +mind free to roam. And so it was with the damsel who knelt there. The little +skylark went up above her, all song, to the smooth southern cloud lying along +the blue: from a dewy copse dark over her nodding hat the blackbird fluted, +calling to her with thrice mellow note: the kingfisher flashed emerald out of +green osiers: a bow-winged heron travelled aloft, seeking solitude a boat +slipped toward her, containing a dreamy youth; and still she plucked the fruit, +and ate, and mused, as if no fairy prince were invading her territories, and as +if she wished not for one, or knew not her wishes. Surrounded by the green +shaven meadows, the pastoral summer buzz, the weir-fall’s thundering +white, amid the breath and beauty of wild flowers, she was a bit of lovely +human life in a fair setting; a terrible attraction. The Magnetic Youth leaned +round to note his proximity to the weir-piles, and beheld the sweet vision. +Stiller and stiller grew nature, as at the meeting of two electric clouds. Her +posture was so graceful, that though he was making straight for the weir, he +dared not dip a scull. Just then one enticing dewberry caught her eyes. He was +floating by unheeded, and saw that her hand stretched low, and could not gather +what it sought. A stroke from his right brought him beside her. The damsel +glanced up dismayed, and her whole shape trembled over the brink. Richard +sprang from his boat into the water. Pressing a hand beneath her foot, which +she had thrust against the crumbling wet sides of the bank to save herself, he +enabled her to recover her balance, and gain safe earth, whither he followed +her. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a> +CHAPTER XV</h2> + +<p> +He had landed on an island of the still-vexed Bermoothes. The world lay wrecked +behind him: Raynham hung in mists, remote, a phantom to the vivid reality of +this white hand which had drawn him thither away thousands of leagues in an +eye-twinkle. Hark, how Ariel sang overhead! What splendour in the heavens! What +marvels of beauty about his enchanted brows! And, O you wonder! Fair Flame! by +whose light the glories of being are now first seen....Radiant Miranda! Prince +Ferdinand is at your feet. +</p> + +<p> +Or is it Adam, his rib taken from his side in sleep, and thus transformed, to +make him behold his Paradise, and lose it?... +</p> + +<p> +The youth looked on her with as glowing an eye. It was the First Woman to him. +</p> + +<p> +And she—mankind was all Caliban to her, saving this one princely youth. +</p> + +<p> +So to each other said their changing eyes in the moment they stood together; he +pale, and she blushing. +</p> + +<p> +She was indeed sweetly fair, and would have been held fair among rival damsels. +On a magic shore, and to a youth educated by a System, strung like an arrow +drawn to the head, he, it might be guessed, could fly fast and far with her. +The soft rose in her cheeks, the clearness of her eyes, bore witness to the +body’s virtue; and health and happy blood were in her bearing. Had she +stood before Sir Austin among rival damsels, that Scientific Humanist, for the +consummation of his System, would have thrown her the handkerchief for his son. +The wide summer-hat, nodding over her forehead to her brows, seemed to flow +with the flowing heavy curls, and those fire-threaded mellow curls, only +half-curls, waves of hair call them, rippling at the ends, went like a sunny +red-veined torrent down her back almost to her waist: a glorious vision to the +youth, who embraced it as a flower of beauty, and read not a feature. There +were curious features of colour in her face for him to have read. Her brows, +thick and brownish against a soft skin showing the action of the blood, met in +the bend of a bow, extending to the temples long and level: you saw that she +was fashioned to peruse the sights of earth, and by the pliability of her brows +that the wonderful creature used her faculty, and was not going to be a statue +to the gazer. Under the dark thick brows an arch of lashes shot out, giving a +wealth of darkness to the full frank blue eyes, a mystery of meaning—more +than brain was ever meant to fathom: richer, henceforth, than all mortal wisdom +to Prince Ferdinand. For when nature turns artist, and produces contrasts of +colour on a fair face, where is the Sage, or what the Oracle, shall match the +depth of its lightest look? +</p> + +<p> +Prince Ferdinand was also fair. In his slim boating-attire his figure looked +heroic. His hair, rising from the parting to the right of his forehead, in what +his admiring Lady Blandish called his plume, fell away slanting silkily to the +temples across the nearly imperceptible upward curve of his brows +there—felt more than seen, so slight it was—and gave to his profile +a bold beauty, to which his bashful, breathless air was a flattering charm. An +arrow drawn to the head, capable of flying fast and far with her! He leaned a +little forward, drinking her in with all his eyes, and young Love has a +thousand. Then truly the System triumphed, just ere it was to fall; and could +Sir Austin have been content to draw the arrow to the head, and let it fly, +when it would fly, he might have pointed to his son again, and said to the +world, “Match him!” Such keen bliss as the youth had in the sight +of her, an innocent youth alone has powers of soul in him to experience. +</p> + +<p> +“O Women!” says The Pilgrim’s Scrip, in one of its solitary +outbursts, “Women, who like, and will have for hero, a rake! how soon are +you not to learn that you have taken bankrupts to your bosoms, and that the +putrescent gold that attracted you is the slime of the Lake of Sin!” +</p> + +<p> +If these two were Ferdinand and Miranda, Sir Austin was not Prospero, and was +not present, or their fates might have been different. +</p> + +<p> +So they stood a moment, changing eyes, and then Miranda spoke, and they came +down to earth, feeling no less in heaven. +</p> + +<p> +She spoke to thank him for his aid. She used quite common simple words; and +used them, no doubt, to express a common simple meaning: but to him she was +uttering magic, casting spells, and the effect they had on him was manifested +in the incoherence of his replies, which were too foolish to be chronicled. +</p> + +<p> +The couple were again mute. Suddenly Miranda, with an exclamation of anguish, +and innumerable lights and shadows playing over her lovely face, clapped her +hands, crying aloud, “My book! my book!” and ran to the bank. +</p> + +<p> +Prince Ferdinand was at her side. “What have you lost?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“My book!” she answered, her delicious curls swinging across her +shoulders to the stream. Then turning to him, “Oh, no, no! let me entreat +you not to,” she said; “I do not so very much mind losing +it.” And in her eagerness to restrain him she unconsciously laid her +gentle hand upon his arm, and took the force of motion out of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, I do not really care for the silly book,” she continued, +withdrawing her hand quickly, and reddening. “Pray, do not!” +</p> + +<p> +The young gentleman had kicked off his shoes. No sooner was the spell of +contact broken than he jumped in. The water was still troubled and discoloured +by his introductory adventure, and, though he ducked his head with the spirit +of a dabchick, the book was missing. A scrap of paper floating from the bramble +just above the water, and looking as if fire had caught its edges and it had +flown from one adverse element to the other, was all he could lay hold of; and +he returned to land disconsolately, to hear Miranda’s murmured mixing of +thanks and pretty expostulations. +</p> + +<p> +“Let me try again,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed!” she replied, and used the awful threat: “I will +run away if you do,” which effectually restrained him. +</p> + +<p> +Her eye fell on the fire-stained scrap of paper, and brightened, as she cried, +“There, there! you have what I want. It is that. I do not care for the +book. No, please! You are not to look at it. Give it me.” +</p> + +<p> +Before her playfully imperative injunction was fairly spoken, Richard had +glanced at the document and discovered a Griffin between two Wheatsheaves: his +crest in silver: and below—O wonderment immense! his own handwriting! +</p> + +<p> +He handed it to her. She took it, and put it in her bosom. +</p> + +<p> +Who would have thought, that, where all else perished, Odes, Idyls, Lines, +Stanzas, this one Sonnet to the stars should be miraculously reserved for such +a starry fate—passing beatitude! +</p> + +<p> +As they walked silently across the meadow, Richard strove to remember the hour +and the mood of mind in which he had composed the notable production. The stars +were invoked, as seeing and foreseeing all, to tell him where then his love +reclined, and so forth; Hesper was complacent enough to do so, and described +her in a couplet— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Through sunset’s amber see me shining fair,<br/> +As her blue eyes shine through her golden hair.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And surely no words could be more prophetic. Here were two blue eyes and golden +hair; and by some strange chance, that appeared like the working of a divine +finger, she had become the possessor of the prophecy, she that was to fulfil +it! The youth was too charged with emotion to speak. Doubtless the damsel had +less to think of, or had some trifling burden on her conscience, for she seemed +to grow embarrassed. At last she drew up her chin to look at her companion +under the nodding brim of her hat (and the action gave her a charmingly +freakish air), crying, “But where are you going to? You are wet through. +Let me thank you again; and, pray, leave me, and go home and change +instantly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wet?” replied the magnetic muser, with a voice of tender interest; +“not more than one foot, I hope. I will leave you while you dry your +stockings in the sun.” +</p> + +<p> +At this she could not withhold a shy laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Not I, but you. You would try to get that silly book for me, and you are +dripping wet. Are you not very uncomfortable?” +</p> + +<p> +In all sincerity he assured her that he was not. +</p> + +<p> +“And you really do not feel that you are wet?” +</p> + +<p> +He really did not: and it was a fact that he spoke truth. +</p> + +<p> +She pursed her dewberry mouth in the most comical way, and her blue eyes +lightened laughter out of the half-closed lids. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot help it,” she said, her mouth opening, and sounding +harmonious bells of laughter in his ears. “Pardon me, won’t +you?” +</p> + +<p> +His face took the same soft smiling curves in admiration of her. +</p> + +<p> +“Not to feel that you have been in the water, the very moment +after!” she musically interjected, seeing she was excused. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s true,” he said; and his own gravity then touched him to +join a duet with her, which made them no longer feel strangers, and did the +work of a month of intimacy. Better than sentiment, laughter opens the breast +to love; opens the whole breast to his full quiver, instead of a corner here +and there for a solitary arrow. Hail the occasion propitious, O British young! +and laugh and treat love as an honest God, and dabble not with the sentimental +rouge. These two laughed, and the souls of each cried out to other, “It +is I it is I.” +</p> + +<p> +They laughed and forgot the cause of their laughter, and the sun dried his +light river clothing, and they strolled toward the blackbird’s copse, and +stood near a stile in sight of the foam of the weir and the many-coloured rings +of eddies streaming forth from it. +</p> + +<p> +Richard’s boat, meanwhile, had contrived to shoot the weir, and was +swinging, bottom upward, broadside with the current down the rapid backwater. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you let it go?” said the damsel, eying it curiously. +</p> + +<p> +“It can’t be stopped,” he replied, and could have added: +“What do I care for it now!” +</p> + +<p> +His old life was whirled away with it, dead, drowned. His new life was with +her, alive, divine. +</p> + +<p> +She flapped low the brim of her hat. “You must really not come any +farther,” she softly said. +</p> + +<p> +“And will you go, and not tell me who you are?” he asked, growing +bold as the fears of losing her came across him. “And will you not tell +me before you go”—his face burned—“how you came by +that—that paper?” +</p> + +<p> +She chose to select the easier question for answer: “You ought to know +me; we have been introduced.” Sweet was her winning off-hand affability. +</p> + +<p> +“Then who, in heaven’s name, are you? Tell me! I never could have +forgotten you.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have, I think,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Impossible that we could ever have met, and I forget you!” +</p> + +<p> +She looked up at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember Belthorpe?” +</p> + +<p> +“Belthorpe! Belthorpe!” quoth Richard, as if he had to touch his +brain to recollect there was such a place. “Do you mean old +Blaize’s farm?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I am old Blaize’s niece.” She tripped him a soft +curtsey. +</p> + +<p> +The magnetized youth gazed at her. By what magic was it that this divine sweet +creature could be allied with that old churl! +</p> + +<p> +“Then what—what is your name?” said his mouth, while his eyes +added, “O wonderful creature! How came you to enrich the earth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you forgot the Desboroughs of Dorset, too?” she peered at him +from a side-bend of the flapping brim. +</p> + +<p> +“The Desboroughs of Dorset?” A light broke in on him. “And +have you grown to this? That little girl I saw there!” +</p> + +<p> +He drew close to her to read the nearest features of the vision. She could no +more laugh off the piercing fervour of his eyes. Her volubility fluttered under +his deeply wistful look, and now neither voice was high, and they were mutually +constrained. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” she murmured, “we are old acquaintances.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard, with his eyes still intently fixed on her, returned, “You are +very beautiful!” +</p> + +<p> +The words slipped out. Perfect simplicity is unconsciously audacious. Her +overpowering beauty struck his heart, and, like an instrument that is touched +and answers to the touch, he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +Miss Desborough made an effort to trifle with this terrible directness; but his +eyes would not be gainsaid, and checked her lips. She turned away from them, +her bosom a little rebellious. Praise so passionately spoken, and by one who +has been a damsel’s first dream, dreamed of nightly many long nights, and +clothed in the virgin silver of her thoughts in bud, praise from him is coin +the heart cannot reject, if it would. She quickened her steps. +</p> + +<p> +“I have offended you!” said a mortally wounded voice across her +shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +That he should think so were too dreadful. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, no! you would never offend me.” She gave him her whole +sweet face. +</p> + +<p> +“Then why—why do you leave me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because,” she hesitated, “I must go.” +</p> + +<p> +“No. You must not go. Why must you go? Do not go.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I must,” she said, pulling at the obnoxious broad brim of +her hat; and, interpreting a pause he made for his assent to her rational +resolve, shyly looking at him, she held her hand out, and said, +“Good-bye,” as if it were a natural thing to say. +</p> + +<p> +The hand was pure white—white and fragrant as the frosted blossom of a +Maynight. It was the hand whose shadow, cast before, he had last night bent his +head reverentially above, and kissed—resigning himself thereupon over to +execution for payment of the penalty of such daring—by such bliss well +rewarded. +</p> + +<p> +He took the hand, and held it, gazing between her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye,” she said again, as frankly as she could, and at the +same time slightly compressing her fingers on his in token of adieu. It was a +signal for his to close firmly upon hers. +</p> + +<p> +“You will not go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray, let me,” she pleaded, her sweet brows suing in wrinkles. +</p> + +<p> +“You will not go?” Mechanically he drew the white hand nearer his +thumping heart. +</p> + +<p> +“I must,” she faltered piteously. +</p> + +<p> +“You will not go?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes! yes!” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me. Do you wish to go?” +</p> + +<p> +The question was a subtle one. A moment or two she did not answer, and then +forswore herself, and said, Yes. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you—you wish to go?” He looked with quivering eyelids +under hers. +</p> + +<p> +A fainter Yes responded. +</p> + +<p> +“You wish—wish to leave me?” His breath went with the words. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I must.” +</p> + +<p> +Her hand became a closer prisoner. +</p> + +<p> +All at once an alarming delicious shudder went through her frame. From him to +her it coursed, and back from her to him. Forward and back love’s +electric messenger rushed from heart to heart, knocking at each, till it surged +tumultuously against the bars of its prison, crying out for its mate. They +stood trembling in unison, a lovely couple under these fair heavens of the +morning. +</p> + +<p> +When he could get his voice it said, “Will you go?” +</p> + +<p> +But she had none to reply with, and could only mutely bend upward her gentle +wrist. +</p> + +<p> +“Then, farewell!” he said, and, dropping his lips to the soft fair +hand, kissed it, and hung his head, swinging away from her, ready for death. +</p> + +<p> +Strange, that now she was released she should linger by him. Strange, that his +audacity, instead of the executioner, brought blushes and timid tenderness to +his side, and the sweet words, “You are not angry with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“With you, O Beloved!” cried his soul. “And you forgive me, +fair charity!” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it was rude of me to go without thanking you again,” she +said, and again proffered her hand. +</p> + +<p> +The sweet heaven-bird shivered out his song above him. The gracious glory of +heaven fell upon his soul. He touched her hand, not moving his eyes from her, +nor speaking, and she, with a soft word of farewell, passed across the stile, +and up the pathway through the dewy shades of the copse, and out of the arch of +the light, away from his eyes. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +And away with her went the wild enchantment. He looked on barren air. But it +was no more the world of yesterday. The marvellous splendours had sown seeds in +him, ready to spring up and bloom at her gaze; and in his bosom now the vivid +conjuration of her tones, her face, her shape, makes them leap and illumine him +like fitful summer lightnings—ghosts of the vanished sun. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing to tell him that he had been making love and declaring it +with extraordinary rapidity; nor did he know it. Soft flushed cheeks! sweet +mouth! strange sweet brows! eyes of softest fire! how could his ripe eyes +behold you, and not plead to keep you? Nay, how could he let you go? And he +seriously asked himself that question. +</p> + +<p> +To-morrow this place will have a memory—the river and the meadow, and the +white falling weir: his heart will build a temple here; and the skylark will be +its high-priest, and the old blackbird its glossy-gowned chorister, and there +will be a sacred repast of dewberries. To-day the grass is grass: his heart is +chased by phantoms and finds rest nowhere. Only when the most tender freshness +of his flower comes across him does he taste a moment’s calm; and no +sooner does it come than it gives place to keen pangs of fear that she may not +be his for ever. +</p> + +<p> +Erelong he learns that her name is Lucy. Erelong he meets Ralph, and discovers +that in a day he has distanced him by a sphere. He and Ralph and the curate of +Lobourne join in their walks, and raise classical discussions on ladies’ +hair, fingering a thousand delicious locks, from those of Cleopatra to the +Borgia’s. “Fair! fair! all of them fair!” sighs the +melancholy curate, “as are those women formed for our perdition! I think +we have in this country what will match the Italian or the Greek.” His +mind flutters to Mrs. Doria, Richard blushes before the vision of Lucy, and +Ralph, whose heroine’s hair is a dark luxuriance, dissents, and claims a +noble share in the slaughter of men for dark-haired Wonders. They have no +mutual confidences, but they are singularly kind to each other, these three +children of instinct. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a> +CHAPTER XVI</h2> + +<p> +Lady Blandish, and others who professed an interest in the fortunes and future +of the systematized youth, had occasionally mentioned names of families whose +alliance according to apparent calculations, would not degrade his blood: and +over these names, secretly preserved on an open leaf of the note-book, Sir +Austin, as he neared the metropolis, distantly dropped his eye. There were +names historic and names mushroomic; names that the Conqueror might have called +in his muster-roll; names that had been, clearly, tossed into the upper stratum +of civilized lifer by a millwheel or a merchant-stool. Against them the baronet +had written M. or Po. or Pr.—signifying, Money, Position, Principles, +favouring the latter with special brackets. The wisdom of a worldly man, which +he could now and then adopt, determined him, before he commenced his round of +visits, to consult and sound his solicitor and his physician thereanent; +lawyers and doctors being the rats who know best the merits of a house, and on +what sort of foundation it may be standing. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin entered the great city with a sad mind. The memory of his misfortune +came upon him vividly, as if no years had intervened, and it were but yesterday +that he found the letter telling him that he had no wife and his son no mother. +He wandered on foot through the streets the first night of his arrival, looking +strangely at the shops and shows and bustle of the world from which he had +divorced himself; feeling as destitute as the poorest vagrant. He had almost +forgotten how to find his way about, and came across his old mansion in his +efforts to regain his hotel. The windows were alight—signs of merry life +within. He stared at it from the shadow of the opposite side. It seemed to him +he was a ghost gazing upon his living past. And then the phantom which had +stood there mocking while he felt as other men—the phantom, now flesh and +blood reality, seized and convulsed his heart, and filled its unforgiving +crevices with bitter ironic venom. He remembered by the time reflection +returned to him that it was Algernon, who had the house at his disposal, +probably giving a card-party, or something of the sort. In the morning, too, he +remembered that he had divorced the world to wed a System, and must be faithful +to that exacting Spouse, who, now alone of things on earth, could fortify and +recompense him. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson received his client with the dignity and emotion due to such a +rent-roll and the unexpectedness of the honour. He was a thin stately man of +law, garbed as one who gave audience to acred bishops, and carrying on his +countenance the stamp of paternity to the parchment skins, and of a virtuous +attachment to Port wine sufficient to increase his respectability in the eyes +of moral Britain. After congratulating Sir Austin on the fortunate issue of two +or three suits, and being assured that the baronet’s business in town had +no concern therewith, Mr. Thompson ventured to hope that the young heir was all +his father could desire him to be, and heard with satisfaction that he was a +pattern to the youth of the Age. +</p> + +<p> +“A difficult time of life, Sir Austin!” said the old lawyer, +shaking his head. “We must keep our eyes on them—keep awake! The +mischief is done in a minute.” +</p> + +<p> +“We must take care to have seen where we planted, and that the root was +sound, or the mischief will do itself in spite of, or under the very spectacles +of, supervision,” said the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +His legal adviser murmured “Exactly,” as if that were his own idea, +adding, “It is my plan with Ripton, who has had the honour of an +introduction to you, and a very pleasant time he spent with my young friend, +whom he does not forget. Ripton follows the Law. He is articled to me, and +will, I trust, succeed me worthily in your confidence. I bring him into town in +the morning; I take him back at night. I think I may say that I am quite +content with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think,” said Sir Austin, fixing his brows, “that you +can trace every act of his to its motive?” +</p> + +<p> +The old lawyer bent forward and humbly requested that this might be repeated. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you”—Sir Austin held the same searching +expression—“do you establish yourself in a radiating centre of +intuition: do you base your watchfulness on so thorough an acquaintance with +his character, so perfect a knowledge of the instrument, that all its +movements—even the eccentric ones—are anticipated by you, and +provided for?” +</p> + +<p> +The explanation was a little too long for the old lawyer to entreat another +repetition. Winking with the painful deprecation of a deaf man, Mr. Thompson +smiled urbanely, coughed conciliatingly, and said he was afraid he could not +affirm that much, though he was happily enabled to say that Ripton had borne an +extremely good character at school. +</p> + +<p> +“I find,” Sir Austin remarked, as sardonically he relaxed his +inspecting pose and mien, “there are fathers who are content to be simply +obeyed. Now I require not only that my son should obey; I would have him +guiltless of the impulse to gainsay my wishes—feeling me in him stronger +than his undeveloped nature, up to a certain period, where my responsibility +ends and his commences. Man is a self-acting machine. He cannot cease to be a +machine; but, though self-acting, he may lose the powers of self-guidance, and +in a wrong course his very vitalities hurry him to perdition. Young, he is an +organism ripening to the set mechanic diurnal round, and while so he needs all +the angels to hold watch over him that he grow straight and healthy, and fit +for what machinal duties he may have to perform”... +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson agitated his eyebrows dreadfully. He was utterly lost. He +respected Sir Austin’s estates too much to believe for a moment he was +listening to downright folly. Yet how otherwise explain the fact of his +excellent client being incomprehensible to him? For a middle-aged gentleman, +and one who has been in the habit of advising and managing, will rarely have a +notion of accusing his understanding; and Mr. Thompson had not the slightest +notion of accusing his. But the baronet’s condescension in coming thus to +him, and speaking on the subject nearest his heart, might well affect him, and +he quickly settled the case in favour of both parties, pronouncing mentally +that his honoured client had a meaning, and so deep it was, so subtle, that no +wonder he experienced difficulty in giving it fitly significant words. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin elaborated his theory of the Organism and the Mechanism, for his +lawyer’s edification. At a recurrence of the word “healthy” +Mr. Thompson caught him up: +</p> + +<p> +“I apprehended you! Oh, I agree with you, Sir Austin! entirely! Allow me +to ring for my son Ripton. I think, if you condescend to examine him, you will +say that regular habits, and a diet of nothing but law-reading—for other +forms of literature I strictly interdict—have made him all that you +instance.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson’s hand was on the bell. Sir Austin arrested him. +</p> + +<p> +“Permit me to see the lad at his occupation,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +Our old friend Ripton sat in a room apart with the confidential clerk, Mr. +Beazley, a veteran of law, now little better than a document, looking already +signed and sealed, and shortly to be delivered, who enjoined nothing from his +pupil and companion save absolute silence, and sounded his praises to his +father at the close of days when it had been rigidly observed—not caring, +or considering, the finished dry old document that he was, under what kind of +spell a turbulent commonplace youth could be charmed into stillness for six +hours of the day. Ripton was supposed to be devoted to the study of Blackstone. +A tome of the classic legal commentator lay extended outside his desk, under +the partially lifted lid of which nestled the assiduous student’s +head—law being thus brought into direct contact with his brain-pan. The +office-door opened, and he heard not; his name was called, and he remained +equally moveless. His method of taking in Blackstone seemed absorbing as it was +novel. +</p> + +<p> +“Comparing notes, I daresay,” whispered Mr. Thompson to Sir Austin. +“I call that study!” +</p> + +<p> +The confidential clerk rose, and bowed obsequious senility. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it like this every day, Beazley?” Mr. Thompson asked with +parental pride. +</p> + +<p> +“Ahem!” the old clerk replied, “he is like this every day, +sir. I could not ask more of a mouse.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin stepped forward to the desk. His proximity roused one of +Ripton’s senses, which blew a pall to the others. Down went the lid of +the desk. Dismay, and the ardours of study, flashed together in Ripton’s +face. He slouched from his perch with the air of one who means rather to defend +his position than welcome a superior, the right hand in his waistcoat pocket +fumbling a key, the left catching at his vacant stool. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin put two fingers on the youth’s shoulder, and said, leaning his +head a little on one side, in a way habitual to him, “I am glad to find +my son’s old comrade thus profitably occupied. I know what study is +myself. But beware of prosecuting it too excitedly! Come! you must not be +offended at our interruption; you will soon take up the thread again. Besides, +you know, you must get accustomed to the visits of your client.” +</p> + +<p> +So condescending and kindly did this speech sound to Mr. Thompson, that, seeing +Ripton still preserve his appearance of disorder and sneaking defiance, he +thought fit to nod and frown at the youth, and desired him to inform the +baronet what particular part of Blackstone he was absorbed in mastering at that +moment. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton hesitated an instant, and blundered out, with dubious articulation, +“The Law of Gravelkind.” +</p> + +<p> +“What Law?” said Sir Austin, perplexed. +</p> + +<p> +“Gravelkind,” again rumbled Ripton’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin turned to Mr. Thompson for an explanation. The old lawyer was +shaking his law-box. +</p> + +<p> +“Singular!” he exclaimed. “He will make that mistake! What +law, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton read his error in the sternly painful expression of his father’s +face, and corrected himself. “Gavelkind, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” said Mr. Thompson, with a sigh of relief. “Gravelkind, +indeed! Gavelkind! An old Kentish”—He was going to expound, but Sir +Austin assured him he knew it, and a very absurd law it was, adding, “I +should like to look at your son’s notes, or remarks on the judiciousness +of that family arrangement, if he had any.” +</p> + +<p> +“You were making notes, or referring to them, as we entered,” said +Mr. Thompson to the sucking lawyer; “a very good plan, which I have +always enjoined on you. Were you not?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton stammered that he was afraid he hid not any notes to show, worth seeing. +</p> + +<p> +“What were you doing then, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Making notes,” muttered Ripton, looking incarnate subterfuge. +</p> + +<p> +“Exhibit!” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton glanced at his desk and then at his father; at Sir Austin, and at the +confidential clerk. He took out his key. It would not fit the hole. +</p> + +<p> +“Exhibit!” was peremptorily called again. +</p> + +<p> +In his praiseworthy efforts to accommodate the keyhole, Ripton discovered that +the desk was already unlocked. Mr. Thompson marched to it, and held the lid +aloft. A book was lying open within, which Ripton immediately hustled among a +mass of papers and tossed into a dark corner, not before the glimpse of a +coloured frontispiece was caught by Sir Austin’s eye. +</p> + +<p> +The baronet smiled, and said, “You study Heraldry, too? Are you fond of +the science?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton replied that he was very fond of it—extremely attached, and threw +a further pile of papers into the dark corner. +</p> + +<p> +The notes had been less conspicuously placed, and the search for them was +tedious and vain. Papers, not legal, or the fruits of study, were found, that +made Mr. Thompson more intimate with the condition of his son’s +exchequer; nothing in the shape of a remark on the Law of Gavelkind. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson suggested to his son that they might be among those scraps he had +thrown carelessly into the dark corner. Ripton, though he consented to inspect +them, was positive they were not there. +</p> + +<p> +“What have we here?” said Mr. Thompson, seizing a neatly folded +paper addressed to the Editor of a law publication, as Ripton brought them +forth, one by one. Forthwith Mr. Thompson fixed his spectacles and read aloud: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +“To the Editor of the ‘Jurist.’ +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,—In your recent observations on the great case of +Crim”— +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson hem’d! and stopped short, like a man who comes unexpectedly +upon a snake in his path. Mr. Beazley’s feet shuffled. Sir Austin changed +the position of an arm. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s on the other side, I think,” gasped Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson confidently turned over, and intoned with emphasis. +</p> + +<p> +“To Absalom, the son of David, the little Jew usurer of Bond Court, +Whitecross Gutters, for his introduction to Venus, I O U Five pounds, when I +can pay. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +“Signed: R<small>IPTON</small> T<small>HOMPSON</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +Underneath this fictitious legal instrument was discreetly appended: +</p> + +<p> +“(Mem. Document not binding.)” +</p> + +<p> +There was a pause: an awful under-breath of sanctified wonderment and reproach +passed round the office. Sir Austin assumed an attitude. Mr. Thompson shed a +glance of severity on his confidential clerk, who parried by throwing up his +hands. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton, now fairly bewildered, stuffed another paper under his father’s +nose, hoping the outside perhaps would satisfy him: it was marked “Legal +Considerations.” Mr. Thompson had no idea of sparing or shielding his +son. In fact, like many men whose self-love is wounded by their offspring, he +felt vindictive, and was ready to sacrifice him up to a certain point, for the +good of both. He therefore opened the paper, expecting something worse than +what he had hitherto seen, despite its formal heading, and he was not +disappointed. +</p> + +<p> +The “Legal Considerations” related to the Case regarding, which +Ripton had conceived it imperative upon him to address a letter to the Editor +of the “Jurist,” and was indeed a great case, and an ancient; +revived apparently for the special purpose of displaying the forensic abilities +of the Junior Counsel for the Plaintiff, Mr. Ripton Thompson, whose assistance +the Attorney-General, in his opening statement, congratulated himself on +securing; a rather unusual thing, due probably to the eminence and renown of +that youthful gentleman at the Bar of his country. So much was seen from the +copy of a report purporting to be extracted from a newspaper, and prefixed to +the Junior Counsel’s remarks, or Legal Considerations, on the conduct of +the Case, the admissibility and non-admissibility of certain evidence, and the +ultimate decision of the judges. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson, senior, lifted the paper high, with the spirit of one prepared to +do execution on the criminal, and in the voice of a town-crier, varied by a +bitter accentuation and satiric sing-song tone, deliberately read: +</p> + +<p class="center"> +“V<small>ULCAN</small> <i>v</i>. M<small>ARS</small>. +</p> + +<p> +“The Attorney-General, assisted by Mr. Ripton Thompson, appeared on +behalf of the Plaintiff. Mr. Serjeant Cupid, Q.C., and Mr. Capital Opportunity, +for the Defendant.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” snapped Mr. Thompson, senior, peering venom at the +unfortunate Ripton over his spectacles, “your notes are on that issue, +sir! Thus you employ your time, sir!” +</p> + +<p> +With another side-shot at the confidential clerk, who retired immediately +behind a strong entrenchment of shrugs, Mr. Thompson was pushed by the devil of +his rancour to continue reading: +</p> + +<p> +“This Case is too well known to require more than a partial summary of +particulars”... +</p> + +<p> +“Ahem! we will skip the particulars, however partial,” said Mr. +Thompson. “Ah!—what do you mean here, sir,—but enough! I +think we may be excused your Legal Considerations on such a Case. This is how +you employ your law-studies, sir! You put them to this purpose? Mr. Beazley! +you will henceforward sit alone. I must have this young man under my own eye. +Sir Austin! permit me to apologize to you for subjecting you to a scene so +disagreeable. It was a father’s duty not to spare him.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson wiped his forehead, as Brutus might have done after passing +judgment on the scion of his house. +</p> + +<p> +“These papers,” he went on, fluttering Ripton’s precious +lucubrations in a waving judicial hand, “I shall retain. The day will +come when he will regard them with shame. And it shall be his penance, his +punishment, to do so! Stop!” he cried, as Ripton was noiselessly shutting +his desk, “have you more of them, sir; of a similar description? Rout +them out! Let us know you at your worst. What have you there—in that +corner?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton was understood to say he devoted that corner to old briefs on important +cases. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson thrust his trembling fingers among the old briefs, and turned over +the volume Sir Austin had observed, but without much remarking it, for his +suspicions had not risen to print. +</p> + +<p> +“A Manual of Heraldry?” the baronet politely, and it may be +ironically, inquired, before it could well escape. +</p> + +<p> +“I like it very much,” said Ripton, clutching the book in dreadful +torment. +</p> + +<p> +“Allow me to see that you have our arms and crest correct.” The +baronet proffered a hand for the book. +</p> + +<p> +“A Griffin between two Wheatsheaves,” cried Ripton, still clutching +it nervously. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson, without any notion of what he was doing, drew the book from +Ripton’s hold; whereupon the two seniors laid their grey heads together +over the title-page. It set forth in attractive characters beside a coloured +frontispiece, which embodied the promise displayed there, the entrancing +adventures of Miss Random, a strange young lady. +</p> + +<p> +Had there been a Black Hole within the area of those law regions to consign +Ripton to there and then, or an Iron Rod handy to mortify his sinful flesh, Mr. +Thompson would have used them. As it was, he contented himself by looking Black +Holes and Iron Rods at the detected youth, who sat on his perch insensible to +what might happen next, collapsed. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson cast the wicked creature down with a “Pah!” He, +however, took her up again, and strode away with her. Sir Austin gave Ripton a +forefinger, and kindly touched his head, saying, “Good-bye, boy! At some +future date Richard will be happy to see you at Raynham.” +</p> + +<p> +Undoubtedly this was a great triumph to the System! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a> +CHAPTER XVII</h2> + +<p> +The conversation between solicitor and client was resumed. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it possible,” quoth Mr. Thompson, the moment he had ushered his +client into his private room, “that you will consent, Sir Austin, to see +him and receive him again?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” the baronet replied. “Why not? This by no means +astonishes me. When there is no longer danger to my son he will be welcome as +he was before. He is a schoolboy. I knew it. I expected it. The results of your +principle, Thompson!” +</p> + +<p> +“One of the very worst books of that abominable class!” exclaimed +the old lawyer, opening at the coloured frontispiece, from which brazen Miss +Random smiled bewitchingly out, as if she had no doubt of captivating Time and +all his veterans on a fair field. “Pah!” he shut her to with the +energy he would have given to the office of publicly slapping her face; +“from this day I diet him on bread and water—rescind his +pocket-money!—How he could have got hold of such a book! How he—! +And what ideas! Concealing them from me as he has done so cunningly! He trifles +with vice! His mind is in a putrid state! I might have believed—I did +believe—I might have gone on believing—my son Ripton to be a moral +young man!” The old lawyer interjected on the delusion of fathers, and +sat down in a lamentable abstraction. +</p> + +<p> +“The lad has come out!” said Sir Austin. “His adoption of the +legal form is amusing. He trifles with vice, true: people newly initiated are +as hardy as its intimates, and a young sinner’s amusements will resemble +those of a confirmed debauchee. The satiated, and the insatiate, appetite alike +appeal to extremes. You are astonished at this revelation of your son’s +condition. I expected it; though assuredly, believe me, not this sudden and +indisputable proof of it. But I knew that the seed was in him, and therefore I +have not latterly invited him to Raynham. School, and the corruption there, +will bear its fruits sooner or later. I could advise you, Thompson, what to do +with him: it would be my plan.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson murmured, like a true courtier, that he should esteem it an honour +to be favoured with Sir Austin Feverel’s advice: secretly resolute, like +a true Briton, to follow his own. +</p> + +<p> +“Let him, then,” continued the baronet, “see vice in its +nakedness. While he has yet some innocence, nauseate him! Vice, taken little by +little, usurps gradually the whole creature. My counsel to you, Thompson, would +be, to drag him through the sinks of town.” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson began to blink again. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I shall punish him, Sir Austin! Do not fear me, sir. I have no +tenderness for vice.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is not what is wanted, Thompson. You mistake me. He should be dealt +with gently. Heavens! do you hope to make him hate vice by making him a martyr +for its sake? You must descend from the pedestal of age to become his Mentor: +cause him to see how certainly and pitilessly vice itself punishes: accompany +him into its haunts”— +</p> + +<p> +“Over town?” broke forth Mr. Thompson. +</p> + +<p> +“Over town,” said the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +“And depend upon it,” he added, “that, until fathers act +thoroughly up to their duty, we shall see the sights we see in great cities, +and hear the tales we hear in little villages, with death and calamity in our +homes, and a legacy of sorrow and shame to the generations to come. I do +aver,” he exclaimed, becoming excited, “that, if it were not for +the duty to my son, and the hope I cherish in him, I, seeing the accumulation +of misery we are handing down to an innocent posterity—to whom, through +our sin, the fresh breath of life will be foul—I—yes! I would hide +my name! For whither are we tending? What home is pure absolutely? What cannot +our doctors and lawyers tell us?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson acquiesced significantly. +</p> + +<p> +“And what is to come of this?” Sir Austin continued. “When +the sins of the fathers are multiplied by the sons, is not perdition the final +sum of things? And is not life, the boon of heaven, growing to be the +devil’s game utterly? But for my son, I would hide my name. I would not +bequeath it to be cursed by them that walk above my grave!” +</p> + +<p> +This was indeed a terrible view of existence. Mr. Thompson felt uneasy. There +was a dignity in his client, an impressiveness in his speech, that silenced +remonstrating reason and the cry of long years of comfortable respectability. +Mr. Thompson went to church regularly; paid his rates and dues without +overmuch, or at least more than common, grumbling. On the surface he was a good +citizen, fond of his children, faithful to his wife, devoutly marching to a +fair seat in heaven on a path paved by something better than a thousand a year. +But here was a man sighting him from below the surface, and though it was an +unfair, unaccustomed, not to say un-English, method of regarding one’s +fellow-man, Mr. Thompson was troubled by it. What though his client +exaggerated? Facts were at the bottom of what he said. And he was +acute—he had unmasked Ripton! Since Ripton’s exposure he winced at +a personal application in the text his client preached from. Possibly this was +the secret source of part of his anger against that peccant youth. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson shook his head, and, with dolefully puckered visage and a pitiable +contraction of his shoulders, rose slowly up from his chair. Apparently he was +about to speak, but he straightway turned and went meditatively to a +side-recess in the room, whereof he opened a door, drew forth a tray and a +decanter labelled Port, filled a glass for his client, deferentially invited +him to partake of it; filled another glass for himself, and drank. +</p> + +<p> +That was his reply. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin never took wine before dinner. Thompson had looked as if he meant to +speak: he waited for Thompson’s words. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson saw that, as his client did not join him in his glass, the +eloquence of that Porty reply was lost on his client. +</p> + +<p> +Having slowly ingurgitated and meditated upon this precious draught, and turned +its flavour over and over with an aspect of potent Judicial wisdom (one might +have thought that he was weighing mankind in the balance), the old lawyer +heaved, and said, sharpening his lips over the admirable vintage, “The +world is in a very sad state, I fear, Sir Austin!” +</p> + +<p> +His client gazed at him queerly. +</p> + +<p> +“But that,” Mr. Thompson added immediately, ill-concealing by his +gaze the glowing intestinal congratulations going on within him, “that +is, I think you would say, Sir Austin—if I could but prevail upon +you—a tolerably good character wine!” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s virtue somewhere, I see, Thompson!” Sir Austin +murmured, without disturbing his legal adviser’s dimples. +</p> + +<p> +The old lawyer sat down to finish his glass, saying, that such a wine was not +to be had everywhere. +</p> + +<p> +They were then outwardly silent for a apace. Inwardly one of them was full of +riot and jubilant uproar: as if the solemn fields of law were suddenly to be +invaded and possessed by troops of Bacchanals: and to preserve a decently +wretched physiognomy over it, and keep on terms with his companion, he had to +grimace like a melancholy clown in a pantomime. +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Thompson brushed back his hair. The baronet was still expectant. Mr. +Thompson sighed deeply, and emptied his glass. He combated the change that had +come over him. He tried not to see Ruby. He tried to feel miserable, and it was +not in him. He spoke, drawing what appropriate inspirations he could from his +client’s countenance, to show that they had views in common: +“Degenerating sadly, I fear!” +</p> + +<p> +The baronet nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“According to what my wine-merchants say,” continued Mr. Thompson, +“there can be no doubt about it.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin stared. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the grape, or the ground, or something,” Mr. Thompson +went on. “All I can say is, our youngsters will have a bad look-out! In +my opinion Government should be compelled to send out a Commission to inquire +into the cause. To Englishmen it would be a public calamity. It surprises +me—I hear men sit and talk despondently of this extraordinary disease of +the vine, and not one of them seems to think it incumbent on him to act, and do +his best to stop it.” He fronted his client like a man who accuses an +enormous public delinquency. “Nobody makes a stir! The apathy of +Englishmen will become proverbial. Pray, try it, Sir Austin! Pray, allow me. +Such a wine cannot disagree at any hour. Do! I am allowanced two glasses three +hours before dinner. Stomachic. I find it agree with me surprisingly: quite a +new man. I suppose it will last our time. It must! What should we do? +There’s no Law possible without it. Not a lawyer of us could live. Ours +is an occupation which dries the blood.” +</p> + +<p> +The scene with Ripton had unnerved him, the wine had renovated, and gratitude +to the wine inspired his tongue. He thought that his client, of the whimsical +mind, though undoubtedly correct moral views, had need of a glass. +</p> + +<p> +“Now that very wine—Sir Austin—I think I do not err in +saying, that very wine your respected father, Sir Pylcher Feverel, used to +taste whenever he came to consult my father, when I was a boy. And I remember +one day being called in, and Sir Pylcher himself poured me out a glass. I wish +I could call in Ripton now, and do the same. No! Leniency in such a case as +that!—The wine would not hurt him—I doubt if there be much left for +him to welcome his guests with. Ha! ha! Now if I could persuade you, Sir +Austin, as you do not take wine before dinner, some day to favour me with your +company at my little country cottage I have a wine there—the fellow to +that—I think you would, I do think you would”—Mr. Thompson +meant to say, he thought his client would arrive at something of a similar +jocund contemplation of his fellows in their degeneracy that inspirited lawyers +after potation, but condensed the sensual promise into “highly +approve.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin speculated on his legal adviser with a sour mouth comically +compressed. +</p> + +<p> +It stood clear to him that Thompson before his Port, and Thompson after, were +two different men. To indoctrinate him now was too late: it was perhaps the +time to make the positive use of him he wanted. +</p> + +<p> +He pencilled on a handy slip of paper: “Two prongs of a fork; the World +stuck between them—Port and the Palate: ’Tis one which fails +first—Down goes World;” and again the +hieroglyph—“Port-spectacles.” He said, “I shall gladly +accompany you this evening, Thompson,” words that transfigured the +delighted lawyer, and ensigned the skeleton of a great Aphorism to his pocket, +there to gather flesh and form, with numberless others in a like condition. +</p> + +<p> +“I came to visit my lawyer,” he said to himself. “I think I +have been dealing with The World in epitome!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a> +CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + +<p> +The rumour circulated that Sir Austin Feverel, the recluse of Raynham, the rank +misogynist, the rich baronet, was in town, looking out a bride for his only son +and uncorrupted heir. Doctor Benjamin Bairam was the excellent authority. +Doctor Bairam had safely delivered Mrs. Deborah Gossip of this interesting +bantling, which was forthwith dandled in dozens of feminine laps. Doctor Bairam +could boast the first interview with the famous recluse. He had it from his own +lips that the object of the baronet was to look out a bride for his only son +and uncorrupted heir; “and,” added the doctor, “she’ll +be lucky who gets him.” Which was interpreted to mean, that he would be a +catch; the doctor probably intending to allude to certain extraordinary +difficulties in the way of a choice. +</p> + +<p> +A demand was made on the publisher of The Pilgrim’s Scrip for all his +outstanding copies. Conventionalities were defied. A summer-shower of cards +fell on the baronet’s table. +</p> + +<p> +He had few male friends. He shunned the Clubs as nests of scandal. The cards he +contemplated were mostly those of the sex, with the husband, if there was a +husband, evidently dragged in for propriety’s sake. He perused the cards +and smiled. He knew their purpose. What terrible light Thompson and Bairam had +thrown on some of them! Heavens! in what a state was the blood of this Empire. +</p> + +<p> +Before commencing his campaign he called on two ancient intimates, Lord Heddon, +and his distant cousin Darley Absworthy, both Members of Parliament, useful +men, though gouty, who had sown in their time a fine crop of wild oats, and +advocated the advantage of doing so, seeing that they did not fancy themselves +the worse for it. He found one with an imbecile son and the other with +consumptive daughters. “So much,” he wrote in the Note-book, +“for the Wild Oats theory!” +</p> + +<p> +Darley was proud of his daughters’ white and pink skins. “Beautiful +complexions,” he called them. The eldest was in the market, immensely +admired. Sir Austin was introduced to her. She talked fluently and sweetly. A +youth not on his guard, a simple school-boy youth, or even a man, might have +fallen in love with her, she was so affable and fair. There was something +poetic about her. And she was quite well, she said, the baronet frequently +questioning her on that point. She intimated that she was robust; but towards +the close of their conversation her hand would now and then travel to her side, +and she breathed painfully an instant, saying, “Isn’t it odd? Dora, +Adela, and myself, we all feel the same queer sensation—about the heart, +I think it is—after talking much.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin nodded and blinked sadly, exclaiming to his soul, “Wild oats! +wild oats!” +</p> + +<p> +He did not ask permission to see Dora and Adela. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Heddon vehemently preached wild oats. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all nonsense, Feverel,” he said, “about bringing +up a lad out of the common way. He’s all the better for a little +racketing when he’s green—feels his bone and muscle—learns to +know the world. He’ll never be a man if he hasn’t played at the old +game one time in his life, and the earlier the better. I’ve always found +the best fellows were wildish once. I don’t care what he does when +he’s a green-horn; besides, he’s got an excuse for it then. You +can’t expect to have a man, if he doesn’t take a man’s food. +You’ll have a milksop. And, depend upon it, when he does break out +he’ll go to the devil, and nobody pities him. Look what those fellows the +grocers, do when they get hold of a young—what d’ye call +’em?—apprentice. They know the scoundrel was born with a sweet +tooth. Well! they give him the run of the shop, and in a very short time he +soberly deals out the goods, a devilish deal too wise to abstract a morsel even +for the pleasure of stealing. I know you have contrary theories. You hold that +the young grocer should have a soul above sugar. It won’t do! Take my +word for it, Feverel, it’s a dangerous experiment, that of bringing up +flesh and blood in harness. No colt will bear it, or he’s a tame beast. +And look you: take it on medical grounds. Early excesses the frame will recover +from: late ones break the constitution. There’s the case in a nutshell. +How’s your son?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sound and well!” replied Sir Austin. “And yours?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, Lipscombe’s always the same!” Lord Heddon sighed +peevishly. “He’s quiet—that’s one good thing; but +there’s no getting the country to take him, so I must give up hopes of +that.” +</p> + +<p> +Lord Lipscombe entering the room just then, Sir Austin surveyed him, and was +not astonished at the refusal of the country to take him. +</p> + +<p> +“Wild oats!” he thought, as he contemplated the headless, +degenerate, weedy issue and result. +</p> + +<p> +Both Darley Absworthy and Lord Heddon spoke of the marriage of their offspring +as a matter of course. “And if I were not a coward,” Sir Austin +confessed to himself, “I should stand forth and forbid the banns! This +universal ignorance of the inevitable consequence of sin is frightful! The wild +oats plea is a torpedo that seems to have struck the world, and rendered it +morally insensible.” However, they silenced him. He was obliged to spare +their feelings on a subject to him so deeply sacred. The healthful image of his +noble boy rose before him, a triumphant living rejoinder to any hostile +argument. +</p> + +<p> +He was content to remark to his doctor, that he thought the third generation of +wild oats would be a pretty thin crop! +</p> + +<p> +Families against whom neither Thompson lawyer nor Bairam physician could +recollect a progenitorial blot, either on the male or female side, were not +numerous. “Only,” said the doctors “you really must not be +too exacting in these days, my dear Sir Austin. It is impossible to contest +your principle, and you are doing mankind incalculable service in calling its +attention to this the gravest of its duties: but as the stream of civilization +progresses we must be a little taken in the lump, as it were. The world is, I +can assure you—and I do not look only above the surface, you can +believe—the world is awakening to the vital importance of the +question.” +</p> + +<p> +“Doctor,” replied Sir Austin, “if you had a pure-blood Arab +barb would you cross him with a screw?” +</p> + +<p> +“Decidedly not,” said the doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“Then permit me to say, I shall employ every care to match my son +according to his merits,” Sir Austin returned. “I trust the world +is awakening, as you observe. I have been to my publisher, since my arrival in +town, with a manuscript ‘Proposal for a New System of Education of our +British Youth,’ which may come in opportunely. I think I am entitled to +speak on that subject.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” said the doctor. “You will admit, Sir Austin, +that, compared with continental nations—our neighbours, for +instance—we shine to advantage, in morals, as in everything else. I hope +you admit that?” +</p> + +<p> +“I find no consolation in shining by comparison with a lower +standard,” said the baronet. “If I compare the enlightenment of +your views—for you admit my principle—with the obstinate +incredulity of a country doctor’s, who sees nothing of the world, you are +hardly flattered, I presume?” +</p> + +<p> +Doctor Bairam would hardly be flattered at such a comparison, assuredly, he +interjected. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides,” added the baronet, “the French make no pretences, +and thereby escape one of the main penalties of hypocrisy. Whereas +we!—but I am not their advocate, credit me. It is better, perhaps, to pay +our homage to virtue. At least it delays the spread of entire +corruptness.” +</p> + +<p> +Doctor Bairam wished the baronet success, and diligently endeavoured to assist +his search for a mate worthy of the pure-blood barb, by putting several mamas, +whom he visited, on the alert. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a> +CHAPTER XIX</h2> + +<p> +Away with Systems! Away with a corrupt World! Let us breathe the air of the +Enchanted Island. +</p> + +<p> +Golden lie the meadows: golden run the streams; red gold is on the pine-stems. +The sun is coming down to earth, and walks the fields and the waters. +</p> + +<p> +The sun is coming down to earth, and the fields and the waters shout to him +golden shouts. He comes, and his heralds run before him, and touch the leaves +of oaks and planes and beeches lucid green, and the pine-stems redder gold; +leaving brightest footprints upon thickly-weeded banks, where the +foxglove’s last upper-bells incline, and bramble-shoots wander amid moist +rich herbage. The plumes of the woodland are alight; and beyond them, over the +open, ’tis a race with the long-thrown shadows; a race across the heaths +and up the hills, till, at the farthest bourne of mounted eastern cloud, the +heralds of the sun lay rosy fingers and rest. +</p> + +<p> +Sweet are the shy recesses of the woodland. The ray treads softly there. A film +athwart the pathway quivers many-hued against purple shade fragrant with warm +pines, deep moss-beds, feathery ferns. The little brown squirrel drops tail, +and leaps; the inmost bird is startled to a chance tuneless note. From silence +into silence things move. +</p> + +<p> +Peeps of the revelling splendour above and around enliven the conscious full +heart within. The flaming West, the crimson heights, shower their glories +through voluminous leafage. But these are bowers where deep bliss dwells, +imperial joy, that owes no fealty to yonder glories, in which the young lamb +gambols and the spirits of men are glad. Descend, great Radiance! embrace +creation with beneficent fire, and pass from us! You and the vice-regal light +that succeeds to you, and all heavenly pageants, are the ministers and the +slaves of the throbbing content within. +</p> + +<p> +For this is the home of the enchantment. Here, secluded from vexed shores, the +prince and princess of the island meet: here like darkling nightingales they +sit, and into eyes and ears and hands pour endless ever-fresh treasures of +their souls. +</p> + +<p> +Roll on, grinding wheels of the world: cries of ships going down in a calm, +groans of a System which will not know its rightful hour of exultation, +complain to the universe. You are not heard here. +</p> + +<p> +He calls her by her name, Lucy: and she, blushing at her great boldness, has +called him by his, Richard. Those two names are the key-notes of the wonderful +harmonies the angels sing aloft. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy! my beloved!” +</p> + +<p> +“O Richard!” +</p> + +<p> +Out in the world there, on the skirts of the woodland, a sheep-boy pipes to +meditative eye on a penny-whistle. +</p> + +<p> +Love’s musical instrument is as old, and as poor: it has but two stops; +and yet, you see, the cunning musician does thus much with it! +</p> + +<p> +Other speech they have little; light foam playing upon waves of feeling, and of +feeling compact, that bursts only when the sweeping volume is too wild, and is +no more than their sigh of tenderness spoken. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps love played his tune so well because their natures had unblunted edges, +and were keen for bliss, confiding in it as natural food. To gentlemen and +ladies he fine-draws upon the viol, ravishingly; or blows into the mellow +bassoon; or rouses the heroic ardours of the trumpet; or, it may be, commands +the whole Orchestra for them. And they are pleased. He is still the cunning +musician. They languish, and taste ecstasy: but it is, however sonorous, an +earthly concert. For them the spheres move not to two notes. They have lost, or +forfeited and never known, the first super-sensual spring of the ripe senses +into passion; when they carry the soul with them, and have the privileges of +spirits to walk disembodied, boundlessly to feel. Or one has it, and the other +is a dead body. Ambrosia let them eat, and drink the nectar: here sit a couple +to whom Love’s simple bread and water is a finer feast. +</p> + +<p> +Pipe, happy sheep-bop, Love! Irradiated angels, unfold your wings and lift your +voices! +</p> + +<p> +They have out-flown philosophy. Their instinct has shot beyond the ken of +science. They were made for their Eden. +</p> + +<p> +“And this divine gift was in store for me!” +</p> + +<p> +So runs the internal outcry of each, clasping each: it is their recurring +refrain to the harmonies. How it illumined the years gone by and suffused the +living Future! +</p> + +<p> +“You for me: I for you!” +</p> + +<p> +“We are born for each other!” +</p> + +<p> +They believe that the angels have been busy about them from their cradles. The +celestial hosts have worthily striven to bring them together. And, O victory! O +wonder! after toil and pain, and difficulties exceeding, the celestial hosts +have succeeded! +</p> + +<p> +“Here we two sit who are written above as one!” +</p> + +<p> +Pipe, happy Love! pipe on to these dear innocents! +</p> + +<p> +The tide of colour has ebbed from the upper sky. In the West the sea of sunken +fire draws back; and the stars leap forth, and tremble, and retire before the +advancing moon, who slips the silver train of cloud from her shoulders, and, +with her foot upon the pine-tops, surveys heaven. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy, did you never dream of meeting me?” +</p> + +<p> +“O Richard! yes; for I remembered you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy! and did you pray that we might meet?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did!” +</p> + +<p> +Young as when she looked upon the lovers in Paradise, the fair Immortal +journeys onward. Fronting her, it is not night but veiled day. Full half the +sky is flushed. Not darkness, not day, but the nuptials of the two. +</p> + +<p> +“My own! my own for ever! You are pledged to me? Whisper!” +</p> + +<p> +He hears the delicious music. +</p> + +<p> +“And you are mine?” +</p> + +<p> +A soft beam travels to the fern-covert under the pinewood where they sit, and +for answer he has her eyes turned to him an instant, timidly fluttering over +the depths of his, and then downcast; for through her eyes her soul is naked to +him. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy! my bride! my life!” +</p> + +<p> +The night-jar spins his dark monotony on the branch of the pine. The soft beam +travels round them, and listens to their hearts. Their lips are locked. +</p> + +<p> +Pipe no more, Love, for a time! Pipe as you will you cannot express their first +kiss; nothing of its sweetness, and of the sacredness of it nothing. St. +Cecilia up aloft, before the silver organ-pipes of Paradise, pressing fingers +upon all the notes of which Love is but one, from her you may hear it. +</p> + +<p> +So Love is silent. Out in the world there, on the skirts of the woodland, the +self-satisfied sheep-boy delivers a last complacent squint down the length of +his penny-whistle, and, with a flourish correspondingly awry, he also marches +into silence, hailed by supper. The woods are still. There is heard but the +night-jar spinning on the pine-branch, circled by moonlight. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a> +CHAPTER XX</h2> + +<p> +Enchanted Islands have not yet rooted out their old brood of dragons. Wherever +there is romance, these monsters come by inimical attraction. Because the +heavens are certainly propitious to true lovers, the beasts of the abysses are +banded to destroy them, stimulated by innumerable sad victories; and every +love-tale is an Epic Par of the upper and lower powers. I wish good fairies +were a little more active. They seem to be cajoled into security by the +happiness of their favourites; whereas the wicked are always alert, and +circumspect. They let the little ones shut their eyes to fancy they are not +seen, and then commence. +</p> + +<p> +These appointments and meetings, involving a start from the dinner-table at the +hour of contemplative digestion and prime claret; the hour when the wise youth +Adrian delighted to talk at his ease—to recline in dreamy consciousness +that a work of good was going on inside him; these abstractions from his +studies, excesses of gaiety, and glumness, heavings of the chest, and other odd +signs, but mainly the disgusting behaviour of his pupil at the dinner-table, +taught Adrian to understand, though the young gentleman was clever in excuses, +that he had somehow learnt there was another half to the divided Apple of +Creation, and had embarked upon the great voyage of discovery of the difference +between the two halves. With his usual coolness Adrian debated whether he might +be in the observatory or the practical stage of the voyage. For himself, as a +man and a philosopher, Adrian had no objection to its being either; and he had +only to consider which was temporarily most threatening to the ridiculous +System he had to support. Richard’s absence annoyed him. The youth was +vivacious, and his enthusiasm good fun; and besides, when he left table, Adrian +had to sit alone with Hippias and the Eighteenth Century, from both of whom he +had extracted all the amusement that could be got, and he saw his digestion +menaced by the society of two ruined stomachs, who bored him just when he loved +himself most. Poor Hippias was now so reduced that he had profoundly to +calculate whether a particular dish, or an extra-glass of wine, would have a +bitter effect on him and be felt through the remainder of his years. He was in +the habit of uttering his calculations half aloud, wherein the prophetic doubts +of experience, and the succulent insinuations of appetite, contended hotly. It +was horrible to hear him, so let us pardon Adrian for tempting him to a +decision in favour of the moment. +</p> + +<p> +“Happy to take wine with you,” Adrian would say, and Hippias would +regard the decanter with a pained forehead, and put up the doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“Drink, nephew Hippy, and think of the doctor to-morrow!” the +Eighteenth Century cheerily ruffles her cap at him, and recommends her own +practice. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s this literary work!” interjects Hippias, handling his +glass of remorse. “I don’t know what else it can be. You have no +idea how anxious I feel. I have frightful dreams. I’m perpetually +anxious.” +</p> + +<p> +“No wonder,” says Adrian, who enjoys the childish simplicity to +which an absorbed study of his sensational existence has brought poor Hippias. +“No wonder. Ten years of Fairy Mythology! Could anyone hope to sleep in +peace after that? As to your digestion, no one has a digestion who is in the +doctor’s hands. They prescribe from dogmas, and don’t count on the +system. They have cut you down from two bottles to two glasses. It’s +absurd. You can’t sleep, because your system is crying out for what +it’s accustomed to.” +</p> + +<p> +Hippias sips his Madeira with a niggardly confidence, but assures Adrian that +he really should not like to venture on a bottle now: it would be rank madness +to venture on a bottle now, he thinks. Last night only, after partaking, under +protest, of that rich French dish, or was it the duck?—Adrian advised him +to throw the blame on that vulgar bird.—Say the duck, then. Last night, +he was no sooner stretched in bed, than he seemed to be of an enormous size all +his limbs—his nose, his mouth, his toes—were elephantine! An +elephant was a pigmy to him. And his hugeousness seemed to increase the instant +he shut his eyes. He turned on this side; he turned on that. He lay on his +back; he tried putting his face to the pillow; and he continued to swell. He +wondered the room could hold him—he thought he must burst it—and +absolutely lit a candle, and went to the looking-glass to see whether he was +bearable. +</p> + +<p> +By this time Adrian and Richard were laughing uncontrollably. He had, however, +a genial auditor in the Eighteenth Century, who declared it to be a new +disease, not known in her day, and deserving investigation. She was happy to +compare sensations with him, but hers were not of the complex order, and a +potion soon righted her. In fact, her system appeared to be a debatable ground +for aliment and medicine, on which the battle was fought, and, when over, she +was none the worse, as she joyfully told Hippias. Never looked ploughman on +prince, or village belle on Court Beauty, with half the envy poor +nineteenth-century Hippias expended in his gaze on the Eighteenth. He was too +serious to note much the laughter of the young men. +</p> + +<p> +This ‘Tragedy of a Cooking-Apparatus,’ as Adrian designated the +malady of Hippias, was repeated regularly ever evening. It was natural for any +youth to escape as quick as he could from such a table of stomachs. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian bore with his conduct considerately, until a letter from the baronet, +describing the house and maternal System of a Mrs. Caroline Grandison, and the +rough grain of hopefulness in her youngest daughter, spurred him to think of +his duties, and see what was going on. He gave Richard half-an-hour’s +start, and then put on his hat to follow his own keen scent, leaving Hippias +and the Eighteenth Century to piquet. +</p> + +<p> +In the lane near Belthorpe he met a maid of the farm not unknown to him, one +Molly Davenport by name, a buxom lass, who, on seeing him, invoked her Good +Gracious, the generic maid’s familiar, and was instructed by +reminiscences vivid, if ancient, to giggle. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you looking for your young gentleman?” Molly presently asked. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian glanced about the lane like a cool brigand, to see if the coast was +clear, and replied to her, “I am, miss. I want you to tell me about +him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear!” said the buxom lass, “was you coming for me to-night +to know?” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian rebuked her: for her bad grammar, apparently. +</p> + +<p> +“’Cause I can’t stop out long to-night,” Molly +explained, taking the rebuke to refer altogether to her bad grammar. +</p> + +<p> +“You may go in when you please, miss. Is that any one coming? Come here +in the shade.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, get along!” said Miss Molly. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian spoke with resolution. “Listen to me, Molly Davenport!” He +put a coin in her hand, which had a medical effect in calming her to attention. +“I want to know whether you have seen him at all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Who? Your young gentleman? I sh’d think I did. I seen him to-night +only. Ain’t he grooved handsome. He’s al’ays about Beltharp +now. It ain’t to fire no more ricks. He’s afire ’unself. +Ain’t you seen ’em together? He’s after the +missis”— +</p> + +<p> +Adrian requested Miss Davenport to be respectful, and confine herself to +particulars. This buxom lass then told him that her young missis and +Adrian’s young gentleman were a pretty couple, and met one another every +night. The girl swore for their innocence. +</p> + +<p> +“As for Miss Lucy, she haven’t a bit of art in her, nor have +he.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re all nature, I suppose,” said Adrian. “How is +it I don’t see her at church?” +</p> + +<p> +“She’s Catholic, or some think,” said Molly. “Her +father was, and a leftenant. She’ve a Cross in her bedroom. She +don’t go to church. I see you there last Sunday a-lookin’ so +solemn,” and Molly stroked her hand down her chin to give it length. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian insisted on her keeping to facts. It was dark, and in the dark he was +indifferent to the striking contrasts suggested by the lass, but he wanted to +hear facts, and he again bribed her to impart nothing but facts. Upon which she +told him further, that her young lady was an innocent artless creature who had +been to school upwards of three years with the nuns, and had a little money of +her own, and was beautiful enough to be a lord’s lady, and had been in +love with Master Richard ever since she was a little girl. Molly had got from a +friend of hers up at the Abbey, Mary Garner, the housemaid who cleaned Master +Richard’s room, a bit of paper once with the young gentleman’s +handwriting, and had given it to her Miss Lucy, and Miss Lucy had given her a +gold sovereign for it—just for his handwriting! Miss Lucy did not seem +happy at the farm, because of that young Tom, who was always leering at her, +and to be sure she was quite a lady, and could play, and sing, and dress with +the best. +</p> + +<p> +“She looks like angels in her nightgown!” Molly wound up. +</p> + +<p> +The next moment she ran up close, and speaking for the first time as if there +were a distinction of position between them, petitioned: “Mr. Harley! you +won’t go for doin’ any harm to ’em ’cause of what I +said, will you now? Do say you won’t now, Mr. Harley! She is good, though +she’s a Catholic. She was kind to me when I was ill, and I wouldn’t +have her crossed—I’d rather be showed up myself, I would!” +</p> + +<p> +The wise youth gave no positive promise to Molly, and she had to read his +consent in a relaxation of his austerity. The noise of a lumbering foot +plodding down the lane caused her to be abruptly dismissed. Molly took to +flight, the lumbering foot accelerated its pace, and the pastoral appeal to her +flying skirts was heard—“Moll! you theyre! It be +I—Bantam!” But the sprightly Silvia would not stop to his wooing, +and Adrian turned away laughing at these Arcadians. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian was a lazy dragon. All he did for the present was to hint and tease. +“It’s the Inevitable!” he said, and asked himself why he +should seek to arrest it. He had no faith in the System. Heavy Benson had. +Benson of the slow thick-lidded antediluvian eye and loose-crumpled skin; +Benson, the Saurian, the woman-hater; Benson was wide awake. A sort of rivalry +existed between the wise youth and heavy Benson. The fidelity of the latter +dependant had moved the baronet to commit to him a portion of the management of +the Raynham estate, and this Adrian did not like. No one who aspires to the +honourable office of leading another by the nose can tolerate a party in his +ambition. Benson’s surly instinct told him he was in the wise +youth’s way, and he resolved to give his master a striking proof of his +superior faithfulness. For some weeks the Saurian eye had been on the two +secret creatures. Heavy Benson saw letters come and go in the day, and now the +young gentleman was off and out every night, and seemed to be on wings. Benson +knew whither he went, and the object he went for. It was a woman—that was +enough. The Saurian eye had actually seen the sinful thing lure the hope of +Raynham into the shades. He composed several epistles of warning to the baronet +of the work that was going on; but before sending one he wished to record a +little of their guilty conversation; and for this purpose the faithful fellow +trotted over the dews to eavesdrop, and thereby aroused the good fairy, in the +person of Tom Bakewell, the sole confidant of Richard’s state. +</p> + +<p> +Tom said to his young master, “Do you know what, sir? You be +watched!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard, in a fury, bade him name the wretch, and Tom hung his arms, and aped +the respectable protrusion of the butler’s head. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s he, is it?” cried Richard. “He shall rue it, Tom. +If I find him near me when we’re together he shall never forget +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t hit too hard, sir,” Tom suggested. “You hit +mortal hard when you’re in earnest, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard averred he would forgive anything but that, and told Tom to be within +hail to-morrow night—he knew where. By the hour of the appointment it was +out of the lover’s mind. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish dined that evening at Raynham, by Adrian’s pointed +invitation. According to custom, Richard started up and off, with few excuses. +The lady exhibited no surprise. She and Adrian likewise strolled forth to enjoy +the air of the Summer night. They had no intention of spying. Still they may +have thought, by meeting Richard and his inamorata, there was a chance of +laying a foundation of ridicule to sap the passion. They may have thought +so—they were on no spoken understanding. +</p> + +<p> +“I have seen the little girl,” said Lady Blandish. “She is +pretty—she would be telling if she were well set up. She speaks well. How +absurd it is of that class to educate their women above their station! The +child is really too good for a farmer. I noticed her before I knew of this; she +has enviable hair. I suppose she doesn’t paint her eyelids. Just the sort +of person to take a young man. I thought there was something wrong. I received, +the day before yesterday, an impassioned poem evidently not intended for me. My +hair was gold. My meeting him was foretold. My eyes were homes of light fringed +with night. I sent it back, correcting the colours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which was death to the rhymes,” said Adrian. “I saw her this +morning. The boy hasn’t bad taste. As you say, she is too good for a +farmer. Such a spark would explode any System. She slightly affected mine. The +Huron is stark mad about her.” +</p> + +<p> +“But we must positively write and tell his father,” said Lady +Blandish. +</p> + +<p> +The wise youth did not see why they should exaggerate a trifle. The lady said +she would have an interview with Richard, and then write, as it was her duty to +do. Adrian shrugged, and was for going into the scientific explanation of +Richard’s conduct, in which the lady had to discourage him. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor boy!” she sighed. “I am really sorry for him. I hope he +will not feel it too strongly. They feel strongly, father and son.” +</p> + +<p> +“And select wisely,” Adrian added. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s another thing,” said Lady Blandish. +</p> + +<p> +Their talk was then of the dulness of neighbouring county people, about whom, +it seemed, there was little or no scandal afloat: of the lady’s loss of +the season in town, which she professed not to regret, though she complained of +her general weariness: of whether Mr. Morton of Poer Hall would propose to Mrs. +Doria, and of the probable despair of the hapless curate of Lobourne; and other +gossip, partly in French. +</p> + +<p> +They rounded the lake, and got upon the road through the park to Lobourne. The +moon had risen. The atmosphere was warm and pleasant. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite a lover’s night,” said Lady Blandish. +</p> + +<p> +“And I, who have none to love—pity me!” The wise youth +attempted a sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“And never will have,” said Lady Blandish, curtly. “You buy +your loves.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian protested. However, he did not plead verbally against the impeachment, +though the lady’s decisive insight astonished him. He began to respect +her, relishing her exquisite contempt, and he reflected that widows could be +terrible creatures. +</p> + +<p> +He had hoped to be a little sentimental with Lady Blandish, knowing her +romantic. This mixture of the harshest common sense and an air of “I know +you men,” with romance and refined temperament, subdued the wise youth +more than a positive accusation supported by witnesses would have done. He +looked at the lady. Her face was raised to the moon. She knew nothing—she +had simply spoken from the fulness of her human knowledge, and had forgotten +her words. Perhaps, after all, her admiration, or whatever feeling it was, for +the baronet, was sincere, and really the longing for a virtuous man. Perhaps +she had tried the opposite set pretty much. Adrian shrugged. Whenever the wise +youth encountered a mental difficulty he instinctively lifted his shoulders to +equal altitudes, to show that he had no doubt there was a balance in the +case—plenty to be said on both sides, which was the same to him as a +definite solution. +</p> + +<p> +At their tryst in the wood, abutting on Raynham Park, wrapped in themselves, +piped to by tireless Love, Richard and Lucy sat, toying with eternal moments. +How they seem as if they would never end! What mere sparks they are when they +have died out! And how in the distance of time they revive, and extend, and +glow, and make us think them full the half, and the best of the fire, of our +lives! +</p> + +<p> +With the onward flow of intimacy, the two happy lovers ceased to be so shy of +common themes, and their speech did not reject all as dross that was not pure +gold of emotion. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy was very inquisitive about everything and everybody at Raynham. Whoever +had been about Richard since his birth, she must know the history of, and he +for a kiss will do her bidding. +</p> + +<p> +Thus goes the tender duet: +</p> + +<p> +“You should know my cousin Austin, Lucy.—Darling! Beloved!” +</p> + +<p> +“My own! Richard!” +</p> + +<p> +“You should know my cousin Austin. You shall know him. He would take to +you best of them all, and you to him. He is in the tropics now, looking out a +place—it’s a secret—for poor English working-men to emigrate +to and found a colony in that part of the world:—my white angel!” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear love!” +</p> + +<p> +“He is such a noble fellow! Nobody here understands him but me. +Isn’t it strange? Since I met you I love him better! That’s because +I love all that’s good and noble better now—Beautiful! I +love—I love you!” +</p> + +<p> +“My Richard!” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think I’ve determined, Lucy? If my father—but +no! my father does love me.—No! he will not; and we will be happy +together here. And I will win my way with you. And whatever I win will be +yours; for it will be owing to you. I feel as if I had no strength but +yours—none! and you make me—O Lucy!” +</p> + +<p> +His voice ebbs. Presently Lucy murmurs— +</p> + +<p> +“Your father, Richard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my father?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest Richard! I feel so afraid of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“He loves me, and will love you, Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I am so poor and humble, Richard.” +</p> + +<p> +“No one I have ever seen is like you, Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +“You think so, because you”— +</p> + +<p> +“What?” +</p> + +<p> +“Love me,” comes the blushing whisper, and the duet gives place to +dumb variations, performed equally in concert. +</p> + +<p> +It is resumed. +</p> + +<p> +“You are fond of the knights, Lucy. Austin is as brave as any of +them.—My own bride! Oh, how I adore you! When you are gone, I could fall +upon the grass you tread upon, and kiss it. My breast feels empty of my +heart—Lucy! if we lived in those days, I should have been a knight, and +have won honour and glory for you. Oh! one can do nothing now. My lady-love! My +lady-love!—A tear?—Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest! Ah, Richard! I am not a lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who dares say that? Not a lady—the angel I love!” +</p> + +<p> +“Think, Richard, who I am.” +</p> + +<p> +“My beautiful! I think that God made you, and has given you to me.” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes fill with tears, and, as she lifts them heavenward to thank her God, +the light of heaven strikes on them, and she is so radiant in her pure beauty +that the limbs of the young man tremble. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy! O heavenly spirit! Lucy!” +</p> + +<p> +Tenderly her lips part—“I do not weep for sorrow.” +</p> + +<p> +The big bright drops lighten, and roll down, imaged in his soul. +</p> + +<p> +They lean together—shadows of ineffable tenderness playing on their +thrilled cheeks and brows. +</p> + +<p> +He lifts her hand, and presses his mouth to it. She has seen little of mankind, +but her soul tells her this one is different from others, and at the thought, +in her great joy, tears must come fast, or her heart will break—tears of +boundless thanksgiving. And he, gazing on those soft, ray-illumined, dark-edged +eyes, and the grace of her loose falling tresses, feels a scarce-sufferable +holy fire streaming through his members. +</p> + +<p> +It is long ere they speak in open tones. +</p> + +<p> +“O happy day when we met!” +</p> + +<p> +What says the voice of one, the soul of the other echoes. +</p> + +<p> +“O glorious heaven looking down on us!” +</p> + +<p> +Their souls are joined, are made one for evermore beneath that bending +benediction. +</p> + +<p> +“O eternity of bliss!” +</p> + +<p> +Then the diviner mood passes, and they drop to earth. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy! come with me to-night, and look at the place where you are some +day to live. Come, and I will row you on the lake. You remember what you said +in your letter that you dreamt?—that we were floating over the shadow of +the Abbey to the nuns at work by torchlight felling the cypress, and they +handed us each a sprig. Why, darling, it was the best omen in the world, their +felling the old trees. And you write such lovely letters. So pure and sweet +they are. I love the nuns for having taught you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, Richard! See! we forget! Ah!” she lifts up her face +pleadingly, as to plead against herself, “even if your father forgives my +birth, he will not my religion. And, dearest, though I would die for you I +cannot change it. It would seem that I was denying God; and—oh! it would +make me ashamed of my love.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fear nothing!” He winds her about with his arm. “Come! He +will love us both, and love you the more for being faithful to your +father’s creed. You don’t know him, Lucy. He seems harsh and +stern—he is full of kindness and love. He isn’t at all a bigot. And +besides, when he hears what the nuns have done for you, won’t he thank +them, as I do? And—oh! I must speak to him soon, and you must be prepared +to see him soon, for I cannot bear your remaining at Belthorpe, like a jewel in +a sty. Mind! I’m not saying a word against your uncle. I declare I love +everybody and everything that sees you and touches you. Stay! it is a wonder +how you could have grown there. But you were not born there, and your father +had good blood. Desborough!—here was a Colonel Desborough—never +mind! Come!” +</p> + +<p> +She dreads to. She begs not to. She is drawn away. +</p> + +<p> +The woods are silent, and then— +</p> + +<p> +“What think you of that for a pretty pastoral?” says a very +different voice. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian reclined against a pine overlooking the fern-covert. Lady Blandish was +recumbent upon the brown pine-droppings, gazing through a vista of the lower +greenwood which opened out upon the moon-lighted valley, her hands clasped +round one knee, her features almost stern in their set hard expression. +</p> + +<p> +They had heard, by involuntarily overhearing about as much as may be heard in +such positions, a luminous word or two. +</p> + +<p> +The lady did not answer. A movement among the ferns attracted Adrian, and he +stepped down the decline across the pine-roots to behold heavy Benson below; +shaking fern-seed and spidery substances off his crumpled skin. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that you, Mr. Hadrian?” called Benson, starting, as he puffed, +and exercised his handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it you, Benson, who have had the audacity to spy upon these +Mysteries?” Adrian called back, and coming close to him, added, +“You look as if you had just been well thrashed.” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it dreadful, sir?” snuffled Benson. “And his +father in ignorance, Mr. Hadrian!” +</p> + +<p> +“He shall know, Benson! He shall know how, you have endangered your +valuable skin in his service. If Mr. Richard had found you there just now I +wouldn’t answer for the consequences.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha!” Benson spitefully retorted. “This won’t go on; +Mr. Hadrian. It shan’t, sir. It will be put a stop to tomorrow, sir. I +call it corruption of a young gentleman like him, and harlotry, sir, I call it. +I’d have every jade flogged that made a young innocent gentleman go on +like that, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, why didn’t you stop it yourself, Benson? Ah, I see! you +waited—what? This is not the first time you have been attendant on Apollo +and Miss Dryope? You have written to headquarters?” +</p> + +<p> +“I did my duty, Mr. Hadrian.” +</p> + +<p> +The wise youth returned to Lady Blandish, and informed her of Benson’s +zeal. The lady’s eyes flashed. “I hope Richard will treat him as he +deserves,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Shall we home?” Adrian inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Do me a favour;” the lady replied. “Get my carriage sent +round to meet me at the park-gates.” +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you?”— +</p> + +<p> +“I want to be alone.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian bowed and left her. She was still sitting with her hands clasped round +one knee, gazing towards the dim ray-strewn valley. +</p> + +<p> +“An odd creature!” muttered the wise youth. “She’s as +odd as any of them. She ought to be a Feverel. I suppose she’s graduating +for it. Hang that confounded old ass of a Benson! He has had the impudence to +steal a march on me!” +</p> + +<p> +The shadow of the cypress was lessening on the lake. The moon was climbing +high. As Richard rowed the boat, Lucy, sang to him softly. She sang first a +fresh little French song, reminding him of a day when she had been asked to +sing to him before, and he did not care to hear. “Did I live?” he +thinks. Then she sang to him a bit of one of those majestic old Gregorian +chants, that, wherever you may hear them, seem to build up cathedral walls +about you. The young man dropped the sculls. The strange solemn notes gave a +religious tone to his love, and wafted him into the knightly ages and the +reverential heart of chivalry. +</p> + +<p> +Hanging between two heavens on the lake: floating to her voice: the moon +stepping over and through white shoals of soft high clouds above and below: +floating to her void—no other breath abroad! His soul went out of his +body as he listened. +</p> + +<p> +They must part. He rows her gently shoreward. +</p> + +<p> +“I never was so happy as to-night,” she murmurs. +</p> + +<p> +“Look, my Lucy. The lights of the old place are on the lake. Look where +you are to live.” +</p> + +<p> +“Which is your room, Richard?” +</p> + +<p> +He points it out to her. +</p> + +<p> +“O Richard! that I were one of the women who wait on you! I should ask +nothing more. How happy she must be!” +</p> + +<p> +“My darling angel-love. You shall be happy; but all shall wait on you, +and I foremost, Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest! may I hope for a letter?” +</p> + +<p> +“By eleven to-morrow. And I?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! you will have mine, Richard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tom shall wait for it. A long one, mind! Did you like my last +song?” +</p> + +<p> +She pats her hand quietly against her bosom, and he knows where it rests. O +love! O heaven! +</p> + +<p> +They are aroused by the harsh grating of the bow of the boat against the +shingle. He jumps out, and lifts her ashore. +</p> + +<p> +“See!” she says, as the blush of his embrace +subsides—“See!” and prettily she mimics awe and feels it a +little, “the cypress does point towards us. O Richard! it does!” +</p> + +<p> +And he, looking at her rather than at the cypress, delighting in her arch grave +ways— +</p> + +<p> +“Why, there’s hardly any shadow at all, Lucy. She mustn’t +dream, my darling! or dream only of me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest! but I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow, Lucy! The letter in the morning, and you at night. O happy +to-morrow!” +</p> + +<p> +“You will be sure to be there, Richard?” +</p> + +<p> +“If I am not dead, Lucy.” +</p> + +<p> +“O Richard! pray, pray do not speak of that. I shall not survive +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us pray, Lucy, to die together, when we are to die. Death or life, +with you! Who is it yonder? I see some one—is it Tom? It’s +Adrian!” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it Mr. Harley?” The fair girl shivered. +</p> + +<p> +“How dares he come here!” cried Richard. +</p> + +<p> +The figure of Adrian, instead of advancing, discreetly circled the lake. They +were stealing away when he called. His call was repeated. Lucy entreated +Richard to go to him; but the young man preferred to summon his attendant, Tom, +from within hail, and send him to know what was wanted. +</p> + +<p> +“Will he have seen me? Will he have known me?” whispered Lucy, +tremulously. +</p> + +<p> +“And if he does, love?” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! if he does, dearest—I don’t know, but I feel such a +presentiment. You have not spoken of him to-night, Richard. Is he good?” +</p> + +<p> +“Good?” Richard clutched her hand for the innocent maiden phrase. +“He’s very fond of eating; that’s all I know of +Adrian.” +</p> + +<p> +Her hand was at his lips when Tom returned. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Adrian wishes particular to speak to you, sir,” said Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“Do go to him, dearest! Do go!” Lucy begs him. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, how I hate Adrian!” The young man grinds his teeth. +</p> + +<p> +“Do go!” Lucy urges him. “Tom—good Tom—will see +me home. To-morrow, dear love! To-morrow!” +</p> + +<p> +“You wish to part from me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, unkind! but you must not come with me now. It may be news of +importance, dearest. Think, Richard!” +</p> + +<p> +“Tom! go back!” +</p> + +<p> +At the imperious command the well-drilled Tom strides off a dozen paces, and +sees nothing. Then the precious charge is confided to him. A heart is cut in +twain. +</p> + +<p> +Richard made his way to Adrian. “What is it you want with me, +Adrian?” +</p> + +<p> +“Are we seconds, or principals, O fiery one?” was Adrian’s +answer. “I want nothing with you, except to know whether you have seen +Benson.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where should I see Benson? What do I know of Benson’s +doings?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not—such a secret old fist as he is! I want some one to +tell him to order Lady Blandish’s carriage to be sent round to the +park-gates. I thought he might be round your way over there—I came upon +him accidentally just now in Abbey-wood. What’s the matter, boy?” +</p> + +<p> +“You saw him there?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hunting Diana, I suppose. He thinks she’s not so chaste as they +say,” continued Adrian. “Are you going to knock down that +tree?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard had turned to the cypress, and was tugging at the tough wood. He left +it and went to an ash. +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll spoil that weeper,” Adrian cried. “Down she +comes! But good-night, Ricky. If you see Benson mind you tell him.” +</p> + +<p> +Doomed Benson following his burly shadow hove in sight on the white road while +Adrian spoke. The wise youth chuckled and strolled round the lake, glancing +over his shoulder every now and then. +</p> + +<p> +It was not long before he heard a bellow for help—the roar of a dragon in +his throes. Adrian placidly sat down on the grass, and fixed his eyes on the +water. There, as the roar was being repeated amid horrid resounding echoes, the +wise youth mused in this wise— +</p> + +<p> +“‘The Fates are Jews with us when they delay a punishment,’ +says The Pilgrim’s Scrip, or words to that effect. The heavens evidently +love Benson, seeing that he gets his punishment on the spot. Master Ricky is a +peppery young man. He gets it from the apt Gruffudh. I rather believe in race. +What a noise that old ruffian makes! He’ll require poulticing with The +Pilgrim’s Scrip. We shall have a message to-morrow, and a hubbub, and +perhaps all go to town, which won’t be bad for one who’s been a +prey to all the desires born of dulness. Benson howls: there’s life in +the old dog yet! He bays the moon. Look at her. She doesn’t care. +It’s the same to her whether we coo like turtle-doves or roar like twenty +lions. How complacent she looks! And yet she has just as much sympathy for +Benson as for Cupid. She would smile on if both were being birched. Was that a +raven or Benson? He howls no more. It sounds guttural: +frog-like—something between the brek-kek-kek and the hoarse raven’s +croak. The fellow’ll be killing him. It’s time to go to the rescue. +A deliverer gets more honour by coming in at the last gasp than if he +forestalled catastrophe.—Ho, there, what’s the matter?” +</p> + +<p> +So saying, the wise youth rose, and leisurely trotted to the scene of battle, +where stood St. George puffing over the prostrate Dragon. +</p> + +<p> +“Holloa, Ricky! is it you?” said Adrian. “What’s this? +Whom have we here?—Benson, as I live!” +</p> + +<p> +“Make this beast get up,” Richard returned, breathing hard, and +shaking his great ash-branch. +</p> + +<p> +“He seems incapable, my dear boy. What have you been up to?—Benson! +Benson!—I say, Ricky, this looks bad.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s shamming!” Richard clamoured like a savage. “Spy +upon me, will he? I tell you, he’s shamming. He hasn’t had half +enough. Nothing’s too bad for a spy. Let him getup!” +</p> + +<p> +“Insatiate youth! do throw away that enormous weapon.” +</p> + +<p> +“He has written to my father,” Richard shouted. “The +miserable spy! Let him get up!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ooogh? I won’t!” huskily groaned Benson. “Mr. Hadrian, +you’re a witness—he’s my back!”—Cavernous noises +took up the tale of his maltreatment. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay you love your back better than any part of your body +now,” Adrian muttered. “Come, Benson! be a man. Mr. Richard has +thrown away the stick. Come, and get off home, and let’s see the extent +of the damage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ooogh! he’s a devil! Mr. Hadrian, sir, he’s a devil!” +groaned Benson, turning half over in the road to ease his aches. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian caught hold of Benson’s collar and lifted him to a sitting +posture. He then had a glimpse of what his hopeful pupil’s hand could do +in wrath. The wretched butler’s coat was slit and welted; his hat knocked +in; his flabby spirit so broken that he started and trembled if his pitiless +executioner stirred a foot. Richard stood over him, grasping his great stick; +no dawn of mercy for Benson in any corner of his features. +</p> + +<p> +Benson screwed his neck round to look up at him, and immediately gasped, +“I won’t get up! I won’t! He’s ready to murder me +again!—Mr. Hadrian! if you stand by and see it, you’re liable to +the law, sir—I won’t get up while he’s near.” No +persuasion could induce Benson to try his legs while his executioner stood by. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian took Richard aside: “You’ve almost killed the poor devil, +Ricky. You must be satisfied with that. Look at his face.” +</p> + +<p> +“The coward bobbed while I struck” said Richard. “I marked +his back. He ducked. I told him he was getting it worse.” +</p> + +<p> +At so civilized piece of savagery, Adrian opened his mouth wide. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you really? I admire that. You told him he was getting it +worse?” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian opened his mouth again to shake another roll of laughter out. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” he said, “Excalibur has done his word. Pitch him into +the lake. And see—here comes the Blandish. You can’t be at it again +before a woman. Go and meet her, and tell her the noise was an ox being +slaughtered. Or say Argus.” +</p> + +<p> +With a whirr that made all Benson’s bruises moan and quiver, the great +ash-branch shot aloft, and Richard swung off to intercept Lady Blandish. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian got Benson on his feet. The heavy butler was disposed to summon all the +commiseration he could feel for his bruised flesh. Every half-step he attempted +was like a dislocation. His groans and grunts were frightful. +</p> + +<p> +“How much did that hat cost, Benson?” said Adrian, as he put it on +his head. +</p> + +<p> +“A five-and-twenty shilling beaver, Mr. Hadrian!” Benson caressed +its injuries. +</p> + +<p> +“The cheapest policy of insurance I remember to have heard of!” +said Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +Benson staggered, moaning at intervals to his cruel comforter. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a devil, Mr. Hadrian! He’s a devil, sir, I do believe, +sir. Ooogh! he’s a devil!—I can’t move, Mr. Hadrian. I must +be fetched. And Dr. Clifford must be sent for, sir. I shall never be fit for +work again. I haven’t a sound bone in my body, Mr. Hadrian.” +</p> + +<p> +“You see, Benson, this comes of your declaring war upon Venus. I hope the +maids will nurse you properly. Let me see: you are friends with the +housekeeper, aren’t you? All depends upon that.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m only a faithful servant, Mr. Hadrian,” the miserable +butler snarled. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you’ve got no friend but your bed. Get to it as quick as +possible, Benson.” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t move.” Benson made a resolute halt. “I must be +fetched,” he whinnied. “It’s a shame to ask me to move, Mr. +Hadrian.” +</p> + +<p> +“You will admit that you are heavy, Benson,” said Adrian, “so +I can’t carry you. However, I see Mr. Richard is very kindly returning to +help me.” +</p> + +<p> +At these words heavy Benson instantly found his legs, and shambled on. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish met Richard in dismay. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been horribly frightened,” she said. “Tell me, what +was the meaning of those cries I heard?” +</p> + +<p> +“Only some one doing justice on a spy,” said Richard, and the lady +smiled, and looked on him fondly, and put her hand through his hair. +</p> + +<p> +“Was that all? I should have done it myself if I had been a man. Kiss +me.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a> +CHAPTER XXI</h2> + +<p> +By twelve o’clock at noon next day the inhabitants of Raynham Abbey knew +that Berry, the baronet’s man, had arrived post-haste from town, with +orders to conduct Mr. Richard thither, and that Mr. Richard had refused to go, +had sworn he would not, defied his father, and despatched Berry to the Shades. +Berry was all that Benson was not. Whereas Benson hated woman, Berry admired +her warmly. Second to his own stately person, woman occupied his reflections, +and commanded his homage. Berry was of majestic port, and used dictionary +words. Among the maids of Raynham his conscious calves produced all the discord +and the frenzy those adornments seem destined to create in tender bosoms. He +had, moreover, the reputation of having suffered for the sex; which assisted +his object in inducing the sex to suffer for him. What with his calves, and his +dictionary words, and the attractive halo of the mysterious vindictiveness of +Venus surrounding him, this Adonis of the lower household was a mighty man +below, and he moved as one. +</p> + +<p> +On hearing the tumult that followed Berry’s arrival, Adrian sent for him, +and was informed of the nature of his mission, and its result. +</p> + +<p> +“You should come to me first,” said Adrian. “I should have +imagined you were shrewd enough for that, Berry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me, Mr. Adrian,” Berry doubled his elbow to explain. +“Pardon me, sir. Acting recipient of special injunctions I was not a free +agent.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go to Mr. Richard again, Berry. There will be a little confusion if he +holds back. Perhaps you had better throw out a hint or so of apoplexy. A slight +hint will do. And here—Berry! when you return to town, you had better not +mention anything—to quote Johnson—of Benson’s +spiflication.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly not, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +The wise youth’s hint had the desired effect on Richard. +</p> + +<p> +He dashed off a hasty letter by Tom to Belthorpe, and, mounting his horse, +galloped to the Bellingham station. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin was sitting down to a quiet early dinner at his hotel, when the Hope +of Raynham burst into his room. +</p> + +<p> +The baronet was not angry with his son. On the contrary, for he was singularly +just and self-accusing while pride was not up in arms, he had been thinking all +day after the receipt of Benson’s letter that he was deficient in +cordiality, and did not, by reason of his excessive anxiety, make himself +sufficiently his son’s companion: was not enough, as he strove to be, +mother and father to him; preceptor and friend; previsor and associate. He had +not to ask his conscience where he had lately been to blame towards the System. +He had slunk away from Raynham in the very crisis of the Magnetic Age, and this +young woman of the parish (as Benson had termed sweet Lucy in his letter) was +the consequence. +</p> + +<p> +Yes! pride and sensitiveness were his chief foes, and he would trample on them. +To begin, he embraced his son: hard upon an Englishman at any time—doubly +so to one so shamefaced at emotion in cool blood, as it were. It gave him a +strange pleasure, nevertheless. And the youth seemed to answer to it; he was +excited. Was his love, then, beginning to correspond with his father’s as +in those intimate days before the Blossoming Season? +</p> + +<p> +But when Richard, inarticulate at first in his haste, cried out, “My +dear, dear father! You are safe! I feared—You are better, sir? Thank +God!” Sir Austin stood away from him. +</p> + +<p> +“Safe?” he said. “What has alarmed you?” +</p> + +<p> +Instead of replying, Richard dropped into a chair, and seized his hand and +kissed it. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin took a seat, and waited for his son to explain. +</p> + +<p> +“Those doctors are such fools!” Richard broke out. “I was +sure they were wrong. They don’t know headache from apoplexy. It’s +worth the ride, sir, to see you. You left Raynham so suddenly.—But you +are well! It was not an attack of real apoplexy?” +</p> + +<p> +His father’s brows contorted, and he said, No, it was not. Richard +pursued: +</p> + +<p> +“If you were ill, I couldn’t come too soon, though, if +coroners’ inquests sat on horses, those doctors would be found guilty of +mare-slaughter. Cassandra’ll be knocked up. I was too early for the train +at Bellingham, and I wouldn’t wait. She did the distance in four hours +and three-quarters. Pretty good, sir, wasn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +“It has given you appetite for dinner, I hope,” said the baronet, +not so well pleased to find that it was not simple obedience that had brought +the youth to him in such haste. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m ready,” replied Richard. “I shall be in time to +return by the last train to-night. I will leave Cassandra in your charge for a +rest.” +</p> + +<p> +His father quietly helped him to soup, which he commenced gobbling with an +eagerness that might pass for appetite. +</p> + +<p> +“All well at Raynham?” said the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing new?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“The same as when I left?” +</p> + +<p> +“No change whatever!” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall be glad to get back to the old place,” said the baronet. +“My stay in town has certainly been profitable. I have made some pleasant +acquaintances who may probably favour us with a visit there in the late +autumn—people you may be pleased to know. They are very anxious to see +Raynham.” +</p> + +<p> +“I love the old place,” cried Richard. “I never wish to leave +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, boy, before I left you were constantly begging to see town.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was I, sir? How odd! Well! I don’t want to remain here. I’ve +seen enough of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“How did you find your way to me?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard laughed, and related his bewilderment at the miles of brick, and the +noise, and the troops of people, concluding, “There’s no place like +home!” +</p> + +<p> +The baronet watched his symptomatic brilliant eyes, and favoured him with a +double-dealing sentence— +</p> + +<p> +“To anchor the heart by any object ere we have half traversed the world, +is youth’s foolishness, my son. Reverence time! A better maxim that than +your Horatian.” +</p> + +<p> +“He knows all!” thought Richard, and instantly drew away leagues +from his father, and threw up fortifications round his love and himself. +</p> + +<p> +Dinner over, Richard looked hurriedly at his watch, and said, with much +briskness, “I shall just be in time, sir, if we walk. Will you come with +me to the station?” +</p> + +<p> +The baronet did not answer. +</p> + +<p> +Richard was going to repeat the question, but found his father’s eyes +fixed on him so meaningly that he wavered, and played with his empty glass. +</p> + +<p> +“I think we will have a little more claret,” said the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +Claret was brought, and they were left alone. +</p> + +<p> +The baronet then drew within arm’s-reach of his son, and began: +</p> + +<p> +“I am not aware what you may have thought of me, Richard, during the +years we have lived together; and indeed I have never been in a hurry to be +known to you; and, if I had died before my work was done, I should not have +complained at losing half my reward, in hearing you thank me. Perhaps, as it +is, I never may. Everything, save selfishness, has its recompense. I shall be +content if you prosper.” +</p> + +<p> +He fetched a breath and continued: “You had in your infancy a great +loss.” Father and son coloured simultaneously. “To make that good +to you I chose to isolate myself from the world, and devote myself entirely to +your welfare; and I think it is not vanity that tells me now that the son I +have reared is one of the most hopeful of God’s creatures. But for that +very reason you are open to be tempted the most, and to sink the deepest. It +was the first of the angels who made the road to hell.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused again. Richard fingered at his watch. +</p> + +<p> +“In our House, my son, there is peculiar blood. We go to wreck very +easily. It sounds like superstition; I cannot but think we are tried as most +men are not. I see it in us all. And you, my son, are compounded of two races. +Your passions are violent. You have had a taste of revenge. You have seen, in a +small way, that the pound of flesh draws rivers of blood. But there is now in +you another power. You are mounting to the table-land of life, where mimic +battles are changed to real ones. And you come upon it laden equally with force +to create and to destroy.” He deliberated to announce the intelligence, +with deep meaning: “There are women in the world, my son!” +</p> + +<p> +The young man’s heart galloped back to Raynham. +</p> + +<p> +“It is when you encounter them that you are thoroughly on trial. It is +when you know them that life is either a mockery to you, or, as some find it, a +gift of blessedness. They are our ordeal. Love of any human object is the +soul’s ordeal; and they are ours, loving them, or not.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man heard the whistle of the train. He saw the moon-lighted wood, and +the vision of his beloved. He could barely hold himself down and listen. +</p> + +<p> +“I believe,” the baronet spoke with little of the cheerfulness of +belief, “good women exist.” +</p> + +<p> +Oh, if he knew Lucy! +</p> + +<p> +“But,” and he gazed on Richard intently, “it is given to very +few to meet them on the threshold—I may say, to none. We find them after +hard buffeting, and usually, when we find the one fitted for us, our madness +has misshaped our destiny, our lot is cast. For women are not the end, but the +means, of life. In youth we think them the former, and thousands, who have not +even the excuse of youth, select a mate—or worse—with that sole +view. I believe women punish us for so perverting their uses. They punish +Society.” +</p> + +<p> +The baronet put his hand to his brow as his mind travelled into consequences. +</p> + +<p> +‘Our most diligent pupil learns not so much as an earnest teacher,’ +says The Pilgrim’s Scrip; and Sir Austin, in schooling himself to speak +with moderation of women, was beginning to get a glimpse of their side of the +case. +</p> + +<p> +Cold Blood now touched on love to Hot Blood. +</p> + +<p> +Cold Blood said, “It is a passion coming in the order of nature, the ripe +fruit of our animal being.” +</p> + +<p> +Hot Blood felt: “It is a divinity! All that is worth living for in the +world.” +</p> + +<p> +Cold Blood said: “It is a fever which tests our strength, and too often +leads to perdition.” +</p> + +<p> +Hot Blood felt: “Lead whither it will, I follow it.” +</p> + +<p> +Cold Blood said: “It is a name men and women are much in the habit of +employing to sanctify their appetites.” +</p> + +<p> +Hot Blood felt: “It is worship; religion; life!” +</p> + +<p> +And so the two parallel lines ran on. +</p> + +<p> +The baronet became more personal: +</p> + +<p> +“You know my love for you, my son. The extent of it you cannot know; but +you must know that it is something very deep, and—I do not wish to speak +of it—but a father must sometimes petition for gratitude, since the only +true expression of it is his son’s moral good. If you care for my love, +or love me in return, aid me with all your energies to keep you what I have +made you, and guard you from the snares besetting you. It was in my hands once. +It is ceasing to be so. Remember, my son, what my love is. It is different, I +fear, with most fathers: but I am bound up in your welfare: what you do affects +me vitally. You will take no step that is not intimate with my happiness, or my +misery. And I have had great disappointments, my son.” +</p> + +<p> +So far it was well. Richard loved his father, and even in his frenzied state he +could not without emotion hear him thus speak. +</p> + +<p> +Unhappily, the baronet, who by some fatality never could see when he was +winning the battle, thought proper in his wisdom to water the dryness of his +sermon with a little jocoseness, on the subject of young men fancying +themselves in love, and, when they were raw and green, absolutely wanting to +be—that most awful thing, which the wisest and strongest of men undertake +in hesitation and after self-mortification and penance—married! He +sketched the Foolish Young Fellow—the object of general ridicule and +covert contempt. He sketched the Woman—the strange thing made in our +image, and with all our faculties—passing to the rule of one who in +taking her proved that he could not rule himself, and had no knowledge of her +save as a choice morsel which he would burn the whole world, and himself in the +bargain, to possess. He harped upon the Foolish Young Fellow, till the foolish +young fellow felt his skin tingle and was half suffocated with shame and rage. +</p> + +<p> +After this, the baronet might be as wise as he pleased: he had quite undone his +work. He might analyze Love and anatomize Woman. He might accord to her her due +position, and paint her fair: he might be shrewd, jocose, gentle, pathetic, +wonderfully wise: he spoke to deaf ears. +</p> + +<p> +Closing his sermon with the question, softly uttered: “Have you anything +to tell me, Richard?” and hoping for a confession, and a thorough +re-establishment of confidence, the callous answer struck him cold: “I +have not.” +</p> + +<p> +The baronet relapsed in his chair, and made diagrams of his fingers. +</p> + +<p> +Richard turned his back on further dialogue by going to the window. In the +section of sky over the street twinkled two or three stars; shining faintly, +feeling the moon. The moon was rising: the woods were lifting up to her: his +star of the woods would be there. A bed of moss set about flowers in a basket +under him breathed to his nostril of the woodland keenly, and filled him with +delirious longing. +</p> + +<p> +A succession of hard sighs brought his father’s hand on his shoulder. +</p> + +<p> +“You have nothing you could say to me, my son? Tell me, Richard! +Remember, there is no home for the soul where dwells a shadow of +untruth!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing at all, sir,” the young man replied, meeting him with the +full orbs of his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +The baronet withdrew his hand, and paced the room. +</p> + +<p> +At last it grew impossible for Richard to control his impatience, and he said: +“Do you intend me to stay here, sir? Am I not to return to Raynham at all +to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +His father was again falsely jocular: +</p> + +<p> +“What? and catch the train after giving it ten minutes’ +start?” +</p> + +<p> +“Cassandra will take me,” said the young man earnestly. “I +needn’t ride her hard, sir. Or perhaps you would lend me your Winkelried? +I should be down with him in little better than three hours.” +</p> + +<p> +“Even then, you know, the park-gates would be locked.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I could stable him in the village. Dowling knows the horse, and +would treat him properly. May I have him, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +The cloud cleared off Richard’s face as he asked. At least, if he missed +his love that night he would be near her, breathing the same air, marking what +star was above her bedchamber, hearing the hushed night-talk of the trees about +her dwelling: looking on the distances that were like hope half fulfilled and a +bodily presence bright as Hesper, since he knew her. There were two swallows +under the eaves shadowing Lucy’s chamber-windows: two swallows, mates in +one nest, blissful birds, who twittered and cheep-cheeped to the sole-lying +beauty in her bed. Around these birds the lover’s heart revolved, he knew +not why. He associated them with all his close-veiled dreams of happiness. +Seldom a morning passed when he did not watch them leave the nest on their +breakfast-flight, busy in the happy stillness of dawn. It seemed to him now +that if he could be at Raynham to see them in to-morrow’s dawn he would +be compensated for his incalculable loss of to-night: he would forgive and love +his father, London, the life, the world. Just to see those purple backs and +white breasts flash out into the quiet morning air! He wanted no more. +</p> + +<p> +The baronet’s trifling had placed this enormous boon within the young +man’s visionary grasp. +</p> + +<p> +He still went on trying the boy’s temper. +</p> + +<p> +“You know there would be nobody ready for you at Raynham. It is unfair to +disturb the maids.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard overrode every objection. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, my son,” said the baronet, preserving his half-jocular +air, “I must tell you that it is my wish to have you in town.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you have not been ill at all, sir!” cried Richard, as in his +despair he seized the whole plot. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been as well as you could have desired me to be,” said his +father. +</p> + +<p> +“Why did they lie to me?” the young man wrathfully exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“I think, Richard, you can best answer that,” rejoined Sir Austin, +kindly severe. +</p> + +<p> +Dread of being signalized as the Foolish Young Fellow prevented Richard from +expostulating further. Sir Austin saw him grinding his passion into powder for +future explosion, and thought it best to leave him for awhile. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a> +CHAPTER XXII</h2> + +<p> +For three weeks Richard had to remain in town and endure the teachings of the +System in a new atmosphere. He had to sit and listen to men of science who came +to renew their intimacy with his father, and whom of all men his father wished +him to respect and study; practically scientific men being, in the +baronet’s estimation, the only minds thoroughly mated and enviable. He +had to endure an introduction to the Grandisons, and meet the eyes of his kind, +haunted as he was by the Foolish Young Fellow. The idea that he might by any +chance be identified with him held the poor youth in silent subjection. And it +was horrible. For it was a continued outrage on the fair image he had in his +heart. The notion of the world laughing at him because he loved sweet Lucy +stung him to momentary frenzies, and developed premature misanthropy in his +spirit. Also the System desired to show him whither young women of the parish +lead us, and he was dragged about at nighttime to see the sons and daughters of +darkness, after the fashion prescribed to Mr. Thompson; how they danced and +ogled down the high road to perdition. But from this sight possibly the teacher +learnt more than his pupil, since we find him seriously asking his meditative +hours, in the Note-book: “Wherefore Wild Oats are only of one +gender?” a question certainly not suggested to him at Raynham; and +again—“Whether men might not be attaching too rigid an +importance?”...to a subject with a dotted tail apparently, for he gives +it no other in the Note-book. But, as I apprehend, he had come to plead in +behalf of women here, and had deduced something from positive observation. To +Richard the scenes he witnessed were strange wild pictures, likely if anything +to have increased his misanthropy, but for his love. +</p> + +<p> +Certain sweet little notes from Lucy sustained the lover during the first two +weeks of exile. They ceased; and now Richard fell into such despondency that +his father in alarm had to take measures to hasten their return to Raynham. At +the close of the third week Berry laid a pair of letters, bearing the Raynham +post-mark, on the breakfast-table, and, after reading one attentively, the +baronet asked his son if he was inclined to quit the metropolis. +</p> + +<p> +“For Raynham, air?” cried Richard, and relapsed, saying, “As +you will!” aware that he had given a glimpse of the Foolish Young Fellow. +</p> + +<p> +Berry accordingly received orders to make arrangements for their instant return +to Raynham. +</p> + +<p> +The letter Sir Austin lifted his head from to bespeak his son’s wishes +was a composition of the wise youth Adrian’s, and ran thus: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“Benson is doggedly recovering. He requires great indemnities. Happy when +a faithful fool is the main sufferer in a household! I quite agree with you +that our faithful fool is the best servant of great schemes. Benson is now a +piece of history. I tell him that this is indemnity enough, and that the sweet +Muse usually insists upon gentlemen being half-flayed before she will +condescend to notice them; but Benson, I regret to say, rejects the comfort so +fine a reflection should offer, and had rather keep his skin and live opaque. +Heroism seems partly a matter of training. Faithful folly is Benson’s +nature: the rest has been thrust upon. +</p> + +<p> +“The young person has resigned the neighbourhood. I had an interview with +the fair Papist myself, and also with the man Blaize. They were both sensible, +though one swore and the other sighed. She is pretty. I hope she does not +paint. I can affirm that her legs are strong, for she walks to Bellingham twice +a week to take her Scarlet bath, when, having confessed and been made clean by +the Romish unction, she walks back the brisker, of which my Protestant muscular +system is yet aware. It was on the road to Bellingham I engaged her. She is +well in the matter of hair. Madam Godiva might challenge her, it would be a +fair match. Has it never struck you that Woman is nearer the vegetable than +Man?—Mr. Blaize intends her for his son a junction that every lover of +fairy mythology must desire to see consummated. Young Tom is heir to all the +agremens of the Beast. The maids of Lobourne say (I hear) that he is a very +Proculus among them. Possibly the envious men say it for the maids. Beauty does +not speak bad grammar—and altogether she is better out of the way.” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +The other letter was from Lady Blandish, a lady’s letter, and said: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“I have fulfilled your commission to the best of my ability, and heartily +sad it has made me. She is indeed very much above her station—pity that +it is so! She is almost beautiful—quite beautiful at times, and not in +any way what you have been led to fancy. The poor child had no story to tell. I +have again seen her, and talked with her for an hour as kindly as I could. I +could gather nothing more than we know. It is just a woman’s history as +it invariably commences. Richard is the god of her idolatry. She will renounce +him, and sacrifice herself for his sake. Are we so bad? She asked me what she +was to do. She would do whatever was imposed upon her—all but pretend to +love another, and that she never would, and, I believe, never will. You know I +am sentimental, and I confess we dropped a few tears together. Her uncle has +sent her for the Winter to the institution where it appears she was educated, +and where they are very fond of her and want to keep her, which it would be a +good thing if they were to do. The man is a good sort of man. She was entrusted +to him by her father, and he never interferes with her religion, and is very +scrupulous about all that pertains to it, though, as he says, he is a Christian +himself. In the Spring (but the poor child does not know this) she is to come +back, and be married to his lout of a son. I am determined to prevent that. May +I not reckon on your promise to aid me? When you see her, I am sure you will. +It would be sacrilege to look on and permit such a thing. You know, they are +cousins. She asked me, where in the world there was one like Richard? What +could I answer? They were your own words, and spoken with a depth of +conviction! I hope he is really calm. I shudder to think of him when he comes, +and discovers what I have been doing. I hope I have been really doing right! A +good deed, you say, never dies; but we cannot always know—I must rely on +you. Yes, it is; I should think, easy to suffer martyrdom when one is sure of +one’s cause! but then one must be sure of it. I have done nothing lately +but to repeat to myself that saying of yours, No. 54, C. 7, P.S.; and it has +consoled me, I cannot say why, except that all wisdom consoles, whether it +applies directly or not: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“‘For this reason so many fall from God, who have attained to Him; +that they cling to Him with their Weakness, not with their Strength.’ +</p> + +<p> +“I like to know of what you are thinking when you composed this or that +saying—what suggested it. May not one be admitted to inspect the +machinery of wisdom? I feel curious to know how thoughts—real +thoughts—are born. Not that I hope to win the secret. Here is the +beginning of one (but we poor women can never put together even two of the +three ideas which you say go to form a thought): ‘When a wise man makes a +false step, will he not go farther than a fool?’ It has just flitted +through me. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot get on with Gibbon, so wait your return to recommence the +readings. I dislike the sneering essence of his writings. I keep referring to +his face, until the dislike seems to become personal. How different is it with +Wordsworth! And yet I cannot escape from the thought that he is always solemnly +thinking of himself (but I do reverence him). But this is curious; Byron was a +greater egoist, and yet I do not feel the same with him. He reminds me of a +beast of the desert, savage and beautiful; and the former is what one would +imagine a superior donkey reclaimed from the heathen to be—a very +superior donkey, I mean, with great power of speech and great natural +complacency, and whose stubbornness you must admire as part of his mission. The +worst is that no one will imagine anything sublime in a superior donkey, so my +simile is unfair and false. Is it not strange? I love Wordsworth best, and yet +Byron has the greater power over me. How is that?” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +(“Because,” Sir Austin wrote beside the query in pencil, +“women are cowards, and succumb to Irony and Passion, rather than yield +their hearts to Excellence and Nature’s Inspiration.”) +</p> + +<p> +The letter pursued: +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“I have finished Boiardo and have taken up Berni. The latter offends me. +I suppose we women do not really care for humour. You are right in saying we +have none ourselves, and ‘cackle’ instead of laugh. It is true (of +me, at least) that ‘Falstaff is only to us an incorrigible fat +man.’ I want to know what he illustrates. And Don Quixote—what end +can be served in making a noble mind ridiculous?—I hear you +say—practical. So it is. We are very narrow, I know. But we like +wit—practical again! Or in your words (when I really think they generally +come to my aid—perhaps it is that it is often all your thought); we +‘prefer the rapier thrust, to the broad embrace, of +Intelligence.’” +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +He trifled with the letter for some time, re-reading chosen passages as he +walked about the room, and considering he scarce knew what. There are ideas +language is too gross for, and shape too arbitrary, which come to us and have a +definite influence upon us, and yet we cannot fasten on the filmy things and +make them visible and distinct to ourselves, much less to others. Why did he +twice throw a look into the glass in the act of passing it? He stood for a +moment with head erect facing it. His eyes for the nonce seemed little to +peruse his outer features; the grey gathered brows, and the wrinkles much +action of them had traced over the circles half up his high straight forehead; +the iron-grey hair that rose over his forehead and fell away in the fashion of +Richard’s plume. His general appearance showed the tints of years; but +none of their weight, and nothing of the dignity of his youth, was gone. It was +so far satisfactory, but his eyes were wide, as one who looks at his essential +self through the mask we wear. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps he was speculating as he looked on the sort of aspect he presented to +the lady’s discriminative regard. Of her feelings he had not a suspicion. +But he knew with what extraordinary lucidity women can, when it pleases them, +and when their feelings are not quite boiling under the noonday sun, seize all +the sides of a character, and put their fingers on its weak point. He was +cognizant of the total absence of the humorous in himself (the want that most +shut him out from his fellows), and perhaps the clear-thoughted, intensely +self-examining gentleman filmily conceived, Me also, in common with the poet, +she gazes on as one of the superior—grey beasts! +</p> + +<p> +He may have so conceived the case; he was capable of that great-mindedness, and +could snatch at times very luminous glances at the broad reflector which the +world of fact lying outside our narrow compass holds up for us to see ourselves +in when we will. Unhappily, the faculty of laughter, which is due to this gift, +was denied him; and having seen, he, like the companion of friend Balsam, could +go no farther. For a good wind of laughter had relieved him of much of the +blight of self-deception, and oddness, and extravagance; had given a healthier +view of our atmosphere of life; but he had it not. +</p> + +<p> +Journeying back to Bellingham in the train, with the heated brain and brilliant +eye of his son beside him, Sir Austin tried hard to feel infallible, as a man +with a System should feel; and because he could not do so, after much mental +conflict, he descended to entertain a personal antagonism to the young woman +who had stepped in between his experiment and success. He did not think kindly +of her. Lady Blandish’s encomiums of her behaviour and her beauty annoyed +him. Forgetful that he had in a measure forfeited his rights to it, he took the +common ground of fathers, and demanded, “Why he was not justified in +doing all that lay in his power to prevent his son from casting himself away +upon the first creature with a pretty face he encountered?” Deliberating +thus, he lost the tenderness he should have had for his experiment—the +living, burning youth at his elbow, and his excessive love for him took a +rigorous tone. It appeared to him politic, reasonable, and just, that the uncle +of this young woman, who had so long nursed the prudent scheme of marrying her +to his son, should not only not be thwarted in his object but encouraged and +even assisted. At least, not thwarted. Sir Austin had no glass before him while +these ideas hardened in his mind, and he had rather forgotten the letter of +Lady Blandish. +</p> + +<p> +Father and son were alone in the railway carriage. Both were too preoccupied to +speak. As they neared Bellingham the dark was filling the hollows of the +country. Over the pine-hills beyond the station a last rosy streak lingered +across a green sky. Richard eyed it while they flew along. It caught him +forward: it seemed full of the spirit of his love, and brought tears of +mournful longing to his eyelids. The sad beauty of that one spot in the heavens +seemed to call out to his soul to swear to his Lucy’s truth to him: was +like the sorrowful visage of his fleur-de-luce as he called her, appealing to +him for faith. That tremulous tender way she had of half-closing and catching +light on the nether-lids, when sometimes she looked up in her lover’s +face—a look so mystic-sweet that it had grown to be the fountain of his +dreams: he saw it yonder, and his blood thrilled. +</p> + +<p> +Know you those wand-like touches of I know not what, before which our grosser +being melts; and we, much as we hope to be in the Awaking, stand etherealized, +trembling with new joy? They come but rarely; rarely even in love, when we +fondly think them revelations. Mere sensations they are, doubtless: and we rank +for them no higher in the spiritual scale than so many translucent glorious +polypi that quiver on the shores, the hues of heaven running through them. Yet +in the harvest of our days it is something for the animal to have had such mere +fleshly polypian experiences to look back upon, and they give him an +horizon—pale seas of luring splendour. One who has had them (when they do +not bound him) may find the Isles of Bliss sooner than another. Sensual faith +in the upper glories is something. “Let us remember,” says The +Pilgrim’s Scrip, “that Nature, though heathenish, reaches at her +best to the footstool of the Highest. She is not all dust, but a living portion +of the spheres. In aspiration it is our error to despise her, forgetting that +through Nature only can we ascend. Cherished, trained, and purified, she is +then partly worthy the divine mate who is to make her wholly so. St. Simeon saw +the Hog in Nature, and took Nature for the Hog.” +</p> + +<p> +It was one of these strange bodily exaltations which thrilled the young man, he +knew not how it was, for sadness and his forebodings vanished. The soft wand +touched him. At that moment, had Sir Austin spoken openly, Richard might have +fallen upon his heart. He could not. +</p> + +<p> +He chose to feel injured on the common ground of fathers, and to pursue his +System by plotting. Lady Blandish had revived his jealousy of the creature who +menaced it, and jealousy of a System is unreflecting and vindictive as jealousy +of woman. +</p> + +<p> +Heath-roots and pines breathed sharp in the cool autumn evening about the +Bellingham station. Richard stood a moment as he stepped from the train, and +drew the country air into his lungs with large heaves of the chest. Leaving his +father to the felicitations of the station-master, he went into the Lobourne +road to look for his faithful Tom, who had received private orders through +Berry to be in attendance with his young master’s mare, Cassandra, and +was lurking in a plantation of firs unenclosed on the borders of the road, +where Richard, knowing his retainer’s zest for conspiracy too well to +seek him anywhere but in the part most favoured with shelter and concealment, +found him furtively whiffing tobacco. +</p> + +<p> +“What news, Tom? Is there an illness?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom sent his undress cap on one side to scratch at dilemma, an old agricultural +habit to which he was still a slave in moments of abstract thought or sudden +difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I don’t want the rake, Mr. Richard,” he whinnied with a +false grin, as he beheld his master’s eye vacantly following the action. +</p> + +<p> +“Speak out!” he was commanded. “I haven’t had a letter +for a week!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard learnt the news. He took it with surprising outward calm, only getting +a little closer to Cassandra’s neck, and looking very hard at Tom without +seeing a speck of him, which had the effect on Tom of making him sincerely wish +his master would punch his head at once rather than fix him in that owl-like +way. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on!” said Richard, huskily. “Yes? She’s gone! +Well?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom was brought to understand he must make the most of trifles, and recited how +he had heard from a female domestic at Belthorpe of the name of Davenport, +formerly known to him, that the young lady never slept a wink from the hour she +knew she was going, but sat up in her bed till morning crying most pitifully, +though she never complained. Hereat the tears unconsciously streamed down +Richard’s cheeks. Tom said he had tried to see her, but Mr. Adrian kept +him at work, ciphering at a terrible sum—that and nothing else all day! +saying, it was to please his young master on his return. “Likewise +something in Lat’n,” added Tom. “Nom’tive +Mouser!—’nough to make ye mad, sir!” he exclaimed with +pathos. The wretch had been put to acquire a Latin declension. +</p> + +<p> +Tom saw her on the morning she went away, he said: she was very +sorrowful-looking, and nodded kindly to him as she passed in the fly along with +young Tom Blaize. “She have got uncommon kind eyes, sir,” said Tom, +“and cryin’ don’t spoil them.” For which his hand was +wrenched. +</p> + +<p> +Tom had no more to tell, save that, in rounding the road, the young lady had +hung out her hand, and seemed to move it forward and back, as much as to say, +Good-bye, Tom! “And though she couldn’t see me,” said Tom, +“I took off my hat. I did take it so kind of her to think of a chap like +me.” He was at high-pressure sentiment—what with his education for +a hero and his master’s love-stricken state. +</p> + +<p> +“You saw no more of her, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir. That was the last!” +</p> + +<p> +“That was the last you saw of her, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir, I saw nothin’ more.” +</p> + +<p> +“And so she went out of sight!” +</p> + +<p> +“Clean gone, that she were, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did they take her away? what have they done with her? where have +they taken her to?” +</p> + +<p> +These red-hot questionings were addressed to the universal heaven rather than +to Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“Why didn’t she write?” they were resumed. “Why did she +leave? She’s mine. She belongs to me! Who dared take her away? Why did +she leave without writing?—Tom!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, sir,” said the well-drilled recruit, dressing himself up to +the word of command. He expected a variation of the theme from the change of +tone with which his name had been pronounced, but it was again, “Where +have they taken her to?” and this was even more perplexing to Tom than +his hard sum in arithmetic had been. He could only draw down the corners of his +mouth hard, and glance up queerly. +</p> + +<p> +“She had been crying—you saw that, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“No mistake about that, Mr. Richard. Cryin’ all night and all day, +I sh’d say.” +</p> + +<p> +“And she was crying when you saw her?” +</p> + +<p> +“She look’d as if she’d just done for a moment, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“But her face was white?” +</p> + +<p> +“White as a sheet.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard paused to discover whether his instinct had caught a new view from +these facts. He was in a cage, always knocking against the same bars, fly as he +might. Her tears were the stars in his black night. He clung to them as golden +orbs. Inexplicable as they were, they were at least pledges of love. +</p> + +<p> +The hues of sunset had left the West. No light was there but the steadfast pale +eye of twilight. Thither he was drawn. He mounted Cassandra, saying: +“Tell them something, Tom. I shan’t be home to dinner,” and +rode off toward the forsaken home of light over Belthorpe, whereat he saw the +wan hand of his Lucy, waving farewell, receding as he advanced. His jewel was +stolen,—he must gaze upon the empty box. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a> +CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + +<p> +Night had come on as Richard entered the old elm-shaded, grass-bordered lane +leading down from Raynham to Belthorpe. The pale eye of twilight was shut. The +wind had tossed up the bank of Western cloud, which was now flying broad and +unlighted across the sky, broad and balmy—the charioted South-west at +full charge behind his panting coursers. As he neared the farm his heart +fluttered and leapt up. He was sure she must be there. She must have returned. +Why should she have left for good without writing? He caught suspicion by the +throat, making it voiceless, if it lived: he silenced reason. Her not writing +was now a proof that she had returned. He listened to nothing but his imperious +passion, and murmured sweet words for her, as if she were by: tender cherishing +epithets of love in the nest. She was there—she moved somewhere about +like a silver flame in the dear old house, doing her sweet household duties. +His blood began to sing: O happy those within, to see her, and be about her! By +some extraordinary process he contrived to cast a sort of glory round the burly +person of Farmer Blaize himself. And oh! to have companionship with a seraph +one must know a seraph’s bliss, and was not young Tom to be envied? The +smell of late clematis brought on the wind enwrapped him, and went to his +brain, and threw a light over the old red-brick house, for he remembered where +it grew, and the winter rose-tree, and the jessamine, and the passion-flower: +the garden in front with the standard roses tended by her hands; the long wall +to the left striped by the branches of the cherry, the peep of a further garden +through the wall, and then the orchard, and the fields beyond—the happy +circle of her dwelling! it flashed before his eyes while he looked on the +darkness. And yet it was the reverse of hope which kindled this light and +inspired the momentary calm he experienced: it was despair exaggerating +delusion, wilfully building up on a groundless basis. “For the tenacity +of true passion is terrible,” says The Pilgrim’s Scrip: “it +will stand against the hosts of heaven, God’s great array of Facts, +rather than surrender its aim, and must be crushed before it will +succumb—sent to the lowest pit!” He knew she was not there; she was +gone. But the power of a will strained to madness fought at it, kept it down, +conjured forth her ghost, and would have it as he dictated. Poor youth! the +great array of facts was in due order of march. +</p> + +<p> +He had breathed her name many times, and once over-loud; almost a cry for her +escaped him. He had not noticed the opening of a door and the noise of a foot +along the gravel walk. He was leaning over Cassandra’s uneasy neck +watching the one window intently, when a voice addressed him out of the +darkness. +</p> + +<p> +“Be that you, young gentleman?—Mr. Fev’rel?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard’s trance was broken. “Mr. Blaize!” he said; +recognizing the farmer’s voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Good even’n t’ you, sir,” returned the farmer. +“I knew the mare though I didn’t know you. Rather bluff to-night it +be. Will ye step in, Mr. Fev’rel? it’s beginning’ to +spit,—going to be a wildish night, I reckon.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard dismounted. The farmer called one of his men to hold the mare, and +ushered the young man in. Once there, Richard’s conjurations ceased. +There was a deadness about the rooms and passages that told of her absence. The +walls he touched—these were the vacant shells of her. He had never been +in the house since he knew her, and now what strange sweetness, and what pangs! +</p> + +<p> +Young Tom Blaize was in the parlour, squared over the table in open-mouthed +examination of an ancient book of the fashions for a summer month which had +elapsed during his mother’s minority. Young Tom was respectfully studying +the aspects of the radiant beauties of the polite work. He also was a thrall of +woman, newly enrolled, and full of wonder. +</p> + +<p> +“What, Tom!” the farmer sang out as soon as he had opened the door; +“there ye be! at yer Folly agin, are ye? What good’ll them fashens +do to you, I’d like t’know? Come, shut up, and go and see to Mr. +Fev’rel’s mare. He’s al’ays at that ther’ Folly +now. I say there never were a better name for a book than that ther’ +Folly! Talk about attitudes!” +</p> + +<p> +The farmer laughed his fat sides into a chair, and motioned his visitor to do +likewise. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a comfort they’re most on ’em females,” he +pursued, sounding a thwack on his knee as he settled himself agreeably in his +seat. “It don’t matter much what they does, except pinchin’ +in—waspin’ it at the waist. Give me nature, I say—woman as +she’s made! eh, young gentleman?” +</p> + +<p> +“You seem very lonely here,” said Richard, glancing round, and at +the ceiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Lonely?” quoth the farmer. “Well, for the matter o’ +that, we be!—jest now, so’t happens; I’ve got my pipe, and +Tom’ve got his Folly. He’s on one side the table, and I’m on +t’other. He gapes, and I gazes. We are a bit lonesome. But +there—it’s for the best!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard resumed, “I hardly expected to see you to-night, Mr. +Blaize.” +</p> + +<p> +“Y’acted like a man in coming, young gentleman, and I does ye +honour for it!” said Farmer Blaize with sudden energy and directness. +</p> + +<p> +The thing implied by the farmer’s words caused Richard to take a quick +breath. They looked at each other, and looked away, the farmer thrumming on the +arm of his chair. +</p> + +<p> +Above the mantel-piece, surrounded by tarnished indifferent miniatures of +high-collared, well-to-do yeomen of the anterior generation, trying their best +not to grin, and high-waisted old ladies smiling an encouraging smile through +plentiful cap-puckers, there hung a passably executed half-figure of a naval +officer in uniform, grasping a telescope under his left arm, who stood forth +clearly as not of their kith and kin. His eyes were blue, his hair light, his +bearing that of a man who knows how to carry his head and shoulders. The +artist, while giving him an epaulette to indicate his rank, had also recorded +the juvenility which a lieutenant in the naval service can retain after +arriving at that position, by painting him with smooth cheeks and fresh ruddy +lips. To this portrait Richard’s eyes were directed. Farmer Blaize +observed it, and said— +</p> + +<p> +“Her father, sir!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard moderated his voice to praise the likeness. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the farmer, “pretty well. Next best to +havin’ her, though it’s a long way off that!” +</p> + +<p> +“An old family, Mr. Blaize—is it not?” Richard asked in as +careless a tone as he could assume. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlefolks—what’s left of ’em,” replied the +farmer with an equally affected indifference. +</p> + +<p> +“And that’s her father?” said Richard, growing bolder to +speak of her. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s her father, young gentleman!” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Blaize,” Richard turned to face him, and burst out, +“where is she?” +</p> + +<p> +“Gone, sir! packed off!—Can’t have her here now.” The +farmer thrummed a step brisker, and eyed the young man’s wild face +resolutely. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Blaize,” Richard leaned forward to get closer to him. He was +stunned, and hardly aware of what he was saying or doing: “Where has she +gone? Why did she leave?” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t to ask, sir—ye know,” said the farmer, +with a side shot of his head. +</p> + +<p> +“But she did not—it was not her wish to go?” +</p> + +<p> +“No! I think she likes the place. Mayhap she likes’t too +well!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you send her away to make her unhappy, Mr. Blaize?” +</p> + +<p> +The farmer bluntly denied it was he was the party who made her unhappy. +“Nobody can’t accuse me. Tell ye what, sir. I wunt have the +busybodies set to work about her, and there’s all the matter. So let you +and I come to an understandin’.” +</p> + +<p> +A blind inclination to take offence made Richard sit upright. He forgot it the +next minute, and said humbly: “Am I the cause of her going?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” returned the farmer, “to speak straight—ye +be!” +</p> + +<p> +“What can I do, Mr. Blaize, that she may come back again” the young +hypocrite asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Now,” said the farmer, “you’re coming to business. +Glad to hear ye talk in that sensible way, Mr. Feverel. You may guess I wants +her bad enough. The house ain’t itself now she’s away, and I +ain’t myself. Well, sir! This ye can do. If you gives me your promise not +to meddle with her at all—I can’t mak’ out how you come to be +acquainted; not to try to get her to be meetin’ you—and if +you’d ’a seen her when she left, you would—when did ye +meet?—last grass, wasn’t it?—your word as a gentleman not to +be writing letters, and spyin’ after her—I’ll have her back +at once. Back she shall come!” +</p> + +<p> +“Give her up!” cried Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, that’s it!” said the farmer. “Give her up.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man checked the annihilation of time that was on his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“You sent her away to protect her from me, then?” he said savagely. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not quite it, but that’ll do,” rejoined the +farmer. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think I shall harm her, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“People seem to think she’ll harm you, young gentleman,” the +farmer said with some irony. +</p> + +<p> +“Harm me—she? What people?” +</p> + +<p> +“People pretty intimate with you, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“What people? Who spoke of us?” Richard began to scent a plot, and +would not be balked. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, sir, look here,” said the farmer. “It ain’t no +secret, and if it be, I don’t see why I’m to keep it. It appears +your education’s peculiar!” The farmer drawled out the word as if +he were describing the figure of a snake. “You ain’t to be as other +young gentlemen. All the better! You’re a fine bold young gentleman, and +your father’s a right to be proud of ye. Well, sir—I’m sure I +thank him for’t he comes to hear of you and Luce, and of course he +don’t want nothin’ o’ that—more do I. I meets him +there! What’s more I won’t have nothin’ of it. She be my gal. +She were left to my protection. And she’s a lady, sir. Let me tell ye, ye +won’t find many on ’em so well looked to as she be—my Luce! +Well, Mr. Fev’rel, it’s you, or it’s her—one of ye must +be out o’ the way. So we’re told. And Luce—I do believe +she’s just as anxious about yer education as yer father—she says +she’ll go, and wouldn’t write, and’d break it off for the +sake o’ your education. And she’ve kep’ her word, +haven’t she?—She’s a true’n. What she says she’ll +do!—True blue she be, my Luce! So now, sir, you do the same, and +I’ll thank ye.” +</p> + +<p> +Any one who has tossed a sheet of paper into the fire, and seen it gradually +brown with heat, and strike to flame, may conceive the mind of the lover as he +listened to this speech. +</p> + +<p> +His anger did not evaporate in words, but condensed and sank deep. “Mr. +Blaize,” he said, “this is very kind of the people you allude to, +but I am of an age now to think and act for myself—I love her, +sir!” His whole countenance changed, and the muscles of his face +quivered. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” said the farmer, appeasingly, “we all do at your +age—somebody or other. It’s natural!” +</p> + +<p> +“I love her!” the young man thundered afresh, too much possessed by +his passion to have a sense of shame in the confession. “Farmer!” +his voice fell to supplication, “will you bring her back?” +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize made a queer face. He asked—what for? and where was the +promise required?—But was not the lover’s argument conclusive? He +said he loved her! and he could not see why her uncle should not in consequence +immediately send for her, that they might be together. All very well, quoth the +farmer, but what’s to come of it?—What was to come of it? Why, +love, and more love! And a bit too much! the farmer added grimly. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you refuse me, farmer,” said Richard. “I must look to +you for keeping her away from me, not to—to—these people. You will +not have her back, though I tell you I love her better than my life?” +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize now had to answer him plainly, he had a reason and an objection +of his own. And it was, that her character was at stake, and God knew whether +she herself might not be in danger. He spoke with a kindly candour, not without +dignity. He complimented Richard personally, but young people were young +people; baronets’ sons were not in the habit of marrying farmers’ +nieces. +</p> + +<p> +At first the son of a System did not comprehend him. When he did, he said: +“Farmer! if I give you my word of honour, as I hope for heaven, to marry +her when I am of age, will you have her back?” +</p> + +<p> +He was so fervid that, to quiet him, the farmer only shook his head doubtfully +at the bars of the grate, and let his chest fall slowly. Richard caught what +seemed to him a glimpse of encouragement in these signs, and observed: +“It’s not because you object to me, Mr. Blaize?” +</p> + +<p> +The farmer signified it was not that. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s because my father is against me,” Richard went on, and +undertook to show that love was so sacred a matter that no father could +entirely and for ever resist his son’s inclinations. Argument being a +cool field where the farmer could meet and match him, the young man got on the +tramroad of his passion, and went ahead. He drew pictures of Lucy, of her +truth, and his own. He took leaps from life to death, from death to life, +mixing imprecations and prayers in a torrent. Perhaps he did move the stolid +old Englishman a little, he was so vehement, and made so visible a sacrifice of +his pride. +</p> + +<p> +Farmer Blaize tried to pacify him, but it was useless. His jewel he must have. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer stretched out his hand for the pipe that allayeth botheration. +“May smoke heer now,” he said. “Not +when—somebody’s present. Smoke in the kitchen then. Don’t +mind smell?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard nodded, and watched the operations while the farmer filled, and +lighted, and began to puff, as if his fate hung on them. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’d a’ thought, when you sat over there once, of its +comin’ to this?” ejaculated the farmer, drawing ease and reflection +from tobacco. “You didn’t think much of her that day, young +gentleman! I introduced ye. Well! things comes about. Can’t you wait till +she returns in due course, now?” +</p> + +<p> +This suggestion, the work of the pipe, did but bring on him another torrent. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s queer,” said the farmer, putting the mouth of the pipe +to his wrinkled-up temples. +</p> + +<p> +Richard waited for him, and then he laid down the pipe altogether, as no aid in +perplexity, and said, after leaning his arm on the table and staring at Richard +an instant: +</p> + +<p> +“Look, young gentleman! My word’s gone. I’ve spoke it. +I’ve given ’em the ’surance she shan’t be back till the +Spring, and then I’ll have her, and then—well! I do hope, for more +reasons than one, ye’ll both be wiser—I’ve got my own notions +about her. But I an’t the man to force a gal to marry ’gainst her +inclines. Depend upon it I’m not your enemy, Mr. Fev’rel. +You’re jest the one to mak’ a young gal proud. So wait,—and +see. That’s my ’dvice. Jest tak’ and wait. I’ve no more +to say.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard’s impetuosity had made him really afraid of speaking his notions +concerning the projected felicity of young Tom, if indeed they were serious. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer repeated that he had no more to say; and Richard, with “Wait +till the Spring! Wait till the Spring!” dinning despair in his ears, +stood up to depart. Farmer Blaize shook his slack hand in a friendly way, and +called out at the door for young Tom, who, dreading allusions to his Folly, did +not appear. A maid rushed by Richard in the passage, and slipped something into +his grasp, which fixed on it without further consciousness than that of touch. +The mare was led forth by the Bantam. A light rain was falling down strong warm +gusts, and the trees were noisy in the night. Farmer Blaize requested Richard +at the gate to give him his hand, and say all was well. He liked the young man +for his earnestness and honest outspeaking. Richard could not say all was well, +but he gave his hand, and knitted it to the farmer’s in a sharp squeeze, +when he got upon Cassandra, and rode into the tumult. +</p> + +<p> +A calm, clear dawn succeeded the roaring West, and threw its glowing grey image +on the waters of the Abbey-lake. Before sunrise Tom Bakewell was abroad, and +met the missing youth, his master, jogging Cassandra leisurely along the +Lobourne park-road, a sorry couple to look at. Cassandra’s flanks were +caked with mud, her head drooped: all that was in her had been taken out by +that wild night. On what heaths and heavy fallows had she not spent her noble +strength, recklessly fretting through the darkness! +</p> + +<p> +“Take the mare,” said Richard, dismounting and patting her between +the eyes. “She’s done up, poor old gal! Look to her, Tom, and then +come to me in my room.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom asked no questions. +</p> + +<p> +Three days would bring the anniversary of Richard’s birth, and though Tom +was close, the condition of the mare, and the young gentleman’s strange +freak in riding her out all night becoming known, prepared everybody at Raynham +for the usual bad-luck birthday, the prophets of which were full of sad +gratification. Sir Austin had an unpleasant office to require of his son; no +other than that of humbly begging Benson’s pardon, and washing out the +undue blood he had spilt in taking his Pound of Flesh. Heavy Benson was told to +anticipate the demand for pardon, and practised in his mind the most melancholy +Christian deportment he could assume on the occasion. But while his son was in +this state, Sir Austin considered that he would hardly be brought to see the +virtues of the act, and did not make the requisition of him, and heavy Benson +remained drawn up solemnly expectant at doorways, and at the foot of the +staircase, a Saurian Caryatid, wherever he could get a step in advance of the +young man, while Richard heedlessly passed him, as he passed everybody else, +his head bent to the ground, and his legs bearing him like random instruments +of whose service he was unconscious. It was a shock to Benson’s implicit +belief in his patron; and he was not consoled by the philosophic explanation, +“That Good in a strong many-compounded nature is of slower growth than +any other mortal thing, and must not be forced.” Damnatory doctrines best +pleased Benson. He was ready to pardon, as a Christian should, but he did want +his enemy before him on his knees. And now, though the Saurian Eye saw more +than all the other eyes in the house, and saw that there was matter in hand +between Tom and his master to breed exceeding discomposure to the System, +Benson, as he had not received his indemnity, and did not wish to encounter +fresh perils for nothing, held his peace. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin partly divined what was going on in the breast of his son, without +conceiving the depths of distrust his son cherished or quite measuring the +intensity of the passion that consumed him. He was very kind and tender with +him. Like a cunning physician who has, nevertheless, overlooked the change in +the disease superinduced by one false dose, he meditated his prescriptions +carefully and confidently, sure that he knew the case, and was a match for it. +He decreed that Richard’s erratic behaviour should pass unnoticed. Two +days before the birthday, he asked him whether he would object to having +company? To which Richard said: “Have whom you will, sir.” The +preparation for festivity commenced accordingly. +</p> + +<p> +On the birthday eve he dined with the rest. Lady Blandish was there, and sat +penitently at his right. Hippias prognosticated certain indigestion for himself +on the morrow. The Eighteenth Century wondered whether she should live to see +another birthday. Adrian drank the two-years’ distant term of his +tutorship, and Algernon went over the list of the Lobourne men who would cope +with Bursley on the morrow. Sir Austin gave ear and a word to all, keeping his +mental eye for his son. To please Lady Blandish also, Adrian ventured to make +trifling jokes about London’s Mrs. Grandison; jokes delicately not +decent, but so delicately so, that it was not decent to perceive it. +</p> + +<p> +After dinner Richard left them. Nothing more than commonly peculiar was +observed about him, beyond the excessive glitter of his eyes, but the baronet +said, “Yes, yes! that will pass.” He and Adrian, and Lady Blandish, +took tea in the library, and sat till a late hour discussing casuistries +relating mostly to the Apple-disease. Converse very amusing to the wise youth, +who could suggest to the two chaste minds situations of the shadiest character, +with the air of a seeker after truth, and lead them, unsuspecting, where they +dared not look about them. The Aphorist had elated the heart of his constant +fair worshipper with a newly rounded if not newly conceived sentence, when they +became aware that they were four. Heavy Benson stood among them. He said he had +knocked, but received no answer. There was, however, a vestige of surprise and +dissatisfaction on his face beholding Adrian of the company, which had not +quite worn away, and gave place, when it did vanish, to an aspect of flabby +severity. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Benson? well?” said the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +The unmoving man replied: “If you please, Sir Austin—Mr. +Richard!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s out!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“With Bakewell!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” +</p> + +<p> +“And a carpet-bag!” +</p> + +<p> +The carpet-bag might be supposed to contain that funny thing called a young +hero’s romance in the making. +</p> + +<p> +Out Richard was, and with a carpet-bag, which Tom Bakewell carried. He was on +the road to Bellingham, under heavy rain, hasting like an escaped captive, wild +with joy, while Tom shook his skin, and grunted at his discomforts. The mail +train was to be caught at Bellingham. He knew where to find her now, through +the intervention of Miss Davenport, and thither he was flying, an arrow loosed +from the bow: thither, in spite of fathers and friends and plotters, to claim +her, and take her, and stand with her against the world. +</p> + +<p> +They were both thoroughly wet when they entered Bellingham, and Tom’s +visions were of hot drinks. He hinted the necessity for inward consolation to +his master, who could answer nothing but “Tom! Tom! I shall see her +tomorrow!” It was bad—travelling in the wet, Tom hinted again, to +provoke the same insane outcry, and have his arm seized and furiously shaken +into the bargain. Passing the principal inn of the place, Tom spoke plainly for +brandy. +</p> + +<p> +“No!” cried Richard, “there’s not a moment to be +lost!” and as he said it, he reeled, and fell against Tom, muttering +indistinctly of faintness, and that there was no time to lose. Tom lifted him +in his arms, and got admission to the inn. Brandy, the country’s +specific, was advised by host and hostess, and forced into his mouth, reviving +him sufficiently to cry out, “Tom! the bell’s ringing: we shall be +late,” after which he fell back insensible on the sofa where they had +stretched him. Excitement of blood and brain had done its work upon him. The +youth suffered them to undress him and put him to bed, and there he lay, +forgetful even of love; a drowned weed borne onward by the tide of the hours. +There his father found him. +</p> + +<p> +Was the Scientific Humanist remorseful? He had looked forward to such a crisis +as that point in the disease his son was the victim of, when the body would +fail and give the spirit calm to conquer the malady, knowing very well that the +seeds of the evil were not of the spirit. Moreover, to see him and have him was +a repose after the alarm Benson had sounded. “Mark!” he said to +Lady Blandish, “when he recovers he will not care for her.” +</p> + +<p> +The lady had accompanied him to the Bellingham inn on first hearing of +Richard’s seizure. +</p> + +<p> +“What an iron man you can be,” she exclaimed, smothering her +intuitions. She was for giving the boy his bauble; promising it him, at least, +if he would only get well and be the bright flower of promise he once was. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you look on him,” she pleaded, “can you look on him and +persevere?” +</p> + +<p> +It was a hard sight for this man who loved his son so deeply. The youth lay in +his strange bed, straight and motionless, with fever on his cheeks, and altered +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Old Dr. Clifford of Lobourne was the medical attendant, who, with head-shaking, +and gathering of lips, and reminiscences of ancient arguments, guaranteed to do +all that leech could do in the matter. The old doctor did admit that +Richard’s constitution was admirable, and answered to his prescriptions +like a piano to the musician. “But,” he said at a family +consultation, for Sir Austin had told him how it stood with the young man, +“drugs are not much in cases of this sort. Change! That’s +what’s wanted, and as soon as may be. Distraction! He ought to see the +world, and know what he is made of. It’s no use my talking, I +know,” added the doctor. +</p> + +<p> +“On the contrary,” said Sir Austin, “I am quite of your +persuasion. And the world he shall see—now.” +</p> + +<p> +“We have dipped him in Styx, you know, doctor,” Adrian remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“But, doctor,” said Lady Blandish, “have you known a case of +this sort before.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never, my lady,” said the doctor, “they’re not common +in these parts. Country people are tolerably healthy-minded.” +</p> + +<p> +“But people—and country people—have died for love, +doctor?” +</p> + +<p> +The doctor had not met any of them. +</p> + +<p> +“Men, or women?” inquired the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish believed mostly women. +</p> + +<p> +“Ask the doctor whether they were healthy-minded women,” said the +baronet. “No! you are both looking at the wrong end. Between a +highly-cultured being, and an emotionless animal, there is all the difference +in the world. But of the two, the doctor is nearer the truth. The healthy +nature is pretty safe. If he allowed for organization he would be right +altogether. To feel, but not to feel to excess, that is the problem.” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“If I can’t have the one I chose,<br/> +To some fresh maid I will propose,” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Adrian hummed a country ballad. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a> +CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + +<p> +When the young Experiment again knew the hours that rolled him onward, he was +in his own room at Raynham. Nothing had changed: only a strong fist had knocked +him down and stunned him, and he opened his eyes to a grey world: he had +forgotten what he lived for. He was weak and thin, and with a pale memory of +things. His functions were the same, everything surrounding him was the same: +he looked upon the old blue hills, the far-lying fallows, the river, and the +woods: he knew them, they seemed to have lost recollection of him. Nor could he +find in familiar human faces the secret of intimacy of heretofore. They were +the same faces: they nodded and smiled to him. What was lost he could not tell. +Something had been knocked out of him! He was sensible of his father’s +sweetness of manner, and he was grieved that he could not reply to it, for +every sense of shame and reproach had strangely gone. He felt very useless. In +place of the fiery love for one, he now bore about a cold charity to all. +</p> + +<p> +Thus in the heart of the young man died the Spring Primrose, and while it died +another heart was pushing forth the Primrose of Autumn. +</p> + +<p> +The wonderful change in Richard, and the wisdom of her admirer, now positively +proved, were exciting matters to Lady Blandish. She was rebuked for certain +little rebellious fancies concerning him that had come across her enslaved mind +from time to time. For was he not almost a prophet? It distressed the +sentimental lady that a love like Richard’s could pass off in mere smoke, +and words such as she had heard him speak in Abbey-wood resolve to emptiness. +Nay, it humiliated her personally, and the baronet’s shrewd +prognostication humiliated her. For how should he know, and dare to say, that +love was a thing of the dust that could be trodden out under the heel of +science? But he had said so; and he had proved himself right. She heard with +wonderment that Richard of his own accord had spoken to his father of the folly +he had been guilty of, and had begged his pardon. The baronet told her this, +adding that the youth had done it in a cold unwavering way, without a movement +of his features: had evidently done it to throw off the burden of the duty, he +had conceived. He had thought himself bound to acknowledge that he had been the +Foolish Young Fellow, wishing, possibly, to abjure the fact by an set of +penance. He had also given satisfaction to Benson, and was become a renovated +peaceful spirit, whose main object appeared to be to get up his physical +strength by exercise and no expenditure of speech. +</p> + +<p> +In her company he was composed and courteous; even when they were alone +together, he did not exhibit a trace of melancholy. Sober he seemed, as one who +has recovered from a drunkenness and has determined to drink no more. The idea +struck her that he might be playing a part, but Tom Bakewell, in a private +conversation they had, informed her that he had received an order from his +young master, one day while boxing with him, not to mention the young +lady’s name to him as long as he lived; and Tom could only suppose that +she had offended him. Theoretically wise Lady Blandish had always thought the +baronet; she was unprepared to find him thus practically sagacious. She fell +many degrees; she wanted something to cling to; so she clung to the man who +struck her low. Love, then, was earthly; its depth could be probed by science! +A man lived who could measure it from end to end; foretell its term; handle the +young cherub as were he a shot owl! We who have flown into cousinship with the +empyrean, and disported among immortal hosts, our base birth as a child of Time +is made bare to us!—our wings are cut! Oh, then, if science is this +victorious enemy of love, let us love science! was the logic of the +lady’s heart; and secretly cherishing the assurance that she should +confute him yet, and prove him utterly wrong, she gave him the fruits of +present success, as it is a habit of women to do; involuntarily partly. The +fires took hold of her. She felt soft emotions such as a girl feels, and they +flattered her. It was like youth coming back. Pure women have a second youth. +The Autumn primrose flourished. +</p> + +<p> +We are advised by The Pilgrim’s Scrip that— +</p> + +<p> +“The ways of women, which are Involution, and their practices, which are +Opposition, are generally best hit upon by guess work, and a bold +word;”—it being impossible to track them and hunt them down in the +ordinary style. +</p> + +<p> +So that we may not ourselves become involved and opposed, let us each of us +venture a guess and say a bold word as to how it came that the lady, who +trusted love to be eternal, grovelled to him that shattered her tender faith, +and loved him. +</p> + +<p> +Hitherto it had been simply a sentimental dalliance, and gossips had maligned +the lady. Just when the gossips grew tired of their slander, and inclined to +look upon her charitably, she set about to deserve every word they had said of +her; which may instruct us, if you please, that gossips have only to persist in +lying to be crowned with verity, or that one has only to endure evil mouths for +a period to gain impunity. She was always at the Abbey now. She was much +closeted with the baronet. It seemed to be understood that she had taken Mrs. +Doria’s place. Benson in his misogynic soul perceived that she was taking +Lady Feverel’s: but any report circulated by Benson was sure to meet +discredit, and drew the gossips upon himself; which made his meditations +tragic. No sooner was one woman defeated than another took the field! The +object of the System was no sooner safe than its great author was in danger! +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t think what has come to Benson” he said to Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“He seems to have received a fresh legacy of several pounds of +lead,” returned the wise youth, and imitating Dr. Clifford’s +manner. “Change is what he wants! distraction! send him to Wales for a +month, sir, and let Richard go with him. The two victims of woman may do each +other good.” +</p> + +<p> +“Unfortunately I can’t do without him,” said the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +“Then we must continue to have him on our shoulders all day, and on our +chests all night!” Adrian ejaculated. +</p> + +<p> +“I think while he preserves this aspect we won’t have him at the +dinner-table,” said the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian thought that would be a relief to their digestions; and added: +“You know, sir, what he says?” +</p> + +<p> +Receiving a negative, Adrian delicately explained to him that Benson’s +excessive ponderosity of demeanour was caused by anxiety for the safety of his +master. +</p> + +<p> +“You must pardon a faithful fool, sir,” he continued, for the +baronet became red, and exclaimed: +</p> + +<p> +“His stupidity is past belief! I have absolutely to bolt my study-door +against him.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian at once beheld a charming scene in the interior of the study, not unlike +one that Benson had visually witnessed. For, like a wary prophet, Benson, that +he might have warrant for what he foretold of the future, had a care to spy +upon the present: warned haply by The Pilgrim’s Scrip, of which he was a +diligent reader, and which says, rather emphatically: “Could we see +Time’s full face, we were wise of him.” Now to see Time’s +full face, it is sometimes necessary to look through keyholes, the veteran +having a trick of smiling peace to you on one cheek and grimacing confusion on +the other behind the curtain. Decency and a sense of honour restrain most of us +from being thus wise and miserable for ever. Benson’s excuse was that he +believed in his master, who was menaced. And moreover, notwithstanding his +previous tribulation, to spy upon Cupid was sweet to him. So he peeped, and he +saw a sight. He saw Time’s full face; or, in other words, he saw the +wiles of woman and the weakness of man: which is our history, as Benson would +have written it, and a great many poets and philosophers have written it. +</p> + +<p> +Yet it was but the plucking of the Autumn primrose that Benson had seen: a +somewhat different operation from the plucking of the Spring one: very +innocent! Our staid elderly sister has paler blood, and has, or thinks she has, +a reason or two about the roots. She is not all instinct. “For this high +cause, and for that I know men, and know him to be the flower of men, I give +myself to him!” She makes that lofty inward exclamation while the hand is +detaching her from the roots. Even so strong a self-justification she requires. +She has not that blind glory in excess which her younger sister can gild the +longest leap with. And if, moth-like, she desires the star, she is nervously +cautious of candles. Hence her circles about the dangerous human flame are wide +and shy. She must be drawn nearer and nearer by a fresh reason. She loves to +sentimentalize. Lady Blandish had been sentimentalizing for ten years. She +would have preferred to pursue the game. The dark-eyed dame was pleased with +her smooth life and the soft excitement that did not ruffle it. Not willingly +did she let herself be won. +</p> + +<p> +“Sentimentalists,” says The Pilgrim’s Scrip, “are they +who seek to enjoy without incurring the Immense Debtorship for a thing +done.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is,” the writer says of Sentimentalism elsewhere, “a +happy pastime and an important science to the timid, the idle, and the +heartless; but a damning one to them who have anything to forfeit.” +</p> + +<p> +However, one who could set down the dying for love, as a sentimentalism, can +hardly be accepted as a clear authority. Assuredly he was not one to avoid the +incurring of the immense debtorship in any way: but he was a bondsman still to +the woman who had forsaken him, and a spoken word would have made it seem his +duty to face that public scandal which was the last evil to him. What had so +horrified the virtuous Benson, Richard had already beheld in Daphne’s +Bower; a simple kissing of the fair white hand! Doubtless the keyhole somehow +added to Benson’s horror. The two similar performances, so very innocent, +had wondrous opposite consequences. The first kindled Richard to adore Woman; +the second destroyed Benson’s faith in Man. But Lady Blandish knew the +difference between the two. She understood why the baronet did not speak; +excused, and respected him for it. She was content, since she must love, to +love humbly, and she had, besides, her pity for his sorrows to comfort her. A +hundred fresh reasons for loving him arose and multiplied every day. He read to +her the secret book in his own handwriting, composed for Richard’s +Marriage Guide: containing Advice and Directions to a Young Husband, full of +the most tender wisdom and delicacy; so she thought; nay, not wanting in +poetry, though neither rhymed nor measured. He expounded to her the distinctive +character of the divers ages of love, giving the palm to the flower she put +forth, over that of Spring, or the Summer rose. And while they sat and talked; +“My wound has healed,” he said. “How?” she asked. +“At the fountain of your eyes,” he replied, and drew the joy of new +life from her blushes, without incurring further debtorship for a thing done. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a> +CHAPTER XXV</h2> + +<p> +Let it be some apology for the damage caused by the careering hero, and a +consolation to the quiet wretches, dragged along with him at his +chariot-wheels, that he is generally the last to know when he has made an +actual start; such a mere creature is he, like the rest of us, albeit the head +of our fates. By this you perceive the true hero, whether he be a prince or a +pot-boy, that he does not plot; Fortune does all for him. He may be compared to +one to whom, in an electric circle, it is given to carry the battery. +</p> + +<p> +We caper and grimace at his will; yet not his the will, not his the power. +’Tis all Fortune’s, whose puppet he is. She deals her dispensations +through him. Yea, though our capers be never so comical, he laughs not. Intent +upon his own business, the true hero asks little services of us here and there; +thinks it quite natural that they should be acceded to, and sees nothing +ridiculous in the lamentable contortions we must go through to fulfil them. +Probably he is the elect of Fortune, because of that notable faculty of being +intent upon his own business: “Which is,” says The Pilgrim’s +Scrip, “with men to be valued equal to that force which in water makes a +stream.” This prelude was necessary to the present chapter of +Richard’s history. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It happened that in the turn of the year, and while old earth was busy with her +flowers, the fresh wind blew, the little bird sang, and Hippias Feverel, the +Dyspepsy, amazed, felt the Spring move within him. He communicated his +delightful new sensations to the baronet, his brother, whose constant +exclamation with regard to him, was: “Poor Hippias! All his machinery is +bare!” and had no hope that he would ever be in a condition to defend it +from view. Nevertheless Hippias had that hope, and so he told his brother, +making great exposure of his machinery to effect the explanation. He spoke of +all his physical experiences exultingly, and with wonder. The achievement of +common efforts, not usually blazoned, he celebrated as triumphs, and, of +course, had Adrian on his back very quickly. But he could bear him, or +anything, now. It was such ineffable relief to find himself looking out upon +the world of mortals instead of into the black phantasmal abysses of his own +complicated frightful structure. “My mind doesn’t so much seem to +haunt itself, now,” said Hippias, nodding shortly and peering out of +intense puckers to convey a glimpse of what hellish sufferings his had been: +“I feel as if I had come aboveground.” +</p> + +<p> +A poor Dyspepsy may talk as he will, but he is the one who never gets sympathy, +or experiences compassion: and it is he whose groaning petitions for charity do +at last rout that Christian virtue. Lady Blandish, a charitable soul, could not +listen to Hippias, though she had a heart for little mice and flies, and Sir +Austin had also small patience with his brother’s gleam of health, which +was just enough to make his disease visible. He remembered his early follies +and excesses, and bent his ear to him as one man does to another who complains +of having to pay a debt legally incurred. +</p> + +<p> +“I think,” said Adrian, seeing how the communications of Hippias +were received, “that when our Nemesis takes lodgings in the stomach, +it’s best to act the Spartan, smile hard, and be silent.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard alone was decently kind to Hippias; whether from opposition, or real +affection, could not be said, as the young man was mysterious. He advised his +uncle to take exercise, walked with him, cultivated cheerful impressions in +him, and pointed out innocent pursuits. He made Hippias visit with him some of +the poor old folk of the village, who bewailed the loss of his cousin Austin +Wentworth, and did his best to waken him up, and give the outer world a +stronger hold on him. He succeeded in nothing but in winning his uncle’s +gratitude. The season bloomed scarce longer than a week for Hippias, and then +began to languish. The poor Dyspepsy’s eager grasp at beatification +relaxed: he went underground again. He announced that he felt “spongy +things”—one of the more constant throes of his malady. His bitter +face recurred: he chewed the cud of horrid hallucinations. He told Richard he +must give up going about with him: people telling of their ailments made him so +uncomfortable—the birds were so noisy, pairing—the rude bare soil +sickened him. +</p> + +<p> +Richard treated him with a gravity equal to his father’s. He asked what +the doctors said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! the doctors!” cried Hippias with vehement scepticism. +“No man of sense believes in medicine for chronic disorder. Do you happen +to have heard of any new remedy then, Richard? No? They advertise a great many +cures for indigestion, I assure you, my dear boy. I wonder whether one can rely +upon the authenticity of those signatures? I see no reason why there should be +no cure for such a disease?—Eh? And it’s just one of the things a +quack, as they call them, would hit upon sooner than one who is in the beaten +track. Do you know, Richard, my dear boy, I’ve often thought that if we +could by any means appropriate to our use some of the extraordinary digestive +power that a boa constrictor has in his gastric juices, there is really no +manner of reason why we should not comfortably dispose of as much of an ox as +our stomachs will hold, and one might eat French dishes without the +wretchedness of thinking what’s to follow. And this makes me think that +those fellows may, after all, have got some truth in them: some secret that, of +course, they require to be paid for. We distrust each other in this world too +much, Richard. I’ve felt inclined once or twice—but it’s +absurd!—If it only alleviated a few of my sufferings I should be +satisfied. I’ve no hesitation in saying that I should be quite satisfied +if it only did away with one or two, and left me free to eat and drink as other +people do. Not that I mean to try them. It’s only a fancy—Eh? What +a thing health is, my dear boy! Ah! if I were like you! I was in love +once!” +</p> + +<p> +“Were you!” said Richard, coolly regarding him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve forgotten what I felt!” Hippias sighed. +“You’ve very much improved, my dear boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“So people say,” quoth Richard. +</p> + +<p> +Hippias looked at him anxiously: “If I go to town and get the +doctor’s opinion about trying a new course—Eh, Richard? will you +come with me? I should like your company. We could see London together, you +know. Enjoy ourselves,” and Hippias rubbed his hands. +</p> + +<p> +Richard smiled at the feeble glimmer of enjoyment promised by his uncle’s +eyes, and said he thought it better they should stay where they were—an +answer that might mean anything. Hippias immediately became possessed by the +beguiling project. He went to the baronet, and put the matter before him, +instancing doctors as the object of his journey, not quacks, of course; and +requesting leave to take Richard. Sir Austin was getting uneasy about his +son’s manner. It was not natural. His heart seemed to be frozen: he had +no confidences: he appeared to have no ambition—to have lost the virtues +of youth with the poison that had passed out of him. He was disposed to try +what effect a little travelling might have on him, and had himself once or +twice hinted to Richard that it would be good for him to move about, the young +man quietly replying that he did not wish to quit Raynham at all, which was too +strict a fulfilment of his father’s original views in educating him there +entirely. On the day that Hippias made his proposal, Adrian, seconded by Lady +Blandish, also made one. The sweet Spring season stirred in Adrian as well as +in others: not to pastoral measures: to the joys of the operatic world and +bravura glories. He also suggested that it would be advisable to carry Richard +to town for a term, and let him know his position, and some freedom. Sir Austin +weighed the two proposals. He was pretty certain that Richard’s passion +was consumed, and that the youth was now only under the burden of its ashes. He +had found against his heart, at the Bellingham inn: a great lock of golden +hair. He had taken it, and the lover, after feeling about for it with faint +hands, never asked for it. This precious lock (Miss Davenport had thrust it +into his hand at Belthorpe as Lucy’s last gift), what sighs and tears it +had weathered! The baronet laid it in Richard’s sight one day, and beheld +him take it up, turn it over, and drop it down again calmly, as if he were +handling any common curiosity. It pacified him on that score. The young +man’s love was dead. Dr. Clifford said rightly: he wanted distractions. +The baronet determined that Richard should go. Hippias and Adrian then pressed +their several suits as to which should have him. Hippias, when he could forget +himself, did not lack sense. He observed that Adrian was not at present a +proper companion for Richard, and would teach him to look on life from the +false point. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t understand a young philosopher,” said the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +“A young philosopher’s an old fool!” returned Hippias, not +thinking that his growl had begotten a phrase. +</p> + +<p> +His brother smiled with gratification, and applauded him loudly: +“Excellent! worthy of your best days! You’re wrong, though, in +applying it to Adrian. He has never been precocious. All he has done has been +to bring sound common sense to bear upon what he hears and sees. I think, +however,” the baronet added, “he may want faith in the better +qualities of men.” And this reflection inclined him not to let his son be +alone with Adrian. He gave Richard his choice, who saw which way his +father’s wishes tended, and decided so to please him. Naturally it +annoyed Adrian extremely. He said to his chief: +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose you know what you are doing, sir. I don’t see that we +derive any advantage from the family name being made notorious for twenty years +of obscene suffering, and becoming a byword for our constitutional tendency to +stomachic distension before we fortunately encountered Quackem’s Pill. My +uncle’s tortures have been huge, but I would rather society were not +intimate with them under their several headings.” Adrian enumerated some +of the most abhorrent. “You know him, sir. If he conceives a duty, he +will do it in the face of every decency—all the more obstinate because +the conception is rare. If he feels a little brisk the morning after the pill, +he sends the letter that makes us famous! We go down to posterity with +heightened characteristics, to say nothing of a contemporary celebrity nothing +less than our being turned inside-out to the rabble. I confess I don’t +desire to have my machinery made bare to them.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin assured the wise youth that Hippias had arranged to go to Dr. +Bairam. He softened Adrian’s chagrin by telling him that in about two +weeks they would follow to London: hinting also at a prospective Summer +campaign. The day was fixed for Richard to depart, and the day came. Madame the +Eighteenth Century called him to her chamber and put into his hand a +fifty-pound note, as her contribution toward his pocket-expenses. He did not +want it, he said, but she told him he was a young man, and would soon make that +fly when he stood on his own feet. The old lady did not at all approve of the +System in her heart, and she gave her grandnephew to understand that, should he +require more, he knew where to apply, and secrets would be kept. His father +presented him with a hundred pounds—which also Richard said he did not +want—he did not care for money. “Spend it or not,” said the +baronet, perfectly secure in him. +</p> + +<p> +Hippias had few injunctions to observe. They were to take up quarters at the +hotel, Algernon’s general run of company at the house not being +altogether wholesome. The baronet particularly forewarned Hippias of the +imprudence of attempting to restrict the young man’s movements, and +letting him imagine he was under surveillance. Richard having been, as it were, +pollarded by despotism, was now to grow up straight, and bloom again, in +complete independence, as far as he could feel. So did the sage decree; and we +may pause a moment to reflect how wise were his previsions, and how successful +they must have been, had not Fortune, the great foe to human cleverness, turned +against him, or he against himself. +</p> + +<p> +The departure took place on a fine March morning. The bird of Winter sang from +the budding tree; in the blue sky sang the bird of Summer. Adrian rode between +Richard and Hippias to the Bellingham station, and vented his disgust on them +after his own humorous fashion, because it did not rain and damp their ardour. +In the rear came Lady Blandish and the baronet, conversing on the calm summit +of success. +</p> + +<p> +“You have shaped him exactly to resemble yourself,” she said, +pointing with her riding-whip to the grave stately figure of the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“Outwardly, perhaps,” he answered, and led to a discussion on +Purity and Strength, the lady saying that she preferred Purity. +</p> + +<p> +“But you do not,” said the baronet. “And there I admire the +always true instinct of women, that they all worship Strength in whatever form, +and seem to know it to be the child of heaven; whereas Purity is but a +characteristic, a garment, and can be spotted—how soon! For there are +questions in this life with which we must grapple or be lost, and when, hunted +by that cold eye of intense inner-consciousness, the clearest soul becomes a +cunning fox, if it have not courage to stand and do battle. Strength indicates +a boundless nature—like the Maker. Strength is a God to you—Purity +a toy. A pretty one, and you seem to be fond of playing with it,” he +added, with unaccustomed slyness. +</p> + +<p> +The lady listened, pleased at the sportive malice which showed that the +constraint on his mind had left him. It was for women to fight their fight now; +she only took part in it for amusement. This is how the ranks of our enemies +are thinned; no sooner do poor women put up a champion in their midst than she +betrays them. +</p> + +<p> +“I see,” she said archly, “we are the lovelier vessels; you +claim the more direct descent. Men are seedlings: Women—slips! Nay, you +have said so,” she cried out at his gestured protestation, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“But I never printed it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! what you speak answers for print with me.” +</p> + +<p> +Exquisite Blandish! He could not choose but love her. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me what are your plans?” she asked. “May a woman +know?” +</p> + +<p> +He replied, “I have none or you would share them. I shall study him in +the world. This indifference must wear off. I shall mark his inclinations now, +and he shall be what he inclines to. Occupation will be his prime safety. His +cousin Austin’s plan of life appears most to his taste, and he can serve +the people that way as well as in Parliament, should he have no stronger +ambition. The clear duty of a man of any wealth is to serve the people as he +best can. He shall go among Austin’s set, if he wishes it, though +personally I find no pleasure in rash imaginations, and undigested schemes +built upon the mere instinct of principles.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look at him now,” said the lady. “He seems to care for +nothing; not even for the beauty of the day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Or Adrian’s jokes,” added the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian could be seen to be trying zealously to torment a laugh, or a confession +of irritation, out of his hearers, stretching out his chin to one, and to the +other, with audible asides. Richard he treated as a new instrument of +destruction about to be let loose on the slumbering metropolis; Hippias as one +in an interesting condition; and he got so much fun out of the notion of these +two journeying together, and the mishaps that might occur to them, that he +esteemed it almost a personal insult for his hearers not to laugh. The wise +youth’s dull life at Raynham had afflicted him with many peculiarities of +the professional joker. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! the Spring! the Spring!” he cried, as in scorn of his sallies +they exchanged their unmeaning remarks on the sweet weather across him. +“You seem both to be uncommonly excited by the operations of turtles, +rooks, and daws. Why can’t you let them alone?” +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘Wind bloweth,<br/> +Cock croweth,<br/> + Doodle-doo;<br/> +Hippy verteth,<br/> +Ricky sterteth,<br/> + Sing Cuckoo!’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +There’s an old native pastoral!—Why don’t you write a Spring +sonnet, Ricky? The asparagus-beds are full of promise, I hear, and eke the +strawberry. Berries I fancy your Pegasus has a taste for. What kind of berry +was that I saw some verses of yours about once?—amatory verses to some +kind of berry—yewberry, blueberry, glueberry! Pretty verses, decidedly +warm. Lips, eyes, bosom, legs—legs? I don’t think you gave her any +legs. No legs and no nose. That appears to be the poetic taste of the day. It +shall be admitted that you create the very beauties for a chaste people. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘O might I lie where leans her lute!’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +and offend no moral community. That’s not a bad image of yours, my dear +boy: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘Her shape is like an antelope<br/> +Upon the Eastern hills.’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +But as a candid critic, I would ask you if the likeness can be considered +correct when you give her no legs? You will see at the ballet that you are in +error about women at present, Richard. That admirable institution which our +venerable elders have imported from Gallia for the instruction of our gaping +youth, will edify and astonish you. I assure you I used, from reading The +Pilgrim’s Scrip, to imagine all sorts of things about them, till I was +taken there, and learnt that they are very like us after all, and then they +ceased to trouble me. Mystery is the great danger to youth, my son! Mystery is +woman’s redoubtable weapon, O Richard of the Ordeal! I’m aware that +you’ve had your lessons in anatomy, but nothing will persuade you that an +anatomical figure means flesh and blood. You can’t realize the fact. Do +you intend to publish when you’re in town? It’ll be better not to +put your name. Having one’s name to a volume of poems is as bad as to an +advertising pill.” +</p> + +<p> +“I will send you an early copy, Adrian, when I publish,” quoth +Richard. “Hark at that old blackbird, uncle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” Hippias quavered; looking up from the usual subject of his +contemplation, and trying to take an interest in him, “fine old +fellow!” +</p> + +<p> +“What a chuckle he gives out before he flies! Not unlike July +nightingales. You know that bird I told you of—the blackbird that had its +mate shot, and used to come to sing to old Dame Bakewell’s bird from the +tree opposite. A rascal knocked it over the day before yesterday, and the dame +says her bird hasn’t sung a note since.” +</p> + +<p> +“Extraordinary!” Hippias muttered abstractedly. “I remember +the verses.” +</p> + +<p> +“But where’s your moral?” interposed the wrathful Adrian. +“Where’s constancy rewarded? +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘The ouzel-cock so black of hue,<br/> + With orange-tawny bill;<br/> +The rascal with his aim so true;<br/> + The Poet’s little quill!’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Where’s the moral of that? except that all’s game to the poet! +Certainly we have a noble example of the devotedness of the female, who for +three entire days refuses to make herself heard, on account of a defunct male. +I suppose that’s what Ricky dwells on.” +</p> + +<p> +“As you please, my dear Adrian,” says Richard, and points out +larch-buds to his uncle, as they ride by the young green wood. +</p> + +<p> +The wise youth was driven to extremity. Such a lapse from his pupil’s +heroics to this last verge of Arcadian coolness, Adrian could not believe in. +“Hark at this old blackbird!” he cried, in his turn, and pretending +to interpret his fits of song: +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what a pretty comedy!—Don’t we wear the mask well, my +Fiesco?—Genoa will be our own to-morrow!—Only wait until the train +has started—jolly! jolly! jolly! We’ll be winners yet! +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bad verse—eh, Ricky? my Lucius Junius!” +</p> + +<p> +“You do the blackbird well,” said Richard, and looked at him in a +manner mildly affable. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian shrugged. “You’re a young man of wonderful powers,” he +emphatically observed; meaning to say that Richard quite beat him; for which +opinion Richard gravely thanked him, and with this they rode into Bellingham. +</p> + +<p> +There was young Tom Blaize at the station, in his Sunday beaver and gala +waistcoat and neckcloth, coming the lord over Tom Bakewell, who had preceded +his master in charge of the baggage. He likewise was bound for London. Richard, +as he was dismounting, heard Adrian say to the baronet: “The Beast, sir, +appears to be going to fetch Beauty;” but he paid no heed to the words. +Whether young Tom heard them or not, Adrian’s look took the lord out of +him, and he shrunk away into obscurity, where the nearest approach to the +fashions which the tailors of Bellingham could supply to him, sat upon him more +easily, and he was not stiffened by the eyes of the superiors whom he sought to +rival. The baronet, Lady Blandish, and Adrian remained on horseback, and +received Richard’s adieux across the palings. He shook hands with each of +them in the same kindly cold way, elicitating from Adrian a marked encomium on +his style of doing it. The train came up, and Richard stepped after his uncle +into one of the carriages. +</p> + +<p> +Now surely there will come an age when the presentation of science at war with +Fortune and the Fates, will be deemed the true epic of modern life; and the +aspect of a scientific humanist who, by dint of incessant watchfulness, has +maintained a System against those active forties, cannot be reckoned less than +sublime, even though at the moment he but sit upon his horse, on a fine March +morning such as this, and smile wistfully to behold the son of his heart, his +System incarnate, wave a serene adieu to tutelage, neither too eager nor +morbidly unwilling to try his luck alone for a term of two weeks. At present, I +am aware, an audience impatient for blood and glory scorns the stress I am +putting on incidents so minute, a picture so little imposing. An audience will +come to whom it will be given to see the elementary machinery at work: who, as +it were, from some slight hint of the straws, will feel the winds of March when +they do not blow. To them will nothing be trivial, seeing that they will have +in their eyes the invisible conflict going on around us, whose features a nod, +a smile, a laugh of ours perpetually changes. And they will perceive, moreover, +that in real life all hangs together: the train is laid in the lifting of an +eyebrow, that bursts upon the field of thousands. They will see the links of +things as they pass, and wonder not, as foolish people now do, that this great +matter came out of that small one. +</p> + +<p> +Such an audience, then, will participate in the baronet’s gratification +at his son’s demeanour, wherein he noted the calm bearing of experience +not gained in the usual wanton way: and will not be without some excited +apprehension at his twinge of astonishment, when, just as the train went +sliding into swiftness, he beheld the grave, cold, self-possessed young man +throw himself back in the carriage violently laughing. Science was at a loss to +account for that. Sir Austin checked his mind from inquiring, that he might +keep suspicion at a distance, but he thought it odd, and the jarring sensation +that ran along his nerves at the sight, remained with him as he rode home. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish’s tender womanly intuition bade her say: “You see it +was the very thing he wanted. He has got his natural spirits already.” +</p> + +<p> +“It was,” Adrian put in his word, “the exact thing he wanted. +His spirits have returned miraculously.” +</p> + +<p> +“Something amused him,” said the baronet, with an eye on the +puffing train. +</p> + +<p> +“Probably something his uncle said or did,” Lady Blandish +suggested, and led off at a gallop. +</p> + +<p> +Her conjecture chanced to be quite correct. The cause for Richard’s +laughter was simple enough. Hippias, on finding the carriage-door closed on +him, became all at once aware of the bright-haired hope which dwells in Change; +for one who does not woo her too frequently; and to express his sudden relief +from mental despondency at the amorous prospect, the Dyspepsy bent and gave his +hands a sharp rub between his legs: which unlucky action brought Adrian’s +pastoral, +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Hippy verteth,<br/> +Sing cuckoo!” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +in such comic colours before Richard, that a demon of laughter seized him. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Hippy verteth!” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Every time he glanced at his uncle the song sprang up, and he laughed so +immoderately that it looked like madness come upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, why, why, what are you laughing at, my dear boy,” said +Hippias, and was provoked by the contagious exercise to a modest “ha! +ha!” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, what are you laughing at, uncle?” cried Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“I really don’t know,” Hippias chuckled. +</p> + +<p> +“Nor I, uncle! Sing, cuckoo!” +</p> + +<p> +They laughed themselves into the pleasantest mood imaginable. Hippias not only +came aboveground, he flew about in the very skies, verting like any blithe +creature of the season. He remembered old legal jokes, and anecdotes of +Circuit; and Richard laughed at them all, but more at him—he was so +genial, and childishly fresh, and innocently joyful at his own transformation, +while a lurking doubt in the bottom of his eyes, now and then, that it might +not last, and that he must go underground again, lent him a look of pathos and +humour which tickled his youthful companion irresistibly, and made his heart +warm to him. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you what, uncle,” said Richard, “I think +travelling’s a capital thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“The best thing in the world, my dear boy,” Hippias returned. +“It makes me wish I had given up that Work of mine, and tried it before, +instead of chaining myself to a task. We’re quite different beings in a +minute. I am. Hem! what shall we have for dinner?” +</p> + +<p> +“Leave that to me, uncle. I shall order for you. You know, I intend to +make you well. How gloriously we go along! I should like to ride on a railway +every day.” +</p> + +<p> +Hippias remarked: “They say it rather injures the digestion.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense! see how you’ll digest to-night and to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I shall do something yet,” sighed Hippias, alluding to the +vast literary fame he had aforetime dreamed of. “I hope I shall have a +good night to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course you will! What! after laughing like that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ugh!” Hippias grunted, “I daresay, Richard, you sleep the +moment you get into bed!” +</p> + +<p> +“The instant my head’s on my pillow, and up the moment I wake. +Health’s everything!” +</p> + +<p> +“Health’s everything!” echoed Hippias, from his immense +distance. +</p> + +<p> +“And if you’ll put yourself in my hands,” Richard continued, +“you shall do just as I do. You shall be well and strong, and sing +‘Jolly!’ like Adrian’s blackbird. You shall, upon my honour, +uncle!” +</p> + +<p> +He specified the hours of devotion to his uncle’s recovery—no less +than twelve a day—that he intended to expend, and his cheery robustness +almost won his uncle to leap up recklessly and clutch health as his own. +</p> + +<p> +“Mind,” quoth Hippias, with a half-seduced smile, “mind your +dishes are not too savoury!” +</p> + +<p> +“Light food and claret! Regular meals and amusement! Lend your heart to +all, but give it to none!” exclaims young Wisdom, and Hippias mutters, +“Yes! yes!” and intimates that the origin of his malady lay in his +not following that maxim earlier. +</p> + +<p> +“Love ruins us, my dear boy,” he said, thinking to preach Richard a +lesson, and Richard boisterously broke out: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The love of Monsieur Francatelli,<br/> +It was the ruin of—et coetera.” +</p> + +<p> +Hippias blinked, exclaiming, “Really, my dear boy! I never saw you so +excited.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the railway! It’s the fun, uncle!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” Hippias wagged a melancholy head, “you’ve got the +Golden Bride! Keep her if you can. That’s a pretty fable of your +father’s. I gave him the idea, though. Austin filches a great many of my +ideas!” +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s the idea in verse, uncle: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘O sunless walkers by the tide!<br/> +O have you seen the Golden Bride!<br/> +They say that she is fair beyond<br/> +All women; faithful, and more fond! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +You know, the young inquirer comes to a group of penitent sinners by the brink +of a stream. They howl, and answer: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Faithful she is, but she forsakes:<br/> +And fond, yet endless woe she makes:<br/> +And fair! but with this curse she’s cross’d;<br/> +To know her not till she is lost!’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +“Then the doleful party march off in single file solemnly, and the +fabulist pursues: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘She hath a palace in the West:<br/> +Bright Hesper lights her to her rest:<br/> +And him the Morning Star awakes<br/> +Whom to her charmed arms she takes.<br/> +<br/> +So lives he till he sees, alas!<br/> +The maids of baser metal pass.’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And prodigal of the happiness she lends him, he asks to share it with one of +them. There is the Silver Maid, and the Copper, and the Brassy Maid, and others +of them. First, you know, he tries Argentine, and finds her only twenty to the +pound, and has a worse experience with Copperina, till he descends to the +scullery; and the lower he goes, the less obscure become the features of his +Bride of Gold, and all her radiance shines forth, my uncle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Verse rather blunts the point. Well, keep to her, now you’ve got +her,” says Hippias. +</p> + +<p> +“We will, uncle!—Look how the farms fly past! Look at the cattle in +the fields! And how the lines duck, and swim up! +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘She claims the whole, and not the part—<br/> +The coin of an unused heart!<br/> +To gain his Golden Bride again,<br/> +He hunts with melancholy men,’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +—and is waked no longer by the Morning Star!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not if he doesn’t sleep till an hour before it rises!” +Hippias interjected. “You don’t rhyme badly. But stick to prose. +Poetry’s a Base-metal maid. I’m not sure that any writing’s +good for the digestion. I’m afraid it has spoilt mine.” +</p> + +<p> +“Fear nothing, uncle!” laughed Richard. “You shall ride in +the park with me every day to get an appetite. You and I and the Golden Bride. +You know that little poem of Sandoe’s? +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘She rides in the park on a prancing bay,<br/> + She and her squires together;<br/> +Her dark locks gleam from a bonnet of grey,<br/> + And toss with the tossing feather.<br/> +<br/> +‘Too calmly proud for a glance of pride<br/> + Is the beautiful face as it passes;<br/> +The cockneys nod to each other aside,<br/> + The coxcombs lift their glasses.<br/> +<br/> +‘And throng to her, sigh to her, you that can breach<br/> + The ice-wall that guards her securely;<br/> +You have not such bliss, though she smile on you each,<br/> + As the heart that can image her purely.’ +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Wasn’t Sandoe once a friend of my father’s? I suppose they +quarrelled. He understands the heart. What does he make his ‘Humble +Lover’ say? +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘True, Madam, you may think to part<br/> + Conditions by a glacier-ridge,<br/> +But Beauty’s for the largest heart,<br/> + And all abysses Love can bridge!’” +</p> + +<p> +Hippias now laughed; grimly, as men laugh at the emptiness of words. +</p> + +<p> +“Largest heart!” he sneered. “What’s a +‘glacier-ridge’? I’ve never seen one. I can’t deny it +rhymes with ‘bridge.’ But don’t go parading your admiration +of that person, Richard. Your father will speak to you on the subject when he +thinks fit.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought they had quarrelled,” said Richard. “What a +pity!” and he murmured to a pleased ear: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Beauty’s for the largest heart!” +</p> + +<p> +The flow of their conversation was interrupted by the entrance of passengers at +a station. Richard examined their faces with pleasure. All faces pleased him. +Human nature sat tributary at the feet of him and his Golden Bride. As he could +not well talk his thoughts before them, he looked out at the windows, and +enjoyed the changing landscape, projecting all sorts of delights for his old +friend Ripton, and musing hazily on the wondrous things he was to do in the +world; of the great service he was to be to his fellow-creatures. In the midst +of his reveries he was landed in London. Tom Bakewell stood at the carriage +door. A glance told Richard that his squire had something curious on his mind; +and he gave Tom the word to speak out. Tom edged his master out of hearing, and +began sputtering a laugh. +</p> + +<p> +“Dash’d if I can help it, sir!” he said. “That young +Tom! He’ve come to town dressed that spicy! and he don’t know his +way about no more than a stag. He’s come to fetch somebody from another +rail, and he don’t know how to get there, and he ain’t sure about +which rail ’tis. Look at him, Mr. Richard! There he goes.” +</p> + +<p> +Young Tom appeared to have the weight of all London on his beaver. +</p> + +<p> +“Who has he come for?” Richard asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you know, sir? You don’t like me to mention the +name,” mumbled Tom, bursting to be perfectly intelligible. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it for her, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Lucy, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard turned away, and was seized by Hippias, who begged him to get out of +the noise and pother, and caught hold of his slack arm to bear him into a +conveyance; but Richard, by wheeling half to the right, or left, always got his +face round to the point where young Tom was manoeuvring to appear at his ease. +Even when they were seated in the conveyance, Hippias could not persuade him to +drive off. He made the excuse that he did not wish to start till there was a +clear road. At last young Tom cast anchor by a policeman, and, doubtless at the +official’s suggestion, bashfully took seat in a cab, and was shot into +the whirlpool of London. Richard then angrily asked his driver what he was +waiting for. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you ill, my boy?” said Hippias. “Where’s your +colour?” +</p> + +<p> +He laughed oddly, and made a random answer that he hoped the fellow would drive +fast. +</p> + +<p> +“I hate slow motion after being in the railway,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +Hippias assured him there was something the matter with him. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, uncle! nothing!” said Richard, looking fiercely candid. +</p> + +<p> +They say, that when the skill and care of men rescue a drowned wretch from +extinction, and warm the flickering spirit into steady flame, such pain it is, +the blood forcing its way along the dry channels, and the heavily-ticking +nerves, and the sullen heart—the struggle of life and death in +him—grim death relaxing his gripe; such pain it is, he cries out no +thanks to them that pull him by inches from the depths of the dead river. And +he who has thought a love extinct, and is surprised by the old fires, and the +old tyranny, he rebels, and strives to fight clear of the cloud of forgotten +sensations that settle on him; such pain it is, the old sweet music reviving +through his frame, and the charm of his passion filing him afresh. Still was +fair Lucy the one woman to Richard. He had forbidden her name but from an +instinct of self-defence. Must the maids of baser metal dominate him anew, it +is in Lucy’s shape. Thinking of her now so near him—his darling! +all her graces, her sweetness, her truth; for, despite his bitter blame of her, +he knew her true—swam in a thousand visions before his eyes; visions +pathetic, and full of glory, that now wrung his heart, and now elated it. As +well might a ship attempt to calm the sea, as this young man the violent +emotion that began to rage in his breast. “I shall not see her!” he +said to himself exultingly, and at the same instant thought, how black was +every corner of the earth but that one spot where Lucy stood! how utterly +cheerless the place he was going to! Then he determined to bear it; to live in +darkness; there was a refuge in the idea of a voluntary martyrdom. “For +if I chose I could see her—this day within an hour!—I could see +her, and touch her hand, and, oh, heaven!—But I do not choose.” And +a great wave swelled through him, and was crushed down only to swell again more +stormily. +</p> + +<p> +Then Tom Bakewell’s words recurred to him that young Tom Blaize was +uncertain where to go for her, and that she might be thrown on this Babylon +alone. And flying from point to point, it struck him that they had known at +Raynham of her return, and had sent him to town to be out of the way—they +had been miserably plotting against him once more. “They shall see what +right they have to fear me. I’ll shame them!” was the first turn +taken by his wrathful feelings, as he resolved to go, and see her safe, and +calmly return to his uncle, whom he sincerely believed not to be one of the +conspirators. Nevertheless, after forming that resolve, he sat still, as if +there were something fatal in the wheels that bore him away from +it—perhaps because he knew, as some do when passion is lord, that his +intelligence juggled with him; though none the less keenly did he feel his +wrongs and suspicions. His Golden Bride was waning fast. But when Hippias +ejaculated to cheer him: “We shall soon be there!” the spell broke. +Richard stopped the cab, saying he wanted to speak to Tom, and would ride with +him the rest of the journey. He knew well enough which line of railway his Lucy +must come by. He had studied every town and station on the line. Before his +uncle could express more than a mute remonstrance, he jumped out and hailed Tom +Bakewell, who came behind with the boxes and baggage in a companion cab, his +head a yard beyond the window to make sure of his ark of safety, the vehicle +preceding. +</p> + +<p> +“What an extraordinary, impetuous boy it is,” said Hippias. +“We’re in the very street!” +</p> + +<p> +Within a minute the stalwart Berry, despatched by the baronet to arrange +everything for their comfort, had opened the door, and made his bow. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Richard, sir?—evaporated?” was Berry’s modulated +inquiry. +</p> + +<p> +“Behind—among the boxes, fool!” Hippias growled, as he +received Berry’s muscular assistance to alight. “Lunch +ready—eh!” +</p> + +<p> +“Luncheon was ordered precise at two o’clock, sir—been in +attendance one quarter of an hour. Heah!” Berry sang out to the second +cab, which, with its pyramid of luggage, remained stationary some thirty paces +distant. At his voice the majestic pile deliberately turned its back on them, +and went off in a contrary direction. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a> +CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + +<p> +On the stroke of the hour when Ripton Thompson was accustomed to consult his +gold watch for practical purposes, and sniff freedom and the forthcoming +dinner, a burglarious foot entered the clerk’s office where he sat, and a +man of a scowling countenance, who looked a villain, and whom he was afraid he +knew, slid a letter into his hands, nodding that it would be prudent for him to +read, and be silent. Ripton obeyed in alarm. Apparently the contents of the +letter relieved his conscience; for he reached down his hat, and told Mr. +Beazley to inform his father that he had business of pressing importance in the +West, and should meet him at the station. Mr. Beazley zealously waited upon the +paternal Thompson without delay, and together making their observations from +the window, they beheld a cab of many boxes, into which Ripton darted and was +followed by one in groom’s dress. It was Saturday, the day when Ripton +gave up his law-readings, magnanimously to bestow himself upon his family, and +Mr. Thompson liked to have his son’s arm as he walked down to the +station; but that third glass of Port which always stood for his second, and +the groom’s suggestion of aristocratic acquaintances, prevented Mr. +Thompson from interfering: so Ripton was permitted to depart. +</p> + +<p> +In the cab Ripton made a study of the letter he held. It had the preciseness of +an imperial mandate. +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +“Dear Ripton,—You are to get lodgings for a lady immediately. Not a +word to a soul. Then come along with Tom. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +R.D.F.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lodgings for a lady!” Ripton meditated aloud: “What sort of +lodgings? Where am I to get lodgings? Who’s the lady?—I say!” +he addressed the mysterious messenger. “So you’re Tom Bakewell, are +you, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom grinned his identity. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember the rick, Tom? Ha! ha! We got out of that neatly. We +might all have been transported, though. I could have convicted you, Tom, safe! +It’s no use coming across a practised lawyer. Now tell me.” Ripton +having flourished his powers, commenced his examination: “Who’s +this lady?” +</p> + +<p> +“Better wait till you see Mr. Richard, sir,” Tom resumed his scowl +to reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” Ripton acquiesced. “Is she young, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom said she was not old. +</p> + +<p> +“Handsome, Tom?” +</p> + +<p> +“Some might think one thing, some another,” Tom said. +</p> + +<p> +“And where does she come from now?” asked Ripton, with the friendly +cheerfulness of a baffled counsellor. +</p> + +<p> +“Comes from the country, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“A friend of the family, I suppose? a relation?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton left this insinuating query to be answered by a look. Tom’s face +was a dead blank. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” Ripton took a breath, and eyed the mask opposite him. +“Why, you’re quite a scholar, Tom! Mr. Richard is well. All right +at home?” +</p> + +<p> +“Come to town this mornin’ with his uncle,” said Tom. +“All well, thank ye, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha!” cried Ripton, more than ever puzzled, “now I see. You +all came to town to-day, and these are your boxes outside. So, so! But Mr. +Richard writes for me to get lodgings for a lady. There must be some +mistake—he wrote in a hurry. He wants lodgings for you +all—eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“’M sure I d’n know what he wants,” said Tom. +“You’d better go by the letter, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton re-consulted that document. “‘Lodgings for a lady, and then +come along with Tom. Not a word to a soul.’ I say! that looks +like—but he never cared for them. You don’t mean to say, Tom, +he’s been running away with anybody?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom fell back upon his first reply: “Better wait till ye see Mr. Richard, +sir,” and Ripton exclaimed: “Hanged if you ain’t the tightest +witness I ever saw! I shouldn’t like to have you in a box. Some of you +country fellows beat any number of cockneys. You do!” +</p> + +<p> +Tom received the compliment stubbornly on his guard, and Ripton, as nothing was +to be got out of him, set about considering how to perform his friend’s +injunctions; deciding firstly, that a lady fresh from the country ought to +lodge near the parks, in which direction he told the cabman to drive. Thus, +unaware of his high destiny, Ripton joined the hero, and accepted his character +in the New Comedy. +</p> + +<p> +It is, nevertheless, true that certain favoured people do have beneficent omens +to prepare them for their parts when the hero is in full career, so that they +really may be nerved to meet him; ay, and to check him in his course, had they +that signal courage. For instance, Mrs. Elizabeth Berry, a ripe and wholesome +landlady of advertised lodgings, on the borders of Kensington, noted, as she +sat rocking her contemplative person before the parlour fire this very March +afternoon, a supernatural tendency in that fire to burn all on one side: which +signifies that a wedding approaches the house. Why—who shall say? Omens +are as impassable as heroes. It may be because in these affairs the fire is +thought to be all on one side. Enough that the omen exists, and spoke its +solemn warning to the devout woman. Mrs. Berry, in her circle, was known as a +certificated lecturer against the snares of matrimony. Still that was no reason +why she should not like a wedding. Expectant, therefore, she watched the one +glowing cheek of Hymen, and with pleasing tremours beheld a cab of many boxes +draw up by her bit of garden, and a gentleman emerge from it in the set of +consulting an advertisement paper. The gentleman required lodgings for a lady. +Lodgings for a lady Mrs. Berry could produce, and a very roseate smile for a +gentleman; so much so that Ripton forgot to ask about the terms, which made the +landlady in Mrs. Berry leap up to embrace him as the happy man. But her +experienced woman’s eye checked her enthusiasm. He had not the air of a +bridegroom: he did not seem to have a weight on his chest, or an itch to +twiddle everything with his fingers. At any rate, he was not the bridegroom for +whom omens fly abroad. Promising to have all ready for the lady within an hour, +Mrs. Berry fortified him with her card, curtsied him back to his cab, and +floated him off on her smiles. +</p> + +<p> +The remarkable vehicle which had woven this thread of intrigue through London +streets, now proceeded sedately to finish its operations. Ripton was landed at +a hotel in Westminster. Ere he was halfway up the stairs, a door opened, and +his old comrade in adventure rushed down. Richard allowed no time for +salutations. “Have you done it?” was all he asked. For answer +Ripton handed him Mrs. Berry’s card. Richard took it, and left him +standing there. Five minutes elapsed, and then Ripton heard the gracious rustle +of feminine garments above. Richard came a little in advance, leading and +half-supporting a figure in a black-silk mantle and small black straw bonnet; +young—that was certain, though she held her veil so close he could hardly +catch the outlines of her face; girlishly slender, and sweet and simple in +appearance. The hush that came with her, and her soft manner of moving, stirred +the silly youth to some of those ardours that awaken the Knight of Dames in our +bosoms. He felt that he would have given considerable sums for her to lift her +veil. He could see that she was trembling—perhaps weeping. It was the +master of her fate she clung to. They passed him without speaking. As she went +by, her head passively bent, Ripton had a glimpse of noble tresses and a lovely +neck; great golden curls hung loosely behind, pouring from under her bonnet. +She looked a captive borne to the sacrifice. What Ripton, after a sight of +those curls, would have given for her just to lift her veil an instant and +strike him blind with beauty, was, fortunately for his exchequer, never +demanded of him. And he had absolutely been composing speeches as he came along +in the cab! gallant speeches for the lady, and sly congratulatory ones for his +friend, to be delivered as occasion should serve, that both might know him a +man of the world, and be at their ease. He forgot the smirking immoralities he +had revelled in. This was clearly serious. Ripton did not require to be told +that his friend was in love, and meant that life and death business called +marriage, parents and guardians consenting or not. +</p> + +<p> +Presently Richard returned to him, and said hurriedly, “I want you now to +go to my uncle at our hotel. Keep him quiet till I come. Say I had to see +you—say anything. I shall be there by the dinner hour. Rip! I must talk +to you alone after dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton feebly attempted to reply that he was due at home. He was very curious +to hear the plot of the New Comedy; and besides, there was Richard’s face +questioning him sternly and confidently for signs of unhesitating obedience. He +finished his grimaces by asking the name and direction of the hotel. Richard +pressed his hand. It is much to obtain even that recognition of our devotion +from the hero. +</p> + +<p> +Tom Bakewell also received his priming, and, to judge by his chuckles and +grins, rather appeared to enjoy the work cut out for him. In a few minutes they +had driven to their separate destinations; Ripton was left to the unusual +exercise of his fancy. Such is the nature of youth and its thirst for romance, +that only to act as a subordinate is pleasant. When one unfurls the standard of +defiance to parents and guardians, he may be sure of raising a lawless troop of +adolescent ruffians, born rebels, to any amount. The beardless crew know that +they have not a chance of pay; but what of that when the rosy prospect of +thwarting their elders is in view? Though it is to see another eat the +Forbidden Fruit, they will run all his risks with him. Gaily Ripton took rank +as lieutenant in the enterprise, and the moment his heart had sworn the oaths, +he was rewarded by an exquisite sense of the charms of existence. London +streets wore a sly laugh to him. He walked with a dandified heel. The generous +youth ogled aristocratic carriages, and glanced intimately at the ladies, +overflowingly happy. The crossing-sweepers blessed him. He hummed lively tunes, +he turned over old jokes in his mouth unctuously, he hugged himself, he had a +mind to dance down Piccadilly, and all because a friend of his was running away +with a pretty girl, and he was in the secret. +</p> + +<p> +It was only when he stood on the doorstep of Richard’s hotel, that his +jocund mood was a little dashed by remembering that he had then to commence the +duties of his office, and must fabricate a plausible story to account for what +he knew nothing about—a part that the greatest of sages would find it +difficult to perform. The young, however, whom sages well may envy, seldom fail +in lifting their inventive faculties to the level of their spirits, and two +minutes of Hippias’s angry complaints against the friend he serenely +inquired for, gave Ripton his cue. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re in the very street—within a stone’s-throw of the +house, and he jumps like a harlequin out of my cab into another; he must be +mad—that boy’s got madness in him!—and carries off all the +boxes—my dinner-pills, too! and keeps away the whole of the day, though +he promised to go to the doctor, and had a dozen engagements with me,” +said Hippias, venting an enraged snarl to sum up his grievances. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton at once told him that the doctor was not at home. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you don’t mean to say he’s been to the doctor?” +Hippias cried out. +</p> + +<p> +“He has called on him twice, sir,” said Ripton, expressively. +“On leaving me he was going a third time. I shouldn’t wonder +that’s what detains him—he’s so determined.” +</p> + +<p> +By fine degrees Ripton ventured to grow circumstantial, saying that +Richard’s case was urgent and required immediate medical advice; and that +both he and his father were of opinion Richard should not lose an hour in +obtaining it. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s alarmed about himself,” said Ripton, and tapped his +chest. +</p> + +<p> +Hippias protested he had never heard a word from his nephew of any physical +affliction. +</p> + +<p> +“He was afraid of making you anxious, I think, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Algernon Feverel and Richard came in while he was hammering at the alphabet to +recollect the first letter of the doctor’s name. They had met in the hall +below, and were laughing heartily as they entered the room. Ripton jumped up to +get the initiative. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you seen the doctor?” he asked, significantly plucking at +Richard’s fingers. +</p> + +<p> +Richard was all abroad at the question. +</p> + +<p> +Algernon clapped him on the back. “What the deuce do you want with +doctor, boy?” +</p> + +<p> +The solid thump awakened him to see matters as they were. “Oh, ay! the +doctor!” he said, smiling frankly at his lieutenant. “Why, he tells +me he’d back me to do Milo’s trick in a week from the present +day.—Uncle,” he came forward to Hippias, “I hope you’ll +excuse me for running off as I did. I was in a hurry. I left something at the +railway. This stupid Rip thinks I went to the doctor about myself. The fact +was, I wanted to fetch the doctor to see you here—so that you might have +no trouble, you know. You can’t bear the sight of his instruments and +skeletons—I’ve heard you say so. You said it set all your marrow in +revolt—‘fried your marrow,’ I think were the words, and made +you see twenty thousand different ways of sliding down to the chambers of the +Grim King. Don’t you remember?” +</p> + +<p> +Hippias emphatically did not remember, and he did not believe the story. +Irritation at the mad ravishment of his pill-box rendered him incredulous. As +he had no means of confuting his nephew, all he could do safely to express his +disbelief in him, was to utter petulant remarks on his powerlessness to appear +at the dinner-table that day: upon which—Berry just then trumpeting +dinner—Algernon seized one arm of the Dyspepsy, and Richard another, and +the laughing couple bore him into the room where dinner was laid, Ripton +sniggering in the rear, the really happy man of the party. +</p> + +<p> +They had fun at the dinner-table. Richard would have it; and his gaiety, his +by-play, his princely superiority to truth and heroic promise of overriding all +our laws, his handsome face, the lord and possessor of beauty that he looked, +as it were a star shining on his forehead, gained the old complete mastery over +Ripton, who had been, mentally at least, half patronizing him till then, +because he knew more of London and life, and was aware that his friend now +depended upon him almost entirely. +</p> + +<p> +After a second circle of the claret, the hero caught his lieutenant’s eye +across the table, and said: +</p> + +<p> +“We must go out and talk over that law-business, Rip, before you go. Do +you think the old lady has any chance?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a bit!” said Ripton, authoritatively. +</p> + +<p> +“But it’s worth fighting—eh, Rip?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, certainly!” was Ripton’s mature opinion. +</p> + +<p> +Richard observed that Ripton’s father seemed doubtful. Ripton cited his +father’s habitual caution. Richard made a playful remark on the necessity +of sometimes acting in opposition to fathers. Ripton agreed to it—in +certain cases. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes! in certain cases,” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“Pretty legal morality, gentlemen!” Algernon interjected; Hippias +adding: “And lay, too!” +</p> + +<p> +The pair of uncles listened further to the fictitious dialogue, well kept up on +both sides, and in the end desired a statement of the old lady’s +garrulous case; Hippias offering to decide what her chances were in law, and +Algernon to give a common-sense judgment. +</p> + +<p> +“Rip will tell you,” said Richard, deferentially signalling the +lawyer. “I’m a bad hand at these matters. Tell them how it stands, +Rip.” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton disguised his excessive uneasiness under endeavours to right his +position on his chair, and, inwardly praying speed to the claret jug to come +and strengthen his wits, began with a careless aspect: “Oh, nothing! +She—very curious old character! She—a—wears a wig. +She—a—very curious old character indeed! She—a—quite +the old style. There’s no doing anything with her!” and Ripton took +a long breath to relieve himself after his elaborate fiction. +</p> + +<p> +“So it appears,” Hippias commented, and Algernon asked: +“Well? and about her wig? Somebody stole it?” while Richard, whose +features were grim with suppressed laughter, bade the narrator continue. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton lunged for the claret jug. He had got an old lady like an oppressive +bundle on his brain, and he was as helpless as she was. In the pangs of +ineffectual authorship his ideas shot at her wig, and then at her one +characteristic of extreme obstinacy, and tore back again at her wig, but she +would not be animated. The obstinate old thing would remain a bundle. Law +studies seemed light in comparison with this tremendous task of changing an old +lady from a doll to a human creature. He flung off some claret, perspired +freely, and, with a mental tribute to the cleverness of those author fellows, +recommenced: “Oh, nothing! She—Richard knows her better than I +do—an old lady—somewhere down in Suffolk. I think we had better +advise her not to proceed. The expenses of litigation are enormous! She—I +think we had better advise her to stop short, and not make any scandal.” +</p> + +<p> +“And not make any scandal!” Algernon took him up. “Come, +come! there’s something more than a wig, then?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton was commanded to proceed, whether she did or no. The luckless fictionist +looked straight at his pitiless leader, and blurted out dubiously, +“She—there’s a daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Born with effort!” ejaculated Hippias. “Must give her pause +after that! and I’ll take the opportunity to stretch my length on the +sofa. Heigho! that’s true what Austin says: ‘The general prayer +should be for a full stomach, and the individual for one that works well; for +on that basis only are we a match for temporal matters, and able to contemplate +eternal.’ Sententious, but true. I gave him the idea, though! Take care +of your stomachs, boys! and if ever you hear of a monument proposed to a +scientific cook or gastronomic doctor, send in your subscriptions. Or say to +him while he lives, Go forth, and be a Knight! Ha! They have a good cook at +this house. He suits me better than ours at Raynham. I almost wish I had +brought my manuscript to town, I feel so much better. Aha! I didn’t +expect to digest at all without my regular incentive. I think I shall give it +up.—What do you say to the theatre to-night, boys!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard shouted, “Bravo, uncle!” +</p> + +<p> +“Let Mr. Thompson finish first,” said Algernon. “I want to +hear the conclusion of the story. The old girl has a wig and a daughter. +I’ll swear somebody runs away with one of the two! Fill your glass, Mr. +Thompson, and forward!” +</p> + +<p> +“So somebody does,” Ripton received his impetus. “And +they’re found in town together,” he made a fresh jerk. +“She—a—that is, the old lady—found them in +company.” +</p> + +<p> +“She finds him with her wig on in company!” said Algernon. +“Capital! Here’s matter for the lawyers!” +</p> + +<p> +“And you advise her not to proceed, under such circumstances of +aggravation?” Hippias observed, humorously twinkling with his stomachic +contentment. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the daughter,” Ripton sighed, and surrendering to +pressure, hurried on recklessly, “A runaway match—beautiful +girl!—the only son of a baronet—married by special licence. +A—the point is,” he now brightened and spoke from his own element, +“the point is whether the marriage can be annulled, as she’s of the +Catholic persuasion and he’s a Protestant, and they’re both married +under age. That’s the point.” +</p> + +<p> +Having come to the point he breathed extreme relief, and saw things more +distinctly; not a little amazed at his leader’s horrified face. +</p> + +<p> +The two elders were making various absurd inquiries, when Richard sent his +chair to the floor, crying, “What a muddle you’re in, Rip! +You’re mixing half-a-dozen stories together. The old lady I told you +about was old Dame Bakewell, and the dispute was concerning a neighbour of hers +who encroached on her garden, and I said I’d pay the money to see her +righted!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” said Ripton, humbly, “I was thinking of the other. Her +garden! Cabbages don’t interest me”— +</p> + +<p> +“Here, come along,” Richard beckoned to him savagely. +“I’ll be back in five minutes, uncle,” he nodded coolly to +either. +</p> + +<p> +The young men left the room. In the hall-passage they met Berry, dressed to +return to Raynham. Richard dropped a helper to the intelligence into his hand, +and warned him not to gossip much of London. Berry bowed perfect discreetness. +</p> + +<p> +“What on earth induced you to talk about Protestants and Catholics +marrying, Rip?” said Richard, as soon as they were in the street. +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” Ripton answered, “I was so hard pushed for it, +’pon my honour, I didn’t know what to say. I ain’t an author, +you know; I can’t make a story. I was trying to invent a point, and I +couldn’t think of any other, and I thought that was just the point likely +to make a jolly good dispute. Capital dinners they give at those crack hotels. +Why did you throw it all upon me? I didn’t begin on the old lady.” +</p> + +<p> +The hero mused, “It’s odd! It’s impossible you could have +known! I’ll tell you why, Rip! I wanted to try you. You fib well at long +range, but you don’t do at close quarters and single combat. You’re +good behind walls, but not worth a shot in the open. I just see what +you’re fit for. You’re staunch—that I am certain of. You +always were. Lead the way to one of the parks—down in that direction. You +know?—where she is!” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton led the way. His dinner had prepared this young Englishman to defy the +whole artillery of established morals. With the muffled roar of London around +them, alone in a dark slope of green, the hero, leaning on his henchman, and +speaking in a harsh clear undertone, delivered his explanations. Doubtless the +true heroic insignia and point of view will be discerned, albeit in common +private’s uniform. +</p> + +<p> +“They’ve been plotting against me for a year, Rip! When you see +her, you’ll know what it was to have such a creature taken away from you. +It nearly killed me. Never mind what she is. She’s the most perfect and +noble creature God ever made! It’s not only her beauty—I +don’t care so much about that!—but when you’ve once seen her, +she seems to draw music from all the nerves of your body; but she’s such +an angel. I worship her. And her mind’s like her face. She’s pure +gold. There, you’ll see her to-night. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” he pursued, after inflating Ripton with this rapturous +prospect, “they got her away, and I recovered. It was Mister +Adrian’s work. What’s my father’s objection to her? Because +of her birth? She’s educated; her manners are beautiful—full of +refinement—quick and soft! Can they show me one of their ladies like +her?—she’s the daughter of a naval lieutenant! Because she’s +a Catholic? What has religion to do with”—he pronounced +“Love!” a little modestly—as it were a blush in his voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, when I recovered I thought I did not care for her. It shows how we +know ourselves! And I cared for nothing. I felt as if I had no blood. I tried +to imitate my dear Austin. I wish to God he were here. I love Austin. He would +understand her. He’s coming back this year, and then—but +it’ll be too late then.—Well, my father’s always scheming to +make me perfect—he has never spoken to me a word about her, but I can see +her in his eyes—he wanted to give me a change, he said, and asked me to +come to town with my uncle Hippy, and I consented. It was another plot to get +me out of the way! As I live, I had no more idea of meeting her than of flying +to heaven!” +</p> + +<p> +He lifted his face. “Look at those old elm branches! How they seem to mix +among the stars!—glittering fruits of Winter!” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton tipped his comical nose upward, and was in duty bound to say, Yes! +though he observed no connection between them and the narrative. +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” the hero went on, “I came to town. There I heard she +was coming, too—coming home. It must have been fate, Ripton! Heaven +forgive me! I was angry with her, and I thought I should like to see her +once—only once—and reproach her for being false—for she never +wrote to me. And, oh, the dear angel! what she must have suffered!—I gave +my uncle the slip, and got to the railway she was coming by. There was a fellow +going to meet her—a farmer’s son—and, good God! they were +going to try and make her marry him! I remembered it all then. A servant of the +farm had told me. That fellow went to the wrong station, I suppose, for we saw +nothing of him. There she was—not changed a bit!—looking lovelier +than ever! And when she saw me, I knew in a minute that she must love me till +death!—You don’t know what it is yet, Rip!—Will you believe, +it?—Though I was as sure she loved me and had been true as steel, as that +I shall see her to-night, I spoke bitterly to her. And she bore it +meekly—she looked like a saint. I told her there was but one hope of life +for me—she must prove she was true, and as I give up all, so must she. I +don’t know what I said. The thought of losing her made me mad. She tried +to plead with me to wait—it was for my sake, I know. I pretended, like a +miserable hypocrite, that she did not love me at all. I think I said shameful +things. Oh what noble creatures women are! She hardly had strength to move. I +took her to that place where you found us, Rip! she went down on her knees to +me, I never dreamed of anything in life so lovely as she looked then. Her eyes +were thrown up, bright with a crowd of tears—her dark brows bent +together, like Pain and Beauty meeting in one; and her glorious golden hair +swept off her shoulders as she hung forward to my hands.—Could I lose +such a prize.—If anything could have persuaded me, would not +that?—I thought of Dante’s Madonna—Guido’s +Magdalen.—Is there sin in it? I see none! And if there is, it’s all +mine! I swear she’s spotless of a thought of sin. I see her very soul? +Cease to love her? Who dares ask me? Cease to love her? Why, I live on +her!—To see her little chin straining up from her throat, as she knelt to +me!—there was one curl that fell across her throat”.... +</p> + +<p> +Ripton listened for more. Richard had gone off in a muse at the picture. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” said Ripton, “and how about that young farmer +fellow?” +</p> + +<p> +The hero’s head was again contemplating the starry branches. His +lieutenant’s question came to him after an interval. +</p> + +<p> +“Young Tom? Why, it’s young Tom Blaize—son of our old enemy, +Rip! I like the old man now. Oh! I saw nothing of the fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord!” cried Ripton, “are we going to get into a mess with +Blaizes again? I don’t like that!” +</p> + +<p> +His commander quietly passed his likes or dislikes. +</p> + +<p> +“But when he goes to the train, and finds she’s not there?” +Ripton suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve provided for that. The fool went to the South-east instead of +the South-west. All warmth, all sweetness, comes with the +South-west!—I’ve provided for that, friend Rip. My trusty Tom +awaits him there, as if by accident. He tells him he has not seen her, and +advises him to remain in town, and go for her there to-morrow, and the day +following. Tom has money for the work. Young Tom ought to see London, you know, +Rip!—like you. We shall gain some good clear days. And when old Blaize +hears of it—what then? I have her! she’s mine!—Besides, he +won’t hear for a week. This Tom beats that Tom in cunning, I’ll +wager. Ha! ha!” the hero burst out at a recollection. “What do you +think, Rip? My father has some sort of System with me, it appears, and when I +came to town the time before, he took me to some people—the +Grandisons—and what do you think? one of the daughters is a little +girl—a nice little thing enough very funny—and he wants me to wait +for her! He hasn’t said so, but I know it. I know what he means. Nobody +understands him but me. I know he loves me, and is one of the best of +men—but just consider!—a little girl who just comes up to my elbow. +Isn’t it ridiculous? Did you ever hear such nonsense?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton emphasized his opinion that it certainly was foolish. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no! The die’s cast!” said Richard. “They’ve +been plotting for a year up to this day, and this is what comes of it! If my +father loves me, he will love her. And if he loves me, he’ll forgive my +acting against his wishes, and see it was the only thing to be done. Come! step +out! what a time we’ve been!” and away he went, compelling Ripton +to the sort of strides a drummer-boy has to take beside a column of grenadiers. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton began to wish himself in love, seeing that it endowed a man with wind so +that he could breathe great sighs, while going at a tremendous pace, and +experience no sensation of fatigue. The hero was communing with the elements, +his familiars, and allowed him to pant as he pleased. Some keen-eyed Kensington +urchins, noticing the discrepancy between the pedestrian powers of the two, +aimed their wit at Mr. Thompson junior’s expense. The pace, and nothing +but the pace, induced Ripton to proclaim that they had gone too far, when they +discovered that they had over shot the mark by half a mile. In the street over +which stood love’s star, the hero thundered his presence at a door, and +evoked a flying housemaid, who knew not Mrs. Berry. The hero attached +significance to the fact that his instincts should have betrayed him, for he +could have sworn to that house. The door being shut he stood in dead silence. +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t you got her card?” Ripton inquired, and heard that +it was in the custody of the cabman. Neither of them could positively bring to +mind the number of the house. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to have chalked it, like that fellow in the Forty +Thieves,” Ripton hazarded a pleasantry which met with no response. +</p> + +<p> +Betrayed by his instincts, the magic slaves of Love! The hero heavily descended +the steps. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton murmured that they were done for. His commander turned on him, and said: +“Take all the houses on the opposite side, one after another. I’ll +take these.” With a wry face Ripton crossed the road, altogether subdued +by Richard’s native superiority to adverse circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +Then were families aroused. Then did mortals dimly guess that something +portentous was abroad. Then were labourers all day in the vineyard, harshly +wakened from their evening’s nap. Hope and Fear stalked the street, as +again and again the loud companion summonses resounded. Finally Ripton sang out +cheerfully. He had Mrs. Berry before him, profuse of mellow curtsies. +</p> + +<p> +Richard ran to her and caught her hands: “She’s +well?—upstairs?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, quite well! only a trifle tired with her journey, and +fluttering-like,” Mrs. Berry replied to Ripton alone. The lover had flown +aloft. +</p> + +<p> +The wise woman sagely ushered Ripton into her own private parlour, there to +wait till he was wanted. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a> +CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + +<p> +“In all cases where two have joined to commit an offence, punish one of +the two lightly,” is the dictum of The Pilgrim’s’s Scrip. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +It is possible for young heads to conceive proper plans of action, and +occasionally, by sheer force of will, to check the wild horses that are ever +fretting to gallop off with them. But when they have given the reins and the +whip to another, what are they to do? They may go down on their knees, and beg +and pray the furious charioteer to stop, or moderate his pace. Alas! each fresh +thing they do redoubles his ardour: There is a power in their troubled beauty +women learn the use of, and what wonder? They have seen it kindle Ilium to +flames so often! But ere they grow matronly in the house of Menelaus, they +weep, and implore, and do not, in truth, know how terribly two-edged is their +gift of loveliness. They resign themselves to an incomprehensible frenzy; +pleasant to them, because they attribute it to excessive love. And so the very +sensible things which they can and do say, are vain. +</p> + +<p> +I reckon it absurd to ask them to be quite in earnest. Are not those their own +horses in yonder team? Certainly, if they were quite in earnest, they might +soon have my gentleman as sober as a carter. A hundred different ways of +disenchanting him exist, and Adrian will point you out one or two that shall be +instantly efficacious. For Love, the charioteer, is easily tripped, while +honest jog-trot Love keeps his legs to the end. Granted dear women are not +quite in earnest, still the mere words they utter should be put to their good +account. They do mean them, though their hearts are set the wrong way. +’Tis a despairing, pathetic homage to the judgment of the majority, in +whose faces they are flying. Punish Helen, very young, lightly. After a certain +age you may select her for special chastisement. An innocent with Theseus, with +Paris she is an advanced incendiary. +</p> + +<p> +The fair young girl was sitting as her lover had left her; trying to recall her +stunned senses. Her bonnet was un-removed, her hands clasped on her knees; dry +tears in her eyes. Like a dutiful slave, she rose to him. And first he claimed +her mouth. There was a speech, made up of all the pretty wisdom her wild +situation and true love could gather, awaiting him there; but his kiss +scattered it to fragments. She dropped to her seat weeping, and hiding her +shamed cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +By his silence she divined his thoughts, and took his hand and drew it to her +lips. +</p> + +<p> +He bent beside her, bidding her look at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep your eyes so.” +</p> + +<p> +She could not. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you fear me, Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +A throbbing pressure answered him. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you love me, darling?” +</p> + +<p> +She trembled from head to foot. +</p> + +<p> +“Then why do you turn from me?” +</p> + +<p> +She wept: “O Richard, take me home! take me home!” +</p> + +<p> +“Look at me, Lucy!” +</p> + +<p> +Her head shrank timidly round. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep your eyes on me, darling! Now speak!” +</p> + +<p> +But she could not look and speak too. The lover knew his mastery when he had +her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“You wish me to take you home?” +</p> + +<p> +She faltered: “O Richard? it is not too late.” +</p> + +<p> +“You regret what you have done for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest! it is ruin.” +</p> + +<p> +“You weep because you have consented to be mine?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not for me! O Richard!” +</p> + +<p> +“For me you weep? Look at me! For me?” +</p> + +<p> +“How will it end! O Richard!” +</p> + +<p> +“You weep for me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest! I would die for you!” +</p> + +<p> +“Would you see me indifferent to everything in the world? Would you have +me lost? Do you think I will live another day in England without you? I have +staked all I have on you, Lucy. You have nearly killed me once. A second time, +and the earth will not be troubled by me. You ask me to wait, when they are +plotting against us on all sides? Darling Lucy! look on me. Fix—your fond +eyes on me. You ask me to wait when here you are given to me when you have +proved my faith—when we know we love as none have loved. Give me your +eyes! Let them tell me I have your heart!” +</p> + +<p> +Where was her wise little speech? How could she match such mighty eloquence? +She sought to collect a few more of the scattered fragments. +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest! your father may be brought to consent by and by, and +then—oh! if you take me home now”— +</p> + +<p> +The lover stood up. “He who has been arranging that fine scheme to +disgrace and martyrize you? True, as I live! that’s the reason of their +having you back. Your old servant heard him and your uncle discussing it. +He!—Lucy! he’s a good man, but he must not step in between you and +me. I say God has given you to me.” +</p> + +<p> +He was down by her side again, his arms enfolding her. +</p> + +<p> +She had hoped to fight a better battle than in the morning, and she was weaker +and softer. +</p> + +<p> +Ah! why should she doubt that his great love was the first law to her? Why +should she not believe that she would wreck him by resisting? And if she +suffered, oh sweet to think it was for his sake! Sweet to shut out wisdom; +accept total blindness, and be led by him! +</p> + +<p> +The hag Wisdom annoyed them little further. She rustled her garments ominously, +and vanished. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my own Richard!” the fair girl just breathed. +</p> + +<p> +He whispered, “Call me that name.” +</p> + +<p> +She blushed deeply. +</p> + +<p> +“Call me that name,” he repeated. “You said it once +today.” +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not that.” +</p> + +<p> +“O darling!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Husband!” +</p> + +<p> +She was won. The rosy gate from which the word had issued was closed with a +seal. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton did not enjoy his introduction to the caged bird of beauty that night. +He received a lesson in the art of pumping from the worthy landlady below, up +to an hour when she yawned, and he blinked, and their common candle wore with +dignity the brigand’s hat of midnight, and cocked a drunken eye at them +from under it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a> +CHAPTER XXVIII</h2> + +<p> +Beauty, of course, is for the hero. Nevertheless, it is not always he on whom +beauty works its most conquering influence. It is the dull commonplace man into +whose slow brain she drops like a celestial light, and burns lastingly. The +poet, for instance, is a connoisseur of beauty: to the artist she is a model. +These gentlemen by much contemplation of her charms wax critical. The days when +they had hearts being gone, they are haply divided between the blonde and the +brunette; the aquiline nose and the Proserpine; this shaped eye and that. But +go about among simple unprofessional fellows, boors, dunderheads, and here and +there you shall find some barbarous intelligence which has had just strength +enough to conceive, and has taken Beauty as its Goddess, and knows but one form +to worship, in its poor stupid fashion, and would perish for her. Nay, more: +the man would devote all his days to her, though he is dumb as a dog. And, +indeed, he is Beauty’s Dog. Almost every Beauty has her Dog. The hero +possesses her; the poet proclaims her; the painter puts her upon canvas; and +the faithful Old Dog follows her: and the end of it all is that the faithful +Old Dog is her single attendant. Sir Hero is revelling in the wars, or in +Armida’s bowers; Mr. Poet has spied a wrinkle; the brush is for the rose +in its season. She turns to her Old Dog then. She hugs him; and he, who has +subsisted on a bone and a pat till there he squats decrepit, he turns his +grateful old eyes up to her, and has not a notion that she is hugging sad +memories in him: Hero, Poet, Painter, in one scrubby one! Then is she buried, +and the village hears languid howls, and there is a paragraph in the newspapers +concerning the extraordinary fidelity of an Old Dog. +</p> + +<p> +Excited by suggestive recollections of Nooredeen and the Fair Persian, and the +change in the obscure monotony of his life by his having quarters in a crack +hotel, and living familiarly with West-End people—living on the fat of +the land (which forms a stout portion of an honest youth’s romance), +Ripton Thompson breakfasted next morning with his chief at half-past eight. The +meal had been fixed overnight for seven, but Ripton slept a great deal more +than the nightingale, and (to chronicle his exact state) even half-past eight +rather afflicted his new aristocratic senses and reminded him too keenly of law +and bondage. He had preferred to breakfast at Algernon’s hour, who had +left word for eleven. Him, however, it was Richard’s object to avoid, so +they fell to, and Ripton no longer envied Hippias in bed. Breakfast done, they +bequeathed the consoling information for Algernon that they were off to hear a +popular preacher, and departed. +</p> + +<p> +“How happy everybody looks!” said Richard, in the quiet Sunday +streets. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—jolly!” said Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +“When I’m—when this is over, I’ll see that they are, +too—as many as I can make happy,” said the hero; adding softly: +“Her blind was down at a quarter to six. I think she slept well!” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve been there this morning?” Ripton exclaimed; and an +idea of what love was dawned upon his dull brain. +</p> + +<p> +“Will she see me, Ricky?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. She’ll see you to-day. She was tired last night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Positively?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard assured him that the privilege would be his. +</p> + +<p> +“Here,” he said, coming under some trees in the park, +“here’s where I talked to you last night. What a time it seems! How +I hate the night!” +</p> + +<p> +On the way, that Richard might have an exalted opinion of him, Ripton hinted +decorously at a somewhat intimate and mysterious acquaintance with the sex. +Headings of certain random adventures he gave. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” said his chief, “why not marry her?” +</p> + +<p> +Then was Ripton shocked, and cried, “Oh!” and had a taste of the +feeling of superiority, destined that day to be crushed utterly. +</p> + +<p> +He was again deposited in Mrs. Berry’s charge for a term that caused him +dismal fears that the Fair Persian still refused to show her face, but Richard +called out to him, and up Ripton went, unaware of the transformation he was to +undergo. Hero and Beauty stood together to receive him. From the bottom of the +stairs he had his vivaciously agreeable smile ready for them, and by the time +he entered the room his cheeks were painfully stiff, and his eyes had strained +beyond their exact meaning. Lucy, with one hand anchored to her lover, welcomed +him kindly. He relieved her shyness by looking so extremely silly. They sat +down, and tried to commence a conversation, but Ripton was as little master of +his tongue as he was of his eyes. After an interval, the Fair Persian having +done duty by showing herself, was glad to quit the room. Her lord and possessor +then turned inquiringly to Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +“You don’t wonder now, Rip?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“No, Richard!” Ripton waited to reply with sufficient solemnity, +“indeed I don’t!” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke differently; he looked differently. He had the Old Dog’s eyes in +his head. They watched the door she had passed through; they listened for her, +as dogs’ eyes do. When she came in, bonneted for a walk, his agitation +was dog-like. When she hung on her lover timidly, and went forth, he followed +without an idea of envy, or anything save the secret raptures the sight of her +gave him, which are the Old Dog’s own. For beneficent Nature requites +him: His sensations cannot be heroic, but they have a fulness and a wagging +delight as good in their way. And this capacity for humble unaspiring worship +has its peculiar guerdon. When Ripton comes to think of Miss Random now, what +will he think of himself? Let no one despise the Old Dog. Through him doth +Beauty vindicate her sex. +</p> + +<p> +It did not please Ripton that others should have the bliss of beholding her, +and as, to his perceptions, everybody did, and observed her offensively, and +stared, and turned their heads back, and interchanged comments on her, and +became in a minute madly in love with her, he had to smother low growls. They +strolled about the pleasant gardens of Kensington all the morning, under the +young chestnut buds, and round the windless waters, talking, and soothing the +wild excitement of their hearts. If Lucy spoke, Ripton pricked up his ears. +She, too, made the remark that everybody seemed to look happy, and he heard it +with thrills of joy. “So everybody is, where you are!” he would +have wished to say, if he dared, but was restrained by fears that his burning +eloquence would commit him. Ripton knew the people he met twice. It would have +been difficult to persuade him they were the creatures of accident. +</p> + +<p> +From the Gardens, in contempt of Ripton’s frowned protest, Richard boldly +struck into the park, where solitary carriages were beginning to perform the +circuit. Here Ripton had some justification for his jealous pangs. The young +girl’s golden locks of hair; her sweet, now dreamily sad, face; her +gentle graceful figure in the black straight dress she wore; a sort of +half-conventual air she had—a mark of something not of class, that was +partly beauty’s, partly maiden innocence growing conscious, partly +remorse at her weakness and dim fear of the future it was sowing—did +attract the eye-glasses. Ripton had to learn that eyes are bearable, but +eye-glasses an abomination. They fixed a spell upon his courage; for somehow +the youth had always ranked them as emblems of our nobility, and hearing two +exquisite eye-glasses, who had been to front and rear several times, drawl in +gibberish generally imputed to lords, that his heroine was a charming little +creature, just the size, but had no style,—he was abashed; he did not fly +at them and tear them. He became dejected. Beauty’s dog is affected by +the eye-glass in a manner not unlike the common animal’s terror of the +human eye. +</p> + +<p> +Richard appeared to hear nothing, or it was homage that he heard. He repeated +to Lucy Diaper Sandoe’s verses— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The cockneys nod to each other aside,<br/> +The coxcombs lift their glasses,” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +and projected hiring a horse for her to ride every day in the park, and shine +among the highest. +</p> + +<p> +They had turned to the West, against the sky glittering through the bare trees +across the water, and the bright-edged rack. The lover, his imagination just +then occupied in clothing earthly glories in celestial, felt where his senses +were sharpest the hand of his darling falter, and instinctively looked ahead. +His uncle Algernon was leisurely jolting towards them on his one sound leg. The +dismembered Guardsman talked to a friend whose arm supported him, and +speculated from time to time on the fair ladies driving by. The two white faces +passed him unobserved. Unfortunately Ripton, coming behind, went plump upon the +Captain’s live toe—or so he pretended, crying, “Confound it, +Mr. Thompson! you might have chosen the other.” +</p> + +<p> +The horrible apparition did confound Ripton, who stammered that it was +extraordinary. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all,” said Algernon. “Everybody makes up to that +fellow. Instinct, I suppose!” +</p> + +<p> +He had not to ask for his nephew. Richard turned to face the matter. +</p> + +<p> +“Sorry I couldn’t wait for you this morning, uncle,” he said, +with the coolness of relationship. “I thought you never walked so +far.” +</p> + +<p> +His voice was in perfect tone—the heroic mask admirable. +</p> + +<p> +Algernon examined the downcast visage at his side, and contrived to allude to +the popular preacher. He was instantly introduced to Ripton’s sister, +Miss Thompson. +</p> + +<p> +The Captain bowed, smiling melancholy approval of his nephew’s choice of +a minister. After a few stray remarks, and an affable salute to Miss Thompson, +he hobbled away, and then the three sealed volcanoes breathed, and Lucy’s +arm ceased to be squeezed quite so much up to the heroic pitch. +</p> + +<p> +This incident quickened their steps homeward to the sheltering wings of Mrs. +Berry. All that passed between them on the subject comprised a stammered excuse +from Ripton for his conduct, and a good-humoured rejoinder from Richard, that +he had gained a sister by it: at which Ripton ventured to wish aloud Miss +Desborough would only think so, and a faint smile twitched poor Lucy’s +lips to please him. She hardly had strength to reach her cage. She had none to +eat of Mrs. Berry’s nice little dinner. To be alone, that she might cry +and ease her heart of its accusing weight of tears, was all she prayed for. +Kind Mrs. Berry, slipping into her bedroom to take off her things, found the +fair body in a fevered shudder, and finished by undressing her completely and +putting her to bed. +</p> + +<p> +“Just an hour’s sleep, or so,” the mellifluous woman +explained the case to the two anxious gentlemen. “A quiet sleep and a cup +of warm tea goes for more than twenty doctors, it do—when there’s +the flutters,” she pursued. “I know it by myself. And a good cry +beforehand’s better than the best of medicine.” +</p> + +<p> +She nursed them into a make-believe of eating, and retired to her softer charge +and sweeter babe, reflecting, “Lord! Lord! the three of ’em +don’t make fifty! I’m as old as two and a half of ’em, to say +the least.” Mrs. Berry used her apron, and by virtue of their tender +years took them all three into her heart. +</p> + +<p> +Left alone, neither of the young men could swallow a morsel. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you see the change come over her?” Richard whispered. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton fiercely accused his prodigious stupidity. +</p> + +<p> +The lover flung down his knife and fork: “What could I do? If I had said +nothing, we should have been suspected. I was obliged to speak. And she hates a +lie! See! it has struck her down. God forgive me!” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton affected a serene mind: “It was a fright, Richard,” he said. +“That’s what Mrs. Berry means by flutters. Those old women talk in +that way. You heard what she said. And these old women know. I’ll tell +you what it is. It’s this, Richard!—it’s because you’ve +got a fool for your friend!” +</p> + +<p> +“She regrets it,” muttered the lover. “Good God! I think she +fears me.” He dropped his face in his hands. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton went to the window, repeating energetically for his comfort: +“It’s because you’ve got a fool for your friend!” +</p> + +<p> +Sombre grew the street they had last night aroused. The sun was buried alive in +cloud. Ripton saw himself no more in the opposite window. He watched the +deplorable objects passing on the pavement. His aristocratic visions had gone +like his breakfast. Beauty had been struck down by his egregious folly, and +there he stood—a wretch! +</p> + +<p> +Richard came to him: “Don’t mumble on like that, Rip!” he +said. “Nobody blames you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! you’re very kind, Richard,” interposed the wretch, moved +at the face of misery he beheld. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to me, Rip! I shall take her home to-night. Yes! If she’s +happier away from me!—do you think me a brute, Ripton? Rather than have +her shed a tear, I’d!—I’ll take her home to-night!” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton suggested that it was sudden; adding from his larger experience, people +perhaps might talk. +</p> + +<p> +The lover could not understand what they should talk about, but he said: +“If I give him who came for her yesterday the clue? If no one sees or +hears of me, what can they say? O Rip! I’ll give her up. I’m +wrecked for ever! What of that? Yes—let them take her! The world in arms +should never have torn her from me, but when she cries—Yes! all’s +over. I’ll find him at once.” +</p> + +<p> +He searched in out-of-the-way corners for the hat of resolve. Ripton looked on, +wretcheder than ever. +</p> + +<p> +The idea struck him:—“Suppose, Richard, she doesn’t want to +go?” +</p> + +<p> +It was a moment when, perhaps, one who sided with parents and guardians and the +old wise world, might have inclined them to pursue their righteous wretched +course, and have given small Cupid a smack and sent him home to his naughty +Mother. Alas! (it is The Pilgrim’s Scrip interjecting) women are the born +accomplices of mischief! In bustles Mrs. Berry to clear away the refection, and +finds the two knights helmed, and sees, though ’tis dusk, that they wear +doubtful brows, and guesses bad things for her dear God Hymen in a twinkling. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear! dear!” she exclaimed, “and neither of you eaten a +scrap! And there’s my dear young lady off into the prettiest sleep you +ever see!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha?” cried the lover, illuminated. +</p> + +<p> +“Soft as a baby!” Mrs. Berry averred. “I went to look at her +this very moment, and there’s not a bit of trouble in her breath. It come +and it go like the sweetest regular instrument ever made. The Black Ox +haven’t trod on her foot yet! Most like it was the air of London. But +only fancy, if you had called in a doctor! Why, I shouldn’t have let her +take any of his quackery. Now, there!” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton attentively observed his chief, and saw him doff his hat with a curious +caution, and peer into its recess, from which, during Mrs. Berry’s +speech, he drew forth a little glove—dropped there by some freak of +chance. +</p> + +<p> +“Keep me, keep me, now you have me!” sang the little glove, and +amused the lover with a thousand conceits. +</p> + +<p> +“When will she wake, do you think, Mrs. Berry?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! we mustn’t go for disturbing her,” said the guileful +good creature. “Bless ye! let her sleep it out. And if you young +gentlemen was to take my advice, and go and take a walk for to get a +appetite—everybody should eat! it’s their sacred duty, no matter +what their feelings be! and I say it who’m no chicken!—I’ll +frickashee this—which is a chicken—against your return. I’m a +cook, I can assure ye!” +</p> + +<p> +The lover seized her two hands. “You’re the best old soul in the +world!” he cried. Mrs. Berry appeared willing to kiss him. “We +won’t disturb her. Let her sleep. Keep her in bed, Mrs. Berry. Will you? +And we’ll call to inquire after her this evening, and come and see her +to-morrow. I’m sure you’ll be kind to her. There! there!” +Mrs. Berry was preparing to whimper. “I trust her to you, you see. +Good-bye, you dear old soul.” +</p> + +<p> +He smuggled a handful of gold into her keeping, and went to dine with his +uncles, happy and hungry. +</p> + +<p> +Before they reached the hotel, they had agreed to draw Mrs. Berry into their +confidence, telling her (with embellishments) all save their names, so that +they might enjoy the counsel and assistance of that trump of a woman, and yet +have nothing to fear from her. Lucy was to receive the name of Letitia, +Ripton’s youngest and best-looking sister. The heartless fellow proposed +it in cruel mockery of an old weakness of hers. +</p> + +<p> +“Letitia!” mused Richard. “I like the name. Both begin with +L. There’s something soft—womanlike—in the L.’s.” +</p> + +<p> +Material Ripton remarked that they looked like pounds on paper. The lover +roamed through his golden groves. “Lucy Feverel! that sounds better! I +wonder where Ralph is. I should like to help him. He’s in love with my +cousin Clare. He’ll never do anything till he marries. No man can. +I’m going to do a hundred things when it’s over. We shall travel +first. I want to see the Alps. One doesn’t know what the earth is till +one has seen the Alps. What a delight it will be to her! I fancy I see her eyes +gazing up at them. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘And oh, your dear blue eyes, that heavenward glance<br/> + With kindred beauty, banished humbleness,<br/> + Past weeping for mortality’s distress—<br/> +Yet from your soul a tear hangs there in trance.<br/> + And fills, but does not fall;<br/> + Softly I hear it call<br/> +At heaven’s gate, till Sister Seraphs press<br/> +To look on you their old love from the skies:<br/> +Those are the eyes of Seraphs bright on your blue eyes! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Beautiful! These lines, Rip, were written by a man who was once a friend of my +father’s. I intend to find him and make them friends again. You +don’t care for poetry. It’s no use your trying to swallow it, +Rip!” +</p> + +<p> +“It sounds very nice,” said Ripton, modestly shutting his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“The Alps! Italy! Rome! and then I shall go to the East,” the hero +continued. “She’s ready to go anywhere with me, the dear brave +heart! Oh, the glorious golden East! I dream of the desert. I dream I’m +chief of an Arab tribe, and we fly all white in the moonlight on our mares, and +hurry to the rescue of my darling! And we push the spears, and we scatter them, +and I come to the tent where she crouches, and catch her to my saddle, and +away!—Rip! what a life!” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton strove to imagine he could enjoy it. +</p> + +<p> +“And then we shall come home, and I shall lead Austin’s life, with +her to help me. First be virtuous, Rip! and then serve your country heart and +soul. A wise man told me that. I think I shall do something.” +</p> + +<p> +Sunshine and cloud, cloud and sunshine, passed over the lover. Now life was a +narrow ring; now the distances extended, were winged, flew illimitably. An hour +ago and food was hateful. Now he manfully refreshed his nature, and joined in +Algernon’s encomiums on Miss Letitia Thompson. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime Beauty slept, watched by the veteran volunteer of the hero’s +band. Lucy awoke from dreams which seemed reality, to the reality which was a +dream. She awoke calling for some friend, “Margaret!” and heard one +say, “My name is Bessy Berry, my love! not Margaret.” Then she +asked piteously where she was, and where was Margaret, her dear friend, and +Mrs. Berry whispered, “Sure you’ve got a dearer!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” sighed Lucy, sinking on her pillow, overwhelmed by the +strangeness of her state. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry closed the frill of her nightgown and adjusted the bedclothes +quietly. +</p> + +<p> +Her name was breathed. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my love?” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he here?” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s gone, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Gone?—Oh, where?” The young girl started up in disorder. +</p> + +<p> +“Gone, to be back, my love! Ah! that young gentleman!” Mrs. Berry +chanted: “Not a morsel have he eat; not a drop have he drunk!” +</p> + +<p> +“O Mrs. Berry! why did you not make him?” Lucy wept for the +famine-struck hero, who was just then feeding mightily. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry explained that to make one eat who thought the darling of his heart +like to die, was a sheer impossibility for the cleverest of women; and on this +deep truth Lucy reflected, with her eyes wide at the candle. She wanted one to +pour her feelings out to. She slid her hand from under the bedclothes, and took +Mrs. Berry’s, and kissed it. The good creature required no further avowal +of her secret, but forthwith leaned her consummate bosom to the pillow, and +petitioned heaven to bless them both!—Then the little bride was alarmed, +and wondered how Mrs. Berry could have guessed it. +</p> + +<p> +“Why,” said Mrs. Berry, “your love is out of your eyes, and +out of everything ye do.” And the little bride wondered more. She thought +she had been so very cautious not to betray it. The common woman in them made +cheer together after their own April fashion. Following which Mrs. Berry probed +for the sweet particulars of this beautiful love-match; but the little +bride’s lips were locked. She only said her lover was above her in +station. +</p> + +<p> +“And you’re a Catholic, my dear!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Mrs. Berry!” +</p> + +<p> +“And him a Protestant.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Mrs. Berry!” +</p> + +<p> +“Dear, dear!—And why shouldn’t ye be?” she ejaculated, +seeing sadness return to the bridal babe. “So as you was born, so shall +ye be! But you’ll have to make your arrangements about the children. The +girls to worship with you, the boys with him. It’s the same God, my dear! +You mustn’t blush at it, though you do look so pretty. If my young +gentleman could see you now!” +</p> + +<p> +“Please, Mrs. Berry!” Lucy murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, he will, you know, my dear!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, please, Mrs. Berry!” +</p> + +<p> +“And you that can’t bear the thoughts of it! Well, I do wish there +was fathers and mothers on both sides and dock-ments signed, and bridesmaids, +and a breakfast! but love is love, and ever will be, in spite of them.” +</p> + +<p> +She made other and deeper dives into the little heart, but though she drew up +pearls, they were not of the kind she searched for. The one fact that hung as a +fruit upon her tree of Love, Lucy had given her; she would not, in fealty to +her lover, reveal its growth and history, however sadly she yearned to pour out +all to this dear old Mother Confessor. +</p> + +<p> +Her conduct drove Mrs. Berry from the rosy to the autumnal view of matrimony, +generally heralded by the announcement that it is a lottery. +</p> + +<p> +“And when you see your ticket,” said Mrs. Berry, “you +shan’t know whether it’s a prize or a blank. And, Lord knows! some +go on thinking it’s a prize when it turns on ’em and tears +’em. I’m one of the blanks, my dear! I drew a blank in Berry. He +was a black Berry to me, my dear! Smile away! he truly was, and I +a-prizin’ him as proud as you can conceive! My dear!” Mrs. Berry +pressed her hands flat on her apron. “We hadn’t been a three months +man and wife, when that man—it wasn’t the honeymoon, which some +can’t say—that man—Yes! he kicked me. His wedded wife he +kicked! Ah!” she sighed to Lucy’s large eyes, “I could have +borne that. A blow don’t touch the heart,” the poor creature tapped +her sensitive side. “I went on loving of him, for I’m a soft one. +Tall as a Grenadier he is, and when out of service grows his moustache. I used +to call him my body-guardsman like a Queen! I flattered him like the fools we +women are. For, take my word for it, my dear, there’s nothing here below +so vain as a man! That I know. But I didn’t deserve it.... I’m a +superior cook.... I did not deserve that noways.” Mrs. Berry thumped her +knee, and accentuated up her climax: “I mended his linen. I saw to his +adornments—he called his clothes, the bad man! I was a servant to him, my +dear! and there—it was nine months—nine months from the day he +swear to protect and cherish and that—nine calendar months, and my +gentleman is off with another woman! Bone of his bone!—pish!” +exclaimed Mrs. Berry, reckoning her wrongs over vividly. “Here’s my +ring. A pretty ornament! What do it mean? I’m for tearin’ it off my +finger a dozen times in the day. It’s a symbol? I call it a tomfoolery +for the dead-alive to wear it, that’s a widow and not a widow, and +haven’t got a name for what she is in any Dixonary, I’ve looked, my +dear, and”—she spread out her arms—“Johnson +haven’t got a name for me!” +</p> + +<p> +At this impressive woe Mrs. Berry’s voice quavered into sobs. Lucy spoke +gentle words to the poor outcast from Johnson. The sorrows of Autumn have no +warning for April. The little bride, for all her tender pity, felt happier when +she had heard her landlady’s moving tale of the wickedness of man, which +cast in bright relief the glory of that one hero who was hers. Then from a +short flight of inconceivable bliss, she fell, shot by one of her hundred +Argus-eyed fears. +</p> + +<p> +“O Mrs. Berry! I’m so young! Think of me—only just +seventeen!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry immediately dried her eyes to radiance. “Young, my dear! +Nonsense! There’s no so much harm in being young, here and there. I knew +an Irish lady was married at fourteen. Her daughter married close over +fourteen. She was a grandmother by thirty! When any strange man began, she used +to ask him what pattern caps grandmothers wore. They’d stare! Bless you! +the grandmother could have married over and over again. It was her +daughter’s fault, not hers, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“She was three years younger,” mused Lucy. +</p> + +<p> +“She married beneath her, my dear. Ran off with her father’s +bailiff’s son. ‘Ah, Berry!’ she’d say, ‘if I +hadn’t been foolish, I should be my lady now—not Granny!’ Her +father never forgave her—left all his estates out of the family.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did her husband always love her?” Lucy preferred to know. +</p> + +<p> +“In his way, my dear, he did,” said Mrs. Berry, coming upon her +matrimonial wisdom. “He couldn’t help himself. If he left off, he +began again. She was so clever, and did make him so comfortable. Cook! there +wasn’t such another cook out of a Alderman’s kitchen; no, indeed! +And she a born lady! That tells ye it’s the duty of all women! She had +her saying ‘When the parlour fire gets low, put coals on the ketchen +fire!’ and a good saying it is to treasure. Such is man! no use in +havin’ their hearts if ye don’t have their stomachs.” +</p> + +<p> +Perceiving that she grew abstruse, Mrs. Berry added briskly: “You know +nothing about that yet, my dear. Only mind me and mark me: don’t neglect +your cookery. Kissing don’t last: cookery do!” +</p> + +<p> +Here, with an aphorism worthy a place in The Pilgrim’s Scrip, she broke +off to go posseting for her dear invalid. Lucy was quite well; very eager to be +allowed to rise and be ready when the knock should come. Mrs. Berry, in her +loving considerateness for the little bride, positively commanded her to lie +down, and be quiet, and submit to be nursed and cherished. For Mrs. Berry well +knew that ten minutes alone with the hero could only be had while the little +bride was in that unattainable position. +</p> + +<p> +Thanks to her strategy, as she thought, her object was gained. The night did +not pass before she learnt, from the hero’s own mouth, that Mr. Richards, +the father of the hero, and a stern lawyer, was adverse to his union with this +young lady he loved, because of a ward of his, heiress to an immense property, +whom he desired his son to espouse; and because his darling Letitia was a +Catholic—Letitia, the sole daughter of a brave naval officer deceased, +and in the hands of a savage uncle, who wanted to sacrifice this beauty to a +brute of a son. Mrs. Berry listened credulously to the emphatic narrative, and +spoke to the effect that the wickedness of old people formed the excuse for the +wildness of young ones. The ceremonious administration of oaths of secrecy and +devotion over, she was enrolled in the hero’s band, which now numbered +three, and entered upon the duties with feminine energy, for there are no +conspirators like women. Ripton’s lieutenancy became a sinecure, his rank +merely titular. He had never been married—he knew nothing about licences, +except that they must be obtained, and were not difficult—he had not an +idea that so many days’ warning must be given to the clergyman of the +parish where one of the parties was resident. How should he? All his +forethought was comprised in the ring, and whenever the discussion of +arrangements for the great event grew particularly hot and important, he would +say, with a shrewd nod: “We mustn’t forget the ring, you know, Mrs. +Berry!” and the new member was only prevented by natural complacence from +shouting: “Oh, drat ye! and your ring too.” Mrs. Berry had acted +conspicuously in fifteen marriages, by banns, and by licence, and to have such +an obvious requisite dinned in her ears was exasperating. They could not have +contracted alliance with an auxiliary more invaluable, an authority so +profound; and they acknowledged it to themselves. The hero marched like an +automaton at her bidding; Lieutenant Thompson was rejoiced to perform services +as errand-boy in the enterprise. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s in hopes you’ll be happier than me, I do it,” +said the devout and charitable Berry. “Marriages is made in heaven, they +say; and if that’s the case, I say they don’t take much account of +us below!” +</p> + +<p> +Her own woeful experiences had been given to the hero in exchange for his story +of cruel parents. +</p> + +<p> +Richard vowed to her that he would henceforth hold it a duty to hunt out the +wanderer from wedded bonds, and bring him back bound and suppliant. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, he’ll come!” said Mrs. Berry, pursing prophetic +wrinkles: “he’ll come of his own accord. Never anywhere will he +meet such a cook as Bessy Berry! And he know her value in his heart of hearts. +And I do believe, when he do come, I shall be opening these arms to him again, +and not slapping his impidence in the face—I’m that soft! I always +was—in matrimony, Mr. Richards!” +</p> + +<p> +As when nations are secretly preparing for war, the docks and arsenals hammer +night and day, and busy contractors measure time by inches, and the air hums +around for leagues as it were myriads of bees, so the house and neighbourhood +of the matrimonial soft one resounded in the heroic style, and knew little of +the changes of light decreed by Creation. Mrs. Berry was the general of the +hour. Down to Doctors’ Commons she expedited the hero, instructing him +how boldly to face the Law, and fib: for that the Law never could mist a fib +and a bold face. Down the hero went, and proclaimed his presence. And lo! the +Law danced to him its sedatest lovely bear’s-dance. Think ye the Law less +susceptible to him than flesh and blood? With a beautiful confidence it put the +few familiar questions to him, and nodded to his replies: then stamped the +bond, and took the fee. It must be an old vagabond at heart that can permit the +irrevocable to go so cheap, even to a hero. For only mark him when he is +petitioned by heroes and heroines to undo what he does so easily! That small +archway of Doctors’ Commons seems the eye of a needle, through which the +lean purse has a way, somehow, of slipping more readily than the portly; but +once through, all are camels alike, the lean purse an especially big camel. +Dispensing tremendous marriage as it does, the Law can have no conscience. +</p> + +<p> +“I hadn’t the slightest difficulty,” said the exulting hero. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not!” returns Mrs. Berry. “It’s as easy, if +ye’re in earnest, as buying a plum bun.” +</p> + +<p> +Likewise the ambassador of the hero went to claim the promise of the Church to +be in attendance on a certain spot, on a certain day, and there hear oath of +eternal fealty, and gird him about with all its forces: which the Church, +receiving a wink from the Law, obsequiously engaged to do, for less than the +price of a plum-cake. +</p> + +<p> +Meantime, while craftsmen and skilled women, directed by Mrs. Berry, were +toiling to deck the day at hand, Raynham and Belthorpe slept,—the former +soundly; and one day was as another to them. Regularly every morning a letter +arrived from Richard to his father, containing observations on the phenomena of +London; remarks (mainly cynical) on the speeches and acts of Parliament; and +reasons for not having yet been able to call on the Grandisons. They were +certainly rather monotonous and spiritless. The baronet did not complain. That +cold dutiful tone assured him there was no internal trouble or distraction. +“The letters of a healthful physique!” he said to Lady Blandish, +with sure insight. Complacently he sat and smiled, little witting that his +son’s ordeal was imminent, and that his son’s ordeal was to be his +own. Hippias wrote that his nephew was killing him by making appointments which +he never kept, and altogether neglecting him in the most shameless way, so that +his ganglionic centre was in a ten times worse state than when he left Raynham. +He wrote very bitterly, but it was hard to feel compassion for his offended +stomach. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, young Tom Blaize was not forthcoming, and had despatched no +tidings whatever. Farmer Blaize smoked his pipe evening after evening, vastly +disturbed. London was a large place—young Tom might be lost in it, he +thought; and young Tom had his weaknesses. A wolf at Belthorpe, he was likely +to be a sheep in London, as yokels have proved. But what had become of Lucy? +This consideration almost sent Farmer Blaize off to London direct, and he would +have gone had not his pipe enlightened him. A young fellow might play truant +and get into a scrape, but a young man and a young woman were sure to be heard +of, unless they were acting in complicity. Why, of course, young Tom had +behaved like a man, the rascal! and married her outright there, while he had +the chance. It was a long guess. Still it was the only reasonable way of +accounting for his extraordinary silence, and therefore the farmer held to it +that he had done the deed. He argued as modern men do who think the hero, the +upsetter of ordinary calculations, is gone from us. So, after despatching a +letter to a friend in town to be on the outlook for son Tom, he continued +awhile to smoke his pipe, rather elated than not, and mused on the shrewd +manner he should adopt when Master Honeymoon did appear. +</p> + +<p> +Toward the middle of the second week of Richard’s absence, Tom Bakewell +came to Raynham for Cassandra, and privately handed a letter to the Eighteenth +Century, containing a request for money, and a round sum. The Eighteenth +Century was as good as her word, and gave Tom a letter in return, enclosing a +cheque on her bankers, amply providing to keep the heroic engine in motion at a +moderate pace. Tom went back, and Raynham and Lobourne slept and dreamed not of +the morrow. The System, wedded to Time, slept, and knew not how he had been +outraged—anticipated by seven pregnant seasons. For Time had heard the +hero swear to that legalizing instrument, and had also registered an oath. Ah +me! venerable Hebrew Time! he is unforgiving. Half the confusion and fever of +the world comes of this vendetta he declares against the hapless innocents who +have once done him a wrong. They cannot escape him. They will never outlive it. +The father of jokes, he is himself no joke; which it seems the business of men +to discover. +</p> + +<p> +The days roll round. He is their servant now. Mrs. Berry has a new satin gown, +a beautiful bonnet, a gold brooch, and sweet gloves, presented to her by the +hero, wherein to stand by his bride at the altar to-morrow; and, instead of +being an old wary hen, she is as much a chicken as any of the party, such has +been the magic of these articles. Fathers she sees accepting the facts produced +for them by their children; a world content to be carved out as it pleases the +hero. +</p> + +<p> +At last Time brings the bridal eve, and is blest as a benefactor. The final +arrangements are made; the bridegroom does depart; and Mrs. Berry lights the +little bride to her bed. Lucy stops on the landing where there is an old clock +eccentrically correct that night. ’Tis the palpitating pause before the +gates of her transfiguration. Mrs. Berry sees her put her rosy finger on the +One about to strike, and touch all the hours successively till she comes to the +Twelve that shall sound “Wife” in her ears on the morrow, moving +her lips the while, and looking round archly solemn when she has done; and that +sight so catches at Mrs. Berry’s heart that, not guessing Time to be the +poor child’s enemy, she endangers her candle by folding Lucy warmly in +her arms, whimpering; “Bless you for a darling! you innocent lamb! You +shall be happy! You shall!” +</p> + +<p> +Old Time gazes grimly ahead. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap29"></a> +CHAPTER XXIX</h2> + +<p> +Although it blew hard when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the passage of that +river is commonly calm; calm as Acheron. So long as he gets his fare, the +ferryman does not need to be told whom he carries: he pulls with a will, and +heroes may be over in half-an-hour. Only when they stand on the opposite bank, +do they see what a leap they have taken. The shores they have relinquished +shrink to an infinite remoteness. There they have dreamed: here they must act. +There lie youth and irresolution: here manhood and purpose. They are veritably +in another land: a moral Acheron divides their life. Their memories scarce seem +their own! The Philosophical Geography (about to be published) observes that +each man has, one time or other, a little Rubicon—a clear or a foul water +to cross. It is asked him: “Wilt thou wed this Fate, and give up all +behind thee?” And “I will,” firmly pronounced, speeds him +over. The above-named manuscript authority informs us, that by far the greater +number of carcasses rolled by this heroic flood to its sister stream below, are +those of fellows who have repented their pledge, and have tried to swim back to +the bank they have blotted out. For though every man of us may be a hero for +one fatal minute, very few remain so after a day’s march even: and who +wonders that Madam Fate is indignant, and wears the features of the terrible +Universal Fate to him? Fail before her, either in heart or in act, and lo, how +the alluring loves in her visage wither and sicken to what it is modelled on! +Be your Rubicon big or small, clear or foul, it is the same: you shall not +return. On—or to Acheron!—I subscribe to that saying of The +Pilgrim’s Scrip: +</p> + +<p> +“The danger of a little knowledge of things is disputable: but beware the +little knowledge of one’s self!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard Feverel was now crossing the River of his Ordeal. Already the mists +were stealing over the land he had left: his life was cut in two, and he +breathed but the air that met his nostrils. His father, his father’s +love, his boyhood and ambition, were shadowy. His poetic dreams had taken a +living attainable shape. He had a distincter impression of the Autumnal Berry +and her household than of anything at Raynham. And yet the young man loved his +father, loved his home: and I daresay Caesar loved Rome: but whether he did or +no, Caesar when he killed the Republic was quite bald, and the hero we are +dealing with is scarce beginning to feel his despotic moustache. Did he know +what he was made of? Doubtless, nothing at all. But honest passion has an +instinct that can be safer than conscious wisdom. He was an arrow drawn to the +head, flying from the bow. His audacious mendacities and subterfuges did not +strike him as in any way criminal; for he was perfectly sure that the winning +and securing of Lucy would in the end be boisterously approved of, and in that +case, were not the means justified? Not that he took trouble to argue thus, as +older heroes and self-convicting villains are in the habit of doing; to deduce +a clear conscience. Conscience and Lucy went together. +</p> + +<p> +It was a soft fair day. The Rubicon sparkled in the morning sun. One of those +days when London embraces the prospect of summer, and troops forth all its +babies. The pavement, the squares, the parks, were early alive with the cries +of young Britain. Violet and primrose girls, and organ boys with military +monkeys, and systematic bands very determined in tone if not in tune, filled +the atmosphere, and crowned the blazing procession of omnibuses, freighted with +business men, Cityward, where a column of reddish brown smoke,—blown +aloft by the South-west, marked the scene of conflict to which these persistent +warriors repaired. Richard had seen much of early London that morning. His +plans were laid. He had taken care to ensure his personal liberty against +accidents, by leaving his hotel and his injured uncle Hippias at sunrise. +To-day or to-morrow his father was to arrive. Farmer Blaize, Tom Bakewell +reported to him, was raging in town. Another day and she might be torn from +him: but to-day this miracle of creation would be his, and then from those +glittering banks yonder, let them summon him to surrender her who dared! The +position of things looked so propitious that he naturally thought the powers +waiting on love conspired in his behalf. And she, too—since she must +cross this river, she had sworn to him to be brave, and do him honour, and wear +the true gladness of her heart in her face. Without a suspicion of folly in his +acts, or fear of results, Richard strolled into Kensington Gardens, +breakfasting on the foreshadow of his great joy, now with a vision of his +bride, now of the new life opening to him. Mountain masses of clouds, rounded +in sunlight, swung up the blue. The flowering chestnut pavilions overhead +rustled and hummed. A sound in his ears as of a banner unfolding in the joyful +distance lulled him. +</p> + +<p> +He was to meet his bride at the church at a quarter past eleven. His watch said +a quarter to ten. He strolled on beneath the long-stemmed trees toward the well +dedicated to a saint obscure. Some people were drinking at the well. A florid +lady stood by a younger one, who had a little silver mug half-way to her mouth, +and evinced undisguised dislike to the liquor of the salutary saint. +</p> + +<p> +“Drink, child!” said the maturer lady. “That is only your +second mug. I insist upon your drinking three full ones every morning +we’re in town. Your constitution positively requires iron!” +</p> + +<p> +“But, mama,” the other expostulated, “it’s so nasty. I +shall be sick.” +</p> + +<p> +“Drink!” was the harsh injunction. “Nothing to the German +waters, my dear. Here, let me taste.” She took the mug and gave it a +flying kiss. “I declare I think it almost nice—not at all +objectionable. Pray, taste it,” she said to a gentleman standing below +them to act as cup-bearer. +</p> + +<p> +An unmistakable cis-Rubicon voice replied: “Certainly, if it’s good +fellowship; though I confess I don’t think mutual sickness a very +engaging ceremony.” +</p> + +<p> +Can one never escape from one’s relatives? Richard ejaculated inwardly. +</p> + +<p> +Without a doubt those people were Mrs. Doria, Clare, and Adrian. He had them +under his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Clare, peeping up from her constitutional dose to make sure no man was near to +see the possible consequence of it, was the first to perceive him. Her hand +dropped. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, pray, drink, and do not fuss!” said Mrs. Doria. +</p> + +<p> +“Mama!” Clare gasped. +</p> + +<p> +Richard came forward and capitulated honourably, since retreat was out of the +question. Mrs. Doria swam to meet him: “My own boy! My dear +Richard!” profuse of exclamations. Clare shyly greeted him. Adrian kept +in the background. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, we were coming for you to-day, Richard,” said Mrs. Doria, +smiling effusion; and rattled on, “We want another cavalier. This is +delightful! My dear nephew! You have grown from a boy to a man. And +there’s down on his lip! And what brings you here at such an hour in the +morning? Poetry, I suppose! Here, take my arm, child.—Clare! finish that +mug and thank your cousin for sparing you the third. I always bring her, when +we are by a chalybeate, to take the waters before breakfast. We have to get up +at unearthly hours. Think, my dear boy! Mothers are sacrifices! And so +you’ve been alone a fortnight with your agreeable uncle! A charming time +of it you must have had! Poor Hippias! what may be his last nostrum?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nephew!” Adrian stretched his head round to the couple. +“Doses of nephew taken morning and night fourteen days! And he guarantees +that it shall destroy an iron constitution in a month.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard mechanically shook Adrian’s hand as he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Quite well, Ricky?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes: well enough,” Richard answered. +</p> + +<p> +“Well?” resumed his vigorous aunt, walking on with him, while Clare +and Adrian followed. “I really never saw you looking so handsome. +There’s something about your face—look at me—you +needn’t blush. You’ve grown to an Apollo. That blue buttoned-up +frock coat becomes you admirably—and those gloves, and that easy +neck-tie. Your style is irreproachable, quite a style of your own! And nothing +eccentric. You have the instinct of dress. Dress shows blood, my dear boy, as +much as anything else. Boy!—you see, I can’t forget old habits. You +were a boy when I left, and now!—Do you see any change in him, +Clare?” she turned half round to her daughter. +</p> + +<p> +“Richard is looking very well, mama,” said Clare, glancing at him +under her eyelids. +</p> + +<p> +“I wish I could say the same of you, my dear.—Take my arm, Richard. +Are you afraid of your aunt? I want to get used to you. Won’t it be +pleasant, our being all in town together in the season? How fresh the Opera +will be to you! Austin, I hear, takes stalls. You can come to the Forey’s +box when you like. We are staying with the Foreys close by here. I think +it’s a little too far out, you know; but they like the neighbourhood. +This is what I have always said: Give him more liberty! Austin has seen it at +last. How do you think Clare looking?” +</p> + +<p> +The question had to be repeated. Richard surveyed his cousin hastily, and +praised her looks. +</p> + +<p> +“Pale!” Mrs. Doria sighed. +</p> + +<p> +“Rather pale, aunt.” +</p> + +<p> +“Grown very much—don’t you think, Richard?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very tall girl indeed, aunt.” +</p> + +<p> +“If she had but a little more colour, my dear Richard! I’m sure I +give her all the iron she can swallow, but that pallor still continues. I think +she does not prosper away from her old companion. She was accustomed to look up +to you, Richard”— +</p> + +<p> +“Did you get Ralph’s letter, aunt?” Richard interrupted her. +</p> + +<p> +“Absurd!” Mrs. Doria pressed his arm. “The nonsense of a boy! +Why did you undertake to forward such stuff?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m certain he loves her,” said Richard, in a serious way. +</p> + +<p> +The maternal eyes narrowed on him. “Life, my dear Richard, is a game of +cross-purposes,” she observed, dropping her fluency, and was rather +angered to hear him laugh. He excused himself by saying that she spoke so like +his father. +</p> + +<p> +“You breakfast with us,” she freshened off again. “The Foreys +wish to see you; the girls are dying to know you. Do you know, you have a +reputation on account of that”—she crushed an intruding +adjective—“System you were brought up on. You mustn’t mind +it. For my part, I think you look a credit to it. Don’t be bashful with +young women, mind! As much as you please with the old ones. You know how to +behave among men. There you have your Drawing-room Guide! I’m sure I +shall be proud of you. Am I not?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria addressed his eyes coaxingly. +</p> + +<p> +A benevolent idea struck Richard, that he might employ the minutes to spare, in +pleading the case of poor Ralph; and, as he was drawn along, he pulled out his +watch to note the precise number of minutes he could dedicate to this +charitable office. +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me,” said Mrs. Doria. “You want manners, my dear boy. +I think it never happened to me before that a man consulted his watch in my +presence.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard mildly replied that he had an engagement at a particular hour, up to +which he was her servant. +</p> + +<p> +“Fiddlededee!” the vivacious lady sang. “Now I’ve got +you, I mean to keep you. Oh! I’ve heard all about you. This ridiculous +indifference that your father makes so much of! Why, of course, you wanted to +see the world! A strong healthy young man shut up all his life in a lonely +house—no friends, no society, no amusements but those of rustics! Of +course you were indifferent! Your intelligence and superior mind alone saved +you from becoming a dissipated country boor.—Where are the others?” +</p> + +<p> +Clare and Adrian came up at a quick pace. +</p> + +<p> +“My damozel dropped something,” Adrian explained. +</p> + +<p> +Her mother asked what it was. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing, mama,” said Clare, demurely, and they proceeded as +before. +</p> + +<p> +Overborne by his aunt’s fluency of tongue, and occupied in acute +calculation of the flying minutes, Richard let many pass before he edged in a +word for Ralph. When he did, Mrs. Doria stopped him immediately. +</p> + +<p> +“I must tell you, child, that I refuse to listen to such rank +idiotcy.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s nothing of the kind, aunt.” +</p> + +<p> +“The fancy of a boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s not a boy. He’s half-a-year older than I am!” +</p> + +<p> +“You silly child! The moment you fall in love, you all think yourselves +men.” +</p> + +<p> +“On my honour, aunt! I believe he loves her thoroughly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did he tell you so, child?” +</p> + +<p> +“Men don’t speak openly of those things,” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“Boys do,” said Mrs. Doria. +</p> + +<p> +“But listen to me in earnest, aunt. I want you to be kind to Ralph. +Don’t drive him to—You maybe sorry for it. Let him—do let him +write to her, and see her. I believe women are as cruel as men in these +things.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never encourage absurdity, Richard.” +</p> + +<p> +“What objection have you to Ralph, aunt?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, they’re both good families. It’s not that absurdity, +Richard. It will be to his credit to remember that his first fancy wasn’t +a dairymaid.” Mrs. Doria pitched her accent tellingly. It did not touch +her nephew. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you want Clare ever to marry?” He put the last point +of reason to her. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria laughed. “I hope so, child. We must find some comfortable old +gentleman for her.” +</p> + +<p> +“What infamy!” mutters Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“And I engage Ralph shall be ready to dance at her wedding, or eat a +hearty breakfast—We don’t dance at weddings now, and very properly. +It’s a horrid sad business, not to be treated with levity.—Is that +his regiment?” she said, as they passed out of the hussar-sentinelled +gardens. “Tush, tush, child! Master Ralph will recover, as—hem! +others have done. A little headache—you call it heartache—and up +you rise again, looking better than ever. No doubt, to have a grain of sense +forced into your brains, you poor dear children! must be painful.. Girls suffer +as much as boys, I assure you. More, for their heads are weaker, and their +appetites less constant. Do I talk like your father now? Whatever makes the boy +fidget at his watch so?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard stopped short. Time spoke urgently. +</p> + +<p> +“I must go,” he said. +</p> + +<p> +His face did not seem good for trifling. Mrs. Doria would trifle in spite. +</p> + +<p> +“Listen, Clare! Richard is going. He says he has an engagement. What +possible engagement can a young man have at eleven o’clock in the +morning?—unless it’s to be married!” Mrs. Doria laughed at +the ingenuity of her suggestion. +</p> + +<p> +“Is the church handy, Ricky?” said Adrian. “You can still +give us half-an-hour if it is. The celibate hours strike at Twelve.” And +he also laughed in his fashion. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you stay with us, Richard?” Clare asked. She blushed +timidly, and her voice shook. +</p> + +<p> +Something indefinite—a sharp-edged thrill in the tones made the burning +bridegroom speak gently to her. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, I would, Clare; I should like to please you, but I have a most +imperative appointment—that is, I promised—I must go. I shall see +you again”— +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria, took forcible possession of him. “Now, do come, and +don’t waste words. I insist upon your having some breakfast first, and +then, if you really must go, you shall. Look! there’s the house. At least +you will accompany your aunt to the door.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard conceded this. She little imagined what she required of him. Two of his +golden minutes melted into nothingness. They were growing to be jewels of +price, one by one more and more precious as they ran, and now so +costly-rare—rich as his blood! not to kindest relations, dearest friends, +could he give another. The die is cast! Ferryman! push off. +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye!” he cried, nodding bluffly at the three as one, and +fled. +</p> + +<p> +They watched his abrupt muscular stride through the grounds of the house. He +looked like resolution on the march. Mrs. Doria, as usual with her out of her +brother’s hearing, began rating the System. +</p> + +<p> +“See what becomes of that nonsensical education! The boy really does not +know how to behave like a common mortal. He has some paltry appointment, or is +mad after some ridiculous idea of his own, and everything must be sacrificed to +it! That’s what Austin calls concentration of the faculties. I think +it’s more likely to lead to downright insanity than to greatness of any +kind. And so I shall tell Austin. It’s time he should be spoken to +seriously about him.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s an engine, my dear aunt,” said Adrian. “He +isn’t a boy, or a man, but an engine. And he appears to have been at high +pressure since he came to town—out all day and half the night.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’s mad!” Mrs. Doria interjected. +</p> + +<p> +“Not at all. Extremely shrewd is Master Ricky, and carries as open an eye +ahead of him as the ships before Troy. He’s more than a match for any of +us. He is for me, I confess.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then,” said Mrs. Doria, “he does astonish me!” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian begged her to retain her astonishment till the right season, which would +not be long arriving. +</p> + +<p> +Their common wisdom counselled them not to tell the Foreys of their hopeful +relative’s ungracious behaviour. Clare had left them. When Mrs. Doria +went to her room her daughter was there, gazing down at something in her hand, +which she guiltily closed. +</p> + +<p> +In answer to an inquiry why she had not gone to take off her things, Clare said +she was not hungry. Mrs. Doria lamented the obstinacy of a constitution that no +quantity of iron could affect, and eclipsed the looking-glass, saying: +“Take them off here, child, and learn to assist yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +She disentangled her bonnet from the array of her spreading hair, talking of +Richard, and his handsome appearance, and extraordinary conduct. Clare kept +opening and shutting her hand, in an attitude half-pensive, half-listless. She +did not stir to undress. A joyless dimple hung in one pale cheek, and she drew +long even breaths. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria, assured by the glass that she was ready to show, came to her +daughter. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, really,” she said, “you are too helpless, my dear. You +cannot do a thing without a dozen women at your elbow. What will become of you? +You will have to marry a millionaire.—What’s the matter with you, +child?” +</p> + +<p> +Clare undid her tight-shut fingers, as if to some attraction of her eyes, and +displayed a small gold hoop on the palm of a green glove. +</p> + +<p> +“A wedding-ring!” exclaimed Mrs. Doria, inspecting the curiosity +most daintily. +</p> + +<p> +There on Clare’s pale green glove lay a wedding-ring! +</p> + +<p> +Rapid questions as to where, when, how, it was found, beset Clare, who replied: +“In the Gardens, mama. This morning. When I was walking behind +Richard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you sure he did not give it you, Clare?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no, mama! he did not give it me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course not! only he does such absurd things! I thought, +perhaps—these boys are so exceedingly ridiculous!” Mrs. Doria had +an idea that it might have been concerted between the two young gentlemen, +Richard and Ralph, that the former should present this token of hymeneal +devotion from the latter to the young lady of his love; but a moment’s +reflection exonerated boys even from such preposterous behaviour. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, I wonder,” she speculated on Clare’s cold face, +“I do wonder whether it’s lucky to find a wedding-ring. What very +quick eyes you have, my darling!” Mrs. Doria kissed her. She thought it +must be lucky, and the circumstance made her feel tender to her child. Her +child did not move to the kiss. +</p> + +<p> +“Let’s see whether it fits,” said Mrs. Doria, almost +infantine with surprise and pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +Clare suffered her glove to be drawn off. The ring slid down her long thin +finger, and settled comfortably. +</p> + +<p> +“It does!” Mrs. Doria whispered. To find a wedding ring is open to +any woman; but to find a wedding-ring that fits may well cause a superstitious +emotion. Moreover, that it should be found while walking in the neighbourhood +of the identical youth whom a mother has destined for her daughter, gives +significance to the gentle perturbation of ideas consequent on such a hint from +Fortune. +</p> + +<p> +“It really fits!” she pursued. “Now I never pay any attention +to the nonsense of omens and that kind of thing” (had the ring been a +horseshoe Mrs. Doria would have pinked it up and dragged it obediently home), +“but this, I must say, is odd—to find a ring that +fits!—singular! It never happened to me. Sixpence is the most I ever +discovered, and I have it now. Mind you keep it, Clare—this ring: +And,” she laughed, “offer it to Richard when he comes; say, you +think he must have dropped it.” +</p> + +<p> +The dimple in Clare’s cheek quivered. +</p> + +<p> +Mother and daughter had never spoken explicitly of Richard. Mrs. Doria, by +exquisite management, had contrived to be sure that on one side there would be +no obstacle to her project of general happiness, without, as she thought, +compromising her daughter’s feelings unnecessarily. It could do no harm +to an obedient young girl to hear that there was no youth in the world like a +certain youth. He the prince of his generation, she might softly consent, when +requested, to be his princess; and if never requested (for Mrs. Doria envisaged +failure), she might easily transfer her softness to squires of lower degree. +Clare had always been blindly obedient to her mother (Adrian called them Mrs. +Doria Battledoria and the fair Shuttlecockiana), and her mother accepted in +this blind obedience the text of her entire character. It is difficult for +those who think very earnestly for their children to know when their children +are thinking on their own account. The exercise of their volition we construe +as revolt. Our love does not like to be invalided and deposed from its command, +and here I think yonder old thrush on the lawn who has just kicked the last of +her lank offspring out of the nest to go shift for itself, much the kinder of +the two, though sentimental people do shrug their shoulders at these +unsentimental acts of the creatures who never wander from nature. Now, excess +of obedience is, to one who manages most exquisitely, as bad as insurrection. +Happily Mrs. Doria saw nothing in her daughter’s manner save a want of +iron. Her pallor, her lassitude, the tremulous nerves in her face, exhibited an +imperious requirement of the mineral. +</p> + +<p> +“The reason why men and women are mysterious to us, and prove +disappointing,” we learn from The Pilgrim’s Scrip, “is, that +we will read them from our own book; just as we are perplexed by reading +ourselves from theirs.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria read her daughter from her own book, and she was gay; she laughed +with Adrian at the breakfast-table, and mock-seriously joined in his jocose +assertion that Clare was positively and by all hymeneal auspices betrothed to +the owner of that ring, be he who he may, and must, whenever he should choose +to come and claim her, give her hand to him (for everybody agreed the owner +must be masculine, as no woman would drop a wedding-ring), and follow him +whither he listed all the world over. Amiable giggling Forey girls called +Clare, The Betrothed. Dark man, or fair? was mooted. Adrian threw off the first +strophe of Clare’s fortune in burlesque rhymes, with an insinuating gipsy +twang. Her aunt Forey warned her to have her dresses in readiness. Her +grandpapa Forey pretended to grumble at bridal presents being expected from +grandpapas. +</p> + +<p> +This one smelt orange-flower, another spoke solemnly of an old shoe. The +finding of a wedding-ring was celebrated through all the palpitating +accessories and rosy ceremonies involved by that famous instrument. In the +midst of the general hilarity, Clare showed her deplorable want of iron by +bursting into tears. +</p> + +<p> +Did the poor mocked-at heart divine what might be then enacting? Perhaps, +dimly, as we say: that is, without eyes. +</p> + +<p> +At an altar stand two fair young creatures, ready with their oaths. They are +asked to fix all time to the moment, and they do so. If there is hesitation at +the immense undertaking, it is but maidenly. She conceives as little mental +doubt of the sanity of the act as he. Over them hangs a cool young curate in +his raiment of office. Behind are two apparently lucid people, distinguished +from each other by sex and age: the foremost a bunch of simmering black satin; +under her shadow a cock-robin in the dress of a gentleman, big joy swelling out +his chest, and pert satisfaction cocking his head. These be they who stand here +in place of parents to the young couple. All is well. The service proceeds. +</p> + +<p> +Firmly the bridegroom tells forth his words. This hour of the complacent giant +at least is his, and that he means to hold him bound through the eternities, +men may hear. Clearly, and with brave modesty, speaks she: no less firmly, +though her body trembles: her voice just vibrating while the tone travels on, +like a smitten vase. +</p> + +<p> +Time hears sentence pronounced on him: the frail hands bind his huge limbs and +lock the chains. He is used to it: he lets them do as they will. +</p> + +<p> +Then comes that period when they are to give their troth to each other. The Man +with his right hand takes the Woman by her right hand: the Woman with her right +hand takes the Man by his right hand.—Devils dare not laugh at whom +Angels crowd to contemplate. +</p> + +<p> +Their hands are joined; their blood flows as one stream. Adam and fair Eve +front the generations. Are they not lovely? Purer fountains of life were never +in two bosoms. +</p> + +<p> +And then they loose their hands, and the cool curate doth bid the Man to put a +ring on the Woman’s fourth finger, counting thumb. And the Man thrusts +his hand into one pocket, and into another, forward and back many times into +all his pockets. He remembers that he felt for it, and felt it in his waistcoat +pocket, when in the Gardens. And his hand comes forth empty. And the Man is +ghastly to look at! +</p> + +<p> +Yet, though Angels smile, shall not Devils laugh! The curate deliberates. The +black satin bunch ceases to simmer. He in her shadow changes from a beaming +cock-robin to an inquisitive sparrow. Eyes multiply questions: lips have no +reply. Time ominously shakes his chain, and in the pause a sound of mockery +stings their ears. +</p> + +<p> +Think ye a hero is one to be defeated in his first battle? Look at the clock! +there are but seven minutes to the stroke of the celibate hours: the veteran is +surely lifting his two hands to deliver fire, and his shot will sunder them in +twain so nearly united. All the jewellers of London speeding down with sacks +full of the nuptial circlet cannot save them! +</p> + +<p> +The battle must be won on the field, and what does the hero now? It is an +inspiration! For who else would dream of such a reserve in the rear? None see +what he does; only that the black-satin bunch is remonstratingly agitated, +stormily shaken, and subdued: and as though the menacing cloud had opened, and +dropped the dear token from the skies at his demand, he produces the symbol of +their consent, and the service proceeds: “With this ring I thee +wed.” +</p> + +<p> +They are prayed over and blest. For good, or for ill, this deed is done. The +names are registered; fees fly right and left: they thank, and salute, the +curate, whose official coolness melts into a smile of monastic gallantry: the +beadle on the steps waves off a gaping world as they issue forth bridegroom and +bridesman recklessly scatter gold on him: carriage doors are banged to: the +coachmen drive off, and the scene closes, everybody happy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap30"></a> +CHAPTER XXX</h2> + +<p> +And the next moment the bride is weeping as if she would dissolve to one of +Dian’s Virgin Fountains from the clasp of the Sun-God. She has nobly +preserved the mask imposed by comedies, till the curtain has fallen, and now +she weeps, streams with tears. Have patience, O impetuous young man! It is your +profession to be a hero. This poor heart is new to it, and her duties involve +such wild acts, such brigandage, such terrors and tasks, she is quite unnerved. +She did you honour till now. Bear with her now. She does not cry the cry of +ordinary maidens in like cases. While the struggle went on her tender face was +brave; but, alas! Omens are against her: she holds an ever-present dreadful one +on that fatal fourth finger of hers, which has coiled itself round her dream of +delight, and takes her in its clutch like a horrid serpent. And yet she must +love it. She dares not part from it. She must love and hug it, and feed on its +strange honey, and all the bliss it gives her casts all the deeper shadow on +what is to come. +</p> + +<p> +Say: Is it not enough to cause feminine apprehension, for a woman to be married +in another woman’s ring? +</p> + +<p> +You are amazons, ladies, at Saragossa, and a thousand citadels—wherever +there is strife, and Time is to be taken by the throat. Then shall few men +match your sublime fury. But what if you see a vulture, visible only to +yourselves, hovering over the house you are gaily led by the torch to inhabit? +Will you not crouch and be cowards? +</p> + +<p> +As for the hero, in the hour of victory he pays no heed to omens. He does his +best to win his darling to confidence by caresses. Is she not his? Is he not +hers? And why, when the battle is won, does she weep? Does she regret what she +has done? +</p> + +<p> +Oh, never! never! her soft blue eyes assure him, steadfast love seen swimming +on clear depths of faith in them, through the shower. +</p> + +<p> +He is silenced by her exceeding beauty, and sits perplexed waiting for the +shower to pass. +</p> + +<p> +Alone with Mrs. Berry, in her bedroom, Lucy gave tongue to her distress, and a +second character in the comedy changed her face. +</p> + +<p> +“O Mrs. Berry! Mrs. Berry! what has happened! what has happened!” +</p> + +<p> +“My darlin’ child!” The bridal Berry gazed at the finger of +doleful joy. “I’d forgot all about it! And that’s +what’ve made me feel so queer ever since, then! I’ve been +seemin’ as if I wasn’t myself somehow, without my ring. Dear! dear! +what a wilful young gentleman! We ain’t a match for men in that +state—Lord help us!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry sat on the edge of a chair: Lucy on the edge of the bed. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you think of it, Mrs. Berry? Is it not terrible?” +</p> + +<p> +“I can’t say I should ’a liked it myself, my dear,” +Mrs. Berry candidly responded. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! why, why, why did it happen!” the young bride bent to a flood +of fresh tears, murmuring that she felt already old—forsaken. +</p> + +<p> +“Haven’t you got a comfort in your religion for all +accidents?” Mrs. Berry inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“None for this. I know it’s wrong to cry when I am so happy. I hope +he will forgive me.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry vowed her bride was the sweetest, softest, beautifulest thing in +life. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll cry no more,” said Lucy. “Leave me, Mrs. Berry, +and come back when I ring.” +</p> + +<p> +She drew forth a little silver cross, and fell upon her knees to the bed. Mrs. +Berry left the room tiptoe. +</p> + +<p> +When she was called to return, Lucy was calm and tearless, and smiled kindly to +her. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s over now,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry sedately looked for her ring to follow. +</p> + +<p> +“He does not wish me to go in to the breakfast you have prepared, Mrs. +Berry. I begged to be excused. I cannot eat.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry very much deplored it, as she had laid out a superior nuptial +breakfast, but with her mind on her ring she nodded assentingly. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall not have much packing to do, Mrs. Berry.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, my dear. It’s pretty well all done.” +</p> + +<p> +“We are going to the Isle of Wight, Mrs. Berry.” +</p> + +<p> +“And a very suitable spot ye’ve chose, my dear!” +</p> + +<p> +“He loves the sea. He wishes to be near it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t ye cross to-night, if it’s anyways rough, my dear. It +isn’t advisable.” Mrs. Berry sank her voice to say, +“Don’t ye be soft and give way to him there, or you’ll both +be repenting it.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy had only been staving off the unpleasantness she had to speak. She saw +Mrs. Berry’s eyes pursuing her ring, and screwed up her courage at last. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Berry.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Berry, you shall have another ring.” +</p> + +<p> +“Another, my dear?” Berry did not comprehend. “One’s +quite enough for the objeck,” she remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean,” Lucy touched her fourth finger, “I cannot part with +this.” She looked straight at Mrs. Berry. +</p> + +<p> +That bewildered creature gazed at her, and at the ring, till she had thoroughly +exhausted the meaning of the words, and then exclaimed, horror-struck: +“Deary me, now! you don’t say that? You’re to be married +again in your own religion.” +</p> + +<p> +The young wife repeated: “I can never part with it.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, my dear!” the wretched Berry wrung her hands, divided between +compassion and a sense of injury. “My dear!” she kept expostulating +like a mute. +</p> + +<p> +“I know all that you would say, Mrs. Berry. I am very grieved to pain +you. It is mine now, and must be mine. I cannot give it back.” +</p> + +<p> +There she sat, suddenly developed to the most inflexible little heroine in the +three Kingdoms. +</p> + +<p> +From her first perception of the meaning of the young bride’s words, Mrs. +Berry, a shrewd physiognomist, knew that her case was hopeless, unless she +treated her as she herself had been treated, and seized the ring by force of +arms; and that she had not heart for. +</p> + +<p> +“What!” she gasped faintly, “one’s own lawful +wedding-ring you wouldn’t give back to a body?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because it is mine, Mrs. Berry. It was yours, but it is mine now. You +shall have whatever you ask for but that. Pray, forgive me! It must be +so.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry rocked on her chair, and sounded her hands together. It amazed her +that this soft little creature could be thus firm. She tried argument. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t ye know, my dear, it’s the fatalest thing you’re +inflictin’ upon me, reelly! Don’t ye know that bein’ bereft +of one’s own lawful wedding-ring’s the fatalest thing in life, and +there’s no prosperity after it! For what stands in place o’ that, +when that’s gone, my dear? And what could ye give me to compensate a body +for the loss o’ that? Don’t ye know—Oh, deary me!” The +little bride’s face was so set that poor Berry wailed off in despair. +</p> + +<p> +“I know it,” said Lucy. “I know it all. I know what I do to +you. Dear, dear Mrs. Berry! forgive me! If I parted with my ring I know it +would be fatal.” +</p> + +<p> +So this fair young freebooter took possession of her argument as well as her +ring. +</p> + +<p> +Berry racked her distracted wits for a further appeal. +</p> + +<p> +“But, my child,” she counter-argued, “you don’t +understand. It ain’t as you think. It ain’t a hurt to you now. Not +a bit, it ain’t. It makes no difference now! Any ring does while the +wearer’s a maid. And your Mr. Richard will find the very ring he intended +for ye. And, of course, that’s the one you’ll wear as his wife. +It’s all the same now, my dear. It’s no shame to a maid. Now +do—now do—there’s a darlin’!” +</p> + +<p> +Wheedling availed as little as argument. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Berry,” said Lucy, “you know what my—he spoke: +‘With this ring I thee wed.’ It was with this ring. Then how could +it be with another?” +</p> + +<p> +Berry was constrained despondently to acknowledge that was logic. +</p> + +<p> +She hit upon an artful conjecture: +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t it be unlucky your wearin’ of the ring which served me +so? Think o’ that!” +</p> + +<p> +“It may! it may! it may!” cried Lucy. +</p> + +<p> +“And arn’t you rushin’ into it, my dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Berry,” Lucy said again, “it was this ring. It +cannot—it never can be another. It was this. What it brings me I must +bear. I shall wear it till I die!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what am I to do?” the ill-used woman groaned. “What +shall I tell my husband when he come back to me, and see I’ve got a new +ring waitin’ for him? Won’t that be a welcome?” +</p> + +<p> +Quoth Lucy: “How can he know it is not the same; in a plain gold +ring?” +</p> + +<p> +“You never see so keen a eyed man in joolry as my Berry!” returned +his solitary spouse. “Not know, my dear? Why, any one would know +that’ve got eyes in his head. There’s as much difference in +wedding-rings as there’s in wedding people! Now, do pray be reasonable, +my own sweet!” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray, do not ask me,” pleads Lucy. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray, do think better of it,” urges Berry. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray, pray, Mrs. Berry!” pleads Lucy. +</p> + +<p> +“—And not leave your old Berry all forlorn just when you’re +so happy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed I would not, you dear, kind old creature!” Lucy faltered. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry thought she had her. +</p> + +<p> +“Just when you’re going to be the happiest wife on earth—all +you want yours!” she pursued the tender strain. “A handsome young +gentleman! Love and Fortune smilin’ on ye!”— +</p> + +<p> +Lucy rose up. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Berry,” she said, “I think we must not lose time in +getting ready, or he will be impatient.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Berry surveyed her in abject wonder from the edge of her chair. Dignity +and resolve were in the ductile form she had hitherto folded under her wing. In +an hour the heroine had risen to the measure of the hero. Without being exactly +aware what creature she was dealing with, Berry acknowledged to herself it was +not one of the common run, and sighed, and submitted. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s like a divorce, that it is!” she sobbed. +</p> + +<p> +After putting the corners of her apron to her eyes, Berry bustled humbly about +the packing. Then Lucy, whose heart was full to her, came and kissed her, and +Berry bumped down and regularly cried. This over, she had recourse to fatalism. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it was to be, my dear! It’s my punishment for +meddlin’ wi’ such matters. No, I’m not sorry. Bless ye both. +Who’d ’a thought you was so wilful?—you that any one might +have taken for one of the silly-softs! You’re a pair, my dear! indeed you +are! You was made to meet! But we mustn’t show him we’ve been +crying.—Men don’t like it when they’re happy. Let’s +wash our faces and try to bear our lot.” +</p> + +<p> +So saying the black-satin bunch careened to a renewed deluge. She deserved some +sympathy, for if it is sad to be married in another person’s ring, how +much sadder to have one’s own old accustomed lawful ring violently torn +off one’s finger and eternally severed from one! But where you have +heroes and heroines, these terrible complications ensue. +</p> + +<p> +They had now both fought their battle of the ring, and with equal honour and +success. +</p> + +<p> +In the chamber of banquet Richard was giving Ripton his last directions. Though +it was a private wedding, Mrs. Berry had prepared a sumptuous breakfast. +Chickens offered their breasts: pies hinted savoury secrets: things mystic, in +a mash, with Gallic appellatives, jellies, creams, fruits, strewed the table: +as a tower in the midst, the cake colossal: the priestly vesture of its nuptial +white relieved by hymeneal splendours. +</p> + +<p> +Many hours, much labour and anxiety of mind, Mrs. Berry had expended upon this +breakfast, and why? There is one who comes to all feasts that have their basis +in Folly, whom criminals of trained instinct are careful to provide against: +who will speak, and whose hateful voice must somehow be silenced while the +feast is going on. This personage is The Philosopher. Mrs. Berry knew him. She +knew that he would come. She provided against him in the manner she thought +most efficacious: that is, by cheating her eyes and intoxicating her conscience +with the due and proper glories incident to weddings where fathers dilate, +mothers collapse, and marriage settlements are flourished on high by the family +lawyer: and had there been no show of the kind to greet her on her return from +the church, she would, and she foresaw she would, have stared at squalor and +emptiness, and repented her work. The Philosopher would have laid hold of her +by the ear, and called her bad names. Entrenched behind a breakfast-table so +legitimately adorned, Mrs. Berry defied him. In the presence of that cake he +dared not speak above a whisper. And there were wines to drown him in, should +he still think of protesting; fiery wines, and cool: claret sent purposely by +the bridegroom for the delectation of his friend. +</p> + +<p> +For one good hour, therefore, the labour of many hours kept him dumb. Ripton +was fortifying himself so as to forget him altogether, and the world as well, +till the next morning. Ripton was excited, overdone with delight. He had +already finished one bottle, and listened, pleasantly flushed, to his emphatic +and more abstemious chief. He had nothing to do but to listen, and to drink. +The hero would not allow him to shout Victory! or hear a word of toasts; and +as, from the quantity of oil poured on it, his eloquence was becoming a natural +force in his bosom, the poor fellow was afflicted with a sort of elephantiasis +of suppressed emotion. At times he half-rose from his chair, and fell vacuously +into it again; or he chuckled in the face of weighty, severely-worded +instructions; tapped his chest, stretched his arms, yawned, and in short +behaved so singularly that Richard observed it, and said: “On my soul, I +don’t think you know a word I’m saying.” +</p> + +<p> +“Every word, Ricky!” Ripton spirted through the opening. +“I’m going down to your governor, and tell him: Sir Austin! +Here’s your only chance of being a happy father—no, no!—Oh! +don’t you fear me, Ricky! I shall talk the old gentleman over.” +</p> + +<p> +His chief said: +</p> + +<p> +“Look here. You had better not go down to-night. Go down the first thing +to-morrow, by the six o’clock train. Give him my letter. Listen to +me—give him my letter, and don’t speak a word till he speaks. His +eyebrows will go up and down, he won’t say much. I know him. If he asks +you about her, don’t be a fool, but say what you think of her +sensibly”— +</p> + +<p> +No cork could hold in Ripton when she was alluded to. He shouted: +“She’s an angel!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard checked him: “Speak sensibly, I say—quietly. You can say +how gentle and good she is—my fleur-de-luce! And say, this was not her +doing. If any one’s to blame, it’s I. I made her marry me. Then go +to Lady Blandish, if you don’t find her at the house. You may say +whatever you please to her. Give her my letter, and tell her I want to hear +from her immediately. She has seen Lucy, and I know what she thinks of her. You +will then go to Farmer Blaize. I told you Lucy happens to be his +niece—she has not lived long there. She lived with her aunt Desborough in +France while she was a child, and can hardly be called a relative to the +farmer—there’s not a point of likeness between them. Poor darling! +she never knew her mother. Go to Mr. Blaize, and tell him. You will treat him +just as you would treat any other gentleman. If you are civil, he is sure to +be. And if he abuses me, for my sake and hers you will still treat him with +respect. You hear? And then write me a full account of all that has been said +and done. You will have my address the day after to-morrow. By the way, Tom +will be here this afternoon. Write out for him where to call on you the day +after to-morrow, in case you have heard anything in the morning you think I +ought to know at once, as Tom will join me that night. Don’t mention to +anybody about my losing the ring, Ripton. I wouldn’t have Adrian get hold +of that for a thousand pounds. How on earth I came to lose it! How well she +bore it, Rip! How beautifully she behaved!” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton again shouted: “An angel!” Throwing up the heels of his +second bottle, he said: +</p> + +<p> +“You may trust your friend, Richard. Aha! when you pulled at old Mrs. +Berry I didn’t know what was up. I do wish you’d let me drink her +health?” +</p> + +<p> +“Here’s to Penelope!” said Richard, just wetting his mouth. +The carriage was at the door: a couple of dire organs, each grinding the same +tune, and a vulture-scented itinerant band (from which not the secretest veiled +wedding can escape) worked harmoniously without in the production of discord, +and the noise acting on his nervous state made him begin to fume and send in +messages for his bride by the maid. +</p> + +<p> +By and by the lovely young bride presented herself dressed for her journey, and +smiling from stained eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry was requested to drink some wine, which Ripton poured out for her, +enabling Mrs. Berry thereby to measure his condition. +</p> + +<p> +The bride now kissed Mrs. Berry, and Mrs. Berry kissed the bridegroom, on the +plea of her softness. Lucy gave Ripton her hand, with a musical +“Good-bye, Mr. Thompson,” and her extreme graciousness made him +just sensible enough to sit down before he murmured his fervent hopes for her +happiness. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall take good care of him,” said Mrs. Berry, focussing her +eyes to the comprehension of the company. +</p> + +<p> +“Farewell, Penelope!” cried Richard. “I shall tell the police +everywhere to look out for your lord.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh my dears! good-bye, and Heaven bless ye both!” +</p> + +<p> +Berry quavered, touched with compunction at the thoughts of approaching +loneliness. Ripton, his mouth drawn like a bow to his ears, brought up the rear +to the carriage, receiving a fair slap on the cheek from an old shoe +precipitated by Mrs. Berry’s enthusiastic female domestic. +</p> + +<p> +White handkerchiefs were waved, the adieux had fallen to signs: they were off. +Then did a thought of such urgency illumine Mrs. Berry, that she telegraphed, +hand in air, awakening Ripton’s lungs, for the coachman to stop, and ran +back to the house. Richard chafed to be gone, but at his bride’s +intercession he consented to wait. Presently they beheld the old black-satin +bunch stream through the street-door, down the bit of garden, and up the +astonished street; halting, panting, capless at the carriage door, a book in +her hand,—a much-used, dog-leaved, steamy, greasy book, which; at the +same time calling out in breathless jerks, “There! never ye mind looks! I +ain’t got a new one. Read it, and don’t ye forget it!” she +discharged into Lucy’s lap, and retreated to the railings, a signal for +the coachman to drive away for good. +</p> + +<p> +How Richard laughed at the Berry’s bridal gift! Lucy, too, lost the omen +at her heart as she glanced at the title of the volume. It was Dr. Kitchener on +Domestic Cookery! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap31"></a> +CHAPTER XXXI</h2> + +<p> +General withdrawing of heads from street-windows, emigration of organs and +bands, and a relaxed atmosphere in the circle of Mrs. Berry’s abode, +proved that Dan Cupid had veritably flown to suck the life of fresh regions. +With a pensive mind she grasped Ripton’s arm to regulate his steps, and +returned to the room where her creditor awaited her. In the interval he had +stormed her undefended fortress, the cake, from which altitude he shook a +dolorous head at the guilty woman. She smoothed her excited apron, sighing. Let +no one imagine that she regretted her complicity. She was ready to cry +torrents, but there must be absolute castigation before this criminal shall +conceive the sense of regret; and probably then she will cling to her +wickedness the more—such is the born Pagan’s tenacity! Mrs. Berry +sighed, and gave him back his shake of the head. O you wanton, improvident +creature! said he. O you very wise old gentleman! said she. He asked her the +thing she had been doing. She enlightened him with the fatalist’s reply. +He sounded a bogey’s alarm of contingent grave results. She retreated to +the entrenched camp of the fact she had helped to make. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s done!” she exclaimed. How could she regret what she +felt comfort to know was done? Convinced that events alone could stamp a mark +on such stubborn flesh, he determined to wait for them, and crouched silent on +the cake, with one finger downwards at Ripton’s incision there, showing a +crumbling chasm and gloomy rich recess. +</p> + +<p> +The eloquent indication was understood. “Dear! dear!” cried Mrs. +Berry, “what a heap o’ cake, and no one to send it to!” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton had resumed his seat by the table and his embrace of the claret. Clear +ideas of satisfaction had left him and resolved to a boiling geysir of +indistinguishable transports. He bubbled, and waggled, and nodded amicably to +nothing, and successfully, though not without effort, preserved his uppermost +member from the seductions of the nymph, Gravitation, who was on the look-out +for his whole length shortly. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! ha!” he shouted, about a minute after Mrs. Berry had spoken, +and almost abandoned himself to the nymph on the spot. Mrs. Berry’s words +had just reached his wits. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you laugh, young man?” she inquired, familiar and motherly +on account of his condition. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton laughed louder, and caught his chest on the edge of the table and his +nose on a chicken. “That’s goo’!” he said, recovering, +and rocking under Mrs. Berry’s eyes. “No friend!” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not say, no friend,” she remarked. “I said, no one; +meanin’, I know not where for to send it to.” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton’s response to this was: “You put a Griffin on that cake. +Wheatsheaves each side.” +</p> + +<p> +“His crest?” Mrs. Berry said sweetly. +</p> + +<p> +“Oldest baronetcy ’n England!” waved Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” Mrs. Berry encouraged him on. +</p> + +<p> +“You think he’s Richards. We’re oblige’ be very close. +And she’s the most lovely!—If I hear man say thing ’gainst +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“You needn’t for to cry over her, young man,” said Mrs. +Berry. “I wanted for to drink their right healths by their right names, +and then go about my day’s work, and I do hope you won’t keep +me.” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton stood bolt upright at her words. +</p> + +<p> +“You do?” he said, and filling a bumper he with cheerfully vinous +articulation and glibness of tongue proposed the health of Richard and Lucy +Feverel, of Raynham Abbey! and that mankind should not require an expeditious +example of the way to accept the inspiring toast, he drained his bumper at a +gulp. It finished him. The farthing rushlight of his reason leapt and expired. +He tumbled to the sofa and there stretched. +</p> + +<p> +Some minutes subsequent to Ripton’s signalization of his devotion to the +bridal pair, Mrs. Berry’s maid entered the room to say that a gentleman +was inquiring below after the young gentleman who had departed, and found her +mistress with a tottering wineglass in her hand, exhibiting every symptom of +unconsoled hysterics. Her mouth gaped, as if the fell creditor had her by the +swallow. She ejaculated with horrible exultation that she had been and done it, +as her disastrous aspect seemed to testify, and her evident, but inexplicable, +access of misery induced the sympathetic maid to tender those caressing words +that were all Mrs. Berry wanted to go off into the self-caressing fit without +delay; and she had already given the preluding demoniac ironic outburst, when +the maid called heaven to witness that the gentleman would hear her; upon which +Mrs. Berry violently controlled her bosom, and ordered that he should be shown +upstairs instantly to see her the wretch she was. She repeated the injunction. +</p> + +<p> +The maid did as she was told, and Mrs. Berry, wishing first to see herself as +she was, mutely accosted the looking-glass, and tried to look a very little +better. She dropped a shawl on Ripton and was settled, smoothing her agitation +when her visitor was announced. +</p> + +<p> +The gentleman was Adrian Harley. An interview with Tom Bakewell had put him on +the track, and now a momentary survey of the table, and its white-vestured +cake, made him whistle. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry plaintively begged him to do her the favour to be seated. +</p> + +<p> +“A fine morning, ma’am,” said Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“It have been!” Mrs. Berry answered, glancing over her shoulder at +the window, and gulping as if to get her heart down from her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“A very fine Spring,” pursued Adrian, calmly anatomizing her +countenance. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry smothered an adjective to “weather” on a deep sigh. Her +wretchedness was palpable. In proportion to it, Adrian waned cheerful and +brisk. He divined enough of the business to see that there was some strange +intelligence to be fished out of the culprit who sat compressing hysterics +before him; and as he was never more in his element than when he had a sinner, +and a repentant prostrate abject sinner in hand, his affable countenance might +well deceive poor Berry. +</p> + +<p> +“I presume these are Mr. Thompson’s lodgings?” he remarked, +with a look at the table. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry’s head and the whites of her eyes informed him that they were +not Mr. Thompson’s lodgings. +</p> + +<p> +“No?” said Adrian, and threw a carelessly inquisitive eye about +him. “Mr. Feverel is out, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +A convulsive start at the name, and two corroborating hands dropped on her +knees, formed Mrs. Berry’s reply. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Feverel’s man,” continued Adrian, “told me I +should be certain to find him here. I thought he would be with his friend, Mr. +Thompson. I’m too late, I perceive. Their entertainment is over. I fancy +you have been having a party of them here, ma’am?—a +bachelors’ breakfast!” +</p> + +<p> +In the presence of that cake this observation seemed to mask an irony so shrewd +that Mrs. Berry could barely contain herself. She felt she must speak. Making +her face as deplorably propitiating as she could, she began: +</p> + +<p> +“Sir, may I beg for to know your name?” +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Harley accorded her request. +</p> + +<p> +Groaning in the clutch of a pitiless truth, she continued: +</p> + +<p> +“And you are Mr. Harley, that was—oh! and you’ve come for +Mr.?”— +</p> + +<p> +Mr. Richard Feverel was the gentleman Mr. Harley had come for. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! and it’s no mistake, and he’s of Raynham Abbey?” +Mrs. Berry inquired. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian, very much amused, assured her that he was born and bred there. +</p> + +<p> +“His father’s Sir Austin?” wailed the black-satin bunch from +behind her handkerchief. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian verified Richard’s descent. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, then, what have I been and done!” she cried, and stared +blankly at her visitor. “I been and married my baby! I been and married +the bread out of my own mouth. O Mr. Harley! Mr. Harley! I knew you when you +was a boy that big, and wore jackets; and all of you. And it’s my +softness that’s my ruin, for I never can resist a man’s asking. +Look at that cake, Mr. Harley!” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian followed her directions quite coolly. “Wedding-cake, +ma’am!” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Bride-cake it is, Mr. Harley!” +</p> + +<p> +“Did you make it yourself, ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +The quiet ease of the question overwhelmed Mrs. Berry and upset that train of +symbolic representations by which she was seeking to make him guess the +catastrophe and spare her the furnace of confession. +</p> + +<p> +“I did not make it myself, Mr. Harley,” she replied. +“It’s a bought cake, and I’m a lost woman. Little I dreamed +when I had him in my arms a baby that I should some day be marrying him out of +my own house! I little dreamed that! Oh, why did he come to me! Don’t you +remember his old nurse, when he was a baby in arms, that went away so sudden, +and no fault of hers, Mr. Harley! The very mornin’ after the night you +got into Mr. Benson’s cellar, and got so tipsy on his Madeary—I +remember it as clear as yesterday!—and Mr. Benson was that angry he +threatened to use the whip to you, and I helped put you to bed. I’m that +very woman.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian smiled placidly at these reminiscences of his guileless youthful life. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ma’am! well?” he said. He would bring her to the +furnace. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you see it all, kind sir?” Mrs. Berry appealed to him +in pathetic dumb show. +</p> + +<p> +Doubtless by this time Adrian did see it all, and was mentally cursing at +Folly, and reckoning the immediate consequences, but he looked uninstructed, +his peculiar dimple-smile was undisturbed, his comfortable full-bodied posture +was the same. “Well, ma’am?” he spurred her on. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry burst forth: “It were done this mornin’, Mr. Harley, in +the church, at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty to, by licence.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian was now obliged to comprehend a case of matrimony. “Oh!” he +said, like one who is as hard as facts, and as little to be moved: +“Somebody was married this morning; was it Mr. Thompson, or Mr. +Feverel?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry shuffled up to Ripton, and removed the shawl from him, saying: +“Do he look like a new married bridegroom, Mr. Harley?” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian inspected the oblivious Ripton with philosophic gravity. +</p> + +<p> +“This young gentleman was at church this morning?” he asked. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! quite reasonable and proper then,” Mrs. Berry begged him to +understand. +</p> + +<p> +“Of course, ma’am.” Adrian lifted and let fall the stupid +inanimate limbs of the gone wretch, puckering his mouth queerly. “You +were all reasonable and proper, ma’am. The principal male performer, +then, is my cousin, Mr. Feverel? He was married by you, this morning, by +licence at your parish church, and came here, and ate a hearty breakfast, and +left intoxicated.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry flew out. “He never drink a drop, sir. A more moderate young +gentleman you never see. Oh! don’t ye think that now, Mr. Harley. He was +as upright and master of his mind as you be.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay!” the wise youth nodded thanks to her for the comparison, +“I mean the other form of intoxication.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry sighed. She could say nothing on that score. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian desired her to sit down, and compose herself, and tell him +circumstantially what had been done. +</p> + +<p> +She obeyed, in utter perplexity at his perfectly composed demeanour. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry, as her recital declared, was no other than that identical woman who +once in old days had dared to behold the baronet behind his mask, and had ever +since lived in exile from the Raynham world on a little pension regularly paid +to her as an indemnity. She was that woman, and the thought of it made her +almost accuse Providence for the betraying excess of softness it had endowed +her with. How was she to recognize her baby grown a man? He came in a feigned +name; not a word of the family was mentioned. He came like an ordinary mortal, +though she felt something more than ordinary to him—she knew she did. He +came bringing a beautiful young lady, and on what grounds could she turn her +back on them? Why, seeing that all was chaste and legal, why should she +interfere to make them unhappy—so few the chances of happiness in this +world! Mrs. Berry related the seizure of her ring. +</p> + +<p> +“One wrench,” said the sobbing culprit, “one, and my ring was +off!” +</p> + +<p> +She had no suspicions, and the task of writing her name in the vestry-book had +been too enacting for a thought upon the other signatures. +</p> + +<p> +“I daresay you were exceedingly sorry for what you had done,” said +Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, sir,” moaned Berry, “I were, and am.” +</p> + +<p> +“And would do your best to rectify the mischief—eh, +ma’am?” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed, and indeed, sir, I would,” she protested solemnly. +</p> + +<p> +“—As, of course, you should—knowing the family. Where may +these lunatics have gone to spend the Moon?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry swimmingly replied: “To the Isle—I don’t quite +know, sir!” she snapped the indication short, and jumped out of the pit +she had fallen into. Repentant as she might be, those dears should not be +pursued and cruelly balked of their young bliss! “To-morrow, if you +please, Mr. Harley: not to-day!” +</p> + +<p> +“A pleasant spot,” Adrian observed, smiling at his easy prey. +</p> + +<p> +By a measurement of dates he discovered that the bridegroom had brought his +bride to the house on the day he had quitted Raynham, and this was enough to +satisfy Adrian’s mind that there had been concoction and chicanery. +Chance, probably, had brought him to the old woman: chance certainly had not +brought him to the young one. +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, ma’am,” he said, in answer to her petitions for +his favourable offices with Sir Austin in behalf of her little pension and the +bridal pair, “I will tell him you were only a blind agent in the affair, +being naturally soft, and that you trust he will bless the consummation. He +will be in town to-morrow morning; but one of you two must see him to-night. An +emetic kindly administered will set our friend here on his legs. A bath and a +clean shirt, and he might go. I don’t see why your name should appear at +all. Brush him up, and send him to Bellingham by the seven o’clock train. +He will find his way to Raynham; he knows the neighbourhood best in the dark. +Let him go and state the case. Remember, one of you must go.” +</p> + +<p> +With this fair prospect of leaving a choice of a perdition between the couple +of unfortunates, for them to fight and lose all their virtues over, Adrian +said, “Good morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry touchingly arrested him. “You won’t refuse a piece of +his cake, Mr. Harley?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, dear, no, ma’am,” Adrian turned to the cake with +alacrity. “I shall claim a very large piece. Richard has a great many +friends who will rejoice to eat his wedding-cake. Cut me a fair quarter, Mrs. +Berry. Put it in paper, if you please. I shall be delighted to carry it to +them, and apportion it equitably according to their several degrees of +relationship.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry cut the cake. Somehow, as she sliced through it, the sweetness and +hapless innocence of the bride was presented to her, and she launched into +eulogies of Lucy, and clearly showed how little she regretted her conduct. She +vowed that they seemed made for each other; that both, were beautiful; both had +spirit; both were innocent; and to part them, or make them unhappy, would be, +Mrs. Berry wrought herself to cry aloud, oh, such a pity! +</p> + +<p> +Adrian listened to it as the expression of a matter-of-fact opinion. He took +the huge quarter of cake, nodded multitudinous promises, and left Mrs. Berry to +bless his good heart. +</p> + +<p> +“So dies the System!” was Adrian’s comment in the street. +“And now let prophets roar! He dies respectably in a marriage-bed, which +is more than I should have foretold of the monster. Meantime,” he gave +the cake a dramatic tap, “I’ll go sow nightmares.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap32"></a> +CHAPTER XXXII</h2> + +<p> +Adrian really bore the news he had heard with creditable disinterestedness, and +admirable repression of anything beneath the dignity of a philosopher. When one +has attained that felicitous point of wisdom from which one sees all mankind to +be fools, the diminutive objects may make what new moves they please, one does +not marvel at them: their sedateness is as comical as their frolic, and their +frenzies more comical still. On this intellectual eminence the wise youth had +built his castle, and he had lived in it from an early period. Astonishment +never shook the foundations, nor did envy of greater heights tempt him to +relinquish the security of his stronghold, for he saw none. Jugglers he saw +running up ladders that overtopped him, and air-balloons scaling the empyrean; +but the former came precipitately down again, and the latter were at the mercy +of the winds; while he remained tranquil on his solid unambitious ground, +fitting his morality to the laws, his conscience to his morality, his comfort +to his conscience. Not that voluntarily he cut himself off from his fellows: on +the contrary, his sole amusement was their society. Alone he was rather dull, +as a man who beholds but one thing must naturally be. Study of the animated +varieties of that one thing excited him sufficiently to think life a pleasant +play; and the faculties he had forfeited to hold his elevated position he could +serenely enjoy by contemplation of them in others. Thus:—wonder at Master +Richard’s madness: though he himself did not experience it, he was eager +to mark the effect on his beloved relatives. As he carried along his vindictive +hunch of cake, he shaped out their different attitudes of amaze, bewilderment, +horror; passing by some personal chagrin in the prospect. For his patron had +projected a journey, commencing with Paris, culminating on the Alps, and +lapsing in Rome: a delightful journey to show Richard the highways of History +and tear him from the risk of further ignoble fascinations, that his spirit +might be altogether bathed in freshness and revived. This had been planned +during Richard’s absence to surprise him. +</p> + +<p> +Now the dream of travel was to Adrian what the love of woman is to the race of +young men. It supplanted that foolishness. It was his Romance, as we say; that +buoyant anticipation on which in youth we ride the airs, and which, as we wax +older and too heavy for our atmosphere, hardens to the Hobby, which, if an +obstinate animal, is a safer horse, and conducts man at a slower pace to the +sexton. Adrian had never travelled. He was aware that his romance was earthly +and had discomforts only to be evaded by the one potent talisman possessed by +his patron. His Alp would hardly be grand to him without an obsequious landlord +in the foreground: he must recline on Mammon’s imperial cushions in order +to moralize becomingly on the ancient world. The search for pleasure at the +expense of discomfort, as frantic lovers woo their mistresses to partake the +shelter of a but and batten on a crust, Adrian deemed the bitterness of +beggarliness. Let his sweet mistress be given him in the pomp and splendour due +to his superior emotions, or not at all. Consequently the wise youth had long +nursed an ineffectual passion, and it argued a great nature in him, that at the +moment when his wishes were to be crowned, he should look with such slight +touches of spleen at the gorgeous composite fabric of Parisian cookery and +Roman antiquities crumbling into unsubstantial mockery. Assuredly very few even +of the philosophers would have turned away uncomplainingly to meaner delights +the moment after. +</p> + +<p> +Hippias received the first portion of the cake. +</p> + +<p> +He was sitting by the window in his hotel, reading. He had fought down his +breakfast with more than usual success, and was looking forward to his dinner +at the Foreys’ with less than usual timidity. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! glad you’ve come, Adrian,” he said, and expanded his +chest. “I was afraid I should have to ride down. This is kind of you. +We’ll walk down together through the park. It’s absolutely +dangerous to walk alone in these streets. My opinion is, that orange-peel lasts +all through the year now, and will till legislation puts a stop to it. I give +you my word I slipped on a piece of orange-peel yesterday afternoon in +Piccadilly, and I thought I was down! I saved myself by a miracle.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have an appetite, I hope?” asked Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I shall get one, after a bit of a walk,” chirped Hippias. +“Yes. I think I feel hungry now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Charmed to hear it,” said Adrian, and began unpinning his parcel +on his knees. “How should you define Folly?” he checked the process +to inquire. +</p> + +<p> +“Hm!” Hippias meditated; he prided himself on being oracular when +such questions were addressed to him. “I think I should define it to be a +slide.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very good definition. In other words, a piece of orange-peel; once on +it, your life and limbs are in danger, and you are saved by a miracle. You must +present that to the Pilgrim. And the monument of folly, what would that +be?” +</p> + +<p> +Hippias meditated anew. “All the human race on one another’s +shoulders.” He chuckled at the sweeping sourness of the instance. +</p> + +<p> +“Very good,” Adrian applauded, “or in default of that, some +symbol of the thing, say; such as this of which I have here brought you a +chip.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian displayed the quarter of the cake. +</p> + +<p> +“This is the monument made portable—eh?” +</p> + +<p> +“Cake!” cried Hippias, retreating to his chair to dramatize his +intense disgust. “You’re right of them that eat it. If I—if I +don’t mistake,” he peered at it, “the noxious composition +bedizened in that way is what they call wedding-cake. It’s arrant poison! +Who is it you want to kill? What are you carrying such stuff about for?” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian rang the bell for a knife. “To present you with your due and +proper portion. You will have friends and relatives, and can’t be saved +from them, not even by miracle. It is a habit which exhibits, perhaps, the +unconscious inherent cynicism of the human mind, for people who consider that +they have reached the acme of mundane felicity, to distribute this token of +esteem to their friends, with the object probably” (he took the knife +from a waiter and went to the table to slice the cake) “of enabling those +friends (these edifices require very delicate incision—each particular +currant and subtle condiment hangs to its neighbour—a wedding-cake is +evidently the most highly civilized of cakes, and partakes of the evils as well +as the advantages of civilization!)—I was saying, they send us these +love-tokens, no doubt (we shall have to weigh out the crumbs, if each is to +have his fair share) that we may the better estimate their state of bliss by +passing some hours in purgatory. This, as far as I can apportion it without +weights and scales, is your share, my uncle!” +</p> + +<p> +He pushed the corner of the table bearing the cake towards Hippias. +</p> + +<p> +“Get away!” Hippias vehemently motioned, and started from his +chair. “I’ll have none of it, I tell you! It’s death! +It’s fifty times worse than that beastly compound Christmas pudding! What +fool has been doing this, then? Who dares send me cake? Me! It’s an +insult.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not compelled to eat any before dinner,” said Adrian, +pointing the corner of the table after him, “but your share you must +take, and appear to consume. One who has done so much to bring about the +marriage cannot in conscience refuse his allotment of the fruits. Maidens, I +hear, first cook it under their pillows, and extract nuptial dreams +therefrom—said to be of a lighter class, taken that way. It’s a +capital cake, and, upon my honour, you have helped to make it—you have +indeed! So here it is.” +</p> + +<p> +The table again went at Hippias. He ran nimbly round it, and flung himself on a +sofa exhausted, crying: “There!... My appetite’s gone for +to-day!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then shall I tell Richard that you won’t touch a morsel of his +cake?” said Adrian, leaning on his two hands over the table and looking +at his uncle. +</p> + +<p> +“Richard?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, your nephew: my cousin: Richard! Your companion since you’ve +been in town. He’s married, you know. Married this morning at Kensington +parish church, by licence, at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty to. +Married, and gone to spend his honeymoon in the Isle of Wight, a very +delectable place for a month’s residence. I have to announce to you that, +thanks to your assistance, the experiment is launched, sir!” +</p> + +<p> +“Richard married!” +</p> + +<p> +There was something to think and to say in objection to it, but the wits of +poor Hippias were softened by the shock. His hand travelled half-way to his +forehead, spread out to smooth the surface of that seat of reason, and then +fell. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely you knew all about it? you were so anxious to have him in town +under your charge....” +</p> + +<p> +“Married?” Hippias jumped up—he had it. “Why, +he’s under age! he’s an infant.” +</p> + +<p> +“So he is. But the infant is not the less married. Fib like a man and pay +your fee—what does it matter? Any one who is breeched can obtain a +licence in our noble country. And the interests of morality demand that it +should not be difficult. Is it true—can you persuade anybody that you +have known nothing about it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! infamous joke! I wish, sir, you would play your pranks on somebody +else,” said Hippias, sternly, as he sank back on the sofa. +“You’ve done me up for the day, I can assure you.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian sat down to instil belief by gentle degrees, and put an artistic finish +to the work. He had the gratification of passing his uncle through varied +contortions, and at last Hippias perspired in conviction, and exclaimed, +“This accounts for his conduct to me. That boy must have a cunning +nothing short of infernal! I feel. . . I feel it just here,” he drew a +hand along his midriff. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not equal to this world of fools,” he added faintly, and +shut his eyes. “No, I can’t dine. Eat? ha!... no. Go without +me!” +</p> + +<p> +Shortly after, Hippias went to bed, saying to himself, as he undressed, +“See what comes of our fine schemes! Poor Austin!” and as the +pillow swelled over his ears, “I’m not sure that a day’s fast +won’t do me good.” The Dyspepsy had bought his philosophy at a +heavy price; he had a right to use it. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian resumed the procession of the cake. +</p> + +<p> +He sighted his melancholy uncle Algernon hunting an appetite in the Row, and +looking as if the hope ahead of him were also one-legged. The Captain did not +pass with out querying the ungainly parcel. +</p> + +<p> +“I hope I carry it ostentatiously enough?” said Adrian. +“Enclosed is wherewithal to quiet the alarm of the land. Now may the +maids and wives of Merry England sleep secure. I had half a mind to fix it on a +pole, and engage a band to parade it. This is our dear Richard’s +wedding-cake. Married at half-past eleven this morning, by licence, at the +Kensington parish church; his own ring being lost he employed the ring of his +beautiful bride’s lachrymose land-lady, she standing adjacent by the +altar. His farewell to you as a bachelor, and hers as a maid, you can claim on +the spot if you think proper, and digest according to your powers.” +</p> + +<p> +Algernon let off steam in a whistle. “Thompson, the solicitor’s +daughter!” he said. “I met them the other day, somewhere about +here. He introduced me to her. A pretty little baggage. +</p> + +<p> +“No.” Adrian set him right. “’Tis a Miss Desborough, a +Roman Catholic dairymaid. Reminds one of pastoral England in the time of the +Plantagenets! He’s quite equal to introducing her as Thompson’s +daughter, and himself as Beelzebub’s son. However, the wild animal is in +Hymen’s chains, and the cake is cut. Will you have your morsel?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, by all means!—not now.” Algernon had an unwonted air of +reflection.—“Father know it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet. He will to-night by nine o’clock.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I must see him by seven. Don’t say you met me.” He +nodded, and pricked his horse. +</p> + +<p> +“Wants money!” said Adrian, putting the combustible he carried once +more in motion. +</p> + +<p> +The women were the crowning joy of his contemplative mind. He had reserved them +for his final discharge. Dear demonstrative creatures! Dyspepsia would not +weaken their poignant outcries, or self-interest check their fainting fits. On +the generic woman one could calculate. Well might The Pilgrim’s Scrip say +of her that, “She is always at Nature’s breast”; not +intending it as a compliment. Each woman is Eve throughout the ages; whereas +the Pilgrim would have us believe that the Adam in men has become warier, if +not wiser; and weak as he is, has learnt a lesson from time. Probably the +Pilgrim’s meaning may be taken to be, that Man grows, and Woman does not. +</p> + +<p> +At any rate, Adrian hoped for such natural choruses as you hear in the nursery +when a bauble is lost. He was awake to Mrs. Doria’s maternal +predestinations, and guessed that Clare stood ready with the best form of +filial obedience. They were only a poor couple to gratify his Mephistophelian +humour, to be sure, but Mrs. Doria was equal to twenty, and they would proclaim +the diverse ways with which maidenhood and womanhood took disappointment, while +the surrounding Forey girls and other females of the family assembly were +expected to develop the finer shades and tapering edges of an agitation to +which no woman could be cold. +</p> + +<p> +All went well. He managed cleverly to leave the cake unchallenged in a +conspicuous part of the drawing-room, and stepped gaily down to dinner. Much of +the conversation adverted to Richard. Mrs. Doria asked him if he had seen the +youth, or heard of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Seen him? no! Heard of him? yes!” said Adrian. “I have heard +of him. I heard that he was sublimely happy, and had eaten such a breakfast +that dinner was impossible; claret and cold chicken, cake and”— +</p> + +<p> +“Cake at breakfast!” they all interjected. +</p> + +<p> +“That seems to be his fancy just now.” +</p> + +<p> +“What an extraordinary taste!” +</p> + +<p> +“You know, he is educated on a System.” +</p> + +<p> +One fast young male Forey allied the System and the cake in a miserable pun. +Adrian, a hater of puns, looked at him, and held the table silent, as if he +were going to speak; but he said nothing, and the young gentleman vanished from +the conversation in a blush, extinguished by his own spark. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria peevishly exclaimed, “Oh! fish-cake, I suppose! I wish he +understood a little better the obligations of relationship.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whether he understands them, I can’t say,” observed Adrian, +“but I assure you he is very energetic in extending them.” +</p> + +<p> +The wise youth talked innuendoes whenever he had an opportunity, that his dear +relative might be rendered sufficiently inflammable by and by at the aspect of +the cake; but he was not thought more than commonly mysterious and deep. +</p> + +<p> +“Was his appointment at the house of those Grandison people?” Mrs. +Doria asked, with a hostile upper-lip. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian warmed the blindfolded parties by replying, “Do they keep a beadle +at the door?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria’s animosity to Mrs. Grandison made her treat this as a piece +of satirical ingenuousness. “I daresay they do,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +“And a curate on hand?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I should think a dozen!” +</p> + +<p> +Old Mr. Forey advised his punning grandson Clarence to give that house a wide +berth, where he might be disposed of and dished-up at a moment’s notice, +and the scent ran off at a jest. +</p> + +<p> +The Foreys gave good dinners, and with the old gentleman the excellent old +fashion remained in permanence of trooping off the ladies as soon as they had +taken their sustenance and just exchanged a smile with the flowers and the +dessert, when they rose to fade with a beautiful accord, and the gallant males +breathed under easier waistcoats, and settled to the business of the table, +sure that an hour for unbosoming and imbibing was their own. Adrian took a +chair by Brandon Forey, a barrister of standing. +</p> + +<p> +“I want to ask you,” he said, “whether an infant in law can +legally bind himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“If he’s old enough to affix his signature to an instrument, I +suppose he can,” yawned Brandon. +</p> + +<p> +“Is he responsible for his acts?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve no doubt we could hang him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then what he could do for himself, you could do for him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not quite so much; pretty near.” +</p> + +<p> +“For instance, he can marry?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s not a criminal case, you know.” +</p> + +<p> +“And the marriage is valid?” +</p> + +<p> +“You can dispute it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and the Greeks and the Trojans can fight. It holds then?” +</p> + +<p> +“Both water and fire!” +</p> + +<p> +The patriarch of the table sang out to Adrian that he stopped the vigorous +circulation of the claret. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me, sir!” said Adrian, “I beg pardon. The circumstances +must excuse me. The fact is, my cousin Richard got married to a dairymaid this +morning, and I wanted to know whether it held in law.” +</p> + +<p> +It was amusing to watch the manly coolness with which the announcement was +taken. Nothing was heard more energetic than, “Deuce he has!” and, +“A dairymaid!” +</p> + +<p> +“I thought it better to let the ladies dine in peace,” Adrian +continued. “I wanted to be able to console my aunt”— +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but—well, but,” the old gentleman, much the most +excited, puffed—“eh, Brandon? He’s a boy, this young ass! Do +you mean to tell me a boy can go and marry when he pleases, and any troll he +pleases, and the marriage is good? If I thought that I’d turn every woman +off my premises. I would! from the housekeeper to the scullery-maid. I’d +have no woman near him till—till”— +</p> + +<p> +“Till the young greenhorn was grey, sir?” suggested Brandon. +</p> + +<p> +“Till he knew what women are made of, sir!” the old gentleman +finished his sentence vehemently. “What, d’ye think, will Feverel +say to it, Mr. Adrian?” +</p> + +<p> +“He has been trying the very System you have proposed sir—one that +does not reckon on the powerful action of curiosity on the juvenile +intelligence. I’m afraid it’s the very worst way of solving the +problem.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of course it is,” said Clarence. “None but a +fool!”— +</p> + +<p> +“At your age,” Adrian relieved his embarrassment, “it is +natural, my dear Clarence, that you should consider the idea of an isolated or +imprisoned manhood something monstrous, and we do not expect you to see what +amount of wisdom it contains. You follow one extreme, and we the other. I +don’t say that a middle course exists. The history of mankind shows our +painful efforts to find one, but they have invariably resolved themselves into +asceticism, or laxity, acting and reacting. The moral question is, if a naughty +little man, by reason of his naughtiness, releases himself from foolishness, +does a foolish little man, by reason of his foolishness, save himself from +naughtiness?” +</p> + +<p> +A discussion, peculiar to men of the world, succeeded the laugh at Mr. +Clarence. Then coffee was handed round and the footman informed Adrian, in a +low voice, that Mrs. Doria Forey particularly wished to speak with him. Adrian +preferred not to go in alone. “Very well,” he said, and sipped his +coffee. They talked on, sounding the depths of law in Brandon Forey, and +receiving nought but hollow echoes from that profound cavity. He would not +affirm that the marriage was invalid: he would not affirm that it could not be +annulled. He thought not: still he thought it would be worth trying. A +consummated and a non-consummated union were two different things.... +</p> + +<p> +“Dear me!” said Adrian, “does the Law recognize that? Why, +that’s almost human!” +</p> + +<p> +Another message was brought to Adrian that Mrs. Doria Forey very particularly +wished to speak with him. +</p> + +<p> +“What can be the matter?” he exclaimed, pleased to have his faith +in woman strengthened. The cake had exploded, no doubt. +</p> + +<p> +So it proved, when the gentlemen joined the fair society. All the younger +ladies stood about the table, whereon the cake stood displayed, gaps being left +for those sitting to feast their vision, and intrude the comments and +speculations continually arising from fresh shocks of wonder at the +unaccountable apparition. Entering with the half-guilty air of men who know +they have come from a grosser atmosphere, the gallant males also ranged +themselves round the common object of curiosity. +</p> + +<p> +“Here! Adrian!” Mrs. Doria cried. “Where is Adrian? Pray, +come here. Tell me! Where did this cake come from? Whose is it? What does it do +here? You know all about it, for you brought it. Clare saw you bring it into +the room. What does it mean? I insist upon a direct answer. Now do not make me +impatient, Adrian.” +</p> + +<p> +Certainly Mrs. Doria was equal to twenty. By her concentrated rapidity and +volcanic complexion it was evident that suspicion had kindled. +</p> + +<p> +“I was really bound to bring it,” Adrian protested. +</p> + +<p> +“Answer me!” +</p> + +<p> +The wise youth bowed: “Categorically. This cake came from the house of a +person, a female, of the name of Berry. It belongs to you partly, partly to me, +partly to Clare, and to the rest of our family, on the principle of equal +division for which purpose it is present....” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes! Speak!” +</p> + +<p> +“It means, my dear aunt, what that kind of cake usually does mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“This, then, is the Breakfast! And the ring! Adrian! where is +Richard?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria still clung to unbelief in the monstrous horror. +</p> + +<p> +But when Adrian told her that Richard had left town, her struggling hope sank. +“The wretched boy has ruined himself!” she said, and sat down +trembling. +</p> + +<p> +Oh! that System! The delicate vituperations gentle ladies use instead of oaths, +Mrs. Doria showered on that System. She hesitated not to say that her brother +had got what he deserved. Opinionated, morbid, weak, justice had overtaken him. +Now he would see! but at what a price! at what a sacrifice! +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria, commanded Adrian to confirm her fears. +</p> + +<p> +Sadly the wise youth recapitulated Berry’s words. “He was married +this morning at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty to twelve, by licence, +at the Kensington parish church.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then that was his appointment!” Mrs. Doria murmured. +</p> + +<p> +“That was the cake for breakfast!” breathed a second of her sex. +</p> + +<p> +“And it was his ring!” exclaimed a third. +</p> + +<p> +The men were silent, and made long faces. +</p> + +<p> +Clare stood cold and sedate. She and her mother avoided each other’s +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it that abominable country person, Adrian?” +</p> + +<p> +“The happy damsel is, I regret to say, the Papist dairymaid,” said +Adrian, in sorrowful but deliberate accents. +</p> + +<p> +Then arose a feminine hum, in the midst of which Mrs. Doria cried, +“Brandon!” She was a woman of energy. Her thoughts resolved to +action spontaneously. +</p> + +<p> +“Brandon,” she drew the barrister a little aside, “can they +not be followed, and separated? I want your advice. Cannot we separate them? A +boy! it is really shameful if he should be allowed to fall into the toils of a +designing creature to ruin himself irrevocably. Can we not, Brandon?” +</p> + +<p> +The worthy barrister felt inclined to laugh, but he answered her entreaties: +“From what I hear of the young groom I should imagine the office +perilous.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m speaking of law, Brandon. Can we not obtain an order from one +of your Courts to pursue them and separate them instantly?” +</p> + +<p> +“This evening?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” +</p> + +<p> +Brandon was sorry to say she decidedly could not. +</p> + +<p> +“You might call on one of your Judges, Brandon.” +</p> + +<p> +Brandon assured her that the Judges were a hard-worked race, and to a man slept +heavily after dinner. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you do so to-morrow, the first thing in the morning? Will you +promise me to do so, Brandon?—Or a magistrate! A magistrate would send a +policeman after them. My dear Brandon! I beg—I beg you to assist us in +this dreadful extremity. It will be the death of my poor brother. I believe he +would forgive anything but this. You have no idea what his notions are of +blood.” +</p> + +<p> +Brandon tipped Adrian a significant nod to step in and aid. +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, aunt?” asked the wise youth. “You want them +followed and torn asunder by wild policemen?” +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow!” Brandon queerly interposed. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t that be—just too late?” Adrian suggested. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria, sighed out her last spark of hope. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” said Adrian.... +</p> + +<p> +“Yes! yes!” Mrs. Doria did not require any of his elucidations. +“Pray be quiet, Adrian, and let me speak. Brandon! it cannot be! +it’s quite impossible! Can you stand there and tell me that boy is +legally married? I never will believe it! The law cannot be so shamefully bad +as to permit a boy—a mere child—to do such absurd things. +Grandpapa!” she beckoned to the old gentleman. “Grandpapa! pray do +make Brandon speak. These lawyers never will. He might stop it, if he would. If +I were a man, do you think I would stand here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, my dear,” the old gentleman toddled to compose her, +“I’m quite of your opinion. I believe he knows no more than you or +I. My belief is they none of them know anything till they join issue and go +into Court. I want to see a few female lawyers.” +</p> + +<p> +“To encourage the bankrupt perruquier, sir?” said Adrian. +“They would have to keep a large supply of wigs on hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you can jest, Adrian!” his aunt reproached him. “But I +will not be beaten. I know—I am firmly convinced that no law would ever +allow a boy to disgrace his family and ruin himself like that, and nothing +shall persuade me that it is so. Now, tell me, Brandon, and pray do speak in +answer to my questions, and please to forget you are dealing with a woman. Can +my nephew be rescued from the consequences of his folly? Is what he has done +legitimate? Is he bound for life by what he has done while a boy? +</p> + +<p> +“Well—a,” Brandon breathed through his teeth. +“A—hm! the matter’s so very delicate, you see, Helen.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re to forget that,” Adrian remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“A—hm! well!” pursued Brandon. “Perhaps if you could +arrest and divide them before nightfall, and make affidavit of certain +facts”... +</p> + +<p> +“Yes?” the eager woman hastened his lagging mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Well...hm! a...in that case...a... Or if a lunatic, you could prove him +to have been of unsound mind.”... +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! there’s no doubt of his madness on my mind, Brandon.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes! well! in that case... Or if of different religious +persuasions”... +</p> + +<p> +“She is a Catholic!” Mrs. Doria joyfully interjected. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes! well! in that case...objections might be taken to the form of the +marriage... Might be proved fictitious... Or if he’s under, say, eighteen +years”... +</p> + +<p> +“He can’t be much more,” cried Mrs. Doria. “I +think,” she appeared to reflect, and then faltered imploringly to Adrian, +“What is Richard’s age?” +</p> + +<p> +The kind wise youth could not find it in his heart to strike away the phantom +straw she caught at. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! about that, I should fancy,” he muttered; and found it +necessary at the same time to duck and turn his head for concealment. Mrs. +Doria surpassed his expectations. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes I well, then...” Brandon was resuming with a shrug, which was +meant to say he still pledged himself to nothing, when Clare’s voice was +heard from out the buzzing circle of her cousins: “Richard is nineteen +years and six months old to-day, mama.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense, child.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is, mama.” Clare’s voice was very steadfast. +</p> + +<p> +“Nonsense, I tell you. How can you know?” +</p> + +<p> +“Richard is one year and nine months older than me, mama.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria fought the fact by years and finally by months. Clare was too strong +for her. +</p> + +<p> +“Singular child!” she mentally apostrophized the girl who +scornfully rejected straws while drowning. +</p> + +<p> +“But there’s the religion still!” she comforted herself, and +sat down to cogitate. +</p> + +<p> +The men smiled and looked vacuous. +</p> + +<p> +Music was proposed. There are times when soft music hath not charms; when it is +put to as base uses as Imperial Caesar’s dust and is taken to fill horrid +pauses. Angelica Forey thumped the piano, and sang: “I’m a laughing +Gitana, ha-ha! ha-ha!” Matilda Forey and her cousin Mary Branksburne +wedded their voices, and songfully incited all young people to Haste to the +bower that love has built, and defy the wise ones of the world; but the wise +ones of the world were in a majority there, and very few places of assembly +will be found where they are not; so the glowing appeal of the British +ballad-monger passed into the bosom of the emptiness he addressed. Clare was +asked to entertain the company. The singular child calmly marched to the +instrument, and turned over the appropriate illustrations to the +ballad-monger’s repertory. +</p> + +<p> +Clare sang a little Irish air. Her duty done, she marched from the piano. +Mothers are rarely deceived by their daughters in these matters; but Clare +deceived her mother; and Mrs. Doria only persisted in feeling an agony of pity +for her child, that she might the more warrantably pity herself—a not +uncommon form of the emotion, for there is no juggler like that heart the +ballad-monger puts into our mouths so boldly. Remember that she saw years of +self-denial, years of a ripening scheme, rendered fruitless in a minute, and by +the System which had almost reduced her to the condition of constitutional +hypocrite. She had enough of bitterness to brood over, and some excuse for +self-pity. +</p> + +<p> +Still, even when she was cooler, Mrs. Doria’s energetic nature prevented +her from giving up. Straws were straws, and the frailer they were the harder +she clutched them. +</p> + +<p> +She rose from her chair, and left the room, calling to Adrian to follow her. +</p> + +<p> +“Adrian,” she said, turning upon him in the passage, “you +mentioned a house where this horrible cake...where he was this morning. I +desire you to take me to that woman immediately.” +</p> + +<p> +The wise youth had not bargained for personal servitude. He had hoped he should +be in time for the last act of the opera that night, after enjoying the comedy +of real life. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear aunt”...he was beginning to insinuate. +</p> + +<p> +“Order a cab to be sent for, and get your hat,” said Mrs. Doria. +</p> + +<p> +There was nothing for it but to obey. He stamped his assent to the +Pilgrim’s dictum, that Women are practical creatures, and now reflected +on his own account, that relationship to a young fool may be a vexation and a +nuisance. However, Mrs. Doria compensated him. +</p> + +<p> +What Mrs. Doria intended to do, the practical creature did not plainly know; +but her energy positively demanded to be used in some way or other, and her +instinct directed her to the offender on whom she could use it in wrath. She +wanted somebody to be angry with, somebody to abuse. She dared not abuse her +brother to his face: him she would have to console. Adrian was a +fellow-hypocrite to the System, and would, she was aware, bring her into +painfully delicate, albeit highly philosophic, ground by a discussion of the +case. So she drove to Bessy Berry simply to inquire whither her nephew had +flown. +</p> + +<p> +When a soft woman, and that soft woman a sinner, is matched with a woman of +energy, she does not show much fight, and she meets no mercy. Bessy +Berry’s creditor came to her in female form that night. She then beheld +it in all its terrors. Hitherto it had appeared to her as a male, a disembodied +spirit of her imagination possessing male attributes, and the peculiar male +characteristic of being moved, and ultimately silenced, by tears. As female, +her creditor was terrible indeed. Still, had it not been a late hour, Bessy +Berry would have died rather than speak openly that her babes had sped to make +their nest in the Isle of Wight. They had a long start, they were out of the +reach of pursuers, they were safe, and she told what she had to tell. She told +more than was wise of her to tell. She made mention of her early service in the +family, and of her little pension. Alas! her little pension! Her creditor had +come expecting no payment—come; as creditors are wont in such moods, just +to take it out of her—to employ the familiar term. At once Mrs. Doria +pounced upon the pension. +</p> + +<p> +“That, of course, you know is at an end,” she said in the calmest +manner, and Berry did not plead for the little bit of bread to her. She only +asked a little consideration for her feelings. +</p> + +<p> +True admirers of women had better stand aside from the scene. Undoubtedly it +was very sad for Adrian to be compelled to witness it. Mrs. Doria was not +generous. The Pilgrim may be wrong about the sex not growing; but its fashion +of conducting warfare we must allow to be barbarous, and according to what is +deemed the pristine, or wild cat, method. Ruin, nothing short of it, +accompanied poor Berry to her bed that night, and her character bled till +morning on her pillow. +</p> + +<p> +The scene over, Adrian reconducted Mrs. Doria to her home. Mice had been at the +cake during her absence apparently. The ladies and gentlemen present put it on +the greedy mice, who were accused of having gorged and gone to bed. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure they’re quite welcome,” said Mrs. Doria. +“It’s a farce, this marriage, and Adrian has quite come to my way +of thinking. I would not touch an atom of it. Why, they were married in a +married woman’s ring! Can that be legal, as you call it? Oh, I’m +convinced! Don’t tell me. Austin will be in town to-morrow, and if he is +true to his principles, he will instantly adopt measures to rescue his son from +infamy. I want no legal advice. I go upon common sense, common decency. This +marriage is false.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria’s fine scheme had become so much a part of her life, that she +could not give it up. She took Clare to her bed, and caressed and wept over +her, as she would not have done had she known the singular child, saying, +“Poor Richard! my dear poor boy! we must save him, Clare! we must save +him!” Of the two the mother showed the greater want of iron on this +occasion. Clare lay in her arms rigid and emotionless, with one of her hands +tight-locked. All she said was: “I knew it in the morning, mama.” +She slept clasping Richard’s nuptial ring. +</p> + +<p> +By this time all specially concerned in the System knew it. The honeymoon was +shoring placidly above them. Is not happiness like another circulating medium? +When we have a very great deal of it, some poor hearts are aching for what is +taken away from them. When we have gone out and seized it on the highways, +certain inscrutable laws are sure to be at work to bring us to the criminal +bar, sooner or later. Who knows the honeymoon that did not steal +somebody’s sweetness? Richard Turpin went forth, singing “Money or +life” to the world: Richard Feverel has done the same, substituting +“Happiness” for “Money,” frequently synonyms. The coin +he wanted he would have, and was just as much a highway robber as his fellow +Dick, so that those who have failed to recognize him as a hero before, may now +regard him in that light. Meanwhile the world he has squeezed looks exceedingly +patient and beautiful. His coin chinks delicious music to him. Nature and the +order of things on earth have no warmer admirer than a jolly brigand or a young +man made happy by the Jews. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap33"></a> +CHAPTER XXXIII</h2> + +<p> +And now the author of the System was on trial under the eyes of the lady who +loved him. What so kind as they? Yet are they very rigorous, those soft +watchful woman’s eyes. If you are below the measure they have made of +you, you will feel it in the fulness of time. She cannot but show you that she +took you for a giant, and has had to come down a bit. You feel yourself +strangely diminishing in those sweet mirrors, till at last they drop on you +complacently level. But, oh beware, vain man, of ever waxing enamoured of that +wonderful elongation of a male creature you saw reflected in her adoring upcast +orbs! Beware of assisting to delude her! A woman who is not quite a fool will +forgive your being but a man, if you are surely that: she will haply learn to +acknowledge that no mortal tailor could have fitted that figure she made of you +respectably, and that practically (though she sighs to think it) her ideal of +you was on the pattern of an overgrown charity-boy in the regulation jacket and +breech. For this she first scorns the narrow capacities of the tailor, and then +smiles at herself. But shouldst thou, when the hour says plainly, Be thyself, +and the woman is willing to take thee as thou art, shouldst thou still aspire +to be that thing of shanks and wrests, wilt thou not seem contemptible as well +as ridiculous? And when the fall comes, will it not be flat on thy face, +instead of to the common height of men? You may fall miles below her measure of +you, and be safe: nothing is damaged save an overgrown charity-boy; but if you +fall below the common height of men, you must make up your mind to see her +rustle her gown, spy at the looking-glass, and transfer her allegiance. The +moral of which is, that if we pretend to be what we are not, woman, for whose +amusement the farce is performed, will find us out and punish us for it. And it +is usually the end of a sentimental dalliance. +</p> + +<p> +Had Sir Austin given vent to the pain and wrath it was natural he should feel, +he might have gone to unphilosophic excesses, and, however much he lowered his +reputation as a sage, Lady Blandish would have excused him: she would not have +loved him less for seeing him closer. But the poor gentleman tasked his soul +and stretched his muscles to act up to her conception of him. He, a man of +science in life, who was bound to be surprised by nothing in nature, it was not +for him to do more than lift his eyebrows and draw in his lips at the news +delivered by Ripton Thompson, that ill bird at Raynham. +</p> + +<p> +All he said, after Ripton had handed the letters and carried his penitential +headache to bed, was: “You see, Emmeline, it is useless to base any +system on a human being.” +</p> + +<p> +A very philosophical remark for one who has been busily at work building for +nearly twenty years. Too philosophical to seem genuine. It revealed where the +blow struck sharpest. Richard was no longer the Richard of his +creation—his pride and his joy—but simply a human being with the +rest. The bright star had sunk among the mass. +</p> + +<p> +And yet, what had the young man done? And in what had the System failed? +</p> + +<p> +The lady could not but ask herself this, while she condoled with the offended +father. +</p> + +<p> +“My friend,” she said, tenderly taking his hand before she retired, +“I know how deeply you must be grieved. I know what your disappointment +must be. I do not beg of you to forgive him now. You cannot doubt his love for +this young person, and according to his light, has he not behaved honourably, +and as you would have wished, rather than bring her to shame? You will think of +that. It has been an accident—a misfortune—a terrible +misfortune”... +</p> + +<p> +“The God of this world is in the machine—not out of it,” Sir +Austin interrupted her, and pressed her hand to get the good-night over. +</p> + +<p> +At any other time her mind would have been arrested to admire the phrase; now +it seemed perverse, vain, false, and she was tempted to turn the meaning that +was in it against himself, much as she pitied him. +</p> + +<p> +“You know, Emmeline,” he added, “I believe very little in the +fortune, or misfortune, to which men attribute their successes and reverses. +They are useful impersonations to novelists; but my opinion is sufficiently +high of flesh and blood to believe that we make our own history without +intervention. Accidents?—Terrible misfortunes?—What are +they?—Good-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-night,” she said, looking sad and troubled. “When I +said, ‘misfortune,’ I meant, of course, that he is to blame; +but—shall I leave you his letter to me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I think I have enough to meditate upon,” he replied, coldly +bowing. +</p> + +<p> +“God bless you,” she whispered. “And—may I say it? do +not shut your heart.” +</p> + +<p> +He assured her that he hoped not to do so and the moment she was gone he set +about shutting it as tight as he could. +</p> + +<p> +If, instead of saying, Base no system on a human being, he had said, Never +experimentalize with one, he would have been nearer the truth of his own case. +He had experimented on humanity in the person of the son he loved as his life, +and at once, when the experiment appeared to have failed, all humanity’s +failings fell on the shoulders of his son. Richard’s parting laugh in the +train—it was explicable now: it sounded in his ears like the mockery of +this base nature of ours at every endeavour to exalt and chasten it. The young +man had plotted this. From step to step Sir Austin traced the plot. The curious +mask he had worn since his illness; the selection of his incapable uncle +Hippias for a companion in preference to Adrian; it was an evident, +well-perfected plot. That hideous laugh would not be silenced: Base, like the +rest, treacherous, a creature of passions using his abilities solely to gratify +them—never surely had humanity such chances as in him! A Manichaean +tendency, from which the sententious eulogist of nature had been struggling for +years (and which was partly at the bottom of the System), now began to cloud +and usurp dominion of his mind. As he sat alone in the forlorn dead-hush of his +library, he saw the devil. +</p> + +<p> +How are we to know when we are at the head and fountain of the fates of them we +love? +</p> + +<p> +There by the springs of Richard’s future, his father sat: and the devil +said to him: “Only be quiet: do nothing: resolutely do nothing: your +object now is to keep a brave face to the world, so that all may know you +superior to this human nature that has deceived you. For it is the shameless +deception, not the marriage, that has wounded you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay!” answered the baronet, “the shameless deception, not the +marriage: wicked and ruinous as it must be; a destroyer of my tenderest hopes! +my dearest schemes! Not the marriage—the shameless deception!” and +he crumpled up his son’s letter to him, and tossed it into the fire. +</p> + +<p> +How are we to distinguish the dark chief of the Manichaeans when he talks our +own thoughts to us? +</p> + +<p> +Further he whispered, “And your System:—if you would be brave to +the world, have courage to cast the dream of it out of you: relinquish an +impossible project; see it as it is—dead: too good for men!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay!” muttered the baronet: “all who would save them perish +on the Cross!” +</p> + +<p> +And so he sat nursing the devil. +</p> + +<p> +By and by he took his lamp, and put on the old cloak and cap, and went to gaze +at Ripton. That exhausted debauchee and youth without a destiny slept a dead +sleep. A handkerchief was bound about his forehead, and his helpless sunken +chin and snoring nose projected up the pillow, made him look absurdly piteous. +The baronet remembered how often he had compared his boy with this one: his own +bright boy! And where was the difference between them? +</p> + +<p> +“Mere outward gilding!” said his familiar. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he responded, “I daresay this one never positively +plotted to deceive his father: he followed his appetites unchecked, and is +internally the sounder of the two.” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton, with his sunken chin and snoring nose under the light of the lamp, +stood for human nature, honest, however abject. +</p> + +<p> +“Miss Random, I fear very much, is a necessary establishment!” +whispered the monitor. +</p> + +<p> +“Does the evil in us demand its natural food, or it corrupts the +whole?” ejaculated Sir Austin. “And is no angel of avail till that +is drawn off? And is that our conflict—to see whether we can escape the +contagion of its embrace, and come uncorrupted out of that?” +</p> + +<p> +“The world is wise in its way,” said the voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Though it look on itself through Port wine?” he suggested, +remembering his lawyer Thompson. +</p> + +<p> +“Wise in not seeking to be too wise,” said the voice. +</p> + +<p> +“And getting intoxicated on its drug of comfort!” +</p> + +<p> +“Human nature is weak.” +</p> + +<p> +“And Miss Random is an establishment, and Wild Oats an +institution!” +</p> + +<p> +“It always has been so.” +</p> + +<p> +“And always will be?” +</p> + +<p> +“So I fear! in spite of your very noble efforts.” +</p> + +<p> +“And leads—whither? And ends—where?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard’s laugh, taken up by horrid reverberations, as it were through +the lengths of the Lower Halls, replied. +</p> + +<p> +This colloquy of two voices in a brain was concluded by Sir Austin asking again +if there were no actual difference between the flower of his hopes and yonder +drunken weed, and receiving for answer that there was a decided dissimilarity +in the smell of the couple; becoming cognizant of which he retreated. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin did not battle with the tempter. He took him into his bosom at once, +as if he had been ripe for him, and received his suggestions and bowed to his +dictates. Because he suffered, and decreed that he would suffer silently, and +be the only sufferer, it seemed to him that he was great-minded in his +calamity. He had stood against the world. The world had beaten him. What then? +He must shut his heart and mask his face; that was all. To be far in advance of +the mass, is as fruitless to mankind, he reflected, as straggling in the rear. +For how do we know that they move behind us at all, or move in our track? What +we win for them is lost; and where we are overthrown we lie! +</p> + +<p> +It was thus that a fine mind and a fine heart at the bounds of a nature not +great, chose to colour his retrogression and countenance his shortcoming; and +it was thus that he set about ruining the work he had done. He might well say, +as he once did, that there are hours when the clearest soul becomes a cunning +fox. For a grief that was private and peculiar, he unhesitatingly cast the +blame upon humanity; just as he had accused it in the period of what he termed +his own ordeal. How had he borne that? By masking his face. And he prepared the +ordeal for his son by doing the same. This was by no means his idea of a +man’s duty in tribulation, about which he could be strenuously eloquent. +</p> + +<p> +But it was his instinct so to act, and in times of trial great natures alone +are not at the mercy of their instincts. Moreover it would cost him pain to +mask his face; pain worse than that he endured when there still remained an +object for him to open his heart to in proportion; and he always reposed upon +the Spartan comfort of bearing pain and being passive. “Do +nothing,” said the devil he nursed; which meant in his case, “Take +me into you and don’t cast me out.” Excellent and sane is the +outburst of wrath to men, when it stops short of slaughter. For who that locks +it up to eat in solitary, can say that it is consumed? Sir Austin had as weak a +digestion for wrath, as poor Hippias for a green duckling. Instead of eating +it, it ate him. The wild beast in him was not the less deadly because it did +not roar, and the devil in him not the less active because he resolved to do +nothing. +</p> + +<p> +He sat at the springs of Richard’s future, in the forlorn dead-hush of +his library there, hearing the cinders click in the extinguished fire, and that +humming stillness in which one may fancy one hears the midnight Fates busily +stirring their embryos. The lamp glowed mildly on the bust of Chatham. +</p> + +<p> +Toward morning a gentle knock fell at his door. Lady Blandish glided in. With +hasty step she came straight to him, and took both his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“My friend,” she said, speaking tearfully, and trembling, “I +feared I should find you here. I could not sleep. How is it with you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well! Emmeline, well!” he replied, torturing his brows to fix the +mask. +</p> + +<p> +He wished it had been Adrian who had come to him. He had an extraordinary +longing for Adrian’s society. He knew that the wise youth would divine +how to treat him, and he mentally confessed to just enough weakness to demand a +certain kind of management. Besides, Adrian, he had not a doubt, would accept +him entirely as he seemed, and not pester him in any way by trying to unlock +his heart; whereas a woman, he feared, would be waxing too womanly, and +swelling from tears and supplications to a scene, of all things abhorred by him +the most. So he rapped the floor with his foot, and gave the lady no very +welcome face when he said it was well with him. +</p> + +<p> +She sat down by his side, still holding one hand firmly, and softly detaining +the other. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my friend! may I believe you? May I speak to you?” She leaned +close to him. “You know my heart. I have no better ambition than to be +your friend. Surely I divide your grief, and may I not claim your confidence? +Who has wept more over your great and dreadful sorrows? I would not have come +to you, but I do believe that sorrow shared relieves the burden, and it is now +that you may feel a woman’s aid, and something of what a woman could be +to you....” +</p> + +<p> +“Be assured,” he gravely said, “I thank you, Emmeline, for +your intentions.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no! not for my intentions! And do not thank me. Think of him...think +of your dear boy... Our Richard, as we have called him.—Oh! do not think +it a foolish superstition of mine, but I have had a thought this night that has +kept me in torment till I rose to speak to you... Tell me first you have +forgiven him.” +</p> + +<p> +“A father bears no malice to his son, Emmeline.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your heart has forgiven him?” +</p> + +<p> +“My heart has taken what he gave.” +</p> + +<p> +“And quite forgiven him?” +</p> + +<p> +“You will hear no complaints of mine.” +</p> + +<p> +The lady paused despondingly, and looked at him in a wistful manner, saying +with a sigh, “Yes! I know how noble you are, and different from +others!” +</p> + +<p> +He drew one of his hands from her relaxed hold. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought to be in bed, Emmeline.” +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go, and talk to me another time.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, it must be now. You have helped me when I struggled to rise into a +clearer world, and I think, humble as I am, I can help you now. I have had a +thought this night that if you do not pray for him and bless him...it will end +miserably. My friend, have you done so?” +</p> + +<p> +He was stung and offended, and could hardly help showing it in spite of his +mask. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you done so, Austin?” +</p> + +<p> +“This is assuredly a new way of committing fathers to the follies of +their sons, Emmeline!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not that. But will you pray for your boy, and bless him, before the +day comes?” +</p> + +<p> +He restrained himself to pronounce his words calmly:—“And I must do +this, or it will end in misery? How else can it end? Can I save him from the +seed he has sown? Consider, Emmeline, what you say. He has repeated his +cousin’s sin. You see the end of that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, so different! This young person is not, is not of the class poor +Austin Wentworth allied himself to. Indeed it is different. And he—be +just and admit his nobleness. I fancied you did. This young person has great +beauty, she has the elements of good breeding, she—indeed I think, had +she been in another position, you would not have looked upon her +unfavourably.” +</p> + +<p> +“She may be too good for my son!” The baronet spoke with sublime +bitterness. +</p> + +<p> +“No woman is too good for Richard, and you know it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pass her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, I will speak only of him. He met her by a fatal accident. We +thought his love dead, and so did he till he saw her again. He met her, he +thought we were plotting against him, he thought he should lose her for ever, +and in the madness of an hour he did this....” +</p> + +<p> +“My Emmeline pleads bravely for clandestine matches.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! do not trifle, my friend. Say: would you have had him act as young +men in his position generally do to young women beneath them?” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin did not like the question. It probed him very severely. +</p> + +<p> +“You mean,” he said, “that fathers must fold their arms, and +either submit to infamous marriages, or have these creatures ruined.” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not mean that,” exclaimed the lady, striving for what she did +mean, and how to express it. “I mean that he loved her. Is it not a +madness at his age? But what I chiefly mean is—save him from the +consequences. No, you shall not withdraw your hand. Think of his pride, his +sensitiveness, his great wild nature—wild when he is set wrong: think how +intense it is, set upon love; think, my friend, do not forget his love for +you.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin smiled an admirable smile of pity. +</p> + +<p> +“That I should save him, or any one, from consequences, is asking more +than the order of things will allow to you, Emmeline, and is not in the +disposition of this world. I cannot. Consequences are the natural offspring of +acts. My child, you are talking sentiment, which is the distraction of our +modern age in everything—a phantasmal vapour distorting the image of the +life we live. You ask me to give him a golden age in spite of himself. All that +could be done, by keeping him in the paths of virtue and truth, I did. He is +become a man, and as a man he must reap his own sowing.” +</p> + +<p> +The baffled lady sighed. He sat so rigid: he spoke so securely, as if wisdom +were to him more than the love of his son. And yet he did love his son. Feeling +sure that he loved his son while he spoke so loftily, she reverenced him still, +baffled as she was, and sensible that she had been quibbled with. +</p> + +<p> +“All I ask of you is to open your heart to him,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He kept silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Call him a man,—he is, and must ever be the child of your +education, my friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would console me, Emmeline, with the prospect that, if he ruins +himself, he spares the world of young women. Yes, that is something!” +</p> + +<p> +Closely she scanned the mask. It was impenetrable. He could meet her eyes, and +respond to the pressure of her hand, and smile, and not show what he felt. Nor +did he deem it hypocritical to seek to maintain his elevation in her soft soul, +by simulating supreme philosophy over offended love. Nor did he know that he +had an angel with him then: a blind angel, and a weak one, but one who struck +upon his chance. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I pardoned for coming to you?” she said, after a pause. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely I can read my Emmeline’s intentions,” he gently +replied. +</p> + +<p> +“Very poor ones. I feel my weakness. I cannot utter half I have been +thinking. Oh, if I could!” +</p> + +<p> +“You speak very well, Emmeline.” +</p> + +<p> +“At least, I am pardoned!” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely so.” +</p> + +<p> +“And before I leave you, dear friend, shall I be forgiven?—may I +beg it?—will you bless him?” +</p> + +<p> +He was again silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray for him, Austin! pray for him ere the night is over.” +</p> + +<p> +As she spoke she slid down to his feet and pressed his hand to her bosom. +</p> + +<p> +The baronet was startled. In very dread of the soft fit that wooed him, he +pushed back his chair, and rose, and went to the window. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s day already!” he said with assumed vivacity, throwing +open the shutters, and displaying the young light on the lawn. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish dried her tears as she knelt, and then joined him, and glanced up +silently at Richard’s moon standing in wane toward the West. She hoped it +was because of her having been premature in pleading so earnestly, that she had +failed to move him, and she accused herself more than the baronet. But in +acting as she had done, she had treated him as no common man, and she was +compelled to perceive that his heart was at present hardly superior to the +hearts of ordinary men, however composed his face might be, and apparently +serene his wisdom. From that moment she grew critical of him, and began to +study her idol—a process dangerous to idols. He, now that she seemed to +have relinquished the painful subject, drew to her, and as one who wished to +smooth a foregone roughness, murmured: “God’s rarest blessing is, +after all, a good woman! My Emmeline bears her sleepless night well. She does +not shame the day.” He gazed down on her with a fondling tenderness. +</p> + +<p> +“I could bear many, many!” she replied, meeting his eyes, +“and you would see me look better and better, if... if only...” but +she had no encouragement to end the sentence. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps he wanted some mute form of consolation; perhaps the handsome placid +features of the dark-eyed dame touched him: at any rate their Platonism was +advanced by his putting an arm about her. She felt the arm and talked of the +morning. +</p> + +<p> +Thus proximate, they by and by both heard something very like a groan behind +them, and looking round, beheld the Saurian eye. Lady Blandish smiled, but the +baronet’s discomposure was not to be concealed. By a strange fatality +every stage of their innocent loves was certain to have a human beholder. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, I’m sure I beg pardon,” Benson mumbled, arresting his +head in a melancholy pendulosity. He was ordered out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +“And I think I shall follow him, and try to get forty winks,” said +Lady Blandish. They parted with a quiet squeeze of hands. +</p> + +<p> +The baronet then called in Benson. +</p> + +<p> +“Get me my breakfast as soon as you can,” he said, regardless of +the aspect of injured conscience Benson sombrely presented to him. “I am +going to town early. And, Benson,” he added, “you will also go to +town this afternoon, or to-morrow, if it suits you, and take your book with you +to Mr. Thompson. You will not return here. A provision will be made for you. +You can go.” +</p> + +<p> +The heavy butler essayed to speak, but the tremendous blow and the +baronet’s gesture choked him. At the door he made another effort which +shook the rolls of his loose skin pitiably. An impatient signal sent him out +dumb,—and Raynham was quit of the one believer in the Great Shaddock +dogma. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap34"></a> +CHAPTER XXXIV</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy’s eyes fixed sideways an instant. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“And we shall be separated for—how many hours? one, two, three +hours!” she pouted to his flatteries. +</p> + +<p> +“And then I shall come on board to receive my bride’s +congratulations.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then my husband will talk all the time to Lady Judith.” +</p> + +<p> +“And then I shall see my wife frowning and blushing at Lord +Mountfalcon.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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 sexes. +The son of a System was, therefore, launched; not only through the surf, but in +deep waters. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy! this is Adrian, my cousin.”—“Isn’t he an +angel?” his eyes seemed to add; while Lucy’s clearly answered, +“That he is!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Six, seven, eight, nine eggs,” was Adrian’s comment on a +survey of the breakfast-table. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard fretted restlessly opposite his cool relative. +</p> + +<p> +“Adrian! what did he say when he heard of it? I want to know exactly what +words he said.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well says the sage, my son! ‘Speech is the small change of +Silence.’ He said less than I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s how he took it!” cried Richard, and plunged in +meditation. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“This egg has boiled three minutes and three-quarters,” he +observed, ceasing to contemplate it. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear, dear!” said Lucy, “I boiled them myself exactly that +time. Richard likes them so. And you like them hard, Mr. Harley?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“If Richard had told me! If I had only known!” the lovely little +hostess interjected ruefully, biting her lip. +</p> + +<p> +“We mustn’t expect him to pay attention to such matters,” +said Adrian, trying to smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Hang it! there are more eggs in the house,” cried Richard, and +pulled savagely at the bell. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy jumped up, saying, “Oh, yes! I will go and boil some exactly the +time you like. Pray let me go, Mr. Harley.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” cried Richard, and settled easily on his back. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Benson gone?” Richard exclaimed. “What a tremendous time it +seems since I left Raynham!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure I’m very sorry,” Lucy protested, “but I +can’t help laughing.” +</p> + +<p> +Charming to the wise youth her pretty laughter sounded. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +“So that’s all about the home-people?” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“All!” replied Adrian. “Or stay: you know Clare’s going +to be married? Not? Your Aunt Helen”— +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, bother my Aunt Helen! What do you think she had the impertinence to +write—but never mind! Is it to Ralph?” +</p> + +<p> +“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”— +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Doria Battledoria!” laughed Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“—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!”— +</p> + +<p> +“The fair Shuttlecockiana!” +</p> + +<p> +“—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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard got up and strode about the room. Then he bethought him it was time to +go on board and make preparations. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Go on the water?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. It’s only to St. Helen’s. Short and sharp.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you grudge me the nourishment my poor system has just received, my +son?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, bother your system! Put on your hat, and come along. I’ll put +you on board in my boat.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“O Mr. Harley!” she said, “is it true—are we to go +tonight? And me,” she faltered, “will he see me?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.”... +</p> + +<p> +Lucy threw up her blue eyes. A half-cowardly delight at the chance of a respite +from the awful interview made her quickly apprehensive. +</p> + +<p> +“O Mr. Harley! you think he should go alone first?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I will persuade him, Mr. Harley.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps, if you would...” +</p> + +<p> +“There is nothing I would not do for his happiness,” murmured Lucy. +</p> + +<p> +The wise youth pressed her hand with lymphatic approbation. They walked on till +the yachts had rounded the point. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it to-night, Mr. Harley?” she asked with some trouble in her +voice now that her darling was out of sight. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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...” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! that’s it, you coward!” said Richard. “Well, then, +to-morrow. We had a splendid race. Did you see us?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“So that’s why you didn’t come to meet me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me, darling.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I do, but Mountfalcon doesn’t, and Lady Judith thinks you +ought to have been there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but my heart was with you!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard put his hand to feel for the little heart: her eyelids softened, and +she ran away. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The sun was under. All the spaces of the sky were alight, and Richard’s +fancy flamed. +</p> + +<p> +“So you’re not intoxicated with your immense triumph this +morning?” said Lady Judith. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“What else can I do?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are fit for so much that is better.” +</p> + +<p> +“I never can be anything like Austin.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I think you can do more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I thank you for thinking it, Lady Judith. Something I will do. A +man must deserve to live, as you say. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Briareus reddened duskily seaward. The West was all a burning rose. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not when you’re racing the Begum, I think. There’s no +necessity for you to turn democrat like Austin. Do you write now?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Because you are so happy.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, not because of that. Of course I’m very happy...” He did +not finish. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The cloud-giants had broken up: a brawny shoulder smouldered over the sea. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll work together in town, at all events,” said Richard, +</p> + +<p> +“Why can’t we go about together at night and find out people who +want help?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Especially at breakfast,” Adrian’s unnecessarily emphatic +gastronomical lessons to the young wife here came in. +</p> + +<p> +“You must be our champion,” continued Lady Judith: “the +rescuer and succourer of distressed dames and damsels. We want one +badly.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“We have been engaged in a charming conversation on domestic +cookery,” interposed Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“Cookery! such an evening as this?” His face was a handsome +likeness of Hippias at the presentation of bridecake. +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest! you know it’s very useful,” Lucy mirthfully +pleaded. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Woman’s mission, in so many words,” ejaculated Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“And pray, what is man’s?” +</p> + +<p> +“To taste thereof, and pronounce thereupon.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard appeared to have grown perfectly willing to give everything up to the +fair face, his bridal Hesper. +</p> + +<p> +Next 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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy asked whether Mr. Harley did not. +</p> + +<p> +“Adrian? Not a bit. Adrian only knows a part of people, Lucy; and not the +best part.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy was disposed to think more highly of the object of her conquest. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it he that has been frightening you, Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, Richard; oh, dear no!” she cried, and looked at him more +tenderly because she was not quite truthful. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I tell you I won’t go without you,” said Richard, and +Lucy begged for a little more time. +</p> + +<p> +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, conceiving 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.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard asked his wife what they could possibly find to talk about. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard laughed at the humble mind of his Beauty. +</p> + +<p> +“Doesn’t everybody like you, admire you? Doesn’t Lord +Mountfalcon, and Mr. Morton, and Lady Judith?” +</p> + +<p> +“But he is one of your family, Richard.” +</p> + +<p> +“And they all will, if she isn’t a coward.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, no!” she sighs, and is chidden. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then would you advise me to go up alone?” he asked, with a cloudy +forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“What else can you do? Be reconciled yourself as quickly as you can. You +can’t drag her like a captive, you know?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“But I love the women who are not cowards.” +</p> + +<p> +“The little thing—your wife has not refused to go?” +</p> + +<p> +“No—but tears! Who can stand tears?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Better English than the noble lord deigns to employ—allow +that?” quoth Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“He is very kind,” said Lucy. +</p> + +<p> +“To all, save to our noble vernacular,” added Adrian. “He +seems to scent a rival to his dignity there.” +</p> + +<p> +It may be that Adrian scented a rival to his lymphatic emotions. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!’ +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap35"></a> +CHAPTER XXXV</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +To which Clare replied, “I cannot marry two husbands, Richard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you refuse to marry this old man?” +</p> + +<p> +“I must do as mama wishes.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +She shrank a little at his vehemence, but neither blushed nor stammered: +answering: “I see nothing wrong in doing what mama thinks right, +Richard.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!”... +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Richard,” said Clare, “you will make me very +unhappy.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +She grew a trifle paler. +</p> + +<p> +“Next to mama, I would wish to please you, dear Richard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you no will of your own?” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +She looked at him softly; a look he interpreted for the meekness he detested in +her. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“My darling Clare!” he repeated. +</p> + +<p> +She said nothing, but seemed to shudder, weeping. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I must not disobey mama,” Clare murmured, without looking up from +the nest her cheek had made on his bosom. +</p> + +<p> +“Then kiss me for the last time,” said Richard. “I’ll +never kiss you after it, Clare.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Then he left her, unaware of the meaning of those passionate kisses. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Who can say,” asks The Pilgrim’s Scrip, “when he is +not walking a puppet to some woman?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +He did duty in the vestry a few minutes, and then said to his aunt: +</p> + +<p> +“Now I’ll go.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ll come to the breakfast, child? The Foreys”— +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Richard!” +</p> + +<p> +“Good-bye.” +</p> + +<p> +She had attained her object and she wisely gave way. +</p> + +<p> +“Well. Go and kiss Clare, and shake his hand. Pray, pray be civil.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard bade Clare farewell. She put up her mouth to him humbly, but he kissed +her on the forehead. +</p> + +<p> +“Do not cease to love me,” she said in a quavering whisper in his +ear. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Richard, my boy!” he said heartily, “congratulate me.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! ah! yes!” kindly said John, “poor fellow!” +</p> + +<p> +All the puppets then rolled off to the breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +The hero soliloquized: “He’s not a bad sort of man.”... +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“There’s the double infamy!” cried Richard, “that a man +you can’t call bad, should do this damned thing!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, it’s hard we can’t find a villain.” +</p> + +<p> +“He would have listened to me, I’m sure.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +The hero was impervious to the wise youth. He stared at him as if he were but a +speck in the universe he visioned. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian yawned. +</p> + +<p> +“Some difference in the trees, though,” Richard continued +abstractedly. +</p> + +<p> +“Growing bald at the top,” said Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! hum!” mumbled Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“You remember my telling you?” Richard was earnest to hear her +exonerated. +</p> + +<p> +“Pleaded and implored, my dear boy? Oh, no doubt she did. Where’s +the lass that doesn’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Call my wife by another name, if you please.” +</p> + +<p> +“The generic title can’t be cancelled because of your having +married one of the body, my son.” +</p> + +<p> +“She did all she could to persuade me to wait!” emphasized Richard. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian shook his head with a deplorable smile. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, come, my good Ricky; not all! not all!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard bellowed: “What more could she have done?” +</p> + +<p> +“She could have shaved her head, for instance.” +</p> + +<p> +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? +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +After the wine this gentleman took his cigar on the balcony, and found occasion +to get some conversation with Adrian alone. +</p> + +<p> +“Our young friend here—made it all right with the governor?” +he asked carelessly. +</p> + +<p> +“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 he +wants him to observe—is one that I have not got the walk to.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the continuation of a philosophic plan,” said Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +Brayder followed the curvings of the whiff of his cigar with his eyes, and +ejaculated, “Infernally philosophic!” +</p> + +<p> +“Has Lord Mountfalcon left the island?” Adrian inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“He ought to know it by this time, if fame speaks true,” remarked +Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“A married man, you know,” said Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes!—we won’t shock him,” Brayder observed. He +appeared to study the young man while they talked. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning Richard was surprised by a visit from his aunt. Mrs. Doria took a +seat by his side and spoke as follows: +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria learnt from Adrian in the evening that her nephew intended waiting +in town another week. +</p> + +<p> +“That will do,” smiled Mrs. Doria. “He will be more patient +at the end of a week.” +</p> + +<p> +“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”... +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you, no explanation,” Mrs. Doria begged. +</p> + +<p> +When Richard saw her next, 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. +</p> + +<p> +“Clare seldom glows,” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“No, I mean for her,” his aunt remarked. “Don’t look +like your father, child.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should like to have seen the letter,” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria did not propose to show it. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap36"></a> +CHAPTER XXXVI</h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +He asked Adrian one day in the park—who she was. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know her,” said Adrian. “Probably a superior +priestess of Paphos.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now that’s my idea of Bellona,” Richard exclaimed. +“Not the fury they paint, but a spirited, dauntless, eager-looking +creature like that.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Brayder joined them. +</p> + +<p> +“See Mrs. Mount go by?” he said. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, that’s Mrs. Mount!” cried Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“Who’s Mrs. Mount?” Richard inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“A sister to Miss Random, my dear boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“Like to know her?” drawled the Hon. Peter. +</p> + +<p> +Richard replied indifferently, “No,” and Mrs. Mount passed out of +sight and out of the conversation. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +In return, he distantly indicated Richard’s majority. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Poor boy! I suppose he wants his own particular playfellow.” +</p> + +<p> +The wise youth had to bow to a reproof. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you, Adrian, he will marry that woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear aunt! Can a chaste man do aught more commendable?” +</p> + +<p> +“Has the boy no object we can induce him to follow?—If he had but a +profession!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria thought her thoughts. +</p> + +<p> +“Has Austin written to you since you were in town?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not an Aphorism!” returned Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“I must see Richard to-morrow morning,” Mrs. Doria ended the +colloquy by saying. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard begged to be excused. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian was for going. Richard said he had an appointment with Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“If you don’t get a match on to swim there with the tide—eh, +Feverel, my boy?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard replied that he had given up that sort of thing, at which Brayder +communicated a queer glance to Adrian, and applauded the youth. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Whose dinner is it?” Ripton heard a mignonne beauty ask of a +cavalier. +</p> + +<p> +“Mount’s, I suppose,” was the answer. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is he? Why don’t he come?” +</p> + +<p> +“An affaire, I fancy.” +</p> + +<p> +“There he is again! How shamefully he treats Mrs. Mount!” +</p> + +<p> +“She don’t seem to cry over it.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Mount was flashing her teeth and eyes with laughter at one of her Court, +who appeared to be Fool. +</p> + +<p> +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 side 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Where have you been lately? I haven’t seen you in the park,” +said Mrs. Mount to Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you bet?” said Mrs. Mount. +</p> + +<p> +“Only on myself,” returned Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“Bravo!” cried his Bellona, and her eye sent a lingering delirious +sparkle across her brimming glass at him. +</p> + +<p> +“I’m sure you’re a safe one to back,” she added, and +seemed to scan his points approvingly. +</p> + +<p> +Richard’s cheeks mounted bloom. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you adore champagne?” quoth the dame with a bosom to +Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, yes!” answered Ripton, with more candour than accuracy, +“I always drink it.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” said she, “that’s your tutor, is it!” She +eyed the young man as if she thought he must go far and fast. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Impudence!” muttered the bosom, growing grander and redder. +</p> + +<p> +“Do, do fill her glass, and keep her quiet—she drinks port when +there’s no more champagne,” said the mignonne. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, what a lovely night!” said the ladies, looking above. +</p> + +<p> +“Charming,” said the gentlemen, looking below. +</p> + +<p> +The faint-smelling cool Autumn air was pleasant after the feast. Fragrant weeds +burned bright about the garden. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard said he thought them a nice sort. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove, Ricky!” Ripton favoured his friend with another hard +whisper, “there’s a woman smoking!” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I don’t like women to smoke,” said plain Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bravo!” shouted Adrian. “There speaks the +regenerator.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“He applies to me!” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then the condition is, that I am to seduce this young man?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Bella! you strike your bird like a hawk. I didn’t say +seduce. Hold him in—play with him. Amuse him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t understand half-measures.” +</p> + +<p> +“Women seldom do.” +</p> + +<p> +“How I hate you, Brayder!” +</p> + +<p> +“I thank your ladyship.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Which is the more perilous?” is a problem put by the Pilgrim: +“To meet the temptings of Eve, or to pique her?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I am,” said the mignonne, as if to excuse her conduct. +</p> + +<p> +“You always appear to be,” the fat one sniffed and snapped. +</p> + +<p> +“Won’t you warm two, Mrs. Mortimer?” said the naughty little +woman. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“My brougham’s here; I shall go alone,” said Mrs. Mount. +“Some one arrange my shawl.” +</p> + +<p> +She turned her back to Richard, who had a view of a delicate neck as he +manipulated with the bearing of a mailed knight. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton saw what had happened. He was going to follow: the portly dame retained +him, and desired him to get her a cab. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, you happy fellow!” said the bright-eyed mignonne, passing by. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton procured the cab, and stuffed it full without having to get into it +himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Try and let him come in too?” said the persecuting creature, again +passing. +</p> + +<p> +“Take liberties with your men—you shan’t with me,” +retorted the angry bosom, and drove off. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Old Rip!” cried Richard, cheerily. “What on earth are you +doing here at this hour of the morning?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton muttered of his pleasure at meeting him. “I wanted to shake your +hand before I went home.” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” Ripton said, well assured that he was a dwarf “you saw +her safe home?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton delivered this opinion with a modest impressiveness. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you mean?” said Richard. “You don’t suppose I +care for any woman but my little darling down there.” He laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +“It would be different with me,” quoth Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +“How?” asked the hero. +</p> + +<p> +“Because I’m worse than you,” was all the logical explanation +Ripton was capable of. +</p> + +<p> +“I do hope you will go home soon,” he added. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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 he 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap37"></a> +CHAPTER XXXVII</h2> + +<p> +Behold the hero embarked in the redemption of an erring beautiful woman. +</p> + +<p> +“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! +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +This alliterative production was written without any sense of the peril that +makes prophecy. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“He tries to be more than he is,” thought the lady: and she began +insensibly to conceive him less than he was. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton only wondered the husband of such a treasure could remain apart from it. +So thought Richard for a space. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” Ripton assented, and the words “Please remember me to +dear Mr. Thompson,” fluttered about the Old Dog’s heart. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard hurriedly explained that Lucy was still in the Isle of Wight. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! and you’ve left her for a day or two?” said Mrs. Berry. +</p> + +<p> +“Good God! I wish it had been a day or two,” cried Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! and how long have it been?” asked Mrs. Berry, her heart +beginning to beat at his manner of speaking. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t talk about it,” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! you never been dudgeonin’ already? Oh! you haven’t been +peckin’ at one another yet?” Mrs. Berry exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton interposed to tell her such fears were unfounded. +</p> + +<p> +“Then how long ha’ you been divided?” +</p> + +<p> +In a guilty voice Ripton stammered “since September.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry here took a heavy breath, as one who has said her utmost for the +time being. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s your father that’s doin’ it, my dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’m waiting his pleasure.” +</p> + +<p> +“A pretty pleasure! puttin’ a snake in the nest of young +turtle-doves! And why don’t she come up to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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 name 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—more’s our +sorrow!” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, well!” said Richard, who thought he knew. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” sighed Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +“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’?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard paced up and down. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Just be quiet at present—talk of other things, there’s a +good woman,” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry meekly folded her arms. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Now and then,” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“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’.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very,” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll thank the Lord of heaven if you do!” she exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +“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”— +</p> + +<p> +“A lady?” faltered Mrs. Berry. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. A lady.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I make so bold as to ask what lady?” +</p> + +<p> +“You may not. Not now. Of course you will know.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +She sat down to eat her supper on the sublime resolve. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +Bella Donna.” Setting her down again absolutely for such, whatever it +might signify, Mrs. Berry had a virtuous glow. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +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”— +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +“Richard?” And her virtue was humbled. “Lady Feverel is it? +Your mother, Mr. Richard?” And her virtue was humbled. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap38"></a> +CHAPTER XXXVIII</h2> + +<p> +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 her +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“’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.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard listened to him with disgust. “Well, you’ve had my +doctorial warning,” said Adrian; and plunged back into his book. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t know that,” said Richard, for the contrast in her +attire to those shooting eyes and lips, aired her sex bewitchingly. +</p> + +<p> +“What! you think I don’t do it well?” +</p> + +<p> +“Charming! but I can’t forget...” +</p> + +<p> +“Now that is too bad!” she pouted. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +He began to conceive romance in that sort of fun. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a wopper, my brave Dick! won’t let any peeler take +me? by Jove!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +Was ever hero in this fashion wooed? +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +She never uttered an idea or a reflection, but Richard thought her the +cleverest woman he had ever met. +</p> + +<p> +All kinds of problematic notions beset him. She was cold as ice, she hated talk +about love, and she was branded by the world. +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard knew of no person answering to his aunt’s description in whose +company he could have been seen. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me, I say! Don’t quibble. Do you know any woman of bad +character?” +</p> + +<p> +The acquaintance of a lady very much misjudged and ill-used by the world, +Richard admitted to. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish shook her head and held up her finger. “This person must be +very clever to have given you that delusion, dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“She is clever. And the world treats her shamefully.” +</p> + +<p> +“She complains of her position to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not a word. But I will stand by her. She has no friend but me.” +</p> + +<p> +“My poor boy! has she made you think that?” +</p> + +<p> +“How unjust you all are!” cried Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“How mad and wicked is the man who can let him be tempted so!” +thought Lady Blandish. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Of women!” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t she a woman?” +</p> + +<p> +“Too much so!” sighed the defender of her sex. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, you’re taller,” Richard made the discovery. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“And how have you done it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Grown to please you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now, if you can do that, you can do anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“And so I would do anything.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would?” +</p> + +<p> +“Honour!” +</p> + +<p> +“Then”...his project recurred to him. But the incongruity of +speaking seriously to Sir Julius struck him dumb. +</p> + +<p> +“Then what?” asked she. +</p> + +<p> +“Then you’re a gallant fellow.” +</p> + +<p> +“That all?” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it enough?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not quite. You were going to say something. I saw it in your +eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“You saw that I admired you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but a man mustn’t admire a man.” +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I had an idea you were a woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“What! when I had the heels of my boots raised half an inch,” Sir +Julius turned one heel, and volleyed out silver laughter. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t come much above your shoulder even now,” she said, +and proceeded to measure her height beside him with arch up-glances. +</p> + +<p> +“You must grow more.” +</p> + +<p> +“’Fraid I can’t, Dick! Bootmakers can’t do it.” +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes! Oh but I can’t stay here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why can’t you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why can’t I?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Their eyes met. He put her down instantly. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“I ought to have been an actress,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +Richard told her he found all natural women had a similar wish. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes! Ah! then! if I had been!” sighed Mrs. Mount, gazing on the +pattern of the carpet. +</p> + +<p> +He took her hand, and pressed it. +</p> + +<p> +“You are not happy as you are?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“May I speak to you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +Their next meeting displayed her quieter: subdued as one who had been set +thinking. He lauded her fair looks. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t make me thrice ashamed,” she petitioned. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian spoke their thoughts. They fretted; they relapsed. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Almost?” Lady Blandish opened her eyes. “I have been +advising it for the last month and more.” +</p> + +<p> +“A choice of evils,” said Mrs. Doria’s sour-sweet face and +shake of the head. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, I’ll talk to him again,” he said. “I’ll +try to get the Engine on the conventional line.” +</p> + +<p> +“Command him!” exclaimed Mrs. Doria. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentle means are, I think, the only means with Richard,” said Lady +Blandish. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard walked away from the interrogation. The wise youth, who hated long +unrelieved speeches and had healed his conscience, said no more. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The enchantress observed that her knight had a clouded brow and an absent +voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Richard—I can’t call you Dick now, I really don’t know +why”—she said, “I want to beg a favour of you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Name it. I can still call you Bella, I suppose?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“And why?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you ask to be told that?” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly I do.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then look: I won’t compromise you.” +</p> + +<p> +“I see no harm, Bella.” +</p> + +<p> +“No,” she caressed his hand, “and there is none. I know that. +But,” modest eyelids were drooped, “other people do,” +struggling eyes were raised. +</p> + +<p> +“What do we care for other people?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing. I don’t. Not that!” snapping her finger, “I +care for you, though.” A prolonged look followed the declaration. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re foolish, Bella.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not quite so giddy—that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +So they met in the park; Mrs. Mount whipped past him; and secresy added a new +sense to their intimacy. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian was gratified at the result produced by his eloquence. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Richard! I am not what I was since I knew you. You will not give me up +quite?” +</p> + +<p> +“Never, Bella.” +</p> + +<p> +“I am not so bad as I’m painted!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are only unfortunate.” +</p> + +<p> +“Now that I know you I think so, and yet I am happier.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you love the man?” he asked. “You say you love no one +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you be deceived in love?” said Richard, more to himself than +to her. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Singular!” murmured Richard, “she says just what my father +said.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke aloud: “I could forgive you if you had loved him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t be harsh, grave judge! How is a girl to distinguish?” +</p> + +<p> +“You had some affection for him? He was the first?” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“That makes what is called first love nonsense.” +</p> + +<p> +“Isn’t it?” +</p> + +<p> +He repelled the insinuation. “Because I know it is not, Bella.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 tell 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 fool, 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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +belli, 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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +Nothing teaches a strong arm its impotence so much as knocking at empty air. +</p> + +<p> +“What can I do for this poor woman?” cried Richard, after fighting +his phantom enemy till he was worn out. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well! Yes!” said Mrs. Doria, to whom the modest speech was +repeated, “I suppose, poor boy, it’s the best he can do now.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard bade them adieu, and went to spend his last evening with Mrs. Mount. +</p> + +<p> +The enchantress received him in state. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +She was gay. She revived Sir Julius occasionally. He, dispirited, left the +talking all to her. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll drink to what we might have been, Dick,” said the +enchantress. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, the glorious wreck she looked. +</p> + +<p> +His heart choked as he gulped the buzzing wine. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s give me a turn, my lady,” pleaded John, and the +man’s hand was unsteady as he poured out the wine. +</p> + +<p> +“You ought not to listen. Go, and, drink some brandy.” +</p> + +<p> +John footman went from the room. +</p> + +<p> +“My brave Dick! Richard! what a face you’ve got!” +</p> + +<p> +He showed a deep frown on a colourless face. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +She cheered, and laughed. A lurid splendour glanced about her like lights from +the pit. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +“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? +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Softly fell her voice. Her eyes threw slanting beams. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you see this?” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know when I stole the lock? Foolish Dick! you gave me an anchor +without a rope. Come and see.” +</p> + +<p> +She rose from the table, and threw herself on the sofa. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you recognize your own hair! I should know a thread of mine +among a million.” +</p> + +<p> +Something of the strength of Samson went out of him as he inspected his hair on +the bosom of Delilah. +</p> + +<p> +“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?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard pushed a few months forward. +</p> + +<p> +“Twenty-one? You just look it, you blooming boy. Now tell me my age, +Adonis!—Twenty—what?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard had given the lady twenty-five years. +</p> + +<p> +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?” +</p> + +<p> +“And when, in heaven’s name!”...he stopped short. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Richard seized some dead champagne, emptied the bottle into a tumbler, and +drank it off. +</p> + +<p> +John footman entered to clear the table, and they were left without further +interruption. +</p> + +<p> +“Bella! Bella!” Richard uttered in a deep sad voice, as he walked +the room. +</p> + +<p> +She leaned on her arm, her hair crushed against a reddened cheek, her eyes +half-shut and dreamy. +</p> + +<p> +“Bella!” he dropped beside her. “You are unhappy.” +</p> + +<p> +She blinked and yawned, as one who is awakened suddenly. “I think you +spoke,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“You are unhappy, Bella. You can’t conceal it. Your laugh sounds +like madness. You must be unhappy. So young, too! Only twenty-one!” +</p> + +<p> +“What does it matter? Who cares for me?” +</p> + +<p> +The mighty pity falling from his eyes took in her whole shape. She did not +mistake it for tenderness, as another would have done. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +Her hand was shaken in his by the passion of torment with which his frame +quaked. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Bella! you have a father alive!” +</p> + +<p> +“A linendraper, dear. He wears a white neck-cloth.” +</p> + +<p> +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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes!” said Richard, savagely, from the other end of the room, +“you care for the happiness of your dog.” +</p> + +<p> +“A course se does,” Mumpsy was simperingly assured in the thick of +his silky flanks. +</p> + +<p> +Richard looked for his hat. Mumpsy was deposited on the sofa in a twinkling. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“The dear dog! I do believe he saw we were getting dull,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“And immolated himself intentionally? Noble animal!” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Still kneeling, he looked up, and asked, “Do you feel safe now?” +</p> + +<p> +She bent her face glaring down till the ends of her hair touched his cheek. +</p> + +<p> +Said she, “Do you?” +</p> + +<p> +Was she a witch verily? There was sorcery in her breath; sorcery in her hair: +the ends of it stung him like little snakes. +</p> + +<p> +“How do I do it, Dick?” she flung back, laughing. +</p> + +<p> +“Like you do everything, Bella,” he said, and took breath. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +She sang, throwing her hair about, and stamping her feet. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose I look a figure. I must go and tidy myself.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“Richard,” her tone was serious, “you were going to speak to +me of my parents.” +</p> + +<p> +“How wild and awful you looked, Bella!” +</p> + +<p> +“My father, Richard, was a very respectable man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bella, you’ll haunt me like a ghost.” +</p> + +<p> +“My mother died in my infancy, Richard.” +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t put up your hair, Bella.” +</p> + +<p> +“I was an only child!” +</p> + +<p> +Her head shook sorrowfully at the glistening fire-irons. He followed the +abstracted intentness of her look, and came upon her words. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, yes! speak of your father, Bella. Speak of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shall I haunt you, and come to your bedside, and cry, ‘’Tis +time’?” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“If I haunt you, you can’t forget me, Richard.” +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p> +He felt giddy: bewitched. +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +The eyes were languid now, set in rosy colour. +</p> + +<p> +“You will not leave me yet, Richard? not yet?” +</p> + +<p> +He had no thought of departing: +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +He grasped her hand at this. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, he will! too true! can’t be helped: they say I’m +handsome.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re lovely, Bella.” +</p> + +<p> +She drank in his homage. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +“I shan’t be astonished at anything new, Bella.” +</p> + +<p> +“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!” +</p> + +<p> +She went to the piano, struck the notes, and sang— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“‘My heart, my heart—I think ’twill break.’ +</p> + +<p> +“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! +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘Once the sweet romance of story<br/> + Clad thy moving form with grace;<br/> +Once the world and all its glory<br/> + Was but framework to thy face.<br/> +Ah, too fair!—what I remember<br/> + Might my soul recall—but no!<br/> +To the winds this wretched ember<br/> + Of a fire that falls so low!’ +</p> + +<p> +“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. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘Oh! but for thee, oh! but for thee,<br/> + I might have been a happy wife,<br/> +And nursed a baby on my knee,<br/> + And never blushed to give it life.’ +</p> + +<p> +“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! +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +‘If I had a husband, what think you I’d do?<br/> + I’d make it my business to keep him a lover;<br/> +For when a young gentleman ceases to woo,<br/> + Some other amusement he’ll quickly discover.’ +</p> + +<p> +“For such are young gentlemen made of—made of: such are young +gentlemen made of!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Heroes know little what they owe to champagne. +</p> + +<p> +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! +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Silence, and the rustle of her dress, awoke him from his musing. She swam +wave-like to the sofa. She was at his feet. +</p> + +<p> +“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.” +</p> + +<p> +Those witch underlids were working brightly. +</p> + +<p> +“You will not forget me? and I shall try...try...” +</p> + +<p> +Her lips twitched. She thought him such a very handsome fellow. +</p> + +<p> +“If I change—if I can change... Oh! if you could know what a net +I’m in, Richard!” +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +“Bella! No! no! promise me! swear it!” +</p> + +<p> +“Lost, Richard! lost for ever! give me up!” +</p> + +<p> +He cried: “I never will!” and strained her in his arms, and kissed +her passionately on the lips. +</p> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p> +Not a word of love between them! +</p> + +<p> +Was ever hero in this fashion won? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap39"></a> +CHAPTER XXXIX</h2> + +<p> +At a season when the pleasant South-western Island has few attractions to other +than invalids and hermits enamoured of wind and rain, the potent nobleman, Lord +Mountfalcon, still lingered there to the disgust of his friends and special +parasite. “Mount’s in for it again,” they said among +themselves. “Hang the women!” was a natural sequence. For, +don’t you see, what a shame it was of the women to be always kindling +such a very inflammable subject! All understood that Cupid had twanged his bow, +and transfixed a peer of Britain for the fiftieth time: but none would +perceive, though he vouched for it with his most eloquent oaths, that this was +a totally different case from the antecedent ones. So it had been sworn to them +too frequently before. He was as a man with mighty tidings, and no language: +intensely communicative, but inarticulate. Good round oaths had formerly +compassed and expounded his noble emotions. They were now quite beyond the +comprehension of blasphemy, even when emphasized, and by this the poor lord +divinely felt the case was different. There is something impressive in a great +human hulk writhing under the unutterable torments of a mastery he cannot +contend with, or account for, or explain by means of intelligible words. At +first he took refuge in the depths of his contempt for women. Cupid gave him +line. When he had come to vent his worst of them, the fair face now stamped on +his brain beamed the more triumphantly: so the harpooned whale rose to the +surface, and after a few convulsions, surrendered his huge length. My lord was +in love with Richard’s young wife. He gave proofs of it by burying +himself beside her. To her, could she have seen it, he gave further proofs of a +real devotion, in affecting, and in her presence feeling, nothing beyond a +lively interest in her well-being. This wonder, that when near her he should be +cool and composed, and when away from her wrapped in a tempest of desires, was +matter for what powers of cogitation the heavy nobleman possessed. +</p> + +<p> +The Hon. Peter, tired of his journeys to and fro, urged him to press the +business. Lord Mountfalcon was wiser, or more scrupulous, than his parasite. +Almost every evening he saw Lucy. The inexperienced little wife apprehended no +harm in his visits. Moreover, Richard had commended her to the care of Lord +Mountfalcon, and Lady Judith. Lady Judith had left the Island for London: Lord +Mountfalcon remained. There could be no harm. If she had ever thought so, she +no longer did. Secretly, perhaps, she was flattered. Lord Mountfalcon was as +well educated as it is the fortune of the run of titled elder sons to be: he +could talk and instruct: he was a lord: and he let her understand that he was +wicked, very wicked, and that she improved him. The heroine, in common with the +hero, has her ambition to be of use in the world—to do some good: and the +task of reclaiming a bad man is extremely seductive to good women. Dear to +their tender bosoms as old china is a bad man they are mending! Lord +Mountfalcon had none of the arts of a libertine: his gold, his title, and his +person had hitherto preserved him from having long to sigh in vain, or sigh at +all, possibly: the Hon. Peter did his villanies for him. No alarm was given to +Lucy’s pure instinct, as might have been the case had my lord been +over-adept. It was nice in her martyrdom to have a true friend to support her, +and really to be able to do something for that friend. Too simple-minded to +think much of his lordship’s position, she was yet a woman. “He, a +great nobleman, does not scorn to acknowledge me, and think something of +me,” may have been one of the half-thoughts passing through her now and +then, as she reflected in self-defence on the proud family she had married +into. +</p> + +<p> +January was watering and freezing old earth by turns, when the Hon. Peter +travelled down to the sun of his purse with great news. He had no sooner +broached his lordship’s immediate weakness, than Mountfalcon began to +plunge like a heavy dragoon in difficulties. He swore by this and that he had +come across an angel for his sins, and would do her no hurt. The next moment he +swore she must be his, though she cursed like a cat. His lordship’s +illustrations were not choice. “I haven’t advanced an inch,” +he groaned. “Brayder! upon my soul, that little woman could do anything +with me. By heaven! I’d marry her to-morrow. Here I am, seeing her every +day in the week out or in, and what do you think she gets me to talk +about?—history! Isn’t it enough to make a fellow mad? and there am +I lecturing like a prig, and by heaven! while I’m at it I feel a pleasure +in it; and when I leave the house I should feel an immense gratification in +shooting somebody. What do they say in town?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not much,” said Brayder, significantly. +</p> + +<p> +“When’s that fellow—her husband—coming down?” +</p> + +<p> +“I rather hope we’ve settled him for life, Mount.” +</p> + +<p> +Nobleman and parasite exchanged looks. +</p> + +<p> +“How d’ye mean?” +</p> + +<p> +Brayder hummed an air, and broke it to say, “He’s in for Don Juan +at a gallop, that’s all.” +</p> + +<p> +“The deuce! Has Bella got him?” Mountfalcon asked with eagerness. +</p> + +<p> +Brayder handed my lord a letter. It was dated from the Sussex coast, signed +“Richard,” and was worded thus: +</p> + +<p> +“My beautiful Devil—! +</p> + +<p> +“Since we’re both devils together, and have found each other out, +come to me at once, or I shall be going somewhere in a hurry. Come, my bright +hell-star! I ran away from you, and now I ask you to come to me! You have +taught me how devils love, and I can’t do without you. Come an hour after +you receive this.” +</p> + +<p> +Mountfalcon turned over the letter to see if there was any more. +“Complimentary love-epistle!” he remarked, and rising from his +chair and striding about, muttered, “The dog! how infamously he treats +his wife!” +</p> + +<p> +“Very bad,” said Brayder. +</p> + +<p> +“How did you get hold of this?” +</p> + +<p> +“Strolled into Bella’s dressing-room, waiting for her turned over +her pincushion hap-hazard. You know her trick.” +</p> + +<p> +“By Jove! I think that girl does it on purpose. Thank heaven, I +haven’t written her any letters for an age. Is she going to him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not she! But it’s odd, Mount!—did you ever know her refuse +money before? She tore up the cheque in style, and presented me the fragments +with two or three of the delicacies of language she learnt at your Academy. I +rather like to hear a woman swear. It embellishes her!” +</p> + +<p> +Mountfalcon took counsel of his parasite as to the end the letter could be made +to serve. Both conscientiously agreed that Richard’s behaviour to his +wife was infamous, and that he at least deserved no mercy. “But,” +said his lordship, “it won’t do to show the letter. At first +she’ll be swearing it’s false, and then she’ll stick to him +closer. I know the sluts.” +</p> + +<p> +“The rule of contrary,” said Brayder, carelessly. “She must +see the trahison with her eyes. They believe their eyes. There’s your +chance, Mount. You step in: you give her revenge and consolation—two +birds at one shot. That’s what they like.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re an ass, Brayder,” the nobleman exclaimed. +“You’re an infernal blackguard. You talk of this little woman as if +she and other women were all of a piece. I don’t see anything I gain by +this confounded letter. Her husband’s a brute—that’s +clear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you leave it to me, Mount?” +</p> + +<p> +“Be damned before I do!” muttered my lord. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank you. Now see how this will end: You’re too soft, Mount. +You’ll be made a fool of.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you, Brayder, there’s nothing to be done. If I carry her +off—I’ve been on the point of doing it every +day—what’ll come of that? She’ll look—I can’t +stand her eyes—I shall be a fool—worse off with her than I am +now.” +</p> + +<p> +Mountfalcon yawned despondently. “And what do you think?” he +pursued. “Isn’t it enough to make a fellow gnash his teeth? +She’s”...he mentioned something in an underbreath, and turned red +as he said it. +</p> + +<p> +“Hm!” Brayder put up his mouth and rapped the handle of his cane on +his chin. “That’s disagreeable, Mount. You don’t exactly want +to act in that character. You haven’t got a diploma. Bother!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you think I love her a bit less?” broke out my lord in a +frenzy. “By heaven! I’d read to her by her bedside, and talk that +infernal history to her, if it pleased her, all day and all night.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re evidently graduating for a midwife, Mount.” +</p> + +<p> +The nobleman appeared silently to accept the imputation. +</p> + +<p> +“What do they say in town?” he asked again. +</p> + +<p> +Brayder said the sole question was, whether it was maid, wife, or widow. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go to her this evening,” Mountfalcon resumed, +after—to judge by the cast of his face—reflecting deeply. +“I’ll go to her this evening. She shall know what infernal torment +she makes me suffer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you mean to say she don’t know it?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hasn’t an idea—thinks me a friend. And so, by heaven! +I’ll be to her.” +</p> + +<p> +“A—hm!” went the Honourable Peter. “This way to the +sign of the Green Man, ladies!” +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want to be pitched out of the window, Brayder?” +</p> + +<p> +“Once was enough, Mount. The Salvage Man is strong. I may have forgotten +the trick of alighting on my feet. There—there! I’ll be sworn +she’s excessively innocent, and thinks you a disinterested friend.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’ll go to her this evening,” Mountfalcon repeated. +“She shall know what damned misery it is to see her in such a position. I +can’t hold out any longer. Deceit’s horrible to such a girl as +that. I’d rather have her cursing me than speaking and looking as she +does. Dear little girl!—she’s only a child. You haven’t an +idea how sensible that little woman is.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you?” inquired the cunning one. +</p> + +<p> +“My belief is, Brayder, that there are angels among women,” said +Mountfalcon, evading his parasite’s eye as he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +To the world, Lord Mountfalcon was the thoroughly wicked man; his parasite +simply ingeniously dissipated. Full many a man of God had thought it the easier +task to reclaim the Hon. Peter. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy received her noble friend by firelight that evening, and sat much in the +shade. She offered to have the candles brought in. He begged her to allow the +room to remain as it was. “I have something to say to you,” he +observed with a certain solemnity. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes—to me?” said Lucy, quickly. +</p> + +<p> +Lord Mountfalcon knew he had a great deal to say, but how to say it, and what +it exactly was, he did not know.’ +</p> + +<p> +“You conceal it admirably,” he began, “but you must be very +lonely here—I fear, unhappy.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should have been lonely, but for your kindness, my lord,” said +Lucy. “I am not unhappy.” Her face was in shade and could not belie +her. +</p> + +<p> +“Is there any help that one who would really be your friend might give +you, Mrs. Feverel?” +</p> + +<p> +“None indeed that I know of,” Lucy replied. “Who can help us +to pay for our sins?” +</p> + +<p> +“At least you may permit me to endeavour to pay my debts, since you have +helped me to wash out some of any sins.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, my lord!” said Lucy, not displeased. It is sweet for a woman +to believe she has drawn the serpent’s teeth. +</p> + +<p> +“I tell you the truth,” Lord Mountfalcon went on. “What +object could I have in deceiving you? I know you quite above flattery—so +different from other women!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, pray, do not say that,” interposed Lucy. +</p> + +<p> +“According to my experience, then.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you say you have met such—such very bad women.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have. And now that I meet a good one, it is my misfortune.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your misfortune, Lord Mountfalcon?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, and I might say more.” +</p> + +<p> +His lordship held impressively mute. +</p> + +<p> +“How strange men are!” thought Lucy. “He had some unhappy +secret.” +</p> + +<p> +Tom Bakewell, who had a habit of coming into the room on various pretences +during the nobleman’s visits, put a stop to the revelation, if his +lordship intended to make any. +</p> + +<p> +When they were alone again, Lucy said, smiling: “Do you know, I am always +ashamed to ask you to begin to read.” +</p> + +<p> +Mountfalcon stared. “To read?—oh! ha! yes!” he remembered his +evening duties. “Very happy, I’m sure. Let me see. Where were +we?” +</p> + +<p> +“The life of the Emperor Julian. But indeed I feel quite ashamed to ask +you to read, my lord. It’s new to me; like a new world—hearing +about Emperors, and armies, and things that really have been on the earth we +walk upon. It fills my mind. But it must have ceased to interest you, and I was +thinking that I would not tease you any more.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your pleasure is mine, Mrs. Feverel. ’Pon my honour, I’d +read till I was hoarse, to hear your remarks.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you laughing at me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I look so?” +</p> + +<p> +Lord Mountfalcon had fine full eyes, and by merely dropping the lids he could +appear to endow them with mental expression. +</p> + +<p> +“No, you are not,” said Lucy. “I must thank you for your +forbearance.” +</p> + +<p> +The nobleman went on his honour loudly. +</p> + +<p> +Now it was an object of Lucy’s to have him reading; for his sake, for her +sake, and for somebody else’s sake; which somebody else was probably +considered first in the matter. When he was reading to her, he seemed to be +legitimizing his presence there; and though she had no doubts or suspicions +whatever, she was easier in her heart while she had him employed in that +office. So she rose to fetch the book, laid it open on the table at his +lordship’s elbow, and quietly waited to ring for candles when he should +be willing to commence. +</p> + +<p> +That evening Lord Mountfalcon could not get himself up to the farce, and he +felt a pity for the strangely innocent unprotected child with anguish hanging +over her, that withheld the words he wanted to speak, or insinuate. He sat +silent and did nothing. +</p> + +<p> +“What I do not like him for,” said Lucy, meditatively, “is +his changing his religion. He would have been such a hero, but for that. I +could have loved him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Who is it you could have loved, Mrs. Feverel?” Lord Mountfalcon +asked. +</p> + +<p> +“The Emperor Julian.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! the Emperor Julian! Well, he was an apostate but then, you know, he +meant what he was about. He didn’t even do it for a woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“For a woman!” cried Lucy. “What man would for a +woman?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would.” +</p> + +<p> +“You, Lord Mountfalcon?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I’d turn Catholic to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +“You make me very unhappy if you say that, my lord.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then I’ll unsay it.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy slightly shuddered. She put her hand upon the bell to ring for lights. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you reject a convert, Mrs. Feverel?” said the nobleman. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes! yes! I do. One who does not give his conscience I would not +have.” +</p> + +<p> +“If he gives his heart and body, can he give more?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy’s hand pressed the bell. She did not like the doubtful light with +one who was so unscrupulous. Lord Mountfalcon had never spoken in this way +before. He spoke better, too. She missed the aristocratic twang in his voice, +and the hesitation for words, and the fluid lordliness with which he rolled +over difficulties in speech. +</p> + +<p> +Simultaneously with the sounding of the bell the door opened, and presented Tom +Bakewell. There was a double knock at the same instant at the street door. Lucy +delayed to give orders. +</p> + +<p> +“Can it be a letter, Tom!—so late?” she said, changing +colour. “Pray run and see.” +</p> + +<p> +“That an’t powst” Tom remarked, as he obeyed his mistress. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you very anxious for a letter, Mrs. Feverel?” Lord Mountfalcon +inquired. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no!—yes, I am, very,” said Lucy. Her quick ear caught +the tones of a voice she remembered. “That dear old thing has come to see +me,” she cried, starting up. +</p> + +<p> +Tom ushered a bunch of black satin into the room. +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Berry!” said Lucy, running up to her and kissing her. +</p> + +<p> +“Me, my darlin’!” Mrs. Berry, breathless and rosy with her +journey, returned the salute. “Me truly it is, in fault of a better, for +I ain’t one to stand by and give the devil his +licence—roamin’! and the salt sure enough have spilte my bride-gown +at the beginnin’, which ain’t the best sign. Bless ye!—Oh, +here he is.” She beheld a male figure in a chair by the half light, and +swung around to address him. “You bad man!” she held aloft one of +her fat fingers, “I’ve come on ye like a bolt, I have, and +goin’ to make ye do your duty, naughty boy! But you’re my +darlin’ babe,” she melted, as was her custom, “and I’ll +never meet you and not give to ye the kiss of a mother.” +</p> + +<p> +Before Lord Mountfalcon could find time to expostulate the soft woman had him +by the neck, and was down among his luxurious whiskers. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha!” She gave a smothered shriek, and fell back. “What +hair’s that?” +</p> + +<p> +Tom Bakewell just then illumined the transaction. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my gracious!” Mrs. Berry breathed with horror, “I been +and kiss a strange man!” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy, half-laughing, but in dreadful concern, begged the noble lord to excuse +the woful mistake. +</p> + +<p> +“Extremely flattered, highly favoured, I’m sure;” said his +lordship, re-arranging his disconcerted moustache; “may I beg the +pleasure of an introduction?” +</p> + +<p> +“My husband’s dear old nurse—Mrs. Berry,” said Lucy, +taking her hand to lend her countenance. “Lord Mountfalcon, Mrs. +Berry.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry sought grace while she performed a series of apologetic bobs, and +wiped the perspiration from her forehead. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy put her into a chair: Lord Mountfalcon asked for an account of her passage +over to the Island; receiving distressingly full particulars, by which it was +revealed that the softness of her heart was only equalled by the weakness of +her stomach. The recital calmed Mrs. Berry down. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, and where’s my—where’s Mr. Richard? yer husband, +my dear?” Mrs. Berry turned from her tale to question. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you expect to see him here?” said Lucy, in a broken voice. +</p> + +<p> +“And where else, my love? since he haven’t been seen in London a +whole fortnight.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy did not speak. +</p> + +<p> +“We will dismiss the Emperor Julian till to-morrow, I think,” said +Lord Mountfalcon, rising and bowing. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy gave him her hand with mute thanks. He touched it distantly, embraced Mrs. +Berry in a farewell bow, and was shown out of the house by Tom Bakewell. +</p> + +<p> +The moment he was gone, Mrs. Berry threw up her arms. “Did ye ever know +sich a horrid thing to go and happen to a virtuous woman!” she exclaimed. +“I could cry at it, I could! To be goin’ and kissin’ a +strange hairy man! Oh dear me! what’s cornin’ next, I wonder? +Whiskers! thinks I—for I know the touch o’ whiskers—’t +ain’t like other hair—what! have he growed a crop that sudden, I +says to myself; and it flashed on me I been and made a awful mistake! and the +lights come in, and I see that great hairy man—beggin’ his +pardon—nobleman, and if I could ’a dropped through the floor out +o’ sight o’ men, drat ’em! they’re al’ays in the +way, that they are!”— +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Berry,” Lucy checked her, “did you expect to find him +here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Askin’ that solemn?” retorted Berry. “What him? your +husband? O’ course I did! and you got him—somewheres hid.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not heard from my husband for fifteen days,” said Lucy, and +her tears rolled heavily off her cheeks. +</p> + +<p> +“Not heer from him!—fifteen days!” Berry echoed. +</p> + +<p> +“O Mrs. Berry! dear kind Mrs. Berry! have you no news? nothing to tell +me! I’ve borne it so long. They’re cruel to me, Mrs. Berry. Oh, do +you know if I have offended him—my husband? While he wrote I did not +complain. I could live on his letters for years. But not to hear from him! To +think I have ruined him, and that he repents! Do they want to take him from me? +Do they want me dead? O Mrs. Berry! I’ve had no one to speak out my heart +to all this time, and I cannot, cannot help crying, Mrs. Berry!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry was inclined to be miserable at what she heard from Lucy’s +lips, and she was herself full of dire apprehension; but it was never this +excellent creature’s system to be miserable in company. The sight of a +sorrow that was not positive, and could not refer to proof, set her resolutely +the other way. +</p> + +<p> +“Fiddle-faddle,” she said. “I’d like to see him repent! +He won’t find anywheres a beauty like his own dear little wife, and he +know it. Now, look you here, my dear—you blessed weepin’ +pet—the man that could see ye with that hair of yours there in ruins, and +he backed by the law, and not rush into your arms and hold ye squeezed for +life, he ain’t got much man in him, I say; and no one can say that of my +babe! I was sayin’, look here, to comfort ye—oh, why, to be sure +he’ve got some surprise for ye. And so’ve I, my lamb! Hark, now! +His father’ve come to town, like a good reasonable man at last, to u-nite +ye both, and bring your bodies together, as your hearts is, for +everlastin’. Now ain’t that news?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” cried Lucy, “that takes my last hope away. I thought he +had gone to his father.” She burst into fresh tears. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry paused, disturbed. +</p> + +<p> +“Belike he’s travellin’ after him,” she suggested. +</p> + +<p> +“Fifteen days, Mrs. Berry!” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, fifteen weeks, my dear, after sich a man as that. He’s a +regular meteor, is Sir Austin Feverel, Raynham Abbey. Well, so hark you here. I +says to myself, that knows him—for I did think my babe was in his natural +nest—I says, the bar’net’ll never write for you both to come +up and beg forgiveness, so down I’ll go and fetch you up. For there was +your mistake, my dear, ever to leave your husband to go away from ye one hour +in a young marriage. It’s dangerous, it’s mad, it’s wrong, +and it’s only to be righted by your obeyin’ of me, as I commands +it: for I has my fits, though I am a soft ’un. Obey me, and ye’ll +be happy tomorrow—or the next to it.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy was willing to see comfort. She was weary of her self-inflicted martyrdom, +and glad to give herself up to somebody else’s guidance utterly. +</p> + +<p> +“But why does he not write to me, Mrs. Berry?” +</p> + +<p> +“’Cause, ’cause—who can tell the why of men, my dear? +But that he love ye faithful, I’ll swear. Haven’t he groaned in my +arms that he couldn’t come to ye?—weak wretch! Hasn’t he +swore how he loved ye to me, poor young man! But this is your fault, my sweet. +Yes, it be. You should ’a followed my ’dvice at the +fust—’stead o’ going into your ’eroics about this and +t’other.” Here Mrs. Berry poured forth fresh sentences on +matrimony, pointed especially at young couples. “I should ’a been a +fool if I hadn’t suffered myself,” she confessed, “so +I’ll thank my Berry if I makes you wise in season.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy smoothed her ruddy plump cheeks, and gazed up affectionately into the soft +woman’s kind brown eyes. Endearing phrases passed from mouth to mouth. +And as she gazed Lucy blushed, as one who has something very secret to tell, +very sweet, very strange, but cannot quite bring herself to speak it. +</p> + +<p> +“Well! these’s three men in my life I kissed,” said Mrs. +Berry, too much absorbed in her extraordinary adventure to notice the young +wife’s struggling bosom, “three men, and one a nobleman! +He’ve got more whisker than my Berry, I wonder what the man thought. Ten +to one he’ll think, now, I was glad o’ my +chance—they’re that vain, whether they’s lords or commons. +How was I to know? I nat’ral thinks none but her husband’d sit in +that chair. Ha! and in the dark? and alone with ye?” Mrs. Berry hardened +her eyes, “and your husband away? What do this mean? Tell to me, child, +what it mean his bein’ here alone without ere a candle?” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord Mountfalcon is the only friend I have here,” said Lucy. +“He is very kind. He comes almost every evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“Lord Montfalcon—that his name!” Mrs. Berry exclaimed. +“I been that flurried by the man, I didn’t mind it at first. He +come every evenin’, and your husband out o’ sight! My goodness me! +it’s gettin’ worse and worse. And what do he come for, now, +ma’am? Now tell me candid what ye do together here in the dark of an +evenin’.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry glanced severely. +</p> + +<p> +“O Mrs. Berry! please not to speak in that way—I don’t like +it,” said Lucy, pouting. +</p> + +<p> +“What do he come for, I ask?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because he is kind, Mrs. Berry. He sees me very lonely, and wishes to +amuse me. And he tells me of things I know nothing about and”— +</p> + +<p> +“And wants to be a-teachin’ some of his things, mayhap,” Mrs. +Berry interrupted with a ruffled breast. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a very ungenerous, suspicious, naughty old woman,” said +Lucy, chiding her. +</p> + +<p> +“And you’re a silly, unsuspectin’ little bird,” Mrs. +Berry retorted, as she returned her taps on the cheek. “You haven’t +told me what ye do together, and what’s his excuse for +comin’.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, Mrs. Berry, almost every evening that he comes we read +History, and he explains the battles, and talks to me about the great men. And +he says I’m not silly, Mrs. Berry.” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s one bit o’ lime on your wings, my bird. History, +indeed! History to a young married lovely woman alone in the dark! a pretty +History! Why, I know that man’s name, my dear. He’s a notorious +living rake, that Lord Montfalcon. No woman’s safe with him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, but he hasn’t deceived me, Mrs. Berry. He has not pretended he +was good.” +</p> + +<p> +“More’s his art,” quoth the experienced dame. “So you +read History together in the dark; my dear!” +</p> + +<p> +“I was unwell to-night, Mrs. Berry. I wanted him not to see my face. +Look! there’s the book open ready for him when the candles come in. And +now, you dear kind darling old thing, let me kiss you for coming to me. I do +love you. Talk of other things.” +</p> + +<p> +“So we will,” said Mrs. Berry softening to Lucy’s caresses. +“So let us. A nobleman, indeed, alone with a young wife in the dark, and +she sich a beauty! I say this shall be put a stop to now and henceforth, on the +spot it shall! He won’t meneuvele Bessy Berry with his arts. There! I +drop him. I’m dyin’ for a cup o’ tea, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy got up to ring the bell, and as Mrs. Berry, incapable of quite dropping +him, was continuing to say: “Let him go and boast I kiss him; he +ain’t nothin’ to be ’shamed of in a chaste woman’s +kiss—unawares—which men don’t get too often in their lives, I +can assure ’em;”—her eye surveyed Lucy’s figure. +</p> + +<p> +Lo, when Lucy returned to her, Mrs. Berry surrounded her with her arms, and +drew her into feminine depths. “Oh, you blessed!” she cried in most +meaning tone, “you good, lovin’, proper little wife, you!” +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, Mrs. Berry!” lisps Lucy, opening the most innocent +blue eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“As if I couldn’t see, you pet! It was my flurry blinded me, or +I’d ’a marked ye the fast shock. Thinkin’ to deceive +me!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry’s eyes spoke generations. Lucy’s wavered; she coloured +all over, and hid her face on the bounteous breast that mounted to her. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a sweet one,” murmured the soft woman, patting her +back, and rocking her. “You’re a rose, you are! and a bud on your +stalk. Haven’t told a word to your husband, my dear?” she asked +quickly. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy shook her head, looking sly and shy. +</p> + +<p> +“That’s right. We’ll give him a surprise; let it come all at +once on him, and thinks he—losin’ breath ‘I’m a +father!’ Nor a hint even you haven’t give him?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy kissed her, to indicate it was quite a secret. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! you are a sweet one,” said Bessy Berry, and rocked her more +closely and lovingly. +</p> + +<p> +Then these two had a whispered conversation, from which let all of male +persuasion retire a space nothing under one mile. +</p> + +<p> +Returning, after a due interval, we see Mrs. Berry counting on her +fingers’ ends. Concluding the sum, she cries prophetically: “Now +this right everything—a baby in the balance! Now I say this angel-infant +come from on high. It’s God’s messenger, my love! and it’s +not wrong to say so. He thinks you worthy, or you wouldn’t ’a had +one—not for all the tryin’ in the world, you wouldn’t, and +some tries hard enough, poor creatures! Now let us rejice and make merry! +I’m for cryin’ and laughin’, one and the same. This is the +blessed seal of matrimony, which Berry never stamp on me. It’s be hoped +it’s a boy. Make that man a grandfather, and his grandchild a son, and +you got him safe. Oh! this is what I call happiness, and I’ll have my tea +a little stronger in consequence. I declare I could get tipsy to know this +joyful news.” +</p> + +<p> +So Mrs. Berry carolled. She had her tea a little stronger. She ate and she +drank; she rejoiced and made merry. The bliss of the chaste was hers. +</p> + +<p> +Says Lucy demurely: “Now you know why I read History, and that sort of +books.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do I?” replies Berry. “Belike I do. Since what you +done’s so good, my darlin’, I’m agreeable to anything. A fig +for all the lords! They can’t come anigh a baby. You may read Voyages and +Travels, my dear, and Romances, and Tales of Love and War. You cut the riddle +in your own dear way, and that’s all I cares for.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, but you don’t understand,” persists Lucy. “I only +read sensible books, and talk of serious things, because I’m sure... +because I have heard say...dear Mrs. Berry! don’t you understand +now?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry smacked her knees. “Only to think of her bein’ that +thoughtful! and she a Catholic, too! Never tell me that people of one religion +ain’t as good as another, after that. Why, you want to make him a +historian, to be sure! And that rake of a lord who’ve been comin’ +here playin’ at wolf, you been and made him—unbeknown to +himself—sort o’ tutor to the unborn blessed! Ha! ha! say that +little women ain’t got art ekal to the cunningest of ’em. Oh! I +understand. Why, to be sure, didn’t I know a lady, a widow of a +clergyman: he was a postermost child, and afore his birth that women read +nothin’ but Blair’s ‘Grave’ over and over again, from +the end to the beginnin’;—that’s a serious book!—very +hard readin’!—and at four years of age that child that come of it +reelly was the piousest infant!—he was like a little curate. His eyes was +up; he talked so solemn.” Mrs. Berry imitated the little curate’s +appearance and manner of speaking. “So she got her wish, for one!” +</p> + +<p> +But at this lady Lucy laughed. +</p> + +<p> +They chattered on happily till bedtime. Lucy arranged for Mrs. Berry to sleep +with her. “If it’s not dreadful to ye, my sweet, sleepin’ +beside a woman,” said Mrs. Berry. “I know it were to me shortly +after my Berry, and I felt it. It don’t somehow seem nat’ral after +matrimony—a woman in your bed! I was obliged to have somebody, for the +cold sheets do give ye the creeps when you’ve been used to that +that’s different.” +</p> + +<p> +Upstairs they went together, Lucy not sharing these objections. Then Lucy +opened certain drawers, and exhibited pretty caps, and laced linen, all adapted +for a very small body, all the work of her own hands: and Mrs. Berry praised +them and her. “You been guessing a boy—woman-like,” she said. +Then they cooed, and kissed, and undressed by the fire, and knelt at the +bedside, with their arms about each other, praying; both praying for the unborn +child; and Mrs. Berry pressed Lucy’s waist the moment she was about to +breathe the petition to heaven to shield and bless that coming life; and +thereat Lucy closed to her, and felt a strong love for her. Then Lucy got into +bed first, leaving Berry to put out the light, and before she did so, Berry +leaned over her, and eyed her roguishly, saying, “I never see ye like +this, but I’m half in love with ye myself, you blushin’ beauty! +Sweet’s your eyes, and your hair do take one so—lyin’ back. +I’d never forgive my father if he kep me away from ye four-and-twenty +hours just. Husband o’ that!” Berry pointed at the young +wife’s loveliness. “Ye look so ripe with kisses, and there they are +a-languishin’!—... You never look so but in your bed, ye +beauty!—just as it ought to be.” Lucy had to pretend to rise to put +out the light before Berry would give up her amorous chaste soliloquy. Then +they lay in bed, and Mrs. Berry fondled her, and arranged for their departure +to-morrow, and reviewed Richard’s emotions when he came to hear he was +going to be made a father by her, and hinted at Lucy’s delicious shivers +when Richard was again in his rightful place, which she, Bessy Berry, now +usurped; and all sorts of amorous sweet things; enough to make one fancy the +adage subverted, that stolen fruits are sweetest; she drew such glowing +pictures of bliss within the law and the limits of the conscience, till at +last, worn out, Lucy murmured “Peepy, dear Berry,” and the soft +woman gradually ceased her chirp. +</p> + +<p> +Bessy Berry did not sleep. She lay thinking of the sweet brave heart beside +her, and listening to Lucy’s breath as it came and went; squeezing the +fair sleeper’s hand now and then, to ease her love as her reflections +warmed. A storm of wind came howling over the Hampshire hills, and sprang white +foam on the water, and shook the bare trees. It passed, leaving a thin cloth of +snow on the wintry land. The moon shone brilliantly. Berry heard the house-dog +bark. His bark was savage and persistent. She was roused by the noise. By and +by she fancied she heard a movement in the house; then it seemed to her that +the house-door opened. She cocked her ears, and could almost make out voices in +the midnight stillness. She slipped from the bed, locked and bolted the door of +the room, assured herself of Lucy’s unconsciousness, and went on tiptoe +to the window. The trees all stood white to the north; the ground glittered; +the cold was keen. Berry wrapped her fat arms across her bosom, and peeped as +close over into the garden as the situation of the window permitted. Berry was +a soft, not a timid, woman: and it happened this night that her thoughts were +above the fears of the dark. She was sure of the voices; curiosity without a +shade of alarm held her on the watch; and gathering bundles of her day-apparel +round her neck and shoulders, she silenced the chattering of her teeth as well +as she could, and remained stationary. The low hum of the voices came to a +break; something was said in a louder tone; the house-door quietly shut; a man +walked out of the garden into the road. He paused opposite her window, and +Berry let the blind go back to its place, and peeped from behind an edge of it. +He was in the shadow of the house, so that it was impossible to discern much of +his figure. After some minutes he walked rapidly away, and Berry returned to +the bed an icicle, from which Lucy’s limbs sensitively shrank. +</p> + +<p> +Next morning Mrs. Berry asked Tom Bakewell if he had been disturbed in the +night. Tom, the mysterious, said he had slept like a top. Mrs. Berry went into +the garden. The snow was partially melted; all save one spot, just under the +portal, and there she saw the print of a man’s foot. By some strange +guidance it occurred to her to go and find one of Richard’s boots. She +did so, and, unperceived, she measured the sole of the boot in that solitary +footmark. There could be no doubt that it fitted. She tried it from heel to toe +a dozen times. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap40"></a> +CHAPTER XL</h2> + +<p> +Sir Austin Feverel had come to town with the serenity of a philosopher who +says, ’Tis now time; and the satisfaction of a man who has not arrived +thereat without a struggle. He had almost forgiven his son. His deep love for +him had well-nigh shaken loose from wounded pride and more tenacious vanity. +Stirrings of a remote sympathy for the creature who had robbed him of his son +and hewed at his System, were in his heart of hearts. This he knew; and in his +own mind he took credit for his softness. But the world must not suppose him +soft; the world must think he was still acting on his System. Otherwise what +would his long absence signify?—Something highly unphilosophical. So, +though love was strong, and was moving him to a straightforward course, the +last tug of vanity drew him still aslant. +</p> + +<p> +The Aphorist read himself so well, that to juggle with himself was a necessity. +As he wished the world to see him, he beheld himself: one who entirely put +aside mere personal feelings: one in whom parental duty, based on the science +of life, was paramount: a Scientific Humanist, in short. +</p> + +<p> +He was, therefore, rather surprised at a coldness in Lady Blandish’s +manner when he did appear. “At last!” said the lady, in a sad way +that sounded reproachfully. Now the Scientific Humanist had, of course, nothing +to reproach himself with. +</p> + +<p> +But where was Richard? +</p> + +<p> +Adrian positively averred he was not with his wife. +</p> + +<p> +“If he had gone,” said the baronet, “he would have +anticipated me by a few hours.” +</p> + +<p> +This, when repeated to Lady Blandish, should have propitiated her, and shown +his great forgiveness. She, however, sighed, and looked at him wistfully. +</p> + +<p> +Their converse was not happy and deeply intimate. Philosophy did not seem to +catch her mind; and fine phrases encountered a rueful assent, more flattering +to their grandeur than to their influence. +</p> + +<p> +Days went by. Richard did not present himself. Sir Austin’s pitch of +self-command was to await the youth without signs of impatience. +</p> + +<p> +Seeing this, the lady told him her fears for Richard, and mentioned the rumour +of him that was about. +</p> + +<p> +“If,” said the baronet, “this person, his wife, is what you +paint her, I do not share your fears for him. I think too well of him. If she +is one to inspire the sacredness of that union, I think too well of him. It is +impossible.” +</p> + +<p> +The lady saw one thing to be done. +</p> + +<p> +“Call her to you,” she said. “Have her with you at Raynham. +Recognize her. It is the disunion and doubt that so confuses him and drives him +wild. I confess to you I hoped he had gone to her. It seems not. If she is with +you his way will be clear. Will you do that?” +</p> + +<p> +Science is notoriously of slow movement. Lady Blandish’s proposition was +far too hasty for Sir Austin. Women, rapid by nature, have no idea of science. +</p> + +<p> +“We shall see her there in time, Emmeline. At present let it be between +me and my son.” +</p> + +<p> +He spoke loftily. In truth it offended him to be asked to do anything, when he +had just brought himself to do so much. +</p> + +<p> +A month elapsed, and Richard appeared on the scene. +</p> + +<p> +The meeting between him and his father was not what his father had expected and +had crooned over in the Welsh mountains. Richard shook his hand respectfully, +and inquired after his health with the common social solicitude. He then said: +“During your absence, sir, I have taken the liberty, without consulting +you, to do something in which you are more deeply concerned than myself. I have +taken upon myself to find out my mother and place her under my care. I trust +you will not think I have done wrong. I acted as I thought best.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin replied: “You are of an age, Richard, to judge for yourself in +such a case. I would have you simply beware of deceiving yourself in imagining +that you considered any one but yourself in acting as you did.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not deceived myself, sir,” said Richard, and the interview +was over. Both hated an exposure of the feelings, and in that both were +satisfied: but the baronet, as one who loves, hoped and looked for tones +indicative of trouble and delight in the deep heart; and Richard gave him none +of those. The young man did not even face him as he spoke: if their eyes met by +chance, Richard’s were defiantly cold. His whole bearing was changed. +</p> + +<p> +“This rash marriage has altered him,” said the very just man of +science in life: and that meant: “it has debased him.” +</p> + +<p> +He pursued his reflections. “I see in him the desperate maturity of a +suddenly-ripened nature: and but for my faith that good work is never lost, +what should I think of the toil of my years? Lost, perhaps to me! lost to him! +It may show itself in his children.” +</p> + +<p> +The Philosopher, we may conceive, has contentment in benefiting embryos: but it +was a somewhat bitter prospect to Sir Austin. Bitterly he felt the injury to +himself. +</p> + +<p> +One little incident spoke well of Richard. A poor woman called at the hotel +while he was missing. The baronet saw her, and she told him a tale that threw +Christian light on one part of Richard’s nature. But this might gratify +the father in Sir Austin; it did not touch the man of science. A Feverel, his +son, would not do less, he thought. He sat down deliberately to study his son. +</p> + +<p> +No definite observations enlightened him. Richard ate and drank; joked and +laughed. He was generally before Adrian in calling for a fresh bottle. He +talked easily of current topics; his gaiety did not sound forced. In all he +did, nevertheless, there was not the air of a youth who sees a future before +him. Sir Austin put that down. It might be carelessness, and wanton blood, for +no one could say he had much on his mind. The man of science was not reckoning +that Richard also might have learned to act and wear a mask. Dead +subjects—this is to say, people not on their guard—he could +penetrate and dissect. It is by a rare chance, as scientific men well know, +that one has an opportunity of examining the structure of the living. +</p> + +<p> +However, that rare chance was granted to Sir Austin. They were engaged to dine +with Mrs. Doria at the Foreys’, and walked down to her in the afternoon, +father and son arm-in-arm, Adrian beside them. Previously the offended father +had condescended to inform his son that it would shortly be time for him to +return to his wife, indicating that arrangements would ultimately be ordered to +receive her at Raynham. Richard had replied nothing; which might mean excess of +gratitude, or hypocrisy in concealing his pleasure, or any one of the thousand +shifts by which gratified human nature expresses itself when all is made to run +smooth with it. Now Mrs. Berry had her surprise ready charged for the young +husband. She had Lucy in her own house waiting for him. Every day she expected +him to call and be overcome by the rapturous surprise, and every day, knowing +his habit of frequenting the park, she marched Lucy thither, under the plea +that Master Richard, whom she had already christened, should have an airing. +</p> + +<p> +The round of the red winter sun was behind the bare Kensington chestnuts, when +these two parties met. Happily for Lucy and the hope she bore in her bosom, she +was perversely admiring a fair horsewoman galloping by at the moment. Mrs. +Berry plucked at her gown once or twice, to prepare her eyes for the shock, but +Lucy’s head was still half averted, and thinks Mrs. Berry, +“Twon’t hurt her if she go into his arms head foremost.” They +were close; Mrs. Berry performed the bob preliminary. Richard held her silent +with a terrible face; he grasped her arm, and put her behind him. Other people +intervened. Lucy saw nothing to account for Berry’s excessive flutter. +Berry threw it on the air and some breakfast bacon, which, she said, she knew +in the morning while she ate it, was bad for the bile, and which probably was +the cause of her bursting into tears, much to Lucy’s astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“What you ate makes you cry, Mrs. Berry?” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s all—” Mrs. Berry pressed at her heart and leaned +sideways, “it’s all stomach, my dear. Don’t ye mind,” +and becoming aware of her unfashionable behaviour, she trailed off to the +shelter of the elms. +</p> + +<p> +“You have a singular manner with old ladies,” said Sir Austin to +his son, after Berry had been swept aside. “Scarcely courteous. She +behaved like a mad woman, certainly.—Are you ill, my son?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard was death-pale, his strong form smitten through with weakness. The +baronet sought Adrian’s eye. Adrian had seen Lucy as they passed, and he +had a glimpse of Richard’s countenance while disposing of Berry. Had Lucy +recognized them, he would have gone to her unhesitatingly. As she did not, he +thought it well, under the circumstances, to leave matters as they were. He +answered the baronet’s look with a shrug. +</p> + +<p> +“Are you ill, Richard?” Sir Austin again asked his son. +</p> + +<p> +“Come on, sir! come on!” cried Richard. +</p> + +<p> +His father’s further meditations, as they stepped briskly to the +Foreys’, gave poor Berry a character which one who lectures on matrimony, +and has kissed but three men in her life, shrieks to hear the very title of. +</p> + +<p> +“Richard will go to his wife to-morrow,” Sir Austin said to Adrian +some time before they went in to dinner. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian asked him if he had chanced to see a young fair-haired lady by the side +of the old one Richard had treated so peculiarly; and to the baronet’s +acknowledgment that he remembered to have observed such a person, Adrian said: +“That was his wife, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin could not dissect the living subject. As if a bullet had torn open +the young man’s skull, and some blast of battle laid his palpitating +organization bare, he watched every motion of his brain and his heart; and with +the grief and terror of one whose mental habit was ever to pierce to extremes. +Not altogether conscious that he had hitherto played with life, he felt that he +was suddenly plunged into the stormful reality of it. He projected to speak +plainly to his son on all points that night. +</p> + +<p> +“Richard is very gay,” Mrs. Doris, whispered her brother. +</p> + +<p> +“All will be right with him to-morrow,” he replied; for the game +had been in his hands so long, so long had he been the God of the machine, that +having once resolved to speak plainly and to act, he was to a certain extent +secure, bad as the thing to mend might be. +</p> + +<p> +“I notice he has rather a wild laugh—I don’t exactly like his +eyes,” said Mrs. Doria. +</p> + +<p> +“You will see a change in him to-morrow,” the man of science +remarked. +</p> + +<p> +It was reserved for Mrs. Doria herself to experience that change. In the middle +of the dinner a telegraphic message from her son-in-law, worthy John Todhunter, +reached the house, stating that Clare was alarmingly ill, bidding her come +instantly. She cast about for some one to accompany her, and fixed on Richard. +Before he would give his consent for Richard to go, Sir Austin desired to speak +with him apart, and in that interview he said to his son: “My dear +Richard! it was my intention that we should come to an understanding together +this night. But the time is short—poor Helen cannot spare many minutes. +Let me then say that you deceived me, and that I forgive you. We fix our seal +on the past. You will bring your wife to me when you return.” And very +cheerfully the baronet looked down on the generous future he thus founded. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you have her at Raynham at once, sir?” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, my son, when you bring her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are you mocking me, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray, what do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“I ask you to receive her at once.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well! the delay cannot be long. I do not apprehend that you will be kept +from your happiness many days.” +</p> + +<p> +“I think it will be some time, sir!” said Richard, sighing deeply. +</p> + +<p> +“And what mental freak is this that can induce you to postpone it and +play with your first duty?” +</p> + +<p> +“What is my first duty, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +“Since you are married, to be with your wife.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have heard that from an old woman called Berry!” said Richard to +himself, not intending irony. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you receive her at once?” he asked resolutely. +</p> + +<p> +The baronet was clouded by his son’s reception of his graciousness. His +grateful prospect had formerly been Richard’s marriage—the +culmination of his System. Richard had destroyed his participation in that. He +now looked for a pretty scene in recompense:—Richard leading up his wife +to him, and both being welcomed by him paternally, and so held one ostentatious +minute in his embrace. +</p> + +<p> +He said: “Before you return, I demur to receiving her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, sir,” replied his son, and stood as if he had spoken +all. +</p> + +<p> +“Really you tempt me to fancy you already regret your rash +proceeding!” the baronet exclaimed; and the next moment it pained him he +had uttered the words, Richard’s eyes were so sorrowfully fierce. It +pained him, but he divined in that look a history, and he could not refrain +from glancing acutely and asking: “Do you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Regret it, sir?” The question aroused one of those struggles in +the young man’s breast which a passionate storm of tears may still, and +which sink like leaden death into the soul when tears come not. Richard’s +eyes had the light of the desert. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you?” his father repeated. “You tempt me—I almost +fear you do.” At the thought—for he expressed his mind—the +pity that he had for Richard was not pure gold. +</p> + +<p> +“Ask me what I think of her, sir! Ask me what she is! Ask me what it is +to have taken one of God’s precious angels and chained her to misery! Ask +me what it is to have plunged a sword into her heart, and to stand over her and +see such a creature bleeding! Do I regret that? Why, yes, I do! Would +you?” +</p> + +<p> +His eyes flew hard at his father under the ridge of his eyebrows. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin winced and reddened. Did he understand? There is ever in the +mind’s eye a certain wilfulness. We see and understand; we see and +won’t understand. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me why you passed by her as you did this afternoon,” he said +gravely: and in the same voice Richard answered: “I passed her because I +could not do otherwise.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your wife, Richard?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes! my wife!” +</p> + +<p> +“If she had seen you, Richard?” +</p> + +<p> +“God spared her that!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria, bustling in practical haste, and bearing Richard’s hat and +greatcoat in her energetic hands, came between them at this juncture. Dimples +of commiseration were in her cheeks while she kissed her brother’s +perplexed forehead. She forgot her trouble about Clare, deploring his fatuity. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin was forced to let his son depart. As of old, he took counsel with +Adrian, and the wise youth was soothing. “Somebody has kissed him, sir, +and the chaste boy can’t get over it.” This absurd suggestion did +more to appease the baronet than if Adrian had given a veritable reasonable key +to Richard’s conduct. It set him thinking that it might be a prudish +strain in the young man’s mind, due to the System in difficulties. +</p> + +<p> +“I may have been wrong in one thing,” he said, with an air of the +utmost doubt of it. “I, perhaps, was wrong in allowing him so much +liberty during his probation.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian pointed out to him that he had distinctly commanded it. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, yes; that is on me.” +</p> + +<p> +His was an order of mind that would accept the most burdensome charges, and by +some species of moral usury make a profit out of them. +</p> + +<p> +Clare was little talked of. Adrian attributed the employment of the telegraph +to John Todhunter’s uxorious distress at a toothache, or possibly the +first symptoms of an heir to his house. +</p> + +<p> +“That child’s mind has disease in it... She is not sound,” +said the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +On the door-step of the hotel, when they returned, stood Mrs. Berry. Her wish +to speak a few words with the baronet reverentially communicated, she was +ushered upstairs into his room. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry compressed her person in the chair she was beckoned to occupy. +</p> + +<p> +“Well’ ma’am, you have something to say,” observed the +baronet, for she seemed loth to commence. +</p> + +<p> +“Wishin’ I hadn’t—” Mrs. Berry took him up, and +mindful of the good rule to begin at the beginning, pursued: “I dare say, +Sir Austin, you don’t remember me, and I little thought when last we +parted our meeting ’d be like this. Twenty year don’t go over one +without showin’ it, no more than twenty ox. It’s a might o’ +time,—twenty year! Leastways not quite twenty, it ain’t.” +</p> + +<p> +“Round figures are best,” Adrian remarked. +</p> + +<p> +“In them round figures a be-loved son have growed up, and got himself +married!” said Mrs. Berry, diving straight into the case. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin then learnt that he had before him the culprit who had assisted his +son in that venture. It was a stretch of his patience to hear himself addressed +on a family matter; but he was naturally courteous. +</p> + +<p> +“He came to my house, Sir Austin, a stranger! If twenty year alters us as +have knowed each other on the earth, how must they alter they that we parted +with just come from heaven! And a heavenly babe he were! so sweet! so strong! +so fat!” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian laughed aloud. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry bumped a curtsey to him in her chair, continuing: “I wished +afore I spoke to say how thankful am I bound to be for my pension not cut +short, as have offended so, but that I know Sir Austin Feverel, Raynham Abbey, +ain’t one o’ them that likes to hear their good deeds pumlished. +And a pension to me now, it’s something more than it were. For a pension +and pretty rosy cheeks in a maid, which I was—that’s a bait many a +man’ll bite, that won’t so a forsaken wife!” +</p> + +<p> +“If you will speak to the point, ma’am, I will listen to +you,” the baronet interrupted her. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the beginnin’ that’s the worst, and that’s +over, thank the Lord! So I’ll speak, Sir Austin, and say my +say:—Lord speed me! Believin’ our idees o’ matrimony to be +sim’lar, then, I’ll say, once married—married for life! Yes! +I don’t even like widows. For I can’t stop at the grave. Not at the +tomb I can’t stop. My husband’s my husband, and if I’m a body +at the Resurrection, I say, speaking humbly, my Berry is the husband o’ +my body; and to think of two claimin’ of me then—it makes me hot +all over. Such is my notion of that state ’tween man and woman. No +givin’ in marriage, o’ course I know; and if so I’m +single.” +</p> + +<p> +The baronet suppressed a smile. “Really, my good woman, you wander very +much.” +</p> + +<p> +“Beggin’ pardon, Sir Austin; but I has my point before me all the +same, and I’m comin’ to it. Ac-knowledgin’ our error, +it’d done, and bein’ done, it’s writ aloft. Oh! if you ony +knew what a sweet young creature she be! Indeed; ’taint all of humble +birth that’s unworthy, Sir Austin. And she got her idees, too: She reads +History! She talk that sensible as would surprise ye. But for all that +she’s a prey to the artful o’ men—unpertected. And it’s +a young marriage—but there’s no fear for her, as far as she go. The +fear’s t’other way. There’s that in a man—at the +commencement—which make of him Lord knows what if you any way interferes: +whereas a woman bides quiet! It’s consolation catch her, which is what we +mean by seduein’. Whereas a man—he’s a savage!” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin turned his face to Adrian, who was listening with huge delight. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, ma’am, I see you have something in your mind, if you would +only come to it quickly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then here’s my point, Sir Austin. I say you bred him so as there +ain’t another young gentleman like him in England, and proud he make me. +And as for her, I’ll risk sayin’—it’s done, and no +harm—you might search England through, and nowhere will ye find a maid +that’s his match like his own wife. Then there they be. Are they together +as should be? O Lord no! Months they been divided. Then she all lonely and +exposed, I went, and fetched her out of seducers’ ways—which they +may say what they like, but the inn’cent is most open to when +they’re healthy and confidin’—I fetch her, and—the +liberty—boxed her safe in my own house. So much for that sweet! That you +may do with women. But it’s him—Mr. Richard—I am bold, I +know, but there—I’m in for it, and the Lord’ll help me! +It’s him, Sir Austin, in this great metropolis, warm from a young +marriage. It’s him, and—I say nothin’ of her, and how sweet +she bears it, and it’s eating her at a time when Natur’ should have +no other trouble but the one that’s goin’ on—it’s him, +and I ask—so bold—shall there—and a Christian gentlemen his +father—shall there be a tug ’tween him as a son and him as a +husband—soon to be somethin’ else? I speak bold out—I’d +have sons obey their fathers, but a priest’s words spoke over them, which +they’re now in my ears, I say I ain’t a doubt on +earth—I’m sure there ain’t one in heaven—which +dooty’s the holier of the two.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin heard her to an end. Their views on the junction of the sexes were +undoubtedly akin. To be lectured on his prime subject, however, was slightly +disagreeable, and to be obliged mentally to assent to this old lady’s +doctrine was rather humiliating, when it could not be averred that he had +latterly followed it out. He sat cross-legged and silent, a finger to his +temple. +</p> + +<p> +“One gets so addle-gated thinkin’ many things,” said Mrs. +Berry, simply. “That’s why we see wonder clever people goin’ +wrong—to my mind. I think it’s al’ays the plan in a dielemmer +to pray God and walk forward.” +</p> + +<p> +The keen-witted soft woman was tracking the baronet’s thoughts, and she +had absolutely run him down and taken an explanation out of his mouth, by which +Mrs. Berry was to have been informed that he had acted from a principle of his +own, and devolved a wisdom she could not be expected to comprehend. +</p> + +<p> +Of course he became advised immediately that it would be waste of time to +direct such an explanation to her inferior capacity. +</p> + +<p> +He gave her his hand, saying, “My son has gone out of town to see his +cousin, who is ill. He will return in two or three days, and then they will +both come to me at Raynham.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry took the tips of his fingers, and went half-way to the floor +perpendicularly. “He pass her like a stranger in the park this +evenin’,” she faltered. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah?” said the baronet. “Yes, well! they will be at Raynham +before the week is over.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry was not quite satisfied. “Not of his own accord he pass that +sweet young wife of his like a stranger this day, Sir Austin!” +</p> + +<p> +“I must beg you not to intrude further, ma’am.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry bobbed her bunch of a body out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +“All’s well that ends well,” she said to herself. +“It’s just bad inquirin’ too close among men. We must take +’em somethin’ like Providence—as they come. Thank heaven! I +kep’ back the baby.” +</p> + +<p> +In Mrs. Berry’s eyes the baby was the victorious reserve. +</p> + +<p> +Adrian asked his chief what he thought of that specimen of woman. +</p> + +<p> +“I think I have not met a better in my life,” said the baronet, +mingling praise and sarcasm. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Clare lies in her bed as placid as in the days when she breathed; her white +hands stretched their length along the sheets, at peace from head to feet. She +needs iron no more. Richard is face to face with death for the first time. He +sees the sculpture of clay—the spark gone. +</p> + +<p> +Clare gave her mother the welcome of the dead. This child would have spoken +nothing but kind commonplaces had she been alive. She was dead, and none knew +her malady. On her fourth finger were two wedding-rings. +</p> + +<p> +When hours of weeping had silenced the mother’s anguish, she, for some +comfort she saw in it, pointed out that strange thing to Richard, speaking low +in the chamber of the dead; and then he learnt that it was his own lost ring +Clare wore in the two worlds. He learnt from her husband that Clare’s +last request had been that neither of the rings should be removed. She had +written it; she would not speak it. +</p> + +<p> +“I beg of my husband, and all kind people who may have the care of me +between this and the grave, to bury me with my hands untouched.” +</p> + +<p> +The tracing of the words showed the bodily torment she was suffering, as she +wrote them on a scrap of paper found beside her pillow. +</p> + +<p> +In wonder, as the dim idea grew from the waving of Clare’s dead hand, +Richard paced the house, and hung about the awful room; dreading to enter it, +reluctant to quit it. The secret Clare had buried while she lived, arose with +her death. He saw it play like flame across her marble features. The memory of +her voice was like a knife at his nerves. His coldness to her started up +accusingly: her meekness was bitter blame. +</p> + +<p> +On the evening of the fourth day, her mother came to him in his bedroom, with a +face so white that he asked himself if aught worse could happen to a mother +than the loss of her child. Choking she said to him, “Read this,” +and thrust a leather-bound pocket-book trembling in his hand. She would not +breathe to him what it was. She entreated him not to open it before her. +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me,” she said, “tell me what you think. John must not +hear of it. I have nobody to consult but you O Richard!” +</p> + +<p> +“My Diary” was written in the round hand of Clare’s childhood +on the first page. The first name his eye encountered was his own. +</p> + +<p> +“Richard’s fourteenth birthday. I have worked him a purse and put +it under his pillow, because he is going to have plenty of money. He does not +notice me now because he has a friend now, and he is ugly, but Richard is not, +and never will be.” +</p> + +<p> +The occurrences of that day were subsequently recorded, and a childish prayer +to God for him set down. Step by step he saw her growing mind in his history. +As she advanced in years she began to look back, and made much of little +trivial remembrances, all bearing upon him. +</p> + +<p> +“We went into the fields and gathered cowslips together, and pelted each +other, and I told him he used to call them ‘coals-sleeps’ when he +was a baby, and he was angry at my telling him, for he does not like to be told +he was ever a baby.” +</p> + +<p> +He remembered the incident, and remembered his stupid scorn of her meek +affection. Little Clare! how she lived before him in her white dress and pink +ribbons, and soft dark eyes! Upstairs she was lying dead. He read on: +</p> + +<p> +“Mama says there is no one in the world like Richard, and I am sure there +is not, not in the whole world. He says he is going to be a great General and +going to the wars. If he does I shall dress myself as a boy and go after him, +and he will not know me till I am wounded. Oh I pray he will never, never be +wounded. I wonder what I should feel if Richard was ever to die.” +</p> + +<p> +Upstairs Clare was lying dead. +</p> + +<p> +“Lady Blandish said there was a likeness between Richard and me. Richard +said I hope I do not hang down my head as she does. He is angry with me because +I do not look people in the face and speak out, but I know I am not looking +after earthworms.” +</p> + +<p> +Yes. He had told her that. A shiver seized him at the recollection. +</p> + +<p> +Then it came to a period when the words: “Richard kissed me,” stood +by themselves, and marked a day in her life. +</p> + +<p> +Afterwards it was solemnly discovered that Richard wrote poetry. He read one of +his old forgotten compositions penned when he had that ambition. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Thy truth to me is truer<br/> + Than horse, or dog, or blade;<br/> +Thy vows to me are fewer<br/> + Than ever maiden made.<br/> +<br/> +Thou steppest from thy splendour<br/> + To make my life a song:<br/> +My bosom shall be tender<br/> + As thine has risen strong.” +</p> + +<p> +All the verses were transcribed. “It is he who is the humble +knight,” Clare explained at the close, “and his lady, is a Queen. +Any Queen would throw her crown away for him.” +</p> + +<p> +It came to that period when Clare left Raynham with her mother. +</p> + +<p> +“Richard was not sorry to lose me. He only loves boys and men. Something +tells me I shall never see Raynham again. He was dressed in blue. He said +Good-bye, Clare, and kissed me on the cheek. Richard never kisses me on the +mouth. He did not know I went to his bed and kissed him while he was asleep. He +sleeps with one arm under his head, and the other out on the bed. I moved away +a bit of his hair that was over his eyes. I wanted to cut it. I have one piece. +I do not let anybody see I am unhappy, not even mama. She says I want iron. I +am sure I do not. I like to write my name. Clare Doria Forey. Richard’s +is Richard Doria Feverel.” +</p> + +<p> +His breast rose convulsively. Clare Doria Forey! He knew the music of that +name. He had heard it somewhere. It sounded faint and mellow now behind the +hills of death. +</p> + +<p> +He could not read for tears. It was midnight. The hour seemed to belong to her. +The awful stillness and the darkness were Clare’s. Clare’s voice +clear and cold from the grave possessed it. +</p> + +<p> +Painfully, with blinded eyes, he looked over the breathless pages. She spoke of +his marriage, and her finding the ring. +</p> + +<p> +“I knew it was his. I knew he was going to be married that morning. I saw +him stand by the altar when they laughed at breakfast. His wife must be so +beautiful! Richard’s wife! Perhaps he will love me better now he is +married. Mama says they must be separated. That is shameful. If I can help him +I will. I pray so that he may be happy. I hope God hears poor sinners’ +prayers. I am very sinful. Nobody knows it as I do. They say I am good, but I +know. When I look on the ground I am not looking after earthworms, as he said. +Oh, do forgive me, God!” +</p> + +<p> +Then she spoke of her own marriage, and that it was her duty to obey her +mother. A blank in the Diary ensued. +</p> + +<p> +“I have seen Richard. Richard despises me,” was the next entry. +</p> + +<p> +But now as he read his eyes were fixed, and the delicate feminine handwriting +like a black thread drew on his soul to one terrible conclusion. +</p> + +<p> +“I cannot live. Richard despises me. I cannot bear the touch of my +fingers or the sight of my face. Oh! I understand him now. He should not have +kissed me so that last time. I wished to die while his mouth was on +mine.” +</p> + +<p> +Further: “I have no escape. Richard said he would die rather than endure +it. I know he would. Why should I be afraid to do what he would do? I think if +my husband whipped me I could bear it better. He is so kind, and tries to make +me cheerful. He will soon be very unhappy. I pray to God half the night. I seem +to be losing sight of my God the more I pray.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard laid the book open on the table. Phantom surges seemed to be mounting +and travelling for his brain. Had Clare taken his wild words in earnest? Did +she lie there dead—he shrouded the thought. +</p> + +<p> +He wrapped the thoughts in shrouds, but he was again reading. +</p> + +<p> +“A quarter to one o’clock. I shall not be alive this time +to-morrow. I shall never see Richard now. I dreamed last night we were in the +fields together, and he walked with his arm round my waist. We were children, +but I thought we were married, and I showed him I wore his ring, and he +said—if you always wear it, Clare, you are as good as my wife. Then I +made a vow to wear it for ever and ever... It is not mama’s fault. She +does not think as Richard and I do of these things. He is not a coward, nor am +I. He hates cowards. +</p> + +<p> +“I have written to his father to make him happy. Perhaps when I am dead +he will hear what I say. +</p> + +<p> +“I heard just now Richard call distinctly—Clare, come out to me. +Surely he has not gone. I am going I know not where. I cannot think. I am very +cold.” +</p> + +<p> +The words were written larger, and staggered towards the close, as if her hand +had lost mastery over the pen. +</p> + +<p> +“I can only remember Richard now a boy. A little boy and a big boy. I am +not sure now of his voice. I can only remember certain words. +‘Clari,’ and ‘Don Ricardo,’ and his laugh. He used to +be full of fun. Once we laughed all day together tumbling in the hay. Then he +had a friend, and began to write poetry, and be proud. If I had married a young +man he would have forgiven me, but I should not have been happier. I must have +died. God never looks on me. +</p> + +<p> +“It is past two o’clock. The sheep are bleating outside. It must be +very cold in the ground. Good-bye, Richard.” +</p> + +<p> +With his name it began and ended. Even to herself Clare was not +over-communicative. The book was slender, yet her nineteen years of existence +left half the number of pages white. +</p> + +<p> +Those last words drew him irresistibly to gaze on her. There she lay, the same +impassive Clare. For a moment he wondered she had not moved—to him she +had become so different. She who had just filled his ears with strange +tidings—it was not possible to think her dead! She seemed to have been +speaking to him all through his life. His image was on that still heart. +</p> + +<p> +He dismissed the night-watchers from the room, and remained with her alone, +till the sense of death oppressed him, and then the shock sent him to the +window to look for sky and stars. Behind a low broad pine, hung with frosty +mist, he heard a bell-wether of the flock in the silent fold. Death in life it +sounded. +</p> + +<p> +The mother found him praying at the foot of Clare’s bed. She knelt by his +side, and they prayed, and their joint sobs shook their bodies, but neither of +them shed many tears. They held a dark unspoken secret in common. They prayed +God to forgive her. +</p> + +<p> +Clare was buried in the family vault of the Todhunters. Her mother breathed no +wish to have her lying at Lobourne. +</p> + +<p> +After the funeral, what they alone upon earth knew brought them together. +</p> + +<p> +“Richard,” she said, “the worst is over for me. I have no one +to love but you, dear. We have all been fighting against God, and this... +Richard! you will come with me, and be united to your wife, and spare my +brother what I suffer.” +</p> + +<p> +He answered the broken spirit: “I have killed one. She sees me as I am. I +cannot go with you to my wife, because I am not worthy to touch her hand, and +were I to go, I should do this to silence my self-contempt. Go you to her, and +when she asks of me, say I have a death upon my head that—No! say that I +am abroad, seeking for that which shall cleanse me. If I find it I shall come +to claim her. If not, God help us all!” +</p> + +<p> +She had no strength to contest his solemn words, or stay him, and he went +forth. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap41"></a> +CHAPTER XLI</h2> + +<p> +A man with a beard saluted the wise youth Adrian in the full blaze of +Piccadilly with a clap on the shoulder. Adrian glanced leisurely behind. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you want to try my nerves, my dear fellow? I’m not a man of +fashion, happily, or you would have struck the seat of them. How are +you?” +</p> + +<p> +That was his welcome to Austin Wentworth after his long absence. +</p> + +<p> +Austin took his arm, and asked for news, with the hunger of one who had been in +the wilderness five years. +</p> + +<p> +“The Whigs have given up the ghost, my dear Austin. The free Briton is to +receive Liberty’s pearl, the Ballot. The Aristocracy has had a +cycle’s notice to quit. The Monarchy and old Madeira are going out; Demos +and Cape wines are coming in. They call it Reform. So, you see, your absence +has worked wonders. Depart for another five years, and you will return to +ruined stomachs, cracked sconces, general upset, an equality made perfect by +universal prostration.” +</p> + +<p> +Austin indulged him in a laugh. “I want to hear about ourselves. How is +old Ricky?” +</p> + +<p> +“You know of his—what do they call it when greenhorns are licensed +to jump into the milkpails of dairymaids?—a very charming little woman +she makes, by the way—presentable! quite old Anacreon’s rose in +milk. Well! everybody thought the System must die of it. Not a bit. It +continued to flourish in spite. It’s in a consumption now, +though—emaciated, lean, raw, spectral! I’ve this morning escaped +from Raynham to avoid the sight of it. I have brought our genial uncle Hippias +to town—a delightful companion! I said to him: ‘We’ve had a +fine Spring.’ ‘Ugh!’ he answers, ‘there’s a time +when you come to think the Spring old.’ You should have heard how he +trained out the ‘old.’ I felt something like decay in my sap just +to hear him. In the prize-fight of life, my dear Austin, our uncle Hippias has +been unfairly hit below the belt. Let’s guard ourselves there, and go and +order dinner.” +</p> + +<p> +“But where’s Ricky now, and what is he doing?” said Austin. +</p> + +<p> +“Ask what he has done. The miraculous boy has gone and got a baby!” +</p> + +<p> +“A child? Richard has one?” Austin’s clear eyes shone with +pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +“I suppose it’s not common among your tropical savages. He has one: +one as big as two. That has been the death-blow to the System. It bore the +marriage—the baby was too much for it. Could it swallow the baby, +’twould live. She, the wonderful woman, has produced a large boy. I +assure you it’s quite amusing to see the System opening its mouth every +hour of the day, trying to gulp him down, aware that it would be a consummate +cure, or a happy release.” +</p> + +<p> +By degrees Austin learnt the baronet’s proceedings, and smiled sadly. +</p> + +<p> +“How has Ricky turned out?” he asked. “What sort of a +character has he?” +</p> + +<p> +“The poor boy is ruined by his excessive anxiety about it. Character? he +has the character of a bullet with a treble charge of powder behind it. +Enthusiasm is the powder. That boy could get up an enthusiasm for the maiden +days of Ops! He was going to reform the world, after your fashion, +Austin,—you have something to answer for. Unfortunately he began with the +feminine side of it. Cupid proud of Phoebus newly slain, or Pluto wishing to +people his kingdom, if you like, put it into the soft head of one of the +guileless grateful creatures to kiss him for his good work. Oh, horror! he +never expected that. Conceive the System in the flesh, and you have our +Richard. The consequence is, that this male Peri refuses to enter his Paradise, +though the gates are open for him, the trumpets blow, and the fair unspotted +one awaits him fruitful within. We heard of him last that he was trying the +German waters—preparatory to his undertaking the release of Italy from +the subjugation of the Teuton. Let’s hope they’ll wash him. He is +in the company of Lady Judith Felle—your old friend, the ardent female +Radical who married the decrepit to carry out her principles. They always marry +English lords, or foreign princes: I admire their tactics.” +</p> + +<p> +“Judith is bad for him in such a state. I like her, but she was always +too sentimental,” said Austin. +</p> + +<p> +“Sentiment made her marry the old lord, I suppose? I like her for her +sentiment, Austin. Sentimental people are sure to live long and die fat. +Feeling, that’s the slayer, coz. Sentiment! ’tis the cajolery of +existence: the soft bloom which whoso weareth, he or she is enviable. Would +that I had more!” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re not much changed, Adrian.” +</p> + +<p> +“I’m not a Radical, Austin.” +</p> + +<p> +Further inquiries, responded to in Adrian’s figurative speech, instructed +Austin that the baronet was waiting for his son, in a posture of statuesque +offended paternity, before he would receive his daughter-in-law and grandson. +That was what Adrian meant by the efforts of the System to swallow the baby. +</p> + +<p> +“We’re in a tangle,” said the wise youth. “Time will +extricate us, I presume, or what is the venerable signor good for?” +</p> + +<p> +Austin mused some minutes, and asked for Lucy’s place of residence. +</p> + +<p> +“We’ll go to her by and by,” said Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“I shall go and see her now,” said Austin. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, we’ll go and order the dinner first, coz.” +</p> + +<p> +“Give me her address.” +</p> + +<p> +“Really, Austin, you carry matters with too long a beard,” Adrian +objected. “Don’t you care what you eat?” he roared hoarsely, +looking humorously hurt. “I daresay not. A slice out of him that’s +handy—sauce du ciel! Go, batten on the baby, cannibal. Dinner at +seven.” +</p> + +<p> +Adrian gave him his own address, and Lucy’s, and strolled off to do the +better thing. +</p> + +<p> +Overnight Mrs. Berry had observed a long stranger in her tea-cup. Posting him +on her fingers and starting him with a smack, he had vaulted lightly and +thereby indicated that he was positively coming the next day. She forgot him in +the bustle of her duties and the absorption of her faculties in thoughts of the +incomparable stranger Lucy had presented to the world, till a knock at the +street-door reminded her. “There he is!” she cried, as she ran to +open to him. “There’s my stranger come!” Never was a +woman’s faith in omens so justified. The stranger desired to see Mrs. +Richard Feverel. He said his name was Mr. Austin Wentworth. Mrs. Berry clasped +her hands, exclaiming, “Come at last!” and ran bolt out of the +house to look up and down the street. Presently she returned with many excuses +for her rudeness, saying: “I expected to see her comin’ home, Mr. +Wentworth. Every day twice a day she go out to give her blessed angel an +airing. No leavin’ the child with nursemaids for her! She is a mother! +and good milk, too, thank the Lord! though her heart’s so low.” +</p> + +<p> +Indoors Mrs. Berry stated who she was, related the history of the young couple +and her participation in it, and admired the beard. “Although I’d +swear you don’t wear it for ornament, now!” she said, having in the +first impulse designed a stroke at man’s vanity. +</p> + +<p> +Ultimately Mrs. Berry spoke of the family complication, and with dejected head +and joined hands threw out dark hints about Richard. +</p> + +<p> +While Austin was giving his cheerfuller views of the case, Lucy came in +preceding the baby. +</p> + +<p> +“I am Austin Wentworth,” he said, taking her hand. They read each +other’s faces, these two, and smiled kinship. +</p> + +<p> +“Your name is Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +She affirmed it softly. +</p> + +<p> +“And mine is Austin, as you know.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry allowed time for Lucy’s charms to subdue him, and presented +Richard’s representative, who, seeing a new face, suffered himself to be +contemplated before he commenced crying aloud and knocking at the doors of +Nature for something that was due to him. +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t he a lusty darlin’?” says Mrs. Berry. +“Ain’t he like his own father? There can’t be no doubt about +zoo, zoo pitty pet. Look at his fists. Ain’t he got passion? Ain’t +he a splendid roarer? Oh!” and she went off rapturously into +baby-language. +</p> + +<p> +A fine boy, certainly. Mrs. Berry exhibited his legs for further proof, +desiring Austin’s confirmation as to their being dumplings. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy murmured a word of excuse, and bore the splendid roarer out of the room. +</p> + +<p> +“She might a done it here,” said Mrs. Berry. “There’s +no prettier sight, I say. If her dear husband could but see that! He’s +off in his heroics—he want to be doin’ all sorts o’ things: I +say he’ll never do anything grander than that baby. You should ’a +seen her uncle over that baby—he came here, for I said, you shall see +your own family, my dear, and so she thinks. He come, and he laughed over that +baby in the joy of his heart, poor man! he cried, he did. You should see that +Mr. Thompson, Mr. Wentworth—a friend o’ Mr. Richard’s, and a +very modest-minded young gentleman—he worships her in his innocence. +It’s a sight to see him with that baby. My belief is he’s unhappy +’cause he can’t anyways be nurse-maid to him. O Mr. Wentworth! what +do you think of her, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +Austin’s reply was as satisfactory as a man’s poor speech could +make it. He heard that Lady Feverel was in the house, and Mrs. Berry prepared +the way for him to pay his respects to her. Then Mrs. Berry ran to Lucy, and +the house buzzed with new life. The simple creatures felt in Austin’s +presence something good among them. “He don’t speak much,” +said Mrs. Berry, “but I see by his eye he mean a deal. He ain’t one +o’ yer long-word gentry, who’s all gay deceivers, every one of +’em.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy pressed the hearty suckling into her breast. “I wonder what he +thinks of me, Mrs. Berry? I could not speak to him. I loved him before I saw +him. I knew what his face was like.” +</p> + +<p> +“He looks proper even with a beard, and that’s a trial for a +virtuous man,” said Mrs. Berry. “One sees straight through the hair +with him. Think! he’ll think what any man’d think—you +a-suckin spite o’ all your sorrow, my sweet,—and my Berry +talkin’ of his Roman matrons!—here’s a English wife’ll +match ’em all! that’s what he thinks. And now that leetle dark +under yer eye’ll clear, my darlin’, now he’ve come.” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry looked to no more than that; Lucy to no more than the peace she had +in being near Richard’s best friend. When she sat down to tea it was with +a sense that the little room that held her was her home perhaps for many a day. +</p> + +<p> +A chop procured and cooked by Mrs. Berry formed Austin’s dinner. During +the meal he entertained them with anecdotes of his travels. Poor Lucy had no +temptation to try to conquer Austin. That heroic weakness of hers was gone. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry had said: “Three cups—I goes no further,” and Lucy +had rejected the proffer of more tea, when Austin, who was in the thick of a +Brazilian forest, asked her if she was a good traveller. +</p> + +<p> +“I mean, can you start at a minute’s notice?” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy hesitated, and then said; “Yes,” decisively, to which Mrs. +Berry added, that she was not a “luggage-woman.” +</p> + +<p> +“There used to be a train at seven o’clock,” Austin remarked, +consulting his watch. +</p> + +<p> +The two women were silent. +</p> + +<p> +“Could you get ready to come with me to Raynham in ten minutes?” +</p> + +<p> +Austin looked as if he had asked a commonplace question. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy’s lips parted to speak. She could not answer. +</p> + +<p> +Loud rattled the teaboard to Mrs. Berry’s dropping hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Joy and deliverance!” she exclaimed with a foundering voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you come?” Austin kindly asked again. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy tried to stop her beating heart, as she answered, “Yes.” Mrs. +Berry cunningly pretended to interpret the irresolution in her tones with a +mighty whisper: “She’s thinking what’s to be done with +baby.” +</p> + +<p> +“He must learn to travel,” said Austin. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh!” cried Mrs. Berry, “and I’ll be his nuss, and bear +him, a sweet! Oh! and think of it! me nurse-maid once more at Raynham Abbey! +but it’s nurse-woman now, you must say. Let us be goin’ on the +spot.” +</p> + +<p> +She started up and away in hot haste, fearing delay would cool the heaven-sent +resolve. Austin smiled, eying his watch and Lucy alternately. She was wishing +to ask a multitude of questions. His face reassured her, and saying: “I +will be dressed instantly,” she also left the room. Talking, bustling, +preparing, wrapping up my lord, and looking to their neatnesses, they were +nevertheless ready within the time prescribed by Austin, and Mrs. Berry stood +humming over the baby. “He’ll sleep it through,” she said. +“He’s had enough for an alderman, and goes to sleep sound after his +dinner, he do, a duck!” Before they departed, Lucy ran up to Lady +Feverel. She returned for the small one. +</p> + +<p> +“One moment, Mr. Wentworth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Just two,” said Austin. +</p> + +<p> +Master Richard was taken up, and when Lucy came back her eyes were full of +tears. +</p> + +<p> +“She thinks she is never to see him again, Mr. Wentworth.” +</p> + +<p> +“She shall,” Austin said simply. +</p> + +<p> +Off they went, and with Austin near her, Lucy forgot to dwell at all upon the +great act of courage she was performing. +</p> + +<p> +“I do hope baby will not wake,” was her chief solicitude. +</p> + +<p> +“He!” cries nurse-woman Berry, from the rear, “his little +tum-tum’s as tight as he can hold, a pet! a lamb! a bird! a beauty! and +ye may take yer oath he never wakes till that’s slack. He’ve got +character of his own, a blessed!” +</p> + +<p> +There are some tremendous citadels that only want to be taken by storm. The +baronet sat alone in his library, sick of resistance, and rejoicing in the +pride of no surrender; a terror to his friends and to himself. Hearing +Austin’s name sonorously pronounced by the man of calves, he looked up +from his book, and held out his hand. “Glad to see you, Austin.” +His appearance betokened complete security. The next minute he found himself +escaladed. +</p> + +<p> +It was a cry from Mrs. Berry that told him others were in the room besides +Austin. Lucy stood a little behind the lamp: Mrs. Berry close to the door. The +door was half open, and passing through it might be seen the petrified figure +of a fine man. The baronet glancing over the lamp rose at Mrs. Berry’s +signification of a woman’s personality. Austin stepped back and led Lucy +to him by the hand. “I have brought Richard’s wife, sir,” he +said with a pleased, perfectly uncalculating, countenance, that was disarming. +Very pale and trembling Lucy bowed. She felt her two hands taken, and heard a +kind voice. Could it be possible it belonged to the dreadful father of her +husband? She lifted her eyes nervously: her hands were still detained. The +baronet contemplated Richard’s choice. Had he ever had a rivalry with +those pure eyes? He saw the pain of her position shooting across her brows, +and, uttering gentle inquiries as to her health, placed her in a seat. Mrs. +Berry had already fallen into a chair. +</p> + +<p> +“What aspect do you like for your bedroom?—East?” said the +baronet. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy was asking herself wonderingly: “Am I to stay?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps you had better take to Richard’s room at once,” he +pursued. “You have the Lobourne valley there and a good morning air, and +will feel more at home.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy’s colour mounted. Mrs. Berry gave a short cough, as one who should +say, “The day is ours!” Undoubtedly—strange as it was to +think it—the fortress was carried. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy is rather tired,” said Austin, and to hear her Christian name +thus bravely spoken brought grateful dew to her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +The baronet was about to touch the bell. “But have you come alone?” +he asked. +</p> + +<p> +At this Mrs. Berry came forward. Not immediately: it seemed to require effort +for her to move, and when she was within the region of the lamp, her agitation +could not escape notice. The blissful bundle shook in her arms. +</p> + +<p> +“By the way, what is he to me?” Austin inquired generally as he +went and unveiled the younger hope of Raynham. “My relationship is not so +defined as yours, sir.” +</p> + +<p> +An observer might have supposed that the baronet peeped at his grandson with +the courteous indifference of one who merely wished to compliment the mother of +anybody’s child. +</p> + +<p> +“I really think he’s like Richard,” Austin laughed. Lucy +looked: I am sure he is! +</p> + +<p> +“As like as one to one,” Mrs. Berry murmured feebly; but Grandpapa +not speaking she thought it incumbent on her to pluck up. “And he’s +as healthy as his father was, Sir Austin—spite o’ the might +’a beens. Reg’lar as the clock! We never want a clock since he +come. We knows the hour o’ the day, and of the night.” +</p> + +<p> +“You nurse him yourself, of course?” the baronet spoke to Lucy, and +was satisfied on that point. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry was going to display his prodigious legs. Lucy, fearing the +consequent effect on the prodigious lungs, begged her not to wake him. +“’T’d take a deal to do that,” said Mrs. Berry, and +harped on Master Richard’s health and the small wonder it was that he +enjoyed it, considering the superior quality of his diet, and the lavish +attentions of his mother, and then suddenly fell silent on a deep sigh. +</p> + +<p> +“He looks healthy,” said the baronet, “but I am not a judge +of babies.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus, having capitulated, Raynham chose to acknowledge its new commandant, who +was now borne away, under the directions of the housekeeper, to occupy the room +Richard had slept in when an infant. +</p> + +<p> +Austin cast no thought on his success. The baronet said: “She is +extremely well-looking.” He replied: “A person you take to at +once.” There it ended. +</p> + +<p> +But a much more animated colloquy was taking place aloft, where Lucy and Mrs. +Berry sat alone. Lucy expected her to talk about the reception they had met +with, and the house, and the peculiarities of the rooms, and the solid +happiness that seemed in store. Mrs. Berry all the while would persist in +consulting the looking-glass. Her first distinct answer was, “My dear! +tell me candid, how do I look?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very nice indeed, Mrs. Berry; but could you have believed he would be so +kind, so considerate?” +</p> + +<p> +“I am sure I looked a frump,” returned Mrs. Berry. “Oh dear! +two birds at a shot. What do you think, now?” +</p> + +<p> +“I never saw so wonderful a likeness,” says Lucy. +</p> + +<p> +“Likeness! look at me.” Mrs. Berry was trembling and hot in the +palms. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re very feverish, dear Berry. What can it be?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ain’t it like the love-flutters of a young gal, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Go to bed, Berry, dear,” says Lucy, pouting in her soft caressing +way. “I will undress you, and see to you, dear heart! You’ve had so +much excitement.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! ha!” Berry laughed hysterically; “she thinks it’s +about this business of hers. Why, it’s child’s-play, my +darlin’. But I didn’t look for tragedy to-night. Sleep in this +house I can’t, my love!” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy was astonished. “Not sleep here, Mrs. Berry?—Oh! why, you +silly old thing? I know.” +</p> + +<p> +“Do ye!” said Mrs. Berry, with a sceptical nose. +</p> + +<p> +“You’re afraid of ghosts.” +</p> + +<p> +“Belike I am when they’re six foot two in their shoes, and bellows +when you stick a pin into their calves. I seen my Berry!” +</p> + +<p> +“Your husband?” +</p> + +<p> +“Large as life!” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy meditated on optical delusions, but Mrs. Berry described him as the +Colossus who had marched them into the library, and vowed that he had +recognized her and quaked. “Time ain’t aged him,” said Mrs. +Berry, “whereas me! he’ve got his excuse now. I know I look a +frump.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy kissed her: “You look the nicest, dearest old thing.” +</p> + +<p> +“You may say an old thing, my dear.” +</p> + +<p> +“And your husband is really here?” +</p> + +<p> +“Berry’s below!” +</p> + +<p> +Profoundly uttered as this was, it chased every vestige of incredulity. +</p> + +<p> +“What will you do, Mrs. Berry?” +</p> + +<p> +“Go, my dear. Leave him to be happy in his own way. It’s over +atween us, I see that. When I entered the house I felt there was something +comin’ over me, and lo and behold ye! no sooner was we in the +hall-passage—if it hadn’t been for that blessed infant I should +’a dropped. I must ’a known his step, for my heart began +thumpin’, and I knew I hadn’t got my hair straight—that Mr. +Wentworth was in such a hurry—nor my best gown. I knew he’d scorn +me. He hates frumps.” +</p> + +<p> +“Scorn you!” cried Lucy, angrily. “He who has behaved so +wickedly!” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry attempted to rise. “I may as well go at once,” she +whimpered. “If I see him I shall only be disgracin’ of myself. I +feel it all on my side already. Did ye mark him, my dear? I know I was +vexin’ to him at times, I was. Those big men are so touchy about their +dignity—nat’ral. Hark at me! I’m goin’ all soft in a +minute. Let me leave the house, my dear. I daresay it was good half my fault. +Young women don’t understand men sufficient—not +altogether—and I was a young woman then; and then what they goes and does +they ain’t quite answerable for: they, feel, I daresay, pushed from +behind. Yes. I’ll go. I’m a frump. I’ll go. +’Tain’t in natur’ for me to sleep in the same house.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy laid her hands on Mrs. Berry’s shoulders, and forcibly fixed her in +her seat. “Leave baby, naughty woman? I tell you he shall come to you, +and fall on his knees to you and beg your forgiveness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Berry on his knees!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. And he shall beg and pray you to forgive him.” +</p> + +<p> +“If you get more from Martin Berry than breath-away words, great’ll +be my wonder!” said Mrs. Berry. +</p> + +<p> +“We will see,” said Lucy, thoroughly determined to do something for +the good creature that had befriended her. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry examined her gown. “Won’t it seem we’re +runnin’ after him?” she murmured faintly. +</p> + +<p> +“He is your husband, Mrs. Berry. He may be wanting to come to you +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! Where is all I was goin’ to say to that man when we +met.” Mrs. Berry ejaculated. Lucy had left the room. +</p> + +<p> +On the landing outside the door Lucy met a lady dressed in black, who stopped +her and asked if she was Richard’s wife, and kissed her, passing from her +immediately. Lucy despatched a message for Austin, and related the Berry +history. Austin sent for the great man and said: “Do you know your wife +is here?” Before Berry had time to draw himself up to enunciate his +longest, he was requested to step upstairs, and as his young mistress at once +led the way, Berry could not refuse to put his legs in motion and carry the +stately edifice aloft. +</p> + +<p> +Of the interview Mrs. Berry gave Lucy a slight sketch that night. “He +began in the old way, my dear, and says I, a true heart and plain words, Martin +Berry. So there he cuts himself and his Johnson short, and down he +goes—down on his knees. I never could ’a believed it. I kep my +dignity as a woman till I see that sight, but that done for me. I was a ripe +apple in his arms ’fore I knew where I was. There’s something about +a fine man on his knees that’s too much for us women. And it reely was +the penitent on his two knees, not the lover on his one. If he mean it! But ah! +what do you think he begs of me, my dear?—not to make it known in the +house just yet! I can’t, I can’t say that look well.” +</p> + +<p> +Lucy attributed it to his sense of shame at his conduct, and Mrs. Berry did her +best to look on it in that light. +</p> + +<p> +“Did the bar’net kiss ye when you wished him goodnight?” she +asked. Lucy said he had not. “Then bide awake as long as ye can,” +was Mrs. Berry’s rejoinder. “And now let us pray blessings on that +simple-speaking gentleman who does so much ’cause he says so +little.” +</p> + +<p> +Like many other natural people, Mrs. Berry was only silly where her own soft +heart was concerned. As she secretly anticipated, the baronet came into her +room when all was quiet. She saw him go and bend over Richard the Second, and +remain earnestly watching him. He then went to the half-opened door of the room +where Lucy slept, leaned his ear a moment, knocked gently, and entered. Mrs. +Berry heard low words interchanging within. She could not catch a syllable, yet +she would have sworn to the context. “He’ve called her his +daughter, promised her happiness, and given a father’s kiss to +her.” When Sir Austin passed out she was in a deep sleep. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap42"></a> +CHAPTER XLII</h2> + +<p> +Briareus reddening angrily over the sea—what is that vaporous Titan? And +Hesper set in his rosy garland—why looks he so implacably sweet? It is +that one has left that bright home to go forth and do cloudy work, and he has +got a stain with which he dare not return. Far in the West fair Lucy beckons +him to come. Ah, heaven! if he might! How strong and fierce the temptation is! +how subtle the sleepless desire! it drugs his reason, his honour. For he loves +her; she is still the first and only woman to him. Otherwise would this black +spot be hell to him? otherwise would his limbs be chained while her arms are +spread open to him. And if he loves her, why then what is one fall in the pit, +or a thousand? Is not love the password to that beckoning bliss? So may we say; +but here is one whose body has been made a temple to him, and it is desecrated. +</p> + +<p> +A temple, and desecrated! For what is it fit for but for a dance of devils? His +education has thus wrought him to think. +</p> + +<p> +He can blame nothing but his own baseness. But to feel base and accept the +bliss that beckons—he has not fallen so low as that. +</p> + +<p> +Ah, happy English home! sweet wife! what mad miserable Wisp of the Fancy led +him away from you, high in his conceit? Poor wretch! that thought to be he of +the hundred hands, and war against the absolute Gods. Jove whispered a light +commission to the Laughing Dame; she met him; and how did he shake Olympus? +with laughter? +</p> + +<p> +Sure it were better to be Orestes, the Furies howling in his ears, than one +called to by a heavenly soul from whom he is for ever outcast. He has not the +oblivion of madness. Clothed in the lights of his first passion, robed in the +splendour of old skies, she meets him everywhere; morning, evening, night, she +shines above him; waylays him suddenly in forest depths; drops palpably on his +heart. At moments he forgets; he rushes to embrace her; calls her his beloved, +and lo, her innocent kiss brings agony of shame to his face. +</p> + +<p> +Daily the struggle endured. His father wrote to him, begging him by the love he +had for him to return. From that hour Richard burnt unread all the letters he +received. He knew too well how easily he could persuade himself: words from +without might tempt him and quite extinguish the spark of honourable feeling +that tortured him, and that he clung to in desperate self-vindication. +</p> + +<p> +To arrest young gentlemen on the downward slope is both a dangerous and +thankless office. It is, nevertheless, one that fair women greatly prize, and +certain of them professionally follow. Lady Judith, as far as her sex would +permit, was also of the Titans in their battle against the absolute Gods; for +which purpose, mark you, she had married a lord incapable in all save his +acres. Her achievements she kept to her own mind: she did not look happy over +them. She met Richard accidentally in Paris; she saw his state; she let him +learn that she alone on earth understood him. The consequence was that he was +forthwith enrolled in her train. It soothed him to be near a woman. Did she +venture her guess as to the cause of his conduct, she blotted it out with a +facility women have, and cast on it a melancholy hue he was taught to +participate in. She spoke of sorrows, personal sorrows, much as he might speak +of his—vaguely, and with self-blame. And she understood him. How the dark +unfathomed wealth within us gleams to a woman’s eye! We are at compound +interest immediately: so much richer than we knew!—almost as rich as we +dreamed! But then the instant we are away from her we find ourselves bankrupt, +beggared. How is that? We do not ask. We hurry to her and bask hungrily in her +orbs. The eye must be feminine to be thus creative: I cannot say why. Lady +Judith understood Richard, and he feeling infinitely vile, somehow held to her +more feverishly, as one who dreaded the worst in missing her. The spirit must +rest; he was weak with what he suffered. +</p> + +<p> +Austin found them among the hills of Nassau in Rhineland: Titans, male and +female, who had not displaced Jove, and were now adrift, prone on floods of +sentiment. The blue-flocked peasant swinging behind his oxen of a morning, the +gaily-kerchiefed fruit-woman, the jackass-driver, even the doctor of those +regions, have done more for their fellows. Horrible reflection! Lady Judith is +serene above it, but it frets at Richard when he is out of her shadow. Often +wretchedly he watches the young men of his own age trooping to their work. Not +cloud-work theirs! Work solid, unambitious, fruitful! +</p> + +<p> +Lady Judith had a nobler in prospect for the hero. He gaped blindfolded for +anything, and she gave him the map of Europe in tatters. He swallowed it +comfortably. It was an intoxicating cordial. Himself on horseback overriding +wrecks of Empires! Well might common sense cower with the meaner animals at the +picture. Tacitly they agreed to recast the civilized globe. The quality of +vapour is to melt and shape itself anew; but it is never the quality of vapour +to reassume the same shapes. Briareus of the hundred unoccupied hands may turn +to a monstrous donkey with his hind legs aloft, or twenty thousand jabbering +apes. The phantasmic groupings of the young brain are very like those we see in +the skies, and equally the sport of the wind. Lady Judith blew. There was +plenty of vapour in him, and it always resolved into some shape or other. You +that mark those clouds of eventide, and know youth, will see the similitude: it +will not be strange, it will barely seem foolish to you, that a young man of +Richard’s age, Richard’s education and position, should be in this +wild state. Had he not been nursed to believe he was born for great things? Did +she not say she was sure of it? And to feel base, yet born for better, is +enough to make one grasp at anything cloudy. Suppose the hero with a game leg. +How intense is his faith to quacks! with what a passion of longing is he not +seized to break somebody’s head! They spoke of Italy in low voices. +“The time will come,” said she. “And I shall be ready,” +said he. What rank was he to take in the liberating army? Captain, colonel, +general in chief, or simple private? Here, as became him, he was much more +positive and specific than she was: Simple private, he said. Yet he save +himself caracoling on horseback. Private in the cavalry, then, of course. +Private in the cavalry over-riding wrecks of Empires. She looked forth under +her brows with mournful indistinctness at that object in the distance. They +read Petrarch to get up the necessary fires. Italia mia! Vain indeed was this +speaking to those thick and mortal wounds in her fair body, but their sighs +went with the Tiber, the Arno, and the Po, and their hands joined. Who has not +wept for Italy? I see the aspirations of a world arise for her, thick and +frequent as the puffs of smoke from cigars of Pannonian sentries! +</p> + +<p> +So when Austin came Richard said he could not leave Lady Judith, Lady Judith +said she could not part with him. For his sake, mind! This Richard verified. +Perhaps he had reason to be grateful. The high road of Folly may have led him +from one that terminates worse. He is foolish, God knows; but for my part I +will not laugh at the hero because he has not got his occasion. Meet him when +he is, as it were, anointed by his occasion, and he is no laughing matter. +</p> + +<p> +Richard felt his safety in this which, to please the world, we must term folly. +Exhalation of vapours was a wholesome process to him, and somebody who gave +them shape and hue a beneficent Iris. He told Austin plainly he could not leave +her, and did not anticipate the day when he could. +</p> + +<p> +“Why can’t you go to your wife, Richard?” +</p> + +<p> +“For a reason you would be the first to approve, Austin.” +</p> + +<p> +He welcomed Austin with every show of manly tenderness, and sadness at heart. +Austin he had always associated with his Lucy in that Hesperian palace of the +West. Austin waited patiently. Lady Judith’s old lord played on all the +baths in Nassau without evoking the tune of health. Whithersoever he listed she +changed her abode. So admirable a wife was to be pardoned for espousing an old +man. She was an enthusiast even in her connubial duties. She had the brows of +an enthusiast. With occasion she might have been a Charlotte Corday. So let her +also be shielded from the ban of ridicule. Nonsense of enthusiasts is very +different from nonsense of ninnies. She was truly a high-minded person, of that +order who always do what they see to be right, and always have confidence in +their optics. She was not unworthy of a young man’s admiration, if she +was unfit to be his guide. She resumed her ancient intimacy with Austin easily, +while she preserved her new footing with Richard. She and Austin were not +unlike, only Austin never dreamed, and had not married an old lord. +</p> + +<p> +The three were walking on the bridge at Limburg on the Lahn, where the shadow +of a stone bishop is thrown by the moonlight on the water brawling over slabs +of slate. A woman passed them bearing in her arms a baby, whose mighty size +drew their attention. +</p> + +<p> +“What a wopper!” Richard laughed. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that is a fine fellow,” said Austin, “but I +don’t think he’s much bigger than your boy.” +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll do for a nineteenth-century Arminius,” Richard was +saying. Then he looked at Austin. +</p> + +<p> +“What was that you said?” Lady Judith asked of Austin. +</p> + +<p> +“What have I said that deserves to be repeated?” Austin +counterqueried quite innocently. +</p> + +<p> +“Richard has a son?” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t know it?” +</p> + +<p> +“His modesty goes very far,” said Lady Judith, sweeping the shadow +of a curtsey to Richard’s paternity. +</p> + +<p> +Richard’s heart throbbed with violence. He looked again in Austin’s +face. Austin took it so much as a matter of course that he said nothing more on +the subject. +</p> + +<p> +“Well!” murmured Lady Judith. +</p> + +<p> +When the two men were alone, Richard said in a quick voice: “Austin! you +were in earnest?” +</p> + +<p> +“You didn’t know it, Richard?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, they all wrote to you. Lucy wrote to you: your father, your aunt. I +believe Adrian wrote too.” +</p> + +<p> +“I tore up their letters,” said Richard. +</p> + +<p> +“He’s a noble fellow, I can tell you. You’ve nothing to be +ashamed of. He’ll soon be coming to ask about you. I made sure you +knew.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, I never knew.” Richard walked away, and then said: “What +is he like?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, he really is like you, but he has his mother’s eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And she’s—” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I think the child has kept her well.” +</p> + +<p> +“They’re both at Raynham?” +</p> + +<p> +“Both.” +</p> + +<p> +Hence fantastic vapours! What are ye to this! Where are the dreams of the hero +when he learns he has a child? Nature is taking him to her bosom. She will +speak presently. Every domesticated boor in these hills can boast the same, yet +marvels the hero at none of his visioned prodigies as he does when he comes to +hear of this most common performance. A father? Richard fixed his eyes as if he +were trying to make out the lineaments of his child. +</p> + +<p> +Telling Austin he would be back in a few minutes, he sallied into the air, and +walked on and on. “A father!” he kept repeating to himself: +“a child!” And though he knew it not, he was striking the keynotes +of Nature. But he did know of a singular harmony that suddenly burst over his +whole being. +</p> + +<p> +The moon was surpassingly bright: the summer air heavy and still. He left the +high road and pierced into the forest. His walk was rapid: the leaves on the +trees brushed his cheeks; the dead leaves heaped in the dells noised to his +feet. Something of a religious joy—a strange sacred pleasure—was in +him. By degrees it wore; he remembered himself: and now he was possessed by a +proportionate anguish. A father! he dared never see his child. And he had no +longer his phantasies to fall upon. He was utterly bare to his sin. In his +troubled mind it seemed to him that Clare looked down on him—Clare who +saw him as he was; and that to her eyes it would be infamy for him to go and +print his kiss upon his child. Then came stern efforts to command his misery +and make the nerves of his face iron. +</p> + +<p> +By the log of an ancient tree half buried in dead leaves of past summers, +beside a brook, he halted as one who had reached his journey’s end. There +he discovered he had a companion in Lady Judith’s little dog. He gave the +friendly animal a pat of recognition, and both were silent in the +forest-silence. +</p> + +<p> +It was impossible for Richard to return; his heart was surcharged. He must +advance, and on he footed, the little dog following. +</p> + +<p> +An oppressive slumber hung about the forest-branches. In the dells and on the +heights was the same dead heat. Here where the brook tinkled it was no +cool-lipped sound, but metallic, and without the spirit of water. Yonder in a +space of moonlight on lush grass, the beams were as white fire to sight and +feeling. No haze spread around. The valleys were clear, defined to the shadows +of their verges, the distances sharply distinct, and with the colours of day +but slightly softened. Richard beheld a roe moving across a slope of sward far +out of rifle-mark. The breathless silence was significant, yet the moon shone +in a broad blue heaven. Tongue out of mouth trotted the little dog after him; +crouched panting when he stopped an instant; rose weariedly when he started +afresh. Now and then a large white night-moth flitted through the dusk of the +forest. +</p> + +<p> +On a barren corner of the wooded highland looking inland stood grey topless +ruins set in nettles and rank grass-blades. Richard mechanically sat down on +the crumbling flints to rest, and listened to the panting of the dog. Sprinkled +at his feet were emerald lights: hundreds of glow-worms studded the dark dry +ground. +</p> + +<p> +He sat and eyed them, thinking not at all. His energies were expended in +action. He sat as a part of the ruins, and the moon turned his shadow Westward +from the South. Overhead, as she declined, long ripples of silver cloud were +imperceptibly stealing toward her. They were the van of a tempest. He did not +observe them or the leaves beginning to chatter. When he again pursued his +course with his face to the Rhine, a huge mountain appeared to rise sheer over +him, and he had it in his mind to scale it. He got no nearer to the base of it +for all his vigorous outstepping. The ground began to dip; he lost sight of the +sky. Then heavy, thunder-drops streak his cheek, the leaves were singing, the +earth breathed, it was black before him, and behind. All at once the thunder +spoke. The mountain he had marked was bursting over him. +</p> + +<p> +Up startled the whole forest in violet fire. He saw the country at the foot of +the hills to the bounding Rhine gleam, quiver, extinguished. Then there were +pauses; and the lightning seemed as the eye of heaven, and the thunder as the +tongue of heaven, each alternately addressing him; filling him with awful +rapture. Alone there—sole human creature among the grandeurs and +mysteries of storm—he felt the representative of his kind, and his spirit +rose, and marched, and exulted, let it be glory, let it be ruin! Lower down the +lightened abysses of air rolled the wrathful crash; then white thrusts of light +were darted from the sky, and great curving ferns, seen steadfast in pallor a +second, were supernaturally agitated, and vanished. Then a shrill song roused +in the leaves and the herbage. Prolonged and louder it sounded, as deeper and +heavier the deluge pressed. A mighty force of water satisfied the desire of the +earth. Even in this, drenched as he was by the first outpouring, Richard had a +savage pleasure. Keeping in motion, he was scarcely conscious of the wet, and +the grateful breath of the weeds was refreshing. Suddenly he stopped short, +lifting a curious nostril. He fancied he smelt meadow-sweet. He had never seen +the flower in Rhineland—never thought of it; and it would hardly be met +with in a forest. He was sure he smelt it fresh in dews. His little companion +wagged a miserable wet tail some way in advance. He went an slowly, thinking +indistinctly. After two or three steps he stooped and stretched out his hand to +feel for the flower, having, he knew not why, a strong wish to verify its +growth there. Groping about, his hand encountered something warm that started +at his touch, and he, with the instinct we have, seized it, and lifted it to +look at it. The creature was very small, evidently quite young. Richard’s +eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, were able to discern it for what it was, +a tiny leveret, and ha supposed that the dog had probably frightened its dam +just before he found it. He put the little thing on one hand in his breast, and +stepped out rapidly as before. +</p> + +<p> +The rain was now steady; from every tree a fountain poured. So cool and easy +had his mind become that he was speculating on what kind of shelter the birds +could find, and how the butterflies and moths saved their coloured wings from +washing. Folded close they might hang under a leaf, he thought. Lovingly he +looked into the dripping darkness of the coverts on each side, as one of their +children. He was next musing on a strange sensation he experienced. It ran up +one arm with an indescribable thrill, but communicated nothing to his heart. It +was purely physical, ceased for a time, and recommenced, till he had it all +through his blood, wonderfully thrilling. He grew aware that the little thing +he carried in his breast was licking his hand there. The small rough tongue +going over and over the palm of his hand produced the strange sensation he +felt. Now that he knew the cause, the marvel ended; but now that he knew the +cause, his heart was touched and made more of it. The gentle scraping continued +without intermission as on he walked. What did it say to him? Human tongue +could not have said so much just then. +</p> + +<p> +A pale grey light on the skirts of the flying tempest displayed the dawn. +Richard was walking hurriedly. The green drenched weeds lay all about in his +path, bent thick, and the forest drooped glimmeringly. Impelled as a man who +feels a revelation mounting obscurely to his brain, Richard was passing one of +those little forest-chapels, hung with votive wreaths, where the peasant halts +to kneel and pray. Cold, still, in the twilight it stood, rain-drops pattering +round it. He looked within, and saw the Virgin holding her Child. He moved by. +But not many steps had he gone ere his strength went out of him, and he +shuddered. What was it? He asked not. He was in other hands. Vivid as lightning +the Spirit of Life illumined him. He felt in his heart the cry of his child, +his darling’s touch. With shut eyes he saw them both. They drew him from +the depths; they led him a blind and tottering man. And as they led him he had +a sense of purification so sweet he shuddered again and again. +</p> + +<p> +When he looked out from his trance on the breathing world, the small birds +hopped and chirped: warm fresh sunlight was over all the hills. He was on the +edge of the forest, entering a plain clothed with ripe corn under a spacious +morning sky. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap43"></a> +CHAPTER XLIII</h2> + +<p> +They heard at Raynham that Richard was coming. Lucy had the news first in a +letter from Ripton Thompson, who met him at Bonn. Ripton did not say that he +had employed his vacation holiday on purpose to use his efforts to induce his +dear friend to return to his wife; and finding Richard already on his way, of +course Ripton said nothing to him, but affected to be travelling for his +pleasure like any cockney. Richard also wrote to her. In case she should have +gone to the sea he directed her to send word to his hotel that he might not +lose an hour. His letter was sedate in tone, very sweet to her. Assisted by the +faithful female Berry, she was conquering an Aphorist. +</p> + +<p> +“Woman’s reason is in the milk of her breasts,” was one of +his rough notes, due to an observation of Lucy’s maternal cares. Let us +remember, therefore, we men who have drunk of it largely there, that she has +it. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry zealously apprised him how early Master Richard’s education +had commenced, and the great future historian he must consequently be. This +trait in Lucy was of itself sufficient to win Sir Austin. +</p> + +<p> +“Here my plan with Richard was false,” he reflected: “in +presuming that anything save blind fortuity would bring him such a mate as he +should have.” He came to add: “And has got!” +</p> + +<p> +He could admit now that instinct had so far beaten science; for as Richard was +coming, as all were to be happy, his wisdom embraced them all paternally as the +author of their happiness. Between him and Lucy a tender intimacy grew. +</p> + +<p> +“I told you she could talk, sir,” said Adrian. +</p> + +<p> +“She thinks!” said the baronet. +</p> + +<p> +The delicate question how she was to treat her uncle, he settled generously. +Farmer Blaize should come up to Raynham when he would: Lucy must visit him at +least three times a week. He had Farmer Blaize and Mrs. Berry to study, and +really excellent Aphorisms sprang from the plain human bases this natural +couple presented. +</p> + +<p> +“It will do us no harm,” he thought, “some of the honest +blood of the soil in our veins.” And he was content in musing on the +parentage of the little cradled boy. A common sight for those who had the entry +to the library was the baronet cherishing the hand of his daughter-in-law. +</p> + +<p> +So Richard was crossing the sea, and hearts at Raynham were beating quicker +measures as the minutes progressed. That night he would be with them. Sir +Austin gave Lucy a longer, warmer salute when she came down to breakfast in the +morning. Mrs. Berry waxed thrice amorous. “It’s your second +bridals, ye sweet livin’ widow!” she said. “Thanks be the +Lord! it’s the same man too! and a baby over the bed-post,” she +appended seriously. +</p> + +<p> +“Strange,” Berry declared it to be, “strange I feel none +o’ this to my Berry now. All my feelin’s o’ love seem +t’ave gone into you two sweet chicks.” +</p> + +<p> +In fact, the faithless male Berry complained of being treated badly, and +affected a superb jealousy of the baby; but the good dame told him that if he +suffered at all he suffered his due. Berry’s position was decidedly +uncomfortable. It could not be concealed from the lower household that he had a +wife in the establishment, and for the complications this gave rise to, his +wife would not legitimately console him. Lucy did intercede, but Mrs. Berry, +was obdurate. She averred she would not give up the child till he was weaned. +“Then, perhaps,” she said prospectively. “You see I +ain’t so soft as you thought for.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’re a very unkind, vindictive old woman,” said Lucy. +</p> + +<p> +“Belike I am,” Mrs. Berry was proud to agree. We like a new +character, now and then. Berry had delayed too long. +</p> + +<p> +Were it not notorious that the straightlaced prudish dare not listen to, the +natural chaste, certain things Mrs. Berry thought it advisable to impart to the +young wife with regard to Berry’s infidelity, and the charity women +should have toward sinful men, might here be reproduced. Enough that she +thought proper to broach the matter, and cite her own Christian sentiments, now +that she was indifferent in some degree. +</p> + +<p> +Oily calm is on the sea. At Raynham they look up at the sky and speculate that +Richard is approaching fairly speeded. He comes to throw himself on his +darling’s mercy. Lucy irradiated over forest and sea, tempest and +peace—to her the hero comes humbly. Great is that day when we see our +folly! Ripton and he were the friends of old. Richard encouraged him to talk of +the two he could be eloquent on, and Ripton, whose secret vanity was in his +powers of speech, never tired of enumerating Lucy’s virtues, and the +peculiar attributes of the baby. +</p> + +<p> +“She did not say a word against me, Rip?” +</p> + +<p> +“Against you, Richard! The moment she knew she was to be a mother, she +thought of nothing but her duty to the child. She’s one who can’t +think of herself.” +</p> + +<p> +“You’ve seen her at Raynham, Rip?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, once. They asked me down. And your father’s so fond of +her—I’m sure he thinks no woman like her, and he’s right. She +is so lovely, and so good.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard was too full of blame of himself to blame his father: too British to +expose his emotions. Ripton divined how deep and changed they were by his +manner. He had cast aside the hero, and however Ripton had obeyed him and +looked up to him in the heroic time, he loved him tenfold now. He told his +friend how much Lucy’s mere womanly sweetness and excellence had done for +him, and Richard contrasted his own profitless extravagance with the patient +beauty of his dear home angel. He was not one to take her on the easy terms +that offered. There was that to do which made his cheek burn as he thought of +it, but he was going to do it, even though it lost her to him. Just to see her +and kneel to her was joy sufficient to sustain him, and warm his blood in the +prospect. They marked the white cliffs growing over the water. Nearer, the sun +made them lustrous. Houses and people seemed to welcome the wild youth to +common sense, simplicity, and home. +</p> + +<p> +They were in town by mid-day. Richard had a momentary idea of not driving to +his hotel for letters. After a short debate he determined to go there. The +porter said he had two letters for Mr. Richard Feverel—one had been +waiting some time. He went to the box and fetched them. The first Richard +opened was from Lucy, and as he read it, Ripton observed the colour deepen on +his face, while a quivering smile played about his mouth. He opened the other +indifferently. It began without any form of address. Richard’s forehead +darkened at the signature. This letter was in a sloping feminine hand, and +flourished with light strokes all over, like a field of the bearded barley. +Thus it ran: +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +“I know you are in a rage with me because I would not consent to ruin +you, you foolish fellow. What do you call it? Going to that unpleasant place +together. Thank you, my milliner is not ready yet, and I want to make a good +appearance when I do go. I suppose I shall have to some day. Your health, Sir +Richard. Now let me speak to you seriously. Go home to your wife at once. But I +know the sort of fellow you are, and I must be plain with you. Did I ever say I +loved you? You may hate me as much as you please, but I will save you from +being a fool. +</p> + +<p> +“Now listen to me. You know my relations with Mount. That beast Brayder +offered to pay all my debts and set me afloat, if I would keep you in town. I +declare on my honour I had no idea why, and I did not agree to it. But you were +such a handsome fellow—I noticed you in the park before I heard a word of +you. But then you fought shy—you were just as tempting as a girl. You +stung me. Do you know what that is? I would make you care for me, and we know +how it ended, without any intention of mine, I swear. I’d have cut off my +hand rather than do you any harm, upon my honour. Circumstances! Then I saw it +was all up between us. Brayder came and began to chaff about you. I dealt the +animal a stroke on the face with my riding-whip—I shut him up pretty +quick. Do you think I would let a man speak about you?—I was going to +swear. You see I remember Dick’s lessons. O my God! I do feel +unhappy.—Brayder offered me money. Go and think I took it, if you like. +What do I care what anybody thinks! Something that black-guard said made me +suspicious. I went down to the Isle of Wight where Mount was, and your wife was +just gone with an old lady who came and took her away. I should so have liked +to see her. You said, you remember, she would take me as a sister, and treat +me—I laughed at it then. My God! how I could cry now, if water did any +good to a devil, as you politely call poor me. I called at your house and saw +your man-servant, who said Mount had just been there. In a minute it struck me. +I was sure Mount was after a woman, but it never struck me that woman was your +wife. Then I saw why they wanted me to keep you away. I went to Brayder. You +know how I hate him. I made love to the man to get it out of him. Richard! my +word of honour, they have planned to carry her off, if Mount finds he cannot +seduce her. Talk of devils! He’s one; but he is not so bad as Brayder. I +cannot forgive a mean dog his villany. +</p> + +<p> +“Now after this, I am quite sure you are too much of a man to stop away +from her another moment. I have no more to say. I suppose we shall not see each +other again, so good-bye, Dick! I fancy I hear you cursing me. Why can’t +you feel like other men on the subject? But if you were like the rest of them I +should not have cared for you a farthing. I have not worn lilac since I saw you +last. I’ll be buried in your colour, Dick. That will not offend +you—will it? +</p> + +<p> +“You are not going to believe I took the money? If I thought you thought +that—it makes me feel like a devil only to fancy you think it. +</p> + +<p> +“The first time you meet Brayder, cane him publicly. +</p> + +<p> +“Adieu! Say it’s because you don’t like his face. I suppose +devils must not say Adieu. Here’s plain old good-bye, then, between you +and me. Good-bye, dear Dick! You won’t think that of me? +</p> + +<p> +“May I eat dry bread to the day of my death if I took or ever will touch +a scrap of their money. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +B<small>ELLA</small>.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard folded up the letter silently. +</p> + +<p> +“Jump into the cab,” he said to Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +“Anything the matter, Richard?” +</p> + +<p> +“No.” +</p> + +<p> +The driver received directions. Richard sat without speaking. His friend knew +that face. He asked whether there was bad news in the letter. For answer, he +had the lie circumstancial. He ventured to remark that they were going the +wrong way. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s the right way,” cried Richard, and his jaws were hard +and square, and his eyes looked heavy and full. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton said no more, but thought. +</p> + +<p> +The cabman pulled up at a Club. A gentleman, in whom Ripton recognized the Hon. +Peter Brayder, was just then swinging a leg over his horse, with one foot in +the stirrup. Hearing his name called, the Hon. Peter turned about, and +stretched an affable hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Is Mountfalcon in town?” said Richard taking the horse’s +reins instead of the gentlemanly hand. His voice and aspect were quite +friendly. +</p> + +<p> +“Mount?” Brayder replied, curiously watching the action; +“yes. He’s off this evening.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is in town?” Richard released his horse. “I want to see +him. Where is he?” +</p> + +<p> +The young man looked pleasant: that which might have aroused Brayder’s +suspicions was an old affair in parasitical register by this time. “Want +to see him? What about?” he said carelessly, and gave the address. +</p> + +<p> +“By the way,” he sang out, “we thought of putting your name +down, Feverel.” He indicated the lofty structure. “What do you +say?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard nodded back at him, crying, “Hurry.” Brayder returned the +nod, and those who promenaded the district soon beheld his body in elegant +motion to the stepping of his well-earned horse. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you want to see Lord Mountfalcon for, Richard?” said +Ripton. +</p> + +<p> +“I just want to see him,” Richard replied. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton was left in the cab at the door of my lord’s residence. He had to +wait there a space of about ten minutes, when Richard returned with a clearer +visage, though somewhat heated. He stood outside the cab, and Ripton was +conscious of being examined by those strong grey eyes. As clear as speech he +understood them to say to him, “You won’t do,” but which of +the many things on earth he would not do for he was at a loss to think. +</p> + +<p> +“Go down to Raynham, Ripton. Say I shall be there tonight certainly. +Don’t bother me with questions. Drive off at once. Or wait. Get another +cab. I’ll take this.” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton was ejected, and found himself standing alone in the street. As he was +on the point of rushing after the galloping cab-horse to get a word of +elucidation, he heard some one speak behind him. +</p> + +<p> +“You are Feverel’s friend?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton had an eye for lords. An ambrosial footman, standing at the open door of +Lord Mountfalcon’s house, and a gentleman standing on the doorstep, told +him that he was addressed by that nobleman. He was requested to step into the +house. When they were alone, Lord Mountfalcon, slightly ruffled, said: +“Feverel has insulted me grossly. I must meet him, of course. It’s +a piece of infernal folly!—I suppose he is not quite mad?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton’s only definite answer was, a gasping iteration of “My +lord.” +</p> + +<p> +My lord resumed: “I am perfectly guiltless of offending him, as far as I +know. In fact, I had a friendship for him. Is he liable to fits of this sort of +thing?” +</p> + +<p> +Not yet at conversation-point, Ripton stammered: “Fits, my lord?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” went the other, eying Ripton in lordly cognizant style. +“You know nothing of this business, perhaps?” +</p> + +<p> +Ripton said he did not. +</p> + +<p> +“Have you any influence with him?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not much, my lord. Only now and then—a little.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are not in the Army?” +</p> + +<p> +The question was quite unnecessary. Ripton confessed to the law, and my lord +did not look surprised. +</p> + +<p> +“I will not detain you,” he said, distantly bowing. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton gave him a commoner’s obeisance; but getting to the door, the +sense of the matter enlightened him. +</p> + +<p> +“It’s a duel, my lord?” +</p> + +<p> +“No help for it, if his friends don’t shut him up in Bedlam between +this and to-morrow morning.” +</p> + +<p> +Of all horrible things a duel was the worst in Ripton’s imagination. He +stood holding the handle of the door, revolving this last chapter of calamity +suddenly opened where happiness had promised. +</p> + +<p> +“A duel! but he won’t, my lord,—he mustn’t fight, my +lord.” +</p> + +<p> +“He must come on the ground,” said my lord, positively. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton ejaculated unintelligible stuff. Finally Lord Mountfalcon said: “I +went out of my way, sir, in speaking to you. I saw you from the window. Your +friend is mad. Deuced methodical, I admit, but mad. I have particular reasons +to wish not to injure the young man, and if an apology is to be got out of him +when we’re on the ground, I’ll take it, and we’ll stop the +damned scandal, if possible. You understand? I’m the insulted party, and +I shall only require of him to use formal words of excuse to come to an +amicable settlement. Let him just say he regrets it. Now, sir,” the +nobleman spoke with considerable earnestness, “should anything +happen—I have the honour to be known to Mrs. Feverel—and I beg you +will tell her. I very particularly desire you to let her know that I was not to +blame.” +</p> + +<p> +Mountfalcon rang the bell, and bowed him out. With this on his mind Ripton +hurried down to those who were waiting in joyful trust at Raynham. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap44"></a> +CHAPTER XLIV</h2> + +<p> +The watch consulted by Hippias alternately with his pulse, in occult +calculation hideous to mark, said half-past eleven on the midnight. Adrian, +wearing a composedly amused expression on his dimpled plump face,—held +slightly sideways, aloof from paper and pen,—sat writing at the library +table. Round the baronet’s chair, in a semi-circle, were Lucy, Lady +Blandish, Mrs. Doria, and Ripton, that very ill bird at Raynham. They were +silent as those who question the flying minutes. Ripton had said that Richard +was sure to come; but the feminine eyes reading him ever and anon, had gathered +matter for disquietude, which increased as time sped. Sir Austin persisted in +his habitual air of speculative repose. +</p> + +<p> +Remote as he appeared from vulgar anxiety, he was the first to speak and betray +his state. +</p> + +<p> +“Pray, put up that watch. Impatience serves nothing,” he said, +half-turning hastily to his brother behind him. +</p> + +<p> +Hippias relinquished his pulse and mildly groaned: “It’s no +nightmare, this!” +</p> + +<p> +His remark was unheard, and the bearing of it remained obscure. Adrian’s +pen made a louder flourish on his manuscript; whether in commiseration or +infernal glee, none might say. +</p> + +<p> +“What are you writing?” the baronet inquired testily of Adrian, +after a pause; twitched, it may be, by a sort of jealousy of the wise +youth’s coolness. +</p> + +<p> +“Do I disturb you, sir?” rejoined Adrian. “I am engaged on a +portion of a Proposal for uniting the Empires and Kingdoms of Europe under one +Paternal Head, on the model of the ever-to-be-admired and lamented Holy Roman. +This treats of the management of Youths and Maids, and of certain magisterial +functions connected therewith. ‘It is decreed that these officers be all +and every men of science,’ etc.” And Adrian cheerily drove his pen +afresh. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria took Lucy’s hand, mutely addressing encouragement to her, and +Lucy brought as much of a smile as she could command to reply with. +</p> + +<p> +“I fear we must give him up to-night,” observed Lady Blandish. +</p> + +<p> +“If he said he would come, he will come,” Sir Austin interjected. +Between him and the lady there was something of a contest secretly going on. He +was conscious that nothing save perfect success would now hold this +self-emancipating mind. She had seen him through. +</p> + +<p> +“He declared to me he would be certain to come,” said Ripton; but +he could look at none of them as he said it, for he was growing aware that +Richard might have deceived him, and was feeling like a black conspirator +against their happiness. He determined to tell the baronet what he knew, if +Richard did not come by twelve. +</p> + +<p> +“What is the time?” he asked Hippias in a modest voice. +</p> + +<p> +“Time for me to be in bed,” growled Hippias, as if everybody +present had been treating him badly. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry came in to apprise Lucy that she was wanted above. She quietly rose. +Sir Austin kissed her on the forehead, saying: “You had better not come +down again, my child.” She kept her eyes on him. “Oblige me by +retiring for the night,” he added. Lucy shook their hands, and went out, +accompanied by Mrs. Doria. +</p> + +<p> +“This agitation will be bad for the child,” he said, speaking to +himself aloud. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish remarked: “I think she might just as well have returned. +She will not sleep.” +</p> + +<p> +“She will control herself for the child’s sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“You ask too much of her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Of her, not,” he emphasized. +</p> + +<p> +It was twelve o’clock when Hippias shut his watch, and said with +vehemence: “I’m convinced my circulation gradually and steadily +decreases!” +</p> + +<p> +“Going back to the pre-Harvey period!” murmured Adrian as he wrote. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin and Lady Blandish knew well that any comment would introduce them to +the interior of his machinery, the eternal view of which was sufficiently +harrowing; so they maintained a discreet reserve. Taking it for acquiescence in +his deplorable condition, Hippias resumed despairingly: “It’s a +fact. I’ve brought you to see that. No one can be more moderate than I +am, and yet I get worse. My system is organically sound—I believe: I do +every possible thing, and yet I get worse. Nature never forgives! I’ll go +to bed.” +</p> + +<p> +The Dyspepsy departed unconsoled. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin took up his brother’s thought: “I suppose nothing short +of a miracle helps us when we have offended her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing short of a quack satisfies us,” said Adrian, applying wax +to an envelope of official dimensions. +</p> + +<p> +Ripton sat accusing his soul of cowardice while they talked; haunted by +Lucy’s last look at him. He got up his courage presently and went round +to Adrian, who, after a few whispered words, deliberately rose and accompanied +him out of the room, shrugging. When they had gone, Lady Blandish said to the +baronet: “He is not coming.” +</p> + +<p> +“To-morrow, then, if not tonight,” he replied. “But I say he +will come to-night.” +</p> + +<p> +“You do really wish to see him united to his wife?” +</p> + +<p> +The question made the baronet raise his brows with some displeasure. +</p> + +<p> +“Can you ask me?” +</p> + +<p> +“I mean,” said, the ungenerous woman, “your System will +require no further sacrifices from either of them?” +</p> + +<p> +When he did answer, it was to say: “I think her altogether a superior +person. I confess I should scarcely have hoped to find one like her.” +</p> + +<p> +“Admit that your science does not accomplish everything.” +</p> + +<p> +“No: it was presumptuous—beyond a certain point,” said the +baronet, meaning deep things. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish eyed him. “Ah me!” she sighed, “if we would +always be true to our own wisdom!” +</p> + +<p> +“You are very singular to-night, Emmeline.” Sir Austin stopped his +walk in front of her. +</p> + +<p> +In truth, was she not unjust? Here was an offending son freely forgiven. Here +was a young woman of humble birth, freely accepted into his family and +permitted to stand upon her qualities. Who would have done more—or as +much? This lady, for instance, had the case been hers, would have fought it. +All the people of position that he was acquainted with would have fought it, +and that without feeling it so peculiarly. But while the baronet thought this, +he did not think of the exceptional education his son had received. He took the +common ground of fathers, forgetting his System when it was absolutely on +trial. False to his son it could not be said that he had been: false to his +System he was. Others saw it plainly, but he had to learn his lesson by and by. +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish gave him her face; then stretched her hand to the table, saying, +“Well! well!” She fingered a half-opened parcel lying there, and +drew forth a little book she recognized. “Ha! what is this?” she +said. +</p> + +<p> +“Benson returned it this morning,” he informed her. “The +stupid fellow took it away with him—by mischance, I am bound to +believe.” +</p> + +<p> +It was nothing other than the old Note-book. Lady Blandish turned over the +leaves, and came upon the later jottings. +</p> + +<p> +She read: “A maker of Proverbs—what is he but a narrow mind with +the mouthpiece of narrower?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not agree with that,” she observed. He was in no humour for +argument. +</p> + +<p> +“Was your humility feigned when you wrote it?” +</p> + +<p> +He merely said: “Consider the sort of minds influenced by set sayings. A +proverb is the half-way-house to an Idea, I conceive; and the majority rest +there content: can the keeper of such a house be flattered by his +company?” +</p> + +<p> +She felt her feminine intelligence swaying under him again. There must be +greatness in a man who could thus speak of his own special and admirable +aptitude. +</p> + +<p> +Further she read, “Which is the coward among us?—He who sneers at +the failings of Humanity!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh! that is true! How much I admire that!” cried the dark-eyed +dame as she beamed intellectual raptures. +</p> + +<p> +Another Aphorism seemed closely to apply to him: “There is no more +grievous sight, as there is no greater perversion, than a wise man at the mercy +of his feelings.” +</p> + +<p> +“He must have written it,” she thought, “when he had himself +for an example—strange man that he is!” +</p> + +<p> +Lady Blandish was still inclined to submission, though decidedly insubordinate. +She had once been fairly conquered: but if what she reverenced as a great mind +could conquer her, it must be a great man that should hold her captive. The +Autumn Primrose blooms for the loftiest manhood; is a vindictive flower in +lesser hands. Nevertheless Sir Austin had only to be successful, and this +lady’s allegiance was his for ever. The trial was at hand. +</p> + +<p> +She said again: “He is not coming to-night,” and the baronet, on +whose visage a contemplative pleased look had been rising for a minute past, +quietly added: “He is come.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard’s voice was heard in the hall. +</p> + +<p> +There was commotion all over the house at the return of the young heir. Berry, +seizing every possible occasion to approach his Bessy now that her involuntary +coldness had enhanced her value—“Such is men!” as the soft +woman reflected—Berry ascended to her and delivered the news in pompous +tones and wheedling gestures. “The best word you’ve spoke for many +a day,” says she, and leaves him unfee’d, in an attitude, to hurry +and pour bliss into Lucy’s ears. +</p> + +<p> +“Lord be praised!” she entered the adjoining room exclaiming, +“we’re got to be happy at last. They men have come to their senses. +I could cry to your Virgin and kiss your Cross, you sweet!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush!” Lucy admonished her, and crooned over the child on her +knees. The tiny open hands, full of sleep, clutched; the large blue eyes +started awake; and his mother, all trembling and palpitating, knowing, but +thirsting to hear it, covered him with her tresses, and tried to still her +frame, and rocked, and sang low, interdicting even a whisper from bursting Mrs. +Berry. +</p> + +<p> +Richard had come. He was under his father’s roof, in the old home that +had so soon grown foreign to him. He stood close to his wife and child. He +might embrace them both: and now the fulness of his anguish and the madness of +the thing he had done smote the young man: now first he tasted hard earthly +misery. +</p> + +<p> +Had not God spoken to him in the tempest? Had not the finger of heaven directed +him homeward? And he had come: here he stood: congratulations were thick in his +ears: the cup of happiness was held to him, and he was invited to drink of it. +Which was the dream? his work for the morrow, or this? But for a leaden load +that he felt like a bullet in his breast, he might have thought the morrow with +death sitting on it was the dream. Yes; he was awake. Now first the cloud of +phantasms cleared away: he beheld his real life, and the colours of true human +joy: and on the morrow perhaps he was to close his eyes on them. That leaden +bullet dispersed all unrealities. +</p> + +<p> +They stood about him in the hall, his father, Lady Blandish, Mrs. Doria, +Adrian, Ripton; people who had known him long. They shook his hand: they gave +him greetings he had never before understood the worth of or the meaning. Now +that he did they mocked him. There was Mrs. Berry in the background bobbing, +there was Martin Berry bowing, there was Tom Bakewell grinning. Somehow he +loved the sight of these better. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, my old Penelope!” he said, breaking through the circle of his +relatives to go to her. “Tom! how are you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Bless ye, my Mr. Richard,” whimpered Mrs. Berry, and whispered, +rosily, “all’s agreeable now. She’s waiting up in bed for ye, +like a new-born.” +</p> + +<p> +The person who betrayed most agitation was Mrs. Doria. She held close to him, +and eagerly studied his face and every movement, as one accustomed to masks. +“You are pale, Richard?” He pleaded exhaustion. “What +detained you, dear?” “Business,” he said. She drew him +imperiously apart from the others. “Richard! is it over?” He asked +what she meant. “The dreadful duel, Richard.” He looked darkly. +“Is it over? is it done, Richard?” Getting no immediate answer, she +continued—and such was her agitation that the words were shaken by pieces +from her mouth: “Don’t pretend not to understand me, Richard! Is it +over? Are you going to die the death of my child—Clare’s death? Is +not one in a family enough? Think of your dear young wife—we love her +so!—your child!—your father! Will you kill us all?” +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Doria had chanced to overhear a trifle of Ripton’s communication to +Adrian, and had built thereon with the dark forces of a stricken soul. +</p> + +<p> +Wondering how this woman could have divined it, Richard calmly said: +“It’s arranged—the matter you allude to.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed!—truly, dear?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes.” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell me”—but he broke away from her, saying: “You +shall hear the particulars to-morrow,” and she, not alive to double +meaning just then, allowed him to leave her. +</p> + +<p> +He had eaten nothing for twelve hours, and called for food, but he would take +only dry bread and claret, which was served on a tray in the library. He said, +without any show of feeling, that he must eat before he saw the young hope of +Raynham: so there he sat, breaking bread, and eating great mouthfuls, and +washing them down with wine, talking of what they would. His father’s +studious mind felt itself years behind him, he was so completely altered. He +had the precision of speech, the bearing of a man of thirty. Indeed he had all +that the necessity for cloaking an infinite misery gives. But let things be as +they might, he was, there. For one night in his life Sir Austin’s +perspective of the future was bounded by the night. +</p> + +<p> +“Will you go to your wife now?” he had asked and Richard had +replied with a strange indifference. The baronet thought it better that their +meeting should be private, and sent word for Lucy to wait upstairs. The others +perceived that father and son should now be left alone. Adrian went up to him, +and said: “I can no longer witness this painful sight, so Good-night, Sir +Famish! You may cheat yourself into the belief that you’ve made a meal, +but depend upon it your progeny—and it threatens to be +numerous—will cry aloud and rue the day. Nature never forgives! A lost +dinner can never be replaced! Good-night, my dear boy. And here—oblige me +by taking this,” he handed Richard the enormous envelope containing what +he had written that evening. “Credentials!” he exclaimed +humorously, slapping Richard on the shoulder. Ripton heard also the words +“propagator—species,” but had no idea of their import. The +wise youth looked: You see we’ve made matters all right for you here, and +quitted the room on that unusual gleam of earnestness. +</p> + +<p> +Richard shook his hand, and Ripton’s. Then Lady Blandish said her +good-night, praising Lucy, and promising to pray for their mutual happiness. +The two men who knew what was hanging over him, spoke together outside. Ripton +was for getting a positive assurance that the duel would not be fought, but +Adrian said: “Time enough tomorrow. He’s safe enough while +he’s here. I’ll stop it to-morrow:” ending with banter of +Ripton and allusions to his adventures with Miss Random, which must, Adrian +said, have led him into many affairs of the sort. Certainly Richard was there, +and while he was there he must be safe. So thought Ripton, and went to his bed. +Mrs. Doria deliberated likewise, and likewise thought him safe while he was +there. For once in her life she thought it better not to trust to her instinct, +for fear of useless disturbance where peace should be. So she said not a +syllable of it to her brother. She only looked more deeply into Richard’s +eyes, as she kissed him, praising Lucy. “I have found a second daughter +in her, dear. Oh! may you both be happy!” +</p> + +<p> +They all praised Lucy, now. His father commenced the moment they were alone. +“Poor Helen! Your wife has been a great comfort to her, Richard. I think +Helen must have sunk without her. So lovely a young person, possessing mental +faculty, and a conscience for her duties, I have never before met.” +</p> + +<p> +He wished to gratify his son by these eulogies of Lucy, and some hours back he +would have succeeded. Now it had the contrary effect. +</p> + +<p> +“You compliment me on my choice, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +Richard spoke sedately, but the irony was perceptible and he could speak no +other way, his bitterness was so intense. +</p> + +<p> +“I think you very fortunate,” said his father. +</p> + +<p> +Sensitive to tone and manner as he was, his ebullition of paternal feeling was +frozen. Richard did not approach him. He leaned against the chimney-piece, +glancing at the floor, and lifting his eyes only when he spoke. Fortunate! very +fortunate! As he revolved his later history, and remembered how clearly he had +seen that his father must love Lucy if he but knew her, and remembered his +efforts to persuade her to come with him, a sting of miserable rage blackened +his brain. But could he blame that gentle soul? Whom could he blame? Himself? +Not utterly. His father? Yes, and no. The blame was here, the blame was there: +it was everywhere and nowhere, and the young man cast it on the Fates, and +looked angrily at heaven, and grew reckless. +</p> + +<p> +“Richard,” said his father, coming close to him, “it is late +to-night. I do not wish Lucy to remain in expectation longer, or I should have +explained myself to you thoroughly, and I think—or at least +hope—you would have justified me. I had cause to believe that you had not +only violated my confidence, but grossly deceived me. It was not so, I now +know. I was mistaken. Much of our misunderstanding has resulted from that +mistake. But you were married—a boy: you knew nothing of the world, +little of yourself. To save you in after-life—for there is a period when +mature men and women who have married young are more impelled to temptation +than in youth,—though not so exposed to it,—to save you, I say, I +decreed that you should experience self-denial and learn something of your +fellows of both sexes, before settling into a state that must have been +otherwise precarious, however excellent the woman who is your mate. My System +with you would have been otherwise imperfect, and you would have felt the +effects of it. It is over now. You are a man. The dangers to which your nature +was open are, I trust, at an end. I wish you to be happy, and I give you both +my blessing, and pray God to conduct and strengthen you both.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin’s mind was unconscious of not having spoken devoutly. True or +not, his words were idle to his son: his talk of dangers over, and happiness, +mockery. +</p> + +<p> +Richard coldly took his father’s extended hand. +</p> + +<p> +“We will go to her,” said the baronet. “I will leave you at +her door.” +</p> + +<p> +Not moving: looking fixedly at his father with a hard face on which the colour +rushed, Richard said: “A husband who has been unfaithful to his wife may +go to her there, sir?” +</p> + +<p> +It was horrible, it was cruel: Richard knew that. He wanted no advice on such a +matter, having fully resolved what to do. Yesterday he would have listened to +his father, and blamed himself alone, and done what was to be done humbly +before God and her: now in the recklessness of his misery he had as little pity +for any other soul as for his own. Sir Austin’s brows were deep drawn +down. +</p> + +<p> +“What did you say, Richard?” +</p> + +<p> +Clearly his intelligence had taken it, but this—the worst he could +hear—this that he had dreaded once and doubted, and smoothed over, and +cast aside—could it be? +</p> + +<p> +Richard said: “I told you all but the very words when we last parted. +What else do you think would have kept me from her?” +</p> + +<p> +Angered at his callous aspect, his father cried: “What brings you to her +now?” +</p> + +<p> +“That will be between us two,” was the reply. +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin fell into his chair. Meditation was impossible. He spoke from a +wrathful heart: “You will not dare to take her without”— +</p> + +<p> +“No, sir,” Richard interrupted him, “I shall not. Have no +fear.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then you did not love your wife?” +</p> + +<p> +“Did I not?” A smile passed faintly over Richard’s face. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you care so much for this—this other person?” +</p> + +<p> +“So much? If you ask me whether I had affection for her, I can say I had +none.” +</p> + +<p> +O base human nature! Then how? then why? A thousand questions rose in the +baronet’s mind. Bessy Berry could have answered them every one. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor child! poor child!” he apostrophized Lucy, pacing the room. +Thinking of her, knowing her deep love for his son—her true forgiving +heart—it seemed she should be spared this misery. +</p> + +<p> +He proposed to Richard to spare her. Vast is the distinction between women and +men in this one sin, he said, and supported it with physical and moral +citations. His argument carried him so far, that to hear him one would have +imagined he thought the sin in men small indeed. His words were idle. +</p> + +<p> +“She must know it,” said Richard, sternly. “I will go to her +now, sir, if you please.” +</p> + +<p> +Sir Austin detained him, expostulated, contradicted himself, confounded his +principles, made nonsense of all his theories. He could not induce his son to +waver in his resolve. Ultimately, their good-night being interchanged, he +understood that the happiness of Raynham depended on Lucy’s mercy. He had +no fears of her sweet heart, but it was a strange thing to have come to. On +which should the accusation fall—on science, or on human nature? +</p> + +<p> +He remained in the library pondering over the question, at times breathing +contempt for his son, and again seized with unwonted suspicion of his own +wisdom: troubled, much to be pitied, even if he deserved that blow from his son +which had plunged him into wretchedness. Richard went straight to Tom Bakewell, +roused the heavy sleeper, and told him to have his mare saddled and waiting at +the park gates East within an hour. Tom’s nearest approach to a hero was +to be a faithful slave to his master, and in doing this he acted to his +conception of that high and glorious character. He got up and heroically dashed +his head into cold water. “She shall be ready, sir,” he nodded. +</p> + +<p> +“Tom! if you don’t see me back here at Raynham, your money will go +on being paid to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Rather see you than the money, Mr. Richard,” said Tom. +</p> + +<p> +“And you will always watch and see no harm comes to her, Tom.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Richard, sir?” Tom stared. “God bless me, Mr. +Richard”— +</p> + +<p> +“No questions. You’ll do what I say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay, sir; that I will. Did’n Isle o’ Wight.” +</p> + +<p> +The very name of the Island shocked Richard’s blood; and he had to walk +up and down before he could knock at Lucy’s door. That infamous +conspiracy to which he owed his degradation and misery scarce left him the +feelings of a man when he thought of it. +</p> + +<p> +The soft beloved voice responded to his knock. He opened the door, and stood +before her. Lucy was half-way toward him. In the moment that passed ere she was +in his arms, he had time to observe the change in her. He had left her a girl: +he beheld a woman—a blooming woman: for pale at first, no sooner did she +see him than the colour was rich and deep on her face and neck and bosom half +shown through the loose dressing-robe, and the sense of her exceeding beauty +made his heart thump and his eyes swim. +</p> + +<p> +“My darling!” each cried, and they clung together, and her mouth +was fastened on his. +</p> + +<p> +They spoke no more. His soul was drowned in her kiss. Supporting her, whose +strength was gone, he, almost as weak as she, hung over her, and clasped her +closer, closer, till they were as one body, and in the oblivion her lips put +upon him he was free to the bliss of her embrace. Heaven granted him that. He +placed her in a chair and knelt at her feet with both arms around her. Her +bosom heaved; her eyes never quitted him: their light as the light on a rolling +wave. This young creature, commonly so frank and straightforward, was broken +with bashfulness in her husband’s arms—womanly bashfulness on the +torrent of womanly love; tenfold more seductive than the bashfulness of +girlhood. Terrible tenfold the loss of her seemed now, as distantly—far +on the horizon of memory—the fatal truth returned to him. +</p> + +<p> +Lose her? lose this? He looked up as if to ask God to confirm it. +</p> + +<p> +The same sweet blue eyes! the eyes that he had often seen in the dying glories +of evening; on him they dwelt, shifting, and fluttering, and glittering, but +constant: the light of them as the light on a rolling wave. +</p> + +<p> +And true to him! true, good, glorious, as the angels of heaven! And his she +was! a woman—his wife! The temptation to take her, and be dumb, was all +powerful: the wish to die against her bosom so strong as to be the prayer of +his vital forces. Again he strained her to him, but this time it was as a +robber grasps priceless treasure—with exultation and defiance. One +instant of this. Lucy, whose pure tenderness had now surmounted the first wild +passion of their meeting, bent back her head from her surrendered body, and +said almost voicelessly, her underlids wistfully quivering: “Come and see +him—baby;” and then in great hope of the happiness she was going to +give her husband, and share with him, and in tremour and doubt of what his +feelings would be, she blushed, and her brows worked: she tried to throw off +the strangeness of a year of separation, misunderstanding, and uncertainty. +</p> + +<p> +“Darling! come and see him. He is here.” She spoke more clearly, +though no louder. +</p> + +<p> +Richard had released her, and she took his hand, and he suffered himself to be +led to the other side of the bed. His heart began rapidly throbbing at the +sight of a little rosy-curtained cot covered with lace like milky summer cloud. +</p> + +<p> +It seemed to him he would lose his manhood if he looked on that child’s +face. +</p> + +<p> +“Stop!” he cried suddenly. +</p> + +<p> +Lucy turned first to him, and then to her infant, fearing it should have been +disturbed. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy, come back.” +</p> + +<p> +“What is it, darling?” said she, in alarm at his voice and the grip +he had unwittingly given her hand. +</p> + +<p> +O God! what an Ordeal was this! that to-morrow he must face death, perhaps die +and be torn from his darling—his wife and his child; and that ere he went +forth, ere he could dare to see his child and lean his head reproachfully on +his young wife’s breast—for the last time, it might be—he +must stab her to the heart, shatter the image she held of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy!” She saw him wrenched with agony, and her own face took the +whiteness of his—she bending forward to him, all her faculties strung to +hearing. +</p> + +<p> +He held her two hands that she might look on him and not spare the horrible +wound he was going to lay open to her eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy. Do you know why I came to you to-night?” +</p> + +<p> +She moved her lips repeating his words. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy. Have you guessed why I did not come before?” +</p> + +<p> +Her head shook widened eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy. I did not come because I was not worthy of my wife! Do you +understand?” +</p> + +<p> +“Darling,” she faltered plaintively, and hung crouching under him, +“what have I done to make you angry with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“O beloved!” cried he, the tears bursting out of his eyes. “O +beloved!” was all he could say, kissing her hands passionately. +</p> + +<p> +She waited, reassured, but in terror. +</p> + +<p> +“Lucy. I stayed away from you—I could not come to you, because... I +dared not come to you, my wife, my beloved! I could not come because I was a +coward: because—hear me—this was the reason: I have broken my +marriage oath.” +</p> + +<p> +Again her lips moved. She caught at a dim fleshless meaning in them. “But +you love me? Richard! My husband! you love me?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. I have never loved, I never shall love, woman but you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Darling! Kiss me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Have you understood what I have told you?” +</p> + +<p> +“Kiss me,” she said. +</p> + +<p> +He did not join lips. “I have come to you to-night to ask your +forgiveness.” +</p> + +<p> +Her answer was: “Kiss me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can you forgive a man so base?” +</p> + +<p> +“But you love me, Richard?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes: that I can say before God. I love you, and I have betrayed you, and +am unworthy of you—not worthy to touch your hand, to kneel at your feet, +to breathe the same air with you.” +</p> + +<p> +Her eyes shone brilliantly. “You love me! you love me, darling!” +And as one who has sailed through dark fears into daylight, she said: “My +husband! my darling! you will never leave me? We never shall be parted +again?” +</p> + +<p> +He drew his breath painfully. To smooth her face growing rigid with fresh fears +at his silence, he met her mouth. That kiss in which she spoke what her soul +had to say, calmed her, and she smiled happily from it, and in her manner +reminded him of his first vision of her on the summer morning in the field of +the meadow-sweet. He held her to him, and thought then of a holier picture: of +Mother and Child: of the sweet wonders of life she had made real to him. +</p> + +<p> +Had he not absolved his conscience? At least the pangs to come made him think +so. He now followed her leading hand. Lucy whispered: “You mustn’t +disturb him—mustn’t touch him, dear!” and with dainty fingers +drew off the covering to the little shoulder. One arm of the child was out +along the pillow; the small hand open. His baby-mouth was pouted full; the dark +lashes of his eyes seemed to lie on his plump cheeks. Richard stooped lower +down to him, hungering for some movement as a sign that he lived. Lucy +whispered. “He sleeps like you, Richard—one arm under his +head.” Great wonder, and the stir of a grasping tenderness was in +Richard. He breathed quick and soft, bending lower, till Lucy’s curls, as +she nestled and bent with him, rolled on the crimson quilt of the cot. A smile +went up the plump cheeks: forthwith the bud of a mouth was in rapid motion. The +young mother whispered, blushing: “He’s dreaming of me,” and +the simple words did more than Richard’s eyes to make him see what was. +Then Lucy began to hum and buzz sweet baby-language, and some of the tiny +fingers stirred, and he made as if to change his cosy position, but +reconsidered, and deferred it, with a peaceful little sigh. Lucy whispered: +“He is such a big fellow. Oh! when you see him awake he is so like you, +Richard.” +</p> + +<p> +He did not hear her immediately: it seemed a bit of heaven dropped there in his +likeness: the more human the fact of the child grew the more heavenly it +seemed. His son! his child! should he ever see him awake? At the thought, he +took the words that had been spoken, and started from the dream he had been in. +“Will he wake soon, Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh no! not yet, dear: not for hours. I would have kept him awake for +you, but he was so sleepy.” +</p> + +<p> +Richard stood back from the cot. He thought that if he saw the eyes of his boy, +and had him once on his heart, he never should have force to leave him. Then he +looked down on him, again struggled to tear himself away. Two natures warred in +his bosom, or it may have been the Magian Conflict still going on. He had come +to see his child once and to make peace with his wife before it should be too +late. Might he not stop with them? Might he not relinquish that devilish +pledge? Was not divine happiness here offered to him?—If foolish Ripton +had not delayed to tell him of his interview with Mountfalcon all might have +been well. But pride said it was impossible. And then injury spoke. For why was +he thus base and spotted to the darling of his love? A mad pleasure in the +prospect of wreaking vengeance on the villain who had laid the trap for him, +once more blackened his brain. If he would stay he could not. So he resolved, +throwing the burden on Fate. The struggle was over, but oh, the pain! +</p> + +<p> +Lucy beheld the tears streaming hot from his face on the child’s cot. She +marvelled at such excess of emotion. But when his chest heaved, and the +extremity of mortal anguish appeared to have seized him, her heart sank, and +she tried to get him in her arms. He turned away from her and went to the +window. A half-moon was over the lake. +</p> + +<p> +“Look!” he said, “do you remember our rowing there one night, +and we saw the shadow of the cypress? I wish I could have come early to-night +that we might have had another row, and I have heard you sing there!” +</p> + +<p> +“Darling!” said she, “will it make you happier if I go with +you now? I will.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, Lucy. Lucy, you are brave!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no! that I’m not. I thought so once. I know I am not +now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes! to have lived—the child on your heart—and never to have +uttered a complaint!—you are brave. O my Lucy! my wife! you that have +made me man! I called you a coward. I remember it. I was the coward—I the +wretched vain fool! Darling! I am going to leave you now. You are brave, and +you will bear it. Listen: in two days, or three, I may be back—back for +good, if you will accept me. Promise me to go to bed quietly. Kiss the child +for me, and tell him his father has seen him. He will learn to speak soon. Will +he soon speak, Lucy?” +</p> + +<p> +Dreadful suspicion kept her speechless; she could only clutch one arm of his +with both her hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Going?” she presently gasped. +</p> + +<p> +“For two or three days. No more—I hope.” +</p> + +<p> +“To-night?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes. Now.” +</p> + +<p> +“Going now? my husband!” her faculties abandoned her. +</p> + +<p> +“You will be brave, my Lucy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Richard! my darling husband! Going? What is it takes you from me?” +But questioning no further, she fell on her knees, and cried piteously to him +to stay—not to leave them. Then she dragged him to the little sleeper, +and urged him to pray by his side, and he did, but rose abruptly from his +prayer when he had muttered a few broken words—she praying on with +tight-strung nerves, in the faith that what she said to the interceding Mother +above would be stronger than human hands on him. Nor could he go while she +knelt there. +</p> + +<p> +And he wavered. He had not reckoned on her terrible suffering. She came to him, +quiet. “I knew you would remain.” And taking his hand, innocently +fondling it: “Am I so changed from her he loved? You will not leave me, +dear?” But dread returned, and the words quavered as she spoke them. +</p> + +<p> +He was almost vanquished by the loveliness of her womanhood. She drew his hand +to her heart, and strained it there under one breast. “Come: lie on my +heart,” she murmured with a smile of holy sweetness. +</p> + +<p> +He wavered more, and drooped to her, but summoning the powers of hell, kissed +her suddenly, cried the words of parting, and hurried to the door. It was over +in an instant. She cried out his name, clinging to him wildly, and was adjured +to be brave, for he would be dishonoured if he did not go. Then she was shaken +off. +</p> + +<p> +Mrs. Berry was aroused by an unusual prolonged wailing of the child, which +showed that no one was comforting it, and failing to get any answer to her +applications for admittance, she made bold to enter. There she saw Lucy, the +child in her lap, sitting on the floor senseless:—she had taken it from +its sleep and tried to follow her husband with it as her strongest appeal to +him, and had fainted. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh my! oh my!” Mrs. Berry moaned, “and I just now +thinkin’ they was so happy!” +</p> + +<p> +Warming and caressing the poor infant, she managed by degrees to revive Lucy, +and heard what had brought her to that situation. +</p> + +<p> +“Go to his father,” said Mrs. Berry. +“Ta-te-tiddle-te-heighty-O! Go, my love, and every horse in Raynham shall +be out after ’m. This is what men brings us to! +Heighty-oighty-iddlety-Ah! Or you take blessed baby, and I’ll go.” +</p> + +<p> +The baronet himself knocked at the door. “What is this?” he said. +“I heard a noise and a step descend.” +</p> + +<p> +“It’s Mr. Richard have gone, Sir Austin! have gone from his wife +and babe! Rum-te-um-te-iddledy—Oh, my goodness! what sorrow’s come +on us!” and Mrs. Berry wept, and sang to baby, and baby cried vehemently, +and Lucy, sobbing, took him and danced him and sang to him with drawn lips and +tears dropping over him. And if the Scientific Humanist to the day of his death +forgets the sight of those two poor true women jigging on their wretched hearts +to calm the child, he must have very little of the human in him. +</p> + +<p> +There was no more sleep for Raynham that night. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap45"></a> +CHAPTER XLV</h2> + +<p> +“His ordeal is over. I have just come from his room and seen him bear the +worst that could be. Return at once—he has asked for you. I can hardly +write intelligibly, but I will tell you what we know. +</p> + +<p> +“Two days after the dreadful night when he left us, his father heard from +Ralph Morton. Richard had fought a duel in France with Lord Mountfalcon, and +was lying wounded at a hamlet on the coast. His father started immediately with +his poor wife, and I followed in company with his aunt and his child. The wound +was not dangerous. He was shot in the side somewhere, but the ball injured no +vital part. We thought all would be well. Oh! how sick I am of theories, and +Systems, and the pretensions of men! There was his son lying all but dead, and +the man was still unconvinced of the folly he had been guilty of. I could +hardly bear the sight of his composure. I shall hate the name of Science till +the day I die. Give me nothing but commonplace unpretending people! +</p> + +<p> +“They were at a wretched French cabaret, smelling vilely, where we still +remain, and the people try as much as they can do to compensate for our +discomforts by their kindness. The French poor people are very considerate +where they see suffering. I will say that for them. The doctors had not allowed +his poor Lucy to go near him. She sat outside his door, and none of us dared +disturb her. That was a sight for Science. His father and myself, and Mrs. +Berry, were the only ones permitted to wait on him, and whenever we came out, +there she sat, not speaking a word—for she had been told it would +endanger his life—but she looked such awful eagerness. She had the sort +of eye I fancy mad persons have. I was sure her reason was going. We did +everything we could think of to comfort her. A bed was made up for her and her +meals were brought to her there. Of course there was no getting her to eat. +What do you suppose his alarm was fixed on? He absolutely said to me—but +I have not patience to repeat his words. He thought her to blame for not +commanding herself for the sake of her maternal duties. He had absolutely an +idea of insisting that she should make an effort to suckle the child. I shall +love that Mrs. Berry to the end of my days. I really believe she has twice the +sense of any of us—Science and all. She asked him plainly if he wished to +poison the child, and then he gave way, but with a bad grace. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor man! perhaps I am hard on him. I remember that you said Richard had +done wrong. Yes; well, that may be. But his father eclipsed his wrong in a +greater wrong—a crime, or quite as bad; for if he deceived himself in the +belief that he was acting righteously in separating husband and wife, and +exposing his son as he did, I can only say that there are some who are worse +than people who deliberately commit crimes. No doubt Science will benefit by +it. They kill little animals for the sake of Science. +</p> + +<p> +“We have with us Doctor Bairam, and a French physician from Dieppe, a +very skilful man. It was he who told us where the real danger lay. We thought +all would be well. A week had passed, and no fever supervened. We told Richard +that his wife was coming to him, and he could bear to hear it. I went to her +and began to circumlocute, thinking she listened—she had the same eager +look. When I told her she might go in with me to see her dear husband, her +features did not change. M. Despres, who held her pulse at the time, told me, +in a whisper, it was cerebral fever—brain fever coming on. We have talked +of her since. I noticed that though she did not seem to understand me, her +bosom heaved, and she appeared to be trying to repress it, and choke something. +I am sure now, from what I know of her character, that she—even in the +approaches of delirium—was preventing herself from crying out. Her last +hold of reason was a thought for Richard. It was against a creature like this +that we plotted! I have the comfort of knowing that I did my share in helping +to destroy her. Had she seen her husband a day or two before—but no! +there was a new System to interdict that! Or had she not so violently +controlled her nature as she did, I believe she might have been saved. +</p> + +<p> +“He said once of a man, that his conscience was a coxcomb. Will you +believe that when he saw his son’s wife—poor victim! lying +delirious, he could not even then see his error. You said he wished to take +Providence out of God’s hands. His mad self-deceit would not leave him. I +am positive, that while he was standing over her, he was blaming her for not +having considered the child. Indeed he made a remark to me that it was +unfortunate ‘disastrous,’ I think he said—that the child +should have to be fed by hand. I dare say it is. All I pray is that this young +child may be saved from him. I cannot bear to see him look on it. He does not +spare himself bodily fatigue—but what is that? that is the vulgarest form +of love. I know what you will say. You will say I have lost all charity, and I +have. But I should not feel so, Austin, if I could be quite sure that he is an +altered man even now the blow has struck him. He is reserved and simple in his +speech, and his grief is evident, but I have doubts. He heard her while she was +senseless call him cruel and harsh, and cry that she had suffered, and I saw +then his mouth contract as if he had been touched. Perhaps, when he thinks, his +mind will be clearer, but what he has done cannot be undone. I do not imagine +he will abuse women any more. The doctor called her a ‘forte et belle +jeune femme:’ and he said she was as noble a soul as ever God moulded +clay upon. A noble soul ‘forte et belle!’ She lies upstairs. If he +can look on her and not see his sin, I almost fear God will never enlighten +him. +</p> + +<p> +“She died five days after she had been removed. The shock had utterly +deranged her. I was with her. She died very quietly, breathing her last breath +without pain—asking for no one—a death I should like to die. +</p> + +<p> +“Her cries at one time were dreadfully loud. She screamed that she was +‘drowning in fire,’ and that her husband would not come to her to +save her. We deadened the sound as much as we could, but it was impossible to +prevent Richard from hearing. He knew her voice, and it produced an effect like +fever on him. Whenever she called he answered. You could not hear them without +weeping. Mrs. Berry sat with her, and I sat with him, and his father moved from +one to the other. +</p> + +<p> +“But the trial for us came when she was gone. How to communicate it to +Richard—or whether to do so at all! His father consulted with us. We were +quite decided that it would be madness to breathe it while he was in that +state. I can admit now—as things have turned out—we were wrong. His +father left us—I believe he spent the time in prayer—and then +leaning on me, he went to Richard, and said in so many words, that his Lucy was +no more. I thought it must kill him. He listened, and smiled. I never saw a +smile so sweet and so sad. He said he had seen her die, as if he had passed +through his suffering a long time ago. He shut his eyes. I could see by the +motion of his eyeballs up that he was straining his sight to some inner +heaven.—I cannot go on. +</p> + +<p> +“I think Richard is safe. Had we postponed the tidings, till he came to +his clear senses, it must have killed him. His father was right for once, then. +But if he has saved his son’s body, he has given the death-blow to his +heart. Richard will never be what he promised. +</p> + +<p> +“A letter found on his clothes tells us the origin of the quarrel. I have +had an interview with Lord M. this morning. I cannot say I think him exactly to +blame: Richard forced him to fight. At least I do not select him the foremost +for blame. He was deeply and sincerely affected by the calamity he has caused. +Alas! he was only an instrument. Your poor aunt is utterly prostrate and talks +strange things of her daughter’s death. She is only happy in drudging. +Dr. Bairam says we must under any circumstances keep her employed. Whilst she +is doing something, she can chat freely, but the moment her hands are not +occupied she gives me an idea that she is going into a fit. +</p> + +<p> +“We expect the dear child’s uncle to-day. Mr. Thompson is here. I +have taken him upstairs to look at her. That poor young man has a true heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Come at once. You will not be in time to see her. She will lie at +Raynham. If you could you would see an angel. He sits by her side for hours. I +can give you no description of her beauty. +</p> + +<p> +“You will not delay, I know, dear Austin, and I want you, for your +presence will make me more charitable than I find it possible to be. Have you +noticed the expression in the eyes of blind men? That is just how Richard +looks, as he lies there silent in his bed—striving to image her on his +brain.” +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE END +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ORDEAL OF RICHARD FEVEREL ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ +concept and trademark. 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