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diff --git a/old/4471.txt b/old/4471.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d5d4716 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/4471.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4686 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of One of Our Conquerors, v1, +by George Meredith +#77 in our series by George Meredith + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your own disk, +thereby keeping an electronic path open for future readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. Do not change or edit it without written permission. +The words are carefully chosen to provide users with the information +they need to understand what they may and may not do with the etext. +To encourage this, we have moved most of the information to the end, +rather than having it all here at the beginning. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These Etexts Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get etexts, and +further information, is included below. We need your donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 +Find out about how to make a donation at the bottom of this file. + + + +Title: One of Our Conquerors, v1 + +Author: George Meredith + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4471] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on February 19, 2002] + + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of One of Our Conquerors, v1, by Meredith +*********This file should be named 4471.txt or 4471.zip******** + + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep etexts in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +The "legal small print" and other information about this book +may now be found at the end of this file. Please read this +important information, as it gives you specific rights and +tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used. + + + + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + +[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the +file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an +entire meal of them. D.W.] + + + + +ONE OF OUR CONQUERORS + +By George Meredith + +1897 + + + +CONTENTS: + +BOOK 1. +I. ACROSS LONDON BRIDGE +II. THROUGH THE VAGUE TO THE INFINITELY LITTLE +III. OLD VEUVE +IV. THE SECOND BOTTLE +V. THE LONDON WALK WESTWARD +VI. NATALY +VII. BETWEEN A GENERAL MAN OF THE WORLD AND A PROFESSIONAL +VIII. SOME FAMILIAR GUESTS. +IX. AN INSPECTION OF LAKELANDS +X. SKEPSEY IN MOTION +XI. WHEREIN WE BEHOLD THE COUPLE JUSTIFIED OF LOVE HAVING SIGHT OF + THEIR SCOURGE + +BOOK 2. +XII. TREATS OF THE DUMBNESS POSSIBLE WITH MEMBERS OF A HOUSEHOLD + HAVING ONE HEART +XIII. THE LATEST OF MRS. BURMAN +XIV. DISCLOSES A STAGE ON THE DRIVE TO PARIS +XV. A PATRIOT ABROAD +XVI. ACCOUNTS FOR SKEPSEY'S MISCONDUCT, SHOWING HOW IT AFFECTED + NATALY +XVII. CHIEFLY UPON THE THEME OF A YOUNG MAID'S IMAGININGS +XVIII. SUITORS FOR THE HAND OF NESTA VICTORIA + +BOOK 3. +XIX. TREATS OF NATURE AND CIRCUMSTANCE AND THE DISSENSION BETWEEN + THEM AND OF A SATIRIST'S MALIGNITY IN THE DIRECTION OF HIS + COUNTRY +XX. THE GREAT ASSEMBLY AT LAKELAND +XXI. DARTREY FENELLAN +XXII. CONCERNS THE INTRUSION OF JARNIMAN +XXIII. TREATS OF THE LADIES' LAPDOG TASSO FOR AN INSTANCE OF MOMENTOUS + EFFECTS PRODUCED BY VERY MINOR CAUSES +XXIV. NESTA'S ENGAGEMENT + +BOOK 4. +XXV. NATALY IN ACTION +XXVI. IN WHICH WE SEE A CONVENTIONAL GENTLE MAN ENDEAVOURING TO + EXAMINE A SPECTRE OF HIMSELF +XXVII. CONTAINS WHAT IS A SMALL THING OR A GREAT, AS THE SOUL OF THE + CHIEF ACTOR MAY DECIDE +XXVIII. MRS. MARSETT +XXIX. SHOWS ONE OF THE SHADOWS OF THE WORLD CROSSING A VIRGIN'S MIND +XXX. THE BURDEN UPON NESTA +XXXI. SHOWS HOW THE SQUIRES IN A CONQUEROR'S SERVICE HAVE AT TIMES TO + DO KNIGHTLY CONQUEST OF THEMSELVES +XXXII. SHOWS HOW TEMPER MAY KINDLE TEMPER AND AN INDIGNANT WOMAN GET + HER WEAPON +XXXIII. A PAIR OF WOOERS +XXXIV. CONTAINS DEEDS UNRELATED AND EXPOSITIONS OF FEELINGS +XXXV. IN WHICH AGAIN WE MAKE USE OF THE OLD LAMPS FOR LIGHTING AN + ABYSMAL DARKNESS + +BOOK 5. +XXXVI. NESTA AND HER FATHER +XXXVII. THE MOTHER--THE DAUGHTER +XXXVIII. NATALY, NESTA, AND DARTREY FENELLAN +XXXIX. A CHAPTER IN THE SHADOW OF MRS. MARSETT +XL. AN EXPIATION +XLI. THE NIGHT OF THE GREAT UNDELIVERED SPEECH +XLII. THE LAST + + + + +ONE OF OUR CONQUERORS + +By George Meredith + +1897 + + + +BOOK 1. + +I. ACROSS LONDON BRIDGE +II. THROUGH THE VAGUE TO THE INFINITELY LITTLE +III. OLD VEUVE +IV. THE SECOND BOTTLE +V. THE LONDON WALK WESTWARD +VI. NATALY +VII. BETWEEN A GENERAL MAN OF THE WORLD AND A PROFESSIONAL +VIII. SOME FAMILIAR GUESTS. +IX. AN INSPECTION OF LAKELANDS +X. SKEPSEY IN MOTION + + + +CHAPTER I + +ACROSS LONDON BRIDGE + +A gentleman, noteworthy for a lively countenance and a waistcoat to match +it, crossing London Bridge at noon on a gusty April day, was almost +magically detached from his conflict with the gale by some sly strip of +slipperiness, abounding in that conduit of the markets, which had more or +less adroitly performed the trick upon preceding passengers, and now laid +this one flat amid the shuffle of feet, peaceful for the moment as the +uncomplaining who have gone to Sabrina beneath the tides. He was unhurt, +quite sound, merely astonished, he remarked, in reply to the inquiries of +the first kind helper at his elbow; and it appeared an acceptable +statement of his condition. He laughed, shook his coat-tails, smoothed +the back of his head rather thoughtfully, thankfully received his runaway +hat, nodded bright beams to right and left, and making light of the muddy +stigmas imprinted by the pavement, he scattered another shower of his +nods and smiles around, to signify, that as his good friends would wish, +he thoroughly felt his legs and could walk unaided. And he was in the +act of doing it, questioning his familiar behind the waistcoat amazedly, +to tell him how such a misadventure could have occurred to him of all +men, when a glance below his chin discomposed his outward face. 'Oh, +confound the fellow!' he said, with simple frankness, and was humorously +ruffled, having seen absurd blots of smutty knuckles distributed over the +maiden waistcoat. + +His outcry was no more than the confidential communication of a genial +spirit with that distinctive article of his attire. At the same time, +for these friendly people about him to share the fun of the annoyance, +he looked hastily brightly back, seeming with the contraction of his +brows to frown, on the little band of observant Samaritans; in the centre +of whom a man who knew himself honourably unclean, perhaps consequently a +bit of a political jewel, hearing one of their number confounded for his +pains, and by the wearer of a superfine dashing-white waistcoat, was +moved to take notice of the total deficiency of gratitude in this kind of +gentleman's look and pocket. If we ask for nothing for helping gentlemen +to stand upright on their legs, and get it, we expect civility into the +bargain. Moreover, there are reasons in nature why we choose to give +sign of a particular surliness when our wealthy superiors would have us +think their condescending grins are cordials. + +The gentleman's eyes were followed on a second hurried downward grimace, +the necessitated wrinkles of which could be stretched by malevolence to a +semblance of haughty disgust; reminding us, through our readings in +journals, of the wicked overblown Prince Regent and his Court, together +with the view taken of honest labour in the mind of supercilious luxury, +even if indebted to it freshly for a trifle; and the hoar-headed +nineteenth-century billow of democratic ire craved the word to be set +swelling. + +'Am I the fellow you mean, sir?' the man said. + +He was answered, not ungraciously: 'All right, my man.' + +But the balance of our public equanimity is prone to violent antic +bobbings on occasions when, for example, an ostentatious garment shall +appear disdainful our class and ourself, and coin of the realm has not +usurped command of one of the scales: thus a fairly pleasant answer, cast +in persuasive features, provoked the retort: + +'There you're wrong; nor wouldn't be.' + +'What's that?' was the gentleman's musical inquiry. + +'That's flat, as you was half a minute ago,' the man rejoined. + +'Ah, well, don't be impudent,' the gentleman said, by way of amiable +remonstrance before a parting. + +'And none of your dam punctilio,' said the man. + +Their exchange rattled smartly, without a direct hostility, and the +gentleman stepped forward. + +It was observed in the crowd, that after a few paces he put two fingers +on the back of his head. + +They might suppose him to be condoling with his recent mishap. But, +in fact, a thing had occurred to vex him more than a descent upon the +pavement or damage to his waistcoat's whiteness: he abominated the +thought of an altercation with a member of the mob; he found that +enormous beat comprehensible only when it applauded him; and besides +he wished it warmly well; all that was good for it; plentiful dinners, +country excursions, stout menagerie bars, music, a dance, and to bed: +he was for patting, stroking, petting the mob, for tossing it sops, +never for irritating it to show an eye-tooth, much less for causing it +to exhibit the grinders: and in endeavouring to get at the grounds of his +dissension with that dirty-fisted fellow, the recollection of the word +punctilio shot a throb of pain to the spot where his mishap had rendered +him susceptible. Headache threatened--and to him of all men! But was +there ever such a word for drumming on a cranium? Puzzles are presented +to us now and then in the course of our days; and the smaller they are +the better for the purpose, it would seem; and they come in rattle-boxes, +they are actually children's toys, for what they contain, but not the +less do they buzz at our understandings and insist that they break or we, +and, in either case, to show a mere foolish idle rattle in hollowness. +Or does this happen to us only after a fall? + +He tried a suspension of his mental efforts, and the word was like the +clapper of a disorderly bell, striking through him, with reverberations, +in the form of interrogations, as to how he, of all men living, could by +any chance have got into a wrangle, in a thoroughfare, on London Bridge, +of all places in the world!--he, so popular, renowned for his affability, +his amiability; having no dislike to common dirty dogs, entirely the +reverse, liking them and doing his best for them; and accustomed to +receive their applause. And in what way had he offered a hint to bring +on him the charge of punctilio? + +'But I am treating it seriously!' he said, and jerked a dead laugh while +fixing a button of his coat. + +That he should have treated it seriously, furnished next the subject of +cogitation; and here it was plainly suggested, that a degradation of his +physical system, owing to the shock of the fall, must be seen and +acknowledged; for it had become a perverted engine, to pull him down +among the puerilities, and very soon he was worrying at punctilio anew, +attempting to read the riddle of the application of it to himself, angry +that he had allowed it to be the final word, and admitting it a famous +word for the closing of a controversy:--it banged the door and rolled +drum-notes; it deafened reason. And was it a London cockney crow-word of +the day, or a word that had stuck in the fellow's head from the perusal +of his pothouse newspaper columns? + +Furthermore, the plea of a fall, and the plea of a shock from a fall, +required to account for the triviality of the mind, were humiliating to +him who had never hitherto missed a step, or owned to the shortest of +collapses. This confession of deficiency in explosive repartee--using a +friend's term for the ready gift--was an old and a rueful one with Victor +Radnor. His godmother Fortune denied him that. She bestowed it on his +friend Fenellan, and little else. Simeon Fenellan could clap the halter +on a coltish mob; he had positively caught the roar of cries and stilled +it, by capping the cries in turn, until the people cheered him; and the +effect of the scene upon Victor Radnor disposed him to rank the gift of +repartee higher than a certain rosily oratorical that he was permitted to +tell himself he possessed, in bottle if not on draught. Let it only be +explosive repartee: the well-fused bomb, the bubble to the stone, echo +round the horn. Fenellan, would have discharged an extinguisher on +punctilio in emission. Victor Radnor was unable to cope with it +reflectively. + +No, but one doesn't like being beaten by anything! he replied to an +admonishment of his better mind, as he touched his two fingers, more +significantly dubious than the whole hand, at the back of his head, and +checked or stemmed the current of a fear. For he was utterly unlike +himself; he was dwelling on a trifle, on a matter discernibly the +smallest, an incident of the streets; and although he refused to feel a +bump or any responsive notification of a bruise, he made a sacrifice of +his native pride to his intellectual, in granting that he must have been +shaken, so childishly did he continue thinking. + +Yes, well, and if a tumble distorts our ideas of life, and an odd word +engrosses our speculations, we are poor creatures, he addressed another +friend, from whom he stood constitutionally in dissent naming him Colney; +and under pressure of the name, reviving old wrangles between them upon +man's present achievements and his probable destinies: especially upon +England's grandeur, vitality, stability, her intelligent appreciation of +her place in the universe; not to speak of the historic dignity of London +City. Colney had to be overcome afresh, and he fled, but managed, with +two or three of his bitter phrases, to make a cuttle-fish fight of it, +that oppressively shadowed his vanquisher: + +The Daniel Lambert of Cities: the Female Annuitant of Nations:--and such +like, wretched stuff, proper to Colney Durance, easily dispersed and out- +laughed when we have our vigour. We have as much as we need of it in +summoning a contemptuous Pooh to our lips, with a shrug at venomous +dyspepsia. + +Nevertheless, a malignant sketch of Colney's, in the which Hengist and +Horsa, our fishy Saxon originals, in modern garb of liveryman and +gaitered squire, flat-headed, paunchy, assiduously servile, are shown +blacking Ben-Israel's boots and grooming the princely stud of the Jew, +had come so near to Victor Radnor's apprehensions of a possible, if not +an impending, consummation, that the ghastly vision of the Jew Dominant +in London City, over England, over Europe, America, the world (a picture +drawn in literary sepia by Colney: with our poor hang neck population +uncertain about making a bell-rope of the forelock to the Satyr-snouty +master; and the Norman Lord de Warenne handing him for a lump sum son and +daughter, both to be Hebraized in their different ways), fastened on the +most mercurial of patriotic men, and gave him a whole-length plunge into +despondency. + +It lasted nearly a minute. His recovery was not in this instance due to +the calling on himself for the rescue of an ancient and glorious country; +nor altogether to the spectacle of the shipping, over the parapet, to his +right: the hundreds of masts rising out of the merchant river; London's +unrivalled mezzotint and the City' rhetorician's inexhaustible argument: +he gained it rather from the imperious demand of an animated and thirsty +frame for novel impressions. Commonly he was too hot with his business, +and airy fancies above it when crossing the bridge, to reflect in +freshness on its wonders; though a phrase could spring him alive to them; +a suggestion of the Foreigner, jealous, condemned to admire in despair of +outstripping, like Satan worsted; or when a Premier's fine inflation +magnified the scene at City banquets--exciting while audible, if a +waggery in memory; or when England's cherished Bard, the Leading Article, +blew bellows, and wind primed the lieges. + +That a phrase on any other subject was of much the same effect, in +relation to it, may be owned; he was lightly kindled. The scene, +however, had a sharp sparkle of attractiveness at the instant. Down went +the twirling horizontal pillars of a strong tide from the arches of the +bridge, breaking to wild water at a remove; and a reddish Northern cheek +of curdling pipeing East, at shrilly puffs between the Tower and the +Custom House, encountered it to whip and ridge the flood against +descending tug and long tail of stern-ajerk empty barges; with a steamer +slowly noseing round off the wharf-cranes, preparing to swirl the screw; +and half-bottom-upward boats dancing harpooner beside their whale; along +an avenue, not fabulously golden, of the deputy masts of all nations, a +wintry woodland, every rag aloft curling to volume; and here the spouts +and the mounds of steam, and rolls of brown smoke there, variously +undulated, curved to vanish; cold blue sky ashift with the whirl and dash +of a very Tartar cavalry of cloud overhead. + +Surely a scene pretending to sublimity? + +Gazeing along that grand highway of the voyageing forest, your London +citizen of good estate has reproached his country's poets for not pouring +out, succinctly and melodiously, his multitudinous larvae of notions +begotten by the scene. For there are times when he would, pay to have +them sung; and he feels them big; he thinks them human in their bulk; +they are Londinensian; they want but form and fire to get them scored on +the tablets of the quotable at festive boards. This he can promise to +his poets. As for otherwhere than at the festive, Commerce invoked is a +Goddess that will have the reek of those boards to fill her nostrils, and +poet and alderman alike may be dedicate to the sublime, she leads them, +after two sniffs of an idea concerning her, for the dive into the turtle- +tureen. Heels up they go, poet first--a plummet he! + +And besides it is barely possible for our rounded citizen, in the mood of +meditation, to direct his gaze off the bridge along the waterway North- +eastward without beholding as an eye the glow of whitebait's bow-window +by the riverside, to the front of the summer sunset, a league or so down +stream; where he sees, in memory savours, the Elysian end of Commerce: +frontispiece of a tale to fetch us up the out-wearied spectre of old +Apicius; yea, and urge Crispinus to wheel his purse into the market for +the purchase of a costlier mullet! + +But is the Jew of the usury gold becoming our despot-king of Commerce? + +In that case, we do not ask our country's poets to compose a single +stanza of eulogy's rhymes--far from it. Far to the contrary, we bid +ourselves remember the sons of whom we are; instead of revelling in the +fruits of Commerce, we shoot scornfully past those blazing bellied +windows of the aromatic dinners, and beyond Thames, away to the +fishermen's deeps, Old England's native element, where the strenuous +ancestry of a race yet and ever manful at the stress of trial are heard +around and aloft whistling us back to the splendid strain of muscle, and +spray fringes cloud, and strong heart rides the briny scoops and +hillocks, and Death and Man are at grip for the haul. + +There we find our nationality, our poetry, no Hebrew competing. + +We do: or there at least we left it. Whether to recover it when wanted, +is not so certain. Humpy Hengist and dumpy Horsa, quitting ledger and +coronet, might recur to their sea bowlegs and red-stubble chins, might +take to their tarpaulins again; they might renew their manhood on the +capture of cod; headed by Harald and Hardiknut, they might roll surges to +whelm a Dominant Jew clean gone to the fleshpots and effeminacy. +Aldermen of our ancient conception, they may teach him that he has been +backsliding once more, and must repent in ashes, as those who are for +jewels, titles, essences, banquets, for wallowing in slimy spawn of +lucre, have ever to do. They dispossess him of his greedy gettings. + +And how of the Law? + +But the Law is always, and must ever be, the Law of the stronger. + +--Ay, but brain beats muscle, and what if the Jew should prove to have +superior power of brain? A dreaded hypothesis! Why, then you see the +insurgent Saxon seamen (of the names in two syllables with accent on the +first), and their Danish captains, and it may be but a remnant of high- +nosed old Norman Lord de Warenne beside them, in the criminal box: and +presently the Jew smoking a giant regalia cigar on a balcony giving view +of a gallows-tree. But we will try that: on our side, to back a native +pugnacity, is morality, humanity, fraternity--nature's rights, aha! and +who withstands them? on his, a troop of mercenaries! + +And that lands me in Red Republicanism, a hop and a skip from Socialism! +said Mr. Radnor, and chuckled ironically at the natural declivity he had +come to. Still, there was an idea in it . . . . + +A short run or attempt at running after the idea, ended in pain to his +head near the spot where the haunting word punctilio caught at any excuse +for clamouring. + +Yet we cannot relinquish an idea that was ours; we are vowed to the +pursuit of it. Mr. Radnor lighted on the tracks, by dint of a thought +flung at his partner Mr. Inchling's dread of the Jews. Inchling dreaded +Scotchmen as well, and Americans, and Armenians, and Greeks: latterly +Germans hardly less; but his dread of absorption in Jewry, signifying +subjection, had often precipitated a deplorable shrug, in which Victor +Radnor now perceived the skirts of his idea, even to a fancy that +something of the idea must have struck Inchling when he shrugged: the +idea being . . . he had lost it again. Definition seemed to be an +extirpation enemy of this idea, or she was by nature shy. She was very +feminine; coming when she willed and flying when wanted. Not until nigh +upon the close of his history did she return, full-statured and +embraceable, to Victor Radnor. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THROUGH THE VAGUE TO THE INFINITELY LITTLE + +The fair dealing with readers demands of us, that a narrative shall not +proceed at slower pace than legs of a man in motion; and we are still but +little more than midway across London Bridge. But if a man's mind is to +be taken as a part of him, the likening of it, at an introduction, to an +army on the opening march of a great campaign, should plead excuses for +tardy forward movements, in consideration of the large amount of matter +you have to review before you can at all imagine yourselves to have made +his acquaintance. This it is not necessary to do when you are set +astride the enchanted horse of the Tale, which leaves the man's mind at +home while he performs the deeds befitting him: he can indeed be rapid. +Whether more active, is a question asking for your notions of the +governing element in the composition of man, and of hid present business +here. The Tale inspirits one's earlier ardours, when we sped without +baggage, when the Impossible was wings to imagination, and heroic +sculpture the simplest act of the chisel. It does not advance, 'tis +true; it drives the whirligig circle round and round the single existing +central point; but it is enriched with applause of the boys and girls of +both ages in this land; and all the English critics heap their honours on +its brave old Simplicity: our national literary flag, which signalizes us +while we float, subsequently to flap above the shallows. One may sigh +for it. An ill-fortuned minstrel who has by fateful direction been +brought to see with distinctness, that man is not as much comprised in +external features as the monkey, will be devoted to the task of the +fuller portraiture. + +After his ineffectual catching at the volatile idea, Mr. Radnor found +repose in thoughts of his daughter and her dear mother. They had begged +him to put on an overcoat this day of bitter wind, or a silken kerchief +for the throat. Faithful to the Spring, it had been his habit since +boyhood to show upon his person something of the hue of the vernal month, +the white of the daisied meadow, and although he owned a light overcoat +to dangle from shoulders at the Opera crush, he declined to wear it for +protection. His gesture of shaking and expanding whenever the tender +request was urged on him, signified a physical opposition to the control +of garments. Mechanically now, while doating in fancy over the couple +beseeching him, he loosened the button across his defaced waistcoat, +exposed a large measure of chest to flaws of a wind barbed on Norwegian +peaks by the brewers of cough and catarrh--horrid women of the whistling +clouts, in the pay of our doctors. He braved them; he starved the +profession. He was that man in fifty thousand who despises hostile +elements and goes unpunished, calmly erect among a sneezing and tumbled +host, as a lighthouse overhead of breezy fleets. The coursing of his +blood was by comparison electrical; he had not the sensation of cold, +other than that of an effort of the elements to arouse him; and so quick +was he, through this fine animation, to feel, think, act, that the three +successive tributaries of conduct appeared as an irreflective flash and a +gamester's daring in the vein to men who had no deep knowledge of him and +his lightning arithmetic for measuring, sounding, and deciding. + +Naturally he was among the happiest of human creatures; he willed it so, +with consent of circumstances; a boisterous consent, as when votes are +reckoned for a favourite candidate: excepting on the part of a small band +of black dissentients in a corner, a minute opaque body, devilish in +their irreconcilability, who maintain their struggle to provoke discord, +with a cry disclosing the one error of his youth, the sole bad step +chargeable upon his antecedents. But do we listen to them? Shall we not +have them turned out? He gives the sign for it; and he leaves his +buoying constituents to outroar them: and he tells a friend that it was +not, as one may say, an error, although an erratic step: but let us +explain to our bosom friend; it was a step quite unregretted, gloried in; +a step deliberately marked, to be done again, were the time renewed: it +was a step necessitated (emphatically) by a false preceding step; and +having youth to plead for it, in the first instance, youth and ignorance; +and secondly, and O how deeply truly! Love. Deep true love, proved by +years, is the advocate. + +He tells himself at the same time, after lending ear to the advocate's +exordium and a favourite sentence, that, judged by the Powers (to them +only can he expose the whole skeleton-cupboard of the case), judged by +those clear-sighted Powers, he is exonerated. + +To be exonerated by those awful Powers, is to be approved. + +As to that, there is no doubt: whom they, all-seeing, discerning as they +do, acquit they justify. + +Whom they justify, they compliment. + +They, seeing all the facts, are not unintelligent of distinctions, as the +world is. + +What, to them, is the spot of the error?--admitting it as an error. +They know it for a thing of convention, not of Nature. We stand forth +to plead it in proof of an adherence to Nature's laws: we affirm, that +far from a defilement, it is an illumination and stamp of nobility. On +the beloved who shares it with us, it is a stamp of the highest nobility. +Our world has many ways for signifying its displeasure, but it cannot +brand an angel. + +This was another favourite sentence of Love's grand oration for the +defence. So seductive was it to the Powers who sat in judgement on the +case, that they all, when the sentence came, turned eyes upon the angel, +and they smiled. + +They do not smile on the condemnable. + +She, then, were he rebuked, would have strength to uplift him. And who, +calling her his own, could be placed in second rank among the blissful! + +Mr. Radnor could rationally say that he was made for happiness; he flew +to it, he breathed, dispensed it. How conceive the clear-sighted +celestial Powers as opposing his claim to that estate? Not they. He +knew, for he had them safe in the locked chamber of his breast, to yield +him subservient responses. The world, or Puritanic members of it, had +pushed him to the trial once or twice--or had put on an air of doing so; +creating a temporary disturbance, ending in a merry duet with his +daughter Nesta Victoria: a glorious trio when her mother Natalia, sweet +lily that she was, shook the rainwater from her cup and followed the good +example to shine in the sun. + +He had a secret for them. + +Nesta's promising soprano, and her mother's contralto, and his baritone +--a true baritone, not so well trained as their accurate notes--should +be rising in spirited union with the curtain of that secret: there was +matter for song and concert, triumph and gratulation in it. And during +the whole passage of the bridge, he had not once cast thought on a secret +so palpitating, the cause of the morning's expedition and a long year's +prospect of the present day! It seemed to have been knocked clean out of +it--punctilioed out, Fenellan might say. Nor had any combinations upon +the theme of business displaced it. Just before the fall, the whole +drama of the unfolding of that secret was brilliant to his eyes as a +scene on a stage. + +He refused to feel any sensible bruise on his head, with the admission +that he perhaps might think he felt one which was virtually no more than +the feeling of a thought;--what his friend Dr. Peter Yatt would define as +feeling a rotifer astir in the curative compartment of a homoeopathic +globule: and a playful fancy may do that or anything. Only, Sanity does +not allow the infinitely little to disturb us. + +Mr. Radnor had a quaint experience of the effects of the infinitely +little while threading his way to a haberdasher's shop for new white +waistcoats. Under the shadow of the representative statue of City +Corporations and London's majesty, the figure of Royalty, worshipful in +its marbled redundancy, fronting the bridge, on the slope where the seas +of fish and fruit below throw up a thin line of their drift, he stood +contemplating the not unamiable, reposefully-jolly, Guelphic countenance, +from the loose jowl to the bent knee, as if it were a novelty to him; +unwilling to trust himself to the roadway he had often traversed, equally +careful that his hesitation should not be seen. A trifle more +impressible, he might have imagined the smoky figure and magnum of +pursiness barring the City against him. He could have laughed aloud at +the hypocrisy behind his quiet look of provincial wonderment at London's +sculptor's art; and he was partly tickled as well by the singular fit of +timidity enchaining him. Cart, omnibus, cab, van, barrow, donkey-tray, +went by in strings, broken here and there, and he could not induce his +legs to take advantage of the gaps; he listened to a warning that he +would be down again if he tried it, among those wheels; and his nerves +clutched him, like a troop of household women, to keep him from the +hazard of an exposure to the horrid crunch, pitiless as tiger's teeth; +and we may say truly, that once down, or once out of the rutted line, you +are food for lion and jackal--the forces of the world will have you in +their mandibles. + +An idea was there too; but it would not accept pursuit. + +'A pretty scud overheard?' said a voice at his ear. + +'For fine!--to-day at least,' Mr. Radnor affably replied to a stranger; +and gazing on the face of his friend Fenellan, knew the voice, and +laughed: 'You?' He straightened his back immediately to cross the road, +dismissing nervousness as a vapour, asking, between a cab and a van: +'Anything doing in the City?' For Mr. Fenellan's proper station faced +Westward. + +The reply was deferred until they had reached the pavement, when Mr. +Fenellan said: 'I'll tell you,' and looked a dubious preface, to his +friend's thinking. + +But it was merely the mental inquiry following a glance at mud-spots on +the coat. + +'We'll lunch; lunch with me, I must eat, tell me then,' said Mr. Radnor, +adding within himself: 'Emptiness! want of food!' to account for recent +ejaculations and qualms. He had not eaten for a good four hours. + +Fenellan's tone signified to his feverish sensibility of the moment, +that the matter was personal; and the intimation of a touch on domestic +affairs caused sinkings in his vacuity, much as though his heart were +having a fall. + +He mentioned the slip on the bridge, to explain his: need to visit a +haberdasher's shop, and pointed at the waistcoat. + +Mr. Fenellan was compassionate over the 'Poor virgin of the smoky city!' + +'They have their ready-made at these shops--last year's: perhaps, never +mind, do for the day,' said Mr. Radnor, impatient for eating, now that he +had spoken of it. 'A basin of turtle; I can't wait. A brush of the +coat; mud must be dry by this time. Clear turtle, I think, with a bottle +of the Old Veuve. Not bad news to tell? You like that Old Veuve?' + +'Too well to tell bad news of her,' said Mr. Fenellan in a manner to +reassure his friend, as he intended. 'You wouldn't credit it for the +Spring of the year, without the spotless waistcoat?' + +'Something of that, I suppose.' And so saying, Mr. Radnor entered the +shop of his quest, to be complimented by the shopkeeper, while the +attendants climbed the ladder to upper stages for white-waistcoat boxes, +on his being; the first bird of the season; which it pleased him to hear; +for the smallest of our gratifications in life could give a happy tone to +this brightly-constituted gentleman. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +OLD VEUVE + +They were known at the house of the turtle and the attractive Old Veuve: +a champagne of a sobered sweetness, of a great year, a great age, +counting up to the extremer maturity attained by wines of stilly depths; +and their worthy comrade, despite the wanton sparkles, for the promoting +of the state of reverential wonderment in rapture, which an ancient wine +will lead to, well you wot. The silly girly sugary crudity his given way +to womanly suavity, matronly composure, with yet the sparkles; they +ascend; but hue and flavour tell of a soul that has come to a lodgement +there. It conducts the youthful man to temples of dusky thought: +philosophers partaking of it are drawn by the arms of garlanded nymphs +about their necks into the fathomless of inquiries. It presents us with +a sphere, for the pursuit of the thing we covet most. It bubbles over +mellowness; it has, in the marriage with Time, extracted a spice of +individuality from the saccharine: by miracle, one would say, were it +not for our knowledge of the right noble issue of Time when he and good +things unite. There should be somewhere legends of him and the wine- +flask. There must be meanings to that effect in the Mythology, awaiting +unravelment. For the subject opens to deeper than cellars, and is a tree +with vast ramifications of the roots and the spreading growth, whereon +half if not all the mythic Gods, Inferior and Superior, Infernal and +Celestial, might be shown sitting in concord, performing in concert, +harmoniously receiving sacrificial offerings of the black or the white; +and the black not extinguishing the fairer fellow. Tell us of a +certainty that Time has embraced the wine-flask, then may it be asserted +(assuming the great year for the wine, i.e. combinations above) that a +speck of the white within us who drink will conquer, to rise in main +ascension over volumes of the black. It may, at a greater venture, but +confidently, be said in plain speech, that the Bacchus of auspicious +birth induces ever to the worship of the loftier Deities. + +Think as you will; forbear to come hauling up examples of malarious men, +in whom these pourings of the golden rays of life breed fogs; and be +moved, since you are scarcely under an obligation to hunt the meaning, +in tolerance of some dithyrambic inebriety of narration (quiverings of +the reverent pen) when we find ourselves entering the circle of a most +magnetic polarity. Take it for not worse than accompanying choric +flourishes, in accord with Mr. Victor Radnor and Mr. Simeon Fenellan at +their sipping of the venerable wine. + +Seated in a cosy corner, near the grey City window edged with a sooty +maze, they praised the wine, in the neuter and in the feminine; that for +the glass, this for the widow-branded bottle: not as poets hymning; it +was done in the City manner, briefly, part pensively, like men travelling +to the utmost bourne of flying flavour (a dell in infinite nether), and +still masters of themselves and at home. + +Such a wine, in its capturing permeation of us, insists on being for a +time a theme. + +'I wonder!' said Mr. Radnor, completely restored, eyeing his half-emptied +second glass and his boon-fellow. + +'Low!' Mr. Fenellan shook his head. + +'Half a dozen dozen left?' + +'Nearer the half of that. And who's the culprit?' + +'Old days! They won't let me have another dozen out of the house now.' + +'They'll never hit on such another discovery in their cellar, unless they +unearth a fifth corner.' + +'I don't blame them for making the price prohibitive. And sound as +ever!' + +Mr. Radnor watched the deliberate constant ascent of bubbles through +their rose-topaz transparency. He drank. That notion of the dish of +turtle was an inspiration of the right: he ought always to know it for +the want of replenishment when such a man as he went quaking. His latest +experiences of himself were incredible; but they passed, as the dimples +of the stream. He finished his third glass. The bottle, like the +cellar-wine, was at ebb: unlike the cellar-wine, it could be set flowing +again: He prattled, in the happy ignorance of compulsion: + +'Fenellan, remember, I had a sort of right to the wine--to the best I +could get; and this Old Veuve, more than any other, is a bridal wine! +We heard of Giulia Sanfredini's marriage to come off with the Spanish +Duke, and drank it to the toast of our little Nesta's godmother. I 've +told you. We took the girl to the Opera, when quite a little one--that +high:--and I declare to you, it was marvellous! Next morning after +breakfast, she plants herself in the middle of the room, and strikes her +attitude for song, and positively, almost with the Sanfredini's voice-- +illusion of it, you know,--trills us out more than I could have believed +credible to be recollected by a child. But I've told you the story. We +called her Fredi from that day. I sent the diva, with excuses and +compliments, a nuptial present-necklace, Roman goldwork, locket-pendant, +containing sunny curl, and below a fine pearl; really pretty; telling her +our grounds for the liberty. She replied, accepting the responsible +office; touching letter--we found it so; framed in Fredi's room, under +her godmother's photograph. Fredi has another heroine now, though she +worships her old one still; she never abandons her old ones. You've +heard the story over and over!' + +Mr. Fenellan nodded; he had a tenderness for the garrulity of Old Veuve, +and for the damsel. Chatter on that subject ran pleasantly with their +entertainment. + +Mr. Radnor meanwhile scribbled, and despatched a strip of his Note-book, +bearing a scrawl of orders, to his office. He was now fully himself, +benevolent, combative, gay, alert for amusement or the probeing of +schemes to the quick, weighing the good and the bad in them with his +fine touch on proportion. + +'City dead flat? A monotonous key; but it's about the same as fetching a +breath after a run; only, true, it lasts too long--not healthy! Skepsey +will bring me my letters. I was down in the country early this morning, +looking over the house, with Taplow, my architect; and he speaks fairly +well of the contractors. Yes, down at Lakelands; and saw my first lemon +butterfly in a dell of sunshine, out of the wind, and had half a mind to +catch it for Fredi,--and should have caught it myself, if I had! The +truth is, we three are country born and bred; we pine in London. Good +for a season; you know my old feeling. They are to learn the secret of +Lakelands to-morrow. It 's great fun; they think I don't see they've had +their suspicion for some time. You said--somebody said--"the eye of a +needle for what they let slip of their secrets, and the point of it for +penetrating yours":--women. But no; my dear souls didn't prick and +bother. And they dealt with a man in armour. I carry them down to +Lakelands to-morrow, if the City's flat.' + +'Keeping a secret's the lid on a boiling pot with you,' Mr. Fenellan +said; and he mused on the profoundness of the flavour at his lips. + +'I do it.' + +'You do: up to bursting at the breast.' + +'I keep it from Colney!' + +'As Vesuvius keeps it from Palmieri when shaking him.' + +'Has old Colney an idea of it?' + +'He has been foretelling an eruption of an edifice.' + +The laugh between them subsided to pensiveness. + +Mr. Fenellan's delay in the delivery of his news was eloquent to reveal +the one hateful topic; and this being seen, it waxed to such increase of +size with the passing seconds, that prudence called for it. + +'Come!' said Mr. Radnor. + +The appeal was understood. + +'Nothing very particular. I came into the City to look at a warehouse +they want to mount double guard on. Your idea of the fireman's night- +patrol and wires has done wonders for the office.' + +'I guarantee the City if all my directions are followed.' + +Mr. Fenellan's remark, that he had nothing very particular to tell, +reduced it to the mere touch upon a vexatious matter, which one has to +endure in the ears at times; but it may be postponed. So Mr. Radnor +encouraged him to talk of an Insurance Office Investment. Where it is +all bog and mist, as in the City to-day, the maxim is, not to take a +step, they agreed. Whether it was attributable to an unconsumed glut of +the markets, or apprehension of a panic, had to be considered. Both +gentlemen were angry with the Birds on the flags of foreign nations, +which would not imitate a sawdust Lion to couch reposefully. Incessantly +they scream and sharpen talons. + +'They crack the City bubbles and bladders, at all events,' Mr. Fenellan +said. 'But if we let our journals go on making use of them, in the shape +of sham hawks overhead, we shall pay for their one good day of the game +with our loss of the covey. An unstable London's no world's market- +place.' + +'No, no; it's a niggardly national purse, not the journals,' Mr. Radnor +said. 'The journals are trading engines. Panics are grist to them; so +are wars; but they do their duty in warning the taxpayer and rousing +Parliament. Dr. Schlesien's right: we go on believing that our God +Neptune will do everything for us, and won't see that Steam has paralyzed +his Trident: good! You and Colney are hard on Schlesien--or at him, I +should say. He's right: if we won't learn that we have become +Continentals, we shall be marched over. Laziness, cowardice, he says.' + +'Oh, be hanged!' interrupted Fenellan. 'As much of the former as you +like. He 's right about our "individualismus" being another name for +selfishness, and showing the usual deficiency in external features; it's +an individualism of all of a pattern, as when a mob cuts its lucky, each +fellow his own way. Well, then, conscript them, and they'll be all of a +better pattern. The only thing to do, and the cheapest. By heaven! +it's the only honourable thing to do.' + +Mr. Radnor disapproved. 'No conscription here.' + +'Not till you've got the drop of poison in your blood, in the form of an +army landed. That will teach you to catch at the drug.' + +'No, Fenellan! Besides they've got to land. I guarantee a trusty army +and navy under a contract, at two-thirds of the present cost. We'll +start a National Defence Insurance Company after the next panic.' + +'During,' said Mr. Fenellan, and there was a flutter of laughter at the +unobtrusive hint for seizing Dame England in the mood. + +Both dropped a sigh. + +'But you must try and run down with us to Lakelands to-morrow,' Mr. +Radnor resumed on a cheerfuller theme. 'You have not yet seen all I 've +done there. And it 's a castle with a drawbridge: no exchangeing of +visits, as we did at Craye Farm and at Creckholt; we are there for +country air; we don't court neighbours at all--perhaps the elect; it will +depend on Nataly's wishes. We can accommodate our Concert-set, and about +thirty or forty more, for as long as they like. You see, that was my +intention--to be independent of neighbouring society. Madame Callet +guarantees dinners or hot suppers for eighty--and Armandine is the last +person to be recklessly boasting.--When was it I was thinking last of +Armandine?' He asked himself that, as he rubbed at the back of his head. + +Mr. Fenellan was reading his friend's character by the light of his +remarks and in opposition to them, after the critical fashion of +intimates who know as well as hear: but it was amiably and trippingly, +on the dance of the wine in his veins. + +His look, however, was one that reminded; and Mr. Radnor cried: 'Now! +whatever it is!' + +'I had an interview: I assure you,' Mr. Fenellan interposed to pacify: +'the smallest of trifles, and to be expected: I thought you ought to know +it:--an interview with her lawyer; office business, increase of Insurance +on one of her City warehouses.' + +'Speak her name, speak the woman's name; we're talking like a pair of +conspirators,' exclaimed Mr. Radnor. + +'He informed me that Mrs. Burman has heard of the new mansion.' + +'My place at Lakelands?' + +Mr. Radnor's clear-water eyes hardened to stony as their vision ran along +the consequences of her having heard it. + +'Earlier this time!' he added, thrummed on the table, and thumped with +knuckles. 'I make my stand at Lakelands for good! Nothing mortal moves +me!' + +'That butler of hers--' + +'Jarniman, you mean: he's her butler, yes, the scoundrel--h'm-pah! +Heaven forgive me! she's an honest woman at least; I wouldn't rob her of +her little: fifty-nine or sixty next September, fifteenth of the month! +with the constitution of a broken drug-bottle, poor soul! She hears +everything from Jarniman: he catches wind of everything. All foreseen, +Fenellan, foreseen. I have made my stand at Lakelands, and there's my +flag till it's hauled down over Victor Radnor. London kills Nataly as +well as Fredi--and me: that is--I can use the words to you--I get back to +primal innocence in the country. We all three have the feeling. You're +a man to understand. My beasts, and the wild flowers, hedge-banks, and +stars. Fredi's poetess will tell you. Quiet waters reflecting. I +should feel it in Paris as well, though they have nightingales in their +Bois. It's the rustic I want to bathe me; and I had the feeling at +school, biting at Horace. Well, this is my Sabine Farm, rather on a +larger scale, for the sake of friends. Come, and pure air, water from +the springs, walks and rides in lanes, high sand-lanes; Nataly loves +them; Fredi worships the old roots of trees: she calls them the faces of +those weedy sandy lanes. And the two dear souls on their own estate, +Fenellan! And their poultry, cows, cream. And a certain influence one +has in the country socially. I make my stand on a home--not empty +punctilio.' + +Mr. Fenellan repeated, in a pause, 'Punctilio,' and not emphatically. + +'Don't bawl the word,' said Mr. Radnor, at the drum of whose ears it rang +and sang. 'Here in the City the woman's harmless; and here,' he struck +his breast. 'But she can shoot and hit another through me. Ah, the +witch!--poor wretch! poor soul! Only, she's malignant. I could swear! +But Colney 's right for once in something he says about oaths--"dropping +empty buckets," or something.' + +'"Empty buckets to haul up impotent demons, whom we have to pay as +heavily as the ready devil himself,"' Mr. Fenellan supplied the phrase. +'Only, the moment old Colney moralizes, he's what the critics call +sententious. We've all a parlous lot too much pulpit in us.' + +'Come, Fenellan, I don't think . . .' + +'Oh, yes, but it's true of me too.' + +'You reserve it for your enemies.' + +'I 'd like to distract it a bit from the biggest of 'em.' He pointed +finger at the region of the heart. + +'Here we have Skepsey,' said Mr. Radnor, observing the rapid approach of +a lean small figure, that in about the time of a straight-aimed javelin's +cast, shot from the doorway to the table. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE SECOND BOTTLE + +This little dart of a man came to a stop at a respectful distance from +his master, having the look of an arrested needle in mechanism. His lean +slip of face was an illumination of vivacious grey from the quickest of +prominent large eyes. He placed his master's letters legibly on the +table, and fell to his posture of attention, alert on stiff legs, the +hands like sucking-cubs at play with one another. + +Skepsey waited for Mr. Fenellan to notice him. + +'How about the Schools for Boxing?' that gentleman said. + +Deploring in motion the announcement he had to make, Skepsey replied: 'I +have a difficulty in getting the plan treated seriously: a person of no +station:--it does not appear of national importance. Ladies are against. +They decline their signatures; and ladies have great influence; because +of the blood; which we know is very slight, rather healthy than not; and +it could be proved for the advantage of the frailer sex. They seem to be +unaware of their own interests--ladies. The contention all around us is +with ignorance. My plan is written; I have shown it, and signatures of +gentlemen, to many of our City notables favourable in most cases: +gentlemen of the Stock Exchange highly. The clergy and the medical +profession are quite with me.' + +'The surgical, perhaps you mean?' + +'Also, sir. The clergy strongly.' + +'On the grounds of--what, Skepsey?' + +'Morality. I have fully explained to them:--after his work at the desk +all day, the young City clerk wants refreshment. He needs it, must have +it. I propose to catch him on his way to his music-halls and other +places, and take him to one of our establishments. A short term of +instruction, and he would find a pleasure in the gloves; it would delight +him more than excesses-beer and tobacco. The female in her right place, +certainly.' Skepsey supplicated honest interpretation of his hearer, and +pursued + +'It would improve his physical strength, at the same time add to his +sense of personal dignity.' + +'Would you teach females as well--to divert them from their frivolities?' + +'That would have to be thought over, sir. It would be better for them +than using their nails.' + +'I don't know, Skepsey: I'm rather a Conservative there.' + +'Yes; with regard to the female, sir: I confess, my scheme does not +include them. They dance; that is a healthy exercise. One has only to +say, that it does not add to the national force, in case of emergency. +I look to that. And I am particular in proposing an exercise independent +of--I have to say--sex. Not that there is harm in sex. But we are for +training. I hope my meaning is clear?' + +'Quite. You would have boxing with the gloves to be a kind of monastic +recreation.' + +'Recreation is the word, sir; I have often admired it,' said Skepsey, +blinking, unsure of the signification of monastic. + +'I was a bit of a boxer once,' Mr. Fenellan said, conscious of height and +breadth in measuring the wisp of a figure before him. + +'Something might be done with you still, sir.' + +Skepsey paid him the encomium after a respectful summary of his gifts in +a glimpse. Mr. Fenellan bowed to him. + +Mr. Radnor raised head from the notes he was pencilling upon letters +perused. + +'Skepsey's craze: regeneration of the English race by boxing--nucleus of +a national army?' + +'To face an enemy at close quarters--it teaches that, sir. I have always +been of opinion, that courage may be taught. I do not say heroism. And +setting aside for a moment thoughts of an army, we create more valuable +citizens. Protection to the weak in streets and by-places--shocking +examples of ruffians maltreating women, in view of a crowd.' + +'One strong man is an overmatch for your mob,' said Mr. Fenellan. + +Skepsey toned his assent to the diminishing thinness where a suspicion of +the negative begins to wind upon a distant horn. + +'Knowing his own intentions; and before an ignorant mob:--strong, you +say, sir? I venture my word that a, decent lad, with science, would beat +him. It is a question of the study and practice of first principles.' + +'If you were to see a rascal giant mishandling a woman?' Skepsey conjured +the scene by bending his head and peering abstractedly, as if over +spectacles. + +'I would beg him to abstain, for his own sake.' + +Mr. Fenellan knew that the little fellow was not boasting. + +'My brother Dartrey had a lesson or two from you in the first principles, +I think?' + +'Captain Dartrey is an athlete, sir: exceedingly quick and clever; a hard +boxer to beat.' + +'You will not call him captain when you see him; he has dismissed the +army.' + +'I much regret it, sir, much, that we have lost him. Captain Dartrey +Fenellan was a beautiful fencer. He gave me some instruction; unhappily, +I have to acknowledge, too late. It is a beautiful art. Captain Dartrey +says, the French excel at it. But it asks for a weapon, which nature has +not given: whereas the fists . . .' + +'So,' Mr. Radnor handed notes and papers to Skepsey: 'No sign of life?' + +'It is not yet seen in the City, sir.' + +'The first principles of commercial activity have retreated to earth's +maziest penetralia, where no tides are! is it not so, Skepsey?' said Mr. +Fenellan, whose initiative and exuberance in loquency had been restrained +by a slight oppression, known to guests; especially to the guest in the +earlier process of his magnification and illumination by virtue of a +grand old wine; and also when the news he has to communicate may be a +stir to unpleasant heaps. The shining lips and eyes of his florid face +now proclaimed speech, with his Puckish fancy jack-o'-lanterning over it. +'Business hangs to swing at every City door, like a ragshop Doll, on the +gallows of overproduction. Stocks and Shares are hollow nuts not a +squirrel of the lot would stop to crack for sight of the milky kernel +mouldered to beard. + +Percentage, like a cabman without a fare, has gone to sleep inside his +vehicle. Dividend may just be seen by tiptoe: stockholders, twinkling +heels over the far horizon. Too true!--and our merchants, brokers, +bankers, projectors of Companies, parade our City to remind us of the +poor steamed fellows trooping out of the burst-boiler-room of the big +ship Leviathan, in old years; a shade or two paler than the crowd o' the +passengers, apparently alive and conversible, but corpses, all of them to +lie their length in fifteen minutes.' + +'And you, Fenellan?' cried his host, inspired for a second bottle by the +lovely nonsense of a voluble friend wound up to the mark. + +'Doctor of the ship! with this prescription!' Mr. Fenellan held up his +glass. + +'Empty?' + +Mr. Fenellan made it completely so. 'Confident!' he affirmed. + +An order was tossed to the waiter, and both gentlemen screwed their lips +in relish of his heavy consent to score off another bottle from the +narrow list. + +'At the office in forty minutes,' Skepsey's master nodded to him and shot +him forth, calling him back: 'By the way, in case a man named Jarniman +should ask to see me, you turn him to the rightabout.' + +Skepsey repeated: 'Jarniman !' and flew. + +'A good servant,' Mr. Radnor said. 'Few of us think of our country so +much, whatever may be said of the specific he offers. Colney has +impressed him somehow immensely: he studies to write too; pushes to +improve himself; altogether a worthy creature.' + +The second bottle appeared. The waiter, in sincerity a reluctant +executioner, heightened his part for the edification of the admiring +couple. + +'Take heart, Benjamin,' said Mr. Fenellan; 'it's only the bottle dies; +and we are the angels above to receive the spirit.' + +'I'm thinking of the house,' Benjamin replied. He told them that again. + +'It 's the loss of the fame of having the wine, that he mourns. But, +Benjamin,' said Mr. Fenellan, 'the fame enters into the partakers of it, +and we spread it, and perpetuate it for you.' + +'That don't keep a house upright,' returned Benjamin. + +Mr. Fenellan murmured to himself: 'True enough, it 's elegy--though we +perform it through a trumpet; and there's not a doubt of our being down +or having knocked the world down, if we're loudly praised.' + +Benjamin waited to hear approval sounded on the lips uncertain as a woman +is a wine of ticklish age. The gentlemen nodded, and he retired. + +A second bottle, just as good as the first, should, one thoughtlessly +supposes, procure us a similar reposeful and excursive enjoyment, as of +men lying on their backs and flying imagination like a kite. The effect +was quite other. Mr. Radnor drank hastily and spoke with heat: 'You told +me All? tell me that!' + +Mr. Fenellan gathered himself together; he sipped, and relaxed his +bracing. But there really was a bit more to tell: not much, was it? Not +likely to puff a gale on the voluptuous indolence of a man drawn along by +Nereids over sunny sea-waves to behold the birth of the Foam-Goddess? +'According to Carling, her lawyer; that is, he hints she meditates a +blow.' + +'Mrs. Burman means to strike a blow?' + +'The lady.' + +'Does he think I fear any--does he mean a blow with a weapon? Is it a +legal . . . ? At last? Fenellan!' + +'So I fancied I understood.' + +'But can the good woman dream of that as a blow to strike and hurt, for a +punishment?--that's her one aim.' + +'She may have her hallucinations.' + +'But a blow--what a word for it! But it's life to us life! It's the +blow we've prayed for. Why, you know it! Let her strike, we bless her. +We've never had an ill feeling to the woman; utterly the contrary--pity, +pity, pity! Let her do that, we're at her feet, my Nataly and I. If you +knew what my poor girl suffers! She 's a saint at the stake. Chiefly on +behalf of her family. Fenellan, you may have a sort of guess at my +fortune: I'll own to luck; I put in a claim to courage and calculation.' + +'You've been a bulwark to your friends.' + +'All, Fenellan, all-stocks, shares, mines, companies, industries at home +and--abroad--all, at a sweep, to have the woman strike that blow! +Cheerfully would I begin to build a fortune over again--singing! Ha! +the woman has threatened it before. It's probably feline play with us.' + +His chin took support, he frowned. + +'You may have touched her.' + +'She won't be touched, and she won't be driven. What 's the secret of +her? I can't guess, I never could. She's a riddle.' + +'Riddles with wigs and false teeth have to be taken and shaken for the +ardently sought secret to reveal itself,' said Mr. Fenellan. + +His picture, with the skeleton issue of any shaking, smote Mr. Radnor's +eyes, they turned over. 'Oh!--her charms! She had a desperate belief in +her beauty. The woman 's undoubtedly charitable; she's not without a +mind--sort of mind: well, it shows no crack till it's put to use. Heart! +yes, against me she has plenty of it. They say she used to be courted; +she talked of it: "my courtiers, Mr. Victor!" There, heaven forgive me, +I wouldn't mock at her to another.' + +'It looks as if she were only inexorably human,' said Mr. Fenellan, +crushing a delicious gulp of the wine, that foamed along the channel to +flavour. 'We read of the tester of a bandit-bed; and it flattened unwary +recumbents to pancakes. An escape from the like of that seems pleadable, +should be: none but the drowsy would fail to jump out and run, or the +insane.' + +Mr. Radnor was taken with the illustration of his case. 'For the sake of +my sanity, it was! to preserve my . . . . but any word makes nonsense of +it. Could--I must ask you--could any sane man--you were abroad in those +days, horrible days! and never met her: I say, could you consent to be +tied--I admit the vow, ceremony, so forth-tied to--I was barely twenty- +one: I put it to you, Fenellan, was it in reason an engagement--which +is, I take it, a mutual plight of faith, in good faith; that is, with +capacity on both sides to keep the engagement: between the man you know +I was in youth and a more than middle-aged woman crazy up to the edge of +the cliff--as Colney says half the world is, and she positively is when +her spite is roused. No, Fenellan, I have nothing on my conscience with +regard to the woman. She had wealth: I left her not one penny the worse +for--but she was not one to reckon it, I own. She could be generous, +was, with her money. If she had struck this blow--I know she thought of +it: or if she would strike it now, I could not only forgive her, I could +beg forgiveness.' + +A sight of that extremity fetched prickles to his forehead. + +'You've borne your part bravely, my friend.' + +'I!' Mr. Radnor shrugged at mention of his personal burdens. 'Praise my +Nataly if you like! Made for one another, if ever two in this world! +You know us both, and do you doubt it? The sin would have been for us +two to meet and--but enough when I say, that I am she, she me, till death +and beyond it: that's my firm faith. Nataly teaches me the religion of +life, and you may learn what that is when you fall in love with a woman. +Eighteen-nineteen-twenty years!' + +Tears fell from him, two drops. He blinked, bugled in his throat, eyed +his watch, and smiled: 'The finishing glass! We should have had to put +Colney to bed. Few men stand their wine. You and I are not lamed by it; +we can drink and do business: my first experience in the City was, that +the power to drink--keeping a sound head--conduces to the doing of +business.' + +'It's a pleasant way of instructing men to submit to their conqueror.' + +'If it doubles the energies, mind.' + +'Not if it fiddles inside. I confess to that effect upon me. I've a +waltz going on, like the snake with the tail in his mouth, eternal; and +it won't allow of a thought upon Investments.' + +'Consult me to-morrow,' said Mr. Radnor, somewhat pained for having +inconsiderately misled the man he had hitherto helpfully guided. +'You've looked at the warehouse?' + +'That's performed.' + +'Make a practice of getting over as much of your business in the early +morning as you well can.' + +Mr. Radnor added hints of advice to a frail humanity he was indulgent, +the giant spoke in good fellowship. It would have been to have strained +his meaning, for purposes of sarcasm upon him, if one had taken him to +boast of a personal exemption from our common weakness. + +He stopped, and laughed: 'Now I 'm pumping my pulpit-eh? You come with +us to Lakelands. I drive the ladies down to my office, ten A.M.: if it's +fine; train half-past. We take a basket. By the way, I had no letter +from Dartrey last mail.' + +'He has buried his wife. It happens to some men.' + +Mr. Radnor stood gazing. He asked for the name of the place of the +burial. He heard without seizing it. A simulacrum spectre-spark of +hopefulness shot up in his imagination, glowed and quivered, darkening at +the utterance of the Dutch syllables, leaving a tinge of witless envy. +Dartrey--Fenellan had buried the wife whose behaviour vexed and +dishonoured him: and it was in Africa! One would have to go to Africa to +be free of the galling. But Dartrey had gone, and he was free!--The +strange faint freaks of our sensations when struck to leap and throw off +their load after a long affliction, play these disorderly pranks on the +brain; and they are faint, but they come in numbers, they are recurring, +always in ambush. We do not speak of them: we have not words to stamp +the indefinite things; generally we should leave them unspoken if we had +the words; we know them as out of reason: they haunt us, pluck at us, +fret us, nevertheless. + +Dartrey free, he was relieved of the murderous drama incessantly in the +mind of shackled men. + +It seemed like one of the miracles of a divine intervention, that Dartrey +should be free, suddenly free; and free while still a youngish man. He +was in himself a wonderful fellow, the pick of his country for vigour, +gallantry, trustiness, high-mindedness; his heavenly good fortune decked +him as a prodigy. + +'No harm to the head from that fall of yours?' Mr. Fenellan said. + +'None.' Mr. Radnor withdrew his hand from head to hat, clapped it on and +cried cheerily: 'Now to business'; as men may, who have confidence in +their ability to concentrate an instant attention upon the substantial. +'You dine with us. The usual Quartet: Peridon, Pempton, Colney, Yatt, or +Catkin: Priscilla Graves and Nataly--the Rev. Septimus; Cormyn and his +wife: Young Dudley Sowerby and I--flutes: he has precision, as naughty +Fredi said, when some one spoke of expression. In the course of the +evening, Lady Grace, perhaps: you like her.' + +'Human nature in the upper circle is particularly likeable.' + +'Fenellan,' said Mr. Radnor, emboldened to judge hopefully of his +fortunes by mere pressure of the thought of Dartrey's, 'I put it to you: +would you say, that there is anything this time behind your friend +Carling's report?' + +Although it had not been phrased as a report, Mr. Fenellan's answering +look and gesture, and a run of indiscriminate words, enrolled it in that +form, greatly to the inspiriting of Mr. Radnor. + +Old Veuve in one, to the soul of Old Veuve in the other, they recalled a +past day or two, touched the skies; and merriment or happiness in the +times behind them held a mirror to the present: or the hour of the +reverse of happiness worked the same effect by contrast: so that notions +of the singular election of us by Dame Fortune, sprang like vinous +bubbles. For it is written, that however powerful you be, you shall not +take the Winegod on board to entertain him as a simple passenger; and you +may captain your vessel, you may pilot it, and keep to your reckonings, +and steer for all the ports you have a mind to, even to doing profitable +exchange with Armenian and Jew, and still you shall do the something +more, which proves that the Winegod is on board: he is the pilot of your +blood if not the captain of your thoughts. + +Mr. Fenellan was unused to the copious outpouring of Victor Radnor's +confidences upon his domestic affairs; and the unwonted excitement of +Victor's manner of speech would have perplexed him, had there not been +such a fiddling of the waltz inside him. + +Payment for the turtle and the bottles of Old Veuve was performed +apart with Benjamin, while Simeon Fenellan strolled out of the house, +questioning a tumbled mind as to what description of suitable +entertainment, which would be dancing and flirting and fal-lallery in the +season of youth, London City could provide near meridian hours for a man +of middle age carrying his bottle of champagne, like a guest of an old- +fashioned wedding-breakfast. For although he could stand his wine as +well as his friend, his friend's potent capacity martially after the +feast to buckle to business at a sign of the clock, was beyond him. +It pointed to one of the embodied elements, hot from Nature's workshop. +It told of the endurance of powers, that partly explained the successful, +astonishing career of his friend among a people making urgent, if +unequal, demands perpetually upon stomach and head. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE LONDON WALK WESTWARD + +In that nationally interesting Poem, or Dramatic Satire, once famous, +THE RAJAH IN LONDON (London, Limbo and Sons, 1889), now obliterated +under the long wash of Press-matter, the reflection--not unknown to +philosophical observers, and natural perhaps in the mind of an Oriental +Prince--produced by his observation of the march of London citizens +Eastward at morn, Westward at eve, attributes their practice to a +survival of the Zoroastrian form of worship. His Minister, favourable +to the people or for the sake of fostering an idea in his Master's head, +remarks, that they show more than the fidelity of the sunflower to her +God. The Rajah, it would appear, frowns interrogatively, in the princely +fashion, accusing him of obscureness of speech:--princes and the louder +members of the grey public are fraternally instant to spurn at the whip +of that which they do not immediately comprehend. It is explained by the +Minister: not even the flower, he says, would hold constant, as they, to +the constantly unseen--a trebly cataphractic Invisible. The Rajah +professes curiosity to know how it is that the singular people nourish +their loyalty, since they cannot attest to the continued being of the +object in which they put their faith. He is informed by his prostrate +servant of a settled habit they have of diligently seeking their +Divinity, hidden above, below; and of copiously taking inside them doses +of what is denied to their external vision: thus they fortify credence +chemically on an abundance of meats and liquors; fire they eat, and they +drink fire; they become consequently instinct with fire. Necessarily +therefore they believe in fire. Believing, they worship. Worshipping, +they march Eastward at morn, Westward at eve. For that way lies the key, +this way the cupboard, of the supplies, their fuel. + +According to Stage directions, THE RAJAH AND HIS MINISTER Enter a Gin- +Palace.--It is to witness a service that they have learnt to appreciate +as Anglicanly religious. + +On the step of the return to their Indian clime, they speak of the hatted +sect, which is most, or most commercially, succoured and fattened by our +rule there: they wave adieu to the conquering Islanders, as to 'Parsees +beneath a cloud.' + +The two are seen last on the deck of the vessel, in perusal of a medical +pamphlet composed of statistics and sketches, traceries, horrid blots, +diagrams with numbers referring to notes, of the various maladies caused +by the prolonged prosecution of that form of worship. + +'But can they suffer so and live?' exclaims the Rajah, vexed by the +physical sympathetic twinges which set him wincing. + +'Science,' his Minister answers, 'took them up where Nature, in pity of +their martyrdom, dropped them. They do not live; they are engines, +insensible things of repairs and patches; insteamed to pursue their +infuriate course, to the one end of exhausting supplies for the renewing +of them, on peril of an instant suspension if they deviate a step or +stop: nor do they.' + +The Rajah is of opinion, that he sails home with the key of the riddle of +their power to vanquish. In some apparent allusion to an Indian story of +a married couple who successfully made their way, he accounts for their +solid and resistless advance, resembling that of-- + + The doubly-wedded man and wife, + Pledged to each other and against the world + With mutual union. + +One would like to think of the lengthened tide-flux of pedestrian +citizens facing South-westward, as being drawn by devout attraction to +our nourishing luminary: at the hour, mark, when the Norland cloud-king, +after a day of wild invasion, sits him on his restful bank of bluefish +smack-o'-cheek red above Whitechapel, to spy where his last puff of icy +javelins pierces and dismembers the vapoury masses in cluster about the +circle of flame descending upon the greatest and most elevated of +Admirals at the head of the Strand, with illumination of smoke-plumed +chimneys, house-roofs, window-panes, weather-vanes, monument and +pedimental monsters, and omnibus umbrella. One would fair believe that +they advance admireing; they are assuredly made handsome by the beams. +No longer mere concurrent atoms of the furnace of business (from coal- +dust to sparks, rushing, as it were, on respiratory blasts of an enormous +engine's centripetal and centrifugal energy), their step is leisurely to +meet the rosy Dinner, which is ever a see-saw with the God of Light in +his fall; the mask of the noble human visage upon them is not roughened, +as at midday, by those knotted hard ridges of the scrambler's hand seen +from forehead down to jaw; when indeed they have all the appearance of +sour scientific productions. And unhappily for the national portrait, in +the Poem quoted, the Rajah's Minister chose an hour between morning and +meridian, or at least before an astonished luncheon had come to composure +inside their persons, for drawing his Master's attention to the quaint +similarity of feature in the units of the busy antish congregates they +had travelled so far to visit and to study: + + These Britons wear + The driven and perplexed look of men + Begotten hastily 'twixt business hours + +It could not have been late afternoon. + +These Orientals should have seen them, with Victor Radnor among them, +fronting the smoky splendours of the sunset. In April, the month of +piled and hurried cloud, it is a Rape of the Sabines overhead from all +quarters, either one of the winds brawnily larcenous; and London, smoking +royally to the open skies, builds images of a dusty epic fray for +possession of the portly dames. There is immensity, swinging motion, +collision, dusky richness of colouring, to the sight; and to the mind +idea. London presents it. If we can allow ourselves a moment for not +inquireing scrupulously (you will do it by inhaling the aroma of the ripe +kitchen hour), here is a noble harmony of heaven and the earth of the +works of man, speaking a grander tongue than barren sea or wood or +wilderness. Just a moment; it goes; as, when a well-attuned barrel-organ +in a street has drawn us to recollections of the Opera or Italy, another +harshly crashes, and the postman knocks at doors, and perchance a +costermonger cries his mash of fruit, a beggar woman wails her hymn. +For the pinched are here, the dinnerless, the weedy, the gutter-growths, +the forces repressing them. That grand tongue of the giant City inspires +none human to Bardic eulogy while we let those discords be. An +embittered Muse of Reason prompts her victims to the composition of the +adulatory Essay and of the Leading Article, that she may satiate an angry +irony 'upon those who pay fee for their filling with the stuff. Song of +praise she does not permit. A moment of satisfaction in a striking +picture is accorded, and no more. For this London, this England, Europe, +world, but especially this London, is rather a thing for hospital +operations than for poetic rhapsody; in aspect, too, streaked scarlet +and pock-pitted under the most cumbrous of jewelled tiaras; a Titanic +work of long-tolerated pygmies; of whom the leaders, until sorely +discomforted in body and doubtful in soul, will give gold and labour, +will impose restrictions upon activity, to maintain a conservatism of +diseases. Mind is absent, or somewhere so low down beneath material +accumulations that it is inexpressive, powerless to drive the ponderous +bulk to such excisings, purgeings, purifyings as might--as may, we will +suppose, render it acceptable, for a theme of panegyric, to the Muse of +Reason; ultimately, with her consent, to the Spirit of Song. + +But first there must be the cleansing. When Night has fallen upon +London, the Rajah remarks: + + Monogamic Societies present + A decent visage and a hideous rear. + +His Minister (satirically, or in sympathetic Conservatism) would have +them not to move on, that they may preserve among beholders the +impression of their handsome frontage. Night, however, will come; and +they, adoreing the decent face, are moved on, made to expose what the +Rajah sees. Behind his courteousness, he is an antagonistic observer of +his conquerors; he pushes his questions farther than the need for them; +his Minister the same; apparently to retain the discountenanced people in +their state of exposure. Up to the time of the explanation of the puzzle +on board the departing vessel (on the road to Windsor, at the Premier's +reception, in the cell of the Police, in the presence of the Magistrate- +whose crack of a totally inverse decision upon their case, when he +becomes acquainted with the titles and station of these imputedly +peccant, refreshes them), they hold debates over the mysterious +contrarieties of a people professing in one street what they confound +in the next, and practising by day a demureness that yells with the +cat of the tiles at night. + +Granting all that, it being a transient novelist's business to please the +light-winged hosts which live for the hour, and give him his only chance +of half of it, let him identify himself with them, in keeping to the +quadrille on the surface and shirking the disagreeable. + +Clouds of high colour above London City are as the light of the Goddess +to lift the angry heroic head over human. They gloriously transfigure. +A Murillo beggar is not more precious than sight of London in any of the +streets admitting coloured cloud-scenes; the cunning of the sun's hand so +speaks to us. And if haply down an alley some olive mechanic of street- +organs has quickened little children's legs to rhythmic footing, they +strike on thoughts braver than pastoral. Victor Radnor, lover of the +country though he was, would have been the first to say it. He would +indeed have said it too emphatically. Open London as a theme, to a +citizen of London ardent for the clear air out of it, you have roused an +orator; you have certainly fired a magazine, and must listen to his +reminiscences of one of its paragraphs or pages. + +The figures of the hurtled fair ones in sky were wreathing Nelson's +cocked hat when Victor, distinguishably bright-faced amid a crowd of the +irradiated, emerged from the tideway to cross the square, having thoughts +upon Art, which were due rather to the suggestive proximity of the +National Gallery than to the Flemish mouldings of cloud-forms under +Venetian brushes. His purchases of pictures had been his unhappiest +ventures. He had relied and reposed on the dicta of newspaper critics; +who are sometimes unanimous, and are then taken for guides, and are +fatal. He was led to the conclusion that our modern-lauded pictures +do not ripen. They have a chance of it, if abused. But who thinks of +buying the abused? Exalted by the critics, they have, during the days +of Exhibition, a glow, a significance or a fun, abandoning them where +examination is close and constant, and the critic's trumpet-note +dispersed to the thinness of the fee for his blowing. As to foreign +pictures, classic pictures, Victor had known his purse to leap for a +Raphael with a history in stages of descent from the Master, and critics +to swarm: a Raphael of the dealers, exposed to be condemned by the +critics, universally derided. A real Raphael in your house is +aristocracy to the roof-tree. But the wealthy trader will reach to +title before he may hope to get the real Raphael or a Titian. Yet he +is the one who would, it may be, after enjoyment of his prize, bequeath +it to the nation--PRESENTED TO THE NATION BY VICTOR MONTGOMERY RADNOR. +There stood the letters in gilt; and he had a thrill of his generosity; +for few were the generous acts he could not perform; and if an object +haunted the deed, it came of his trader's habit of mind. + +He revelled in benevolent projects of gifts to the nation, which would +coat a sensitive name. Say, an ornamental City Square, flowers, +fountains, afternoon bands of music--comfortable seats in it, and a +shelter, and a ready supply of good cheap coffee or tea. Tobacco? +why not rolls of honest tobacco! nothing so much soothes the labourer. +A volume of plans for the benefit of London smoked out of each ascending +pile in his brain. London is at night a moaning outcast round the +policeman's' legs. What of an all-night-long, cosy, brightly lighted, +odoriferous coffee-saloon for rich or poor, on the model of the +hospitable Paduan? Owner of a penny, no soul among us shall be +rightly an outcast . . . . + +Dreams of this kind are taken at times by wealthy people as a cordial at +the bar of benevolent intentions. But Victor was not the man to steal +his refreshments in that known style. He meant to make deeds of them, +as far as he could, considering their immense extension; and except for +the sensitive social name, he was of single-minded purpose. + +Turning to the steps of a chemist's shop to get a prescription made up +for his Nataly's doctoring of her domestics, he was arrested by a rap on +his elbow; and no one was near; and there could not be a doubt of the +blow--a sharp hard stroke, sparing the funny-bone, but ringing. His +head, at the punctilio bump, throbbed responsively--owing to which or +indifference to the prescription, as of no instant requirement, he +pursued his course, resembling mentally the wanderer along a misty beach, +who hears cannon across the waters. + +He certainly had felt it. He remembered the shock: he could not remember +much of pain. How about intimations? His asking caused a smile. + +Very soon the riddle answered itself. He had come into view of the +diminutive marble cavalier of the infantile cerebellum; recollecting a +couplet from the pen of the disrespectful Satirist Peter, he thought of a +fall: his head and his elbow responded simultaneously to the thought. + +All was explained save his consequent rightabout from the chemist's shop: +and that belongs to the minor involutions of circumstances and the will. +It passed like a giver's wrinkle. He read the placards of the Opera; +reminding himself of the day when it was the single Opera-house; and now +we have two-or three. We have also a distracting couple of Clowns and +Pantaloons in our Pantomimes: though Colney says that the multiplication +of the pantaloon is a distinct advance to representative truth--and +bother Colney! Two Columbines also. We forbear to speak of men, but +where is the boy who can set his young heart upon two Columbines at once! +Victor felt the boy within him cold to both: and in his youth he had +doated on the solitary twirling spangled lovely Fairy. The tale of a +delicate lady dancer leaping as the kernel out of a nut from the arms of +Harlequin to the legalized embrace of a wealthy brewer, and thenceforth +living, by repute, with unagitated legs, as holy a matron, despite her +starry past, as any to be shown in a country breeding the like +abundantly, had always delighted him. It seemed a reconcilement of +opposing stations, a defeat of Puritanism. Ay, and poor women!--women in +the worser plight under the Puritan's eye. They may be erring and good: +yes, finding the man to lift them the one step up! Read the history of +the error. But presently we shall teach the Puritan to act by the +standards of his religion. All is coming right--must come right. Colney +shall be confounded. + +Hereupon Victor hopped on to Fenellan's hint regarding the designs of +Mrs. Burman. + +His Nataly might have to go through a short sharp term of scorching-- +Godiva to the gossips. + +She would come out of it glorified. She would be reconciled with her +family. With her story of her devotion to the man loving her, the world +would know her for the heroine she was: a born lady, in appearance and +manner an empress among women. It was a story to be pleaded in any +court, before the sternest public. Mrs. Burman had thrown her into +temptation's way. It was a story to touch the heart, as none other ever +written of over all the earth was there a woman equalling his Nataly! + +And their Nesta would have a dowry to make princesses envious:--she would +inherit . . . he ran up an arithmetical column, down to a line of +figures in addition, during three paces of his feet. Dartrey Fenellan +had said of little Nesta once, that she had a nature pure and sparkling +as mid-sea foam. Happy he who wins her! But she was one of the young +women who are easily pleased and hardly enthralled. Her father strained +his mind for the shape of the man to accomplish the feat. Whether she +had an ideal of a youth in her feminine head, was beyond his guessing. +She was not the damsel to weave a fairy waistcoat for the identical +prince, and try it upon all comers to discover him: as is done by some; +excuseably, if we would be just. Nesta was of the elect, for whom +excuses have not to be made. She would probably like a flute-player +best; because her father played the flute, and she loved him--laughably +a little maiden's reason! Her father laughed at her. + +Along the street of Clubs, where a bruised fancy may see black balls +raining, the narrow way between ducal mansions offers prospect of the +sweep of greensward, all but touching up to the sunset to draw it to the +dance. + +Formerly, in his very early youth, he clasped a dream of gaining way +to an alliance with one of these great surrounding houses; and he had +a passion for the acquisition of money as a means. And it has to be +confessed, he had sacrificed in youth a slice of his youth, to gain it +without labour--usually a costly purchase. It had ended disastrously: or +say, a running of the engine off the rails, and a speedy re-establishment +of traffic. Could it be a loss, that had led to the winning of his +Nataly? Can we really loathe the first of the steps when the one in +due sequence, cousin to it, is a blessedness? If we have been righted +to health by a medical draught, we are bound to be respectful to our +drug. And so we are, in spite of Nature's wry face and shiver at a +mention of what we went through during those days, those horrible days: +--hide them! + +The smothering of them from sight set them sounding he had to listen. +Colney Durance accused him of entering into bonds with somebody's +grandmother for the simple sake of browsing on her thousands: a picture +of himself too abhorrent to Victor to permit of any sort of acceptance. +Consequently he struck away to the other extreme of those who have a +choice in mixed motives: he protested that compassion had been the cause +of it. Looking at the circumstance now, he could see, allowing for human +frailty-perhaps a wish to join the ranks of the wealthy compassion for +the woman as the principal motive. How often had she not in those old +days praised his generosity for allying his golden youth to her withered +age--Mrs. Burman's very words! And she was a generous woman or had been: +she was generous in saying that. Well, and she was generous in having a +well-born, well-bred beautiful young creature like Nataly for her +companion, when it was a case of need for the dear girl; and +compassionately insisting, against remonstrances: they were spoken by +him, though they were but partial. How, then, had she become--at least, +how was it that she could continue to behave as the vindictive Fury who +persecuted remorselessly, would give no peace, poisoned the wells round +every place where he and his dear one pitched their tent! + +But at last she had come to charity, as he could well believe. Not too +late! Victor's feeling of gratitude to Mrs. Burman assured him it was +genuine because of his genuine conviction, that she had determined to end +her incomprehensibly lengthened days in reconcilement with him: and he +had always been ready to 'forget and forgive.' A truly beautiful old +phrase! It thrilled off the most susceptible of men. + +His well-kept secret of the spacious country-house danced him behind a +sober demeanour from one park to another; and along beside the drive to +view of his townhouse--unbeloved of the inhabitants, although by +acknowledgement it had, as Fredi funnily drawled, to express her sense +of justice in depreciation, 'good accommodation.' Nataly was at home, +he was sure. Time to be dressing: sun sets at six-forty, he said, and +glanced at the stained West, with an accompanying vision of outspread +primroses flooding banks of shadowy fields near Lakelands. + +He crossed the road and rang. + +Upon the opening of the door, there was a cascade of muslin downstairs. +His darling Fredi stood out of it, a dramatic Undine. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +NATALY + +'Il segreto!' the girl cried commandingly, with a forefinger at his +breast. + +He crossed arms, toning in similar recitative, with anguish, +'Dove volare!' + +They joined in half a dozen bars of operatic duet. + +She flew to him, embraced and kissed. + +'I must have it, my papa! unlock. I've been spying the bird on its +hedgerow nest so long! And this morning, my own dear cunning papa, +weren't you as bare as winter twigs? "Tomorrow perhaps we will have a +day in the country." To go and see the nest? Only, please, not a big +one. A real nest; where mama and I can wear dairymaid's hat and apron +all day--the style you like; and strike roots. We've been torn away two +or three times: twice, I know.' + +'Fixed, this time; nothing shall tear us up,' said her father, moving on +to the stairs, with an arm about her. + +'So, it is . . . ?' + +'She's amazed at her cleverness!' + +'A nest for three?' + +'We must have a friend or two.' + +'And pretty country?' + +'Trust her papa for that.' + +'Nice for walking and running over fields? No rich people?' + +'How escape that rabble in England! as Colney says. It's a place for +being quite independent of neighbours, free as air.' + +'Oh! bravo!' + +'And Fredi will have her horse, and mama her pony-carriage; and Fredi can +have a swim every Summer morning.' + +'A swim?' Her note was dubious. 'A river?' + +'A good long stretch--fairish, fairish. Bit of a lake; bathing-shed; the +Naiad's bower: pretty water to see.' + +'Ah. And has the house a name?' + +'Lakelands. I like the name.' + +'Papa gave it the name!' + +'There's nothing he can conceal from his girl. Only now and then a +little surprise.' + +'And his girl is off her head with astonishment. But tell me, who has +been sharing the secret with you?' + +'Fredi strikes home! And it is true, you dear; I must have a confidant: +Simeon Fenellan.' + +'Not Mr. Durance?' + +He shook out a positive negative. 'I leave Col to his guesses. He'd +have been prophesying fire the works before the completion.' + +'Then it is not a dear old house, like Craye and Creckholt?' + +'Wait and see to-morrow.' + +He spoke of the customary guests for concert practice; the music, +instrumental and vocal; quartet, duet, solo; and advising the girl to be +quick, as she had but twenty-five minutes, he went humming and trilling +into his dressing-room. + +Nesta signalled at her mother's door for permission to enter. She +slipped in, saw that the maid was absent, and said: 'Yes, mama; and +prepare, I feared it; I was sure.' + +Her mother breathed a little moan: 'Not a cottage?' + +'He has not mentioned it to Mr. Durance.' + +'Why not?' + +'Mr. Fenellan has been his confidant.' + +'My darling, we did wrong to let it go on, without speaking. You don't +know for certain yet?' + +'It's a large estate, mama, and a big new house.' + +Nataly's bosom sank. 'Ah me! here's misery! I ought to have known. +And too late now it has gone so far! But I never imagined he would be +building.' + +She caught herself languishing at her toilette-glass, as, if her beauty +were at stake; and shut her eyelids angrily. To be looking in that +manner, for a mere suspicion, was too foolish. But Nesta's divinations +were target-arrows; they flew to the mark. Could it have been expected +that Victor would ever do anything on a small scale? O the dear little +lost lost cottage! She thought of it with a strain of the arms of +womanhood's longing in the unblessed wife for a babe. For the secluded +modest cottage would not rack her with the old anxieties, beset her with +suspicions. . . . + +'My child, you won't possibly have time before the dinner-hour,' she said +to Nesta, dismissing her and taking her kiss of comfort with a short and +straining look out of the depths. + +Those bitter doubts of the sentiments of neighbours are an incipient +dislike, when one's own feelings to the neighbours are kind, could be +affectionate. We are distracted, perverted, made strangers to ourselves +by a false position. + +She heard his voice on a carol. Men do not feel this doubtful position +as women must. They have not the same to endure; the world gives them +land to tread, where women are on breaking seas. Her Nesta knew no more +than the pain of being torn from a home she loved. But now the girl was +older, and if once she had her imagination awakened, her fearful +directness would touch the spot, question, bring on the scene to-come, +necessarily to come, dreaded much more than death by her mother. But +if it might be postponed till the girl was nearer to an age of grave +understanding, with some knowledge of our world, some comprehension of a +case that could be pleaded! + +He sang: he never acknowledged a trouble, he dispersed it; and in her +present wrestle with the scheme of a large country estate involving new +intimacies, anxieties, the courtship of rival magnates, followed by the +wretched old cloud, and the imposition upon them to bear it in silence +though they knew they could plead a case, at least before charitable and +discerning creatures or before heaven, the despondent lady could have +asked whether he was perfectly sane. + +Who half so brilliantly!--Depreciation of him, fetched up at a stroke the +glittering armies of her enthusiasm. He had proved it; he proved it +daily in conflicts and in victories that dwarfed emotional troubles like +hers: yet they were something to bear, hard to bear, at times unbearable. + +But those were times of weakness. Let anything be doubted rather than +the good guidance of the man who was her breath of life! Whither he led, +let her go, not only submissively, exultingly. + +Thus she thought, under pressure of the knowledge, that unless rushing +into conflicts bigger than conceivable, she had to do it, and should +therefore think it. + +This was the prudent woman's clear deduction from the state wherein +she found herself, created by the one first great step of the mad woman. +Her surrender then might be likened to the detachment of a flower on the +river's bank by swell of flood: she had no longer root of her own; away +she sailed, through beautiful scenery, with occasionally a crashing fall, +a turmoil, emergence from a vortex, and once more the sunny whirling +surface. Strange to think, she had not since then power to grasp in her +abstract mind a notion of stedfastness without or within. + +But, say not the mad, say the enamoured woman. Love is a madness, having +heaven's wisdom in it--a spark. But even when it is driving us on the +breakers, call it love: and be not unworthy of it, hold to it. She and +Victor had drunk of a cup. The philtre was in her veins, whatever the +directions of the rational mind. + +Exulting or regretting, she had to do it, as one in the car with a racing +charioteer. Or up beside a more than Titanically audacious balloonist. +For the charioteer is bent on a goal; and Victor's course was an +ascension from heights to heights. He had ideas, he mastered Fortune. +He conquered Nataly and held her subject, in being above his ambition; +which was now but an occupation for his powers, while the aim of his life +was at the giving and taking of simple enjoyment. In spite of his fits +of unreasonableness in the means--and the woman loving him could trace +them to a breath of nature--his gentle good friendly innocent aim in life +was of this very simplest; so wonderful, by contrast with his powers, +that she, assured of it as she was by experience of him, was touched, +in a transfusion of her feelings through lucent globes of admiration and +of tenderness, to reverence. There had been occasions when her wish for +the whole world to have proof and exhibition of his greatness, goodness, +and simplicity amid his gifts, prompted her incitement of him to stand +forth eminently: 'lead a kingdom,' was the phrase behind the curtain +within her shy bosom); and it revealed her to herself, upon reflection, +as being still the Nataly who drank the cup with him, to join her fate +with his. + +And why not? Was that regretted? Far from it. In her maturity, the +woman was unable to send forth any dwelling thought or more than a flight +of twilight fancy, that cancelled the deed of her youth, and therewith +seemed to expunge near upon the half--of her term of years. If it came +to consideration of her family and the family's opinion of her conduct, +her judgement did not side with them or with herself, it whirled, swam to +a giddiness and subsided. + +Of course, if she and Victor were to inhabit a large country-house, +they might as well have remained at Craye Farm or at Creckholt; both +places dear to them in turn. Such was the plain sense of the surface +question. And how strange it was to her, that he, of the most quivering +sensitiveness on her behalf; could not see, that he threw her into +situations where hard words of men and women threatened about her head; +where one or two might on a day, some day, be heard; and where, in the +recollection of two years back, the word 'Impostor' had smacked her on +both cheeks from her own mouth. + +Now once more they were to run the same round of alarms, undergo the love +of the place, with perpetual apprehensions of having to leave it: alarms, +throbbing suspicions, like those of old travellers through the haunted +forest, where whispers have intensity of meaning, and unseeing we are +seen, and unaware awaited. + +Nataly shook the rolls of her thick brown hair from her forehead; she +took strength from a handsome look of resolution in the glass. She could +always honestly say, that her courage would not fail him. + +Victor tapped at the door; he stepped into the room, wearing his evening +white flower over a more open white waistcoat; and she was composed and +uninquiring. Their Nesta was heard on the descent of the stairs, with a +rattle of Donizetti's Il segreto to the skylights. + +He performed his never-omitted lover's homage. + +Nataly enfolded him in a homely smile. 'A country-house? We go and see +it to-morrow?' + +'And you've been pining for a country home, my dear soul.' + +'After the summer six weeks, the house in London does not seem a home to +return to.' + +'And next day, Nataly draws five thousand pounds for the first sketch of +the furniture.' + +'There is the Creckholt . . .' she had a difficulty in saying. + +'Part of it may do. Lakelands requires--but you will see to-morrow.' + +After a close shutting of her eyes, she rejoined: 'It is not a cottage?' + +'Well, dear, no: when the Slave of the Lamp takes to building, he does +not run up cottages. And we did it without magic, all in a year; which +is quite as good as a magical trick in a night.' He drew her close to +him. 'When was it my dear girl guessed me at work?' + +'It was the other dear girl. Nesta is the guesser.' + +'You were two best of souls to keep from bothering me; and I might have +had to fib; and we neither of us like that.' He noticed a sidling of her +look. 'More than the circumstances oblige:--to be frank. But now we can +speak of them. Wait--and the change comes; and opportunely, I have +found. It's true we have waited long; my darling has had her worries. +However, it 's here at last. Prepare yourself. I speak positively. +You have to brace up for one sharp twitch--the woman's portion! as +Natata says--and it's over.' He looked into her eyes for comprehension; +and not finding inquiry, resumed: 'Just in time for the entry into +Lakelands. With the pronouncement of the decree, we present the licence +. . . at an altar we've stood before, in spirit . . . one of the +ladies of your family to support you:--why not? Not even then?' + +'No, Victor; they have cast me off.' + +'Count on my cousins, the Duvidney ladies. Then we can say, that those +two good old spinsters are less narrow than the Dreightons. I have to +confess I rather think I was to blame for leaving Creckholt. Only, +if I see my girl wounded, I hate the place that did the mischief. +You and Fredi will clap hands for the country about Lakelands.' + +'Have you heard from her . . . of her . . . is it anything, +Victor?' Nataly asked him shyly; with not much of hope, but some +readiness to be inflated. The prospect of an entry into the big new +house, among a new society, begirt by the old nightmares and fretting +devils, drew her into staring daylight or furnace-light. + +He answered: 'Mrs. Burman has definitely decided. In pity of us?--to be +free herself?--who can say! She 's a woman with a conscience--of a kind: +slow, but it brings her to the point at last. You know her, know her +well. Fenellan has it from her lawyer--her lawyer! a Mr. Carting; +a thoroughly trustworthy man--' + +'Fenellan, as a reporter?' + +'Thoroughly to be trusted on serious matters. I understand that Mrs. +Burman:--her health is awful: yes, yes; poor woman! poor woman! we feel +for her:--she has come to perceive her duty to those she leaves behind. +Consider: she HAS used the rod. She must be tired out--if human. And +she is. One remembers traits.' + +Victor sketched one or two of the traits allusively to the hearer +acquainted with them. They received strong colouring from midday's Old +Veuve in his blood. His voice and words had a swing of conviction: they +imparted vinousness to a heart athirst. + +The histrionic self-deceiver may be a persuasive deceiver of another, +who is again, though not ignorant of his character, tempted to swallow +the nostrums which have made so gallant a man of him: his imperceptible +sensible playing of the part, on a substratum of sincereness, induces +fascinatingly to the like performance on our side, that we may be armed +as he is for enjoying the coveted reality through the partial simulation +of possessing it. And this is not a task to us when we have looked our +actor in the face, and seen him bear the look, knowing that he is not +intentionally untruthful; and when we incline to be captivated by his +rare theatrical air of confidence; when it seems as an outside thought +striking us, that he may not be altogether deceived in the present +instance; when suddenly an expectation of the thing desired is born and +swims in a credible featureless vagueness on a misty scene: and when we +are being kissed and the blood is warmed. In fine, here as everywhere +along our history, when the sensations are spirited up to drown the mind, +we become drift-matter of tides, metal to magnets. And if we are women, +who commonly allow the lead to men, getting it for themselves only by +snaky cunning or desperate adventure, credulity--the continued trust in +the man--is the alternative of despair. + +'But, Victor, I must ask,' Nataly said: 'you have it through Simeon +Fenellan; you have not yourself received the letter from her lawyer?' + +'My knowledge of what she would do near the grave--poor soul, yes! I +shall soon be hearing.' + +'You do not, propose to enter this place until--until it is over?' + +'We enter this place, my love, without any sort of ceremony. We live +there independently, and we can we have quarters there for our friends. +Our one neighbour is London--there! And at Lakelands we are able to +entertain London and wife;--our friends, in short; with some, what we +have to call, satellites. You inspect the house and grounds to-morrow +--sure to be fair. Put aside all but the pleasant recollections of Craye +and Creckholt. We start on a different footing. Really nothing can be +simpler. Keeping your town-house, you are now and then in residence at +Lakelands, where you entertain your set, teach them to feel the charm of +country life: we have everything about us; could have had our own milk +and cream up to London the last two months. Was it very naughty?-- +I should have exploded my surprise! You will see, you will see +to-morrow.' + +Nataly nodded, as required. 'Good news from the mines?' she said. + +He answered: 'Dartrey is--yes, poor fellow! Dartrey is confident, from +the yield of stones, that the value of our claim counts in a number of +millions. The same with the gold. But gold-mines are lodgeings, not +homes.' + +'Oh, Victor! if money . . . ! But why did you say "poor fellow" of +Dartrey Fenellan?' + +'You know how he's . . .' + +'Yes, yes,' she said hastily. 'But has that woman been causing fresh +anxiety?' + +'And Natata's chief hero on earth is not to be named a poor fellow,' said +he, after a negative of the head on a subject they neither of them liked +to touch. + +Then he remembered that Dartrey Fenellan was actually a lucky fellow; +and he would have mentioned the circumstance confided to him by Simeon, +but for a downright dread of renewing his painful fit of envy. He had +also another, more distant, very faint idea, that it had better not be +mentioned just yet, for a reason entirely undefined. + +He consulted his watch. The maid had come in for the robeing of her +mistress. Nataly's mind had turned to the little country cottage which +would have given her such great happiness. She raised her eyes to him; +she could not check their filling; they were like a river carrying +moonlight on the smooth roll of a fall. + +He loved the eyes, disliked the water in them. With an impatient, +'There, there!' and a smart affectionate look, he retired, thinking in +our old satirical vein of the hopeless endeavour to satisfy a woman's +mind without the intrusion of hard material statements, facts. Even the +best of women, even the most beautiful, and in their moments of supremest +beauty, have this gross ravenousness for facts. You must not expect to +appease them unless you administer solids. It would almost appear that +man is exclusively imaginative and poetical; and that his mate, the fair, +the graceful, the bewitching, with the sweetest and purest of natures, +cannot help being something of a groveller. + +Nataly had likewise her thoughts. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +BETWEEN A GENERAL MAN OF THIN WORLD AND A PROFESSIONAL + +Rather earlier in the afternoon of that day, Simeon Fenellan, thinking +of the many things which are nothing, and so melancholy for lack of +amusements properly to follow Old Veuve, that he could ask himself +whether he had not done a deed of night, to be blinking at his fellow-men +like an owl all mad for the reveller's hoots and flights and mice and +moony roundels behind his hypocritical judex air of moping composure, +chanced on Mr. Carling, the solicitor, where Lincoln's Inn pumps lawyers +into Fleet Street through the drain-pipe of Chancery Lane. He was in the +state of the wine when a shake will rouse the sluggish sparkles to foam. +Sight of Mrs. Burman's legal adviser had instantly this effect upon him: +his bubbling friendliness for Victor Radnor, and the desire of the voice +in his bosom for ears to hear, combined like the rush of two waves +together, upon which he may be figured as the boat: he caught at Mr. +Carling's hand more heartily than their acquaintanceship quite +sanctioned; but his grasp and his look of overflowing were immediately +privileged; Mr. Carling, enjoying this anecdotal gentleman's conversation +as he did, liked the warmth, and was flattered during the squeeze with a +prospect of his wife and friends partaking of the fun from time to time. + +'I was telling my wife yesterday your story of the lady contrabandist: I +don't think she has done laughing since,' Mr. Calling said. + +Fenellan fluted: 'Ah?' He had scent, in the eulogy of a story grown flat +as Election hats, of a good sort of man in the way of men, a step or two +behind the man of the world. He expressed profound regret at not having +heard the silvery ring of the lady's laughter. + +Carling genially conceived a real gratification to be conferred on his +wife. 'Perhaps you will some day honour us?' + +'You spread gold-leaf over the days to come, sir.' + +'Now, if I might name the day?' + +'You lump the gold and make it current coin;--says the blushing bride, +who ought not to have delivered herself so boldly, but she had forgotten +her bashful part and spoilt the scene, though, luckily for the damsel, +her swain was a lover of nature, and finding her at full charge, named +the very next day of the year, and held her to it, like the complimentary +tyrant he was.' + +'To-morrow, then!' said Carling intrepidly, on a dash of enthusiasm, +through a haggard thought of his wife and the cook and the netting of +friends at short notice. He urged his eagerness to ask whether he might +indeed have the satisfaction of naming to-morrow. + +'With happiness,' Fenellan responded. + +Mrs. Carling was therefore in for it. + +'To-morrow, half-past seven: as for company to meet you, we will do what +we can. You go Westward?' + +'To bed with the sun,' said the reveller. + +'Perhaps by Covent Garden? I must give orders there.' + +'Orders given in Covent Garden, paint a picture for bachelors of the +domestic Paradise an angel must help them to enter! Ah, dear me! Is +there anything on earth to compare with the pride of a virtuous life?' + +'I was married at four and twenty,' said Carling, as one taking up +the expository second verse of a poem; plain facts, but weighty and +necessary: 'my wife was in her twentieth year: we have five children; two +sons, three daughters, one married, with a baby. So we are grandfather +and mother, and have never regretted the first step, I may say for both +of us.' + +'Think of it! Good luck and sagacity joined hands overhead on the day +you proposed to the lady: and I'd say, that all the credit is with her, +but that it would seem to be at the expense of her sex.' + +'She would be the last to wish it, I assure you.' + +'True of all good women! You encourage me, touching a matter of deep +interest, not unknown to you. The lady's warm heart will be with us. +Probably she sees Mrs. Burman?' + +'Mrs. Burman Radnor receives no one.' + +A comic severity in the tone of the correction was deferentially accepted +by Fenellan. + +'Pardon. She flies her flag, with her captain wanting; and she has, +queerly, the right. So, then, the worthy dame who receives no one, might +be treated, it struck us, conversationally, as a respectable harbour- +hulk, with more history than top-honours. But she has the indubitable +legal right to fly them--to proclaim it; for it means little else.' + +'You would have her, if I follow you, divest herself of the name?' + +'Pin me to no significations, if you please, O shrewdest of the legal +sort! I have wit enough to escape you there. She is no doubt an +estimable person.' + +'Well, she is; she is in her way a very good woman.' + +'Ah. You see, Mr. Carling, I cannot bring myself to rank her beside +another lady, who has already claimed the title of me; and you will +forgive me if I say, that your word "good" has a look of being stuck upon +the features we know of her, like a coquette's naughty patch; or it's +a jewel of an eye in an ebony idol: though I've heard tell she performs +her charities.' + +'I believe she gives away three parts of her income and that is large.' + +'Leaving the good lady a fine fat fourth.' + +'Compare her with other wealthy people.' + +'And does she outshine the majority still with her personal attractions. + +Carling was instigated by the praise he had bestowed on his wife to +separate himself from a female pretender so ludicrous; he sought +Fenellan's nearest ear, emitting the sound of 'hum.' + +'In other respects, unimpeachable!' + +'Oh! quite!' + +'There was a fishfag of classic Billingsgate, who had broken her +husband's nose with a sledgehammer fist, and swore before the magistrate, +that the man hadn't a crease to complain of in her character. We are +condemned, Mr. Carling, sometimes to suffer in the flesh for the +assurance we receive of the inviolability of those moral fortifications.' + +'Character, yes, valuable--I do wish you had named to-night for doing me +the honour of dining with me!' said the lawyer impulsively, in a rapture +of the appetite for anecdotes. 'I have a ripe Pichon Longueville, '65.' + +'A fine wine. Seductive to hear of. I dine with my friend Victor +Radnor. And he knows wine.--There are good women in the world, Mr. +Carling, whose characters . . .' + +'Of course,'of course there are; and I could name you some. +We lawyers . . . . ! + +'You encounter all sorts.' + +'Between ourselves,' Carling sank his tones to the indiscriminate, where +it mingled with the roar of London. + +'You do?' Fenellan hazarded a guess at having heard enlightened liberal +opinions regarding the sex. 'Right!' + +'Many!' + +'I back you, Mr. Carling.' + +The lawyer pushed to yet more confidential communication, up to the verge +of the clearly audible: he spoke of examples, experiences. Fenellan +backed him further. + +'Acting on behalf of clients, you understand, Mr. Fenellan.' + +'Professional, but charitable; I am with you.' + +'Poor things! we--if we have to condemn--we owe them something.' + +'A kind word for poor Polly Venus, with all the world against her! She +doesn't hear it often.' + +'A real service,' Carling's voice deepened to the legal 'without +prejudice,'--'I am bound to say it--a service to Society.' + +'Ah, poor wench! And the kind of reward she gets?' + +'We can hardly examine . . . mysterious dispensations . . . here we +are to make the best we can of it.' + +'For the creature Society's indebted to? True. And am I to think +there's a body of legal gentlemen to join with you, my friend, in +founding an Institution to distribute funds to preach charity over the +country, and win compassion for her, as one of the principal persons of +her time, that Society's indebted to for whatever it's indebted for?' + +'Scarcely that,' said Carling, contracting. + +'But you 're for great Reforms?' + +'Gradual.' + +'Then it's for Reformatories, mayhap.' + +'They would hardly be a cure.' + +'You 're in search of a cure?' + +'It would be a blessed discovery.' + +'But what's to become of Society?' + +'It's a puzzle to the cleverest.' + +'All through History, my dear Mr. Carling, we see that. + +'Establishments must have their sacrifices. Beware of interfering: eh?' + +'By degrees, we may hope . . . .' + +'Society prudently shuns the topic; and so 'll we. For we might tell of +one another, in a fit of distraction, that t' other one talked of it, and +we should be banished for an offence against propriety. You should read +my friend Durance's Essay on Society. Lawyers are a buttress of Society. +But, come: I wager they don't know what they support until they read that +Essay.' + +Carling had a pleasant sense of escape, in not being personally asked to +read the Essay, and not hearing that a copy of it should be forwarded to +him. + +He said: 'Mr. Radnor is a very old friend?' + +'Our fathers were friends; they served in the same regiment for years. +I was in India when Victor Radnor took the fatal!' + +'Followed by a second, not less . . . ?' + +'In the interpretation of a rigid morality arming you legal gentlemen to +make it so!' + +'The Law must be vindicated.' + +'The law is a clumsy bludgeon.' + +'We think it the highest effort of human reason--the practical +instrument.' + +'You may compare it to a rustic's finger on a fiddlestring, for the +murdered notes you get out of the practical instrument. + +'I am bound to defend it, clumsy bludgeon or not.' + +'You are one of the giants to wield it, and feel humanly, when, by +chance, down it comes on the foot an inch off the line.--Here's a peep +of Old London; if the habit of old was not to wash windows. I like these +old streets!' + +'Hum,' Carling hesitated. 'I can remember when the dirt at the windows +was appalling.' + +'Appealing to the same kind of stuff in the passing youngster's green- +scum eye: it was. And there your Law did good work.--You're for +Bordeaux. What is your word on Burgundy?' + +'Our Falernian!' + +'Victor Radnor has the oldest in the kingdom. But he will have the best +of everything. A Romanee! A Musigny! Sip, my friend, you embrace the +Goddess of your choice above. You are up beside her at a sniff of that +wine.--And lo, venerable Drury! we duck through the court, reminded a bit +by our feelings of our first love, who hadn't the cleanest of faces or +nicest of manners, but she takes her station in memory because we were +boys then, and the golden halo of youth is upon her.' + +Carling, as a man of the world, acquiesced in souvenirs he did not share. +He said urgently: 'Understand me; you speak of Mr. Radnor; pray, believe +I have the greatest respect for Mr. Radnor's abilities. He is one of our +foremost men . . . proud of him. Mr. Radnor has genius; I have +watched him; it is genius; he shows it in all he does; one of the +memorable men of our times. I can admire him, independent of--well, +misfortune of that kind . . . a mistaken early step. Misfortune, +it is to be named. Between ourselves--we are men of the world--if one +could see the way! She occasionally . . . as I have told you. I have +ventured suggestions. As I have mentioned, I have received an impression +. . .' + +'But still, Mr. Carling, if the lady doesn't release him and will keep +his name, she might stop her cowardly persecutions.' + +'Can you trace them?' + +'Undisguised!' + +'Mrs. Burman Radnor is devout. I should not exactly say revengeful. +We have to discriminate. I gather, that her animus is, in all honesty, +directed at the--I quote--state of sin. We are mixed, you know.' + +The Winegod in the blood of Fenellan gave a leap. 'But, fifty thousand +times more mixed, she might any moment stop the state of sin, as she +calls it, if it pleased her.' + +'She might try. Our Judges look suspiciously on long delayed actions. +And there are, too, women who regard the marriage-tie as indissoluble. +She has had to combat that scruple.' + +'Believer in the renewing of the engagement overhead!--well. But put a +by-word to Mother Nature about the state of sin. Where, do you imagine, +she would lay it? You'll say, that Nature and Law never agreed. They +ought.' + +'The latter deferring to the former?' + +'Moulding itself on her swelling proportions. My dear dear sir, the +state of sin was the continuing to live in defiance of, in contempt of, +in violation of, in the total degradation of, Nature.' + +'He was under no enforcement to take the oath at the altar.' + +'He was a small boy tempted by a varnished widow, with pounds of barley +sugar in her pockets;--and she already serving as a test-vessel or mortar +for awful combinations in druggery! Gilt widows are equal to decrees of +Fate to us young ones. Upon my word, the cleric who unites, and the Law +that sanctions, they're the criminals. Victor Radnor is the noblest of +fellows, the very best friend a man can have. I will tell you: he saved +me, after I left the army, from living on the produce of my pen--which +means, if there is to be any produce, the prostrating of yourself to the +level of the round middle of the public: saved me from that! Yes, Mr. +Carling, I have trotted our thoroughfares a poor Polly of the pen; and it +is owing to Victor Radnor that I can order my thoughts as an individual +man again before I blacken paper. Owing to him, I have a tenderness for +mercenaries; having been one of them and knowing how little we can help +it. He is an Olympian--who thinks of them below. The lady also is an +admirable woman at all points. The pair are a mated couple, such as you +won't find in ten households over Christendom. Are you aware of the +story?' + +Carling replied: 'A story under shadow of the Law, has generally two very +distinct versions.' + +'Hear mine.--And, by Jove! a runaway cab. No, all right. But a crazy +cab it is, and fit to do mischief in narrow Drury. Except that it's +sheer riff-raff here to knock over.' + +'Hulloa?--come!' quoth the wary lawyer. + +'There's the heart I wanted to rouse to hear me! One may be sure that +the man for old Burgundy has it big and sound, in spite of his legal +practices; a dear good spherical fellow! Some day, we'll hope, you will +be sitting with us over a magnum of Victor Radnor's Romance Conti aged +thirty-one: a wine, you'll say at the second glass, High Priest for the +celebration of the uncommon nuptials between the body and the soul of +man.' + +'You hit me rightly,'said Carting, tickled and touched; sensually excited +by the bouquet of Victor Radnor's hospitality and companionship, which +added flavour to Fenellan's compliments. These came home to him through +his desire to be the 'good spherical fellow'; for he, like modern +diplomatists in the track of their eminent Berlinese New Type of the +time, put on frankness as an armour over wariness, holding craft in +reserve: his aim was at the refreshment of honest fellowship: by no means +to discover that the coupling of his native bias with his professional +duty was unprofitable nowadays. Wariness, however, was not somnolent, +even when he said: 'You know, I am never the lawyer out of my office. +Man of the world to men of the world; and I have not lost by it. I am +Mrs. Barman Radnor's legal adviser: you are Mr. Victor Radnor's friend. +They are, as we see them, not on the best of terms. I would rather--at +its lowest, as a matter of business--be known for having helped them to +some kind of footing than send in a round bill to my client--or another. +I gain more in the end. Frankly, I mean to prove, that it's a lawyer's +interest to be human.' + +'Because, now, see!' said Fenellan, 'here's the case. Miss Natalia +Dreighton, of a good Yorkshire family--a large one, reads an +advertisement for the post of companion to a lady, and answers it, +and engages herself, previous to the appearance of the young husband. +Miss Dreighton is one of the finest young women alive. She has a +glorious contralto voice. Victor and she are encouraged by Mrs. Barman +to sing duets together. Well? + +Why, Euclid would have theorem'd it out for you at a glance at the trio. +You have only to look on them, you chatter out your three Acts of a Drama +without a stop. If Mrs. Barman cares to practise charity, she has only +to hold in her Fury-forked tongue, or her Jarniman I think 's the name.' + +Carting shrugged. + +'Let her keep from striking, if she's Christian,' pursued Fenetlan, 'and +if kind let her resume the name of her first lord, who did a better thing +for himself than for her, when he shook off his bars of bullion, to rise +the lighter, and left a wretched female soul below, with the devil's own +testimony to her attractions--thousands in the Funds, houses in the City. +She threw the young couple together. And my friend Victor Radnor is of a +particularly inflammable nature. Imagine one of us in such a situation, +Mr. Carting!' + +'Trying!' said the lawyer. + +'The dear fellow was as nigh death as a man can be and know the sweetness +of a woman's call to him to live. And here's London's garden of pines, +bananas, oranges; all the droppings of the Hesperides here! We don't +reflect on it, Mr. Carling.' + +'Not enough, not enough.' + +'I feel such a spout of platitudes that I could out With a Leading +Article on a sheet of paper on your back while you're bending over the +baskets. I seem to have got circularly round again to Eden when I enter +a garden. Only, here we have to pay for the fruits we pluck. Well, and +just the same there; and no end to the payment either. We're always +paying! By the way, Mrs. Victor Radnor's dinner-table's a spectacle. +Her taste in flowers equals her lord's in wine. But age improves the +wine and spoils the flowers, you'll say. Maybe you're for arguing that +lovely women show us more of the flower than the grape, in relation to +the course of time. I pray you not to forget the terrible intoxicant +she is. We reconcile it, Mr. Carling, with the notion that the grape's +her spirit, the flower her body. Or is it the reverse? Perhaps an +intertwining. But look upon bouquets and clusters, and the idea of +woman springs up at once, proving she's composed of them. I was about +to remark, that with deference to the influence of Mrs. Burman's legal +adviser, an impenitent or penitent sinner's pastor, the Reverend +gentleman ministering to her spiritual needs, would presumptively +exercise it, in this instance, in a superior degree.' + +Carling murmured: 'The Rev. Groseman Buttermore'; and did so for +something of a cover, to continue a run of internal reflections: as, that +he was assuredly listening to vinous talk in the streets by day; which +impression placed him on a decorous platform above the amusing gentleman; +to whom, however, he grew cordial, in recognizing consequently, that his +exuberant flow could hardly be a mask; and that an indication here and +there of a trap in his talk, must have been due rather to excess of +wariness, habitual in the mind of a long-headed man, whose incorrigibly +impulsive fits had necessarily to be rectified by a vigilant dexterity. + +'Buttermore!' ejaculated Fenellan: 'Groseman Buttermore! Mrs. Victor's +Father Confessor is the Rev. Septimus Barmby. Groseman Buttermore-- +Septimus Barmby. Is there anything in names? Truly, unless these +clerical gentlemen take them up at the crossing of the roads long +after birth, the names would appear the active parts of them, and +themselves mere marching supports, like the bearers of street placard- +advertisements. Now, I know a Septimus Barmby, and you a Groseman +Buttermore, and beyond the fact that Reverend starts up before their +names without mention, I wager it's about all we do know of them. +They're Society's trusty rock-limpets, no doubt.' + +'My respect for the cloth is extreme.' Carling's short cough prepared the +way for deductions. 'Between ourselves, they are men of the world.' + +Fenellan eyed benevolently the worthy attorney, whose innermost imp burst +out periodically, like a Dutch clocksentry, to trot on his own small +grounds for thinking himself of the community of the man of the world. +'You lawyers dress in another closet,' he said. 'The Rev. Groseman has +the ear of the lady?' + +'He has:--one ear.' + +'Ah? She has the other open for a man of the world, perhaps.' + +'Listens to him, listens to me, listens to Jarniman; and we neither of +us guide her. She's very curious--a study. You think you know her--next +day she has eluded you. She's emotional, she's hard; she's a woman, +she's a stone. Anything you like; but don't count on her. And another +thing--I'm bound to say it of myself,' Carling claimed close hearing of +Fenellan over a shelf of saladstuff, 'no one who comes near her has any +real weight with her in this matter.' + +'Probably you mix cream in your salad of the vinegar and oil,' said +Fenellan. 'Try jelly of mutton.'--'You give me a new idea. Latterly, +fond as I am of salads, I've had rueful qualms. We'll try it.' + +'You should dine with Victor Radnor.' + +'French cook, of course!' + +'Cordon bleu.' + +'I like to be sure of my cutlet.' + +'I like to be sure of a tastiness in my vegetables.' + +'And good sauces!' + +'And pretty pastry. I said, Cordon bleu. The miracle is, it 's a woman +that Victor Radnor has trained: French, but a woman; devoted to him, as +all who serve him are. Do I say "but" a woman? There's not a Frenchman +alive to match her. Vatel awaits her in Paradise with his arms extended; +and may he wait long!' + +Carling indulged his passion for the genuine by letting a flutter of real +envy be seen. 'My wife would like to meet such a Frenchwoman. It must +be a privilege to dine with him--to know him. I know what he has done +for English Commerce, and to build a colossal fortune: genius, as I said: +and his donations to Institutions. Odd, to read his name and Mrs. Burman +Radnor's at separate places in the lists! Well, we'll hope. It's a case +for a compromise of sentiments and claims.' + +'A friend of mine, spiced with cynic, declares that there's always an +amicable way out of a dissension, if we get rid of Lupus and Vulpus.' + +Carling spied for a trap in the citation of Lupus and Vulpus; he saw +none, and named the square of his residence on the great Russell +property, and the number of the house, the hour of dinner next day. +He then hung silent, breaking the pause with his hand out and a sharp +'Well?' that rattled a whirligig sound in his head upward. His leave of +people was taken in this laughing falsetto, as of one affected by the +curious end things come to. + +Fenellan thought of him for a moment or two, that he was a better than +the common kind of lawyer; who doubtless knew as much of the wrong side +of the world as lawyers do, and held his knowledge for the being a man of +the world:--as all do, that have not Alpine heights in the mind to mount +for a look out over their own and the world's pedestrian tracks. I could +spot the lawyer in your composition, my friend, to the exclusion of the +man he mused. But you're right in what you mean to say of yourself: +you're a good fellow, for a lawyer, and together we may manage somehow +to score a point of service to Victor Radnor. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +SOME FAMILIAR GUESTS + +Nesta read her mother's face when Mrs. Victor entered the drawing-room to +receive the guests. She saw a smooth fair surface, of the kind as much +required by her father's eyes as innocuous air by his nostrils: and it +was honest skin, not the deceptive feminine veiling, to make a dear man +happy over his volcano. Mrs. Victor was to meet the friends with whom +her feelings were at home, among whom her musical gifts gave her station: +they liked her for herself; they helped her to feel at home with herself +and be herself: a rarer condition with us all than is generally supposed. +So she could determine to be cheerful in the anticipation of an evening +that would at least be restful to the outworn sentinel nerve of her +heart, which was perpetually alert and signalling to the great organ; +often colouring the shows and seems of adverse things for an apeing of +reality with too cruel a resemblance. One of the scraps of practical +wisdom gained by hardened sufferers is, to keep from spying at horizons +when they drop into a pleasant dingle. Such is the comfort of it, that +we can dream, and lull our fears, and half think what we wish: and it is +a heavenly truce with the fretful mind divided from our wishes. + +Nesta wondered at her mother's complacent questions concerning this +Lakelands: the house, the county, the kind of people about, the features +of the country. Physically unable herself to be regretful under a burden +three parts enrapturing her, the girl expected her mother to display a +shadowy vexation, with a proud word or two, that would summon her +thrilling sympathy in regard to the fourth part: namely, the aristocratic +iciness of country magnates, who took them up and cast them off; as they +had done, she thought, at Craye Farm and at Creckholt: she remembered it, +of the latter place, wincingly, insurgently, having loved the dear home +she had been expelled from by her pride of the frosty surrounding people +--or no, not all, but some of them. And what had roused their pride? + +Striking for a reason, her inexperience of our modern England, +supplemented by readings in the England of a preceding generation, +had hit on her father's profession of merchant. It accounted to her +for the behaviour of the haughty territorial and titled families. But +certain of the minor titles headed City Firms, she had heard; certain of +the families were avowedly commercial. 'They follow suit,' her father +said at Creckholt, after he had found her mother weeping, and decided +instantly to quit and fly once more. But if they followed suit in such +a way, then Mr. Durance must be right when he called the social English +the most sheepy of sheep:--and Nesta could not consent to the cruel +verdict, she adored her compatriots. Incongruities were pacified for +her by the suggestion of her quick wits, that her father, besides being +a merchant, was a successful speculator; and perhaps the speculator is +not liked by merchants; or they were jealous of him; or they did not like +his being both. + +She pardoned them with some tenderness, on a suspicion that a quaint old +high-frilled bleached and puckered Puritanical rectitude (her thoughts +rose in pictures) possibly condemned the speculator as a description of +gambler. An erratic severity in ethics is easily overlooked by the +enthusiast for things old English. She was consciously ahead of them +in the knowledge that her father had been, without the taint of gambling, +a beneficent speculator. The Montgomery colony in South Africa, and his +dealings with the natives in India, and his Railways in South America, +his establishment of Insurance Offices, which were Savings Banks, and the +Stores for the dispensing of sound goods to the poor, attested it. O and +he was hospitable, the kindest, helpfullest of friends, the dearest, the +very brightest of parents: he was his girl's playmate. She could be +critic of him, for an induction to the loving of him more justly: yet if +he had an excessive desire to win the esteem of people, as these keen +young optics perceived in him, he strove to deserve it; and no one could +accuse him of laying stress on the benefits he conferred. Designedly, +frigidly to wound a man so benevolent, appeared to her as an +incomprehensible baseness. The dropping of acquaintanceship with him, +after the taste of its privileges, she ascribed, in the void of any +better elucidation, to a mania of aristocratic conceit. It drove her, +despite her youthful contempt of politics, into a Radicalism that could +find food in the epigrams of Mr. Colney Durance, even when they passed +her understanding; or when he was not too distinctly seen by her to be +shooting at all the parties of her beloved England, beneath the wicked +semblance of shielding each by turns. + +The young gentleman introduced to the Radnor Concert-parties by Lady +Grace Halley as the Hon. Dudley Sowerby, had to bear the sins of his +class. Though he was tall, straight-featured, correct in costume, +appearance, deportment, second son of a religious earl and no scandal to +the parentage, he was less noticed by Nesta than the elderly and the +commoners. Her father accused her of snubbing him. She reproduced her +famous copy of the sugared acid of Mr. Dudley Sowerby's closed mouth: +a sort of sneer in meekness, as of humility under legitimate compulsion; +deploring Christianly a pride of race that stamped it for this cowled +exhibition: the wonderful mimicry was a flash thrown out by a born +mistress of the art, and her mother was constrained to laugh, and so was +her father; but he wilfully denied the likeness. He charged her with +encouraging Colney Durance to drag forth the sprig of nobility, in the +nakedness of evicted shell-fish, on themes of the peril to England, +possibly ruin, through the loss of that ruling initiative formerly +possessed, in the days of our glory, by the titular nobles of the land. +Colney spoke it effectively, and the Hon. Dudley's expressive lineaments +showed print of the heaving word Alas, as when a target is penetrated, +centrally. And he was not a particularly dull fellow 'for his class and +country,' Colney admitted; adding: 'I hit his thought and out he came.' +One has, reluctantly with Victor Radnor, to grant, that when a man's +topmost unspoken thought is hit, he must be sharp on his guard to keep +from coming out:--we have won a right to him. + +'Only, it's too bad; it 's a breach of hospitality,' Victor said, both +to Nesta and to Nataly, alluding to several instances of Colney's ironic +handling of their guests, especially of this one, whom Nesta would +attack, and Nataly would not defend. + +They were alive at a signal to protect the others. Miss Priscilla +Graves, an eater of meat, was ridiculous in her ant'alcoholic +exclusiveness and scorn: Mr. Pempton, a drinker of wine, would laud +extravagantly the more transparent purity of vegetarianism. Dr. Peter +Yatt jeered at globules: Dr. John Cormyn mourned over human creatures +treated as cattle by big doses. The Rev. Septimus Barmby satisfactorily +smoked: Mr. Peridon traced mortal evil to that act. Dr. Schlesien had +his German views, Colney Durance his ironic, Fenellan his fanciful and +free-lance. And here was an optimist, there a pessimist; and the rank +Radical, the rigid Conservative, were not wanting. All of them were +pointedly opposed, extraordinarily for so small an assembly: absurdly, +it might be thought: but these provoked a kind warm smile, with the +exclamation: 'They are dears!' They were the dearer for their fads +and foibles. + +Music harmonized them. Music, strangely, put the spell on Colney +Durance, the sayer of bitter things, manufacturer of prickly balls, +in the form of Discord's apples of whom Fenellan remarked, that he took +to his music like an angry little boy to his barley-sugar, with a growl +and a grunt. All these diverse friends could meet and mix in Victor's +Concert-room with an easy homely recognition of one another's musical +qualities, at times enthusiastic; and their natural divergencies and +occasional clashes added a salient tastiness to the group of whom Nesta +could say: 'Mama, was there ever such a collection of dear good souls +with such contrary minds?' Her mother had the deepest of reasons for +loving them, so as not to wish to see the slightest change in their +minds, that the accustomed features making her nest of homeliness and +real peace might be retained, with the humour of their funny silly +antagonisms and the subsequent march in concord; excepting solely as +regarded the perverseness of Priscilla Graves in her open contempt of Mr. +Pempton's innocent two or three wine-glasses. The vegetarian gentleman's +politeness forbore to direct attention to the gobbets of meat Priscilla +consumed, though he could express disapproval in general terms; but he +entertained sentiments as warlike to the lady's habit of 'drinking the +blood of animals.' The mockery of it was, that Priscilla liked Mr. +Pempton and admired his violoncello-playing, and he was unreserved in +eulogy of her person and her pure soprano tones. Nataly was a poetic +match-maker. Mr. Peridon was intended for Mademoiselle de Seilles, +Nesta's young French governess; a lady of a courtly bearing, with placid +speculation in the eyes she cast on a foreign people, and a voluble +muteness shadowing at intervals along the line of her closed lips. + +The one person among them a little out of tune with most, was Lady Grace +Halley. Nataly's provincial gentlewoman's traditions of the manners +indicating conduct, reproved unwonted licences assumed by Lady Grace; +who, in allusion to Hymen's weaving of a cousinship between the earldom +of Southweare and that of Cantor, of which Mr. Sowerby sprang, set her +mouth and fan at work to delineate total distinctions, as it were from +the egg to the empyrean. Her stature was rather short, all of it +conversational, at the eyebrows, the shoulders, the finger-tips, the +twisting shape; a ballerina's expressiveness; and her tongue dashed half +sentences through and among these hieroglyphs, loosely and funnily +candid. Anybody might hear that she had gone gambling into the City, +and that she had got herself into a mess, and that by great good luck +she had come across Victor Radnor, who, with two turns of the wrist, +had plucked her out of the mire, the miraculous man! And she had vowed +to him, never again to run doing the like without his approval. + +The cause of her having done it, was related with the accompaniments; +brows twitching, flitting smiles, shrugs, pouts, shifts of posture: she +was married to a centaur; out of the saddle a man of wood, 'an excellent +man.' For the not colloquial do not commit themselves. But one wants a +little animation in a husband. She called on bell-motion of the head to +toll forth the utter nightcap negative. He had not any: out of the +saddle, he was asleep:--'next door to the Last Trump,' Colney Durance +assisted her to describe the soundest of sleep in a husband, after wooing +her to unbosom herself. She was awake to his guileful arts, and sailed +along with him, hailing his phrases, if he shot a good one; prankishly +exposing a flexible nature, that took its holiday thus in a grinding +world, among maskers, to the horrification of the prim. So to refresh +ourselves, by having publicly a hip-bath in the truth while we shock our +hearers enough to be discredited for what we reveal, was a dexterous +merry twist, amusing to her; but it was less a cynical malice than her +nature that she indulged, 'A woman must have some excitement.' The most +innocent appeared to her the Stock Exchange. The opinions of husbands +who are not summoned to pay are hardly important; they vary. + +Colney helped her now and then to step the trifle beyond her stride, +but if he was humorous, she forgave; and if together they appalled the +decorous, it was great gain. Her supple person, pretty lips, the style +she had, gave a pass to the wondrous confidings, which were for masculine +ears, whatever the sex. Nataly might share in them, but women did not +lead her to expansiveness; or not the women of the contracted class: +Miss Graves, Mrs. Cormyn, and others at the Radnor Concerts. She had a +special consideration for Mademoiselle de Seilles, owing to her exquisite +French, as she said; and she may have liked it, but it was the young +Frenchwoman's air of high breeding that won her esteem. Girls were +spring frosts to her. Fronting Nesta, she put on her noted smile, or +wood-cut of a smile, with its label of indulgence; except when the girl +sang. Music she loved. She said it was the saving of poor Dudley. It +distinguished him in the group of the noble Evangelical Cantor Family; +and it gave him a subject of assured discourse in company; and oddly, it +contributed to his comelier air. Flute [This would be the German +Blockeflute or our Recorder. D.W.] in hand, his mouth at the blow-stop +was relieved of its pained updraw by the form for puffing; he preserved a +gentlemanly high figure in his exercises on the instrument, out of ken of +all likeness to the urgent insistency of Victor Radnor's punctuating +trunk of the puffing frame at almost every bar--an Apollo brilliancy in +energetic pursuit of the nymph of sweet sound. Too methodical one, too +fiery the other. + +In duets of Hauptmann's, with Nesta at the piano, the contrast of dull +smoothness and overstressed significance was very noticeable beside the +fervent accuracy of her balanced fingering; and as she could also flute, +she could criticize; though latterly, the flute was boxed away from lips +that had devoted themselves wholly to song: song being one of the +damsel's present pressing ambitions. She found nothing to correct in Mr. +Sowerby, and her father was open to all the censures; but her father +could plead vitality, passion. He held his performances cheap after the +vehement display; he was a happy listener, whether to the babble of his +'dear old Corelli,' or to the majesty of the rattling heavens and swaying +forests of Beethoven. + +His air of listening was a thing to see; it had a look of disembodiment; +the sparkle conjured up from deeps, and the life in the sparkle, as of a +soul at holiday. Eyes had been given this man to spy the pleasures and +reveal the joy of his pasture on them: gateways to the sunny within, +issues to all the outer Edens. Few of us possess that double +significance of the pure sparkle. It captivated Lady Grace. She said +a word of it to Fenellan: 'There is a man who can feel rapture!' He had +not to follow the line of her sight: she said so on a previous evening, +in a similar tone; and for a woman to repeat herself, using the very +emphasis, was quaint. She could feel rapture; but her features and limbs +were in motion to designate it, between simply and wilfully; she had the +instinct to be dimpling, and would not for a moment control it, and +delighted in its effectiveness: only when observing that winged sparkle +of eyes did an idea of envy, hardly a consciousness, inform her of being +surpassed; and it might be in the capacity to feel besides the gift to +express. Such a reflection relating to a man, will make women mortally +sensible that they are the feminine of him. + +'His girl has the look,' Fenellan said in answer. + +She cast a glance at Nesta, then at Nataly. + +And it was true, that the figure of a mother, not pretending to the +father's vividness, eclipsed it somewhat in their child. The mother gave +richness of tones, hues and voice, and stature likewise, and the thick +brown locks, which in her own were threads of gold along the brush from +the temples: she gave the girl a certain degree of the composure of +manner which Victor could not have bestowed; she gave nothing to clash +with his genial temper; she might be supposed to have given various +qualities, moral if you like. But vividness was Lady Grace's admirable +meteor of the hour: she was unable to perceive, so as to compute, the +value of obscurer lights. Under the charm of Nataly's rich contralto +during a duet with Priscilla Graves, she gesticulated ecstasies, and +uttered them, and genuinely; and still, when reduced to meditations, +they would have had no weight, they would hardly have seemed an apology +for language, beside Victor's gaze of pleasure in the noble forthroll of +the notes. + +Nataly heard the invitation of the guests of the evening to Lakelands +next day. + +Her anxieties were at once running about to gather provisions for the +baskets. She spoke of them at night. But Victor had already put the +matter in the hands of Madame Callet; and all that could be done, would +be done by Armandine, he knew. 'If she can't muster enough at home, +she'll be off to her Piccadilly shop by seven A.M. Count on plenty for +twice the number.' + +Nataly was reposing on the thought that they were her friends, when +Victor mentioned his having in the afternoon despatched a note to his +relatives, the Duvidney ladies, inviting them to join him at the station +to-morrow, for a visit of inspection to the house of his building on his +new estate. He startled her. The Duvidney ladies were, to his +knowledge, of the order of the fragile minds which hold together by +the cement of a common trepidation for the support of things established, +and have it not in them to be able to recognize the unsanctioned. Good +women, unworldly of the world, they were perforce harder than the world, +from being narrower and more timorous. + +'But, Victor, you were sure they would refuse!' + +He answered: 'They may have gone back to Tunbridge Wells. By the way, +they have a society down there I want for Fredi. Sure, do you say, my +dear? Perfectly sure. But the accumulation of invitations and refusals +in the end softens them, you will see. We shall and must have them for +Fredi.' + +She was used to the long reaches of his forecasts, his burning activity +on a project; she found it idle to speak her thought, that his ingenuity +would have been needless in a position dictated by plain prudence, and so +much happier for them. + +They talked of Mrs. Burman until she had to lift a prayer to be saved +from darker thoughts, dreadfully prolific, not to be faced. Part of her +prayer was on behalf of Mrs. Burman, for life to be extended to her, if +the poor lady clung to life--if it was really humane to wish it for her: +and heaven would know: heaven had mercy on the afflicted. + +Nataly heard the snuffle of hypocrisy in her prayer. She had to cease to +pray. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +AN INSPECTION OF LAKELANDS + +One may not have an intention to flourish, and may be pardoned for a +semblance of it, in exclaiming, somewhat royally, as creator and owner +of the place: 'There you see Lakelands.' + +The conveyances from the railway station drew up on a rise of road +fronting an undulation, where our modern English architect's fantasia +in crimson brick swept from central gables to flying wings, over pents, +crooks, curves, peaks, cowled porches, balconies, recesses, projections, +away to a red village of stables and dependent cottages; harmonious in +irregularity; and coloured homely with the greensward about it, the pines +beside it, the clouds above it. Not many palaces would be reckoned as +larger. The folds and swells and stream of the building along the roll +of ground, had an appearance of an enormous banner on the wind. Nataly +looked. Her next look was at Colney Durance. She sent the expected nods +to Victor's carriage. She would have given the whole prospect for the +covering solitariness of her chamber. A multitude of clashing +sensations, and a throat-thickening hateful to her, compelled her to +summon so as to force herself to feel a groundless anger, directed +against none, against nothing, perfectly crazy, but her only resource +for keeping down the great wave surgent at her eyes. + +Victor was like a swimmer in morning sea amid the exclamations encircling +him. He led through the straight passage of the galleried hall, offering +two fair landscapes at front door and at back, down to the lake, Fredi's +lake; a good oblong of water, notable in a district not abounding in the +commodity. He would have it a feature of the district; and it had been +deepened and extended; up rose the springs, many ran the ducts. Fredi's +pretty little bathshed or bower had a space of marble on the three-feet +shallow it overhung with a shade of carved woodwork; it had a diving- +board for an eight-feet plunge; a punt and small row-boat of elegant +build hard by. Green ran the banks about, and a beechwood fringed with +birches curtained the Northward length: morning sun and evening had a +fair face of water to paint. Saw man ever the like for pleasing a +poetical damsel? So was Miss Fredi, the coldest of the party hitherto, +and dreaming a preference of 'old places' like Creckholt and Craye Farm, +'captured to be enraptured,' quite according to man's ideal of his +beneficence to the sex. She pressed the hand of her young French +governess, Louise de Seilles. As in everything he did for his girl, +Victor pointed boastfully to his forethought of her convenience and her +tastes: the pine-panels of the interior, the shelves for her books, pegs +to hang her favourite drawings, and the couch-bunk under a window to +conceal the summerly recliner while throwing full light on her book; and +the hearth-square for logs, when she wanted fire: because Fredi bathed in +any weather: the oaken towel-coffer; the wood-carvings of doves, tits, +fishes; the rod for the flowered silken hangings she was to choose, and +have shy odalisque peeps of sunny water from her couch. + +'Fredi's Naiad retreat, when she wishes to escape Herr Strauscher or +Signor Ruderi,' said Victor, having his grateful girl warm in an arm; +'and if they head after her into the water, I back her to leave them +puffing; she's a dolphin. That water has three springs and gets all the +drainage of the upland round us. I chose the place chiefly on account of +it and the pines. I do love pines!' + +'But, excellent man! what do you not love?' said Lady Grace, with the +timely hit upon the obvious, which rings. + +'It saves him from accumulation of tissue,' said Colney. + +'What does?' was eagerly asked by the wife of the homoeopathic Dr. John +Cormyn, a sentimental lady beset with fears of stoutness. + +Victor cried: 'Tush; don't listen to Colney, pray.' + +But she heard Colney speak of a positive remedy; more immediately +effective than an abjuration of potatoes and sugar. She was obliged by +her malady to listen, although detesting the irreverent ruthless man, who +could direct expanding frames, in a serious tone, to love; love +everybody, everything; violently and universally love; and so without +intermission pay out the fat created by a rapid assimilation of +nutriment. Obeseness is the most sensitive of our ailments: probably as +being aware, that its legitimate appeal to pathos is ever smothered in +its pudding-bed of the grotesque. She was pained, and showed it, and was +ashamed of herself for showing it; and that very nearly fetched the tear. + +'Our host is an instance in proof,' Colney said. He waved hand at the +house. His meaning was hidden; evidently he wanted victims. Sight of +Lakelands had gripped him with the fell satiric itch; and it is a passion +to sting and tear, on rational grounds. His face meanwhile, which had +points of the handsome, signified a smile asleep, as if beneath a cloth. +Only those who knew him well were aware of the claw-like alertness under +the droop of eyelids. + +Admiration was the common note, in the various keys. The station +selected for the South-eastward aspect of the dark-red gabled pile on +its white shell-terrace, backed by a plantation of tall pines, a mounded +and full-plumed company, above the left wing, was admired, in files and +in volleys. Marvellous, effectively miraculous, was the tale of the vow +to have the great edifice finished within one year: and the strike of +workmen, and the friendly colloquy with them, the good reasoning, the +unanimous return to duty; and the doubling, the trebling of the number +of them; and the most glorious of sights-0the grand old English working +with a will! as Englishmen do when they come at last to heat; and they +conquer, there is then nothing that they cannot conquer. So the +conqueror said.--And admirable were the conservatories running three long +lines, one from the drawing-room, to a central dome for tropical growths. +And the parterres were admired; also the newly-planted Irish junipers +bounding the West-walk; and the three tiers of stately descent from the +three green terrace banks to the grassy slopes over the lake. Again the +lake was admired, the house admired. Admiration was evoked for great +orchid-houses 'over yonder,' soon to be set up. + +Off we go to the kitchen-garden. There the admiration is genial, +practical. We admire the extent of the beds marked out for asparagus, +and the French disposition of the planting at wide intervals; and the +French system of training peach, pear, and plum trees on the walls to win +length and catch sun, we much admire. We admire the gardener. We are +induced temporarily to admire the French people. They are sagacious in +fruit-gardens. They have not the English Constitution, you think +rightly; but in fruit-gardens they grow for fruit, and not, as Victor +quotes a friend, for wood, which the valiant English achieve. We hear +and we see examples of sagacity; and we are further brought round to the +old confession, that we cannot cook; Colney Durance has us there; we have +not studied herbs and savours; and so we are shocked backward step by +step until we retreat precipitately into the nooks where waxen tapers, +carefully tended by writers on the Press, light-up mysterious images of +our national selves for admiration. Something surely we do, or we should +not be where we are. But what is it we do (excepting cricket, of course) +which others cannot do? Colney asks; and he excludes cricket and +football. + +An acutely satiric man in an English circle, that does not resort to the +fist for a reply to him, may almost satiate the excessive fury roused in +his mind by an illogical people of a provocative prosperity, mainly +tongueless or of leaden tongue above the pressure of their necessities, +as he takes them to be. They give him so many opportunities. They are +angry and helpless as the log hissing to the saw. Their instinct to make +use of the downright in retort, restrained as it is by a buttoned coat of +civilization, is amusing, inviting. Colney Durance allured them to the +quag's edge and plunged them in it, to writhe patriotically; and although +it may be said, that they felt their situation less than did he the venom +they sprang in his blood, he was cruel; he caused discomfort. But these +good friends about him stood for the country, an illogical country; and +as he could not well attack his host Victor Radnor, an irrational man, +he selected the abstract entity for the discharge of his honest spite. + +The irrational friend was deeper at the source of his irritation than the +illogical old motherland. This house of Lakelands, the senselessness of +his friend in building it and designing to live in it, after experiences +of an incapacity to stand in a serene contention with the world he +challenged, excited Colney's wasp. He was punished, half way to frenzy +behind his placable demeanour, by having Dr. Schlesien for chorus. And +here again, it was the unbefitting, not the person, which stirred his +wrath. A German on English soil should remember the dues of a guest. +At the same time, Colney said things to snare the acclamation of an +observant gentleman of that race, who is no longer in his first +enthusiasm for English beef and the complexion of the women. 'Ah, ya, +it is true, what you say: "The English grow as fast as odders, but they +grow to corns instead of brains." They are Bull. Quaat true.' He +bellowed on a laugh the last half of the quotation. + +Colney marked him. His encounters with Fenellan were enlivening +engagements and left no malice; only a regret, when the fencing passed +his guard, that Fenellan should prefer to flash for the minute. He would +have met a pert defender of England, in the person of Miss Priscilla +Graves, if she had not been occupied with observation of the bearing of +Lady Grace Halley toward Mr. Victor Radnor; which displeased her on +behalf of Mrs. Victor; she was besides hostile by race and class to +an aristocratic assumption of licence. Sparing Colney, she with some +scorn condemned Mr. Pempton for allowing his country to be ridiculed +without a word. Mr. Pempton believed that the Vegetarian movement was +more progressive in England than in other lands, but he was at the +disadvantage with the fair Priscilla, that eulogy of his compatriots +on this account would win her coldest approval. 'Satire was never an +argument,' he said, too evasively. + +The Rev. Septimus Barmby received the meed of her smile, for saying in +his many-fathom bass, with an eye on Victor: 'At least we may boast of +breeding men, who are leaders of men.' + +The announcement of luncheon, by Victor's butler Arlington, opportunely +followed and freighted the remark with a happy recognition of that which +comes to us from the hands of conquerors. Dr. Schlesien himself, no +antagonist to England, but like Colney Durance, a critic, speculated in +view of the spread of pic-nic provision beneath the great glass dome, as +to whether it might be, that these English were on another start out of +the dust in vigorous commercial enterprise, under leadership of one of +their chance masterly minds-merchant, in this instance: and be debated +within, whether Genius, occasionally developed in a surprising superior +manner by these haphazard English, may not sometimes wrest the prize from +Method; albeit we count for the long run, that Method has assurance of +success, however late in the race to set forth. + +Luncheon was a merry meal, with Victor and Nataly for host and hostess; +Fenellan, Colney Durance, and Lady Grace Halley for the talkers. A gusty +bosom of sleet overhung the dome, rattled on it, and rolling Westward, +became a radiant mountain-land, partly worthy of Victor's phrase: 'A +range of Swiss Alps in air.' + +'With periwigs Louis Quatorze for peaks,' Colney added. + +And Fenellan improved on him: 'Or a magnified Bench of Judges at the +trial of your caerulean Phryne.' + +The strip of white cloud flew on a whirl from the blue, to confirm it. + +But Victor and Lady Grace rejected any play of conceits upon nature. +Violent and horrid interventions of the counterfeit, such mad similes +appeared to them, when pure coin was offered. They loathed the Rev. +Septimus Barmby for proclaiming, that he had seen 'Chapters of Hebrew +History in the grouping of clouds.' + +His gaze was any one of the Chapters upon Nesta. The clerical +gentleman's voice was of a depth to claim for it the profoundest which +can be thought or uttered; and Nesta's tender youth had taken so strong +an impression of sacredness from what Fenellan called 'his chafer tones,' +that her looks were often given him in gratitude, for the mere sound. +Nataly also had her sense of safety in acquiescing to such a voice coming +from such a garb. Consequently, whenever Fenellan and Colney were at +him, drawing him this way and that for utterances cathedral in sentiment +and sonorousness, these ladies shed protecting beams; insomuch that he +was inspired to the agreeable conceptions whereof frequently rash +projects are an issue. + +Touching the neighbours of Lakelands, they were principally enriched +merchants, it appeared; a snippet or two of the fringe of aristocracy lay +here and there among them; and one racy-of-the-soil old son of Thames, +having the manners proper to last century's yeoman. Mr. Pempton knew +something of this quaint Squire of Hefferstone, Beaves Urmsing by name; +a ruddy man, right heartily Saxon; a still glowing brand amid the ashes +of the Heptarchy hearthstone; who had a song, The Marigolds, which he +would troll out for you anywhere, on any occasion. To have so near to +the metropolis one from the centre of the venerable rotundity of the +country, was rare. Victor exclaimed 'Come!' in ravishment over the +picturesqueness of a neighbour carrying imagination away to the founts +of England; and his look at Nataly proposed. Her countenance was +inapprehensive. He perceived resistance, and said: 'I have met two or +three of them in the train: agreeable men: Gladding, the banker; +a General Fanning; that man Blathenoy, great billbroker. But the fact +is, close on London, we're independent of neighbours; we mean to be. +Lakelands and London practically join.' + +'The mother city becoming the suburb,' murmured Colney, in report of the +union. + +'You must expect to be invaded, sir,' said Mr. Sowerby; and Victor +shrugged: 'We are pretty safe.' + +'The lock of a door seems a potent security until some one outside is +heard fingering the handle nigh midnight,' Fenellan threw out his airy +nothing of a remark. + +It struck on Nataly's heart. 'So you will not let us be lonely here,' +she said to her guests. + +The Rev. Septimus Barmby was mouthpiece for congregations. Sound of a +subterranean roar, with a blast at the orifice, informed her of their +'very deep happiness in the privilege.' + +He comforted her. Nesta smiled on him thankfully. + +'Don't imagine, Mrs. Victor, that you can be shut off from neighbours, +in a house like this; and they have a claim,' said Lady Grace, quitting +the table. + +Fenellan and Colney thought so: + +'Like mice at a cupboard.' + +'Beetles in a kitchen.' + +'No, no-no, no !' Victor shook head, pitiful over the good people likened +to things unclean, and royally upraising them: in doing which, he +scattered to vapour the leaden incubi they had been upon his flatter +moods of late. 'No, but it's a rapture to breathe the air here!' His +lifted chest and nostrils were for the encouragement of Nataly to soar +beside him. + +She summoned her smile and nodded. + +He spoke aside to Lady Grace: 'The dear soul wants time to compose +herself after a grand surprise.' + +She replied: 'I think I could soon be reconciled. How much land?' + +'In treaty for some hundred and eighty or ninety acres . . . in all +at present three hundred and seventy, including plantations, lake, +outhouses.' + +'Large enough; land paying as it does--that is, not paying. We shall be +having to gamble in the City systematically for subsistence.' + +'You will not so much as jest on the subject.' + +Coming from such a man, that was clear sky thunder. The lady played +it off in a shadowy pout and shrug while taking a stamp of his +masterfulness, not so volatile. + +She said to Nataly: 'Our place in Worcestershire is about half the size, +if as much. Large enough when we're not crowded out with gout and can +open to no one. Some day you will visit us, I hope.' + +'You we count on here, Lady Grace.' + +It was an over-accentuated response; unusual with this well-bred woman; +and a bit of speech that does not flow, causes us to speculate. The lady +resumed: 'I value the favour. We're in a horsey-doggy-foxy circle down +there. We want enlivening. If we had your set of musicians and +talkers!' + +Nataly smiled in vacuous kindness, at a loss for the retort of a +compliment to a person she measured. Lady Grace also was an amiable +hostile reviewer. Each could see, to have cited in the other, defects +common to the lower species of the race, admitting a superior personal +quality or two; which might be pleaded in extenuation; and if the apology +proved too effective, could be dispersed by insistence upon it, under an +implied appeal to benevolence. When we have not a liking for the +creature whom we have no plain cause to dislike, we are minutely just. + +During the admiratory stroll along the ground-floor rooms, Colney +Durance found himself beside Dr. Schlesien; the latter smoking, striding, +emphasizing, but bearable, as the one of the party who was not +perpetually at the gape in laudation. Colney was heard to say: 'No +doubt: the German is the race the least mixed in Europe: it might +challenge aboriginals for that. Oddly, it has invented the Cyclopaedia +for knowledge, the sausage for nutrition! How would you explain it?' + +Dr. Schlesien replied with an Atlas shrug under fleabite to the +insensately infantile interrogation. + +He in turn was presently heard. + +'But, my good sir! you quote me your English Latin. I must beg of you +you write it down. It is orally incomprehensible to Continentals.' + +'We are Islanders!' Colney shrugged in languishment. + +'Oh, you do great things . . .' Dr. Schlesien rejoined in kindness, +making his voice a musical intimation of the smallness of the things. + +'We build great houses, to employ our bricks' + +'No, Colney, to live in,' said Victor. + +'Scarcely long enough to warm them.' + +'What do you . . . fiddle!' + +'They are not Hohenzollerns !' + +'It is true,' Dr. Schlesien called. 'No, but you learn discipline; you +build. I say wid you, not Hohenzollerns you build! But you shall look +above: Eyes up. Ire necesse est. Good, but mount; you come to +something. Have ideas.' + +'Good, but when do we reach your level?' + +'Sir, I do not say more than that we do not want instruction from +foreigners.' + +'Pupil to paedagogue indeed. You have the wreath in Music, in +Jurisprudence, Chemistry, Scholarship, Beer, Arms, Manners.' + +Dr. Schlesien puffed a tempest of tobacco and strode. + +'He is chiselling for wit in the Teutonic block,' Colney said, falling +back to Fenellan. + +Fenellan observed: 'You might have credited him with the finished +sculpture.' + +'They're ahead of us in sticking at the charge of wit.' + +'They've a widening of their swallow since Versailles.' + +'Manners?' + +'Well, that's a tight cravat for the Teutonic thrapple! But he's off by +himself to loosen it.' + +Victor came on the couple testily. 'What are you two concocting! +I say, do keep the peace, please. An excellent good fellow; better up +in politics than any man I know; understands music; means well, you can +see. You two hate a man at all serious. And he doesn't bore with his +knowledge. A scholar too.' + +'If he'll bring us the atmosphere of the groves of Academe, he may swing +his ferule pickled in himself, and welcome,' said Fenellan. + +'Yes!' Victor nodded at a recognized antagonism in Fenellan; 'but +Colney's always lifting the Germans high above us.' + +'It's to exercise his muscles.' + +Victor headed to the other apartments, thinking that the Rev. Septimus +and young Sowerby, Old England herself, were spared by the diversion of +these light skirmishing shots from their accustomed victims to the +'masculine people of our time. His friends would want a drilling to be +of aid to him in his campaign to come. For it was one, and a great one. +He remembered his complete perception of the plan, all the elements of +it, the forward whirling of it, just before the fall on London Bridge. +The greatness of his enterprise laid such hold of him that the smallest +of obstacles had a villanous aspect; and when, as anticipated, Colney and +Fenellan were sultry flies for whomsoever they could fret, he was blind +to the reading of absurdities which caused Fredi's eyes to stream and +Lady Grace beside him to stand awhile and laugh out her fit. Young +Sowerby appeared forgiving enough--he was a perfect gentleman: but +Fredi's appalling sense of fun must try him hard. And those young +fellows are often more wounded by a girl's thoughtless laughter than +by a man's contempt. Nataly should have protected him. Her face had +the air of a smiling general satisfaction; sign of a pleasure below the +mark required; sign too of a sleepy partner for a battle. Even in the +wonderful kitchen, arched and pillared (where the explanation came to +Nesta of Madame Callet's frequent leave of absence of late, when an +inferior dinner troubled her father in no degree), even there his Nataly +listened to the transports of the guests with benign indulgence. + +'Mama!' said Nesta, ready to be entranced by kitchens in her bubbling +animation: she meant the recalling of instances of the conspirator her +father had been. + +'You none of you guessed Armandine's business!' Victor cried, in a glee +that pushed to make the utmost of this matter and count against chagrin. +'She was off to Paris; went to test the last inventions:--French brains +are always alert:--and in fact, those kitchen-ranges, gas and coal, and +the apparatus for warming plates and dishes, the whole of the battery is +on the model of the Duc d'Ariane's--finest in Europe. Well,' he agreed +with Colney, 'to say France is enough.' + +Mr. Pempton spoke to Miss Graves of the task for a woman to conduct a +command so extensive. And, as when an inoffensive wayfarer has chanced +to set foot near a wasp's nest, out on him came woman and her champions, +the worthy and the sham, like a blast of powder. + +Victor ejaculated: 'Armandine !' Whoever doubted her capacity, knew not +Armandine; or not knowing Armandine, knew not the capacity in women. + +With that utterance of her name, he saw the orangey spot on London +Bridge, and the sinking Tower and masts and funnels, and the rising of +them, on his return to his legs; he recollected, that at the very edge of +the fall he had Armandine strongly in his mind. She was to do her part: +Fenellan and Colney on the surface, she below: and hospitality was to do +its part, and music was impressed--the innocent Concerts; his wealth, all +his inventiveness were to serve;--and merely to attract and win the +tastes of people, for a social support to Lakelands! Merely that? Much +more:--if Nataly's coldness to the place would but allow him to form an +estimate of how much. At the same time, being in the grasp of his +present disappointment, he perceived a meanness in the result, that was +astonishing and afflicting. He had not ever previously felt imagination +starving at the vision of success. Victor had yet to learn, that the man +with a material object in aim, is the man of his object; and the nearer +to his mark, often the farther is he from a sober self; he is more the +arrow of his bow than bow to his arrow. This we pay for scheming: and +success is costly; we find we have pledged the better half of ourselves +to clutch it; not to be redeemed with the whole handful of our prize! +He was, however, learning after his leaping fashion. Nataly's defective +sympathy made him look at things through the feelings she depressed. +A shadow of his missed Idea on London Bridge seemed to cross him from the +close flapping of a wing within reach. He could say only, that it would, +if caught, have been an answer to the thought disturbing him. + +Nataly drew Colney Durance with her eyes to step beside her, on the +descent to the terrace. Little Skepsey hove in sight, coming swift as +the point of an outrigger over the flood. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +SKEPSEY IN MOTION + +The bearer of his master's midday letters from London shot beyond Nataly +as soon as seen, with an apparent snap of his body in passing. He +steamed to the end of the terrace and delivered the packet, returning at +the same rate of speed, to do proper homage to the lady he so much +respected. He had left the railway-station on foot instead of taking a +fly, because of a calculation that he would save three minutes; which he +had not lost for having to come through the raincloud. 'Perhaps the +contrary,' Skepsey said: it might be judged to have accelerated his +course: and his hat dripped, and his coat shone, and he soaped his hands, +cheerful as an ouzel-cock when the sun is out again. + +'Many cracked crowns lately, in the Manly Art?' Colney inquired of him. +And Skepsey answered with precision of statement: 'Crowns, no, sir; the +nose, it may happen; but it cannot be said to be the rule.' + +'You are of opinion, that the practice of Scientific Pugilism offers us +compensation for the broken bridge of a nose?' + +'In an increase of manly self-esteem: I do, sir, yes.' + +Skepsey was shy of this gentleman's bite; and he fancied his defence had +been correct. Perceiving a crumple of the lips of Mr. Durance, he took +the attitude of a watchful dubiety. + +'But, my goodness, you are wet through!' cried Nataly, reproaching +herself for the tardy compassion; and Nesta ran up to them and heaped a +thousand pities on her 'poor dear Skip,' and drove him in beneath the +glass-dome to the fragments of pic-nic, and poured champagne for him, +'lest his wife should have to doctor him for a cold,' and poured afresh, +when he had obeyed her: 'for the toasting of Lakelands, dear Skepsey !' +impossible to resist: so he drank, and blinked; and was then told, that +before using his knife and fork he must betake himself to some fire of +shavings and chips, where coffee was being made, for the purpose of +drying his clothes. But this he would not hear of: he was pledged to +business, to convey his master's letters, and he might have to catch a +train by the last quarter-minute, unless it was behind the time-tables; +he must hold himself ready to start. Entreated, adjured, commanded, +Skepsey commiseratingly observed to Colney Durance, 'The ladies do not +understand, sir!' For Turk of Constantinople had never a more haremed +opinion of the unfitness of women in the brave world of action. The +persistence of these ladies endeavouring to obstruct him in the course of +his duty, must have succeeded save that for one word of theirs he had +two, and twice the promptitude of motion. He explained to them, as to +good children, that the loss of five minutes might be the loss of a Post, +the loss of thousands of pounds, the loss of the character of a Firm; +and he was away to the terrace. Nesta headed him and waved him back. +She and her mother rebuked him: they called him unreasonable; wherein +they resembled the chief example of the sex to him, in a wife he had at +home, who levelled that charge against her husband when most she needed +discipline: the woman laid hand on the very word legitimately his own +for the justification of his process with her. + +'But, Skips! if you are ill and we have to nurse you!' said Nesta. + +She forgot the hospital, he told her cordially, and laughed at the notion +of a ducking producing a cold or a cold a fever, or anything consumption, +with him. So the ladies had to keep down their anxious minds and allow +him to stand in wet clothing to eat his cold pie and salad. + +Miss Priscilla Graves entering to them, became a witness that they were +seductresses for inducing him to drink wine--and a sparkling wine. + +'It is to warm him,' they pleaded; and she said: 'He must be warm from +his walk'; and they said: 'But he is wet'; and said she, without a show +of feeling: 'Warm water, then'; and Skepsey writhed, as if in the grasp +of anatomists, at being the subject of female contention or humane +consideration. Miss Graves caught signs of the possible proselyte in +him; she remarked encouragingly: + +'I am sure he does not like it; he still has a natural taste.' + +She distressed his native politeness, for the glass was in his hand, and +he was fully aware of her high-principled aversion; and he profoundly +bowed to principles, believing his England to be pillared on them; and +the lady looked like one who bore the standard of a principle; and if we +slap and pinch and starve our appetites, the idea of a principle seems +entering us to support. Subscribing to a principle, our energies are +refreshed; we have a faith in the country that was not with us before the +act; and of a real well-founded faith come the glowing thoughts which we +have at times: thoughts of England heading the nations; when the smell of +an English lane under showers challenges Eden, and the threading of a +London crowd tunes discords to the swell of a cathedral organ. It may +be, that by the renunciation of any description of alcohol, a man will +stand clearer-headed to serve his country. He may expect to have a +clearer memory, for certain: he will not be asking himself, unable to +decide, whether his master named a Mr. Journeyman or a Mr. Jarniman, as +the person he declined to receive. Either of the two is repulsed upon +his application, owing to the guilty similarity of sounds but what we are +to think of is, our own sad state of inefficiency in failing to remember; +which accuses our physical condition, therefore our habits.--Thus the +little man debated, scarcely requiring more than to hear the right word, +to be a convert and make him a garland of the proselyte's fetters. + +Destructively for the cause she advocated, Miss Priscilla gestured the +putting forth of an abjuring hand, with the recommendation to him, so to +put aside temptation that instant; and she signified in a very ugly jerk +of her features, the vilely filthy stuff Morality thought it, however +pleasing it might be to a palate corrupted by indulgence of the sensual +appetites. + +But the glass had been handed to him by the lady he respected, who looked +angelical in offering it, divinely other than ugly; and to her he could +not be discourteous; not even to pay his homage to the representative of +a principle. He bowed to Miss Graves, and drank, and rushed forth; +hearing shouts behind him. + +His master had a packet of papers ready, easy for the pocket. + +'By the way, Skepsey,' he said, 'if a man named Jarniman should call at +the office, I will see him.' + +Skepsey's grey eyes came out. + +Or was it Journeyman, that his master would not see; and Jarniman that he +would? + +His habit of obedience, pride of apprehension, and the time to catch the +train, forbade inquiry. Besides he knew of himself of old, that his +puzzles were best unriddled running. + +The quick of pace are soon in the quick of thoughts. + +Jarniman, then, was a man whom his master, not wanting to see, one day, +and wanting to see, on another day, might wish to conciliate: a case of +policy. Let Jarniman go. Journeyman, on the other hand, was nobody at +all, a ghost of the fancy. Yet this Journeyman was as important an +individual, he was a dread reality; more important to Skepsey in the +light of patriot: and only in that light was he permitted of a scrupulous +conscience and modest mind to think upon himself when the immediate +subject was his master's interests. For this Journeyman had not an +excuse for existence in Mr. Radnor's pronunciation: he was born of the +buzz of a troubled ear, coming of a disordered brain, consequent +necessarily upon a disorderly stomach, that might protest a degree of +comparative innocence, but would be shamed utterly under inspection of +the eye of a lady of principle. + +What, then, was the value to his country of a servant who could not +accurately recollect his master's words! Miss Graves within him asked +the rapid little man, whether indeed his ideas were his own after +draughts of champagne. + +The ideas, excited to an urgent animation by his racing trot, were a +quiverful in flight over an England terrible to the foe and dancing on +the green. Right so: but would we keep up the dance, we must be red iron +to touch: and the fighter for conquering is the one who can last and has +the open brain;--and there you have a point against alcohol. Yes, and +Miss Graves, if she would press it, with her natural face, could be +pleasant and persuasive: and she ought to be told she ought to marry, for +the good of the country. Women taking liquor: Skepsey had a vision of +his wife with rheumy peepers and miauly mouth, as he had once beheld the +creature:--Oh! they need discipline not such would we have for the +mothers of our English young. Decidedly the women of principle are bound +to enter wedlock; they should be bound by law. Whereas, in the opposing +case--the binding of the unprincipled to a celibate state--such a law +would have saved Skepsey from the necessitated commission of deeds of +discipline with one of the female sex, and have rescued his progeny from +a likeness to the corn-stalk reverting to weed. He had but a son for +England's defence; and the frame of his boy might be set quaking by a +thump on the wind of a drum; the courage of William Barlow Skepsey would +not stand against a sheep; it would wind-up hares to have a run at him +out in the field. Offspring of a woman of principle! . . . but there +is no rubbing out in life: why dream of it? Only that one would not have +one's country the loser! + +Dwell a moment on the reverse--and first remember the lesson of the +Captivity of the Jews and the outcry of their backsliding and +repentance:--see a nation of the honourably begotten; muscular men +disdaining the luxuries they will occasionally condescend to taste, +like some tribe in Greece; boxers, rowers, runners, climbers; braced, +indomitable; magnanimous, as only the strong can be; an army at word, +winning at a stroke the double battle of the hand and the heart: men who +can walk the paths through the garden of the pleasures. They receive +fitting mates, of a build to promise or aid in ensuring depth of chest +and long reach of arm for their progeny. + +Down goes the world before them. + +And we see how much would be due for this to a corps of ladies like Miss +Graves, not allowed to remain too long on the stalk of spinsterhood. Her +age might count twenty-eight: too long! She should be taught that men +can, though truly ordinary women cannot, walk these orderly paths through +the garden. An admission to women, hinting restrictions, on a ticket +marked 'in moderation' (meaning, that they may pluck a flower or fruit +along the pathway border to which they are confined), speedily, alas, +exhibits them at a mad scramble across the pleasure-beds. They know not +moderation. Neither for their own sakes nor for the sakes of Posterity +will they hold from excess, when they are not pledged to shun it. + +The reason is, that their minds cannot conceive the abstract, as men do. + +But there are grounds for supposing that the example before them of a sex +exercising self-control in freedom, would induce women to pledge +themselves to a similar abnegation, until they gain some sense of touch +upon the impalpable duty to the generations coming after us thanks to the +voluntary example we set them. + +The stupendous task, which had hitherto baffled Skepsey in the course of +conversational remonstrances with his wife;--that of getting the Idea of +Posterity into the understanding of its principal agent, might then be +mastered. + +Therefore clearly men have to begin the salutary movement: it manifestly +devolves upon them. Let them at once take to rigorous physical training. +Women under compulsion, as vessels: men in their magnanimity, +patriotically, voluntarily. + +Miss Graves must have had an intimation for him; he guessed it; and it +plunged him into a conflict with her, that did not suffer him to escape +without ruefully feeling the feebleness of his vocabulary: and +consequently he made a reluctant appeal to figures, and it hung upon +the bolder exhibition of lists and tables as to whether he was beaten; +and if beaten, he was morally her captive; and this being the case, +nothing could be more repulsive to Skepsey; seeing that he, unable of +his nature passively or partially to undertake a line of conduct, beheld +himself wearing a detestable 'ribbon,' for sign of an oath quite +needlessly sworn (simply to satisfy the lady overcoming him with nimbler +tongue), and blocking the streets, marching in bands beneath banners, +howling hymns. + +Statistics, upon which his master and friends, after exchanging opinions +in argument, always fell back, frightened him. As long as they had +no opponents of their own kind, they swept the field, they were +intelligible, as the word 'principle' had become. But the appearance +of one body of Statistics invariably brought up another; and the strokes +and counterstrokes were like a play of quarter-staff on the sconce, +to knock all comprehension out of Skepsey. Otherwise he would not +unwillingly have inquired to-morrow into the Statistics of the +controversy between the waters of the wells and of the casks, prepared +to walk over to the victorious, however objectionable that proceeding. +He hoped to question his master some day except that his master would +very naturally have a tendency to sum-up in favour of wine--good wine, +in moderation; just as Miss Graves for the cup of tea--not so +thoughtfully stipulating that it should be good and not too copious. +Statistics are according to their conjurors; they are not independent +bodies, with native colours; they needs must be painted by the different +hands they pass through, and they may be multiplied; a nought or so +counts for nothing with the teller. Skepsey saw that. Yet they can +overcome: even as fictitious battalions, they can overcome. He shrank +from the results of a ciphering match having him for object, and was +ashamed of feeling to Statistics as women to giants; nevertheless he +acknowledged that the badge was upon him, if Miss Graves should beat her +master in her array of figures, to insist on his wearing it, as she +would, she certainly would. And against his internal conviction perhaps; +with the knowledge that the figures were an unfortified display, and his +oath of bondage an unmanly servility, the silliest of ceremonies! He was +shockingly feminine to Statistics. + +Mr. Durance despised them: he called them, arguing against Mr. Radnor, +'those emotional things,' not comprehensibly to Skepsey. But Mr. +Durance, a very clever gentleman, could not be right in everything. He +made strange remarks upon his country. Dr. Yatt attributed them to the +state of 'his digestion. + +And Mr. Fenellan had said of Mr. Durance that, as 'a barrister wanting +briefs, the speech in him had been bottled too long and was an overripe +wine dripping sour drops through the rotten cork.' Mr. Fenellan said it +laughing, he meant no harm. Skepsey was sure he had the words. He heard +no more than other people hear; he remembered whole sentences, and many: +on one of his runs, this active little machine, quickened by motion to +fire, revived the audible of years back; whatever suited his turn of mind +at the moment rushed to the rapid wheels within him. His master's +business and friends, his country's welfare and advancement, these, with +records, items, anticipations, of the manlier sports to decorate, were +his current themes; all being chopped and tossed and mixed in salad +accordance by his fervour of velocity. And if you would like a further +definition of Genius, think of it as a form of swiftness. It is the +lively young great-grandson, in the brain, of the travelling force which +mathematicians put to paper, in a row of astounding ciphers, for the +motion of earth through space; to the generating of heat, whereof is +multiplication, whereof deposited matter, and so your chaos, your half- +lighted labyrinth, your, ceaseless pressure to evolvement; and then +Light, and so Creation, order, the work of Genius. What do you say? + +Without having a great brain, the measure of it possessed by Skepsey was +alive under strong illumination. In his heart, while doing penance for +his presumptuousness, he believed that he could lead regiments of men. +He was not the army's General, he was the General's Lieutenant, now and +then venturing to suggest a piece of counsel to his Chief. On his own +particular drilled regiments, his Chief may rely; and on his knowledge +of the country of the campaign, roads, morasses, masking hills, dividing +rivers. He had mapped for himself mentally the battles of conquerors in +his favourite historic reading; and he understood the value of a plan, +and the danger of sticking to it, and the advantage of a big army for +flanking; and he manoeuvred a small one cunningly to make it a bolt at +the telling instant. Dartrey Fenellan had explained to him Frederick's +oblique attack, Napoleon's employment of the artillery arm preparatory to +the hurling of the cataract on the spot of weakness, Wellington's +parallel march with Marmont up to the hour of the decisive cut through +the latter at Salamanca; and Skepsey treated his enemy to the like, +deferentially reporting the engagement to a Chief whom his modesty kept +in eminence, for the receiving of the principal honours. As to his men, +of all classes and sorts, they are so supple with training that they +sustain a defeat like the sturdy pugilist a knock off his legs, and up +smiling a minute after--one of the truly beautiful sights on this earth! +They go at the double half a day, never sounding a single pair of bellows +among them. They have their appetites in full control, to eat when they +can, or cheerfully fast. They have healthy frames, you see; and as the +healthy frame is not artificially heated, it ensues that, under any title +you like, they profess the principles--into the bog we go, we have got +round to it!--the principles of those horrible marching and chanting +people! + +Then, must our England, to be redoubtable to the enemy, be a detestable +country for habitation? + +Here was a knot. + +Skepsey's head dropped lower, he went as a ram. The sayings of Mr. +Durance about his dear England: that 'her remainder of life is in the +activity of her diseases'--that 'she has so fed upon Pap of Compromise +as to be unable any longer to conceive a muscular resolution': that +'she is animated only as the carcase to the blow-fly'; and so forth:-- +charged on him during his wrestle with his problem. And the gentlemen +had said, had permitted himself to say, that our England's recent history +was a provincial apothecary's exhibition of the battle of bane and +antidote. Mr. Durance could hardly mean it. But how could one answer +him when he spoke of the torpor of the people, and of the succeeding +Governments as a change of lacqueys--or the purse-string's lacqueys? +He said, that Old England has taken to the arm-chair for good, and thinks +it her whole business to pronounce opinions and listen to herself; +and that, in the face of an armed Europe, this great nation is living +on sufferance. Oh! + +Skepsey had uttered the repudiating exclamation. + +'Feel quite up to it?' he was asked by his neighbour. + +The mover of armed hosts for the defence of the country sat in a third- +class carriage of the train, approaching the first of the stations on the +way to town. He was instantly up to the level of an external world, and +fell into give and take with a burly broad communicative man; located in +London, but born in the North, in view of Durham cathedral, as he thanked +his Lord; who was of the order of pork-butcher; which succulent calling +had carried him down to near upon the borders of Surrey and Sussex, some +miles beyond the new big house of a Mister whose name he had forgotten, +though he had heard it mentioned by an acquaintance interested in the +gentleman's doings. But his object was to have a look at a rare breed of +swine, worth the journey; that didn't run to fat so much as to flavour, +had longer legs, sharp snouts to plump their hams; over from Spain, it +seemed; and the gentleman owning them was for selling them, finding them +wild past correction. But the acquaintance mentioned, who was down to +visit t' other gentleman's big new edifice in workmen's hands, had a +mother, who had been cook to a family, and was now widow of a cook's +shop; ham, beef, and sausages, prime pies to order; and a good specimen +herself; and if ever her son saw her spirit at his bedside, there +wouldn't be room for much else in that chamber--supposing us to keep our +shapes. But he was the right sort of son, anxious to push his mother's +shop where he saw a chance, and do it cheap; and those foreign pigs, +after a disappointment to their importer, might be had pretty cheap, and +were accounted tasty. + +Skepsey's main thought was upon war: the man had discoursed of pigs. + +He informed the man of his having heard from a scholar, that pigs had +been the cause of more bloody battles than any other animal. + +How so? the pork-butcher asked, and said he was not much of a scholar, +and pigs might be provoking, but he had not heard they were a cause of +strife between man and man. For possession of them, Skepsey explained. +Oh! possession! Why, we've heard of bloody battles for the possession of +women! Men will fight for almost anything they care to get or call their +own, the pork-butcher said; and he praised Old England for avoiding war. +Skepsey nodded. How if war is forced on us? Then we fight. Suppose we +are not prepared?--We soon get that up. Skepsey requested him to state +the degree of resistance he might think he could bring against a pair of +skilful fists, in a place out of hearing of the police. + +'Say, you!' said the pork-butcher, and sharply smiled, for he was a man +of size. + +'I would give you two minutes,' rejoined Skepsey, eyeing him intently and +kindly: insomuch that it could be seen he was not in the conundrum vein. + +'Rather short allowance, eh, master?' said the bigger man. 'Feel here'; +he straightened out his arm and doubled it, raising a proud bridge of +muscle. + +Skepsey performed the national homage to muscle. + +'Twice that, would not help without the science,' he remarked, and let +his arm be gripped in turn. + +The pork-butcher's throat sounded, as it were, commas and colons, +punctuations in his reflections, while he tightened fingers along the +iron lump. 'Stringy. You're a wiry one, no mistake.' It was encomium. +With the ingrained contempt of size for a smallness that has not yet +taught it the prostrating lesson, he said: 'Weight tells.' + +'In a wrestle,' Skepsey admitted. 'Allow me to say, you would not touch +me.' + +'And how do you know I'm not a trifle handy with the maulers myself?' + +'You will pardon me for saying, it would be worse for you if you were.' + +The pork-butcher was flung backward. 'Are you a Professor, may I +inquire?' + +Skepsey rejected the title. 'I can engage to teach young men, upon a +proper observance of first principles.' + +'They be hanged!' cried the ruffled pork-butcher. 'Our best men never +got it out of books. Now, you tell me--you've got a spiflicating style +of talk about you--no brag, you tell me--course, the best man wins, if +you mean that: now, if I was one of 'em, and I fetches you a bit of a +flick, how then? Would you be ready to step out with a real Professor?' + +'I should claim a fair field,' was the answer, made in modesty. + +'And you'd expect to whop me with they there principles of yours?' + +'I should expect to.' + +'Bang me!' was roared. After a stare at the mild little figure with the +fitfully dead-levelled large grey eyes in front of him, the pork-butcher +resumed: 'Take you for the man you say you be, you're just the man for my +friend Jam and me. He dearly loves to see a set-to, self the same. What +prettier? And if you would be so obliging some day as to favour us with +a display, we'd head a cap conformably, whether you'd the best of it, +according to your expectations, or t' other way:--For there never was +shame in a jolly good licking as the song says: that is, if you take it +and make it appear jolly good. And find you an opponent meet and fit, +never doubt. Ever had the worse of an encounter, sir?' + +'Often, Sir.' + +'Well, that's good. And it didn't destroy your confidence?' + +'Added to it, I hope.' + +At this point, it became a crying necessity for Skepsey to escape from +an area of boastfulness, into which he had fallen inadvertently; and he +hastened to apologize 'for his personal reference,' that was intended for +an illustration of our country caught unawares by a highly trained picked +soldiery, inferior in numbers to the patriotic levies, but sharp at the +edge and knowing how to strike. Measure the axe, measure the tree; and +which goes down first? + +'Invasion, is it?--and you mean, we're not to hit back?' the pork-butcher +bellowed, and presently secured a murmured approbation from an audience +of three, that had begun to comprehend the dialogue, and strengthened him +in a manner to teach Skepsey the foolishness of ever urging analogies of +too extended a circle to close sharply on the mark. He had no longer a +chance, he was overborne, identified with the fated invader, rolled away +into the chops of the Channel, to be swallowed up entire, and not a rag +left of him, but John Bull tucking up his shirtsleeves on the shingle +beach, ready for a second or a third; crying to them to come on. + +Warmed by his Bullish victory, and friendly to the vanquished, the pork- +butcher told Skepsey he should like to see more of him, and introduced +himself on a card Benjamin Shaplow, not far from the Bank. + +They parted at the Terminus, where three shrieks of an engine, sounding +like merry messages of the damned to their congeners in the anticipatory +stench of the cab-droppings above, disconnected sane hearing; perverted +it, no doubt. Or else it was the stamp of a particular name on his mind, +which impressed Skepsey, as he bored down the street and across the +bridge, to fancy in recollection, that Mr. Shaplow, when reiterating the +wish for self and friend to witness a display of his cunning with the +fists, had spoken the name of Jarniman. An unusual name yet more than +one Jarniman might well exist. And unlikely that a friend of the pork- +butcher would be the person whom Mr. Radnor first prohibited and then +desired to receive. It hardly mattered:--considering that the Dutch Navy +did really, incredible as it seems now, come sailing a good way up the +River Thames, into the very main artery of Old England. And what thought +the Tower of it? Skepsey looked at the Tower in sympathy, wondering +whether the Tower had seen those impudent Dutch a nice people at home, +he had heard. Mr. Shaplow's Jarniman might actually be Mr. Radnor's, +he inclined to think. At any rate he was now sure of the name. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +WHEREIN WE BEHOLD THE COUPLE JUSTIFIED OF LOVE HAVING SIGHT OF THEIR +SCOURGE + +Fenellan, in a musing exclamation, that was quite spontaneous, had put a +picture on the departing Skepsey, as observed from an end of the +Lakelands upper terrace-walk. + +'Queer little water-wagtail it is!' And Lady Grace Halley and Miss +Graves and Mrs. Cormyn, snugly silken dry ones, were so taken with the +pretty likeness after hearing Victor call the tripping dripping creature +the happiest man in England, that they nursed it in their minds for a +Bewick tailpiece to the chapter of a pleasant rural day. It imbedded the +day in an idea that it had been rural. + +We are indebted almost for construction to those who will define us +briefly: we are but scattered leaves to the general comprehension of us +until such a work of binding and labelling is done. And should the +definition be not so correct as brevity pretends to make it at one +stroke, we are at least rendered portable; thus we pass into the +conceptions of our fellows, into the records, down to posterity. +Anecdotes of England's happiest man were related, outlines of his +personal history requested. His nomination in chief among the +traditionally very merry Islanders was hardly borne out by the tale of +his enchainment with a drunken yokefellow--unless upon the Durance +version of the felicity of his countrymen; still, the water-wagtail +carried it, Skepsey trotted into memories. Heroes conducted up Fame's +temple-steps by ceremonious historians, who are studious, when the +platform is reached, of the art of setting them beneath the flambeau +of a final image, before thrusting them inside to be rivetted on their +pedestals, have an excellent chance of doing the same, let but the +provident narrators direct that image to paint the thing a moth-like +humanity desires, in the thing it shrinks from. Miss Priscilla Graves +now fastened her meditations upon Skepsey; and it was important to him. + +Tobacco withdrew the haunting shadow of the Rev. Septimus Barmby from +Nesta. She strolled beside Louise de Seilles, to breathe sweet-sweet in +the dear friend's ear and tell her she loved her. The presence of the +German had, without rousing animosity, damped the young Frenchwoman, even +to a revulsion when her feelings had been touched by hearing praise of +her France, and wounded by the subjects of the praise. She bore the +national scar, which is barely skin-clothing of a gash that will not heal +since her country was overthrown and dismembered. Colney Durance could +excuse the unreasonableness in her, for it had a dignity, and she +controlled it, and quietly suffered, trusting to the steady, tireless, +concentrated aim of her France. In the Gallic mind of our time, France +appears as a prematurely buried Glory, that heaves the mound oppressing +breath and cannot cease; and calls hourly, at times keenly, to be +remembered, rescued from the pain and the mould-spots of that foul +sepulture. Mademoiselle and Colney were friends, partly divided by her +speaking once of revanche; whereupon he assumed the chair of the +Moralist, with its right to lecture, and went over to the enemy; his talk +savoured of a German. Our holding of the balance, taking two sides, is +incomprehensible to a people quivering with the double wound to body and +soul. She was of Breton blood. Cymric enough was in Nesta to catch any +thrill from her and join to her mood, if it hung out a colour sad or gay, +and was noble, as any mood of this dear Louise would surely be. + +Nataly was not so sympathetic. Only the Welsh and pure Irish are quick +at the feelings of the Celtic French. Nataly came of a Yorkshire stock; +she had the bravery, humaneness and generous temper of our civilized +North, and a taste for mademoiselle's fine breeding, with a distaste for +the singular air of superiority in composure which it was granted to +mademoiselle to wear with an unassailable reserve when the roughness of +the commercial boor was obtrusive. She said of her to Colney, as they +watched the couple strolling by the lake below: 'Nesta brings her out of +her frosts. I suppose it's the presence of Dr. Schlesien. I have known +it the same after an evening of Wagner's music.' + +'Richard Wagner Germanized ridicule of the French when they were down,' +said Colney. 'She comes of a blood that never forgives.' + +'"Never forgives" is horrible to think of! I fancied you liked your +"Kelts," as you call them.' + +Colney seized on a topic that shelved a less agreeable one that he saw +coming. 'You English won't descend to understand what does not resemble +you. The French are in a state of feverish patriotism. You refuse to +treat them for a case of fever. They are lopped of a limb: you tell them +to be at rest!' + +'You know I am fond of them.' + +'And the Kelts, as they are called, can't and won't forgive injuries; +look at Ireland, look at Wales, and the Keltic Scot. Have you heard them +talk? It happened in the year 1400: it's alive to them as if it were +yesterday. Old History is as dead to the English as their first father. +They beg for the privilege of pulling the forelock to the bearers of the +titles of the men who took their lands from them and turn them to the +uses of cattle. The Saxon English had, no doubt, a heavier thrashing +than any people allowed to subsist ever received: you see it to this day; +the crick of the neck at the name of a lord is now concealed and denied, +but they have it and betray the effects; and it's patent in their +Journals, all over their literature. Where it's not seen, another +blood's at work. The Kelt won't accept the form of slavery. Let him +be servile, supple, cunning, treacherous, and to appearance time-serving, +he will always remember his day of manly independence and who robbed him: +he is the poetic animal of the races of modern men.' + +'You give him Pagan colours.' + +'Natural colours. He does not offer the other cheek or turn his back to +be kicked after a knock to the ground. Instead of asking him to forgive, +which he cannot do, you must teach him to admire. A mercantile community +guided by Political Economy from the ledger to the banquet presided over +by its Dagon Capital, finds that difficult. However, there 's the secret +of him; that I respect in him. His admiration of an enemy or oppressor +doing great deeds, wins him entirely. He is an active spirit, not your +negative passive letter-of-Scripture Insensible. And his faults, short +of ferocity, are amusing.' + +'But the fits of ferocity!' + +'They are inconscient, real fits. They come of a hot nerve. He is +manageable, sober too, when his mind is charged. As to the French +people, they are the most mixed of any European nation; so they are +packed with contrasts: they are full of sentiment, they are sharply +logical; free-thinkers, devotees; affectionate, ferocious; frivolous, +tenacious; the passion of the season operating like sun or moon on these +qualities; and they can reach to ideality out of sensualism. Below your +level, they're above it: a paradox is at home with them!' + +'My friend, you speak seriously--an unusual compliment,' Nataly said, +and ungratefully continued: 'You know what is occupying me. I want your +opinion. I guess it. I want to hear--a mean thirst perhaps, and you +would pay me any number of compliments to avoid the subject; but let me +hear:--this house!' + +Colney shrugged in resignation. 'Victor works himself out,' he replied. + +'We are to go through it all again?' + +'If you have not the force to contain him.' + +'How contain him?' + +Up went Colney's shoulders. + +'You may see it all before you,' he said, 'straight as the Seine chaussee +from the hill of La Roche Guyon.' + +He looked for her recollection of the scene. + +'Ah, the happy ramble that year!' she cried. 'And my Nesta just seven. +We had been six months at Craye. Every day of our life together looks +happy to me, looking back, though I know that every day had the same +troubles. I don't think I'm deficient in courage; I think I could meet +.... But the false position so cruelly weakens me. I am no woman's +equal when I have to receive or visit. It seems easier to meet the worst +in life-danger, death, anything. Pardon me for talking so. Perhaps we +need not have left Craye or Creckholt . . . ?' she hinted an +interrogation. 'Though I am not sorry; it is not good to be where one +tastes poison. Here it may be as deadly, worse. Dear friend, I am so +glad you remember La Roche Guyon. He was popular with the dear French +people.' + +'In spite of his accent.' + +'It is not so bad?' + +'And that you'll defend!' + +'Consider: these neighbours we come among; they may have heard . . .' + +'Act on the assumption.' + +'You forget the principal character. Victor promises; he may have learnt +a lesson at Creckholt. But look at this house he has built. How can I-- +any woman--contain him! He must have society.' + +'Paraitre!' + +'He must be in the front. He has talked of Parliament.' + +Colney's liver took the thrust of a skewer through it. He spoke as in +meditative encomium: 'His entry into Parliament would promote himself and +family to a station of eminence naked over the Clock Tower of the House.' + +She moaned. 'At the vilest, I cannot regret my conduct--bear what I may. +I can bear real pain: what kills me is, the suspicion. And I feel it +like a guilty wretch! And I do not feel the guilt! I should do the same +again, on reflection. I do believe it saved him. I do; oh! I do, I do. +I cannot expect my family to see with my eyes. You know them--my brother +and sisters think I have disgraced them; they put no value on my saving +him. It sounds childish; it is true. He had fallen into a terrible +black mood.' + +'He had an hour of gloom.' + +'An hour!' + +'But an hour, with him! It means a good deal.' + +'Ah, friend, I take your words. He sinks terribly when he sinks at all. +--Spare us a little while.--We have to judge of what is good in the +circumstances: I hear your reply! But the principal for me to study is +Victor. You have accused me of being the voice of the enamoured woman. +I follow him, I know; I try to advise; I find it is wisdom to submit. +My people regard my behaviour as a wickedness or a madness. I did save +him. I joined my fate with his. I am his mate, to help, and I cannot +oppose him, to distract him. I do my utmost for privacy. He must +entertain. Believe me, I feel for them--sisters and brother. And now +that my sisters are married . . . My brother has a man's hardness.' + +'Colonel Dreighton did not speak harshly, at our last meeting.' + +'He spoke of me?' + +'He spoke in the tone of a brother.' + +'Victor promises--I won't repeat it. Yes, I see the house! There +appears to be a prospect, a hope--I cannot allude to it. Craye and +Creckholt may have been some lesson to him. Selwyn spoke of me kindly? +Ah, yes, it is the way with my people to pretend that Victor has been the +ruin of me, that they may come round to family sentiments. In the same +way, his relatives, the Duvidney ladies, have their picture of the woman +misleading him. Imagine me the naughty adventuress!'--Nataly falsified +the thought insurgent at her heart, in adding: 'I do not say I am +blameless.' It was a concession to the circumambient enemy, of whom even +a good friend was apart, and not better than a respectful emissary. The +dearest of her friends belonged to that hostile world. Only Victor, no +other, stood with her against the world. Her child, yes; the love of her +child she had; but the child's destiny was an alien phantom, looking at +her with harder eyes than she had vision of in her family. She did not +say she was blameless, did not affect the thought. She would have wished +to say, for small encouragement she would have said, that her case could +be pleaded. + +Colney's features were not inviting, though the expression was not +repellent. She sighed deeply; and to count on something helpful by +mentioning it, reverted to the 'prospect' which there appeared to be. +'Victor speaks of the certainty of his release.' + +His release! Her language pricked a satirist's gallbladder. Colney +refrained from speaking to wound, and enjoyed a silence that did it. + +'Do you see any possibility?--you knew her,' she said coldly. + +'Counting the number of times he has been expecting the release, he is +bound to believe it near at hand.' + +'You don't?' she asked: her bosom was up in a crisis of expectation for +the answer: and on a pause of half-a-minute, she could have uttered the +answer herself. + +He perceived the insane eagerness through her mask, and despised it, +pitying the woman. 'And you don't,' he said. 'You catch at delusions, +to excuse the steps you consent to take. Or you want me to wear the +blinkers, the better to hoodwink your own eyes. You see it as well as I: +If you enter that house, you have to go through the same as at +Creckholt:--and he'll be the first to take fright.' + +'He finds you in tears: he is immensely devoted; he flings up all to +protect "his Nataly."' + +'No: you are unjust to him. He would fling up all:'-- + +'But his Nataly prefers to be dragged through fire? As you please!' + +She bowed to her chastisement. One motive in her consultation with him +came of the knowledge of his capacity to inflict it and his honesty in +the act, and a thirst she had to hear the truth loud-tongued from him; +together with a feeling that he was excessive and satiric, not to be read +by the letter of his words: and in consequence, she could bear the lash +from him, and tell her soul that he overdid it, and have an unjustly- +treated self to cherish.--But in very truth she was a woman who loved to +hear the truth; she was formed to love the truth her position reduced her +to violate; she esteemed the hearing it as medical to her; she selected +for counsellor him who would apply it: so far she went on the straight +way; and the desire for a sustaining deception from the mouth of a +trustworthy man set her hanging on his utterances with an anxious hope of +the reverse of what was to come and what she herself apprehended, such as +checked her pulses and iced her feet and fingers. The reason being, not +that she was craven or absurd or paradoxical, but that, living at an +intenser strain upon her nature than she or any around her knew, her +strength snapped, she broke down by chance there where Colney was +rendered spiteful in beholding the display of her inconsequent if not +puling sex. + +She might have sought his counsel on another subject, if a paralyzing +chill of her frame in the foreview of it had allowed her to speak: she +felt grave alarms in one direction, where Nesta stood in the eye of her +father; besides an unformed dread that the simplicity in generosity of +Victor's nature was doomed to show signs of dross ultimately, under the +necessity he imposed upon himself to run out his forecasts, and scheme, +and defensively compel the world to serve his ends, for the protection of +those dear to him. + +At night he was particularly urgent with her for the harmonious duet in +praise of Lakelands; and plied her with questions all round and about it, +to bring out the dulcet accord. He dwelt on his choice of costly +marbles, his fireplace and mantelpiece designs, the great hall, and +suggestions for imposing and beautiful furniture; concordantly enough, +for the large, the lofty and rich of colour won her enthusiasm; but +overwhelmingly to any mood of resistance; and strangely in a man who had +of late been adopting, as if his own, a modern tone, or the social and +literary hints of it, relating to the right uses of wealth, and the duty +as well as the delight of living simply. + +'Fredi was pleased.' + +'Yes, she was, dear.' + +'She is our girl, my love. "I could live and die here!" Live, she may. +There's room enough.' + +Nataly saw the door of a covert communication pointed at in that remark. +She gathered herself for an effort to do battle. + +'She's quite a child, Victor.' + +'The time begins to run. We have to look forward now:--I declare, it's +I who seem the provident mother for Fredi!' + +'Let our girl wait; don't hurry her mind to . . . She is happy with +her father and mother. She is in the happiest time of her life, before +those feelings distract.' + +'If we see good fortune for her, we can't let it pass her.' + +A pang of the resolution now to debate the case with Victor, which would +be of necessity to do the avoided thing and roll up the forbidden curtain +opening on their whole history past and prospective, was met in Nataly's +bosom by the more bitter immediate confession that she was not his match. +To speak would be to succumb; and shamefully after the effort; and +hopelessly after being overborne by him. There was not the anticipation +of a set contest to animate the woman's naturally valiant heart; he was +too strong: and his vividness in urgency overcame her in advance, +fascinated her sensibility through recollection; he fanned an +inclination, lighted it to make it a passion, a frenzied resolve--she +remembered how and when. She had quivering cause to remember the fateful +day of her step, in a letter received that morning from a married sister, +containing no word of endearment or proposal for a meeting. An +unregretted day, if Victor would think of the dues to others; that is, +would take station with the world to see his reflected position, instead +of seeing it through their self-justifying knowledge of the honourable +truth of their love, and pressing to claim and snatch at whatsoever the +world bestows on its orderly subjects. + +They had done evil to no one as yet. Nataly thought that; not- +withstanding the outcry of the ancient and withered woman who bore +Victor Radnor's name: for whom, in consequence of the rod the woman had +used, this tenderest of hearts could summon no emotion. If she had it, +the thing was not to be hauled up to consciousness. Her feeling was, +that she forgave the wrinkled Malignity: pity and contrition dissolving +in the effort to produce the placable forgiveness. She was frigid +because she knew rightly of herself, that she in the place of power would +never have struck so meanly. But the mainspring of the feeling in an +almost remorseless bosom drew from certain chance expressions of +retrospective physical distaste on Victor's part;--hard to keep from a +short utterance between the nuptial two, of whom the unshamed exuberant +male has found the sweet reverse in his mate, a haven of heavenliness, +to delight in:--these conjoined with a woman's unspoken pleading ideas +of her own, on her own behalf, had armed her jealously in vindication +of Nature. + +Now, as long as they did no palpable wrong about them, Nataly could argue +her case in her conscience--deep down and out of hearing, where women +under scourge of the laws they have not helped decree may and do deliver +their minds. She stood in that subterranean recess for Nature against +the Institutions of Man: a woman little adapted for the post of revel; +but to this, by the agency of circumstances, it had come; she who was +designed by nature to be an ornament of those Institutions opposed them +and when thinking of the rights and the conduct of the decrepit +Legitimate--virulent in a heathen vindictiveness declaring itself holy-- +she had Nature's logic, Nature's voice, for self-defence. It was +eloquent with her, to the deafening of other voices in herself, even to +the convincing of herself, when she was wrought by the fires within to +feel elementally. The other voices within her issued of the acknowledged +dues to her family and to the world--the civilization protecting women: +sentences thereanent in modern books and Journals. But the remembrance +of moods of fiery exaltation, when the Nature she called by name of Love +raised the chorus within to stop all outer buzzing, was, in a perpetual +struggle with a whirlpool, a constant support while she and Victor were +one at heart. The sense of her standing alone made her sway; and a +thought of differences with him caused frightful apprehensions of the +abyss. + +Luxuriously she applied to his public life for witness that he had +governed wisely as well as affectionately so long; and he might +therefore, with the chorussing of the world of public men, expect a woman +blindfold to follow his lead. But no; we may be rebels against our time +and its Laws: if we are really for Nature, we are not lawless. Nataly's +untutored scruples, which came side by side with her ability to plead for +her acts, restrained her from complicity in the ensnaring of a young man +of social rank to espouse the daughter of a couple socially insurgent- +stained, to common thinking, should denunciation come. The Nature +upholding her fled at a vision of a stranger entangled. Pitiable to +reflect, that he was not one of the adventurer-lords of prey who hunt +and run down shadowed heiresses and are congratulated on their luck in a +tolerating country! How was the young man to be warned? How, under the +happiest of suppositions, propitiate his family! And such a family, +if consenting with knowledge, would consent only for the love of money. +It was angling with as vile a bait as the rascal lord's. Humiliation +hung on the scheme; it struck to scorching in the contemplation of it. +And it darkened her reading of Victor's character. + +She did not ask for the specification of a 'good fortune that might +pass'; wishing to save him from his wonted twists of elusiveness, and +herself with him from the dread discussion it involved upon one point. + +'The day was pleasant to all, except perhaps poor mademoiselle,' she +said. + +'Peridon should have come?' + +'Present or absent, his chances are not brilliant, I fear.' + +'And Pempton and Priscy!' + +'They are growing cooler!' + +'With their grotesque objections to one another's habits at table!' + +'Can we ever hope to get them over it?' + +'When Priscy drinks Port and Pempton munches beef, Colney says.' + +'I should say, when they feel warmly enough to think little of their +differences.' + +'Fire smoothes the creases, yes; and fire is what they're both wanting +in. Though Priscy has Concert-pathos in her voice:--couldn't act a bit! +And Pempton's 'cello tones now and then have gone through me--simply from +his fiddle-bow, I believe. Don't talk to me of feeling in a couple, +within reach of one another and sniffing objections.--Good, then, for a +successful day to-day so far?' + +He neared her, wooing her; and she assented, with a franker smile than +she had worn through the day. + +The common burden on their hearts--the simple discussion to come of the +task of communicating dire actualities to their innocent Nesta--was laid +aside. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Admiration of an enemy or oppressor doing great deeds +Aristocratic assumption of licence +But what is it we do (excepting cricket, of course) +Consent of circumstances +Continued trust in the man--is the alternative of despair +Critical fashion of intimates who know as well as hear +Despises hostile elements and goes unpunished +Dithyrambic inebriety of narration +Feminine; coming when she willed and flying when wanted +Fire smoothes the creases +Frankness as an armour over wariness +Half a dozen dozen left +Hard to bear, at times unbearable +Haremed opinion of the unfitness of women +He neared her, wooing her; and she assented +He never acknowledged a trouble, he dispersed it +He prattled, in the happy ignorance of compulsion +He sinks terribly when he sinks at all +Heathen vindictiveness declaring itself holy +If we are really for Nature, we are not lawless +In bottle if not on draught (oratory) +In the pay of our doctors +Intrusion of hard material statements, facts +Kelts, as they are called, can't and won't forgive injuries +Man with a material object in aim, is the man of his object +Nature and Law never agreed +Nature's logic, Nature's voice, for self-defence +Next door to the Last Trump +Obeseness is the most sensitive of our ailments +Once out of the rutted line, you are food for lion and jackal +One wants a little animation in a husband +People of a provocative prosperity +Self-deceiver may be a persuasive deceiver of another +She was not his match--To speak would be to succumb +Slap and pinch and starve our appetites +Smallest of our gratifications in life could give a happy tone +Smothered in its pudding-bed of the grotesque (obesity) +Snuffle of hypocrisy in her prayer +State of feverish patriotism +Statistics are according to their conjurors +Subterranean recess for Nature against the Institutions of Man +Tale, which leaves the man's mind at home +The effects of the infinitely little +The old confession, that we cannot cook(The English) +They do not live; they are engines +They helped her to feel at home with herself +Thought of differences with him caused frightful apprehensions +Unshamed exuberant male has found the sweet reverse in his mate +We cannot relinquish an idea that was ours +We've all a parlous lot too much pulpit in us + + +[The End] + + + + +********************************************************************* +The Project Gutenberg Etext of One of Our Conquerors, v1, by Meredith +********This file should be named gm77v10.txt or gm77v10.zip********* + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gm77v11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gm77v10a.txt + +This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +More information about this book is at the top of this file. + +We are now trying to release all our etexts one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. 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