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diff --git a/old/4473.txt b/old/4473.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..24750ad --- /dev/null +++ b/old/4473.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3670 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of One of Our Conquerors, v3, +by George Meredith +#79 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, v3 + +Author: George Meredith + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4473] +[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, v3, by Meredith +*********This file should be named 4473.txt or 4473.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 + + + +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 + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +TREATS OF NATURE AND CIRCUMSTANCE AND THE DISSENSION BETWEEN THEM AND OF +A SATIRIST'S MALIGNITY IN THE DIRECTION OF HIS COUNTRY + +There is at times in the hearts of all men of active life a vivid wild +moment or two of dramatic dialogue between the veteran antagonists, +Nature and Circumstance, when they, whose business it should be to be +joyfully one, furiously split; and the Dame is up with her shrillest +querulousness to inquire of her offspring, for the distinct original +motive of his conduct. Why did he bring her to such a pass! And what is +the gain? If he be not an alienated issue of the great Mother, he will +strongly incline to her view, that he put himself into harness to join +with a machine going the dead contrary way of her welfare; and thereby +wrote himself donkey, for his present reading. Soldiers, heroes, even +the braided, even the wearers of the gay cock's feathers, who get the +honours and the pocket-pieces, know the moment of her electrical +eloquence. They have no answer for her, save an index at the machine +pushing them on yet farther under the enemy's line of fire, where they +pluck the golden wreath or the livid, and in either case listen no more. +They glorify her topping wisdom while on the march to confound it. She +is wise in her way. But, it is asked by the disputant, If we had +followed her exclusively, how far should we have travelled from our +starting-point? We of the world and its prizes and duties must do her an +injury to make her tongue musical to us, and her argument worthy of +attention. So it seems. How to keep the proper balance between those +two testy old wranglers, that rarely pull the right way together, is as +much the task for men in the grip of the world, as for the wanton +youthful fry under dominion of their instincts; and probably, when it is +done, man will have attained the golden age of his retirement from +service. + +Why be scheming? Victor asked. Unlike the gallant soldiery, his +question was raised in the blush of a success, from an examination of the +quality of the thing won; although it had not changed since it was first +coveted; it was demonstrably the same: and an astonishing dry stick he +held, as a reward for perpetual agitations and perversions of his natural +tastes. Here was a Dudley Sowerby, the direct issue of the conception of +Lakelands; if indeed they were not conceived together in one; and the +young gentleman had moral character, good citizen substance, and station, +rank, prospect of a title; and the grasp of him was firm. Yet so far was +it from hearty, that when hearing a professed satirist like Colney +Durance remark on the decorous manner of Dudley's transparent courtship +of the girl, under his look of an awakened approval of himself, that he +appeared to be asking everybody:--Do you not think I bid fair for an +excellent father of Philistines?--Victor had a nip of spite at the +thought of Dudley's dragging him bodily to be the grandfather. Poor +Fredi, too!--necessarily the mother: condemned by her hard fate to feel +proud of Philistine babies! Though women soon get reconciled to it! Or +do they? They did once. What if his Fredi turned out one of the modern +young women, who have drunk of ideas? He caught himself speculating on +that, as on a danger. The alliance with Dudley really seemed to set him +facing backward. + +Colney might not have been under prompting of Nataly when he derided +Dudley; but Victor was at war with the picture of her, in her compression +of a cruel laugh, while her eyelids were hard shut, as if to exclude the +young patriarch of Philistines' ridiculous image. + +He hearkened to the Nature interrogating him, why had he stepped on a +path to put division between himself and his beloved?--the smallest of +gaps; and still the very smallest between nuptial lovers is a division-- +and that may become a mortal wound to their one-life. Why had he roused +a slumbering world? Glimpses of the world's nurse-like, old-fashioned, +mother-nightcap benevolence to its kicking favourites; its long-suffering +tolerance for the heroic breakers of its rough-cast laws, while the +decent curtain continues dropped, or lifted only ankle-high; together +with many scenes, lively suggestions, of the choice of ways he liked +best, told of things, which were better things, incomprehensibly +forfeited. So that the plain sense of value insisted on more than one +weighing of the gain in hand: a dubious measure. + +He was as little disposed to reject it as to stop his course at a goal of +his aim. Nevertheless, a gain thus poorly estimated, could not command +him to do a deed of humiliation on account of it. The speaking to this +dry young Dudley was not imperative at present. A word would do in the +day to come. + +Nataly was busy with her purchases of furniture, and the practise for the +great August Concert. He dealt her liberal encouragements, up to the +verge of Dr. Themison's latest hummed words touching Mrs. Burman, from +which he jumped in alarm lest he should paralyze her again: the dear +soul's dreaded aspect of an earthy pallor was a spectre behind her +cheeks, ready to rush forth. Fenellan brought Carling to dine with him; +and Themison was confirmed by Carting, with incidents in proof; Caning by +Jarniman, also with incidents; one very odd one--or so it seemed, in the +fury of the first savour of it:--she informed Jarniman, Skepsey said his +friend Jarniman said, that she had dreamed of making her appearance to +him on the night of the 23rd August, and of setting the date on the +calendar over his desk, when she entered his room: 'Sitting-room, not +bedroom; she was always quite the lady,' Skepsey reported his Jarniman. +Mrs. Burman, as a ghost, would respect herself; she would keep to her +character. Jarniman quite expected the dream to be verified; she was a +woman of her word: he believed she had received a revelation of the +approaching fact: he was preparing for the scene. + +Victor had to keep silent and discourse of general prosperity. His happy +vivaciousness assisted him to feel it by day. Nataly heard him at night, +on a moan: 'Poor soul!' and loudly once while performing an abrupt demi- +vault from back to side: 'Perhaps now!' in a voice through doors. She +schooled herself to breathe equably. + +Not being allowed to impart the distressing dose of comfort he was +charged with, he swallowed it himself; and these were the consequences. +And an uneasy sleep was traditionally a matter for grave debate in the +Radnor family. The Duvidney ladies, Dorothea and Virginia, would have +cited ancestral names, showing it to be the worst of intimations. At +night, lying on his back beneath a weight of darkness, one heavily craped +figure, distinguishable through the gloom, as a blot on a black pad, +accused the answering darkness within him, until his mind was dragged to +go through the whole case by morning light; and the compassionate man +appealed to common sense, to stamp and pass his delectable sophistries; +as, that it was his intense humaneness, which exposed him to an +accusation of inhumanity; his prayer for the truly best to happen, which +anticipated Mrs. Burman's expiry. They were simple sophistries, +fabricated to suit his needs, readily taking and bearing the imprimatur +of common sense. They refreshed him, as a chemical scent a crowded room. + +All because he could not open his breast to Nataly, by reason of her +feebleness; or feel enthusiasm in the possession of young Dudley! A dry +stick indeed beside him on the walk Westward. Good quality wood, no +doubt, but dry, varnished for conventional uses. Poor dear Fredi would +have to crown it like the May-day posy of the urchins of Craye Farm and +Creckholt! + +Dudley wished the great City-merchant to appreciate him as a diligent +student of commercial matters: rivalries of Banks; Foreign and Municipal +Loans, American Rails, and Argentine; new Companies of wholesome +appearance or sinister; or starting with a dram in the stomach, or born +to bleat prostrate, like sheep on their backs in a ditch; Trusts and +Founders; Breweries bursting vats upon the markets, and England prone +along the gutters, gobbling, drunk for shares, and sober in the +possession of certain of them. But when, as Colney says, a grateful +England has conferred the Lordship on her Brewer, he gratefully hands- +over the establishment to his country; and both may disregard the howls +of a Salvation Army of shareholders.--Beaten by the Germans in Brewery, +too! Dr. Schlesien has his right to crow. We were ahead of them, and +they came and studied us, and they studied Chemistry as well; while we +went on down our happy-go-lucky old road; and then had to hire their +young Professors, and then to import their beer. + +Have the Germans more brains than we English? Victor's blood up to the +dome of his cranium knocked the patriotic negative. But, as old Colney +says (and bother him, for constantly intruding!), the comfortably +successful have the habit of sitting, and that dulls the brain yet more +than it eases the person: hence are we outpaced; we have now to know we +are racing. Victor scored a mark for one of his projects. A well- +conducted Journal of the sharpest pens in the land might, at a sacrifice +of money grandly sunk, expose to his English how and to what degree their +sports, and their fierce feastings, and their opposition to ideas, and +their timidity in regard to change, and their execration of criticism +applied to themselves, and their unanimous adoption of it for a weapon +against others, are signs of a prolonged indulgence in the cushioned +seat. Victor saw it. But would the people he loved? He agreed with +Colney, forgetting the satirist's venom: to-wit; that the journalists +should be close under their editor's rod to put it in sound bold +English;--no metaphors, no similes, nor flowery insubstantiality: but +honest Saxon manger stuff: and put it repeatedly, in contempt of the +disgust of iteration; hammering so a soft place on the Anglican skull, +which is rubbed in consequence, and taught at last through soreness to +reflect.--A Journal?--with Colney Durance for Editor?--and called +conformably THE WHIPPING-TOP? Why not, if it exactly hits the +signification of the Journal and that which it would have the country do +to itself, to keep it going and truly topping? For there is no vulgarity +in a title strongly signifying the intent. Victor wrote it at night, +naming Colney for Editor, with a sum of his money to be devoted to the +publication, in a form of memorandum; and threw it among the papers in +his desk. + +Young Dudley had a funny inquisitiveness about Dartrey Fenellan; owing to +Fredi's reproduction or imitation of her mother's romantic sentiment for +Dartrey, doubtless: a bit of jealousy, indicating that the dry fellow had +his feelings. Victor touched--off an outline of Dartrey's history and +character:--the half-brother of Simeon, considerably younger, and totally +different. 'Dartrey's mother was Lady Charlotte Kiltorne, one of the +Clanconans; better mother than wife, perhaps; and no reproach on her, not +a shadow; only she made the General's Bank-notes fly black paper. And-- +if you 're for heredity--the queer point is, that Simeon, whose mother +was a sober-minded woman, has always been the spendthrift. Dartrey +married one of the Hennen women, all an odd lot, all handsome. I met her +once. Colney said, she came up here with a special commission from the +Prince of Darkness. There are women who stir the unholy in men--whether +they mean it or not, you know.' + +Dudley pursed to remark, that he could not say he did know. And good for +Fredi if he did not know, and had his objections to the knowledge! But +he was like the men who escape colds by wrapping in comforters instead of +trusting to the spin of the blood. + +'She played poor Dartrey pranks before he buried--he, behaved well to +her; and that says much for him; he has: a devil of a temper. I 've seen +the blood in his veins, mount to cracking. But there's the man: because +she was a woman, he never let it break out with her. And, by heaven, he +had cause. She couldn't be left. She tricked him, and she loved him- +passionately, I believe. You don't understand women loving the husband +they drag through the mire?' + +Dudley did not. He sharpened his mouth. + +'Buried, you said, sir?--a widower?' + +'I've no positive information; we shall hear when he: comes back,' Victor +replied hurriedly. 'He got a drenching of all the damns in the British +service from his. Generalissimo one day at a Review, for a trooper's +negligence-button or stock missing, or something; and off goes Dartrey to +his hut, and breaks his sword, and sends in his resignation. Good +soldier lost. And I can't complain; he has been a right-hand man to me +over in Africa. But a man ought to have some control of his temper, +especially a soldier.' + +Dudley put emphasis into his acquiescence. + +'Worse than that temper of Dartrey's, he can't forgive an injury. He +bears a grudge against his country. You've heard Colney Durance abuse +old England. It's three parts factitious-literary exercise. It 's milk +beside the contempt of Dartrey's shrug. He thinks we're a dead people, +if a people; "subsisting on our fat," as Colney says.' + +'I am not of opinion that we show it,' observed Dudley. + +'We don't,' Victor agreed. He disrelished his companion's mincing tone +of a monumental security, and yearned for Dartrey or Simeon or Colney to +be at his elbow rather than this most commendable of orderly citizens, +who little imagined the treacherous revolt from him in the bosom of the +gentleman cordially signifying full agreement. But Dudley was not gifted +to read behind words and looks. + +They were in the Park of the dwindling press of carriages, and here was +this young Dudley saying, quite commendably: 'It's a pity we seem to have +no means of keeping our parks select.' + +Victor flung Simeon Fenellan at him in thought. He remembered a fable of +Fenellan's, about a Society of the Blest, and the salt it was to them to +discover an intruder from below, and the consequent accelerated measure +in their hymning. + +'Have you seen anything offensive to you?' he asked. + +'One sees notorious persons.' + +Dudley spoke aloof from them--'out of his cold attics,' Fenellan would +have said. + +Victor approved: with the deadened feeling common to us when first in sad +earnest we consent to take life as it is. + +He perceived, too, the comicality of his having to resign himself to the +fatherly embrace of goodness. + +Lakelands had him fast, and this young Dudley was the kernel of +Lakelands. If he had only been intellectually a little flexible in his +morality! But no; he wore it cap a pie, like a mediaeval knight his +armour. One had to approve. And there was no getting away from him. He +was good enough to stay in town for the practise of the opening overture +of the amateurs, and the flute-duet, when his family were looking for him +at Tunbridge Wells; and almost every day Victor was waylaid by him at a +corner of the Strand. + +Occasionally, Victor appeared at the point of interception armed with +Colney Durance, for whom he had called in the Temple, bent on self- +defence, although Colney was often as bitter to his taste as to Dudley's. +Latterly the bitter had become a tonic. We rejoice in the presence of +goodness, let us hope; and still an impersonation of conventional, +goodness perpetually about us depresses. Dudley drove him to Colney for +relief. Besides it pleased Nataly that he should be bringing Colney +home; it looked to her as if he were subjecting Dudley to critical +inspection before he decided a certain question much, and foolishly, +dreaded by the dear soul. That quieted her. And another thing, she +liked him to be with Colney, for a clog on him; as it were, a tuning-fork +for the wild airs he started. A little pessimism, also, she seemed to +like; probably as an appeasement after hearing, and having to share, high +flights. And she was, in her queer woman's way, always reassured by his +endurance of Colney's company:--she read it to mean, that he could bear +Colney's perusal of him, and satiric stings. Victor had seen these petty +matters among the various which were made to serve his double and treble +purposes; now, thanks to the operation of young Dudley within him, he +felt them. Preferring Fenellan's easy humour to Colney's acid, he was +nevertheless braced by the latter's antidote to Dudley, while reserving +his entire opposition in the abstract. + +For Victor Radnor and Colney Durance were the Optimist and Pessimist of +their society. They might have headed those tribes in the country. At a +period when the omnibus of the world appears to its quaint occupants to +be going faster, men are shaken into the acceptation, if not performance, +of one part or the other as it is dictated to them by their temperaments. +Compose the parts, and you come nigh to the meaning of the Nineteenth +Century: the mother of these gosling affirmatives and negatives divorced +from harmony and awakened by the slight increase of incubating motion to +vitality. Victor and Colney had been champion duellists for the rosy and +the saturnine since the former cheerfully slaved for a small stipend in +the City of his affection, and the latter entered on an inheritance +counted in niggard hundreds, that withdrew a briefless barrister disposed +for scholarship from the forlornest of seats in the Courts. They had +foretold of one another each the unfulfilled; each claimed the actual as +the child of his prediction. Victor was to have been ruined long back; +Colney the prey of independent bachelors. Colney had escaped his harpy, +and Victor could be called a millionaire and more. Prophesy was crowned +by Colney's dyspepsia, by Victor's ticklish domestic position. Their +pity for one another, their warm regard, was genuine; only, they were of +different temperaments; and we have to distinguish, that in many +estimable and some gifted human creatures, it is the quality of the blood +which directs the current of opinion. + +Victor played-off Colney upon Dudley, for his internal satisfaction, and +to lull Nataly and make her laugh; but he could not, as she hoped he was +doing, take Colney into his confidence; inasmuch as the Optimist, +impelled by his exuberant anticipatory trustfulness, is an author, and +does things; whereas the Pessimist is your chaired critic, with the +delivery of a censor, generally an undoer of things. Our Optimy has his +instinct to tell him of the cast of Pessimy's countenance at the +confession of a dilemma-foreseen! He hands himself to Pessimy, as it +were a sugar-cane, for the sour brute to suck the sugar and whack with +the wood. But he cannot perform his part in return; he gets no +compensation: Pessimy is invulnerable. You waste your time in hurling a +common 'tu-quoque' at one who hugs the worst. + +The three walking in the park, with their bright view, and black view, +and neutral view of life, were a comical trio. They had come upon the +days of the unfanned electric furnace, proper to London's early August +when it is not pipeing March. Victor complacently bore heat as well as +cold: but young Dudley was a drought, and Colney a drug to refresh it; +and why was he stewing in London? It was for this young Dudley, who +resembled a London of the sparrowy roadways and wearisome pavements and +blocks of fortress mansions, by chance a water-cart spirting a stale +water: or a London of the farewell dinner-parties, where London's +professed anecdotist lays the dust with his ten times told: Why was not +Nataly relieved of her dreary round of the purchases of furniture! They +ought all now to be in Switzerland or Tyrol. Nesta had of late been +turning over leaves of an Illustrated book of Tyrol, dear to her after a +run through the Innthal to the Dolomites one splendid August; and she and +Nataly had read there of Hofer, Speckbacker, Haspinger; and wrath had +filled them at the meanness of the Corsican, who posed after it as victim +on St. Helena's rock; the scene in grey dawn on Mantua's fortress-walls +blasting him in the Courts of History, when he strikes for his pathetic +sublime. + +Victor remembered how he had been rhetorical, as the mouthpiece of his +darlings. But he had in memory prominently now the many glorious +pictures of that mountain-land beckoning to him, waving him to fly forth +from the London oven:--lo, the Tyrolese limestone crags with livid peaks +and snow lining shelves and veins of the crevices; and folds of pinewood +undulations closed by a shoulder of snow large on the blue; and a +dazzling pinnacle rising over green pasture-Alps, the head of it shooting +aloft as the blown billow, high off a broken ridge, and wide-armed in its +pure white shroud beneath; tranced, but all motion in immobility, to the +heart in the eye; a splendid image of striving, up to crowned victory. +And see the long valley-sweeps of the hanging meadows and maize, and +lower vineyards and central tall green spires! Walking beside young +Dudley, conversing, observing too, Victor followed the trips and twists +of a rill, that was lured a little further down through scoops, ducts, +and scaffolded channels to serve a wainwright. + +He heard the mountain-song of the joyful water: a wren-robin-thrush on +the dance down of a faun; till it was caught and muted, and the silver +foot slid along the channel, swift as moonbeams through a cloud, with an +air of 'Whither you will, so it be on'; happy for service as in freedom. +Then the yard of the inn below, and the rillwater twirling rounded +through the trout-trough, subdued, still lively for its beloved onward: +dues to business, dues to pleasure; a wedding of the two, and the wisest +on earth:-eh? like some one we know, and Nataly has made the comparison. +Fresh forellen for lunch: rhyming to Fenellan, he had said to her; and +that recollection struck the day to blaze; for his friend was a ruined +military captain living on a literary quill at the time; and Nataly's +tender pleading, 'Could you not help to give him another chance, dear +Victor?'--signifying her absolute trust in his ability to do that or more +or anything, had actually set him thinking of the Insurance Office; which +he started to prosperity, and Fenellan in it, previously an untutored +rill of the mountains, if ever was one. + +Useless to be dwelling on holiday pictures: Lakelands had hold of him! + +Colney or somebody says, that the greater our successes, the greater the +slaves we become.--But we must have an aim, my friend, and success must +be the aim of any aim!--Yes, and, says Colney, you are to rejoice in the +disappointing miss, which saved you from being damned by your bullet on +the centre.--You're dead against Nature, old Colney.--That is to carry +the flag of Liberty.--By clipping a limb! + +Victor overcame the Pessimist in his own royal cranium-Court. He +entertained a pronounced dissension with bachelors pretending to +independence. It could not be argued publicly, and the more the pity:-- +for a slight encouragement, he would have done it: his outlook over the +waves of bachelors and (by present conditions mostly constrained) +spinsters--and another outlook, midnight upon Phlegethon to the thoughts +of men, made him deem it urgent. And it helped the plea in his own +excuse, as Colney pointed out to the son of Nature. That, he had to +admit, was true. He charged it upon Mrs. Burman, for twisting the most +unselfish and noblest of his thoughts; and he promised himself it was to +cease on the instant when the circumstance, which Nature was remiss in +not bringing about to-day or to-morrow, had come to pass. He could see +his Nataly's pained endurance beneath her habitual submission. Her +effort was a poor one, to conceal her dread of the day of the gathering +at Lakelands. + +On the Sunday previous to the day, Dr. Themison accompanied the amateurs +by rail to Wrensham, to hear 'trial of the acoustics' of the Concert- +hall. They were a goodly company; and there was fun in the railway- +carriage over Colney's description of Fashionable London's vast octopus +Malady-monster, who was letting the doctor fly to the tether of its +longest filament for an hour, plying suckers on him the while. He had +the look, to general perception, of a man but half-escaped: and as when +the notes of things taken by the vision in front are being set down upon +tablets in the head behind. Victor observed his look at Nataly. The +look was like a door aswing, revealing in concealing. She was not or did +not appear struck by it; perhaps, if observant, she took it for a busy +professional gentleman's holiday reckoning of the hours before the return +train to his harness, and his arrangements for catching it. She was, as +she could be on a day of trial, her enchanting majestic self again-- +defying suspicions. She was his true mate for breasting a world honoured +in uplifting her. + +Her singing of a duet with Nesta, called forth Dr. Themison's very warm +applause. He named the greatest of contraltos. Colney did better +service than Fenellan at the luncheon-table: he diverted Nataly and +captured Dr. Themison's ear with the narrative of his momentous +expedition of European Emissaries, to plead the cause of their several +languages at the Court of Japan: a Satiric Serial tale, that hit +incidentally the follies of the countries of Europe, and intentionally, +one had to think, those of Old England. Nesta set him going. Just when +he was about to begin, she made her father laugh by crying out in a +rapture, 'Oh! Delphica!' For she was naughtily aware of Dudley +Sowerby's distaste for the story and disgust with the damsel Delphica. + +Nesta gave Dr. Themison the preliminary sketch of the grand object of the +expedition: indeed one of the eminent ones of the world; matter for an +Epic; though it is to be feared, that our part in it will not encourage a +Cis-Atlantic bard. To America the honours from beginning to end belong. + +So, then, Japan has decided to renounce its language, for the adoption of +the language it may choose among the foremost famous European tongues. +Japan becomes the word for miraculous transformations of a whole people +at the stroke of a wand; and let our English enrol it as the most +precious of the powerful verbs. An envoy visits the principal Seats of +Learning in Europe. He is of a gravity to match that of his unexampled +and all but stupefying mission. A fluent linguist, yet an Englishman, +the slight American accent contracted during a lengthened residence in +the United States is no bar to the patriotism urging him to pay his visit +of exposition and invitation from the Japanese Court to the distinguished +Doctor of Divinity Dr. Bouthoin. The renown of Dr. Bouthoin among the +learned of Japan has caused the special invitation to him; a scholar +endowed by an ample knowledge and persuasive eloquence to cite and +instance as well as illustrate the superior advantages to Japan and +civilization in the filial embrace of mother English. 'For to this it +must come predestinated,' says the astonishing applicant. 'We seem to +see a fitness in it,' says the cogitative Rev. Doctor. 'And an Island +England in those waters, will do wonders for Commerce,' adds the former. +'We think of things more pregnant,' concludes the latter, with a dry +gleam of ecclesiastical knowingness. And let the Editor of the Review +upon his recent pamphlet, and let the prelate reprimanding him, and let +the newspapers criticizing his pure Saxon, have a care! + +Funds, universally the most convincing of credentials, are placed at Dr. +Bouthoin's disposal: only it is requested, that for the present the +expedition be secret. 'Better so,' says pure Saxon's champion. On a day +patented for secresy, and swearing-in the whole American Continent +through the cables to keep the secret by declaring the patent, the Rev. +Dr. Bouthoin, accompanied by his curate, the Rev. Mancate Semhians, +stumbling across portmanteaux crammed with lexicons and dictionaries and +other tubes of the voice of Hermes, takes possession of berths in the +ship Polypheme, bound, as they mutually conceive, for the biggest +adventure ever embarked on by a far-thoughted, high-thoughted, patriotic +pair speaking pure Saxon or other. + +Colney, with apologies to his hearers, avoided the custom of our period +(called the Realistic) to create, when casual opportunity offers, a +belief in the narrative by promoting nausea in the audience. He passed +under veil the Rev. Doctor's acknowledgement of Neptune's power, and the +temporary collapse of Mr. Semhians. Proceeding at once to the comments +of these high-class missionaries on the really curious inquisitiveness of +certain of the foreign passengers on board, he introduced to them the +indisputably learned, the very argumentative, crashing, arrogant, +pedantic, dogmatic, philological German gentleman, Dr. Gannius, reeking +of the Teutonic Professor, as a library volume of its leather. With him +is his fairhaired artless daughter Delphica. An interesting couple for +the beguilement of a voyage: she so beautifully moderates his irascible +incisiveness! Yet there is a strange tone that they have. What, then, +of the polite, the anecdotic Gallic M. Falarique, who studiously engages +the young lady in colloquy when Mr. Semhians is agitating outside them to +say a word? What of that outpouring, explosive, equally voluble, +uncontrolled M. Bobinikine, a Mongol Russian, shaped, featured, hued like +the pot-boiled, round and tight young dumpling of our primitive boyhood, +which smokes on the dish from the pot? And what of another, hitherto +unnoticed, whose nose is of the hooked vulturine, whose name transpires +as Pisistratus Mytharete? He hears Dr. Bouthoin declaim some lines of +Homer, and beseeches him for the designation of that language. Greek, +is it? Greek of the Asiatic ancient days of the beginning of the poetic +chants? Dr. Gannius crashes cachinnation. Dr. Bouthoin caps himself +with the offended Don. Mr. Semhians opens half an eye and a whole mouth. +There must be a mystery, these two exclaim to one another in privacy. +Delphica draws Mr. Semhians aside. + +Blushing over his white necktie, like the coast of Labrador at the +transient wink of its Jack-in-the-box Apollo, Mr. Semhians faintly tells +of a conversation he has had with the ingenuous fair one; and she ardent +as he for the throning of our incomparable Saxon English in the mouths of +the races of mankind. Strange!--she partly suspects the Frenchman, the +Russian, the attentive silent Greek, to be all of them bound for the +Court of Japan. Concurrents? Can it be? We are absolutely to enter on +a contention with rivals? Dr. Bouthoin speaks to Dr. Gannius. He is +astonished, he says; he could not have imagined it + +'Have you ever imagined anything?' Dr. Gannius asks him. Entomologist, +botanist, palaeontologist, philologist, and at sound of horn a ready +regimental corporal, Dr. Gannius wears good manners as a pair of bath- +slippers, to rally and kick his old infant of an Englishman; who, in awe +of his later renown and manifest might, makes it a point of discretion to +be ultra-amiable; for he certainly is not in training, he has no +alliances, and he must diplomatize; and the German is a strong one; a +relative too; he is the Saxon's cousin, to say the least. This German +has the habit of pushing past politeness to carry his argumentative war +into the enemy's country: and he presents on all sides a solid rampart +of recent great deeds done, and mailed readiness for the doing of more, +if we think of assailing him in that way. We are really like the poor +beasts which have cast their shells or cases, helpless flesh to his beak. +So we are cousinly. + +Whether more amused than amazed, we know not, Dr. Gannius hears from 'our +simpleton of the pastures,' as he calls the Rev. Doctor to his daughter, +that he and Mr. Semhians have absolutely pushed forth upon this most +mighty of enterprises naked of any backing from their Government! Babes +in the Wood that they are! 'a la grace de dieu' at every turn that cries +for astutia, they show no sign or symbol of English arms behind them, to +support--and with the grandest of national prizes in view!--the pleading +oration before the Court of the elect, erudites, we will call them, of an +intelligent, yet half barbarous, people; hesitating, these, between +eloquence and rival eloquence, cunning and rival cunning. Why, in such a +case, the shadow-nimbus of Force is needed to decide the sinking of the +scale. But have these English never read their Shakespeare, that they +show so barren an acquaintance with human, to say nothing of semi- +barbaric, nature? But it is here that we Germans prove our claim to +being the sons of his mind.--Dr. Gannius, in contempt, throws off the +mask: he also is a concurrent. And not only is he the chosen by election +of the chief Universities of his land, he has behind him, as Athene +dilating Achilles, the clenched fist of the Prince of thunder and +lightning of his time. German, Japan shall be! he publicly swears +before them all. M. Falarique damascenes his sharpest smile; +M. Bobinikine double-dimples his puddingest; M. Mytharete rolls a +forefinger over his beak; Dr. Bouthoin enlarges his eye on a sunny mote. +And such is the masterful effect of a frank diplomacy, that when one +party shows his hand, the others find the reverse of concealment in +hiding their own. + +Dr. Bouthoin and Mr. Semhians are compelled to suspect themselves to be +encompassed with rivals, presumptively supported by their Governments. +The worthy gentlemen had hoped to tumble into good fortune, as in the +blessed old English manner. 'It has even been thus with us: unhelped we +do it!' exclaims the Rev. Doctor. He is roused from dejection by hearing +Mr. Semhians shyly (he has published verse) tell of the fairtressed +Delphica's phosphorial enthusiasm for our galaxy of British Poets. +Assisted by Mr. Semhians, he begins to imagine, that he has, in the +person of this artless devotee an ally, who will, through her worship of +our poets (by treachery to her sire-a small matter) sacrifice her +guttural tongue, by enabling him (through the exercise of her arts, +charms, intrigues--also a small matter) to obtain the first audience of +the Japanese erudites. Delphica, with each of the rivals in turn, is +very pretty Comedy. She is aware that M. Falarique is her most +redoubtable adversary, by the time that the vast fleet of steamboats +(containing newspaper reporters) is beheld from the decks of the +Polypheme puffing past Sandy Hook. + +There Colney left them, for the next instalment of the serial. + +Nesta glanced at Dudley Sowerby. She liked him for his pained frown at +the part his countrymen were made to play, but did wish that he would +keep from expressing it in a countenance that suggested a worried knot; +and mischievously she said: 'Do you take to Delphica?' + +He replied, with an evident sincerity, 'I cannot say I do.' + +Had Mr. Semhians been modelled on him? + +'One bets on the German, of course--with Colney Durance,' Victor said to +Dr. Themison, leading him over the grounds of Lakelands. + +'In any case, the author teaches us to feel an interest in the rivals. +I want to know what comes of it,' said the doctor. + +'There's a good opportunity, one sees. But, mark me, it will all end in +satire upon poor Old England. According to Colney, we excel in nothing.' + +'I do not think there is a country that could offer the entertainment for +which I am indebted to you to-day.' + +'Ah, my friend, and you like their voices? The contralto?' + +'Exquisite.' + +Dr. Themison had not spoken the name of Radnor. + +'Shall we see you at our next Concert-evening in town?' said Victor; and +hearing 'the privilege' mentioned, his sharp bright gaze cleared to +limpid. 'You have seen how it stands with us here!' At once he related +what indeed Dr. Themison had begun speculatively to think might be the +case. + +Mrs. Burman Radnor had dropped words touching a husband, and of her +desire to communicate with him, in the event of her being given over to +the surgeons: she had said, that her husband was a greatly gifted man; +setting her head in a compassionate swing. This revelation of the +husband soon after, was filling. And this Mr. Radnor's comrade's manner +of it, was winning: a not too self-justifying tone; not void of feeling +for the elder woman; with a manly eulogy of the younger, who had flung +away the world for him and borne him their one dear child. Victor took +the blame wholly upon himself. 'It is right that you should know,' he +said to the doctor's thoughtful posture; and he stressed the blame; and a +flame shot across his eyeballs. He brought home to his hearer the +hurricane of a man he was in the passion: indicating the subjection of +such a temperament as this Victor Radnor's to trials of the moral +restraints beyond his human power. + +Dr. Themison said: 'Would you--we postpone that as long as we can: but +supposing the poor lady . . . ?' + +Victor broke in: 'I see her wish: I will.' + +The clash of his answer rang beside Dr. Themison's faltering query. + +We are grateful when spared the conclusion of a sentence born to stammer. +If for that only, the doctor pressed Victor's hand warmly. + +'I may, then, convey some form of assurance, that a request of the kind +will be granted?' he said. + +'She has but to call me to her,' said Victor, stiffening his back. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE GREAT ASSEMBLY AT LAKELANDS + +Round the neighbourhood of Lakelands it was known that the day of the +great gathering there had been authoritatively foretold as fine, by Mr. +Victor Radnor; and he delivered his prophecy in the teeth of the South- +western gale familiar to our yachting month; and he really inspired +belief or a kind of trust; some supposing him to draw from reserves of +observation, some choosing to confide in the singularly winged sparkle of +his eyes. Lady Rodwell Blachington did; and young Mrs. Blathenoy; and +Mrs. Fanning; they were enamoured of it. And when women stand for Hope, +and any worshipped man for Promise, nothing less than redoubled confusion +of him dissolves the union. Even then they cling to it, under an +ejaculation, that it might and should have been otherwise; fancy partly +has it otherwise, in her caerulean home above the weeping. So it is good +at all points to prophecy with the aspect of the radiant day foretold. + +A storm, bearing battle overhead, tore the night to pieces. Nataly's +faith in the pleasant prognostic wavered beneath the crashes. She had +not much power of heart to desire anything save that which her bosom +disavowed. Uproar rather appeased her, calmness agitated. She wished +her beloved to be spared from a disappointment, thinking he deserved all +successes, because of the rigours inflicted by her present tonelessness +of blood and being. Her unresponsive manner with him was not due to lack +of fire in the blood or a loss of tenderness. The tender feeling, under +privations unwillingly imposed, though willingly shared, now suffused her +reflections, owing to a gratitude induced by a novel experience of him; +known, as it may chance, and as it does not always chance, to both sexes +in wedded intimacy here and there; known to women whose mates are proved +quick to compliance with delicate intuitions of their moods of nature. +A constant, almost visible, image of the dark thing she desired, and was +bound not to desire, and was remorseful for desiring, oppressed her; a +perpetual consequent warfare of her spirit and the nature subject to the +thousand sensational hypocrisies invoked for concealment of its reviled +brutish baseness, held the woman suspended from her emotions. She coldly +felt that a caress would have melted her, would have been the temporary +rapture. Coldly she had the knowledge that the considerate withholding +of it helped her spirit to escape a stain. Less coldly, she thanked at +heart her beloved, for being a gentleman in their yoke. It plighted them +over flesh. + +He talked to her on the pillow, just a few sentences; and, unlike +himself, a word of City affairs: 'That fellow Blathenoy, with his +increasing multitude of bills at the Bank: must watch him there, sit +there regularly. One rather likes his wife. By the way, if you see him +near me to-morrow, praise the Spanish climate; don't forget. He heads +the subscription list of Lady Blachington's Charity.' + +Victor chuckled at Colney's humping of shoulders and mouth, while the +tempest seemed echoing a sulphurous pessimist. 'If old Colney had +listened to me, when India gave proof of the metal and South Africa began +heaving, he'd have been a fairly wealthy man by now . . . ha! it +would have genialized him. A man may be a curmudgeon with money: the +rule is for him to cuddle himself and take a side, instead of dashing at +his countrymen all round and getting hated. Well, Colney popular, can't +be imagined; but entertaining guests would have diluted his acid. He has +the six hundred or so a year he started old bachelor on; add his +miserable pay for Essays. Literature! Of course, he sours. But don't +let me hear of bachelors moralists. There he sits at his Temple Chambers +hatching epigrams . . . pretends to have the office of critic! Honest +old fellow, as far as his condition permits. I tell him it will be fine +to-morrow.' + +'You are generally right, dear,' Nataly said. + +Her dropping breath was audible. + +Victor smartly commended her to slumber, with heaven's blessing on her +and a dose of soft nursery prattle. + +He squeezed her hand. He kissed her lips by day. She heard him sigh +settling himself into the breast of night for milk of sleep, like one of +the world's good children. She could have turned to him, to show him she +was in harmony with the holy night and loving world, but for the fear +founded on a knowledge of the man he was; it held her frozen to the +semblance of a tombstone lady beside her lord, in the aisle where horror +kindles pitchy blackness with its legions at one movement. Verily it was +the ghost of Mrs. Burman come to the bed, between them. + +Meanwhile the sun of Victor Radnor's popularity was already up over the +extended circle likely to be drenched by a falsification of his daring +augury, though the scud flew swift, and the beeches raved, and the oaks +roared and snarled, and pine-trees fell their lengths. Fine tomorrow, to +a certainty! he had been heard to say. The doubt weighed for something; +the balance inclined with the gentleman who had become so popular: for he +had done the trick so suddenly, like a stroke of the wizard; and was a +real man, not one of your spangled zodiacs selling for sixpence and +hopping to a lucky hit, laughed at nine times out of ten. The reasoning +went--and it somewhat affected the mansion as well as the cottage,--that +if he had become popular in this astonishing fashion, after making one of +the biggest fortunes of modern times, he might, he must, have secret +gifts. 'You can't foretell weather!' cried a pothouse sceptic. But the +workmen at Lakelands declared that he had foretold it. Sceptics among +the common folk were quaintly silenced by other tales of him, being a +whiff from the delirium attending any mention of his name. + +How had he become suddenly so popular as to rouse in the mind of Mr. +Caddis, the sitting Member for the division of the county (said to have +the seat in his pocket), a particular inquisitiveness to know the bearing +of his politics? Mr. Radnor was rich, true: but these are days when +wealthy men, ambitious of notoriety, do not always prove faithful to +their class; some of them are cunning to bid for the suffrages of the +irresponsible, recklessly enfranchised, corruptible masses. Mr. Caddis, +if he had the seat in his pocket, had it from the support of a class +trusting him to support its interests: he could count on the landowners, +on the clergy, on the retired or retiring or comfortably cushioned +merchants resident about Wrensham, on the many obsequious among electoral +shopmen; annually he threw open his grounds, and he subscribed, +patronized, did what was expected; and he was not popular; he was +unpopular. Why? But why was the sun of this 23rd August, shining from +its rise royally upon pacified, enrolled and liveried armies of cloud, +more agreeable to earth's populations than his pinched appearance of the +poor mopped red nose and melancholic rheumy eyelets on a January day! +Undoubtedly Victor Radnor risked his repute of prophet. Yet his +popularity would have survived the continuance of the storm and deluge. +He did this:--and the mystery puzzling the suspicious was nothing +wonderful: in addition to a transparent benevolence, he spread a sort of +assurance about him, that he thought the better of the people for their +thinking well of themselves. It came first from the workmen at his +house. 'The right sort, and no humbug: likes you to be men.' Such a +report made tropical soil for any new seed. + +Now, it is a postulate, to strengthen all poor commoners, that not even +in comparison with the highest need we be small unless we yield to think +it of ourselves. Do but stretch a hand to the touch of earth in you, and +you spring upon combative manhood again, from the basis where all are +equal. Humanity's historians, however, tell us, that the exhilaration +bringing us consciousness of a stature, is gas which too frequently has +to be administered. Certes the cocks among men do not require the +process; they get it off the sight of the sun arising or a simple hen +submissive: but we have our hibernating bears among men, our yoked oxen, +cab horses, beaten dogs; we have on large patches of these Islands, a +Saxon population, much wanting assistance, if they are not to feel +themselves beaten, driven, caught by the neck, yoked and heavyheaded. +Blest, then, is he who gives them a sense of the pride of standing on +legs. Beer, ordinarily their solitary helper beneath the iron canopy of +wealth, is known to them as a bitter usurer; it knocks them flat in their +persons and their fortunes, for the short spell of recreative exaltation. +They send up their rough glory round the name of the gentleman--a +stranger, but their friend: and never is friend to be thought of as a +stranger--who manages to get the holiday for Wrensham and thereabout, +that they may hurl away for one jolly day the old hat of a doddered +humbleness, and trip to the strains of the internal music he has unwound. + +Says he: Is it a Charity Concert? Charity begins at home, says he: and +if I welcome you gentry on behalf of the poor of London, why, it follows +you grant me the right to make a beginning with the poor of our parts +down here. He puts it so, no master nor mistress neither could refuse +him. Why, the workmen at his house were nigh pitching the contractors +all sprawling on a strike, and Mr. Radnor takes train, harangues 'em and +rubs 'em smooth; ten minutes by the clock, they say; and return train to +his business in town; by reason of good sense and feeling, it was; poor +men don't ask for more. A working man, all the world over, asks but +justice and a little relaxation--just a collar of fat to his lean. + +Mr. Caddis, M.P., pursuing the riddle of popularity, which irritated and +repelled as constantly as it attracted him, would have come nearer to an +instructive presentment of it, by listening to these plain fellows, than +he was in the line of equipages, at a later hour of the day. The remarks +of the comfortably cushioned and wheeled, though they be eulogistic to +extravagance, are vapourish when we court them for nourishment; +substantially, they are bones to the cynical. He heard enumerations of +Mr. Radnor's riches, eclipsing his own past compute. A merchant, a +holder of mines, Director of a mighty Bank, projector of running rails, +a princely millionaire, and determined to be popular--what was the aim of +the man? It is the curse of modern times, that we never can be sure of +our Parliamentary seat; not when we have it in our pockets! The Romans +have left us golden words with regard to the fickleness of the populace; +we have our Horace, our Juvenal, we have our Johnson; and in this vaunted +age of reason it is, that we surrender ourselves into the hands of the +populace! Panem et circenses! Mr. Caddis repeated it, after his +fathers; his fathers and he had not headed them out of that original +voracity. There they were, for moneyed legislators to bewail their +appetites. And it was an article of his legislation, to keep them there. + +Pedestrian purchasers of tickets for the Charity Concert, rather openly, +in an envelope of humour, confessed to the bait of the Radnor bread with +bit of fun. Savoury rumours were sweeping across Wrensham. Mr. Radnor +had borrowed footmen of the principal houses about. Cartloads of +provisions had been seen to come. An immediate reward of a deed of +benevolence, is a thing sensibly heavenly; and the five-shilling tickets +were paid for as if for a packet on the counter. Unacquainted with Mr. +Radnor, although the reports of him struck a summons to their gastric +juices, resembling in its effect a clamorous cordiality, they were +chilled, on their steps along the halfrolled new gravel-roads to the +house, by seeing three tables of prodigious length, where very evidently +a feast had raged: one to plump the people--perhaps excessively courted +by great gentlemen of late; shopkeepers, the villagers, children. These +had been at it for two merry hours. They had risen. They were beef and +pudding on legs; in some quarters, beer amiably manifest, owing to the +flourishes of a military band. Boys, who had shaken room through their +magical young corporations for fresh stowage, darted out of a chasing +circle to the crumbled cornucopia regretfully forsaken fifteen minutes +back, and buried another tart. Plenty still reigned: it was the will of +the Master that it should. + +We divert our attention, resigned in stoic humour, to the bill of the +Concert music, handed us with our tickets at the park-gates: we have no +right to expect refreshment; we came for the music, to be charitable. +Signora Bianca Luciani: of whom we have read almost to the hearing her; +enough to make the mistake at times. The grand violinist Durandarte: +forcibly detained on his way to America. Mr. Radnor sent him a blank +cheque:--no!--so Mr. Radnor besought him in person: he is irresistible; +a great musician himself; it is becoming quite the modern style. We have +now English noblemen who play the horn, the fife--the drum, some say! We +may yet be Merrie England again, with our nobles taking the lead. + +England's nobles as a musical band at the head of a marching and dancing +population, pictured happily an old Conservative country, that retained +its members of aristocracy in the foremost places while subjecting them +to downright uses. Their ancestors, beholding them there, would be +satisfied on the point of honour; perhaps enlivened by hearing them at +fife and drum. + +But middle-class pedestrians, having paid five shillings for a ticket to +hear the music they love, and not having full assurance of refreshment, +are often, latterly, satirical upon their superiors; and, over this +country at least, require the refreshment, that the democratic sprouts in +them may be reconciled with aristocracy. Do not listen to them further +on the subject. They vote safely enough when the day comes, if there is +no praetematurally strong pull the other way. + +They perceive the name of the Hon. Dudley Sowerby, fourth down the +Concert-bill; marked for a flute-duet with Mr. Victor Radnor, Miss Nesta +Victoria Radnor accompanying at the piano. It may mean? . . . do you +want a whisper to suggest to you what it may mean? The father's wealth +is enormous; the mother is a beautiful majestic woman in her prime. And +see, she sings: a wonderful voice. And lower down, a duet with her +daughter: violins and clarionet; how funny; something Hungarian. And in +the Second Part, Schubert's Ave Maria--Oh! when we hear that, we +dissolve. She was a singer before he married her, they say: a lady by +birth one of the first County families. But it was a gift, and she could +not be kept from it, and was going, when they met--and it was love! the +most perfect duet. For him she abandoned the Stage. You must remember, +that in their young days the Stage was many stages beneath the esteem +entertained for it now. Domestic Concerts are got up to gratify her: a +Miss Fredericks: good old English name. Mr. Radnor calls his daughter, +Freddy; so Mr. Taplow, the architect, says. They are for modern music +and ancient. Tannhauser, Wagner, you see. Pergolese. + +Flute-duet, Mercadante. Here we have him! O--Durandarte: Air Basque, +variations--his own. Again, Senor Durandarte, Mendelssohn. Encore him, +and he plays you a national piece. A dark little creature a Life- +guardsman could hold-up on his outstretched hand for the fifteen minutes +of the performance; but he fills the hall and thrills the heart, wafts +you to heaven; and does it as though he were conversing with his +Andalusian lady-love in easy whispers about their mutual passion for +Spanish chocolate all the while: so the musical critic of the Tirra-Lirra +says. Express trains every half hour from London; all the big people of +the city. Mr. Radnor commands them, like Royalty. Totally different +from that old figure of the wealthy City merchant; young, vigorous, +elegant, a man of taste, highest culture, speaks the languages of Europe, +patron of the Arts, a perfect gentleman. His mother was one of the +Montgomerys, Mr. Taplow says. + +And it was General Radnor, a most distinguished officer, dying knighted. +But Mr. Victor Radnor would not take less than a Barony--and then only +with descent of title to his daughter, in her own right. + +Mr. Taplow had said as much as Victor Radnor chose that he should say. + +Carriages were in flow for an hour: pedestrians formed a wavy coil. +Judgeing by numbers, the entertainment was a success; would the hall +contain them? Marvels were told of the hall. Every ticket entered and +was enfolded; almost all had a seat. Chivalry stood. It is a breeched +abstraction, sacrificeing voluntarily and genially to the Fair, for a +restoring of the balance between the sexes, that the division of good +things be rather in the fair ones' favour, as they are to think: with the +warning to them, that the establishment of their claim for equality puts +an end to the priceless privileges of petticoats. Women must be mad, to +provoke such a warning; and the majority of them submissively show their +good sense. They send up an incense of perfumery, all the bouquets of +the chemist commingled; most nourishing to the idea of woman in the nose +of man. They are a forest foliage--rustle of silks and muslins, magic +interweaving, or the mythology, if you prefer it. See, hear, smell, they +are Juno, Venus, Hebe, to you. We must have poetry with them; otherwise +they are better in the kitchen. Is there--but there is not; there is not +present one of the chivalrous breeched who could prefer the shocking +emancipated gristly female, which imposes propriety on our sensations and +inner dreams, by petrifying in the tender bud of them. + +Colonel Corfe is the man to hear on such a theme. He is a colonel of +Companies. But those are his diversion, as the British Army has been to +the warrior. Puellis idoneus, he is professedly a lady's man, a rose- +beetle, and a fine specimen of a common kind: and he has been that thing, +that shining delight of the lap of ladies, for a spell of years, +necessitating a certain sparkle of the saccharine crystals preserving +him, to conceal the muster. He has to be fascinating, or he would look +outworn, forlorn. On one side of him is Lady Carmine; on the other, Lady +Swanage; dames embedded in the blooming maturity of England's +conservatory. Their lords (an Earl, a Baron) are of the lords who go +down to the City to sow a title for a repair of their poor incomes, and +are to be commended for frankly accepting the new dispensation while they +retain the many advantages of the uncancelled ancient. Thus gently does +a maternal Old England let them down. Projectors of Companies, +Directors, Founders; Railway magnates, actual kings and nobles (though +one cannot yet persuade old reverence to do homage with the ancestral +spontaneity to the uncrowned, uncoroneted, people of our sphere); holders +of Shares in gold mines, Shares in Afric's blue mud of the glittering +teeth we draw for English beauty to wear in the ear, on the neck, at the +wrist; Bankers and wives of Bankers. Victor passed among them, chatting +right and left. + +Lady Carmine asked him: 'Is Durandarte counted on?' + +He answered: 'I made sure of the Luciani.' + +She serenely understood. Artistes are licenced people, with a Bohemian +instead of the titular glitter for the bewildering of moralists; as paste +will pass for diamonds where the mirror is held up to Nature by bold +supernumeraries. + +He wished to introduce Nesta. His girl was on the raised orchestral +flooring. Nataly held her fast to a music-scroll. + +Mr. Peridon, sad for the absence and cause of absence of Louise de +Seilles,--summoned in the morning abruptly to Bourges, where her brother +lay with his life endangered by an accident at Artillery practise,-- +Mr. Peridon was generally conductor. Victor was to lead the full force +of amateurs in the brisk overture to Zampa. He perceived a movement of +Nataly, Nesta, and Peridon. 'They have come,' he said; he jumped on the +orchestra boards and hastened to greet the Luciani with Durandarte in the +retiring-room. + +His departure raised the whisper that he would wield the baton. An +opinion was unuttered. His name for the flute-duet with the Hon. Dudley +Sowerby had not provoked the reserve opinion; it seemed, on the whole, a +pretty thing in him to condescend to do: the sentiment he awakened was +not flustered by it. But the act of leading, appeared as an official +thing to do. Our soufe of sentiment will be seen subsiding under a +breath, without a repressive word to send it down. Sir Rodwell +Blachington would have preferred Radnor's not leading or playing either. +Colonel Corfe and Mr. Caddis declined to consider such conduct English, +in a man of station . . . notwithstanding Royal Highnesses, who are at +least partly English: partly, we say, under our breath, remembering our +old ideal of an English gentleman, in opposition to German tastes. It is +true, that the whole country is changeing, decomposing! + +The colonel fished for Lady Carmine's view. And Lady Swanage too? Both +of the distinguished ladies approved of Mr. Radnor's leading--for a +leading off. Women are pleased to see their favourite in the place of +prominence--as long as Fortune swims him unbuffeted, or one should say, +unbattered, up the mounting wave. Besides these ladies had none of the +colonel's remainder of juvenile English sense of the manly, his +adolescent's intolerance of the eccentric, suspicion and contempt of any +supposed affectation, which was not ostentatiously, stalkingly practised +to subdue the sex. And you cannot wield a baton without looking +affected. And at one of the Colonel's Clubs in town, only five years +back, an English musical composer, who had not then made his money--now +by the mystery of events knighted!--had been (he makes now fifteen +thousand a year) black-balled. 'Fiddler? no; can't admit a Fiddler to +associate on equal terms with gentlemen.' Only five years back: and at +present we are having the Fiddler everywhere. + +A sprinkling of the minor ladies also would have been glad if Mr. Radnor +had kept himself somewhat more exclusive. Dr. Schlesien heard remarks, +upon which his weighty Teutonic mind sat crushingly. Do these English +care one bit for music?--for anything finer than material stuffs?--what +that man Durance calls, 'their beef, their beer, and their pew in +eternity'? His wrath at their babble and petty brabble doubted that they +did. + +But they do. Art has a hold of them. They pay for it; and the thing +purchased grapples. It will get to their bosoms to breathe from them in +time: entirely overcoming the taste for feudalism, which still a little +objects to see their born gentleman acting as leader of musicians. A +people of slow movement, developing tardily, their country is wanting in +the distincter features, from being always in the transitional state, +like certain sea-fish rolling head over-you know not head from tail. +Without the Welsh, Irish, Scot; in their composition, there would not be +much of the yeasty ferment: but it should not be forgotten that Welsh, +Irish, Scot, are now largely of their numbers; and the taste for +elegance, and for spiritual utterance, for Song, nay, for Ideas, is there +among them, though it does not everywhere cover a rocky surface to +bewitch the eyes of aliens;--like Louise de Seilles and Dr. Schlesien, +for example; aliens having no hostile disposition toward the people they +were compelled to criticize; honourably granting, that this people has a +great history. Even such has the Lion, with Homer for the transcriber of +his deeds. But the gentle aliens would image our emergence from wildness +as the unsocial spectacle presented by the drear menagerie Lion, alone or +mated; with hardly an animated moment save when the raw red joint is +beneath his paw, reminding him of the desert's pasture. + +Nevertheless, where Strength is, there is hope:--it may be said more +truly than of the breath of Life; which is perhaps but the bucket of +breath, muddy with the sediment of the well: whereas we have in Strength +a hero, if a malefactor; whose muscles shall haul him up to the light he +will prove worthy of, when that divinity has shown him his uncleanness. +And when Strength is not exercising, you are sure to see Satirists jump +on his back. Dozens, foreign and domestic, are on the back of Old +England; a tribute to our quality if at the same time an irritating +scourge. The domestic are in excess; and let us own that their view of +the potentate, as an apathetic beast of power, who will neither show the +power nor woo the graces; pretending all the while to be eminently above +the beast, and posturing in an inefficient mimicry of the civilized, +excites to satire. Colney Durance had his excuses. He could point to +the chief creative minds of the country for generations, as beginning +their survey genially, ending venomously, because of an exasperating +unreason and scum in the bubble of the scenes, called social, around +them. Viola under his chin, he gazed along the crowded hall, which was +to him a rich national pudding of the sycophants, the hypocrites, the +burlies, the idiots; dregs of the depths and froth of the surface; bowing +to one, that they may scorn another; instituting a Charity, for their +poorer fawning fellows to relieve their purses and assist them in +tricking the world and their Maker: and so forth, a tiresome tirade: and +as it was not on his lips, but in the stomach of the painful creature, +let him grind that hurdy-gurdy for himself. His friend Victor set it +stirring: Victor had here what he aimed at! + +How Success derides Ambition! And for this he imperilled the happiness +of the worthy woman he loved! Exposed her to our fen-fogs and foul +snakes--of whom one or more might be in the assembly now: all because of +his insane itch to be the bobbing cork on the wave of the minute! +Colney's rapid interjections condensed upon the habitual shrug at human +folly, just when Victor, fronting the glassy stare of Colonel Corfe, +tapped to start his orchestra through the lively first bars of the +overture to Zampa. + +We soon perceive that the post Mr. Radnor fills he thoroughly fills, +whatever it may be. Zampa takes horse from the opening. We have no +amateur conductor riding ahead: violins, 'cellos, piano, wind-stops: +Peridon, Catkin, Pempton, Yatt, Cormyn, Colney, Mrs. Cormyn, Dudley +Sowerby: they are spirited on, patted, subdued, muted, raised, rushed +anew, away, held in hand, in both hands. Not earnestness worn as a +cloak, but issuing, we see; not simply a leader of musicians, a leader of +men. The halo of the millionaire behind, assures us of a development in +the character of England's merchant princes. The homage we pay him +flatters us. A delightful overture, masterfully executed; ended too +soon; except that the programme forbids the ordinary interpretation of +prolonged applause. Mr. Radnor is one of those who do everything +consummately. And we have a monition within, that a course of spiritual +enjoyment will rouse the call for bodily refreshment. His genial nod and +laugh and word of commendation to his troop persuade us oddly, we know +not how, of provision to come. At the door of the retiring-room, see, +he is congratulated by Luciani and Durandarte. Miss Priscilla Graves is +now to sing a Schumann. Down later, it is a duet with the Rev. Septimus +Barmby. We have nothing to be ashamed of in her, before an Italian +Operatic singer! Ices after the first part is over. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +DARTREY FENELLAN + +Had Nataly and Nesta known who was outside helping Skepsey to play ball +with the boys, they would not have worked through their share of the +performance with so graceful a composure. Even Simeon Fenellan was +unaware that his half-brother Dartrey had landed in England. Dartrey +went first to Victor's office, where he found Skepsey packing the day's +letters and circulars into the bag for the delivery of them at Lakelands. +They sprang a chatter, and they missed the last of the express trains +which did, not greatly signify, Skepsey said, 'as it was a Concert.' To +hear his hero talk, was the music for him; and he richly enjoyed the +pacing along the railway-platform. + +Arrived on the grounds, they took opposite sides in a game of rounders, +at that moment tossing heads or tails for innings. These boys were +slovenly players, and were made unhappy by Skepsey's fussy instructions +to them in smartness. They had a stupid way of feeding the stick, and +they ran sprawling; it concerned Great Britain for them to learn how to +use their legs. It was pitiful for the country to see how lumpish her +younger children were. Dartrey knew his little man and laughed, after +warning him that his English would want many lessons before they +stomached the mixture of discipline and pleasure. So it appeared: the +pride of the boys in themselves, their confidence, enjoyment of the game, +were all gone; and all were speedily out but Skepsey; who ran for the +rounder, with his coat off, sharp as a porpoise, and would have got it, +he had it in his grasp, when, at the jump, just over the line of the +goal, a clever fling, if ever was, caught him a crack on that part of the +human frame where sound is best achieved. Then were these young lumps +transformed to limber, lither, merry fellows. They rejoiced Skepsey's +heart; they did everything better, ran and dodged and threw in a style to +win the nod from the future official inspector of Games and Amusements of +the common people; a deputy of the Government, proposed by Skepsey to his +hero with a deferential eagerness. Dartrey clapped him on the shoulder, +softly laughing. + +'System--Mr. Durance is right--they must have system, if they are to +appreciate a holiday,' Skepsey said; and he sent a wretched gaze around, +at the justification of some of the lurid views of Mr. Durance, in signs +of the holiday wasted;--impoverishing the country's manhood in a small +degree, it may be argued, but we ask, can the country afford it, while +foreign nations are drilling their youth, teaching them to be ready to +move in squads or masses, like the fist of a pugilist. Skepsey left it +to his look to speak his thought. He saw an enemy in tobacco. The +drowsiness of beer had stretched various hulks under trees. Ponderous +cricket lumbered half-alive. Flabby fun knocked-up a yell. And it was +rather vexatious to see girls dancing in good time to the band-music. +One had a male-partner, who hopped his loutish burlesque of the thing he +could not do. + +Apparently, too certainly, none but the girls had a notion of orderly +muscular exercise. Of what use are girls! Girls have their one mission +on earth; and let them be healthy by all means, for the sake of it; only, +they should not seem to prove that old England is better represented on +the female side. Skepsey heard, with a nip of spite at his bosom, a +small body of them singing in chorus as they walked in step, arm in arm, +actually marched: and to the rearward, none of these girls heeding; there +were the louts at their burlesque of jigs and fisticuffs! 'Cherry Ripe,' +was the song. + +'It's delightful to hear them!' said Dartrey. + +Skepsey muttered jealously of their having been trained. + +The song, which drew Dartrey Fenellan to the quick of an English home, +planted him at the same time in Africa to hear it. Dewy on a parched +forehead it fell, England the shedding heaven. + +He fetched a deep breath, as of gratitude for vital refreshment. He had +his thoughts upon the training of our English to be something besides the +machinery of capitalists, and upon the country as a blessed mother +instead of the most capricious of maudlin step-dames. + +He flicked his leg with the stick he carried, said: 'Your master's the +man to make a change among them, old friend!' and strolled along to a +group surrounding two fellows who shammed a bout at single-stick. +Vacuity in the attack on either side, contributed to the joint success of +the defense. They paused under inspection; and Dartrey said: 'You're +burning to give them a lesson, Skepsey.' + +Skepsey had no objection to his hero's doing so, though at his personal +cost. + +The sticks were handed to them; the crowd increased; their rounders boys +had spied them, and came trooping to the scene. Skepsey was directed to +hit in earnest. His defensive attitude flashed, and he was at head and +right and left leg, and giving point, recovering, thrusting madly, and +again at shoulder and thigh, with bravos for reward of a man meaning +business; until a topper on his hat, a cut over the right thigh, and the +stick in his middlerib, told the spectators of a scientific adversary; +and loudly now the gentleman was cheered. An undercurrent of warm +feeling ran for the plucky little one at it hot again in spite of the +strokes, and when he fetched his master a handsome thud across the +shoulder, and the gentleman gave up and complimented him, Skepsey had +applause. + +He then begged his hero to put the previous couple in position, through +a few of the opening movements. They were horribly sheepish at first. +Meantime two boys had got hold of sticks, and both had gone to work in +Skepsey's gallant style; and soon one was howling. He excused himself, +because of the funny-bone, situated, in his case, higher than usual up +the arm. And now the pair of men were giving and taking cuts to make a +rhinoceros caper. + +'Very well; begin that way; try what you can bear,' said Dartrey. + +Skepsey watched them, in felicity for love of the fray, pained by the +disregard of science. + +Comments on the pretty play, indicating a reminiscent acquaintance with +it, and the capacity for critical observations, were started. Assaults, +wonderful tricks of a slashing Life-Guardsman, one spectator had +witnessed at an exhibition in a London hall. Boxing too. You may see +displays of boxing still in places. How about a prizefight?--With money +on it?--Eh, but you don't expect men to stand up to be knocked into +rumpsteaks for nothing?--No, but it's they there bets!--Right, and that's +a game gone to ruin along of outsiders.--But it always was and it always +will be popular with Englishmen! + +Great English names of young days, before the wintry shadow of the Law +had blighted them, received their withered laurels. Emulous boys were +in the heroic posture. Good! sparring does no hurt: Skepsey seized a +likely lad, Dartrey another. Nature created the Ring for them. Now +then, arms and head well up, chest hearty, shoulders down, out with the +right fist, just below the level of the chin; out with the left fist +farther, right out, except for that bit of curve; so, and draw it +slightly back for wary-pussy at the spring. Firm you stand, feeling +the muscles of both legs, left half a pace ahead, right planted, both +stringy. None of your milk-pail looks; show us jaw, you bulldogs. Now +then, left from the shoulder, straight at right of head.--Good, and +alacrity called on vigour in Skepsey's pupil; Dartrey's had the fist on +his mouth before he could parry right arm up. 'Foul blow!' Dartrey +cried. Skepsey vowed to the contrary. Dartrey reiterated his charge. +Skepsey was a figure of negation, gesticulating and protesting. Dartrey +appealed tempestuously to the Ring; Skepsey likewise, in a tone of +injury. He addressed a remonstrance to Captain Dartrey. + +'Hang your captain, sir! I call you a coward; come on,' said the +resolute gentleman, already in ripe form for the attack. His blue eyes +were like the springing sunrise over ridges of the seas; and Skepsey +jumped to his meaning. + +Boys and men were spectators of a real scientific set-to, a lovely show. +They were half puzzled, it seemed so deadly. And the little one got in +his blows at the gentleman, who had to be hopping. Only, the worse the +gentleman caught it, the friendlier his countenance became. That was the +wonder, and that gave them the key. But it was deliciously near to the +real thing. + +Dartrey and Skepsey shook hands. + +'And now, you fellows, you're to know, that this is one of the champions; +and you take your lesson from him and thank him,' Dartrey said, as he +turned on his heel to strike and greet the flow from the house. + +'Dartrey come!' Victor, Fenellan, Colney, had him by the hand in turn. +Pure sweetness of suddenly awakened joy sat in Nataly's eyes as she swam +to welcome him, Nesta moved a step, seemed hesitating, and she tripped +forward. 'Dear Captain Dartrey!' + +He did not say: 'But what a change in you!' + +'It is blue-butterfly, all the same,' Nataly spoke to his look. + +Victor hurriedly pronounced the formal introduction between the Hon. +Dudley Sowerby and Captain Dartrey Fenellan. The bronze face and the +milky bowed to one another ceremoniously; the latter faintly flushing. + +'So here you are at last,' Victor said. 'You stay with us.' + +'To-morrow or later, if you'll have me. I go down to my people to- +night.' + +'But you stay in England now?' Nataly's voice wavered on the question. + +'There's a chance of my being off to Upper Burmah before the week's +ended.' + +'Ah, dear, dear!' sighed Fenellan; 'and out of good comes evil!--as +grandfather Deucalion exclaimed, when he gallantly handed up his dripping +wife from the mud of the Deluge waters. Do you mean to be running and +Dewing it on for ever, with only a nod for friends, Dart?' + +'Lord, Simmy, what a sound of home there is in your old nonsense!' +Dartrey said. + +His eyes of strong dark blue colour and the foreign swarthiness of his +brows and cheeks and neck mixed the familiar and the strange, in the +sight of the women who knew him. + +The bill-broker's fair-tressed young wife whispered of curiosity +concerning him to Nataly. He dressed like a sailor, he stood like a +soldier: and was he married? Yes, he was married. + +Mrs. Blathenoy imagined a something in Mrs. Radnor's tone. She could +account for it; not by the ordinary reading of the feminine in the +feminine, but through a husband who professed to know secrets. She was +young in years and experience, ten months wedded, disappointedly +awakened, enlivened by the hour, kindled by a novel figure of man, +fretful for a dash of imprudence. This Mrs. Radnor should be the one +to second her very innocent turn for a galopade; her own position allowed +of any little diverting jig or reel, or plunge in a bath--she required +it, for the domestic Jacob Blathenoy was a dry chip: proved such, without +a day's variation during the whole of the ten wedded months. Nataly +gratified her spoken wish. Dartrey Fenellan bowed to the lady, and she +withdrew him, seeing composedly that other and greater ladies had the +wish ungratified. Their husbands were not so rich as hers, and their +complexions would hardly have pleased the handsome brown-faced officer so +well. + +Banquet, equal to a blast of trumpet, was the detaining word for the +multitude. It circulated, one knows not how. Eloquent as the whiffs to +the sniffs (and nowhere is eloquence to match it, when the latter are +sharpened from within to without), the word was very soon over the field. +Mr. Carling may have helped; he had it from Fenellan; and he was among +the principal groups, claiming or making acquaintances, as a lawyer +should do. The Concert was complimentarily a topic: Durandarte divine!-- +did not everybody think so? Everybody did, in default of a term for +overtopping it. Our language is poor at hyperbole; our voices are +stronger. Gestures and heaven-sent eyeballs invoke to display the +ineffable. Where was Durandarte now? Gone; already gone; off with the +Luciani for evening engagements; he came simply to oblige his dear friend +Mr. Radnor. Cheque fifty guineas: hardly more on both sides than an +exchange of smiles. Ah, these merchant-princes! What of Mr. Radnor's +amateur instrumentalists? Amateurs, they are not to be named: perfect +musicians. Mr. Radnor is the perfection of a host. Yes, yes; Mrs. +Radnor; Miss Radnor too: delicious voices; but what is it about Mr. +Radnor so captivating! He is not quite English, yet he is not at all +foreign. Is he very adventurous in business, as they say? + +'Soundest head in the City of London,' Mr. Blathenoy remarked. + +Sir Rodwell Blachington gave his nod. + +The crowd interjected, half-sighing. We ought to be proud of such a man! +Perhaps we are a trifle exaggerating, says its heart. But that we are +wholly grateful to him, is a distinct conclusion. And he may be one of +the great men of his time: he has a quite individual style of dress. + +Lady Rodwell Blachington observed to Colney Durance: + +'Mr. Radnor bids fair to become the idol of the English people.' + +'If he can prove himself to be sufficiently the dupe of the English +people,' said Colney. + +'Idol--dupe?' interjected Sir Rodwell, and his eyebrows fixed at the +perch of Colney's famous 'national interrogation' over vacancy of +understanding, as if from the pull of a string. He had his audience with +him; and the satirist had nothing but his inner gush of acids at sight of +a planted barb. + +Colney was asked to explain. He never explained. He performed a series +of astonishing leaps, like the branchy baboon above the traveller's head +in the tropical forest, and led them into the trap they assisted him to +prepare for them. 'No humour, do you say? The English have no humour?' +a nephew of Lady Blachington's inquired of him, with polite pugnacity, +and was cordially assured, that 'he vindicated them.' + +'And Altruistic! another specimen of the modern coinage,' a classical +Church dignitary, in grammarian disgust, remarked to a lady, as they +passed. + +Colney pricked-up his ears. It struck him that he might fish for +suggestions in aid of the Grand Argument before the Elders of the Court +of Japan. Dr. Wardan, whose recognition he could claim, stated to him, +that the lady and he were enumerating words of a doubtfully legitimate +quality now being inflicted upon the language. + +'The slang from below is perhaps preferable?' said Colney. + +'As little-less.' + +'But a pirate-tongue, cut-off from its roots, must continue to practise +piracy, surely, or else take reinforcements in slang, otherwise it is +inexpressive of new ideas.' + +'Possibly the new ideas are best expressed in slang.' + +'If insular. They will consequently be incommunicable to foreigners. +You would, then, have us be trading with tokens instead of a precious +currency? Yet I cannot perceive the advantage of letting our ideas be +clothed so racy of the obscener soil; considering the pretensions of the +English language to become the universal. If we refuse additions from +above, they force themselves on us from below.' + +Dr. Wardan liked the frame of the observations, disliked the substance. + +'One is to understand that the English language has these pretensions?' +he said:--he minced in his manner, after the well-known mortar-board and +tassel type; the mouthing of a petrifaction: clearly useless to the +pleadings of the patriotic Dr. Bouthoin and his curate. + +He gave no grip to Colney, who groaned at cheap Donnish sarcasm, and let +him go, after dealing him a hard pellet or two in a cracker-covering. + +There was Victor all over the field netting his ephemerae! And he who +feeds on them, to pay a price for their congratulations and flatteries, +he is one of them himself! + +Nesta came tripping from the Rev. Septimus Barmby. 'Dear Mr. Durance, +where is Captain Dartrey?' + +Mrs. Blathenoy had just conducted her husband through a crowd, for an +introduction of him to Captain Dartrey. That was perceptible. + +Dudley Sowerby followed Nesta closely: he struck across the path of the +Rev. Septimus: again he had the hollow of her ear at his disposal. + +'Mr. Radnor was excellent. He does everything consummately: really, we +are all sensible of it. I am. He must lead us in a symphony. These +light "champagne overtures" of French composers, as Mr. Fenellan calls +them, do not bring out his whole ability:--Zampa, Le Pre aux clercs, +Masaniello, and the like.' + +'Your duet together went well.' + +'Thanks to you--to you. You kept us together.' + +'Papa was the runaway or strain-the-leash, if there was one.' + +'He is impetuous, he is so fervent. But, Miss Radnor, I could not be the +runaway-with you . . . with you at the piano. Indeed, I . . . +shall we stroll down? I love the lake.' + +'You will hear the bell for your cold dinner very soon.' + +'I am not hungry. I would so much rather talk--hear you. But you are +hungry? You have been singing twice: three times! Opera singers, they +say, eat hot suppers; they drink stout. And I never heard your voice +more effective. Yours is a voice that . . . something of the feeling +one has in hearing cathedral voices: carry one up. I remember, in +Dresden, once, a Fraulein Kuhnstreich, a prodigy, very young, considering +her accomplishments. But it was not the same.' + +Nesta wondered at Dartrey Fenellan for staying so long with Mr. and Mrs. +Blathenoy. + +'Ah, Mr. Sowerby, if I am to have flattery, I cannot take it as a +milliner's dumb figure wears the beautiful dress; I must point out my +view of some of my merits.' + +'Oh! do, I beg, Miss . . . You have a Christian name and I too: and +once . . . not Mr. Sowerby: yes, it was Dudley!, + +'Quite accidentally, and a world of pardons entreated.' + +'And Dudley begged Dudley might be Dudley always !' + +He was deepening to the Barmby intonation--apparently Cupid's; but a +shade more airily Pagan, not so fearfully clerical. + +Her father had withdrawn Dartrey Fenellan from Mr. and Mrs. Blathenoy. +Dr. Schlesien was bowing with Dartrey. + +'And if Durandarte would only--but you are one with Miss Graves to +depreciate my Durandarte, in favour of the more classical Jachimo; whom +we all admire; but you shall be just,' said she, and she pouted. She had +seen her father plant Dartrey Fenellan in the midst of a group of City +gentlemen. + +Simeon touched among them to pluck at his brother. He had not a chance; +he retired, and swam into the salmon-net of seductive Mrs. Blathenoy's +broad bright smile. + +'It's a matter of mines, and they're hovering in the attitude of the +query, like corkscrews over a bottle, profoundly indifferent to blood- +relationships,' he said to her. + +'Pray, stay and be consoled by me,' said the fair young woman. 'You are +to point me out all the distinguished people. Is it true, that your +brother has left the army?' + +'Dartrey no longer wears the red. Here comes Colonel Corfe, who does. +England has her army still!' + +'His wife persuaded him?' + +'You see he is wearing the black.' + +'For her? How very very sad! Tell me--what a funnily dressed woman +meeting that gentleman!' + +'Hush--a friend of the warrior. Splendid weather, Colonel Corfe.' + +'Superb toilettes!' The colonel eyed Mrs. Blathenoy dilatingly, advanced, +bowed, and opened the siege. + +She decided a calculation upon his age, made a wall of it, smilingly +agreed with his encomium of the Concert, and toned her voice to +Fenellan's comprehension: 'Did it occur recently?' + +'Months; in Africa; I haven't the date.' + +'Such numbers of people one would wish to know! Who are those ladies +holding a Court, where Mr. Radnor is?' + +'Lady Carmine, Lady Swanage--if it is your wish?' interposed the colonel. + +She dealt him a forgiving smile. 'And that pleasant-looking old +gentleman?' + +Colonel Corfe drew-up. Fenellan said: 'Are we veterans at forty or so?' + +'Well, it 's the romance, perhaps!' She raised her shoulders. + +The colonel's intelligence ran a dog's nose for a lady's interjections. +'The romance? . . . at forty, fifty? gone? Miss Julinks, the great +heiress and a beauty; has chosen him over the heads of all the young men +of his time. Cranmer Lotsdale. Most romantic history!' + +'She's in love with that, I suppose.' + +'Now you direct my attention to him,' said Fenellan, 'the writing of the +romantic history has made the texture look a trifle thready. You have a +terrible eye.' + +It was thrown to where the person stood who had first within a few +minutes helped her to form critical estimates of men, more consciously to +read them. + +'Your brother stays in England?' + +'The fear is, that he's off again.' + +'Annoying for you. If I had a brother, I would not let him go.' + +'How would you detain him?' + +'Locks and bolts, clock wrong, hands and arms, kneeling--the fourth act +of the Huguenots!' + +'He went by way of the window, I think. But that was a lover.' + +'Oh! well!' she flushed. She did not hear the 'neglected and astonished +colonel speak, and she sought diversion in saying to Fenellan: 'So many +people of distinction are assembled here to-day! Tell me, who is that +pompous gentleman, who holds his arms up doubled, as he walks?' + +'Like flappers of a penguin: and advances in jerks: he is head of the +great Firm of Quatley Brothers: Sir Abraham: finances or farms one of the +South American Republics: we call him, Pride of Port. He consumes it and +he presents it.' + +'And who is that little man, who stops everybody?' + +'People of distinction indeed! That little man--is your upper lip +underrateing him? . . . When a lady's lip is erratically disdainful, +it suggests a misuse of a copious treasury, deserving to be mulcted, +punished--how?--who can say?--that little man, now that little man, with +a lift of his little finger, could convulse the Bacon Market!' + +Mrs. Blathenoy shook. Hearing Colonel Corfe exclaim: + +'Bacon Market!' she let fly a peal. Then she turned to a fresh +satellite, a round and a ruddy, 'at her service ever,' Mr. Beaves +Urmsing, and repeated Fenellan's words. He, in unfeigned wonderment at +such unsuspected powers, cried: 'Dear me!' and stared at the little man, +making the pretty lady's face a twinkling dew. + +He had missed the Concert. Was it first-rate? Ecstasy answered in the +female voice. + +'Hem'd fool I am to keep appointments!' he muttered. + +She reproved him: 'Fie, Mr. Urmsing; it's the making of them, not the +keeping!' + +'Ah, my dear ma'am, if I'd had Blathenoy's luck when he made a certain +appointment. And he was not so much older than me? The old ones get the +prizes!' + +Mr. Beaves Urmsing prompted Colonel Corfe to laugh in triumph. The +colonel's eyebrows were up in fixity over sleepy lids. He brightened to +propose the conducting of the pretty woman to the banquet. + +'We shall see them going in,' said she. 'Mr. Radnor has a French cook, +who does wonders. But I heard him asking for Mr. Beaves Urmsing. I'm +sure he expected The Marigolds at his Concert.' + +'Anything to oblige the company,' said the rustic ready chorister, +clearing his throat. + +The lady's feet were bent in the direction of a grassy knoll, where +sunflowers, tulips, dahlias, peonies, of the sex eclipsed at a distance +its roses and lilies. Fenellan saw Dartrey, still a centre of the +merchantmen, strolling thither. + +'And do you know, your brother is good enough to dine with us next week, +Thursday, down here,' she murmured. 'I could venture to command?--if you +are not induced.' + +'Whichever word applies to a faithful subject.' + +'I do so wish your brother had not left the army!' + +'You have one son of Mars.' + +Her eyes took the colonel up to cast him down: he was not the antidote. +She said to him: 'Luciani's voice wears better than her figure.' + +The colonel replied: 'I remember,' and corrected himself, 'at Eton, in +jackets: she was not so particularly slim; never knew how to dress. You +beat Italians there! She moved one as a youngster.' + +'Eton boys are so susceptible!' + +'Why, hulloa, don't I remember her coming out!--and do you mean to tell +me,' Mr. Beaves Urmsing brutally addressed the colonel, 'that you were at +Eton when . . . why, what age do you give the poor woman, then!' +He bellowed, 'Eh?' as it were a bull crowing. + +The colonel retreated to one of his defensive corners. 'I am not aware +that I meant to tell you anything.' + +Mr. Beaves Urmsing turned square-breasted on Fenellan: 'Fellow's a born +donkey!' + +'And the mother lived?' said Fenellan. + +Mr. Beaves Urmsing puffed with wrath at the fellow. + +Five minutes later, in the midst of the group surrounding and +felicitating Victor, he had sight of Fenellan conversing with fair ones, +and it struck a light in him; he went three steps backward, with shouts. +'Dam funny fellow! eh? who is he? I must have that man at my table. +Worth fifty Colonel Jackasses! And I 've got a son in the Guards: and as +much laugh in him, he 's got, as a bladder. But we'll make a party, eh, +Radnor? with that friend o' yours. Dam funny fellow! and precious +little of it going on now among the young lot. They're for seeing ghosts +and gaping their jaws; all for the quavers instead of the capers.' + +He sounded and thrummed his roguish fling-off for the capers. A second +glimpse of Fenellan agitated the anecdote, as he called it, seizing +Victor's arm, to have him out of earshot of the ladies. Delivery, +not without its throes, was accomplished, but imperfectly, owing to +sympathetic convulsions, under which Mr. Beaves Urmsing's countenance was +crinkled of many colours, as we see the Spring rhubarb-leaf. Unable to +repeat the brevity of Fenellan's rejoinder, he expatiated on it to convey +it, swearing that it was the kind of thing done in the old days, when men +were witty dogs:--'pat! and pat back! as in the pantomime.' + +'Repartee !' said Victor. 'He has it. You shall know him. You're the +man for him.' + +'He for me, that he is!--"Hope the mother's doing well? My card":--eh? +Grave as an owl! Look, there goes the donkey, lady to right and left, +all ears for him--ha! ha! I must have another turn with your friend. +"Mother lived, did she?" Dam funny fellow, all of the olden time! And a +dinner, bachelor dinner, six of us, at my place, next week, say +Wednesday, half-past six, for a long evening--flowing bowl--eh, shall it +be?' + +Nesta came looking to find her Captain Dartrey. + +Mr. Beaves Urmsing grew courtly of the olden time. He spied Colonel +Corfe anew, and 'Donkey!' rose to split the roar at his mouth, and full +of his anecdote, he pursued some congenial acquaintances, crying to his +host: 'Wednesday, mind! eh? by George, your friend's gizzarded me for +the day!' + +Plumped with the rich red stream of life, this last of the squires of old +England thumped along among the guests, a very tuning-fork to keep them +at their pitch of enthusiasm. He encountered Mr. Caddis, and it was an +encounter. Mr. Caddis represented his political opinions; but here was +this cur of a Caddis whineing his niminy note from his piminy nob, when +he was asked for his hearty echo of the praises of this jolly good fellow +come to waken the neighbourhood, to be a blessing, a blazing hearth, a +fall of manna:--and thank the Lord for him, you desertdog! 'He 's a +merchant prince, and he's a prince of a man, if you're for titles. Eh? +you "assent to my encomiums." You'll be calling me Mr. Speaker next. +Hang me, Caddis, if those Parliamentary benches of yours aren't freezing +you from your seat up, and have got to your jaw--my belief!' + +Mr. Caddis was left reflecting, that we have, in the dispensations of +Providence, when we have a seat, to submit to castigations from butcherly +men unaccountably commissioned to solidify the seat. He could have +preached a discourse upon Success, to quiet the discontentment of the +unseated. And our world of seats oddly gained, quaintly occupied, +maliciously beset, insensately envied, needs the discourse. But it was +not delivered, else would it have been here written down without mercy, +as a medical prescript, one of the grand specifics. He met Victor, and, +between his dread of him and the counsels of a position subject to +stripes, he was a genial thaw. Victor beamed; for Mr. Caddis had +previously stood eminent as an iceberg of the Lakelands' party. Mr. +Inchling and Mr. Caddis were introduced. The former in Commerce, the +latter in Politics, their sustaining boast was, the being our stable +Englishmen; and at once, with cousinly minds, they fell to chatting upon +the nothings agreeably and seriously. Colney Durance forsook a set of +ladies for fatter prey, and listened to them. What he said, Victor did +not hear. The effect was always to be seen, with Inchling under Colney. +Fenellan did better service, really good service. + +Nataly played the heroine she was at heart. Why think of her as having +to act a character! Twice had Carling that afternoon, indirectly and +directly, stated Mrs. Burman to be near the end we crape a natural, a +defensible, satisfaction to hear of:--not wishing it--poor woman!--but +pardonably, before man and all the angels, wishing, praying for the +beloved one to enter into her earthly peace by the agency of the other's +exit into her heavenly. + +Fenellan and Colney came together, and said a word apiece of their +friend. + +'In his element! The dear old boy has the look of a goldfish, king of +his globe.' + +'The dear old boy has to me the look of a pot on the fire, with a loose +lid.' + +I may have the summons from Themison to-morrow, Victor thought. The +success of the day, was a wine that rocked the soberest of thoughts. +For, strange to confess, ever since the fall on London Bridge, his heart, +influenced in some degree by Nataly's depression perhaps, had been +shadowed by doubts of his infallible instinct for success. Here, at a +stroke, and before entering the house, he had the whole neighbourhood +about him: he could feel that he and Nataly stood in the minds of the +worthy people variously with the brightness if not with the warmth +distinguishable in the bosom of Beaves Urmsing--the idea of whom gave +Lakelands an immediate hearth-glow. + +Armandine was thirteen minutes, by his watch, behind the time she had +named. Small blame to her. He excused her to Lady Carmine, Lady +Swanage, Lady Blachington, Mrs. Fanning, Sir Abraham Quatley, Mr. Danny +(of Bacon fame) and the rest of the group surrounding Nataly on the mound +leftward of the white terraces descending to the lake; where she stood +beating her foot fretfully at the word brought by Nesta, that Dartrey +Fenellan had departed. It was her sunshine departed. But she went +through her task of conversing amiably. Colney, for a wonder, consented +to be useful in assisting Fenellan to relate stories of French Cooks; +which were, like the Royal Hanoverian oyster, of an age for offering +acceptable flavour to English hearers. Nesta drew her mother's attention +to Priscilla Graves and Skepsey; the latter bending head and assenting. +Nataly spoke of the charm of Priscilla's voice that day, in her duet with +the Rev. Septimus. Mr. Pempton looked; he saw that Priscilla was +proselytizing. She was perfection to him but for one blotting thing. +With grief on his eyelids, he said to Nataly or to himself: 'Meat!' + +'Dear friend, don't ride your hobby over us,' she replied. + +'But it's with that object they mount it,' said Victor. + +The greater ladies of the assembly were quite ready to accuse the +sections, down to the individuals, of the social English (reserving our +elect) of an itch to be tyrants. + +Colney was apologizing for them, with his lash: 'It's merely the sensible +effect of a want of polish of the surface when they rub together.' + +And he heard Carling exclaim to Victor: 'How comes the fellow here!' + +Skepsey had rushed across an open space to intercept a leisurely +progressive man, whose hat was of the shape Victor knew; and the man wore +the known black gaiters. In appearance, he had the likeness of a fallen +parson. + +Carling and Victor crossed looks that were questions carrying their +answers. + +Nataly's eyes followed Victor's. 'Who is the man?' she said; and she got +no reply beyond a perky sparkle in his gaze. + +Others were noticing the man, who was trying to pass by Skepsey, now on +his right side, now on his left. + +'There'll be no stopping him,' Carling said, and he slipped to the rear.' + +At this juncture, Armandine's mellow bell proclaimed her readiness. + +Victor rubbed the back of his head. Nataly asked him: 'Dear, is it that +man?' + +He nodded scantly: 'Expected, expected. I think we have our summons from +Armandine. One moment--poor soul! poor soul! Lady Carmine--Sir Abraham +Quatley. Will you lead? Lady Blachington, I secure you. One moment.' + +He directed Nataly to pair a few of the guests; he hurried down the slope +of sward. + +Nataly applied to Colney Durance. 'Do you know the man?--is it that +man?' + +Colney rejoined: 'The man's name is Jarniman.' + +Armandine's bell swung melodiously. The guests had grouped, thickening +for the stream to procession. Mrs. Blathenoy claimed Fenellan; she +requested him to tell her whether he had known Mrs. Victor Radnor many +years. She mused. 'You like her?' + +'One likes one's dearest of friends among women, does one not?' + +The lady nodded to his response. 'And your brother?' + +'Dartrey is devoted to her.' + +'I am sure,' said she, 'your brother is a chivalrous gentleman. I like +her too.' She came to her sentiment through the sentiment of the +chivalrous gentleman. Sinking from it, she remarked that Mr. Radnor was +handsome still. Fenellan commended the subject to her, as one to +discourse of when she met Dartrey. A smell of a trap-hatch, half-open, +afflicted and sharpened him. It was Blathenoy's breath: husbands of +young wives do these villanies, for the sake of showing their knowledge. +Fenellan forbore to praise Mrs. Victor: he laid his colours on Dartrey. +The lady gave ear till she reddened. He meant no harm, meant nothing but +good; and he was lighting the most destructive of our lower fires. + +Visibly, that man Jarniman was disposed of with ease. As in the street- +theatres of crowing Punch, distance enlisted pantomime to do the +effective part of the speeches. Jarniman's hat was off, he stood bent, +he delivered his message. He was handed over to Skepsey's care for the +receiving of meat and drink. Victor returned; he had Lady Blachington's +hand on his arm; he was all hers, and in the heart of his company of +guests at the same time. Eyes that had read him closely for years, were +unable to spell a definite signification on his face, below the +overflowing happiness of the hospitable man among contented guests. He +had in fact something within to enliven him; and that was the more than +suspicion, amounting to an odour of certainty, that Armandine intended +one of her grand surprises for her master, and for the hundred and fifty +or so to be seated at her tables in the unwarmed house of Lakelands. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +CONCERNS THE INTRUSION OF JARNIMAN + +Armandine did her wonders. There is not in the wide range of the Muses a +more responsive instrument than man to his marvellous cook; and if his +notes were but as flowing as his pedals are zealous, we should be carried +on the tale of the enthusiasm she awakened, away from the rutted +highroad, where History now thinks of tightening her girdle for an +accelerated pace. + +The wonders were done: one hundred and seventy guests plenteously fed at +tables across the great Concert Hall, down a length of the conservatory- +glass, on soups, fish, meats, and the kitchen-garden, under play of +creative sauces, all in the persuasive steam of savouriness; every dish, +one may say, advancing, curtseying, swimming to be your partner, instead +of passively submitting to the eye of appetite, consenting to the teeth, +as that rather melancholy procession of the cold, resembling established +spinsters thrice-corseted in decorum, will appear to do. Whether +Armandine had the thought or that she simply acted in conformity with +a Frenchwoman's direct good sense, we do require to smell a sort of +animation in the meats we consume. We are still perhaps traceably +related to the Adamite old-youngster just on his legs, who betrayed at +every turn his Darwinian beginnings, and relished a palpitating +unwillingness in the thing refreshing him; only we young-oldsters cherish +the milder taste for willingness, with a throb of the vanquished in it. +And a seeming of that we get from the warm roast. The banquet to be +fervently remembered, should smoke, should send out a breath to meet us. +Victor's crowded saloon-carriage was one voice of eulogy, to raise +Armandine high as the finale rockets bursting over Wrensham Station at +the start Londonward. How had she managed? We foolishly question the +arts of magicians. + +Mr. Pempton was an apparent dissentient, as the man must be who is half a +century ahead of his fellows in humaneness, and saddened by the display +of slaughtered herds and their devourers. He had picked out his +vegetable and farinaceous morsels, wherever he could get them +uncontaminated; enough for sustenance; and the utmost he could show was, +that he did not complain. When mounted and ridden by the satirist, in +wrath at him for systematically feasting the pride of the martyr on the +maceration of his animal part, he put on his martyr's pride, which +assumed a perfect contentment in the critical depreciation of opposing +systems: he was drawn to state, as he had often done, that he considered +our animal part shamefully and dangerously over nourished, and that much +of the immorality of the world was due to the present excessive +indulgence in meats. 'Not in drink?' Miss Graves inquired. 'No,' he said +boldly; 'not equally; meats are more insidious. I say nothing of taking +life--of fattening for that express purpose: diseases of animals: bad +blood made: cruelty superinduced: it will be seen to be, it will be +looked back on, as a form of, a second stage of, cannibalism. Let that +pass. I say, that for excess in drinking, the penalty is paid instantly, +or at least on the morrow.' + +'Paid by the drunkard's wife, you should say.' + +'Whereas intemperance in eating, corrupts constitutionally, more +spiritually vitiates, we think: on the whole, gluttony is the least- +generous of the vices.' + +Colney lured Mr. Pempton through a quagmire of the vices to declare, +that it brutalized; and stammeringly to adopt the suggestion, that our +breeding of English ladies--those lights of the civilized world--can +hardly go with a feeding upon flesh of beasts. Priscilla regretted that +champagne should have to be pleaded in excuse of impertinences to her +sex. They were both combative, nibbed for epigram, edged to inflict +wounds; and they were set to shudder openly at one another's practises; +they might have exposed to Colney which of the two maniacal sections of +his English had the vaster conceit of superiority in purity; they were +baring themselves, as it were with a garment flung-off at each retort. +He reproached them for undermineing their countrymen; whose Falstaff +panics demanded blood of animals to restore them; and their periods of +bragging, that they should brandify their wits to imagine themselves +Vikings. + +Nataly interposed. She was vexed with him. He let his eyelids drop: but +the occasion for showing the prickliness of the bristly social English, +could not be resisted. Dr. Peter Yatt was tricked to confess, that small +annoyances were, in his experience, powerful on the human frame; and Dr. +John Cormyn was very neatly brought round to assure him he was mistaken +if he supposed the homoeopathic doctor who smoked was exercising a +destructive influence on the efficacy of the infinitesimal doses he +prescribed; Dr. Yatt chuckled a laugh at globules; Dr. Cormyn at patients +treated as horses; while Mr. Catkin was brought to praise the smoke of +tobacco as our sanctuary from the sex; and Mr. Peridon quietly denied, +that the taking of it into his nostrils from the puffs of his friend +caused him sad silences: Nesta flew to protect the admirer of her beloved +Louise. Her subsiding young excitement of the day set her Boating on +that moony melancholy in Mr. Peridon. + +No one could understand the grounds for Colney's more than usual +waspishness. He trotted out the fulgent and tonal Church of the Rev. +Septimus; the skeleton of worship, so truly showing the spirit, in that +of Dudley Sowerby's family; maliciously admiring both; and he had a spar +with Fenellan, ending in a snarl and a shout. Victor said to him: 'Yes, +here, as much as you like, old Colney, but I tell you, you've staggered +that poor woman Lady Blachington to-day, and her husband too; and I don't +know how many besides. What the pleasure of it can be, I can't guess.' + +'Nor I,' said Fenellan, 'but I'll own I feel envious; like the girl among +a family of boys I knew, who were all of them starved in their infancy by +a miserly father, that gave them barely a bit of Graves to eat and not a +drop of Pempton to drink; and on the afternoon of his funeral, I found +them in the drawing-room, four lank fellows, heels up, walking on their +hands, from long practice; and the girl informed me, that her brothers +were able so to send the little blood they had in their bodies to their +brains, and always felt quite cheerful for it, happy, and empowered to +deal with the problems of the universe; as they couldn't on their legs; +but she, poor thing, was forbidden to do the same! And I'm like her. I +care for decorum too much to get the brain to act on Colney's behaviour; +but I see it enraptures him and may be comprehensible to the topsy- +turvy.' + +Victor rubbed hands. It was he who filled Colney's bag of satiric spite. +In addition to the downright lunacy of the courting of country society, +by means of the cajolements witnessed this day, a suspicion that Victor +was wearing a false face over the signification--of Jarniman's visit and +meant to deceive the trustful and too-devoted loving woman he seemed +bound to wreck, irritated the best of his nature. He had a resolve to +pass an hour with the couple, and speak and insist on hearing plain words +before the night had ended. But Fenellan took it out of him. Victor's +show of a perfect contentment emulating Pempton's, incited Colney to some +of his cunning rapier-thrusts with his dancing adversary; and the heat +which is planted in us for the composition: of those cool epigrams, will +not allow plain words to follow. Or, handing him over to the police of +the Philistines, you may put it, that a habit of assorting spices will +render an earnest simplicity distasteful. He was invited by Nataly to +come home with them; her wish for his presence, besides personal, was +moved by an intuition, that his counsel might specially benefit them. +He shrugged; he said he had work at his chambers. + +'Work!' Victor ejaculated: he never could reach to a right comprehension +of labour, in regard to the very unremunerative occupation of literature. +Colney he did not want, and he let him go, as Nataly noticed, without a +sign of the reluctance he showed when the others, including Fenellan, +excused themselves. + +'So! we're alone?' he said, when the door of the hall had closed on them. +He kept Nesta talking of the success of the day until she, observing her +mother's look, simulated the setting-in of a frenzied yawn. She was +kissed, and she tripped to her bed. + +'Now we are alone,' Nataly said. + +'Well, dear, and the day was, you must own . . . ' he sought to trifle +with her heavy voice; but she recalled him: 'Victor!' and the naked +anguish in her cry of his name was like a foreign world threatening the +one he filled. + +'Ah, yes; that man, that Jarniman. You saw him, I remember. You +recollected him?--stouter than he was. In her service ever since. Well, +a little drop of bitter, perhaps: no harm, tonic.' + +'Victor, is she very ill?' + +'My love, don't feel at your side: she is ill, ill, not the extreme case: +not yet: old and ill. I told Skepsey to give the man refreshment: he had +to do his errand.' + +'What? why did he come?' + +'Curious; he made acquaintance with Skepsey, and appears to have +outwitted poor Skepsey, as far as I see it. But if that woman thinks of +intimidating me now--!' His eyes brightened; he had sprung from +evasions. 'Living in flagrant sin, she says: you and I! She will not +have it; warns me. Heard this day at noon of company at Lakelands. +Jarniman off at once. Are to live in obscurity;--you and I! if +together! Dictates from her death-bed-I suppose her death-bed.' + +'Dearest,' Nataly pressed hand on her left breast, 'may we not think that +she may be right?' + +'An outrageous tyranny of a decrepit woman naming herself wife when she +is only a limpet of vitality, with drugs for blood, hanging-on to blast +the healthy and vigorous! I remember old Colney's once, in old days, +calling that kind of marriage a sarcophagus. It was to me. There I lay +--see myself lying! wasting! Think what you can good of her, by all +means! From her bed! despatches that Jarniman to me from her bedside, +with the word, that she cannot in her conscience allow--what imposition +was it I practised? . . . flagrant sin?--it would have been an +infinitely viler . . . . She is the cause of suffering enough: I bear +no more from her; I've come to the limit. She has heard of Lakelands: +she has taken one of her hatreds to the place. She might have written, +might have sent me a gentleman, privately. No: it must be done in +dramatic style-for effect: her confidential--lawyer?--doctor?--butler! +Perhaps to frighten me:--the boy she knew, and--poor soul! I don't mean +to abuse her: but such conduct as this is downright brutal. I laugh at +it, I snap my fingers. I can afford to despise it. Only I do say it +deserves to be called abominable.' + +'Victor, has she used a threat?' + +'Am I brought to listen to any of her threats!--Funny thing, I 'm certain +that woman never can think of me except as the boy she knew. I saw her +first when she was first a widow. She would keep talking to me of the +seductions of the metropolis--kept informing me I was a young man . . . +shaking her head. I 've told you. She--well, I know we are mixtures, +women as well as men. I can, I hope, grant the same--I believe I can-- +allowances to women as to men; we are poor creatures, all of using one +sense: though I won't give Colney his footing; there's a better way of +reading us. I hold fast to Nature. No violation of Nature, my good +Colney! We can live the lives of noble creatures; and I say that +happiness was meant for us:--just as, when you sit down to your dinner, +you must do it cheerfully, and you make good blood: otherwise all's +wrong. There's the right answer to Colney! But when a woman like that +. . . . and marries a boy: well, twenty-one--not quite that: and an +innocent, a positive innocent--it may seem incredible, after a term of +school-life: it was a fact: I can hardly understand it myself when I look +back. Marries him! And then sets to work to persecute him, because he +has blood in his veins, because he worships beauty; because he seeks a +real marriage, a real mate. And, I say it! let the world take its own +view, the world is wrong! because he preferred a virtuous life to the +kind of life she would, she must--why, necessarily!--have driven him +to, with a mummy's grain of nature in his body. And I am made of flesh, +I admit it.' + +'Victor, dearest, her threat concerns only your living at Lakelands.' + +'Pray, don't speak excitedly, my love,' he replied to the woman whose +tones had been subdued to scarce more than waver. 'You see how I meet +it: water off a duck's back, or Indian solar beams on the skin of a +Hindoo! I despise it hardly worth contempt;--But, come: our day was a +good one. Fenellan worked well. Old Colney was Colney Durance, of +course. He did no real mischief.' + +'And you will not determine to enter Lakelands--not yet, dear?' said +Nataly. + +'My own girl, leave it all to me.' + +'But, Victor, I must, must know.' + +'See the case. You have lots of courage. We can't withdraw. Her +intention is mischief. I believe the woman keeps herself alive for it: +we've given her another lease!--though it can only be for a very short +time; Themison is precise; Carling too. If we hold back--I have great +faith in Themison--the woman's breath on us is confirmed. We go down, +then; complete the furnishing, quite leisurely; accept--listen--accept +one or two invitations: impossible to refuse!--but they are accepted! +--and we defy her: a crazy old creature: imagines herself the wife of the +ex-Premier, widow of Prince Le Boo, engaged to the Chinese Ambassador, et +caetera. Leave the tussle with that woman to me. No, we don't repeat +the error of Crayc Farm and Creckholt. And here we have stout friends. +Not to speak of Beaver Urmsing: a picture of Old Christmas England! You +took to him?--must have taken to Beaver Urmsing! The Marigolds! And Sir +Rodwell and Lady Blachington are altogether above the mark of Sir +Humphrey and Lady Pottil, and those half and half Mountneys. There's a +warm centre of home in Lakelands. But I know my Nataly: she is thinking +of our girl. Here is the plan: we stand our ground: my dear soul won't +forsake me only there's the thought of Fredi, in the event . . . +improbable enough. I lift Fredi out of the atmosphere awhile; she goes +to my cousins the Duvidney ladies.' + +Nataly was hit by a shot. 'Can you imagine it, Victor?' + +'Regard it as done.' + +'They will surely decline!' + +'Their feeling for General Radnor is a worship.' + +'All the more . . . ?' + +'The son inherits it. He goes to them personally. Have you ever known +me personally fail? Fredi stays at Moorsedge for a month or two. +Dorothea and Virginia Duvidney will give her a taste of a new society; +good for the girl. All these little shiftings can be turned to good. +Meantime, I say, we stand our ground: but you are not to be worried; for +though we have gone too far to recede, we need not and we will not make +the entry into Lakelands until--you know: that is, auspiciously, to suit +you in every way. Thus I provide to meet contingencies. What one may +really fancy is, that the woman did but threaten. There's her point of +view to be considered: silly, crazy; but one sees it. We are not sure +that she struck a blow at Craye or Creckholt. I wonder she never wrote. +She was frightened, when she came to manage her property, of signing her +name to anything. Absurd, that sending of Jarniman! However, it's her +move; we make a corresponding disposition of our chessmen.' + +'And I am to lose my Nesta for a month?' Nataly said, after catching here +and there at the fitful gleams of truce or comfort dropped from his +words. And simultaneously, the reproach of her mind to her nature for +again and so constantly yielding to the domination of his initiative: +unable to find the words, even the ideas, to withstand him,--brought big +tears. Angry at herself both for the internal feebleness and the +exhibition of it, she blinked and begged excuse. There might be nothing +that should call her to resist him. She could not do much worse than she +had done to-day. The reflection, that to-day she had been actually +sustained by the expectation of a death to come, diminished her estimate +of to-morrow's burden on her endurance, in making her seem a less +criminal woman, who would have no such expectation: which was virtually +a stab at a fellow creature's future. Her head was acute to work in the +direction of the casuistries and the sensational webs and films. Facing +Victor, it was a block. + +But the thought came: how could she meet those people about Lakelands, +without support of the recent guilty whispers! She said coldly, her +heart shaking her: 'You think there has been a recovery?' + +'Invalids are up and down. They are--well, no; I should think she dreads +the . . .' he kept 'surgeon' out of hearing. 'Or else she means this +for the final stroke: "though I'm lying here, I can still make him feel." +That, or--poor woman--she has her notions of right and wrong.' + +'Could we not now travel for a few weeks, Victor?' + +'Certainly, dear; we will, after we have kept our engagements to dine-- +I accepted--with the Blathenoys, the Blachingtons, Beaver Urmsing.' + +Nataly's vision of the peaceful lost little dairy cottage swelled to +brilliance, like the large tear at the fall; darkening under her present +effort to comprehend the necessity it was for him to mix and be foremost +with the world. Unable to grasp it perfectly in mind, her compassionate +love embraced it: she blamed herself, for being the obstruction to him. + +'Very well,' she said on a sigh. 'Then we shall not have to let our girl +go from us?' + +'Just a few weeks. In the middle of dinner, I scribbled a telegram to +the Duvidneys, for Skepsey to take.' + +'Speaking of Nesta?' + +'Of my coming to-morrow. They won't stop me. I dine with them, sleep at +the Wells; hotel for a night. We are to be separated for a night.' + +She laid her hand in his and gave him a passing view of her face: 'For +two, dear. I am . . . that man's visit--rather shaken: I shall have a +better chance of sleeping if I know I am not disturbing you.' + +She was firm; and they kissed and parted. Each had an unphrased +speculation upon the power of Mrs. Burman to put division between them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +TREATS OF THE LADIES' LAPDOG TASSO FOR AN INSTANCE OF MOMENTOUS EFFECTS +PRODUCED BY VERY MINOR CAUSES + +The maiden ladies Dorothea and Virginia Duvidney were thin--sweet old- +fashioned grey gentlewomen, demurely conscious of their excellence and +awake to the temptation in the consciousness, who imposed a certain +reflex primness on the lips of the world when addressing them or when +alluding to them. For their appearance was picturesque of the ancestral +time, and their ideas and scrupulousness of delivery suggested the +belated in ripeness; orchard apples under a snow-storm; or any image that +will ceremoniously convey the mind's profound appreciation together with +the tooth's panic dread of tartness. They were by no means tart; only, +as you know, the tooth is apprehensively nervous; an uninviting sign will +set it on edge. Even the pen which would sketch them has a spell on it +and must don its coat of office, walk the liveried footman behind them. + +Their wealth, their deeds of charity, their modesty, their built grey +locks, their high repute; a 'Chippendale elegance' in a quaintly formal +correctness, that they had, as Colney Durance called it; gave them some +queenliness, and allowed them to claim the ear as an oracle and banish +rebellious argument. Intuitive knowledge, assisted by the Rev. Stuart +Rem and the Rev. Abram Posterley, enabled them to pronounce upon men and +things; not without effect; their country owned it; the foreigner beheld +it. Nor were they corrupted by the servility of the surrounding ear. +They were good women, striving to be humbly good. They might, for all +the little errors they nightly unrolled to then perceptions, have stood +before the world for a study in the white of our humanity. And this may +be but a washed wall, it is true: revolutionary sceptics are measuring +the depths of it. But the hue refreshes, the world admires; and we know +it an object of aim to the bettermost of the wealthy. If, happily, +complacent circumstances have lifted us to the clean paved platform out +of grip of puddled clay and bespattering wheeltracks, we get our chance +of coming to it. + +Possessing, for example, nine thousand pounds per annum in Consols, and +not expending the whole of it upon our luxuries, we are, without further +privation, near to kindling the world's enthusiasm for whiteness. Yet +there, too, we find, that character has its problems to solve; there are +shades in salt. We must be charitable, but we should be just; we give to +the poor of the land, but we are eminently the friends of our servants; +duty to mankind diverts us not from the love we bear to our dog; and with +a pathetic sorrow for silt, we discard it from sight and hearing. We +hate dirt. Having said so much, having shown it, by sealing the mouth of +Mr. Stuart Rem and iceing the veins of Mr. Abram Posterley, in relation +to a dreadful public case and a melancholy private, we have a pleased +sense of entry into the world's ideal. + +At the same time, we protest our unworthiness. Acknowledgeing that they +were not purely spotless, these ladies genuinely took the tiny fly-spot +for a spur to purification; and they viewed it as a patch to raise in +relief their goodness. They gazed on it, saw themselves in it, and +veiled it: warned of the cunning of an oft-defeated Tempter. + +To do good and sleep well, was their sowing and their reaping. Uneasy +consciences could not have slept. The sleeping served for proof of an +accurate reckoning and an expungeing of the day's debits. They differed +in opinion now and then, as we see companion waves of the river, blown by +a gust, roll a shadow between them; and almost equally transient were +their differences with a world that they condemned when they could not +feel they (as an embodiment of their principles) were leading it. The +English world at times betrayed a restiveness in the walled pathway of +virtue; for, alas, it closely neighbours the French; only a Channel, +often dangerously smooth, to divide: but it is not perverted for long; +and the English Funds are always constant and a tower. Would they be +suffered to be so, if libertinism were in the ascendant? + +Colney Durance was acquainted with the Duvidney ladies. Hearing of the +journey to them and the purport of it, he said, with the mask upon glee: +'Then Victor has met his match!' Nataly had sent for him to dine with +her in Victor's absence: she was far from grieved, as to the result, by +his assurance to her, that Victor had not a chance. Colney thought so. +'Just like him! to be off gaily to try and overcome or come over the +greatest power in England.' They were England herself; the squat old +woman she has become by reason of her overlapping numbers of the +comfortable fund-holder annuitants: a vast body of passives and +negatives, living by precept, according to rules of precedent, +and supposing themselves to be righteously guided because of their +continuing undisturbed. Them he branded, as hypocritical materialists, +and the country for pride in her sweetmeat plethora of them:--mixed with +an ancient Hebrew fear of offence to an inscrutable Lord, eccentrically +appeasable through the dreary iteration of the litany of sinfulness. +He was near a truth; and he had the heat of it on him. + +Satirists in their fervours might be near it to grasp it, if they could +be moved to moral distinctness, mental intention, with a preference of +strong plain speech over the crack of their whips. Colney could not or +would not praise our modern adventurous, experimental, heroic, tramping +active, as opposed to yonder pursy passives and negatives; he had +occasions for flicking the fellow sharply: and to speak of the Lord as +our friend present with us, palpable to Reason, perceptible to natural +piety solely through the reason, which justifies punishment; that would +have stopped his mouth upon the theme of God-forsaken creatures. Our +satirist is an executioner by profession, a moralist in excuse, or at the +tail of it; though he thinks the position reversed, when he moralizes +angrily to have his angry use of the scourge condoned. Nevertheless, he +fills a serviceable place; and certainly he is not happy in his business. +Colney suffered as heavily as he struck. If he had been no more than a +mime in the motley of satire, he would have sucked compensation from the +acid of his phrases, for the failure to prick and goad, and work +amendment. + +He dramatized to Nataly some of the scene going on at the Wells: Victor's +petition; his fugue in urgency of it; the brief reply of Miss Dorothea +and her muted echo Miss Virginia. He was rather their apologist for +refusing. But, as when, after himself listening to their 'views,' he had +deferentially withdrawn from the ladies of Moorsedge, and had then beheld +their strangely-hatted lieutenants and the regiments of the toneless +respectable on the pantiles and the mounts, the curse upon the satirist +impelled him to generalize. The quiet good ladies were multiplied: they +were 'the thousands of their sisters, petticoated or long-coated or buck- +skinned; comfortable annuitants under clerical shepherding, close upon +outnumbering the labourers they paralyze at home and stultify abroad.' +Colney thumped away. The country's annuitants had for type 'the figure +with the helmet of the Owl-Goddess and the trident of the Earth-shaker, +seated on a wheel, at the back of penny-pieces; in whom you see neither +the beauty of nakedness nor the charm of drapery; not the helmet's +dignity or the trident's power; but she has patently that which stops the +wheel; and poseing for representative of an imperial nation, she helps to +pass a penny.' So he passed his epigram, heedless of the understanding +or attention of his hearer; who temporarily misjudged him for a man +impelled by the vanity of literary point and finish, when indeed it was +hot satiric spite, justified of its aim, which crushed a class to extract +a drop of scathing acid, in the interests of the country, mankind as +well. Nataly wanted a picture painted, colours and details, that she +might get a vision of the scene at Moorsedge. She did her best to feel +an omen and sound it, in his question 'whether the yearly increasing army +of the orderly annuitants and their parasites does not demonstrate the +proud old country as a sheath for pith rather than of the vital run of +sap.' + +Perhaps it was patriotic to inquire; and doubtless she was the weakest of +women; she could follow no thought; her heart was beating blindly beside +Victor, hopeing for the refusal painful to her through his +disappointment. + +'You think me foolish,' she made answer to one of Colney's shrugs; 'and +it has come to that pitch with me, that I cannot be sensible of a merit +except in being one with him--obeying, is the word. And I have never yet +known him fail. That terrible Lakelands wears a different look to me, +when I think of what he can do; though I would give half my days to +escape it.' + +She harped on the chord of feverish extravagance; the more hateful to +Colney because of his perceiving, that she simulated a blind devotedness +to stupefy her natural pride; and he was divided between stamping on her +for an imbecile and dashing at Victor for a maniac. But her situation +rendered her pitiable. 'You will learn tomorrow what Victor has done,' +he said, and thought how the simple words carried the bitterness. + +That was uttered within a few minutes of midnight, when the ladies of +Moorsedge themselves, after an exhausting resistance to their dearest +relative, were at the hall-door of the house with Victor, saying the +good-night, to which he responded hurriedly, cordially, dumbly, a baffled +man. They clasped hands. Miss Dorothea said: + +'You, Victor, always.' Miss Virginia said: 'You will be sure of +welcome.' He walked out upon the moonless night; and for lack of any +rounded object in the smothering darkness to look at, he could nowhere +take moorings to gather himself together and define the man who had +undergone so portentous a defeat. He was glad of quarters at an hotel, +a solitary bed, absence from his Nataly. + +For their parts, the ladies were not less shattered. They had no triumph +in their victory: the weight of it bore them down. They closed, locked, +shot the bolts and fastened the chain of the door. They had to be +reminded by the shaking of their darling dog Tasso's curly silky coat, +that he had not taken his evening's trot to notify malefactors of his +watchfulness and official wrath at sound of footfall or a fancied one. +Without consultation, they unbolted the door, and Tasso went forth, to +'compose his vesper hymn,' as Mr. Posterley once remarked amusingly. + +Though not pretending to the Muse's crown so far, the little dog had +qualities to entrance the spinster sex. His mistresses talked of him; +of his readiness to go forth; of the audible first line of his hymn or +sonnet; of his instinct telling him that something was wrong in the +establishment. For most of the servants at Moorsedge were prostrated by +a fashionable epidemic; a slight attack, the doctor said; but Montague, +the butler, had withdrawn for the nursing of his wife; Perrin, the +footman, was confined to his chamber; Manton, the favourite maid, had +appeared in the morning with a face that caused her banishment to bed; +and the cook, Mrs. Bannister, then sighingly agreed to send up cold meat +for the ladies' dinner. Hence their melancholy inhospitality to their +cousin Victor, who had, in spite of his errors, the right to claim his +place at their table, was 'of the blood,' they said. He was recognized +as the living prince of it. His every gesture, every word, recalled the +General. The trying scene with him had withered them, they did not speak +of it; each had to the other the look of a vessel that has come out of a +gale. Would they sleep? They scarcely dared ask it of themselves. They +had done rightly; silence upon that reflection seemed best. It was the +silence of an inward agitation; still they knew the power of good +consciences to summon sleep. + +Tasso was usually timed for five minutes. They were astonished to +discover by the clock, that they had given him ten. He was very quiet: +if so, and for whatever he did, he had his reason, they said: he was a +dog endowed with reason: endowed--and how they wished that Mr. Stuart Rem +would admit it!--with, their love of the little dog believed (and Mr. +Posterley acquiesced), a soul. Do but think it of dear animals, and any +form of cruelty to them becomes an impossibility, Mr. Stuart Rem! But he +would not be convinced: ungenerously indeed he named Mr. Posterley a +courtier. The ladies could have retorted, that Mr. Posterley had not a +brother who was the celebrated surgeon Sir Nicholas Rem. + +Usually Tasso came running in when the hall-door was opened to him. +Not a sound of him could be heard. The ladies blew his familiar whistle. +He trotted back to a third appeal, and was, unfortunately for them, not +caressed; he received reproaches from two forefingers directed straight +at his reason. He saw it and felt it. The hug of him was deferred to +the tender good-night to him in his basket at the foot of the ladies' +beds. + +On entering their spacious bed-chamber, they were so fatigued that sleep +appeared to their minds the compensating logical deduction. Miss +Dorothea suppressed a yawn, and inflicted it upon Miss Virginia, who +returned it, with an apology, and immediately had her sister's hand on +her shoulder, for, an attempted control of one of the irresistibles; a +specacle imparting bitter shudders and shots to the sympathetic jawbones +of an observer. Hand at mouth, for not in privacy would they have been +guilty of exposing a grimace, they signified, under an interim smile, +their maidenly submission to the ridiculous force of nature: after which, +Miss Virginia retired to the dressing-room, absorbed in woeful +recollection of the resolute No they had been compelled to reiterate, +in response to the most eloquent and, saving for a single instance, +admirable man, their cousin, the representative of 'the blood,' +supplicating them. A recreant thankfulness coiled within her bosom at +the thought, that Dorothea, true to her office of speaker, had tasked +herself with the cruel utterance and repetition of the word. Victor's +wonderful eyes, his voice, yet more than his urgent pleas; and also, in +the midst of his fiery flood of speech, his gentleness, his patience, +pathos, and a man's tone through it all; were present to her. + +Disrobed, she knocked at the door. + +'I have called to you twice,' Dorothea said; and she looked a motive for +the call. + +'What is it?' said Virginia, with faltering sweetness, with a terrible +divination. + +The movement of a sigh was made. 'Are you aware of anything, dear?' + +Virginia was taken with the contrary movement of a sniff. But the fear +informing it prevented it from being venturesome. Doubt of the pure +atmosphere of their bed-chamber, appeared to her as too heretic even for +the positive essay. In affirming, that she was not aware of anything, +her sight fell on Tasso. His eyeballs were those of a little dog that +has been awfully questioned. + +'It is more than a suspicion,' said Dorothea; and plainly now, while open +to the seductions of any pleasing infidel testimony, her nose in +repugnance convicted him absolutely. + +Virginia's nose was lowered a few inches; it inhaled and stopped midway. +'You must be mistaken, dear. He never . . . ' + +'But are you insensible to the . . .' Dorothea's eyelids fainted. + +Virginia dismissed the forlornest of efforts at incredulity. A whiff +of Tasso had smitten her. 'Ah!' she exclaimed and fell away. 'Is it +Tasso! How was it you noticed nothing before undressing, dear?' + +'Thinking of what we have gone through to-night! I forgot him. At last +the very strange . . . The like of it I have not ever! . . . And +upon that thick coat! And, dear, it is late. We are in the morning +hours.' + +'But, my dear-Oh, dear, what is to be done with him?' + +That was the crucial point for discussion. They had no servant to give +them aid; Manton, they could not dream of disturbing. And Tasso's +character wag in the estimate; he hated washing; it balefully depraved +his temper; and not only, creature of habit that he was, would he decline +to lie down anywhere save in their bedroom, he would lament, plead, +insist unremittingly, if excluded; terrifying every poor invalid of the +house. Then again, were they at this late hour to dress themselves, and +take him downstairs, and light a fire in the kitchen, and boil sufficient +water to give him a bath and scrubbing? Cold water would be death to +him. Besides, he would ring out his alarum for the house to hear, pour +out all his poetry, poor dear, as Mr. Posterley called it, at a touch of +cold water. The catastrophe was one to weep over, the dilemma a trial of +the strongest intelligences. + +In addition to reviews of their solitary alternative-the having of a +befouled degraded little dog in their chamber through the night, they +were subjected to a conflict of emotions when eyeing him: and there came +to them the painful, perhaps irreverent, perhaps uncharitable, thought:-- +that the sinner who has rolled in the abominable, must cleanse him and do +things to polish him and perfume before again embraced even by the mind: +if indeed we can ever have our old sentiment for him again! Mr. Stuart +Rem might decide it for them. Nay, before even the heart embraces him, +he must completely purify himself. That is to say, the ordinary human +sinner--save when a relative. Contemplating Tasso, the hearts of the +ladies gushed out in pity of an innocent little dog, knowing not evil, +dependent on his friends for help to be purified;--necessarily kept at a +distance: the very look of him prescribed extreme separation, as far as +practicable. But they had proof of a love almost greater than it was +previous to the offence, in the tender precautions they took to elude +repulsion. + +He was rolling on the rug, communicating contagion. Flasks of treble- +distilled lavender water, and their favourite, traditional in the family, +eau d'Arquebusade, were on the toilet-table. They sprinkled his basket, +liberally sprinkled the rug and the little dog. Perfume-pastilles were +in one of the sitting-rooms below; and Virginia would have gone down +softly to fetch a box, but Dorothea restrained her, in pity for the +servants, with the remark: 'It would give us a nightmare of a Roman +Catholic Cathedral!' A bit of the window was lifted by Dorothea, +cautiously, that prowling outsiders might not be attracted. Tasso was +wooed to his basket. He seemed inquisitive; the antidote of his +naughtiness excited him; his tail circled after his muzzle several times; +then he lay. A silken scarf steeped in eau d'Arquebusade was flung +across him. + +Their customary devout observances concluded, lights were extinguished, +and the ladies kissed, and entered their beds. + +Their beds were not homely to them. Dorothea thought that Virginia was +long in settling herself. Virginia did not like the sound of Dorothea's +double sigh. Both listened anxiously for the doings of Tasso. He +rested. + +He was uneasy; he was rounding his basket once more; unaware of the +exaggeration of his iniquitous conduct, poor innocent, he shook that +dreadful coat of his! He had displaced the prophylactic cover of the +scarf. + +He drove them in a despair to speculate on the contention between the +perfume and the stench in junction, with such a doubt of the victory of +which of the two, as drags us to fear our worst. It steals into our +nostrils, possesses them. As the History of Mankind has informed us, +we were led up to our civilization by the nose. But Philosophy warns us +on that eminence; to beware of trusting exclusively to our conductor, +lest the mind of us at least be plunged back into barbarism. The ladies +hated both the cause and the consequence, they had a revulsion from the +object, of the above contention. But call it not a contention: there is +nobility in that. This was a compromise, a degrading union, with very +sickening results. Whether they came of an excess of the sprinkling, +could not well be guessed. The drenching at least was righteously +intended. + +Beneath their shut eyelids, they felt more and more the oppression of a +darkness not laden with slumber. They saw it insolidity; themselves as +restless billows, driven dashing to the despondent sigh. Sleep was +denied them. + +Tasso slept. He had sinned unknowingly, and that is not a spiritual sin; +the chastisement confers the pardon. + +But why was this ineffable blessing denied to them? Was it that they +might have a survey of all the day's deeds and examine them under the +cruel black beams of Insomnia? + +Virginia said: 'You are wakeful.' + +'Thoughtful,' was the answer. + +A century of the midnight rolled on. + +Dorothea said: 'He behaved very beautifully.' + +'I looked at the General's portrait while he besought us,' Virginia +replied. + +'One sees him in Victor, at Victor's age. Try to sleep.' + +'I do. I pray that you may.' + +Silence courted slumber. Their interchange of speech from the posture +of bodies on their backs, had been low and deliberate, in the tone of +the vaults. Dead silence recalled the strangeness of it. The night was +breathless; their open window a peril bestowing no boon. They were +mutually haunted by sound of the gloomy query at the nostrils of each +when drawing the vital breath. But for that, they thought they might +have slept. + +Bed spake to bed: + +'The words of Mr. Stuart Rem last Sunday!' 'He said: "Be just." Could +one but see direction!' + +'In obscurity, feeling is a guide.' + +'The heart.' + +'It may sometimes be followed.' + +'When it concerns the family.' + +'He would have the living, who are seeking peace, be just.' + +'Not to assume the seat of justice.' + +Again they lay as tombstone effigies, that have committed the passage of +affairs to another procession of the Ages. + +There was a gentle sniff, in hopeless confirmation of the experience of +its predecessors. A sister to it ensued. + +'Could Victor have spoken so, without assurance in his conscience, that +his entreaty was righteously addressed to us? that we . . .' + +'And no others!' + +'I think of his language. He loves the child.' + +'In heart as in mind, he is eminently gifted; acknowledgeing error.' + +'He was very young.' + +The huge funereal minutes conducted their sonorous hearse, the hour. + +It struck in the bed-room: Three. + +No more than three of the clock, it was the voice telling of half the +precious restorative night-hours wasted. + +Now, as we close our eyelids when we would go to sleep, so must we, +in expectation of the peace of mind granting us the sweet oblivion, +preliminarily do something which invokes, that we may obtain it. + +'Dear,' Dorothea said. + +'I know indeed,' said Virginia. + +'We may have been!' + +'Not designingly.' + +'Indeed not. But harsh it may be named, if the one innocent is to be the +sufferer.' + +'The child can in no sense be adjudged guilty.' + +'It is Victor's child.' + +'He adores the child.' + +Wheels were in mute motion within them; and presently the remark was +tossed-up: + +'In his coming to us, it is possible to see paternal solicitude' + +Thence came fruit of reflection: + +'To be instrumental as guides to a tender young life!' + +Reflection heated with visions: + +'Once our dream!' + +They had the happier feeling of composure, though Tasso possessed +the room. Not Tasso, but a sublimated offensiveness, issue of the +antagonistically combined, dispersed to be the more penetrating; +insomuch that it seemed to them they could not ever again make use of eau +d'Arquebusade without the vitiating reminder. So true were the words of +Mr. Stuart Rem: 'Half measures to purification are the most delusive of +our artifices.' Fatigue and its reflections helped to be peacefuller. +Their souls were mounting to a serenity above the nauseating degradation, +to which the poor little dog had dragged them. + +'Victor gave his promise.' + +'At least, concession would not imply contact with the guilty.' + +Both sighed as they took up the burden of the vaporous Tasso to drop him; +with the greater satisfaction in the expelling of their breath. + +'It might be said, dear, that concession to his entreaty does not in any +way countenance the sin.' + +'I can see, dear, how it might be read as a reproof.' + +Their exchange of sentences followed meditative pauses; Dorothea leading. + +'To one so sensitive as Victor!' + +'A month or two of our society for the child!' + +'It is not the length of time.' + +'The limitation assures against maternal claims.' + +'She would not dare.' + +'He used the words: "her serious respect" for us. I should not wish to +listen to him often.' + +'We listen to a higher.' + +'It may really be, that the child is like him.' + +'Not resembling Mr. Stuart Rem's Clementina!' + +'A week of that child gave us our totally sleepless night.' 'One thinks +more hopefully of a child of Victor's.' + +'He would preponderate.' + +'He would.' + +They sighed; but it was now with the relief of a lightened oppression. + +'If, dear, in truth the father's look is in the child, he has the greater +reason to desire for her a taste of our atmosphere.' + +'Do not pursue it. Sleep.' + +'One prayer!' + +'Your mention of our atmosphere, dear, destroys my power to frame one. +Do you, for two. But I would cleanse my heart.' + +'There is none purer.' + +'Hush.' + +Virginia spoke a more fervent word of praise of her sister, and had not +the hushing response to it. She heard the soft regular breathing. Her +own was in downy fellowship with it a moment later. + +At the hour of nine, in genial daylight, sitting over the crumbs of his +hotel breakfast, Victor received a little note that bore the handwriting +of Dorothea Duvidney. + + 'Dear Victor, we are prepared to receive the child for a month. + In haste, before your train. Our love. D. and V.' + +His face flashed out of cloud. + +A more precious document had never been handed to him. It chased back to +midnight the doubt hovering over his belief in himself;--phrased to say, +that he was no longer the Victor Radnor known to the world. And it +extinguished a corpse-like recollection of a baleful dream in the night. +Here shone radiant witness of his being the very man; save for the spot +of his recent confusion in distinguishing his identity or in feeling that +he stood whole and solid.--Because of two mature maiden ladies? Yes, +because of two maiden ladies, my good fellow. And friend Colney, you +know the ladies, and what the getting round them for one's purposes +really means. + +The sprite of Colney Durance had struck him smartly overnight. Victor's +internal crow was over Colney now. And when you have the optimist and +pessimist acutely opposed in a mixing group, they direct lively +conversations at one another across the gulf of distance, even of time. +For a principle is involved, besides the knowledge of the other's triumph +or dismay. The couple are scales of a balance; and not before last night +had Victor ever consented to think of Colney ascending while he dropped +low to graze the pebbles. + +He left his hotel for the station, singing the great aria of the fourth +Act of the Favorita: neglected since that mighty German with his Rienzi, +and Tannhauser, and Tristan and Isolda, had mastered him, to the +displacement of his boyhood's beloved sugary -inis and -antes and +-zettis; had clearly mastered, not beguiled, him; had wafted him up to a +new realm, invigorating if severer. But now his youth would have its +voice. He travelled up to town with Sir Abraham Quatley and talked, and +took and gave hints upon City and Commercial affairs, while the honeyed +Italian of the conventional, gloriously animal, stress and flutter had a +revel in his veins, now and then mutedly ebullient at the mouth: honeyed, +golden, rich in visions;--having surely much more of Nature's +encouragement to her children? + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +NESTA'S ENGAGEMENT + +A word in his ear from Fenellan, touching that man Blathenoy, +set the wheels of Victor's brain at work upon his defences, for a minute, +on the walk Westward. Who knew?--who did not know! He had a torpid +consciousness that he cringed to the world, with an entreaty to the great +monster to hold off in ignorance; and the next instant, he had caught its +miserable spies by the lurcher neck and was towering. He dwelt on his +contempt of them, to curtain the power they could stir. + +'The little woman, you say, took to Dartrey?' + +Fenellan, with the usual apologetic moderation of a second statement, +thought 'there was the look of it.' + +'Well, we must watch over her. Dartrey!--but Dartrey's an honest fellow +with women. But men are men. Very few men spare a woman when the mad +fit is on her. A little woman-pretty little woman!--wife to Jacob +Blathenoy! She mustn't at her age have any close choosing--under her +hand. And Dartrey's just the figure to strike a spark in a tinder-box +head.' + +'With a husband who'd reduce Minerva's to tinder, after a month of him!' + +'He spent his honeymoon at his place at Wrensham; told me so.' Blathenoy +had therefore then heard of the building of Lakelands by the Victor +Radnor of the City; and had then, we guess--in the usual honeymoon +boasting of a windbag with his bride--wheezed the foul gossip, to hide +his emptiness and do duty for amusement of the pretty little caged bird. +Probably so. But Victor knew that Blathenoy needed him and feared him. +Probably the wife had been enjoined to keep silence; for the +Blachingtons, Fannings and others were, it could be sworn, blank and +unscratched folio sheets on the subject:--as yet; unless Mrs. Burman had +dropped venom. + +'One pities the little woman, eh, Fenellan?' + +'Dartrey won't be back for a week or so; and they're off to Switzerland, +after the dinner they give. I heard from him this morning; one of the +Clanconans is ill. + +'Lucky. But wherever Blathenoy takes her, he must be the same "arid +bore," as old Colney says.' + +'A domestic simoom,' said Fenellan, booming it: and Victor had a shudder. + +'Awful thing, marriage, to some women! We chain them to that domestic +round; most of them haven't the means of independence or a chance of +winning it; and all that's open to them, if they've made a bad cast for a +mate--and good Lord! how are they to know before it's too late!--they +haven't a choice except to play tricks or jump to the deuce or sit and +"drape in blight," as Colney has it; though his notion of the optional +marriages, broken or renewed every seven years!--if he means it. You +never know, with him. It sounds like another squirt of savage irony. +It's donkey nonsense, eh?' + +'The very hee-haw of nonsense,' Fenellan acquiesced. + +'Come, come; read your Scriptures; donkeys have shown wisdom,' Victor +said, rather leaning to the theme of a fretfulness of women in the legal +yoke. 'They're donkeys till we know them for prophets. Who can tell! +Colney may be hailed for one fifty years hence.' + +Fenellan was not invited to enter the house, although the loneliness of +his lodgeings was known, and also, that he played whist at his Club. +Victor had grounds for turning to him at the door and squeezing his hand +warmly, by way of dismissal. In ascribing them to a weariness at +Fenellan's perpetual acquiescence, he put the cover on them, and he +stamped it with a repudiation of the charge, that Colney's views upon the +great Marriage Question were the 'very hee-haw of nonsense.' They were +not the hee-haw; in fact, viewing the host of marriages, they were for +discussion; there was no bray about them. He could not feel them to be +absurd while Mrs. Burman's tenure of existence barred the ceremony. +Anything for a phrase! he murmured of Fenellan's talk; calling him, Dear +old boy, to soften the slight. + +Nataly had not seen Fenellan or heard from Dartrey; so she continued to +be uninformed of her hero's release; and that was in the order of happy +accidents. She had hardly to look her interrogation for the news; it +radiated. But he stated such matter-of-course briefly. 'The good ladies +are ready to receive our girl.' + +Her chagrin resolved to a kind of solace of her draggled pride, in the +idea, that he who tamed everybody to submission, might well have command +of her. + +The note, signed D. and V., was shown. + +There stood the words. And last night she had been partly of the opinion +of Colney Durance. She sank down among the unreasoning abject;--not this +time with her perfect love of him, but with a resistance and a dubiety +under compression. For she had not quite comprehended why Nesta should +go. This readiness of the Duvidney ladies to receive the girl, stopped +her mental inquiries. + +She begged for a week's delay; 'before the parting'; as her dear old +silly mother's pathos whimpered it, of the separation for a month! and he +smiled and hummed pleasantly at any small petition, thinking her in error +to expect Dartrey's return to town before the close of a week; and then +wondering at women, mildly denouncing in his heart the mothers who ran +risk of disturbing their daughters' bosoms with regard to particular +heroes married or not. Dartrey attracted women: he was one of the men +who do it without effort. Victor's provident mind blamed the mother for +the indiscreetness of her wish to have him among them. But Dudley had +been making way bravely of late; he improved; he began to bloom, like a +Spring flower of the garden protected from frosts under glass; and Fredi +was the sheltering and nourishing bestower of the lessons. One could +see, his questions and other little points revealed, that he had a +certain lover's dread of Dartrey Fenellan; a sort of jealousy: Victor +understood the feeling. To love a girl, who has her ideal of a man +elsewhere in another; though she may know she never can wed the man, and +has not the hope of it; is torment to the lover quailing, as we do in +this terrible season of the priceless deliciousness, stripped against all +the winds that blow; skinless at times. One gets up a sympathy for the +poor shy dependent shivering lover. Nevertheless, here was young Dudley +waking, visibly becoming bolder. As in the flute-duets, he gained fire +from concert. The distance between Cronidge and Moorsedge was two miles +and a quarter. + +Instead of the delay of a whole week, Victor granted four days, which +embraced a musical evening at Mrs. John Cormyn's on the last of the days, +when Nesta was engaged to sing with her mother a duet of her own +composition, the first public fruit of her lessons in counterpoint from +rigid Herr Strauscher, who had said what he had said, in letting it pass: +eulogy, coming from him. So Victor heard, and he doated am the surprise +to come for him, in a boyish anticipation. The girl's little French +ballads under tutelage of Louise de Seilles promised, though they were +imitative. If Strauscher let this pass . . . Victor saw Grand Opera +somewhere to follow; England's claim to be a creative musical nation +vindicated; and the genius of the fair sex as well. + +He heard the duet at Mrs. Cormyn's; and he imagined a hearing of his +Fredi's Opera, and her godmother's delight in it; the once famed +Sanfredini's consent to be the diva at a rehearsal, and then her +compelling her hidalgo duque to consent further: an event not +inconceivable. For here was downright genius; the flowering aloe of the +many years in formation; and Colney admitted the song to have a streak of +genius; though he would pettishly and stupidly say, that our modern +newspaper Press is able now to force genius for us twenty or so to the +month, excluding Sundays-our short pauses for the incubation of it. Real +rare genius was in that song, nothing forced; and exquisite melody; one +of those melodies which fling gold chains about us and lead us off, lead +us back into Eden. Victor hummed at bars of it on the drive homeward. +His darlings had to sing it again in the half-lighted drawing-room. The +bubble-happiness of the three was vexed only by tidings heard from Colney +during the evening of a renewed instance of Skepsey's misconduct. +Priscilla Graves had hurried away to him at the close of Mr. John +Cormyn's Concert, in consequence; in grief and in sympathy. Skepsey was +to appear before the magistrate next morning, for having administered +physical chastisement to his wife during one of her fits of drunkenness. +Colney had seen him. His version of the story was given, however, in the +objectionable humorous manner: none could gather from it of what might be +pleaded for Skepsey. His 'lesson to his wife in the art of pugilism, +before granting her Captain's rank among the Defensive Amazons of Old +England,' was the customary patent absurdity. But it was odd, that +Skepsey always preferred his appeal for help to Colney Durance. Nesta +proposed following Priscilla that night. She had hinted her wish, on the +way home; she was urgent, beseeching, when her father lifted praises of +her: she had to start with her father by the train at seven in the +morning, and she could not hear of poor Skepsey for a number of hours. +She begged a day's delay; which would enable her, she said, to join them +in dining at the Blachingtons', and seeing dear Lakelands again. 'I was +invited, you know.' She spoke in childish style, and under her eyes she +beheld her father and mother exchange looks. He had a fear that Nataly +might support the girl's petition. Nataly read him to mean, possible +dangers among the people at Wrensham. She had seemed hesitating. After +meeting Victor's look, her refusal was firm. She tried to make it one of +distress for the use of the hard word to her own dear girl. Nesta spied +beneath. + +But what was it? There was a reason for her going! She had a right to +stay, and see and talk with Captain Dartrey, and she was to be deported! + +So now she set herself to remember little incidents at Creckholt: +particularly a conversation in a very young girl's hearing, upon Sir +Humphrey and Lady Pottil's behaviour to the speakers, her parents. +She had then, and she now had, an extraordinary feeling, as from a wind +striking upon soft summer weather off regions of ice, that she was in her +parents' way. How? The feeling was irrational; it could give her no +reply, or only the multitudinous which are the question violently +repeated. She slept on it. + +She and her father breakfasted by the London birds' first twitter. They +talked of Skepsey. She spoke of her going as exile. 'No,' said he, +'you're sure to meet friends.' + +Her cheeks glowed. It came wholly through the suddenness of the +recollection, that the family-seat of one among the friends was near the +Wells. + +He was allowed to fancy, as it suited him to fancy, that a vivid secret +pleasure laid the colour on those ingenuous fair cheeks. + +'A solitary flute for me, for a month! I shall miss my sober comrade: +got the habit of duetting: and he's gentle, bears with me.' + +Tears lined her eyelids. 'Who would not be, dearest dada! But there is +nothing to bear except the honour.' + +'You like him? You and I always have the same tastes, Fredi.' + +Now there was a reddening of the sun at the mount; all the sky aflame. +How could he know that it was not the heart in the face! She reddened +because she had perused his wishes; had detected a scheme striking off +from them, and knew a man to be the object of it; and because she had at +the same time the sense of a flattery in her quick divination; and she +was responsively emotional, her blood virginal; often it was a tropical +lightning. + +It looked like the heart doing rich painter's work on maiden features. +Victor was naturally as deceived as he wished to be. + +From his being naturally so, his remarks on Dudley had an air of +embracing him as one of the family. 'His manner to me just hits me.' + +'I like to see him with you,' she said. + +Her father let his tongue run: 'One of the few young men I feel perfectly +at home with! I do like dealing with a gentleman. I can confide in a +gentleman: honour, heart, whatever I hold dearest.' + +There he stopped, not too soon. The girl was mute, fully agreeing, +slightly hardening. She had a painful sense of separation from her dear +Louise. And it was now to be from her mother as well: she felt the pain +when kissing her mother in bed. But this was moderated by the prospect +of a holiday away out of reach of Mr. Barmby's pursuing voice, whom her +mother favoured: and her mother was concealing something from her; so she +could not make the confidante of her mother. Nataly had no forewarnings. +Her simple regrets filled her bosom. All night she had been taking her +chastisement, and in the morning it seemed good to her, that she should +be denuded, for her girl to learn the felicity of having relatives. + +For some reason, over which Nataly mused in the succeeding hours, the +girl had not spoken of any visit her mother was to pay to the Duvidney +ladies or they to her. Latterly she had not alluded to her mother's +family. It might mean, that the beloved and dreaded was laying finger on +a dark thing in the dark; reading syllables by touch; keeping silence +over the communications to a mind not yet actively speculative, as it is +a way with young women. 'With young women educated for the market, to be +timorous, consequently secretive, rather snaky,' Colney Durance had said. +Her Nesta was not one of the 'framed and glazed' description, cited by +him, for an example of the triumph of the product; 'exactly harmonious +with the ninny male's ideal of female innocence.' No; but what if the +mother had opened her heart to her girl? It had been of late her wish or +a dream, shaping hourly to a design, now positively to go through that +furnace. Her knowledge of Victor's objection, restrained an impulse that +had not won spring enough to act against his counsel or vivify an +intelligence grown dull in slavery under him, with regard to the one +seeming right course. The adoption of it would have wounded him-- +therefore her. She had thought of him first; she had also thought of +herself, and she blamed herself now. She went so far as to think, that +Victor was guilty of the schemer's error of counting human creatures +arithmetically, in the sum, without the estimate of distinctive qualities +and value here and there. His return to a shivering sensitiveness on the +subject of his girl's enlightenment 'just yet,' for which Nataly pitied +and loved him, sharing it, with humiliation for doing so, became finally +her excuse. We must have some excuse, if we would keep to life. + +Skepsey's case appeared in the evening papers. He confessed, 'frankly,' +he said, to the magistrate, that, 'acting under temporary exasperation, +he had lost for a moment a man's proper self-command.' He was as frank +in stating, that he 'occupied the prisoner's place before his Worship a +second time, and was a second time indebted to the gentleman, Mr. Colney +Durance, who so kindly stood by him.' There was hilarity in the Court at +his quaint sententious envelopment of the idiom of the streets, which he +delivered with solemnity: 'He could only plead, not in absolute +justification--an appeal to human sentiments--the feelings of a man of +the humbler orders, returning home in the evening, and his thoughts upon +things not without their importance, to find repeatedly the guardian of +his household beastly drunk, and destructive.' Colney made the case +quite intelligible to the magistrate; who gravely robed a strain of the +idiomatic in the officially awful, to keep in tune with his delinquent. +No serious harm had been done to the woman. Skepsey was admonished and +released. His wife expressed her willingness to forgive him, now he had +got his lesson; and she hoped he would understand, that there was no need +for a woman to learn pugilism. Skepsey would have explained; but the +case was over, he was hustled out. + +However, a keen young reporter present smelt fun for copy; he followed +the couple; and in a particular evening Journal, laughable matter was +printed concerning Skepsey's view of the pugilism to be imparted to women +for their physical-protection in extremity, and the distinction of it +from the blow conveying the moral lesson to them; his wife having +objected to the former, because it annoyed her and he pestered her; +and she was never, she said, ready to stand up to him for practice, +as he called it, except when she had taken more than he thought wholesome +for her: he had no sense. There was a squabble between them, because he +chose to scour away to his master's office instead of conducting her home +with the honours. Nesta read the young reporter's version, with shrieks. +She led the ladies of Moorsedge to discover amusement in it. + +At first, as her letter to her mother described them, they were like a +pair of pieces of costly China, with the settled smile, and cold. She +saw but the outside of them, and she continued reporting the variations, +which steadily determined the warmth. On the night of the third day, +they kissed her tenderly; they were human figures. + +No one could be aware of the trial undergone by the good ladies in +receiving her: Victor's child; but, as their phrase would have run, had +they dared to give it utterance to one another, a child of sin. How +foreign to them, in that character, how strange, when she was looked on +as an inhabitant of their house, they hardly dared to estimate; until the +timorous estimation, from gradually swelling, suddenly sank; nature +invaded them; they could discard the alienating sense of the taint; and +not only did they no longer fear the moment when Mr. Stuart Rem or Mr. +Posterley might call for evening tea, but they consulted upon inviting +the married one of those gentlemen, to 'divert dear Nesta.' Every night +she slept well. In all she did, she proved she was 'of the blood.' +She had Victor's animated eyes; she might have, they dreaded to think, +his eloquence. They put it down to his eloquence entirely, that their +resistance to his petition had been overcome, for similarly with the +treatment of the private acts of royal personages by lacquey History, +there is, in the minds of the ultra-civilized, an insistance, that any +event having a consequence in matters personal to them, be at all hazards +recorded with the utmost nicety in decency. By such means, they preserve +the ceremonial self-respect, which is a necessity of their existence; and +so they maintain the regal elevation over the awe-struck subjects of +their interiors; who might otherwise revolt, pull down, scatter, +dishonour, expose for a shallow fiction the holiest, the most vital to +them. A democratic evil spirit is abroad, generated among congregations, +often perilously communicating its wanton laughter to the desperate +wickedness they know (not solely through the monition of Mr. Stuart Rem) +to lurk within. It has to be excluded: on certain points they must not +think. The night of Tasso was darkly clouded in the minds of the pure +ladies: a rift would have seized their half-slumbering sense of smell, +to revive the night, perhaps disorder the stately march of their +intelligences. + +Victor's eloquence, Victor's influence, Victor's child he carried them as +a floodstream, insomuch, that their reception of this young creature of +the blot on her birth, was regarded by them in the unmentioned abstract, +and the child's presence upon earth seen with the indulgence (without the +naughty curiosity) of the loyal moral English for the numerous offspring +of the peccadillos of their monarchs. These things pass muster from +being 'Britannically cocooned in the purple,' says our irreverent +satirist; and the maiden ladies' passion of devotion to 'the blood' +helped to blind them; but still more so did the imperious urgency to +curtain closely the night of Tasso, throwing all its consequences upon +Victor's masterful tongue. Whence it ensued (and here is the danger for +illogical individuals as well as vast communities, who continue to batten +upon fiction when the convenience of it has taken the place of pleasure), +that they had need to exalt his eloquence, for a cloak to their conduct; +and doing it, they fell into a habit of yielding to him; they +disintegrated under him; rules, principles, morality, were shaken to some +confusion. And still proceeding thus, they now and then glanced back, +more wonderingly than convicted sinners upon their days of early +innocence, at the night when successfully they withstood him. They who +had doubted of the rightness of letting Victor's girl come into collision +with two clerical gentlemen, one of whom was married, permitted him now +to bring the Hon. Dudley Sowerby to their house, and make appointments +to meet Mr. Dudley Sowerby under a roof that sheltered a young lady, +evidently the allurement to the scion of aristocracy; of whose family Mr. +Stuart Rem had spoken in the very kindling hushed tones, proper to the +union of a sacerdotal and an English citizen's veneration. + +How would it end? And if some day this excellent Mr. Dudley Sowerby +reproached them! He could not have a sweeter bride, one more truly a +lady in education and manners; but the birth! the child's name! Their +trouble was emitted in a vapour of interjections. Very perplexing was it +for the good ladies of strict principles to reflect, as dimly they did, +that the concrete presence of dear Nesta silenced and overcame objections +to her being upon earth. She seemed, as it were, a draught of +redoubtable Nature inebriating morality. But would others be similarly +affected? Victor might get his release, to do justice to the mother: it +would not cover the child. Prize as they might the quality of the Radnor +blood (drawn from the most ancient of original Britain's princes), there +was also the Cantor blood for consideration; and it was old, noble, +proud. Would it be satisfied in matching itself with great wealth, +a radiant health, and the good looks of a young flower? For the sake +of the dear girl, the ladies hoped that it would; and they enlarged the +outline of their wedding present, while, in their minds, the noble +English family which could be satisfied so, was lowered, partaking +of the taint they had personally ceased to recognize. + +Of one thing they were sure, and it enlisted them: the gentleman loved +the girl. Her love of him, had it been prominent to view, would have +stirred a feminine sigh; not more, except a feminine lecture to follow. +She was quite uninflamed, fresh and cool as a spring. His ardour had no +disguise. They measured him by the favourite fiction's heroes of their +youth, and found him to gaze, talk, comport himself, according to the +prescription; correct grammar, finished sentences, all that is expected +of a gentleman enamoured; and ever with the watchful intentness for his +lady's faintest first dawn of an inclining to a wish. Mr. Dudley +Sowerby's eye upon Nesta was really an apprentice. There is in Love's +young season a magnanimity in the male kind. Their superior strength +and knowledge are made subservient to the distaff of the weaker and +shallower: they crown her queen; her look is their mandate. So was it +when Sir Charles and Sir Rupert and the estimable Villiers Davenant +touched maidenly hearts to throb: so is it now, with the Hon. Dudley +Sowerby. + +Very haltingly, the ladies were guilty of a suggestion to Victor. +'Oh! Fredi?' said he; 'admires her, no doubt; and so do I, so we all do; +she's one of the nice girls; but as to Cupid's darts, she belongs to the +cucumber family, and he shoots without fireing. We shall do the mischief +if we put an interdict. Don't you remember the green days when obstacles +were the friction to light that match?' Their pretty nod of assent +displayed the virgin pride of the remembrance: they dreamed of having +once been exceedingly wilful; it refreshed their nipped natures; and +dwelling on it, they forgot to press their suggestion. Incidentally, +he named the sum his Fredi would convey to her husband; with, as was +calculable, the further amount his only child would inherit. A curious +effect was produced on them. Though they were not imaginatively +mercenary, as the creatures tainted with wealth commonly are, they talked +of the sum over and over in the solitude of their chamber. 'Dukes have +married for less.' Such an heiress, they said, might buy up a +Principality. Victor had supplied them with something of an apology +to the gentleman proposing to Nesta in their house. + +The chronicle of it is, that Dudley Sowerby did this on the fifteenth day +of September; and that it was not known to the damsel's parents before +the twenty-third; as they were away on an excursion in South Tyrol:-- +away, flown, with just a word of the hurried departure to their envious, +exiled girl; though they did not tell her of new constructions at the +London house partly causing them to fly. Subject to their consent, she +wrote, she had given hers. The letter was telegramic on the essential +point. She wrote of Mr. Barmby's having visited Mr. Posterley at the +Wells, and she put it just as flatly. Her principal concern, to judge by +her writing, was, to know what Mr. Durance had done, during her absence, +with the group of emissary-advocates of the various tongues of Europe on +board the steam-Liner conducting them the first stage of their journey to +the Court of Japan. + +Mr. Simeon Fenellan had written his opinion, that all these delegates of +the different European nationalities were nothing other than dupes of a +New-York Syndicate of American Humorists, not without an eye on the +mainchance; and he was sure they would be set to debate publicly, before +an audience of high-priced tickets, in the principal North American +Cities, previous to the embarcation for Japan at San Francisco. Mr. +Fenellan eulogized the immense astuteness of Dr. Gannius in taking his +daughter Delphica with him. Dr. Gannius had singled forth poor Dr. +Bouthoin for the object of his attacks; but Nesta was chiefly anxious to +hear of Delphica's proceedings; she was immensely interested in Delphica, +and envied her; and the girl's funny speculations over the play of +Delphica's divers arts upon the Greek, and upon the Russian, and upon the +English curate Mr. Semhians, and upon M. Falarique--set Gallically +pluming and crowing out of an Alsace-Lorraine growl--were clever. Only, +in such a letter, they were amazing. + +Nataly received it at Campiglio, when about to start for an excursion +down the Sarca Valley to Arco. Her letter of reply was delayed. One to +Victor from Dudley Sowerby, awaited them, on their return. 'Confirms +Fredi,' he said, showing it, and praising it as commendable, properly +fervid. She made pretence to read, she saw the words. + +Her short beat of wings was over. She had joined herself with Victor's +leap for a change, thirsting for the scenery of the white peaks in +heaven, to enjoy through his enjoyment, if her own capacity was dead: +and she had found it revive, up to some recovery of her old songful +readiness for invocations of pleasure. Escape and beauty beckoned ahead; +behind were the chains. These two letters of the one fact plucked her +back. The chained body bore the fluttering spirit: or it was the spirit +in bonds, that dragged the body. Both were abashed before the image of +her girl. Out of the riddle of her strange Nesta, one thing was clear: +she did not love the man: and Nataly tasted gladness in that, from the +cup of poisonous regrets at the thought. Her girl's heart would not be +broken. But if he so strongly loved her, as to hold to this engagement? +. . . It might then be worse. She dropped a plumb-line into the young +man, sounding him by what she knew of him and judged. She had to revert +to Nesta's charm, for the assurance of his anchored attachment. + +Her holiday took the burden of her trouble, and amid the beauty of a +disenchanted scene, she resumed the London incubus. + +'You told him of her being at the Wells? in the neighbourhood, Victor?' + +'Didn't you know, my dear, the family-seat is Cronidge, two miles out +from the Wells?--and particularly pretty country.' + +'I had forgotten, if I ever heard. You will not let him be in +ignorance?' + +'My dear love, you are pale about it. This is a matter between men. +I write, thanking for the honour and so forth; and I appoint an +interview; and I show him my tablets. He must be told, necessarily. +Incidents of this kind come in their turn. If Dudley does not account +himself the luckiest young fellow in the kingdom, he's not worthy of his +good fortune. I wish they were both here now, honeymooning among these +peaks, seeing the crescent over one, as we did last night!' + +'Have you an idea, in reading Nesta's letter?' + +'Seems indifferent?--mere trick to hide the blushes. And I, too, I'm +interested in Delphica. Delphica and Falarique will be fine stage +business. Of course, Dr. Bouthoin and his curate!--we know what Old +England has to expect from Colney.' + +'At any rate, Mr. Durance hurts no one. You will, in your letter, +appoint the day of the interview?' + +'Hurts himself! Yes, dearest; appoint for--ten days homeward--eleventh +day from to-day. And you to Fredi: a bit of description--as you can, +my Nataly! Happy to be a dolomite, to be painted by Nataly's pen.' + +The sign is evil, when we have a vexatious ringing in the ear of some +small piece of familiar domestic chatter, and subject it to scrutiny, +hang on it, worry and magnify it. What will not creatures under sway of +the sensational life, catch at to emphasize and strengthen distaste, +until distaste shall have a semblance of reason, in the period of the +mind's awakening to revolt! Nataly shrank from the name of dolomite, +detested the name, though the scenes regained their beauty or something +of it beneath her showery vision. Every time Victor spoke of dolomites +on the journey homeward, she had at heart an accusation of her cowardice, +her duplicity, frailty, treachery to the highest of her worship and sole +support of her endurance in the world: not much blaming him: but the +degrading view of herself sank them both. On a shifty soil, down goes +the idol. For him she could plead still, for herself she could not. + +The smell of the Channel brine inspirited her sufficiently to cast off +the fit and make it seem, in the main, a bodily depression; owing to +causes, of which she was beginning to have an apprehensive knowledge: and +they were not so fearful to her as the gloom they displaced. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Belief in the narrative by promoting nausea in the audience +Claim for equality puts an end to the priceless privileges +Consent to take life as it is +Dialogue between Nature and Circumstance +Dudley was not gifted to read behind words and looks +Exuberant anticipatory trustfulness +Fell to chatting upon the nothings agreeably and seriously +Greater our successes, the greater the slaves we become +He never explained +How Success derides Ambition! +If only been intellectually a little flexible in his morality +Naturally as deceived as he wished to be +Official wrath at sound of footfall or a fancied one +Optional marriages, broken or renewed every seven years +Pessimy is invulnerable +Repeatedly, in contempt of the disgust of iteration +Satirist is an executioner by profession +Semblance of a tombstone lady beside her lord +The banquet to be fervently remembered, should smoke +The homage we pay him flatters us +We must have some excuse, if we would keep to life + + +[The End] + + + + +********************************************************************* +The Project Gutenberg Etext of One of Our Conquerors, v3, by Meredith +********This file should be named gm79v10.txt or gm79v10.zip********* + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, gm79v11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gm79v10a.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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