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diff --git a/old/egost10.txt b/old/egost10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..158176d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/egost10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,24690 @@ +*The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Egoist, by George Meredith* +#6 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 posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by James Tinsley jtinsley@pobox.com + + + + + +THE EGOIST + +A Comedy in Narrative + + +by GEORGE MEREDITH + + + + +PRELUDE + +A Chapter of which the Last Page only is of any Importance + +Comedy is a game played to throw reflections upon social life, and +it deals with human nature in the drawing-room of civilized men +and women, where we have no dust of the struggling outer world, no +mire, no violent crashes, to make the correctness of the +representation convincing. Credulity is not wooed through the +impressionable senses; nor have we recourse to the small circular +glow of the watchmaker's eye to raise in bright relief minutest +grains of evidence for the routing of incredulity. The Comic +Spirit conceives a definite situation for a number of characters, +and rejects all accessories in the exclusive pursuit of them and +their speech. For being a spirit, he hunts the spirit in men; +vision and ardour constitute his merit; he has not a thought of +persuading you to believe in him. Follow and you will see. But +there is a question of the value of a run at his heels. + +Now the world is possessed of a certain big book, the biggest book +on earth; that might indeed be called the Book of Earth; whose +title is the Book of Egoism, and it is a book full of the world's +wisdom. So full of it, and of such dimensions is this book, in +which the generations have written ever since they took to +writing, that to be profitable to us the Book needs a powerful +compression. + +Who, says the notable humourist, in allusion to this Book, who can +studiously travel through sheets of leaves now capable of a +stretch from the Lizard to the last few poor pulmonary snips and +shreds of leagues dancing on their toes for cold, explorers tell +us, and catching breath by good luck, like dogs at bones about a +table, on the edge of the Pole? Inordinate unvaried length, sheer +longinquity, staggers the heart, ages the very heart of us at a +view. And how if we manage finally to print one of our pages on +the crow-scalp of that solitary majestic outsider? We may get him +into the Book; yet the knowledge we want will not be more present +with us than it was when the chapters hung their end over the +cliff you ken of at Dover, where sits our great lord and master +contemplating the seas without upon the reflex of that within! + +In other words, as I venture to translate him (humourists are +difficult: it is a piece of their humour to puzzle our wits), the +inward mirror, the embracing and condensing spirit, is required to +give us those interminable milepost piles of matter (extending +well-nigh to the very Pole) in essence, in chosen samples, +digestibly. I conceive him to indicate that the realistic method +of a conscientious transcription of all the visible, and a +repetition of all the audible, is mainly accountable for our +present branfulness, and that prolongation of the vasty and the +noisy, out of which, as from an undrained fen, steams the malady +of sameness, our modern malady. We have the malady, whatever may +be the cure or the cause. We drove in a body to Science the other +day for an antidote; which was as if tired pedestrians should +mount the engine-box of headlong trains; and Science introduced us +to our o'er-hoary ancestry--them in the Oriental posture; +whereupon we set up a primaeval chattering to rival the Amazon +forest nigh nightfall, cured, we fancied. And before daybreak our +disease was hanging on to us again, with the extension of a tail. +We had it fore and aft. We were the same, and animals into the +bargain. That is all we got from Science. + +Art is the specific. We have little to learn of apes, and they may +be left. The chief consideration for us is, what particular +practice of Art in letters is the best for the perusal of the Book +of our common wisdom; so that with clearer minds and livelier +manners we may escape, as it were, into daylight and song from a +land of fog-horns. Shall we read it by the watchmaker's eye in +luminous rings eruptive of the infinitesimal, or pointed with +examples and types under the broad Alpine survey of the spirit +born of our united social intelligence, which is the Comic Spirit? +Wise men say the latter. They tell us that there is a constant +tendency in the Book to accumulate excess of substance, and such +repleteness, obscuring the glass it holds to mankind, renders us +inexact in the recognition of our individual countenances: a +perilous thing for civilization. And these wise men are strong in +their opinion that we should encourage the Comic Spirit, who is +after all our own offspring, to relieve the Book. Comedy, they +say, is the true diversion, as it is likewise the key of the great +Book, the music of the Book. They tell us how it condenses whole +sections of the book in a sentence, volumes in a character; so +that a fair pan of a book outstripping thousands of leagues when +unrolled may he compassed in one comic sitting. + +For verily, say they, we must read what we can of it, at least the +page before us, if we would be men. One, with an index on the +Book, cries out, in a style pardonable to his fervency: The remedy +of your frightful affliction is here, through the stillatory of +Comedy, and not in Science, nor yet in Speed, whose name is but +another for voracity. Why, to be alive, to be quick in the soul, +there should be diversity in the companion throbs of your pulses. +Interrogate them. They lump along like the old loblegs of Dobbin +the horse; or do their business like cudgels of carpet-thwackers +expelling dust or the cottage-clock pendulum teaching the infant +hour over midnight simple arithmetic. This too in spite of +Bacchus. And let them gallop; let them gallop with the God +bestriding them; gallop to Hymen, gallop to Hades, they strike the +same note. Monstrous monotonousness has enfolded us as with the +arms of Amphitrite! We hear a shout of war for a diversion.-- +Comedy he pronounces to be our means of reading swiftly and +comprehensively. She it is who proposes the correcting of +pretentiousness, of inflation, of dulness, and of the vestiges of +rawness and grossness to be found among us. She is the ultimate +civilizer, the polisher, a sweet cook. If, he says, she watches +over sentimentalism with a birch-rod, she is not opposed to +romance. You may love, and warmly love, so long as you are honest. +Do not offend reason. A lover pretending too much by one foot's +length of pretence, will have that foot caught in her trap. In +Comedy is the singular scene of charity issuing of disdain under +the stroke of honourable laughter: an Ariel released by Prospero's +wand from the fetters of the damned witch Sycorax. And this +laughter of reason refreshed is floriferous, like the magical +great gale of the shifty Spring deciding for Summer. You hear it +giving the delicate spirit his liberty. Listen, for comparison, +to an unleavened society: a low as of the udderful cow past +milking hour! O for a titled ecclesiastic to curse to +excommunication that unholy thing!--So far an enthusiast perhaps; +but he should have a hearing. + +Concerning pathos, no ship can now set sail without pathos; and we +are not totally deficient of pathos; which is, I do not accurately +know what, if not the ballast, reducible to moisture by patent +process, on board our modern vessel; for it can hardly be the +cargo, and the general water supply has other uses; and ships well +charged with it seem to sail the stiffest:--there is a touch of +pathos. The Egoist surely inspires pity. He who would desire to +clothe himself at everybody's expense, and is of that desire +condemned to strip himself stark naked, he, if pathos ever had a +form, might be taken for the actual person. Only he is not allowed +to rush at you, roll you over and squeeze your body for the briny +drops. There is the innovation. + +You may as well know him out of hand, as a gentleman of our time +and country, of wealth and station; a not flexile figure, do what +we may with him; the humour of whom scarcely dimples the surface +and is distinguishable but by very penetrative, very wicked imps, +whose fits of roaring below at some generally imperceptible stroke +of his quality, have first made the mild literary angels aware of +something comic in him, when they were one and all about to +describe the gentleman on the heading of the records baldly (where +brevity is most complimentary) as a gentleman of family and +property, an idol of a decorous island that admires the concrete. +Imps have their freakish wickedness in them to kindle detective +vision: malignly do they love to uncover ridiculousness in +imposing figures. Wherever they catch sight of Egoism they pitch +their camps, they circle and squat, and forthwith they trim their +lanterns, confident of the ludicrous to come. So confident that +their grip of an English gentleman, in whom they have spied their +game, never relaxes until he begins insensibly to frolic and +antic, unknown to himself, and comes out in the native steam which +is their scent of the chase. Instantly off they scour, Egoist and +imps. They will, it is known of them, dog a great House for +centuries, and be at the birth of all the new heirs in succession, +diligently taking confirmatory notes, to join hands and chime +their chorus in one of their merry rings round the tottering +pillar of the House, when his turn arrives; as if they had +(possibly they had) smelt of old date a doomed colossus of Egoism +in that unborn, unconceived inheritor of the stuff of the family. +They dare not be chuckling while Egoism is valiant, while sober, +while socially valuable, nationally serviceable. They wait. + +Aforetime a grand old Egoism built the House. It would appear that +ever finer essences of it are demanded to sustain the structure; +but especially would it appear that a reversion to the gross +original, beneath a mask and in a vein of fineness, is an +earthquake at the foundations of the House. Better that it should +not have consented to motion, and have held stubbornly to all +ancestral ways, than have bred that anachronic spectre. The sight, +however, is one to make our squatting imps in circle grow restless +on their haunches, as they bend eyes instantly, ears at full cock, +for the commencement of the comic drama of the suicide. If this +line of verse be not yet in our literature, + + Through very love of self himself he slew, + +let it be admitted for his epitaph. + + +CHAPTER I + +A Minor Incident Showing an Hereditary Aptitude in the Use of the +Knife + +There was an ominously anxious watch of eyes visible and invisible +over the infancy of Willoughby, fifth in descent from Simon +Patterne, of Patterne Hall, premier of this family, a lawyer, a +man of solid acquirements and stout ambition, who well understood +the foundation-work of a House, and was endowed with the power of +saying No to those first agents of destruction, besieging +relatives. He said it with the resonant emphasis of death to +younger sons. For if the oak is to become a stately tree, we must +provide against the crowding of timber. Also the tree beset with +parasites prospers not. A great House in its beginning lives, we +may truly say, by the knife. Soil is easily got, and so are +bricks, and a wife, and children come of wishing for them, but the +vigorous use of the knife is a natural gift and points to growth. +Pauper Patternes were numerous when the fifth head of the race was +the hope of his county. A Patterne was in the Marines. + +The country and the chief of this family were simultaneously +informed of the existence of one Lieutenant Crossjay Patterne, of +the corps of the famous hard fighters, through an act of heroism +of the unpretending cool sort which kindles British blood, on the +part of the modest young officer, in the storming of some eastern +riverain stronghold, somewhere about the coast of China. The +officer's youth was assumed on the strength of his rank, perhaps +likewise from the tale of his modesty: "he had only done his +duty". Our Willoughby was then at College, emulous of the generous +enthusiasm of his years, and strangely impressed by the report, +and the printing of his name in the newspapers. He thought over it +for several months, when, coming to his title and heritage, he +sent Lieutenant Crossjay Patterne a cheque for a sum of money +amounting to the gallant fellow's pay per annum, at the same time +showing his acquaintance with the first, or chemical, principles +of generosity, in the remark to friends at home, that "blood is +thicker than water". The man is a Marine, but he is a Patterne. +How any Patterne should have drifted into the Marines, is of the +order of questions which are senselessly asked of the great +dispensary. In the complimentary letter accompanying his cheque, +the lieutenant was invited to present himself at the ancestral +Hall, when convenient to him, and he was assured that he had given +his relative and friend a taste for a soldier's life. Young Sir +Willoughby was fond of talking of his "military namesake and +distant cousin, young Patterne--the Marine". It was funny; and +not less laughable was the description of his namesake's deed of +valour: with the rescued British sailor inebriate, and the hauling +off to captivity of the three braves of the black dragon on a +yellow ground, and the tying of them together back to back by +their pigtails, and driving of them into our lines upon a newly +devised dying-top style of march that inclined to the oblique, +like the astonished six eyes of the celestial prisoners, for +straight they could not go. The humour of gentlemen at home is +always highly excited by such cool feats. We are a small island, +but you see what we do. The ladies at the Hall, Sir Willoughby's +mother, and his aunts Eleanor and Isabel, were more affected than +he by the circumstance of their having a Patterne in the Marines. +But how then! We English have ducal blood in business: we have, +genealogists tell us, royal blood in common trades. For all our +pride we are a queer people; and you may be ordering butcher's +meat of a Tudor, sitting on the cane-bottom chairs of a +Plantagenet. By and by you may . . . but cherish your reverence. +Young Willoughby made a kind of shock-head or football hero of his +gallant distant cousin, and wondered occasionally that the fellow +had been content to dispatch a letter of effusive thanks without +availing himself of the invitation to partake of the hospitalities +of Patterne. + +He was one afternoon parading between showers on the stately +garden terrace of the Hall, in company with his affianced, the +beautiful and dashing Constantia Durham, followed by knots of +ladies and gentlemen vowed to fresh air before dinner, while it +was to be had. Chancing with his usual happy fortune (we call +these things dealt to us out of the great hidden dispensary, +chance) to glance up the avenue of limes, as he was in the act of +turning on his heel at the end of the terrace, and it should be +added, discoursing with passion's privilege of the passion of love +to Miss Durham, Sir Willoughby, who was anything but obtuse, +experienced a presentiment upon espying a thick-set stumpy man +crossing the gravel space from the avenue to the front steps of +the Hall, decidedly not bearing the stamp of the gentleman "on his +hat, his coat, his feet, or anything that was his," Willoughby +subsequently observed to the ladies of his family in the +Scriptural style of gentlemen who do bear the stamp. His brief +sketch of the creature was repulsive. The visitor carried a bag, +and his coat-collar was up, his hat was melancholy; he had the +appearance of a bankrupt tradesman absconding; no gloves, no +umbrella. + +As to the incident we have to note, it was very slight. The card +of Lieutenant Patterne was handed to Sir Willoughby, who laid it +on the salver, saying to the footman, "Not at home." + +He had been disappointed in the age, grossly deceived in the +appearance of the man claiming to be his relative in this +unseasonable fashion; and his acute instinct advised him swiftly +of the absurdity of introducing to his friends a heavy +unpresentable senior as the celebrated gallant Lieutenant of +Marines, and the same as a member of his family! He had talked of +the man too much, too enthusiastically, to be able to do so. A +young subaltern, even if passably vulgar in figure, can be +shuffled through by the aid of the heroical story humourously +exaggerated in apology for his aspect. Nothing can be done with a +mature and stumpy Marine of that rank. Considerateness dismisses +him on the spot, without parley. It was performed by a gentleman +supremely advanced at a very early age in the art of cutting. + +Young Sir Willoughby spoke a word of the rejected visitor to Miss +Durham, in response to her startled look: "I shall drop him a +cheque," he said, for she seemed personally wounded, and had a +face of crimson. + +The young lady did not reply. + +Dating from the humble departure of Lieutenant Crossjay Patterne +up the limes-avenue under a gathering rain-cloud, the ring of imps +in attendance on Sir Willoughby maintained their station with +strict observation of his movements at all hours; and were +comparisons in quest, the sympathetic eagerness of the eyes of +caged monkeys for the hand about to feed them, would supply one. +They perceived in him a fresh development and very subtle +manifestation of the very old thing from which he had sprung. + + +CHAPTER II + +The Young Sir Willoughby + +These little scoundrel imps, who have attained to some +respectability as the dogs and pets of the Comic Spirit, had been +curiously attentive three years earlier, long before the public +announcement of his engagement to the beautiful Miss Durham, on +the day of Sir Willoughby's majority, when Mrs. Mountstuart +Jenkinson said her word of him. Mrs. Mountstuart was a lady +certain to say the remembered, if not the right, thing. Again and +again was it confirmed on days of high celebration, days of birth +or bridal, how sure she was to hit the mark that rang the bell; +and away her word went over the county: and had she been an +uncharitable woman she could have ruled the county with an iron +rod of caricature, so sharp was her touch. A grain of malice would +have sent county faces and characters awry into the currency. She +was wealthy and kindly, and resembled our mother Nature in her +reasonable antipathies to one or two things which none can defend, +and her decided preference of persons that shone in the sun. Her +word sprang out of her. She looked at you, and forth it came: and +it stuck to you, as nothing laboured or literary could have +adhered. Her saying of Laetitia Dale: "Here she comes with a +romantic tale on her eyelashes," was a portrait of Laetitia. And +that of Vernon Whitford: "He is a Phoebus Apollo turned fasting +friar," painted the sunken brilliancy of the lean long-walker and +scholar at a stroke. + +Of the young Sir Willoughby, her word was brief; and there was the +merit of it on a day when he was hearing from sunrise to the +setting of the moon salutes in his honour, songs of praise and +Ciceronian eulogy. Rich, handsome, courteous, generous, lord of +the Hall, the feast and the dance, he excited his guests of both +sexes to a holiday of flattery. And, says Mrs. Mountstuart, while +grand phrases were mouthing round about him, "You see he has a +leg." + +That you saw, of course. But after she had spoken you saw much +more. Mrs. Mountstuart said it just as others utter empty +nothings, with never a hint of a stress. Her word was taken up, +and very soon, from the extreme end of the long drawing-room, the +circulation of something of Mrs. Mountstuart's was distinctly +perceptible. Lady Patterne sent a little Hebe down, skirting the +dancers, for an accurate report of it; and even the inappreciative +lips of a very young lady transmitting the word could not damp the +impression of its weighty truthfulness. It was perfect! Adulation +of the young Sir Willoughby's beauty and wit, and aristocratic +bearing and mien, and of his moral virtues, was common; welcome if +you like, as a form of homage; but common, almost vulgar, beside +Mrs. Mountstuart's quiet little touch of nature. In seeming to say +infinitely less than others, as Miss Isabel Patterne pointed out +to Lady Busshe, Mrs. Mountstuart comprised all that the others had +said, by showing the needlessness of allusions to the saliently +evident. She was the aristocrat reproving the provincial. "He is +everything you have had the goodness to remark, ladies and dear +sirs, he talks charmingly, dances divinely, rides with the air of +a commander-in-chief, has the most natural grand pose possible +without ceasing for a moment to be the young English gentleman he +is. Alcibiades, fresh from a Louis IV perruquier, could not +surpass him: whatever you please; I could outdo you in sublime +comparisons, were I minded to pelt him. Have you noticed that he +has a leg?" + +So might it be amplified. A simple-seeming word of this import is +the triumph of the spiritual, and where it passes for coin of +value, the society has reached a high refinement: Arcadian by the +aesthetic route. Observation of Willoughby was not, as Miss +Eleanor Patterne pointed out to Lady Culmer, drawn down to the +leg, but directed to estimate him from the leg upward. That, +however, is prosaic. Dwell a short space on Mrs. Mountstuart's +word; and whither, into what fair region, and with how decorously +voluptuous a sensation, do not we fly, who have, through mournful +veneration of the Martyr Charles, a coy attachment to the Court of +his Merrie Son, where the leg was ribanded with love-knots and +reigned. Oh! it was a naughty Court. Yet have we dreamed of it as +the period when an English cavalier was grace incarnate; far from +the boor now hustling us in another sphere; beautifully mannered, +every gesture dulcet. And if the ladies were ... we will hope they +have been traduced. But if they were, if they were too tender, ah! +gentlemen were gentlemen then--worth perishing for! There is this +dream in the English country; and it must be an aspiration after +some form of melodious gentlemanliness which is imagined to have +inhabited the island at one time; as among our poets the dream of +the period of a circle of chivalry here is encouraged for the +pleasure of the imagination. + +Mrs. Mountstuart touched a thrilling chord. "In spite of men's +hateful modern costume, you see he has a leg." + +That is, the leg of the born cavalier is before you: and obscure +it as you will, dress degenerately, there it is for ladies who +have eyes. You see it: or, you see he has it. Miss Isabel and Miss +Eleanor disputed the incidence of the emphasis, but surely, though +a slight difference of meaning may be heard, either will do: many, +with a good show of reason, throw the accent upon leg. And the +ladies knew for a fact that Willoughby's leg was exquisite; he had +a cavalier court-suit in his wardrobe. Mrs. Mountstuart signified +that the leg was to be seen because it was a burning leg. There it +is, and it will shine through! He has the leg of Rochester, +Buckingham, Dorset, Suckling; the leg that smiles, that winks, is +obsequious to you, yet perforce of beauty self-satisfied; that +twinkles to a tender midway between imperiousness and +seductiveness, audacity and discretion; between "You shall worship +me", and "I am devoted to you;" is your lord, your slave, +alternately and in one. It is a leg of ebb and flow and high-tide +ripples. Such a leg, when it has done with pretending to retire, +will walk straight into the hearts of women. Nothing so fatal to +them. + +Self-satisfied it must be. Humbleness does not win multitudes or +the sex. It must be vain to have a sheen. Captivating melodies (to +prove to you the unavoidableness of self-satisfaction when you +know that you have hit perfection), listen to them closely, have +an inner pipe of that conceit almost ludicrous when you detect the +chirp. + +And you need not be reminded that he has the leg without +the naughtiness. You see eminent in him what we would fain +have brought about in a nation that has lost its leg in gaining +a possibly cleaner morality. And that is often contested; but +there is no doubt of the loss of the leg. + +Well, footmen and courtiers and Scottish Highlanders, and the +corps de ballet, draymen too, have legs, and staring legs, shapely +enough. But what are they? not the modulated instrument we mean-- +simply legs for leg-work, dumb as the brutes. Our cavalier's is +the poetic leg, a portent, a valiance. He has it as Cicero had a +tongue. It is a lute to scatter songs to his mistress; a rapier, +is she obdurate. In sooth a leg with brains in it, soul. + +And its shadows are an ambush, its lights a surprise. It blushes, +it pales, can whisper, exclaim. It is a peep, a part revelation, +just sufferable, of the Olympian god--Jove playing carpet-knight. + +For the young Sir Willoughby's family and his thoughtful admirers, +it is not too much to say that Mrs. Mountstuart's little word +fetched an epoch of our history to colour the evening of his +arrival at man's estate. He was all that Merrie Charles's court +should have been, subtracting not a sparkle from what it was. +Under this light he danced, and you may consider the effect of it +on his company. + +He had received the domestic education of a prince. Little princes +abound in a land of heaped riches. Where they have not to yield +military service to an Imperial master, they are necessarily here +and there dainty during youth, sometimes unmanageable, and as they +are bound in no personal duty to the State, each is for himself, +with full present, and what is more, luxurious, prospective +leisure for the practice of that allegiance. They are sometimes +enervated by it: that must be in continental countries. Happily +our climate and our brave blood precipitate the greater number +upon the hunting-field, to do the public service of heading the +chase of the fox, with benefit to their constitutions. Hence a +manly as well as useful race of little princes, and Willoughby was +as manly as any. He cultivated himself, he would not be outdone +in popular accomplishments. Had the standard of the public taste +been set in philosophy, and the national enthusiasm centred in +philosophers, he would at least have worked at books. He did work +at science, and had a laboratory. His admirable passion to excel, +however, was chiefly directed in his youth upon sport; and so +great was the passion in him, that it was commonly the presence of +rivals which led him to the declaration of love. + +He knew himself, nevertheless, to be the most constant of men in +his attachment to the sex. He had never discouraged Laetitia +Dale's devotion to him, and even when he followed in the sweeping +tide of the beautiful Constantia Durham (whom Mrs. Mountstuart +called "The Racing Cutter"), he thought of Laetitia, and looked at +her. She was a shy violet. + +Willoughby's comportment while the showers of adulation drenched +him might be likened to the composure of Indian Gods undergoing +worship, but unlike them he reposed upon no seat of amplitude to +preserve him from a betrayal of intoxication; he had to continue +tripping, dancing, exactly balancing himself, head to right, head +to left, addressing his idolaters in phrases of perfect +choiceness. This is only to say that it is easier to be a wooden +idol than one in the flesh; yet Willoughby was equal to his task. +The little prince's education teaches him that he is other than +you, and by virtue of the instruction he receives, and also +something, we know not what, within, he is enabled to maintain his +posture where you would be tottering. + +Urchins upon whose curly pates grave seniors lay their hands with +conventional encomium and speculation, look older than they are +immediately, and Willoughby looked older than his years, not for +want of freshness, but because he felt that he had to stand +eminently and correctly poised. + +Hearing of Mrs. Mountstuart's word on him, he smiled and said, "It +is at her service." + +The speech was communicated to her, and she proposed to attach a +dedicatory strip of silk. And then they came together, and there +was wit and repartee suitable to the electrical atmosphere of the +dancing-room, on the march to a magical hall of supper. +Willoughby conducted Mrs. Mountstuart to the supper-table. + +"Were I," said she, "twenty years younger, I think I would marry +you, to cure my infatuation." + +"Then let me tell you in advance, madam," said he, "that I will do +everything to obtain a new lease of it, except divorce you." + +They were infinitely wittier. but so much was heard and may he +reported. + +"It makes the business of choosing a wife for him superhumanly +difficult!" Mrs. Mountstuart observed, after listening to the +praises she had set going again when the ladies were weeded of us, +in Lady Patterne's Indian room, and could converse unhampered upon +their own ethereal themes. + +"Willoughby will choose a wife for himself," said his mother. + + +CHAPTER III + +Constantia Durham + +The great question for the county was debated in many households, +daughter-thronged and daughterless, long subsequent to the +memorable day of Willoughby's coming of age. Lady Busshe was for +Constantia Durham. She laughed at Mrs Mountstuart Jenkinson's +notion of Laetitia Dale. She was a little older than Mrs. +Mountstuart, and had known Willoughby's father, whose marriage +into the wealthiest branch of the Whitford family had been +strictly sagacious. "Patternes marry money; they are not romantic +people," she said. Miss Durham had money, and she had health and +beauty: three mighty qualifications for a Patterne bride. Her +father, Sir John Durham, was a large landowner in the western +division of the county; a pompous gentleman, the picture of a +father-in-law for Willoughby. The father of Miss Dale was a +battered army surgeon from India, tenant of one of Sir +Willoughby's cottages bordering Patterne Park. His girl was +portionless and a poetess. Her writing of the song in celebration +of the young baronet's birthday was thought a clever venture, bold +as only your timid creatures can be bold. She let the cat out +of her bag of verse before the multitude; she almost proposed to +her hero in her rhymes. She was pretty; her eyelashes were long +and dark, her eyes dark-blue, and her soul was ready to shoot like +a rocket out of them at a look from Willoughby. And he looked, he +certainly looked, though he did not dance with her once that +night, and danced repeatedly with Miss Durham. He gave Laetitia +to Vernon Whitford for the final dance of the night, and he may +have looked at her so much in pity of an elegant girl allied to +such a partner. The "Phoebus Apollo turned fasting friar" had +entirely forgotten his musical gifts in motion. He crossed himself +and crossed his bewildered lady, and crossed everybody in the +figure, extorting shouts of cordial laughter from his cousin +Willoughby. Be it said that the hour was four in the morning, when +dancers must laugh at somebody, if only to refresh their feet, and +the wit of the hour administers to the wildest laughter. Vernon +was likened to Theseus in the maze, entirely dependent upon his +Ariadne; to a fly released from a jam-pot; to a "salvage", or +green, man caught in a web of nymphs and made to go the paces. +Willoughby was inexhaustible in the happy similes he poured out to +Miss Durham across the lines of Sir Roger de Coverley, and they +were not forgotten, they procured him a reputation as a convivial +sparkler. Rumour went the round that he intended to give Laetitia +to Vernon for good, when he could decide to take Miss Durham to +himself; his generosity was famous; but that decision, though the +rope was in the form of a knot, seemed reluctant for the +conclusive close haul; it preferred the state of slackness; and if +he courted Laetitia on behalf of his cousin, his cousinly love +must have been greater than his passion, one had to suppose. He +was generous enough for it, or for marrying the portionless girl +himself. + +There was a story of a brilliant young widow of our aristocracy +who had very nearly snared him. Why should he object to marry into +our aristocracy? Mrs. Mountstuart asked him, and he replied that +the girls of that class have no money, and he doubted the quality +of their blood. He had his eyes awake. His duty to his House was +a foremost thought with him, and for such a reason he may have +been more anxious to give the slim and not robust Laetitia to +Vernon than accede to his personal inclination. The mention of the +widow singularly offended him, notwithstanding the high rank of +the lady named. "A widow?" he said. "I!" He spoke to a widow; an +oldish one truly; but his wrath at the suggestion of his union +with a widow led him to be for the moment oblivious of the minor +shades of good taste. He desired Mrs. Mountstuart to contradict +the story in positive terms. He repeated his desire; he was urgent +to have it contradicted, and said again, "A widow!" straightening +his whole figure to the erectness of the letter I. She was a widow +unmarried a second time, and it has been known of the stedfast +women who retain the name of their first husband, or do not hamper +his title with a little new squire at their skirts, that they can +partially approve the objections indicated by Sir Willoughby. They +are thinking of themselves when they do so, and they will rarely +say, "I might have married;" rarely within them will they avow +that, with their permission, it might have been. They can catch an +idea of a gentleman's view of the widow's cap. But a niceness that +could feel sharply wounded by the simple rumour of his alliance +with the young relict of an earl was mystifying. Sir Willoughby +unbent. His military letter I took a careless glance at itself +lounging idly and proudly at ease in the glass of his mind, decked +with a wanton wreath, as he dropped a hint, generously vague, just +to show the origin of the rumour, and the excellent basis it had +for not being credited. He was chidden. Mrs. Mountstuart read him +a lecture. She was however able to contradict the tale of the +young countess. "There is no fear of his marrying her, my dears." + +Meanwhile there was a fear that he would lose his chance of +marrying the beautiful Miss Durham. + +The dilemmas of little princes are often grave. They should be +dwelt on now and then for an example to poor struggling commoners, +of the slings and arrows assailing fortune's most favoured men, +that we may preach contentment to the wretch who cannot muster +wherewithal to marry a wife, or has done it and trots the streets, +pack-laden, to maintain the dame and troops of children painfully +reared to fill subordinate stations. According to our reading, a +moral is always welcome in a moral country, and especially so when +silly envy is to be chastised by it, the restless craving for +change rebuked. Young Sir Willoughby, then, stood in this dilemma: +--a lady was at either hand of him; the only two that had ever, +apart from metropolitan conquests, not to be recited, touched his +emotions. Susceptible to beauty, he had never seen so beautiful a +girl as Constantia Durham. Equally susceptible to admiration of +himself, he considered Laetitia Dale a paragon of cleverness. He +stood between the queenly rose and the modest violet. One he +bowed to; the other bowed to him. He could not have both; it is +the law governing princes and pedestrians alike. But which could +he forfeit? His growing acquaintance with the world taught him to +put an increasing price on the sentimcnts of Miss Dale. Still +Constantia's beauty was of a kind to send away beholders aching. +She had the glory of the racing cutter full sail on a whining +breeze; and she did not court to win him, she flew. In his more +reflective hour the attractiveness of that lady which held the +mirror to his features was paramount. But he had passionate +snatches when the magnetism of the flyer drew him in her wake. +Further to add to the complexity, he loved his liberty; he was +princelier free; he had more subjects, more slaves; he ruled +arrogantly in the world of women; he was more himself. His +metropolitan experiences did not answer to his liking the +particular question, Do we bind the woman down to us idolatrously +by making a wife of her? + +In the midst of his deliberations, a report of the hot pursuit of +Miss Durham, casually mentioned to him by Lady Busshe, drew an +immediate proposal from Sir Willoughby. She accepted him, and they +were engaged. She had been nibbled at, all but eaten up, while he +hung dubitative; and though that was the cause of his winning her, +it offended his niceness. She had not come to him out of cloistral +purity, out of perfect radiancy. Spiritually, likewise, was he a +little prince, a despotic prince. He wished for her to have come +to him out of an egg-shell, somewhat more astonished at things +than a chicken, but as completely enclosed before he tapped the +shell, and seeing him with her sex's eyes first of all men. She +talked frankly of her cousins and friends, young males. She could +have replied to his bitter wish: "Had you asked me on the night of +your twenty-first birthday, Willoughby!" Since then she had been +in the dust of the world, and he conceived his peculiar antipathy, +destined to be so fatal to him, from the earlier hours of his +engagement. He was quaintly incapable of a jealousy of +individuals. A young Captain Oxford had been foremost in the swarm +pursuing Constantia. Willoughby thought as little of Captain +Oxford as he did of Vernon Whitford. His enemy was the world, the +mass, which confounds us in a lump, which has breathed on her +whom we have selected, whom we cannot, can never, rub quite clear +of her contact with the abominated crowd. The pleasure of the +world is to bowl down our soldierly letter I; to encroach on our +identity, soil our niceness. To begin to think is the beginning of +disgust of the world. + +As soon the engagement was published all the county said that +there had not been a chance for Laetitia, and Mrs. Mountstuart +Jenkinson humbly remarked, in an attitude of penitence, "I'm not a +witch." Lady Busshe could claim to be one; she had foretold the +event. Laetitia was of the same opinion as the county. She had +looked up, but not hopefully. She had only looked up to the +brightest, and, as he was the highest, how could she have hoped? +She was the solitary companion of a sick father, whose inveterate +prognostic of her, that she would live to rule at Patterne Hall, +tortured the poor girl in proportion as he seemed to derive +comfort from it. The noise of the engagement merely silenced him; +recluse invalids cling obstinately to their ideas. He had observed +Sir Willoughby in the society of his daughter, when the young +baronet revived to a sprightly boyishness immediately. Indeed, as +big boy and little girl, they had played together of old. +Willoughby had been a handsome, fair boy. The portrait of him at +the Hall, in a hat, leaning on his pony, with crossed legs, and +long flaxen curls over his shoulders, was the image of her soul's +most present angel; and, as a man, he had--she did not suppose +intentionally--subjected her nature to bow to him; so submissive +was she, that it was fuller happiness for her to think him right +in all his actions than to imagine the circumstances different. +This may appear to resemble the ecstasy of the devotee +of Juggernaut, It is a form of the passion inspired by little +princes, and we need not marvel that a conservative sex should +assist to keep them in their lofty places. What were there +otherwise to look up to? We should have no dazzling beacon-lights +if they were levelled and treated as clod earth; and it is worth +while for here and there a woman to be burned, so long as women's +general adoration of an ideal young man shall be preserved. +Purity is our demand of them. They may justly cry for attraction. +They cannot have it brighter than in the universal bearing of the +eyes of their sisters upon a little prince, one who has the +ostensible virtues in his pay, and can practise them without +injuring himself to make himself unsightly. Let the races of men +be by-and-by astonished at their Gods, if they please. Meantime +they had better continue to worship. + +Laetitia did continue. She saw Miss Durham at Patterne on several +occasions. She admired the pair. She had a wish to witness the +bridal ceremony. She was looking forward to the day with that +mixture of eagerness and withholding which we have as we draw nigh +the disenchanting termination of an enchanting romance, when Sir +Willoughby met her on a Sunday morning, as she crossed his park +solitarily to church. They were within ten days of the appointed +ceremony. He should have been away at Miss Durham's end of the +county. He had, Laetitia knew, ridden over to her the day before; +but there he was; and very unwontedly, quite surprisingly, he +presented his arm to conduct Laetitia to the church-door, and +talked and laughed in a way that reminded her of a hunting +gentleman she had seen once rising to his feet, staggering from an +ugly fall across hedge and fence into one of the lanes of her +short winter walks. "All's well, all sound, never better, only a +scratch!" the gentleman had said, as he reeled and pressed a +bleeding head. Sir Willoughby chattered of his felicity in meeting +her. "I am really wonderfully lucky," he said, and he said that +and other things over and over, incessantly talking, and telling +an anecdote of county occurrences, and laughing at it with a mouth +that would not widen. He went on talking in the church porch, and +murmuring softly some steps up the aisle, passing the pews of Mrs. +Mountstuart Jenkinson and Lady Busshe. Of course he was +entertaining, but what a strangeness it was to Laetitia! His face +would have been half under an antique bonnet. It came very close +to hers, and the scrutiny he bent on her was most solicitous. + +After the service, he avoided the great ladies by sauntering up to +within a yard or two of where she sat; he craved her hand on his +arm to lead her forth by the park entrance to the church, all the +while bending to her, discoursing rapidly, appearing radiantly +interested in her quiet replies, with fits of intentness that +stared itself out into dim abstraction. She hazarded the briefest +replies for fear of not having understood him. + +One question she asked: "Miss Durham is well, I trust?" + +And he answered "Durham?" and said, "There is no Miss Durham to my +knowledge." + +The impression he left with her was, that he might yesterday +during his ride have had an accident and fallen on his head. + +She would have asked that, if she had not known him for so +thorough an Englishman, in his dislike to have it thought that +accidents could hurt even when they happened to him. + +He called the next day to claim her for a walk. He assured her she +had promised it, and he appealed to her father, who could not +testify to a promise he had not heard, but begged her to leave him +to have her walk. So once more she was in the park with Sir +Willoughby, listening to his raptures over old days. A word of +assent from her sufficed him. "I am now myself," was one of the +remarks he repeated this day. She dilated on the beauty of the +park and the Hall to gratify him. + +He did not speak of Miss Durham, and Laetitia became afraid to +mention her name. + +At their parting, Willoughby promised Laetitia that he would call +on the morrow. He did not come; and she could well excuse him, +after her hearing of the tale. + +It was a lamentable tale. He had ridden to Sir John Durham's +mansion, a distance of thirty miles, to hear, on his arrival, that +Constantia had quitted her father's house two days previously on a +visit to an aunt in London, and had just sent word that she was +the wife of Captain Oxford, hussar, and messmate of one of her +brothers. A letter from the bride awaited Willoughby at the Hall. +He had ridden back at night, not caring how he used his horse in +order to get swiftly home, so forgetful of himself was he under +the terrible blow. That was the night of Saturday. On the day +following, being Sunday, he met Laetitia in his park, led her to +church, led her out of it, and the day after that, previous to his +disappearance for some weeks, was walking with her in full view of +the carriages along the road. + +He had, indeed, you see, been very fortunately, if not +considerately, liberated by Miss Durham. He, as a man of honour, +could not have taken the initiative, but the frenzy of a jealous +girl might urge her to such a course; and how little he suffered +from it had been shown to the world. Miss Durham, the story went, +was his mother's choice for him against his heart's inclinations; +which had finally subdued Lady Patterne. Consequently, there was +no longer an obstacle between Sir Willoughby and Miss Dale. It was +a pleasant and romantic story, and it put most people in good +humour with the county's favourite, as his choice of a portionless +girl of no position would not have done without the shock of +astonishment at the conduct of Miss Durham, and the desire to feel +that so prevailing a gentleman was not in any degree pitiable. +Constantia was called "that mad thing". Laetitia broke forth in +novel and abundant merits; and one of the chief points of +requisition in relation to Patterne--a Lady Willoughby who would +entertain well and animate the deadness of the Hall, became a +certainty when her gentleness and liveliness and exceeding +cleverness were considered. She was often a visitor at the Hall by +Lady Patterne's express invitation, and sometimes on these +occasions Willoughby was there too, superintending the filling up +of his laboratory, though he was not at home to the county; it was +not expected that he should be yet. He had taken heartily to the +pursuit of science, and spoke of little else. Science, he said, +was in our days the sole object worth a devoted pursuit. But the +sweeping remark could hardly apply to Laetitia, of whom he was the +courteous, quiet wooer you behold when a man has broken loose from +an unhappy tangle to return to the lady of his first and strongest +affections. + +Some months of homely courtship ensued, and then, the decent +interval prescribed by the situation having elapsed, Sir +Willoughby Patterne left his native land on a tour of the globe. + +CHAPTER IV + +Laetitia Dale + +That was another surprise to the county. + +Let us not inquire into the feelings of patiently starving women; +they must obtain some sustenance of their own, since, as you +perceive, they live; evidently they are not in need of a great +amount of nourishment; and we may set them down for creatures with +a rush-light of animal fire to warm them. They cannot have much +vitality who are so little exclamatory. A corresponding sentiment +of patient compassion, akin to scorn, is provoked by persons +having the opportunity for pathos, and declining to use it. The +public bosom was open to Laetitia for several weeks, and had she +run to it to bewail herself she would have been cherished in +thankfulness for a country drama. There would have been a party +against her, cold people, critical of her pretensions to rise from +an unrecognized sphere to be mistress of Patterne Hall, but there +would also have been a party against Sir Willoughby, composed of +the two or three revolutionists, tired of the yoke, which are to +be found in England when there is a stir; a larger number of born +sympathetics, ever ready to yield the tear for the tear; and here +and there a Samaritan soul prompt to succour poor humanity in +distress. The opportunity passed undramatized. Laetitia presented +herself at church with a face mildly devout, according to her +custom, and she accepted invitations to the Hall, she assisted at +the reading of Willoughby's letters to his family, and fed on dry +husks of him wherein her name was not mentioned; never one note of +the summoning call for pathos did this young lady blow. + +So, very soon the public bosom closed. She had, under the fresh +interpretation of affairs, too small a spirit to be Lady +Willoughby of Patterne; she could not have entertained becomingly; +he must have seen that the girl was not the match for him in +station, and off he went to conquer the remainder of a troublesome +first attachment, no longer extremely disturbing, to judge from +the tenour of his letters; really incomparable letters! Lady +Busshe and Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson enjoyed a perusal of them. +Sir Willoughby appeared as a splendid young representative island +lord in these letters to his family, despatched from the principal +cities of the United States of America. He would give them a +sketch of "our democratic cousins", he said. Such cousins! They +might all have been in the Marines. He carried his English +standard over that continent, and by simply jotting down facts, he +left an idea of the results of the measurement to his family and +friends at home. He was an adept in the irony of incongruously +grouping. The nature of the Equality under the stars and stripes +was presented in this manner. Equality! Reflections came +occasionally: "These cousins of ours are highly amusing. I am +among the descendants of the Roundheads. Now and then an allusion +to old domestic differences, in perfect good temper. We go on in +our way; they theirs, in the apparent belief that Republicanism +operates remarkable changes in human nature. Vernon tries hard to +think it does. The upper ten of our cousins are the Infernal of +Paris. The rest of them is Radical England, as far as I am +acquainted with that section of my country."--Where we compared, +they were absurd; where we contrasted, they were monstrous. The +contrast of Vernon's letters with Willoughby's was just as extreme. +You could hardly have taken them for relatives travelling +together, or Vernon Whitford for a born and bred Englishman. The +same scenes furnished by these two pens might have been sketched +in different hemispheres. Vernon had no irony. He had nothing of +Willoughby's epistolary creative power, which, causing his family +and friends to exclaim: "How like him that is!" conjured them +across the broad Atlantic to behold and clap hands at his +lordliness. + +They saw him distinctly, as with the naked eye; a word, a turn of +the pen, or a word unsaid, offered the picture of him in America, +Japan, China, Australia, nay, the continent of Europe, holding an +English review of his Maker's grotesques. Vernon seemed a +sheepish fellow, without stature abroad, glad of a compliment, +grateful for a dinner, endeavouring sadly to digest all he saw and +heard. But one was a Patterne; the other a Whitford. One had +genius; the other pottered after him with the title of student. +One was the English gentleman wherever he went; the other was a +new kind of thing, nondescript, produced in England of late, and +not likely to come to much good himself, or do much good to the +country. + +Vernon's dancing in America was capitally described by Willoughby. +"Adieu to our cousins!" the latter wrote on his voyage to Japan. +"I may possibly have had some vogue in their ball-rooms, and in +showing them an English seat on horseback: I must resign myself if +I have not been popular among them. I could not sing their +national song--if a congery of states be a nation--and I must +confess I listened with frigid politeness to their singing of it. +A great people, no doubt. Adieu to them. I have had to tear old +Vernon away. He had serious thoughts of settling, means to +correspond with some of them." On the whole, forgetting two or +more "traits of insolence" on the part of his hosts, which he +cited, Willoughby escaped pretty comfortably. The President had +been, consciously or not, uncivil, but one knew his origin! Upon +these interjections, placable flicks of the lionly tail addressed +to Britannia the Ruler, who expected him in some mildish way to +lash terga cauda in retiring, Sir Willoughby Patterne passed from +a land of alien manners; and ever after he spoke of America +respectfully and pensively, with a tail tucked in, as it were. His +travels were profitable to himself. The fact is, that there are +cousins who come to greatness and must be pacified, or they will +prove annoying. Heaven forefend a collision between cousins! + +Willoughby returned to his England after an absence of three +years. On a fair April morning, the last of the month, he drove +along his park palings, and, by the luck of things, Laetitia was +the first of his friends whom he met. She was crossing from field +to field with a band of school-children, gathering wild flowers +for the morrow May-day. He sprang to the ground and seized her +hand. "Laetitia Dale!" he said. He panted. "Your name is sweet +English music! And you are well?" The anxious question permitted +him to read deeply in her eyes. He found the man he sought there, +squeezed him passionately, and let her go, saying: "I could not +have prayed for a lovelier home-scene to welcome me than you and +these children flower-gathering. I don't believe in chance. It was +decreed that we should meet. Do not you think so?" + +Laetitia breathed faintly of her gladness. + +He begged her to distribute a gold coin among the little ones; +asked for the names of some of them, and repeated: "Mary, Susan, +Charlotte--only the Christian names, pray! Well, my dears, you +will bring your garlands to the Hall to-morrow morning; and mind, +early! no slugabeds tomorrow; I suppose I am browned, Laetitia?" He +smiled in apology for the foreign sun, and murmured with rapture: +"The green of this English country is unsurpassed. It is wonderful. +Leave England and be baked, if you would appreciate it. You can't, +unless you taste exile as I have done--for how many years? How +many?" + +"Three," said Laetitia. + +"Thirty!" said he. "It seems to me that length. At least, I am +immensely older. But looking at you, I could think it less than +three. You have not changed. You are absolutely unchanged. I am +bound to hope so. I shall see you soon. I have much to talk of, +much to tell you. I shall hasten to call on your father. I have +specially to speak with him. I--what happiness this is, Laetitia! +But I must not forget I have a mother. Adieu; for some hours--not +for many!" + +He pressed her hand again. He was gone. + +She dismissed the children to their homes. Plucking primroses was +hard labour now--a dusty business. She could have wished that her +planet had not descended to earth, his presence agitated her so; +but his enthusiastic patriotism was like a shower that, in the +Spring season of the year, sweeps against the hard-binding East +and melts the air and brings out new colours, makes life flow; and +her thoughts recurred in wonderment to the behaviour of Constantia +Durham. That was Laetitia's manner of taking up her weakness once +more. She could almost have reviled the woman who had given this +beneficent magician, this pathetic exile, of the aristocratic +sunburned visage and deeply scrutinizing eyes, cause for grief. +How deeply his eyes could read! The starveling of patience awoke +to the idea of a feast. The sense of hunger came with it, and hope +came, and patience fled. She would have rejected hope to keep +patience nigh her; but surely it can not always be Winter! said +her reasoning blood, and we must excuse her as best we can if she +was assured, by her restored warmth that Willoughby came in the +order of the revolving seasons, marking a long Winter past. He had +specially to speak with her father, he had said. What could that +mean? What, but--She dared not phrase it or view it. + +At their next meeting she was "Miss Dale". + +A week later he was closeted with her father. + +Mr. Dale, in the evening of that pregnant day, eulogized Sir +Willoughby as a landlord. A new lease of the cottage was to be +granted him on the old terms, he said. Except that Sir Willoughby +had congratulated him in the possession of an excellent daughter, +their interview was one of landlord and tenant, it appeared; and +Laetitia said, "So we shall not have to leave the cottage?" in a +tone of satisfaction, while she quietly gave a wrench to the neck +of the young hope in her breast. At night her diary received the +line: "This day I was a fool. To-morrow?" + +To-morrow and many days afterwards there were dashes instead of +words. + +Patience travelled back to her sullenly. As we must have some kind +of food, and she had nothing else, she took to that and found it +dryer than of yore. It is a composing but a lean dietary. The dead +are patient, and we get a certain likeness to them in feeding on +it unintermittingly overlong. Her hollowed cheeks with the fallen +leaf in them pleaded against herself to justify her idol for not +looking down on one like her. She saw him when he was at the Hall. +He did not notice any change. He was exceedingly gentle and +courteous. More than once she discovered his eyes dwelling on her, +and then he looked hurriedly at his mother, and Laetitia had to +shut her mind from thinking, lest thinking should be a sin and +hope a guilty spectre. But had his mother objected to her? She +could not avoid asking herself. His tour of the globe had been +undertaken at his mother's desire; she was an ambitious lady, in +failing health; and she wished to have him living with her at +Patterne, yet seemed to agree that he did wisely to reside in +London. + +One day Sir Willoughby, in the quiet manner which was +his humour, informed her that he had become a country +gentleman; he had abandoned London, he loathed it as the +burial-place of the individual man. He intended to sit down on +his estates and have his cousin Vernon Whitford to assist him +in managing them, he said; and very amusing was his description +of his cousin's shifts to live by literature, and add enough +to a beggarly income to get his usual two months of the year +in the Alps. Previous to his great tour, Willoughby had spoken +of Vernon's judgement with derision; nor was it entirely unknown +that Vernon had offended his family pride by some +extravagant act. But after their return he acknowledged +Vernon's talents, and seemed unable to do without him. + +The new arrangement gave Laetitia a companion for her walks. +Pedestrianism was a sour business to Willoughby, whose exclamation +of the word indicated a willingness for any amount of exercise on +horseback; but she had no horse, and so, while he hunted, Laetitia +and Vernon walked, and the neighbourhood speculated on the +circumstances, until the ladies Eleanor and Isabel Patterne +engaged her more frequently for carriage exercise, and Sir +Willoughby was observed riding beside them. + +A real and sunny pleasure befell Laetitia in the establishment of +young Crossjay Patterne under her roof; the son of the +lieutenant, now captain, of Marines; a boy of twelve with the +sprights of twelve boys in him, for whose board and lodgement +Vernon provided by arrangement with her father. Vernon was one of +your men that have no occupation for their money, no bills to pay +for repair of their property, and are insane to spend. He had +heard of Captain Patterne's large family, and proposed to have his +eldest boy at the Hall, to teach him; but Willoughby declined to +house the son of such a father, predicting that the boy's hair +would be red, his skin eruptive, and his practices detestable. So +Vernon, having obtained Mr. Dale's consent to accommodate this +youth, stalked off to Devonport, and brought back a rosy-cheeked, +round-bodied rogue of a boy, who fell upon meats and puddings, and +defeated them, with a captivating simplicity in his confession +that he had never had enough to eat in his life. He had gone +through a training for a plentiful table. At first, after a number +of helps, young Crossjay would sit and sigh heavily, in +contemplation of the unfinished dish. Subsequently, he told his +host and hostess that he had two sisters above his own age, and +three brothers and two sisters younger than he: "All hungry!" said +die boy. + +His pathos was most comical. It was a good month before he could +see pudding taken away from table without a sigh of regret that he +could not finish it as deputy for the Devonport household. The +pranks of the little fellow, and his revel in a country life, and +muddy wildness in it, amused Laetitia from morning to night. She. +when she had caught him, taught him in the morning; Vernon, +favoured by the chase, in the afternoon. Young Crossjay would have +enlivened any household. He was not only indolent, he was opposed +to the acquisition of knowledge through the medium of books, and +would say: "But I don't want to!" in a tone to make a logician +thoughtful. Nature was very strong in him. He had, on each return +of the hour for instruction, to be plucked out of the earth, rank +of the soil, like a root, for the exercise of his big round +headpiece on those tyrannous puzzles. But the habits of birds, and +the place for their eggs, and the management of rabbits, and the +tickling of fish, and poaching joys with combative boys of the +district, and how to wheedle a cook for a luncheon for a whole day +in the rain, he soon knew of his great nature. His passion for our +naval service was a means of screwing his attention to lessons +after he had begun to understand that the desert had to be +traversed to attain midshipman's rank. He boasted ardently of his +fighting father, and, chancing to be near the Hall as he was +talking to Vernon and Laetitia of his father, he propounded a +question close to his heart, and he put it in these words, +following: "My father's the one to lead an army!" when he paused. +"I say, Mr. Whitford, Sir Willoughby's kind to me, and gives me +crown-pieces, why wouldn't he see my father, and my father came +here ten miles in the rain to see him, and had to walk ten miles +back, and sleep at an inn?" + +The only answer to be given was, that Sir Willoughby could not +have been at home. "Oh! my father saw him, and Sir Willoughby said +he was not at home," the boy replied, producing an odd ring in the +ear by his repetition of "not at home" in the same voice as the +apology, plainly innocent of malice. Vernon told Laetitia, +however, that the boy never asked an explanation of Sir +Willoughby. + +Unlike the horse of the adage. it was easier to compel young +Crossjay to drink of the waters of instruction than to get him to +the brink. His heart was not so antagonistic as his nature, and by +degrees, owing to a proper mixture of discipline and cajolery, he +imbibed. He was whistling at the cook's windows after a day of +wicked truancy, on an April night, and reported adventures over +the supper supplied to him. Laetitia entered the kitchen with a +reproving forefinger. He jumped to kiss her, and went on +chattering of a place fifteen miles distant, where he had seen Sir +Willoughby riding with a young lady. The impossibility that the +boy should have got so far on foot made Laetitia doubtful of his +veracity, until she heard that a gentleman had taken him up on the +road in a gig, and had driven him to a farm to show him strings of +birds" eggs and stuffed birds of every English kind, kingfishers, +yaffles, black woodpeckers, goat-sucker owls, more mouth than head, +with dusty, dark-spotted wings, like moths; all very +circumstantial. Still, in spite of his tea at the farm, and ride +back by rail at the gentleman's expense, the tale seemed +fictitious to Laetitia until Crossjay related how that he had +stood to salute on the road to the railway, and taken off his cap +to Sir Willoughby, and Sir Willoughby had passed him, not noticing +him, though the young lady did, and looked back and nodded. The +hue of truth was in that picture. + +Strange eclipse, when the hue of truth comes shadowing over our +bright ideal planet. It will not seem the planet's fault, but +truth's. Reality is the offender; delusion our treasure that we +are robbed of. Then begins with us the term of wilful delusion, and +its necessary accompaniment of the disgust of reality; exhausting +the heart much more than patient endurance of starvation. + +Hints were dropping about the neighbourhood; the hedgeways +twittered, the tree-tops cawed. Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson was +loud on the subject: "Patterne is to have a mistress at last, you +say? But there never was a doubt of his marrying--he must marry; +and, so long as he does not marry a foreign woman, we have no +cause to complain. He met her at Cherriton. Both were struck at +the same moment. Her father is, I hear, some sort of learned man; +money; no land. No house either, I believe. People who spend half +their time on the Continent. They are now for a year at Upton +Park. The very girl to settle down and entertain when she does +think of settling. Eighteen, perfect manners; you need not ask if +a beauty. Sir Willoughby will have his dues. We must teach her to +make amends to him--but don't listen to Lady Busshe! He was too +young at twenty-three or twenty-four. No young man is ever jilted; +he is allowed to escape. A young man married is a fire-eater bound +over to keep the peace; if he keeps it he worries it. At +thirty-one or thirty-two he is ripe for his command, because he +knows how to bend. And Sir Willoughby is a splendid creature, only +wanting a wife to complete him. For a man like that to go on +running about would never do. Soberly--no! It would soon be +getting ridiculous. He has been no worse than other men, probably +better--infinitely more excusable; but now we have him, and it +was time we should. I shall see her and study her, sharply, you +may be sure; though I fancy I can rely on his judgement." + +In confirmation of the swelling buzz, the Rev. Dr. Middleton and +his daughter paid a flying visit to the Hall, where they were seen +only by the members of the Patterne family. Young Crossjay had a +short conversation with Miss Middleton, and ran to the cottage +full of her--she loved the navy and had a merry face. She had a +smile of very pleasant humour according to Vernon. The young lady +was outlined to Laetitia as tall, elegant, lively; and painted as +carrying youth like a flag. With her smile of "very pleasant +humour", she could not but be winning. + +Vernon spoke more of her father, a scholar of high repute; +happily, a scholar of an independent fortune. His maturer +recollection of Miss Middleton grew poetic, or he described her in +an image to suit a poetic end: "She gives you an idea of the +Mountain Echo. Doctor Middleton has one of the grandest heads in +England." + +"What is her Christian name?" said Laetitia. + +He thought her Christian name was Clara. + +Laetitia went to bed and walked through the day conceiving the +Mountain Echo the swift, wild spirit, Clara by name, sent fleeting +on a far half circle by the voice it is roused to subserve; +sweeter than beautiful, high above drawing-room beauties as the +colours of the sky; and if, at the same time, elegant and of +loveable smiling, could a man resist her? To inspire the title of +Mountain Echo in any mind, a young lady must be singularly +spiritualized. Her father doated on her, Vernon said. Who would +not? It seemed an additional cruelty that the grace of a poetical +attractiveness should be round her, for this was robbing Laetitia +of some of her own little fortune, mystical though that might be. +But a man like Sir Willoughby had claims on poetry, possessing as +he did every manly grace; and to think that Miss Middleton had won +him by virtue of something native to her likewise, though +mystically, touched Laetitia with a faint sense of relationship to +the chosen girl. "What is in me, he sees on her." It decked her +pride to think so, as a wreath on the gravestone. She encouraged +her imagination to brood over Clara, and invested her designedly +with romantic charms, in spite of pain; the ascetic zealot hugs +his share of Heaven--most bitter, most blessed--in his +hair-shirt and scourge, and Laetitia's happiness was to glorify +Clara. Through that chosen rival, through her comprehension of +the spirit of Sir Willoughby's choice of one such as Clara, she +was linked to him yet. + +Her mood of ecstatic fidelity was a dangerous exaltation; one that +in a desert will distort the brain, and in the world where the +idol dwells will put him, should he come nigh, to its own +furnace-test, and get a clear brain out of a burnt heart. She was +frequently at the Hall, helping to nurse Lady Patterne. Sir +Willoughby had hitherto treated her as a dear insignificant +friend, to whom it was unnecessary that he should mention the +object of his rides to Upton Park. + +He had, however, in the contemplation of what he was gaining, +fallen into anxiety about what he might be losing. She belonged +to his brilliant youth; her devotion was the bride of his youth; +he was a man who lived backward almost as intensely as in the +present; and, notwithstanding Laetitia's praiseworthy zeal in +attending on his mother, he suspected some unfaithfulness: hardly +without cause: she had not looked paler of late; her eyes had not +reproached him; the secret of the old days between them had been +as little concealed as it was exposed. She might have buried it, +after the way of woman, whose bosoms can be tombs, if we and the +world allow them to be; absolutely sepulchres, where you lie dead, +ghastly. Even if not dead and horrible to think of, you may be +lying cold, somewhere in a corner. Even if embalmed, you may not +be much visited. And how is the world to know you are embalmed? +You are no better than a rotting wretch to the world that does not +have peeps of you in the woman's breast, and see lights burning +and an occasional exhibition of the services of worship. There are +women--tell us not of her of Ephesus!--that have embalmed you, +and have quitted the world to keep the tapers alight, and a +stranger comes, and they, who have your image before them, will +suddenly blow out the vestal flames and treat you as dust to +fatten the garden of their bosoms for a fresh flower of love. Sir +Willoughby knew it; he had experience of it in the form of the +stranger; and he knew the stranger's feelings toward his +predecessor and the lady. + +He waylaid Laetitia, to talk of himself and his plans: the project +of a run to Italy. Enviable? Yes, but in England you live the +higher moral life. Italy boasts of sensual beauty; the spiritual +is yours. "I know Italy well; I have often wished to act as a +cicerone to you there. As it is, I suppose I shall be with those +who know the land as well as I do, and will not be particularly +enthusiastic:--if you are what you were?" He was guilty of this +perplexing twist from one person to another in a sentence more +than once. While he talked exclusively of himself it seemed to her +a condescension. In time he talked principally of her, beginning +with her admirable care of his mother; and he wished to introduce +"a Miss Middleton" to her; he wanted her opinion of Miss +Middleton; he relied on her intuition of character, had never +known it err. + +"If I supposed it could err, Miss Dale, I should not be so certain +of myself. I am bound up in my good opinion of you, you see; and +you must continue the same, or where shall I be?" Thus he was led +to dwell upon friendship, and the charm of the friendship of men +and women, "Platonism", as it was called. "I have laughed at it in +the world, but not in the depth of my heart. The world's platonic +attachments are laughable enough. You have taught me that the +ideal of friendship is possible--when we find two who are capable +of a disinterested esteem. The rest of life is duty; duty to +parents, duty to country. But friendship is the holiday of those +who can be friends. Wives are plentiful, friends are rare. I know +how rare!" + +Laetitia swallowed her thoughts as they sprang up. Why was he +torturing her?--to give himself a holiday? She could bear to lose +him--she was used to it--and bear his indifference, but not that +he should disfigure himself; it made her poor. It was as if he +required an oath of her when he said: "Italy! But I shall never +see a day in Italy to compare with the day of my return to +England, or know a pleasure so exquisite as your welcome of me. +Will you be true to that? May I look forward to just another such +meeting?" + +He pressed her for an answer. She gave the best she could. He was +dissatisfied, and to her hearing it was hardly in the tone of +manliness that he entreated her to reassure him; he womanized his +language. She had to say: "I am afraid I can not undertake to make +it an appointment, Sir Willoughby," before he recovered his +alertness, which he did, for he was anything but obtuse, with the +reply, "You would keep it if you promised, and freeze at your post. +So, as accidents happen, we must leave it to fate. The will's the +thing. You know my detestation of changes. At least I have you for +my tenant, and wherever I am, I see your light at the end of my +park." + +"Neither my father nor I would willingly quit Ivy Cottage," said +Laetitia. + +"So far, then," he murmured. "You will give me a long notice, and +it must be with my consent if you think of quitting?" + +"I could almost engage to do that," she said. + +"You love the place?" + +"Yes; I am the most contented of cottagers." + +"I believe, Miss Dale, it would be well for my happiness were I a +cottager." + +"That is the dream of the palace. But to be one, and not to wish +to be other, is quiet sleep in comparison." + +"You paint a cottage in colours that tempt one to run from big +houses and households." + +"You would run back to them faster, Sir Willoughby." + +"You may know me," said he, bowing and passing on contentedly. +He stopped. "But I am not ambitious." + +"Perhaps you are too proud for ambition, Sir Willoughby." + +"You hit me to the life!" + +He passed on regretfully. Clara Middleton did not study and know +him like Laetitia Dale. + +Laetitia was left to think it pleased him to play at cat and mouse. +She had not "hit him to the life", or she would have marvelled in +acknowledging how sincere he was. + +At her next sitting by the bedside of Lady Patterne she received a +certain measure of insight that might have helped her to fathom +him, if only she could have kept her feelings down. + +The old lady was affectionately confidential in talking of her one +subject, her son. "And here is another dashing girl, my dear; she +has money and health and beauty; and so has he; and it appears a +fortunate union; I hope and pray it may be; but we begin to read +the world when our eyes grow dim, because we read the plain lines, +and I ask myself whether money and health and beauty on both sides +have not been the mutual attraction. We tried it before; and that +girl Durham was honest, whatever we may call her. I should have +desired an appreciative thoughtful partner for him, a woman of +mind, with another sort of wealth and beauty. She was honest, she +ran away in time; there was a worse thing possible than that. And +now we have the same chapter, and the same kind of person, who may +not be quite as honest; and I shall not see the end of it. +Promise me you will always be good to him; be my son's friend; his +Egeria, he names you. Be what you were to him when that girl broke +his heart, and no one, not even his mother, was allowed to see +that he suffered anything. Comfort him in his sensitiveness. +Willoughby has the most entire faith in you. Were that destroyed-- +I shudder! You are, he says, and he has often said, his image of +the constant woman. + +Laetitia's hearing took in no more. She repeated to herself for +days: "His image of the constant woman!" Now, when he was a second +time forsaking her, his praise of her constancy wore the painful +ludicrousness of the look of a whimper on the face. + + +CHAPTER V + +Clara Middleton + +The great meeting of Sir Willoughby Patterne and Miss Middleton +had taken place at Cherriton Grange, the seat of a county grandee, +where this young lady of eighteen was first seen rising above the +horizon. She had money and health and beauty, the triune of +perfect starriness, which makes all men astronomers. He looked on +her, expecting her to look at him. But as soon as he looked he +found that he must be in motion to win a look in return. He was +one of a pack; many were ahead of him, the whole of them were +eager. He had to debate within himself how best to communicate to +her that he was Willoughby Patterne, before her gloves were too +much soiled to flatter his niceness, for here and there, all +around, she was yielding her hand to partners--obscurant males +whose touch leaves a stain. Far too generally gracious was Her +Starriness to please him. The effect of it, nevertheless, was to +hurry him with all his might into the heat of the chase, while yet +he knew no more of her than that he was competing for a prize, and +Willoughby Patterne was only one of dozens to the young lady. + +A deeper student of Science than his rivals, he appreciated +Nature's compliment in the fair ones choice of you. We now +scientifically know that in this department of the universal +struggle, success is awarded to the bettermost. You spread a +handsomer tail than your fellows, you dress a finer top-knot, you +pipe a newer note, have a longer stride; she reviews you in +competition, and selects you. The superlative is magnetic to her. +She may be looking elsewhere, and you will see--the superlative +will simply have to beckon, away she glides. She cannot help +herself; it is her nature, and her nature is the guarantee for the +noblest races of men to come of her. In complimenting you, she is +a promise of superior offspring. Science thus--or it is better to +say--an acquaintance with science facilitates the cultivation of +aristocracy. Consequently a successful pursuit and a wresting of +her from a body of competitors, tells you that you are the best +man. What is more, it tells the world so. + +Willoughby aired his amiable superlatives in the eye of Miss +Middleton; he had a leg. He was the heir of successful +competitors. He had a style, a tone, an artist tailor, an +authority of manner; he had in the hopeful ardour of the chase +among a multitude a freshness that gave him advantage; and +together with his undeviating energy when there was a prize to be +won and possessed, these were scarce resistible. He spared no +pains, for he was adust and athirst for the winning-post. He +courted her father, aware that men likewise, and parents +pre-eminently, have their preference for the larger offer, the +deeper pocket, the broader lands, the respectfuller consideration. +Men, after their fashion, as well as women, distinguish the +bettermost, and aid him to succeed, as Dr. Middleton certainly did +in the crisis of the memorable question proposed to his daughter +within a month of Willoughby's reception at Upton Park. The young +lady was astonished at his whirlwind wooing of her, and bent to it +like a sapling. She begged for time; Willoughby could barely wait. +She unhesitatingly owned that she liked no one better, and he +consented. A calm examination of his position told him that it was +unfair so long as he stood engaged, and she did not. She pleaded a +desire to see a little of the world before she plighted herself. +She alarmed him; he assumed the amazing god of love under the +subtlest guise of the divinity. Willingly would he obey her +behests, resignedly languish, were it not for his mother's desire +to see the future lady of Patterne established there before she +died. Love shone cunningly through the mask of filial duty, but +the plea of urgency was reasonable. Dr. Middleton thought it +reasonable, supposing his daughter to have an inclination. She had +no disinclination, though she had a maidenly desire to see a +little of the world--grace for one year, she said. Willoughby +reduced the year to six months, and granted that term, for which, +in gratitude, she submitted to stand engaged; and that was no +light whispering of a word. She was implored to enter the state of +captivity by the pronunciation of vows--a private but a binding +ceremonial. She had health and beauty, and money to gild these +gifts; not that he stipulated for money with his bride, but it +adds a lustre to dazzle the world; and, moreover, the pack of +rival pursuers hung close behind, yelping and raising their +dolorous throats to the moon. Captive she must be. + +He made her engagement no light whispering matter. It was a solemn +plighting of a troth. Why not? Having said, I am yours, she could +say, I am wholly yours, I am yours forever, I swear it, I will +never swerve from it, I am your wife in heart, yours utterly; our +engagement is written above. To this she considerately appended, +"as far as I am concerned"; a piece of somewhat chilling +generosity, and he forced her to pass him through love's catechism +in turn, and came out with fervent answers that bound him to her +too indissolubly to let her doubt of her being loved. And I am +loved! she exclaimed to her heart's echoes, in simple faith and +wonderment. Hardly had she begun to think of love ere the +apparition arose in her path. She had not thought of love with any +warmth, and here it was. She had only dreamed of love as one of +the distant blessings of the mighty world, lying somewhere in the +world's forests, across wild seas, veiled, encompassed with +beautiful perils, a throbbing secrecy, but too remote to quicken +her bosom's throbs. Her chief idea of it was, the enrichment of +the world by love. + +Thus did Miss Middleton acquiesce in the principle of selection. + +And then did the best man of a host blow his triumphant horn, and +loudly. + +He looked the fittest; he justified the dictum of Science. The +survival of the Patternes was assured. "I would," he said to his +admirer, Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, "have bargained for health +above everything, but she has everything besides--lineage, +beauty, breeding: is what they call an heiress, and is the most +accomplished of her sex." With a delicate art he conveyed to the +lady's understanding that Miss Middleton had been snatched from a +crowd, without a breath of the crowd having offended his niceness. +He did it through sarcasm at your modern young women, who run about +the world nibbling and nibbled at, until they know one sex as well +as the other, and are not a whit less cognizant of the market than +men; pure, possibly; it is not so easy to say innocent; decidedly +not our feminine ideal. Miss Middleton was different: she was the +true ideal, fresh-gathered morning fruit in a basket, warranted by +her bloom. + +Women do not defend their younger sisters for doing what they +perhaps have done--lifting a veil to be seen, and peeping at a +world where innocence is as poor a guarantee as a babe's caul +against shipwreck. Women of the world never think of attacking the +sensual stipulation for perfect bloom, silver purity, which is +redolent of the Oriental origin of the love-passion of their +lords. Mrs. Mountstuart congratulated Sir Willoughby on the +prize he had won in the fair western-eastern. + + +"Let me see her," she said; and Miss Middleton was introduced +and critically observed. + +She had the mouth that smiles in repose. The lips met full on the +centre of the bow and thinned along to a lifting dimple; the +eyelids also lifted slightly at the outer corners, and seemed, +like the lip into the limpid cheek, quickening up the temples, as +with a run of light, or the ascension indicated off a shoot of +colour. Her features were playfellows of one another, none of them +pretending to rigid correctness, nor the nose to the ordinary +dignity of governess among merry girls, despite which the nose was +of a fair design, not acutely interrogative or inviting to +gambols. Aspens imaged in water, waiting for the breeze, would +offer a susceptible lover some suggestion of her face: a pure, +smooth-white face, tenderly flushed in the cheeks, where the +gentle dints, were faintly intermelting even during quietness. Her +eyes were brown, set well between mild lids, often shadowed, not +unwakeful. Her hair of lighter brown, swelling above her temples +on the sweep to the knot, imposed the triangle of the fabulous +wild woodland visage from brow to mouth and chin, evidently in +agreement with her taste; and the triangle suited her; but her +face was not significant of a tameless wildness or of weakness; +her equable shut mouth threw its long curve to guard the small +round chin from that effect; her eyes wavered only in humour, they +were steady when thoughtfulness was awakened; and at such seasons +the build of her winter-beechwood hair lost the touch of nymphlike +and whimsical, and strangely, by mere outline, added to her +appearance of studious concentration. Observe the hawk on +stretched wings over the prey he spies, for an idea of this change +in the look of a young lady whom Vernon Whitford could liken to +the Mountain Echo, and Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson pronounced to be +"a dainty rogue in porcelain". + +Vernon's fancy of her must have sprung from her prompt and most +musical responsiveness. He preferred the society of her learned +father to that of a girl under twenty engaged to his cousin, but +the charm of her ready tongue and her voice was to his intelligent +understanding wit, natural wit, crystal wit, as opposed to the +paste-sparkle of the wit of the town. In his encomiums he did not +quote Miss Middleton's wit; nevertheless, he ventured to speak of +it to Mrs. Mountstuart, causing that lady to say: "Ah, well, I +have not noticed the wit. You may have the art of drawing it out." + +No one had noticed the wit. The corrupted hearing of people +required a collision of sounds, Vernon supposed. For his part, to +prove their excellence, he recollected a great many of Miss +Middleton's remarks; they came flying to him; and so long as he +forbore to speak them aloud, they had a curious wealth of meaning. +It could not be all her manner, however much his own manner might +spoil them. It might be, to a certain degree, her quickness at +catching the hue and shade of evanescent conversation. Possibly by +remembering the whole of a conversation wherein she had her place, +the wit was to be tested; only how could any one retain the heavy +portion? As there was no use in being argumentative on a subject +affording him personally, and apparently solitarily, refreshment +and enjoyment, Vernon resolved to keep it to himself. The eulogies +of her beauty, a possession in which he did not consider her so +very conspicuous, irritated him in consequence. To flatter Sir +Willoughby, it was the fashion to exalt her as one of the types of +beauty; the one providentially selected to set off his masculine +type. She was compared to those delicate flowers, the ladies of +the Court of China, on rice-paper. A little French dressing would +make her at home on the sward by the fountain among the lutes and +whispers of the bewitching silken shepherdesses who live though +they never were. Lady Busshe was reminded of the favourite +lineaments of the women of Leonardo, the angels of Luini. Lady +Culmer had seen crayon sketches of demoiselles of the French +aristocracy resembling her. Some one mentioned an antique statue +of a figure breathing into a flute: and the mouth at the flutestop +might have a distant semblance of the bend of her mouth, but this +comparison was repelled as grotesque. + +For once Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson was unsuccessful. + +Her "dainty rogue in porcelain" displeased Sir Willoughby. "Why +rogue?" he said. The lady's fame for hitting the mark fretted him, +and the grace of his bride's fine bearing stood to support him in +his objection. Clara was young, healthy, handsome; she was +therefore fitted to be his wife, the mother of his children, his +companion picture. Certainly they looked well side by side. In +walking with her, in drooping to her, the whole man was made +conscious of the female image of himself by her exquisite +unlikeness. She completed him, added the softer lines wanting to +his portrait before the world. He had wooed her rageingly; he +courted her becomingly; with the manly self-possession enlivened +by watchful tact which is pleasing to girls. He never seemed to +undervalue himself in valuing her: a secret priceless in the +courtship of young women that have heads; the lover doubles their +sense of personal worth through not forfeiting his own. Those were +proud and happy days when he rode Black Norman over to Upton Park, +and his lady looked forth for him and knew him coming by the +faster beating of her heart. + +Her mind, too, was receptive. She took impressions of his +characteristics, and supplied him a feast. She remembered his +chance phrases; noted his ways, his peculiarities, as no one of +her sex had done. He thanked his cousin Vernon for saying she had +wit. She had it, and of so high a flavour that the more he thought +of the epigram launched at her the more he grew displeased. With +the wit to understand him, and the heart to worship, she had a +dignity rarely seen in young ladies. + +"Why rogue?" he insisted with Mrs. Mountstuart. + +"I said--in porcelain," she replied. + +"Rogue perplexes me." + +"Porcelain explains it." + +"She has the keenest sense of honour." + +"I am sure she is a paragon of rectitude." + +"She has a beautiful bearing." + +"The carriage of a young princess!" + +"I find her perfect." + +"And still she may be a dainty rogue in porcelain." + +"Are you judging by the mind or the person, ma'am?" + +"Both." + +"And which is which?" + +"There's no distinction." + +"Rogue and mistress of Patterne do not go together." + +"Why not? She will be a novelty to our neighbourhood and an +animation of the Hall." + +"To be frank, rogue does not rightly match with me." + +"Take her for a supplement." + +"You like her?" + +"In love with her! I can imagine life-long amusement in her +company. Attend to my advice: prize the porcelain and play with +the rogue." + +Sir Willoughby nodded, unilluminated. There was nothing of rogue +in himself, so there could be nothing of it in his bride. +Elfishness, tricksiness, freakishness, were antipathetic to his +nature; and he argued that it was impossible he should have chosen +for his complement a person deserving the title. It would not have +been sanctioned by his guardian genius. His closer acquaintance +with Miss Middleton squared with his first impressions; you know +that this is convincing; the common jury justifies the +presentation of the case to them by the grand jury; and his +original conclusion that she was essentially feminine, in other +words, a parasite and a chalice, Clara's conduct confirmed from +day to day. He began to instruct her in the knowledge of himself +without reserve, and she, as she grew less timid with him, became +more reflective. + +"I judge by character," he said to Mrs. Mountstuart. + +"If you have caught the character of a girl," said she. + +"I think I am not far off it." + +"So it was thought by the man who dived for the moon in a well." + +"How women despise their sex!" + +"Not a bit. She has no character yet. You are forming it, and pray +be advised and be merry; the solid is your safest guide; +physiognomy and manners will give you more of a girl's character +than all the divings you can do. She is a charming young woman, +only she is one of that sort." + +"Of what sort?" Sir Willoughby asked, impatiently. + +"Rogues in porcelain." + +"I am persuaded I shall never comprehend it." + +"I cannot help you one bit further." + +"The word rogue!" + +"It was dainty rogue." + +"Brittle, would you say?" + +"I am quite unable to say.? + +"An innocent naughtiness?" + +"Prettily moulded in a delicate substance." + +"You are thinking of some piece of Dresden you suppose her to +resemble." + +"I dare say." + +"Artificial?" + +"You would not have her natural?" + +"I am heartily satisfied with her from head to foot, my dear +Mrs. Mountstuart." + +"Nothing could be better. And sometimes she will lead, and +generally you will lead, and everything will go well, my dear +Sir Willoughby." + +Like all rapid phrasers, Mrs. Mountstuart detested the analysis of +her sentence. It had an outline in vagueness, and was flung out to +be apprehended, not dissected. Her directions for the reading of +Miss Middleton's character were the same that she practised in +reading Sir Willoughby's, whose physiognomy and manners bespoke +him what she presumed him to be, a splendidly proud gentleman, +with good reason. + +Mrs. Mountstuart's advice was wiser than her procedure, for she +stopped short where he declined to begin. He dived below the +surface without studying that index-page. He had won Miss +Middleton's hand; he believed he had captured her heart; but he +was not so certain of his possession of her soul, and he went +after it. Our enamoured gentleman had therefore no tally of +Nature's writing above to set beside his discoveries in the deeps. +Now it is a dangerous accompaniment of this habit of driving, that +where we do not light on the discoveries we anticipate, we fall to +work sowing and planting; which becomes a disturbance of the +gentle bosom. Miss Middleton's features were legible as to the +mainspring of her character. He could have seen that she had a +spirit with a natural love of liberty, and required the next thing +to liberty, spaciousness, if she was to own allegiance. Those +features, unhappily, instead of serving for an introduction to the +within, were treated as the mirror of himself. They were indeed of +an amiable sweetness to tempt an accepted lover to angle for the +first person in the second. But he had made the discovery that +their minds differed on one or two points, and a difference of +view in his bride was obnoxious to his repose. He struck at it +recurringly to show her error under various aspects. He desired to +shape her character to the feminine of his own, and betrayed the +surprise of a slight disappointment at her advocacy of her ideas. +She said immediately: "It is not too late, Willoughby," and +wounded him, for he wanted her simply to be material in his hands +for him to mould her; he had no other thought. He lectured her on +the theme of the infinity of love. How was it not too late? They +were plighted; they were one eternally; they could not be parted. +She listened gravely, conceiving the infinity as a narrow dwelling +where a voice droned and ceased not. However, she listened. She +became an attentive listener. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +His Courtship + +The world was the principal topic of dissension between these +lovers. His opinion of the world affected her like a creature +threatened with a deprivation of air. He explained to his darling +that lovers of necessity do loathe the world. They live in the +world, they accept its benefits, and assist it as well as they +can. In their hearts they must despise it, shut it out, that their +love for one another may pour in a clear channel, and with all the +force they have. They cannot enjoy the sense of security for their +love unless they fence away the world. It is, you will allow, +gross; it is a beast. Formally we thank it for the good we get of +it; only we two have an inner temple where the worship we conduct +is actually, if you would but see it, an excommunication of the +world. We abhor that beast to adore that divinity. This gives us +our oneness, our isolation, our happiness. This is to love with +the soul. Do you see, darling? + +She shook her head; she could not see it. She would admit none of +the notorious errors, of the world; its backbiting, selfishness, +coarseness, intrusiveness, infectiousness. She was young. She +might, Willoughby thought, have let herself be led; she was not +docile. She must be up in arms as a champion of the world; and one +saw she was hugging her dream of a romantic world, nothing else. +She spoilt the secret bower-song he delighted to tell over to her. +And how, Powers of Love! is love-making to be pursued if we may +not kick the world out of our bower and wash our hands of it? Love +that does not spurn the world when lovers curtain themselves is a +love--is it not so?--that seems to the unwhipped, scoffing world +to go slinking into basiation's obscurity, instead of on a +glorious march behind the screen. Our hero had a strong sentiment +as to the policy of scorning the world for the sake of defending +his personal pride and (to his honour, be it said) his lady's +delicacy. + +The act of seeming put them both above the world, said retro +Sathanas! So much, as a piece of tactics: he was highly civilized: +in the second instance, he knew it to be the world which must +furnish the dry sticks for the bonfire of a woman's worship. He +knew, too, that he was prescribing poetry to his betrothed, +practicable poetry. She had a liking for poetry, and sometimes +quoted the stuff in defiance of his pursed mouth and pained +murmur: "I am no poet;" but his poetry of the enclosed and +fortified bower, without nonsensical rhymes to catch the ears of +women, appeared incomprehensible to her, if not adverse. She would +not burn the world for him; she would not, though a purer poetry +is little imaginable, reduce herself to ashes, or incense, or +essence, in honour of him, and so, by love's transmutation, +literally be the man she was to marry. She preferred to be +herself, with the egoism of women. She said it: she said: I must +be myself to be of any value to you, Willoughby." He was +indefatigable in his lectures on the aesthetics of love. +Frequently, for an indemnification to her (he had no desire that +she should be a loser by ceasing to admire the world), he dwelt on +his own youthful ideas; and his original fancies about the world +were presented to her as a substitute for the theme. + +Miss Middleton bore it well, for she was sure that he meant well. +Bearing so well what was distasteful to her, she became less well +able to bear what she had merely noted in observation before; his +view of scholarship; his manner toward Mr. Vernon Whitford, of whom +her father spoke warmly; the rumour concerning his treatment of a +Miss Dale. And the country tale of Constantia Durham sang itself +to her in a new key. He had no contempt for the world's praises. +Mr. Whitford wrote the letters to the county paper which gained him +applause at various great houses, and he accepted it, and betrayed +a tingling fright lest he should be the victim of a sneer of the +world he contemned. Recollecting his remarks, her mind was +afflicted by the "something illogical" in him that we readily +discover when our natures are no longer running free, and then at +once we yearn for a disputation. She resolved that she would one +day, one distant day, provoke it--upon what? The special point +eluded her. The world is too huge a client, and too pervious, too +spotty, for a girl to defend against a man. That "something +illogical" had stirred her feelings more than her intellect to +revolt. She could not constitute herself the advocate of Mr. +Whitford. Still she marked the disputation for an event to come. + +Meditating on it, she fell to picturing Sir Willoughby's face at +the first accents of his bride's decided disagreement with him. +The picture once conjured up would not be laid. He was handsome; +so correctly handsome, that a slight unfriendly touch precipitated +him into caricature. His habitual air of happy pride, of indignant +contentment rather, could easily be overdone. Surprise, when he +threw emphasis on it, stretched him with the tall eyebrows of a +mask--limitless under the spell of caricature; and in time, +whenever she was not pleased by her thoughts, she had that, and +not his likeness, for the vision of him. And it was unjust, +contrary to her deeper feelings; she rebuked herself, and as much +as her naughty spirit permitted, she tried to look on him as the +world did; an effort inducing reflections upon the blessings of +ignorance. She seemed to herself beset by a circle of imps, hardly +responsible for her thoughts. + +He outshone Mr. Whitford in his behaviour to young Crossjay. She +had seen him with the boy, and he was amused, indulgent, almost +frolicsome, in contradistinction to Mr. Whitford's tutorly +sharpness. He had the English father's tone of a liberal allowance +for boys" tastes and pranks, and he ministered to the partiality +of the genus for pocket-money. He did not play the schoolmaster, +like bookworms who get poor little lads in their grasp. + +Mr. Whitford avoided her very much. He came to Upton Park on a +visit to her father, and she was not particularly sorry that she +saw him only at table. He treated her by fits to a level scrutiny +of deep-set eyes unpleasantly penetrating. She had liked his eyes. +They became unbearable; they dwelt in the memory as if they had +left a phosphorescent line. She had been taken by playmate boys in +her infancy to peep into hedge-leaves, where the mother-bird +brooded on the nest; and the eyes of the bird in that marvellous +dark thickset home, had sent her away with worlds of fancy. Mr. +Whitford's gaze revived her susceptibility, but not the old happy +wondering. She was glad of his absence, after a certain hour that +she passed with Willoughby, a wretched hour to remember. Mr. +Whitford had left, and Willoughby came, bringing bad news of his +mother's health. Lady Patterne was fast failing. Her son spoke of +the loss she would be to him; he spoke of the dreadfulness of +death. He alluded to his own death to come carelessly, with a +philosophical air. + +"All of us must go! our time is short." + +"Very," she assented. + +It sounded like want of feeling. + +"If you lose me, Clara!" + +"But you are strong, Willoughby." + +"I may be cut off to-morrow." + +"Do not talk in such a manner." + +"It is as well that it should be faced." + +"I cannot see what purpose it serves." + +"Should you lose me, my love!" + +"Willoughby!" + +"Oh, the bitter pang of leaving you!" + +"Dear Willoughby, you are distressed; your mother may recover; let +us hope she will; I will help to nurse her; I have offered, you +know; I am ready, most anxious. I believe I am a good nurse." + +"It is this belief--that one does not die with death!" + +"That is our comfort." + +"When we love?" + +"Does it not promise that we meet again?" + +"To walk the world and see you perhaps--with another!" + +"See me?--Where? Here?" + +"Wedded ... to another. You! my bride; whom I call mine; and you +are! You would be still--in that horror! But all things are +possible; women are women; they swim in infidelity, from wave to +wave! I know them." + +"Willoughby, do not torment yourself and me, I beg you." + +He meditated profoundly, and asked her: "Could you be such a saint +among women?" + +"I think I am a more than usually childish girl." + +"Not to forget me?" + +"Oh! no." + +"Still to be mine?" + +"I am yours." + +"To plight yourself?" + +"It is done." + +"Be mine beyond death?" + +"Married is married, I think." + +"Clara! to dedicate your life to our love! Never one touch; not +one whisper! not a thought, not a dream! Could you--it agonizes +me to imagine ... be inviolate? mine above?--mine before all men, +though I am gone:--true to my dust? Tell me. Give me that +assurance. True to my name!--Oh, I hear them. 'His relict!' +Buzzings about Lady Patterne. 'The widow.' If you knew their talk +of widows! Shut your ears, my angel! But if she holds them off +and keeps her path, they are forced to respect her. The dead +husband is not the dishonoured wretch they fancied him, because he +was out of their way. He lives in the heart of his wife. Clara! my +Clara! as I live in yours, whether here or away; whether you are a +wife or widow, there is no distinction for love--I am your +husband--say it--eternally. I must have peace; I cannot endure +the pain. Depressed, yes; I have cause to be. But it has haunted +me ever since we joined hands. To have you--to lose you!" + +"Is it not possible that I may be the first to die?" said Miss +Middleton. + +"And lose you, with the thought that you, lovely as you are, and +the dogs of the world barking round you, might ... Is it any +wonder that I have my feeling for the world? This hand!--the +thought is horrible. You would be surrounded; men are brutes; the +scent of unfaithfulness excites them, overjoys them. And I +helpless! The thought is maddening. I see a ring of monkeys +grinning. There is your beauty, and man's delight in desecrating. +You would be worried night and day to quit my name, to. . . I feel +the blow now. You would have no rest for them, nothing to cling to +without your oath." + +"An oath!" said Miss Middleton. + +"It is no delusion, my love, when I tell you that with this +thought upon me I see a ring of monkey faces grinning at me; they +haunt me. But you do swear it! Once, and I will never trouble you +on the subject again. My weakness! if you like. You will learn +that it is love, a man's love, stronger than death." + +"An oath?" she said, and moved her lips to recall what she +might have said and forgotten. "To what? what oath?" + +"That you will be true to me dead as well as living! Whisper +it." + +"Willoughby, I shall be true to my vows at the altar." + +"To me! me!" + +"It will be to you." + +"To my soul. No heaven can be for me--I see none, only torture, +unless I have your word, Clara. I trust it. I will trust it +implicitly. My confidence in you is absolute." + +"Then you need not be troubled." + +"It is for you, my love; that you may be armed and strong +when I am not by to protect you." + +"Our views of the world are opposed, Willoughby." + +"Consent; gratify me; swear it. Say: 'Beyond death.' Whisper it. I +ask for nothing more. Women think the husband's grave breaks the +bond, cuts the tie, sets them loose. They wed the flesh--pah! +What I call on you for is nobility; the transcendent nobility of +faithfulness beyond death. 'His widow!' let them say; a saint in +widowhood." + +"My vows at the altar must suffice." + +"You will not? Clara!" + +"I am plighted to you." + +"Not a word?--a simple promise? But you love me?" + +"I have given you the best proof of it that I can." + +"Consider how utterly I place confidence in you." + +"I hope it is well placed." + +"I could kneel to you, to worship you, if you would, Clara!" + +"Kneel to Heaven, not to me, Willoughby. I am--I wish I were able +to tell what I am. I may be inconstant; I do not know myself. +Think; question yourself whether I am really the person you should +marry. Your wife should have great qualities of mind and soul. I +will consent to hear that I do not possess them, and abide by +the verdict." + +"You do; you do possess them!" Willoughby cried. "When you know +better what the world is, you will understand my anxiety. Alive, I +am strong to shield you from it; dead, helpless--that is all. You +would be clad in mail, steel-proof, inviolable, if you would ... +But try to enter into my mind; think with me, feel with me. When +you have once comprehended the intensity of the love of a man like +me, you will not require asking. It is the difference of the elect +and the vulgar; of the ideal of love from the coupling of the +herds. We will let it drop. At least, I have your hand. As long as +I live I have your hand. Ought I not to be satisfied? I am; only I +see further than most men, and feel more deeply. And now I must +ride to my mother's bedside. She dies Lady Patterne! It might have +been that she . . . But she is a woman of women! With a +father-in-law! Just heaven! Could I have stood by her then with +the same feelings of reverence? A very little, my love, and +everything gained for us by civilization crumbles; we fall back to +the first mortar-bowl we were bruised and stirred in. My thoughts, +when I take my stand to watch by her, come to this conclusion, +that, especially in women, distinction is the thing to be aimed +at. Otherwise we are a weltering human mass. Women must teach us +to venerate them, or we may as well be bleating and barking and +bellowing. So, now enough. You have but to think a little. I must +be off. It may have happened during my absence. I will write. I +shall hear from you? Come and see me mount Black Norman. My +respects to your father. I have no time to pay them in person. +One!" + +He took the one--love's mystical number--from which commonly +spring multitudes; but, on the present occasion, it was a single +one, and cold. She watched him riding away on his gallant horse, +as handsome a cavalier as the world could show, and the contrast +of his recent language and his fine figure was a riddle that froze +her blood. Speech so foreign to her ears, unnatural in tone, +unmanlike even for a lover (who is allowed a softer dialect), set +her vainly sounding for the source and drift of it. She was glad +of not having to encounter eyes like Mr. Vernon Whitford's. + +On behalf of Sir Willoughby, it is to be said that his mother, +without infringing on the degree of respect for his decisions and +sentiments exacted by him, had talked to him of Miss Middleton, +suggesting a volatility of temperament in the young lady that +struck him as consentaneous with Mrs Mountstuart's "rogue in +porcelain", and alarmed him as the independent observations of two +world-wise women. Nor was it incumbent upon him personally to +credit the volatility in order, as far as he could, to effect the +soul-insurance of his bride, that he might hold the security of +the policy. The desire for it was in him; his mother had merely +tolled a warning bell that he had put in motion before. Clara was +not a Constantia. But she was a woman, and he had been deceived +by women, as a man fostering his high ideal of them will surely +be. The strain he adopted was quite natural to his passion and his +theme. The language of the primitive sentiments of men is of the +same expression at all times, minus the primitive colours when a +modern gentleman addresses his lady. + +Lady Patterne died in the winter season of the new year. In April +Dr Middleton had to quit Upton Park, and he had not found a place +of residence, nor did he quite know what to do with himself in the +prospect of his daughter's marriage and desertion of him. Sir +Willoughby proposed to find him a house within a circuit of the +neighbourhood of Patterne. Moreover, he invited the Rev. Doctor +and his daughter to come to Patterne from Upton for a month, and +make acquaintance with his aunts, the ladies Eleanor and Isabel +Patterne, so that it might not be so strange to Clara to have them +as her housemates after her marriage. Dr. Middleton omitted to +consult his daughter before accepting the invitation, and it +appeared, when he did speak to her, that it should have been done. +But she said, mildly, "Very well, papa." + +Sir Willoughby had to visit the metropolis and an estate in +another county, whence he wrote to his betrothed daily. He +returned to Patterne in time to arrange for the welcome of his +guests; too late, however, to ride over to them; and, meanwhile, +during his absence, Miss Middleton had bethought herself that she +ought to have given her last days of freedom to her friends. After +the weeks to be passed at Patterne, very few weeks were left to +her, and she had a wish to run to Switzerland or Tyrol and see the +Alps; a quaint idea, her father thought. She repeated it +seriously, and Dr. Middleton perceived a feminine shuttle of +indecision at work in her head, frightful to him, considering that +they signified hesitation between the excellent library and +capital wine-cellar of Patterne Hall, together with the society of +that promising young scholar, Mr. Vernon Whitford, on the one +side, and a career of hotels--equivalent to being rammed into +monster artillery with a crowd every night, and shot off on a +day's journey through space every morning--on the other. + +"You will have your travelling and your Alps after the ceremony," +he said. + +"I think I would rather stay at home," said she. + +Dr Middleton rejoined: "I would." + +"But I am not married yet papa." + +"As good, my dear." + +"A little change of scene, I thought ..." + +"We have accepted Willoughby's invitation. And he helps +me to a house near you." + +"You wish to be near me, papa?" + +"Proximate--at a remove: communicable." + +"Why should we separate?" + +"For the reason, my dear, that you exchange a father for a +husband." + +"If I do not want to exchange?" + +"To purchase, you must pay, my child. Husbands are not +given for nothing." + +"No. But I should have you, papa!" + +"Should?" + +"They have not yet parted us, dear papa." + +"What does that mean?" he asked, fussily. He was in a gentle stew +already, apprehensive of a disturbance of the serenity precious to +scholars by postponements of the ceremony and a prolongation of a +father's worries. + +"Oh, the common meaning, papa," she said, seeing how it was with +him. + +"Ah!" said he, nodding and blinking gradually back to a state of +composure, glad to be appeased on any terms; for mutability is but +another name for the sex, and it is the enemy of the scholar. + +She suggested that two weeks of Patterne would offer plenty of +time to inspect the empty houses of the district, and should be +sufficient, considering the claims of friends, and the necessity +of going the round of London shops. + +"Two or three weeks," he agreed, hurriedly, by way of compromise +with that fearful prospect. + + +CHAPTER VII + +The Betrothed + +During the drive from Upton to Patterne, Miss Middleton hoped, she +partly believed, that there was to be a change in Sir Willoughby's +manner of courtship. He had been so different a wooer. She +remembered with some half-conscious desperation of fervour what +she had thought of him at his first approaches, and in accepting +him. Had she seen him with the eyes of the world, thinking they +were her own? That look of his, the look of "indignant +contentment", had then been a most noble conquering look, splendid +as a general's plume at the gallop. It could not have altered. Was +it that her eyes had altered? + +The spirit of those days rose up within her to reproach, her and +whisper of their renewal: she remembered her rosy dreams and the +image she had of him, her throbbing pride in him, her choking +richness of happiness: and also her vain attempting to be very +humble, usually ending in a carol, quaint to think of, not without +charm, but quaint, puzzling. + +Now men whose incomes have been restricted to the extent +that they must live on their capital, soon grow relieved of the +forethoughtful anguish wasting them by the hilarious comforts +of the lap upon which they have sunk back, insomuch +that they are apt to solace themselves for their intolerable +anticipations of famine in the household by giving loose to +one fit or more of reckless lavishness. Lovers in like manner +live on their capital from failure of income: they, too, for the +sake of stifling apprehension and piping to the present hour, +are lavish of their stock, so as rapidly to attenuate it: they have +their fits of intoxication in view of coming famine: they force +memory into play, love retrospectively, enter the old house of +the past and ravage the larder, and would gladly, even resolutely, +continue in illusion if it were possible for the broadest +honey-store of reminiscences to hold out for a length of time +against a mortal appetite: which in good sooth stands on the +alternative of a consumption of the hive or of the creature it +is for nourishing. Here do lovers show that they are perishable. +More than the poor clay world they need fresh supplies, +right wholesome juices; as it were, life in the burst of the bud, +fruits yet on the tree, rather than potted provender. The latter +is excellent for by-and-by, when there will be a vast deal +more to remember, and appetite shall have but one tooth +remaining. Should their minds perchance have been saturated +by their first impressions and have retained them, loving by +the accountable light of reason, they may have fair harvests, +as in the early time; but that case is rare. In other words, love +is an affair of two, and is only for two that can be as quick, +as constant in intercommunication as are sun and earth, through +the cloud or face to face. They take their breath of life from +one another in signs of affection, proofs of faithfulness, +incentives to admiration. Thus it is with men and women in +love's good season. But a solitary soul dragging a log must +make the log a God to rejoice in the burden. That is not love. + +Clara was the least fitted of all women to drag a log. Few girls +would be so rapid in exhausting capital. She was feminine indeed, +but she wanted comradeship, a living and frank exchange of the +best in both, with the deeper feelings untroubled. To be fixed at +the mouth of a mine, and to have to descend it daily, and not to +discover great opulence below; on the contrary, to be chilled in +subterranean sunlessness, without any substantial quality that she +could grasp, only the mystery of the inefficient tallow-light in +those caverns of the complacent-talking man: this appeared to her +too extreme a probation for two or three weeks. How of a lifetime +of it! + +She was compelled by her nature to hope, expect and believe that +Sir Willoughby would again be the man she had known when she +accepted him. Very singularly, to show her simple spirit at the +time, she was unaware of any physical coldness to him; she knew of +nothing but her mind at work, objecting to this and that, desiring +changes. She did not dream of being on the giddy ridge of the +passive or negative sentiment of love, where one step to the wrong +side precipitates us into the state of repulsion. + +Her eyes were lively at their meeting--so were his. She liked to +see him on the steps, with young Crossjay under his arm. Sir +Willoughby told her in his pleasantest humour of the boy's having +got into the laboratory that morning to escape his task-master, +and blown out the windows. She administered a chiding to the +delinquent in the same spirit, while Sir Willoughby led her on his +arm across the threshold, whispering: "Soon for good!" In reply +to the whisper, she begged for more of the story of young +Crossjay. "Come into the laboratory: said he, a little less +laughingly than softly; and Clara begged her father to come and +see young Crossjay's latest pranks. Sir Willoughby whispered to +her of the length of their separation, and his joy to welcome her +to the house where she would reign as mistress very won. He +numbered the weeks. He whispered: "Come." In the hurry of the +moment she did not examine a lightning terror that shot through +her. It passed, and was no more than the shadow which bends the +summer grasses, leaving a ruffle of her ideas, in wonder of her +having feared herself for something. Her father was with them. +She and Willoughby were not yet alone. + +Young Crossjay had not accomplished so fine a piece of destruction +as Sir Willoughby's humour proclaimed of him. He had connected a +battery with a train of gunpowder, shattering a window-frame and +unsettling some bricks. Dr. Middleton asked if the youth was +excluded from the library, and rejoiced to hear that it was a +sealed door to him. Thither they went. Vernon Whitford was away +on one of his long walks. + +"There, papa, you see he is not so very faithful to you," said +Clara. + +Dr Middleton stood frowning over MS notes on the table, in +Vernon's handwriting. He flung up the hair from his forehead and +dropped into a seat to inspect them closely. He was now +immoveable. Clara was obliged to leave him there. She was led to +think that Willoughby had drawn them to the library with the +design to be rid of her protector, and she began to fear him. She +proposed to pay her respects to the ladies Eleanor and Isabel. +They were not seen, and a footman reported in the drawing-room +that they were out driving. She grasped young Crossjay's hand. Sir +Willoughby dispatched him to Mrs. Montague, the housekeeper, for a +tea of cakes and jam. + +"Off!" he said, and the boy had to run. + +Clara saw herself without a shield. + +"And the garden!" she cried. "I love the garden; I must go and see +what flowers are up with you. In spring I care most for wild +flowers, and if you will show me daffodils and crocuses and +anemones . . ." + +"My dearest Clara! my bride!" said he. + +"Because they are vulgar flowers?" she asked him, artlessly, +to account for his detaining her. + +Why would he not wait to deserve her!--no, not deserve--to +reconcile her with her real position; not reconcile, but to repair +the image of him in her mind, before he claimed his apparent +right! + +He did not wait. He pressed her to his bosom. + +"You are mine, my Clara--utterly mine; every thought, every +feeling. We are one: the world may do its worst. I have been +longing for you, looking forward. You save me from a thousand +vexations. One is perpetually crossed. That is all outside us. We +two! With you I am secure! Soon! I could not tell you whether the +world's alive or dead. My dearest!" + +She came out of it with the sensations of the frightened child +that has had its dip in sea-water, sharpened to think that after +all it was not so severe a trial. Such was her idea; and she said +to herself immediately: What am I that I should complain? Two +minutes earlier she would not have thought it; but humiliated +pride falls lower than humbleness. + +She did not blame him; she fell in her own esteem; less because +she was the betrothed Clara Middleton, which was now palpable as a +shot in the breast of a bird, than that she was a captured woman, +of whom it is absolutely expected that she must submit, and when +she would rather be gazing at flowers. Clara had shame of her +sex. They cannot take a step without becoming bondwomen: into what +a slavery! For herself, her trial was over, she thought. As for +herself, she merely complained of a prematureness and crudity +best unanalyzed. In truth, she could hardly be said to complain. +She did but criticize him and wonder that a man was unable to +perceive, or was not arrested by perceiving, unwillingness, +discordance, dull compliance; the bondwoman's due instead of the +bride's consent. Oh, sharp distinction, as between two spheres! + +She meted him justice; she admitted that he had spoken in a +lover-like tone. Had it not been for the iteration of "the world", +she would not have objected critically to his words, though they +were words of downright appropriation. He had the right to use +them, since she was to be married to him. But if he had only +waited before playing the privileged lover! + +Sir Willoughby was enraptured with her. Even so purely coldly, +statue-like, Dian-like, would he have prescribed his bride's +reception of his caress. The suffusion of crimson coming over her +subsequently, showing her divinely feminine in reflective +bashfulness, agreed with his highest definitions of female +character. + +"Let me conduct you to the garden, my love," he said. + +She replied: "I think I would rather go to my room." + +"I will send you a wild-flower posy." + +"Flowers, no; I do not like them to be gathered." + +"I will wait for you on the lawn." + +"My head is rather heavy." + +His deep concern and tenderness brought him close. + +She assured him sparklingly that she was well. She was ready to +accompany him to the garden and stroll over the park. + +"Headache it is not," she added. + +But she had to pay the fee for inviting a solicitous accepted +gentleman's proximity. + +This time she blamed herself and him, and the world he abused, and +destiny into the bargain. And she cared less about the probation; +but she craved for liberty. With a frigidity that astonished her, +she marvelled at the act of kissing, and at the obligation it +forced upon an inanimate person to be an accomplice. Why was she +not free? By what strange right was it that she was treated as a +possession? + +"I will try to walk off the heaviness," she said. + +"My own girl must not fatigue herself." + +"Oh, no; I shall not." + +"Sit with me. Your Willoughby is your devoted attendant." + +"I have a desire for the air." + +"Then we will walk out." + +She was horrified to think how far she had drawn away from him, +and now placed her hand on his arm to appease her self-accusations +and propitiate duty. He spoke as she had wished, his manner was +what she had wished; she was his bride, almost his wife; her +conduct was a kind of madness; she could not understand it. + +Good sense and duty counselled her to control her wayward +spirit. + +He fondled her hand, and to that she grew accustomed; her hand was +at a distance. And what is a hand? Leaving it where it was, she +treated it as a link between herself and dutiful goodness. Two +months hence she was a bondwoman for life! She regretted that she +had not gone to her room to strengthen herself with a review of +her situation, and meet him thoroughly resigned to her fate. She +fancied she would have come down to him amicably. It was his +present respectfulness and easy conversation that tricked her +burning nerves with the fancy. Five weeks of perfect liberty in +the mountains, she thought, would have prepared her for the days +of bells. All that she required was a separation offering new +scenes, where she might reflect undisturbed, feel clear again. + +He led her about the flower-beds; too much as if he were giving a +convalescent an airing. She chafed at it, and pricked herself with +remorse. In contrition she expatiated on the beauty of the garden. + +"All is yours, my Clara." + +An oppressive load it seemed to her! She passively yielded to the +man in his form of attentive courtier; his mansion, estate, and +wealth overwhelmed her. They suggested the price to be paid. Yet +she recollected that on her last departure through the park she +had been proud of the rolling green and spreading trees. Poison of +some sort must be operating in her. She had not come to him +to-day with this feeling of sullen antagonism; she had caught it +here. + +"You have been well, my Clara?" + +"Quite." + +"Not a hint of illness?" + +"None." + +"My bride must have her health if all the doctors in the +kingdom die for it! My darling!" + +"And tell me: the dogs?" + +"Dogs and horses are in very good condition." + +"I am glad. Do you know, I love those ancient French chateaux and +farms in one, where salon windows look on poultry-yard and +stalls. I like that homeliness with beasts and peasants." + +He bowed indulgently. + +"I am afraid we can't do it for you in England, my Clara." + +"No." + +"And I like the farm," said he. "But I think our drawing-rooms +have a better atmosphere off the garden. As to our peasantry, we +cannot, I apprehend, modify our class demarcations without risk of +disintegrating the social structure." + +"Perhaps. I proposed nothing." + +"My love, I would entreat you to propose if I were convinced +that I could obey." + +"You are very good." + +"I find my merit nowhere but in your satisfaction." + +Although she was not thirsting for dulcet sayings, the peacefulness +of other than invitations to the exposition of his mysteries and +of their isolation in oneness, inspired her with such calm that +she beat about in her brain, as if it were in the brain, for the +specific injury he had committed. Sweeping from sensation to +sensation, the young, whom sensations impel and distract, can +rarely date their disturbance from a particular one; unless it be +some great villain injury that has been done; and Clara had not +felt an individual shame in his caress; the shame of her sex was +but a passing protest, that left no stamp. So she conceived she +had been behaving cruelly, and said, "Willoughby"; because she was +aware of the omission of his name in her previous remarks. + +His whole attention was given to her. + +She had to invent the sequel. "I was going to beg you, Willoughby, +do not seek to spoil me. You compliment me. Compliments are not +suited to me. You think too highly of me. It is nearly as bad as +to be slighted. I am . . . I am a . . ." But she could not follow +his example; even as far as she had gone, her prim little sketch +of herself, set beside her real, ugly, earnest feelings, rang of a +mincing simplicity, and was a step in falseness. How could she +display what she was? + +"Do I not know you?" he said. + +The melodious bass notes, expressive of conviction on that point, +signified as well as the words that no answer was the right +answer. She could not dissent without turning his music to +discord, his complacency to amazement. She held her tongue, +knowing that he did not know her, and speculating on the +division made bare by their degrees of the knowledge, a deep +cleft. + +He alluded to friends in her neighbourhood and his own. +The bridesmaids were mentioned. + +"Miss Dale, you will hear from my aunt Eleanor, declines, on the +plea of indifferent health. She is rather a morbid person, with +all her really estimable qualities. It will do no harm to have +none but young ladies of your own age; a bouquet of young buds: +though one blowing flower among them ... However, she has decided. +My principal annoyance has been Vernon's refusal to act as my best +man." + +"Mr. Whitford refuses?" + +"He half refuses. I do not take no from him. His pretext +is a dislike to the ceremony." + +"I share it with him." + +"I sympathize with you. If we might say the words and pass from +sight! There is a way of cutting off the world: I have it at times +completely: I lose it again, as if it were a cabalistic phrase one +had to utter. But with you! You give it me for good. It will he +for ever, eternally, my Clara. Nothing can harm, nothing touch us; +we are one another's. Let the world fight it out; we have nothing +to do with it." + +"If Mr. Whitford should persist in refusing?" + +"So entirely one, that there never can be question of external +influences. I am, we will say, riding home from the hunt: I see +you awaiting me: I read your heart as though you were beside me. +And I know that I am coming to the one who reads mine! You have +me, you have me like an open book, you, and only you!" + +"I am to be always at home?" Clara said, unheeded, and +relieved by his not hearing. + +"Have you realized it?--that we are invulnerable! The world +cannot hurt us: it cannot touch us. Felicity is ours, and we are +impervious in the enjoyment of it. Something divine! surely +something divine on earth? Clara!--being to one another that +between which the world can never interpose! What I do is right: +what you do is right. Perfect to one another! Each new day we rise +to study and delight in new secrets. Away with the crowd! We have +not even to say it; we are in an atmosphere where the world cannot +breathe." + +"Oh, the world!" Clara partly carolled on a sigh that sunk +deep. + +Hearing him talk as one exulting on the mountain-top, when she +knew him to be in the abyss, was very strange, provocative of +scorn. + +"My letters?" he said, incitingly. + +"I read them." + +"Circumstances have imposed a long courtship on us, my Clara; and +I, perhaps lamenting the laws of decorum--I have done so!--still +felt the benefit of the gradual initiation. It is not good for +women to be surprised by a sudden revelation of man's character. +We also have things to learn--there is matter for learning +everywhere. Some day you will tell me the difference of what you +think of me now, from what you thought when we first . . . ?" + +An impulse of double-minded acquiescence caused Clara to +stammer as on a sob. + +"I--I daresay I shall." + +She added, "If it is necessary." + +Then she cried out: "Why do you attack the world? You +always make me pity it." + +He smiled at her youthfulness. "I have passed through that +stage. It leads to my sentiment. Pity it, by all means." + +"No," said she, "but pity it, side with it, not consider it so +bad. The world has faults; glaciers have crevices, mountains have +chasms; but is not the effect of the whole sublime? Not to admire +the mountain and the glacier because they can be cruel, seems to +me ... And the world is beautiful." + +"The world of nature, yes. The world of men?" + +"Yes." + +"My love, I suspect you to be thinking of the world of ballrooms. + +"I am thinking of the world that contains real and great +generosity, true heroism. We see it round us." + +"We read of it. The world of the romance writer!" + +"No: the living world. I am sure it is our duty to love it. I am +sure we weaken ourselves if we do not. If I did not, I should be +looking on mist, hearing a perpetual boom instead of music. I +remember hearing Mr. Whitford say that cynicism is intellectual +dandyism without the coxcomb's feathers; and it seems to me that +cynics are only happy in making the world as barren to others as +they have made it for themselves." + +"Old Vernon!" ejaculated Sir Willoughby, with a countenance +rather uneasy, as if it had been flicked with a glove. "He +strings his phrases by the dozen." + +"Papa contradicts that, and says he is very clever and very +simple." + +"As to cynics, my dear Clara, oh, certainly, certainly: you are +right. They are laughable, contemptible. But understand me. I +mean, we cannot feel, or if we feel we cannot so intensely feel, +our oneness, except by dividing ourselves from the world." + +"Is it an art?" + +"If you like. It is our poetry! But does not love shun the world? +Two that love must have their sustenance in isolation." + +"No: they will be eating themselves up." + +"The purer the beauty, the more it will be out of the world." + +"But not opposed." + +"Put it in this way," Willoughby condescended. "Has experience +the same opinion of the world as ignorance?" + +"It should have more charity." + +"Does virtue feel at home in the world?" + +"Where it should be an example, to my idea." + +"Is the world agreeable to holiness?" + +"Then, are you in favour of monasteries?" + +He poured a little runlet of half laughter over her head, of the +sound assumed by genial compassion. + +It is irritating to hear that when we imagine we have spoken to +the point. + +"Now in my letters, Clara . . ." + +"I have no memory, Willoughby!" + +"You will, however, have observed that I am not completely +myself in my letters . . ." + +"In your letters to men you may be." + +The remark threw a pause across his thoughts. He was of a +sensitiveness terribly tender. A single stroke on it reverberated +swellingly within the man, and most, and infuriately searching, at +the spots where he had been wounded, especially where he feared +the world might have guessed the wound. Did she imply that he had +no hand for love-letters? Was it her meaning that women would not +have much taste for his epistolary correspondence? She had spoken +in the plural, with an accent on "men". Had she heard of +Constantia? Had she formed her own judgement about the creature? +The supernatural sensitiveness of Sir Willoughby shrieked a peal +of affirmatives. He had often meditated on the moral obligation of +his unfolding to Clara the whole truth of his conduct to +Constantia; for whom, as for other suicides, there were excuses. +He at least was bound to supply them. She had behaved badly; but +had he not given her some cause? If so, manliness was bound to +confess it. + +Supposing Clara heard the world's version first! Men whose pride +is their backbone suffer convulsions where other men are barely +aware of a shock, and Sir Willoughby was taken with galvanic +jumpings of the spirit within him, at the idea of the world +whispering to Clara that he had been jilted. + +"My letters to men, you say, my love?" + +"Your letters of business." + +"Completely myself in my letters of business?" He stared indeed. + +She relaxed the tension of his figure by remarking: "You are able +to express yourself to men as your meaning dictates. In writing +to ... to us it is, I suppose, more difficult." + +"True, my love. I will not exactly say difficult. I can +acknowledge no difficulty. Language, I should say, is not fitted +to express emotion. Passion rejects it." + +"For dumb-show and pantomime?" + +"No; but the writing of it coldly." + +"Ah, coldly!" + +"My letters disappoint you?" + +"I have not implied that they do." + +"My feelings, dearest, are too strong for transcription. I feel, +pen in hand, like the mythological Titan at war with Jove, strong +enough to hurl mountains, and finding nothing but pebbles. The +simile is a good one. You must not judge of me by my letters." + +"I do not; I like them," said Clara. + +She blushed, eyed him hurriedly, and seeing him complacent, +resumed, "I prefer the pebble to the mountain; but if you read +poetry you would not think human speech incapable of. . ." + +"My love, I detest artifice. Poetry is a profession." + +"Our poets would prove to you . . ." + +"As I have often observed, Clara, I am no poet." + +"I have not accused you, Willoughby: + +"No poet, and with no wish to be a poet. Were I one, my life would +supply material, I can assure you, my love. My conscience is not +entirely at rest. Perhaps the heaviest matter troubling it is that +in which I was least wilfully guilty. You have heard of a Miss +Durham?" + +"I have heard--yes--of her." + +"She may be happy. I trust she is. If she is not, I cannot escape +some blame. An instance of the difference between myself and the +world, now. The world charges it upon her. I have interceded to +exonerate her." + +"That was generous, Willoughby." + +"Stay. I fear I was the primary offender. But I, Clara, I, under +a sense of honour, acting under a sense of honour, would have +carried my engagement through." + +"What had you done?" + +"The story is long, dating from an early day, in the 'downy +antiquity of my youth', as Vernon says." + +"Mr. Whitford says that?" + +"One of old Vernon's odd sayings. It's a story of an early +fascination." + +"Papa tells me Mr. Whitford speaks at times with wise +humour." + +"Family considerations--the lady's health among other things; her +position in the calculations of relatives--intervened. Still +there was the fascination. I have to own it. Grounds for feminine +jealousy." + +"Is it at an end?" + +"Now? with you? my darling Clara! indeed at an end, or could I +have opened my inmost heart to you! Could I have spoken of myself +so unreservedly that in part you know me as I know myself! Oh, but +would it have been possible to enclose you with myself in that +intimate union? so secret, unassailable!" + +"You did not speak to her as you speak to me?" + +"In no degree." + +"What could have! . . ." Clara checked the murmured exclamation. + +Sir Willoughby's expoundings on his latest of texts would have +poured forth, had not a footman stepped across the lawn to inform +him that his builder was in the laboratory and requested +permission to consult with him. + +Clara's plea of a horror of the talk of bricks and joists excused +her from accompanying him. He had hardly been satisfied by her +manner, he knew not why. He left her, convinced that he must do +and say more to reach down to her female intelligence. + +She saw young Crossjay, springing with pots of jam in him, join +his patron at a bound, and taking a lift of arms, fly aloft, +clapping heels. Her reflections were confused. Sir Willoughby was +admirable with the lad. "Is he two men?" she thought; and the +thought ensued, "Am I unjust?" She headed a run with young +Crossjay to divert her mind. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +A Run with the Truant; a Walk with the Master + +The sight of Miss Middleton running inflamed young Crossjay with +the passion of the game of hare and hounds. He shouted a +view-halloo, and flung up his legs. She was fleet; she ran as +though a hundred little feet were bearing her onward smooth as +water over the lawn and the sweeps of grass of the park, so +swifily did the hidden pair multiply one another to speed her. So +sweet was she in her flowing pace, that the boy, as became his +age, translated admiration into a dogged frenzy of pursuit, and +continued pounding along, when far outstripped, determined to run +her down or die. Suddenly her flight wound to an end in a dozen +twittering steps, and she sank. Young Crossjay attained her, +with just breath enough to say: "You are a runner!" + +"I forgot you had been having your tea, my poor boy," said she. + +"And you don't pant a bit!" was his encomium. + +"Dear me, no; not more than a bird. You might as well try to catch +a bird." + +Young Crossjay gave a knowing nod. "Wait till I get my second +wind." + +"Now you must confess that girls run faster than boys." + +"They may at the start." + +"They do everything better." + +"They're flash-in-the-pans." + +"They learn their lessons." + +"You can't make soldiers or sailors of them, though." + +"And that is untrue. Have you never read of Mary Ambree? and +Mistress Hannah Snell of Pondicherry? And there was the bride of +the celebrated William Taylor. And what do you say to Joan of +Arc? What do you say to Boadicea? I suppose you have never heard +of the Amazons." + +"They weren't English." + +"Then it is your own countrywomen you decry, sir!" + +Young Crossjay betrayed anxiety about his false position, and +begged for the stories of Mary Ambree and the others who were +English. + +"See, you will not read for yourself, you hide and play truant +with Mr. Whitford, and the consequence is you are ignorant of your +country's history." + +Miss Middleton rebuked him, enjoying his wriggle between a +perception of her fun and an acknowledgment of his peccancy. She +commanded him to tell her which was the glorious Valentine's day +of our naval annals; the name of the hero of the day, and the name +of his ship. To these questions his answers were as ready as the +guns of the good ship Captain, for the Spanish four-decker. + +"And that you owe to Mr. Whitford," said Miss Middleton. + +"He bought me the books," young Crossjay growled, and plucked at +grass blades and bit thern, foreseeing dimly but certainly the +termination of all this. + +Miss Middleton lay back on the grass and said: "Are you going to +be fond of me, Crossjay?" + +The boy sat blinking. His desire was to prove to her that lie was +immoderately fond of her already; and he might have flown at her +neck had she been sitting up, but her recumbency and eyelids half +closed excited wonder in him and awe. His young heart beat fast. + +"Because, my dear boy," she said, leaning on her elbow, "you are a +very nice boy, but an ungrateful boy, and there is no telling +whether you will not punish any one who cares for you. Come along +with me; pluck me some of these cowslips, and the speedwells near +them; I think we both love wild-flowers." She rose and took his +arm. "You shall row me on the lake while I talk to you seriously." + +It was she, however, who took the sculls at the boat-house, for +she had been a playfellow with boys, and knew that one of them +engaged in a manly exercise is not likely to listen to a woman. + +"Now, Crossjay," she said. Dense gloom overcame him like a cowl. +She bent across her hands to laugh. "As if I were going to lecture +you, you silly boy!" He began to brighten dubiously. "I used to be +as fond of birdsnesting as you are. I like brave boys, and I like +you for wanting to enter the Royal Navy. Only, how can you if you +do not learn? You must get the captains to pass you, you know. +Somebody spoils you: Miss Dale or Mr. Whitford." + +"Do they?" sung out young Crossjay. + +"Sir Willoughby does?" + +"I don't know about spoil. I can come round him." + +"I am sure he is very kind to you. I dare say you think Mr. +Whitford rather severe. You should remember he has to teach you, +so that you may pass for the navy. You must not dislike him +because he makes you work. Supposing you had blown yourself up +to-day! You would have thought it better to have been working with +Mr. Whitford." + +"Sir Willoughby says, when he's married, you won't let me hide." + +"Ah! It is wrong to pet a big boy like you. Does not he what you +call tip you, Crossjay?" + +"Generally half-crown pieces. I've had a crown-piece. I've had +sovereigns." + +"And for that you do as he bids you? And he indulges you because +you ... Well, but though Mr. Whitford does not give you money, he +gives you his time, he tries to get you into the navy." + +"He pays for me." + +"What do you say?" + +"My keep. And, as for liking him, if he were at the bottom of the +water here, I'd go down after him. I mean to learn. We're both of +us here at six o'clock in the morning, when it's light, and have a +swim. He taught me. Only, I never cared for schoolbooks." + +"Are you quite certain that Mr. Whitford pays for you." + +"My father told me he did, and I must obey him. He heard my father +was poor, with a family. He went down to see my father. My father +came here once, and Sir Willoughby wouldn't see him. I know Mr. +Whitford does. And Miss Dale told me he did. My mother says she +thinks he does it to make up to us for my father's long walk in +the rain and the cold he caught coming here to Patterne." + +"So you see you should not vex him, Crossjay. He is a good friend +to your father and to you. You ought to love him." + +"I like him, and I like his face." + +"Why his face?" + +"It's not like those faces! Miss Dale and I talk about him. She +thinks that Sir Willoughby is the best-looking man ever born." + +"Were you not speaking of Mr. Whitford?" + +"Yes; old Vernon. That's what Sir Willoughby calls him," young +Crossjay excused himself to her look of surprise. "Do you know +what he makes me think of?--his eyes, I mean. He makes me think +of Robinson Crusoe's old goat in the cavern. I like him because +he's always the same, and you're not positive about some people. +Miss Middleton, if you look on at cricket, in comes a safe man for +ten runs. He may get more, and he never gets less; and you should +hear the old farmers talk of him in the booth. That's just my +feeling." + +Miss Middleton understood that some illustration from the +cricketing-field was intended to throw light on the boy's feeling +for Mr. Whitford. Young Crossjay was evidently warming to speak +from his heart. But the sun was low, she had to dress for the +dinner-table, and she landed him with regret, as at a holiday +over. Before they parted, he offered to swim across the lake in +his clothes, or dive to the bed for anything she pleased to throw, +declaring solemnly that it should not he lost. + +She walked back at a slow pace, and sung to herself above her +darker-flowing thoughts, like the reed-warbler on the branch +beside the night-stream; a simple song of a lighthearted sound, +independent of the shifting black and grey of the flood +underneath. + +A step was at her heels. + +"I see you have been petting my scapegrace." + +"Mr. Whitford! Yes; not petting, I hope. I tried to give him a +lecture. He's a dear lad, but, I fancy, trying." + +She was in fine sunset colour, unable to arrest the mounting tide. +She had been rowing, she said; and, as he directed his eyes, +according to his wont, penetratingly, she defended herself by +fixing her mind on Robinson Crusoe's old goat in the recess of the +cavern. + +"I must have him away from here very soon," said Vernon. "Here +he's quite spoiled. Speak of him to Willoughby. I can't guess at +his ideas of the boy's future, but the chance of passing for the +navy won't bear trifling with, and if ever there was a lad made +for the navy, it's Crossjay." + +The incident of the explosion in the laboratory was new to Vernon. + +"And Willoughby laughed?" he said. "There are sea-port crammers +who stuff young fellows for examination, and we shall have to pack +off the boy at once to the best one of the lot we can find. I +would rather have had him under me up to the last three months, +and have made sure of some roots to what is knocked into his head. +But he's ruined here. And I am going. So I shall not trouble him +for many weeks longer. Dr. Middleton is well?" + +"My father is well, yes. He pounced like a falcon on your notes in +the library." + +Vernon came out with a chuckle. + +"They were left to attract him. I am in for a controversy. + +"Papa will not spare you, to judge from his look." + +"I know the look." + +"Have you walked far to-day?" + +"Nine and a half hours. My Flibbertigibbet 8 is too much for me at +times, and I had to walk off my temper." + +She cast her eyes on him, thinking of the pleasure of dealing with +a temper honestly coltish, and manfully open to a specific. + +"All those hours were required?" + +"Not quite so long." + +"You are training for your Alpine tour." + +"It's doubtful whether I shall get to the Alps this year. I leave +the Hall, and shall probably be in London with a pen to sell." + +"Willoughby knows that you leave him?" + +"As much as Mont Blanc knows that he is going to be climbed by a +party below. He sees a speck or two in the valley." + +"He has not spoken of it." + +"He would attribute it to changes . . ." + +Vernon did not conclude the sentence. + +She became breathless, without emotion, but checked by the barrier +confronting an impulse to ask, what changes? She stooped to pluck +a cowslip. + +"I saw daffodils lower down the park," she said. "One or two; +they're nearly over." + +"We are well off for wild flowers here," he answered. + +"Do not leave him, Mr. Whitford." + +"He will not want me." + +"You are devoted to him." + +"I can't pretend that." + +"Then it is the changes you imagine you foresee ... If any occur, +why should they drive you away?" + +"Well, I'm two and thirty, and have never been in the fray: a +kind of nondescript, half scholar, and by nature half billman or +bowman or musketeer; if I'm worth anything, London's the field for +me. But that's what I have to try." + +"Papa will not like your serving with your pen in London: he will +say you are worth too much for that." + +"Good men are at it; I should not care to be ranked above them." + +"They are wasted, he says." + +"Error! If they have their private ambition, they may suppose they +are wasted. But the value to the world of a private ambition, I do +not clearly understand." + +"You have not an evil opinion of the world?" said Miss Middleton, +sick at heart as she spoke, with the sensation of having invited +herself to take a drop of poison. + +He replied: "One might as well have an evil opinion of a river: +here it's muddy, there it's clear; one day troubled, another at +rest. We have to treat it with common sense." + +"Love it?" + +"In the sense of serving it." + +"Not think it beautiful?" + +"Part of it is, part of it the reverse." + +"Papa would quote the 'mulier formosa'". + +"Except that 'fish' is too good for the black extremity. 'Woman' +is excellent for the upper." + +"How do you say that?--not cynically, I believe. Your view +commends itself to my reason." + +She was grateful to him for not stating it in ideal contrast with +Sir Willoughby's view. If he had, so intensely did her youthful +blood desire to be enamoured of the world, that she felt he would +have lifted her off her feet. For a moment a gulf beneath had been +threatening. When she said, "Love it?" a little enthusiasm would +have wafted her into space fierily as wine; but the sober, "In the +sense of serving it", entered her brain, and was matter for +reflection upon it and him. + +She could think of him in pleasant liberty, uncorrected by her +woman's instinct of peril. He had neither arts nor graces; nothing +of his cousin's easy social front-face. She had once witnessed the +military precision of his dancing, and had to learn to like him +before she ceased to pray that she might never be the victim of it +as his partner. He walked heroically, his pedestrian vigour being +famous, but that means one who walks away from the sex, not +excelling in the recreations where men and women join hands. He +was not much of a horseman either. Sir Willoughby enjoyed seeing +him on horseback. And he could scarcely be said to shine in a +drawingroom, unless when seated beside a person ready for real +talk. Even more than his merits, his demerits pointed him out as +a man to be a friend to a young woman who wanted one. His way of +life pictured to her troubled spirit an enviable smoothness; and +his having achieved that smooth way she considered a sign of +strength; and she wished to lean in idea upon some friendly +strength. His reputation for indifference to the frivolous charms +of girls clothed him with a noble coldness, and gave him the +distinction of a far-seen solitary iceberg in Southern waters. The +popular notion of hereditary titled aristocracy resembles her +sentiment for a man that would not flatter and could not be +flattered by her sex: he appeared superior almost to awfulness. +She was young, but she had received much flattery in her ears, and +by it she had been snared; and he, disdaining to practise the +fowler's arts or to cast a thought on small fowls, appeared to her +to have a pride founded on natural loftiness. + +They had not spoken for awhile, when Vernon said abruptly, "The +boy's future rather depends on you, Miss Middleton. I mean to +leave as soon as possible, and I do not like his being here +without me, though you will look after him, I have no doubt. But +you may not at first see where the spoiling hurts him. He should +be packed off at once to the crammer, before you are Lady +Patterne. Use your influence. Willoughby will support the lad at +your request. The cost cannot be great. There are strong grounds +against my having him in London, even if I could manage it. May I +count on you?" + +"I will mention it: I will do my best," said Miss Middleton, +strangely dejected. + +They were now on the lawn, where Sir Willoughby was walking with +the ladies Eleanor and Isabel, his maiden aunts. + +"You seem to have coursed the hare and captured the hart." he said +to his bride. + +"Started the truant and run down the paedagogue," said Vernon. + +"Ay, you won't listen to me about the management of that boy," Sir +Willoughby retorted. + +The ladies embraced Miss Middleton. One offered up an ejaculation +in eulogy of her looks, the other of her healthfulness: then both +remarked that with indulgence young Crossjay could be induced to +do anything. Clara wondered whether inclination or Sir Willoughby +had disciplined their individuality out of them and made them his +shadows, his echoes. She gazed from them to him, and feared him. +But as yet she had not experienced the power in him which could +threaten and wrestle to subject the members of his household to +the state of satellites. Though she had in fact been giving battle +to it for several months, she had held her own too well to +perceive definitely the character of the spirit opposing her. + +She said to the ladies, "Ah, no! Mr. Whitford has chosen the only +method for teaching a boy like Crossjay." + +"I propose to make a man of him," said Sir Willoughby. + +"What is to become of him if he learns nothing?" + +"If he pleases me, he will be provided for. I have never abandoned +a dependent." + +Clara let her eyes rest on his and, without turning or dropping, +shut them. + +The effect was discomforting to him. He was very sensitive to the +intentions of eyes and tones; which was one secret of his rigid +grasp of the dwellers in his household. They were taught that they +had to render agreement under sharp scrutiny. Studious eyes, +devoid of warmth, devoid of the shyness of sex, that suddenly +closed on their look, signified a want of comprehension of some +kind, it might be hostility of understanding. Was it possible he +did not possess her utterly? He frowned up. + +Clara saw the lift of his brows, and thought, "My mind is my own, +married or not." + +It was the point in dispute. + + +CHAPTER IX + +Clara and Laetitia Meet: They Are Compared + +An hour before the time for lessons next morning young Crossjay +was on the lawn with a big bunch of wild flowers. He left them at +the hall door for Miss Middleton, and vanished into bushes. + +These vulgar weeds were about to be dismissed to the dustheap by +the great officials of the household; but as it happened that Miss +Middleton had seen them from the window in Crossjay's hands, the +discovery was made that they were indeed his presentation-bouquet, +and a footman received orders to place them before her. She was +very pleased. The arrangement of the flowers bore witness to +fairer fingers than the boy's own in the disposition of the rings +of colour, red campion and anemone, cowslip and speedwell, +primroses and wood-hyacinths; and rising out of the blue was a +branch bearing thick white blossom, so thick, and of so pure a +whiteness, that Miss Middleton, while praising Crossjay for +soliciting the aid of Miss Dale, was at a loss to name the tree. + +"It is a gardener's improvement on the Vestal of the forest, the +wild cherry," said Dr. Middleton, "and in this case we may admit +the gardener's claim to be valid, though I believe that, with his +gift of double blossom, he has improved away the fruit. Call this +the Vestal of civilization, then; he has at least done something +to vindicate the beauty of the office as well as the justness of +the title." + +"It is Vernon's Holy Tree the young rascal has been despoiling," +said Sir Willoughby merrily. + +Miss Middleton was informed that this double-blossom wild +cherry-tree was worshipped by Mr. Whitford. + +Sir Willoughby promised he would conduct her to it. + +"You," he said to her, "can bear the trial; few complexions can; +it is to most ladies a crueller test than snow. Miss Dale, for +example, becomes old lace within a dozen yards of it. I should +like to place her under the tree beside you." + +"Dear me, though; but that is investing the hamadryad with novel +and terrible functions," exclaimed Dr. Middleton. + +Clara said: "Miss Dale could drag me into a superior Court to show +me fading beside her in gifts more valuable than a complexion." + +"She has a fine ability," said Vernon. + +All the world knew, so Clara knew of Miss Dales romantic admiration +of Sir Willoughby; she was curious to see Miss Dale and study the +nature of a devotion that might be, within reason, imitable--for +a man who could speak with such steely coldness of the poor lady +he had fascinated? Well, perhaps it was good for the hearts of +women to be beneath a frost; to be schooled, restrained, turned +inward on their dreams. Yes, then, his coldness was desireable; it +encouraged an ideal of him. It suggested and seemed to propose to +Clara's mind the divineness of separation instead of the deadly +accuracy of an intimate perusal. She tried to look on him as Miss +Dale might look, and while partly despising her for the dupery she +envied, and more than criticizing him for the inhuman numbness of +sentiment which offered up his worshipper to point a complimentary +comparison, she was able to imagine a distance whence it would be +possible to observe him uncritically, kindly, admiringly; as the +moon a handsome mortal, for example. + +In the midst of her thoughts, she surprised herself by saying: "I +certainly was difficult to instruct. I might see things clearer if +I had a fine ability. I never remember to have been perfectly +pleased with my immediate lesson . . ." + +She stopped, wondering whither her tongue was leading her; then +added, to save herself, "And that may be why I feel for poor +Crossjay." + +Mr. Whitford apparently did not think it remarkable that she +should have been set off gabbling of "a fine ability", though the +eulogistic phrase had been pronounced by him with an +impressiveness to make his ear aware of an echo. + +Sir Willoughby dispersed her vapourish confusion. "Exactly," he +said. "I have insisted with Vernon, I don't know how often, that +you must have the lad by his affections. He won't bear driving. It +had no effect on me. Boys of spirit kick at it. I think I know +boys, Clara." + +He found himself addressing eyes that regarded him as though he +were a small speck, a pin's head, in the circle of their remote +contemplation. They were wide; they closed. + +She opened them to gaze elsewhere. + +He was very sensitive. + +Even then, when knowingly wounding him, or because of it, she was +trying to climb back to that altitude of the thin division of +neutral ground, from which we see a lover's faults and are above +them, pure surveyors. She climbed unsuccessfully, it is true; soon +despairing and using the effort as a pretext to fall back lower. + +Dr. Middleton withdrew Sir Willoughby's attention from the +imperceptible annoyance. "No, sir, no: the birch! the birch! Boys +of spirit commonly turn into solid men, and the solider the men +the more surely do they vote for Busby. For me, I pray he may be +immortal in Great Britain. Sea-air nor mountain-air is half so +bracing. I venture to say that the power to take a licking is +better worth having than the power to administer one. Horse him +and birch him if Crossjay runs from his books." + +"It is your opinion, sir?" his host bowed to him affably, shocked +on behalf of the ladies. + +"So positively so, sir, that I will undertake, without knowledge +of their antecedents, to lay my finger on the men in public life +who have not had early Busby. They are ill-balanced men. Their seat +of reason is not a concrete. They won't take rough and smooth as +they come. They make bad blood, can't forgive, sniff right and +left for approbation, and are excited to anger if an East wind +does not flatter them. Why, sir, when they have grown to be +seniors, you find these men mixed up with the nonsense of their +youth; you see they are unthrashed. We English beat the world +because we take a licking well. I hold it for a surety of a proper +sweetness of blood." + +The smile of Sir Willoughby waxed ever softer as the shakes of his +head increased in contradictoriness. "And yet," said he, with the +air of conceding a little after having answered the Rev. Doctor +and convicted him of error, "Jack requires it to keep him in +order. On board ship your argument may apply. Not, I suspect, +among gentlemen. No." + +"Good-night to you, gentlemen!" said Dr. Middleton. + +Clara heard Miss Eleanor and Miss Isabel interchange remarks: + +"Willoughby would not have suffered it!" + +"It would entirely have altered him!" + +She sighed and put a tooth on her under-lip. The gift of humourous +fancy is in women fenced round with forbidding placards; they have +to choke it; if they perceive a piece of humour, for instance, the +young Willoughby grasped by his master,--and his horrified +relatives rigid at the sight of preparations for the seed of +sacrilege, they have to blindfold the mind's eye. They are +society's hard-drilled soldiery. Prussians that must both march +and think in step. It is for the advantage of the civilized world, +if you like, since men have decreed it, or matrons have so read +the decree; but here and there a younger woman, haply an +uncorrected insurgent of the sex matured here and there, feels +that her lot was cast with her head in a narrower pit than her +limbs. + +Clara speculated as to whether Miss Dale might be perchance a +person of a certain liberty of mind. She asked for some little, +only some little, free play of mind in a house that seemed to +wear, as it were, a cap of iron. Sir Willoughby not merely ruled, +he throned, he inspired: and how? She had noticed an irascible +sensitiveness in him alert against a shadow of disagreement; and +as he was kind when perfectly appeased, the sop was offered by him +for submission. She noticed that even Mr. Whitford forbore to +alarm the sentiment of authority in his cousin. If he did not +breathe Sir Willoughby, like the ladies Eleanor and Isabel, he +would either acquiesce in a syllable or he silent. He never +strongly dissented. The habit of the house, with its iron cap, was +on him, as it was on the servants. and would be, oh, shudders of +the shipwrecked that see their end in drowning! on the wife. + +"When do I meet Miss Dale?" she inquired. + +"This very evening, at dinner," replied Sir Willoughby. + +Then, thought she, there is that to look forward to. + +She indulged her morbid fit, and shut up her senses that she +might live in the anticipation of meeting Miss Dale; and, long +before the approach of the hour, her hope of encountering any +other than another dull adherent of Sir Willoughby had fled. So +she was languid for two of the three minutes when she sat alone +with Laetitia in the drawing-room before the rest had assembled. + +"It is Miss Middleton?" Laetitia said, advancing to her. "My +jealousy tells me; for you have won my boy Crossjay's heart, and +done more to bring him to obedience in a few minutes than we have +been able to do in months." + +"His wild flowers were so welcome to me," said Clara. + +"He was very modest over them. And I mention it because boys of +his age usually thrust their gifts in our faces fresh as they +pluck them, and you were to be treated quite differently." + +"We saw his good fairy's hand." + +"She resigns her office; but I pray you not to love him too well in +return; for he ought to be away reading with one of those men who +get boys through their examinations. He is, we all think, a born +sailor, and his place is in the navy." + +"But, Miss Dale, I love him so well that I shall consult his +interests and not my own selfishness. And, if I have influence, he +will not be a week with you longer. It should have been spoke of +to-day; I must have been in some dream; I thought of it, I know. I +will not forget to do what may be in my power." + +Clara's heart sank at the renewed engagement and plighting of +herself involved in her asking a favour, urging any sort of +petition. The cause was good. Besides, she was plighted already. + +"Sir Willoughby is really fond of the boy," she said. + +"He is fond of exciting fondness in the boy," said Miss Dale. "He +has not dealt much with children. I am sure he likes Crossjay; he +could not otherwise be so forbearing; it is wonderful what he +endures and laughs at." + +Sir Willoughby entered. The presence of Miss Dale illuminated him +as the burning taper lights up consecrated plate. Deeply +respecting her for her constancy, esteeming her for a model of +taste, he was never in her society without that happy +consciousness of shining which calls forth the treasures of the +man; and these it is no exaggeration to term unbounded, when all +that comes from him is taken for gold. + +The effect of the evening on Clara was to render her distrustful +of her later antagonism. She had unknowingly passed into the +spirit of Miss Dale, Sir Willoughby aiding; for she could +sympathize with the view of his constant admirer on seeing him so +cordially and smoothly gay; as one may say, domestically witty, +the most agreeable form of wit. Mrs Mountstuart Jenkinson discerned +that he had a leg of physical perfection; Miss Dale distinguished +it in him in the vital essence; and before either of these ladies +he was not simply a radiant, he was a productive creature, so true +it is that praise is our fructifying sun. He had even a touch of +the romantic air which Clara remembered as her first impression of +the favourite of the county; and strange she found it to observe +this resuscitated idea confronting her experience. What if she had +been captious, inconsiderate? Oh, blissful revival of the sense of +peace! The happiness of pain departing was all that she looked +for, and her conception of liberty was to learn to love her +chains, provided that he would spare her the caress. In this mood +she sternly condemned Constantia. "We must try to do good; we must +not be thinking of ourselves; we must make the best of our path in +life." She revolved these infantile precepts with humble +earnestness; and not to be tardy in her striving to do good, with +a remote but pleasurable glimpse of Mr. Whitford hearing of it, +she took the opportunity to speak to Sir Willoughby on the subject +of young Crossjay, at a moment when, alighting from horseback, he +had shown himself to advantage among a gallant cantering company. +He showed to great advantage on horseback among men, being +invariably the best mounted, and he had a cavalierly style, +possibly cultivated, but effective. On foot his raised head and +half-dropped eyelids too palpably assumed superiority. +"Willoughby, I want to speak," she said, and shrank as she spoke, +lest he should immediately grant everything in the mood of +courtship, and invade her respite; "I want to speak of that dear +boy Crossjay. You are fond of him. He is rather an idle boy here, +and wasting time . . ." + +"Now you are here, and when you are here for good, my love for +good . . ." he fluttered away in loverliness, forgetful of +Crossjay, whom he presently took up. "The boy recognizes his most +sovereign lady, and will do your bidding, though you should order +him to learn his lessons! Who would not obey? Your beauty alone +commands. But what is there beyond?--a grace, a hue divine, that +sets you not so much above as apart, severed from the world." + +Clara produced an active smile in duty, and pursued: "If Crossjay +were sent at once to some house where men prepare boys to pass for +the navy, he would have his chance, and the navy is distinctly his +profession. His father is a brave man, and he inherits bravery, +and he has a passion for a sailor's life; only he must be able to +pass his examination, and he has not much time." + +Sir Willoughby gave a slight laugh in sad amusement. + +"My dear Clara, you adore the world; and I suppose you have to +learn that there is not a question in this wrangling world about +which we have not disputes and contests ad nauseam. I have my +notions concerning Crossjay, Vernon has his. I should wish to +make a gentleman of him. Vernon marks him for a sailor. But Vernon +is the lad's protector, I am not. Vernon took him from his father +to instruct him, and he has a right to say what shall be done with +him. I do not interfere. Only I can't prevent the lad from liking +me. Old Vernon seems to feel it. I assure you I hold entirely +aloof. If I am asked, in spite of my disapproval of Vernon's plans +for the boy, to subscribe to his departure, I can but shrug, +because, as you see, I have never opposed. Old Vernon pays for +him, he is the master, he decides, and if Crossjay is blown from +the masthead in a gale, the blame does not fall on me. These, my +dear, are matters of reason." + +"I would not venture to intrude on them," said Clara, "if I had +not suspected that money ... + +"Yes," cried Willoughby; "and it is a part. And let old Vernon +surrender the boy to me, I will immediately relieve him of the +burden on his purse. Can I do that, my dear, for the furtherance +of a scheme I condemn? The point is thus: latterly I have invited +Captain Patterne to visit me: just previous to his departure for +the African Coast, where Government despatches Marines when there +is no other way of killing them, I sent him a special invitation. +He thanked me and curtly declined. The man, I may almost say, is +my pensioner. Well, he calls himself a Patterne, he is +undoubtedly a man of courage, he has elements of our blood, and +the name. I think I am to be approved for desiring to make a +better gentleman of the son than I behold in the father: and +seeing that life from an early age on board ship has anything but +made a gentleman of the father, I hold that I am right in shaping +another course for the son." + +"Naval officers . . ." Clara suggested. + +"Some," said Willoughby. "But they must be men of birth, coming +out of homes of good breeding. Strip them of the halo of the title +of naval officers, and I fear you would not often say gentlemen +when they step into a drawing-room. I went so far as to fancy I +had some claim to make young Crossjay something different. It can +be done: the Patterne comes out in his behaviour to you, my love; +it can be done. But if I take him, I claim undisputed sway over +him. I cannot make a gentleman of the fellow if I am to compete +with this person and that. In fine, he must look up to me, he must +have one model." + +"Would you, then, provide for him subsequently?" + +"According to his behaviour." + +"Would not that be precarious for him?" + +"More so than the profession you appear inclined to choose for +him?" + +"But there he would be under clear regulations." + +"With me he would have to respond to affection." + +"Would you secure to him a settled income? For an idle gentleman +is bad enough; a penniless gentleman . . ." + +"He has only to please me, my dear, and he will be launched and +protected." + +"But if he does not succeed in pleasing you?" + +"Is it so difficult?" + +"Oh!" Clara fretted. + +"You see, my love, I answer you," said Sir Willoughby. + +He resumed: "But let old Vernon have his trial with the lad. He +has his own ideas. Let him carry them out. I shall watch the +experiment." + +Clara was for abandoning her task in sheer faintness. + +"Is not the question one of money?" she said, shyly, knowing Mr. +Whitford to be poor. + +"Old Vernon chooses to spend his money that way." replied Sir +Willoughby. "If it saves him from breaking his shins and risking +his neck on his Alps, we may consider it well employed." + +"Yes," Clara's voice occupied a pause. + +She seized her languor as it were a curling snake and cast it off. +"But I understand that Mr. Whitford wants your assistance. Is he +not--not rich? When he leaves the Hall to try his fortune in +literature in London, he may not be so well able to support +Crossjay and obtain the instruction necessary for the boy: and it +would be generous to help him." + +"Leaves the Hall!" exclaimed Willoughby. "I have not heard a word +of it. He made a bad start at the beginning, and I should have +thought that would have tamed him: had to throw over his +Fellowship; ahem. Then he received a small legacy some time back, +and wanted to be off to push his luck in Literature: rank +gambling, as I told him. Londonizing can do him no good. I thought +that nonsense of his was over years ago. What is it he has from +me?--about a hundred and fifty a year: and it might be doubled +for the asking: and all the books he requires: and these writers +and scholars no sooner think of a book than they must have it. And +do not suppose me to complain. I am a man who will not have a +single shilling expended by those who serve immediately about my +person. I confess to exacting that kind of dependency. Feudalism +is not an objectionable thing if you can be sure of the lord. You +know, Clara, and you should know me in my weakness too, I do not +claim servitude, I stipulate for affection. I claim to be +surrounded by persons loving me. And with one? ... dearest! So +that we two can shut out the world; we live what is the dream of +others. Nothing imaginable can be sweeter. It is a veritable +heaven on earth. To be the possessor of the whole of you! Your +thoughts, hopes, all." + +Sir Willoughby intensified his imagination to conceive more: he +could not, or could not express it, and pursued: "But what is +this talk of Vernon's leaving me? He cannot leave. He has barely a +hundred a year of his own. You see, I consider him. I do not speak +of the ingratitude of the wish to leave. You know, my dear, I have +a deadly abhorrence of partings and such like. As far as I can, I +surround myself with healthy people specially to guard myself from +having my feelings wrung; and excepting Miss Dale, whom you like +--my darling does like her?"--the answer satisfied him; "with +that one exception, I am not aware of a case that threatens to +torment me. And here is a man, under no compulsion, talking of +leaving the Hall! In the name of goodness, why? But why? Am I to +imagine that the sight of perfect felicity distresses him? We are +told that the world is 'desperately wicked'. I do not like to +think it of my friends; yet otherwise their conduct is often hard +to account for." + +"If it were true, you would not punish Crossjay?" Clara feebly +interposed. + +"I should certainly take Crossjay and make a man of him after my +own model, my dear. But who spoke to you of this?" + +"Mr. Whitford himself. And let me give you my opinion, Willoughby, +that he will take Crossjay with him rather than leave him, if +there is a fear of the boy's missing his chance of the navy." + +"Marines appear to be in the ascendant," said Sir Willoughby, +astonished at the locution and pleading in the interests of a son +of one. "Then Crossjay he must take. I cannot accept half the boy. +I am," he laughed, "the legitimate claimant in the application for +judgement before the wise king. Besides, the boy has a dose of my +blood in him; he has none of Vernon's, not one drop." + +"Ah!" + +"You see, my love?" + +"Oh, I do see; yes." + +"I put forth no pretensions to perfection," Sir Willoughby +continued. "I can bear a considerable amount of provocation; still +I can be offended, and I am unforgiving when I have been +offended. Speak to Vernon, if a natural occasion should spring +up. I shall, of course, have to speak to him. You may, Clara, have +observed a man who passed me on the road as we were cantering +home, without a hint of a touch to his hat. That man is a tenant of +mine, farming six hundred acres, Hoppner by name: a man bound to +remember that I have, independently of my position, obliged him +frequently. His lease of my ground has five years to run. I must +say I detest the churlishness of our country population, and where +it comes across me I chastise it. Vernon is a different matter: he +will only require to be spoken to. One would fancy the old fellow +laboured now and then under a magnetic attraction to beggary. My +love," he bent to her and checked their pacing up and down, "you +are tired?" + +"I am very tired to-day," said Clara. + +His arm was offered. She laid two fingers on it, and they dropped +when he attempted to press them to his rib. + +He did not insist. To walk beside her was to share in the +stateliness of her walking. + +He placed himself at a corner of the door-way for her to pass him +into the house, and doated on her cheek, her ear, and the softly +dusky nape of her neck, where this way and that the little +lighter-coloured irreclaimable curls running truant from the comb and +the knot--curls, half-curls, root-curls, vine-ringlets, +wedding-rings, fledgling feathers, tufts of down, blown wisps--waved +or fell, waved over or up or involutedly, or strayed, loose and +downward, in the form of small silken paws, hardly any of them much +thicker than a crayon shading, cunninger than long round locks of +gold to trick the heart. + +Laetitia had nothing to show resembling such beauty. + + +CHAPTER X + +In Which Sir Willoughby Chances to Supply the Title for Himself + +Now Vernon was useful to his cousin; he was the accomplished secretary +of a man who governed his estate shrewdly and diligently, but had +been once or twice unlucky in his judgements pronounced from the +magisterial bench as a justice of the Peace, on which occasions a +half column of trenchant English supported by an apposite classical +quotation impressed Sir Willoughby with the value of such a secretary +in a controversy. He had no fear of that fiery dragon of scorching +breath--the newspaper press--while Vernon was his right hand man; +and as he intended to enter Parliament, he foresaw the greater need +of him. Furthermore, he liked his cousin to date his own +controversial writings, on classical subjects, from Patterne Hall. It +caused his house to shine in a foreign field; proved the service of +scholarship by giving it a flavour of a bookish aristocracy that, +though not so well worth having, and indeed in itself contemptible, +is above the material and titular; one cannot quite say how. There, +however, is the flavour. Dainty sauces are the life, the nobility, of +famous dishes; taken alone, the former would be nauseating, the +latter plebeian. It is thus, or somewhat so, when you have a poet, +still better a scholar, attached to your household. Sir Willoughby +deserved to have him, for he was above his county friends in his +apprehension of the flavour bestowed by the man; and having him, he +had made them conscious of their deficiency. His cook, M. Dehors, +pupil of the great Godefroy, was not the only French cook in the +county; but his cousin and secretary, the rising scholar, the +elegant essayist, was an unparalleled decoration; of his kind, of +course. Personally. we laugh at him; you had better not, unless you +are fain to show that the higher world of polite literature is +unknown to you. Sir Willoughby could create an abject silence at a +county dinner-table by an allusion to Vernon "at work at home upon his +Etruscans or his Dorians"; and he paused a moment to let the allusion +sink, laughed audibly to himself over his eccentric cousin, and let +him rest. + +In addition, Sir Willoughby abhorred the loss of a familiar face +in his domestic circle. He thought ill of servants who could +accept their dismissal without petitioning to stay with him. A +servant that gave warning partook of a certain fiendishness. +Vernon's project of leaving the Hall offended and alarmed the +sensitive gentleman. "I shall have to hand Letty Dale to him at +last!" he thought, yielding in bitter generosity to the conditions +imposed on him by the ungenerousness of another. For, since his +engagement to Miss Middleton, his electrically forethoughtful mind +had seen in Miss Dale, if she stayed in the neighbourhood, and +remained unmarried, the governess of his infant children, often +consulting with him. But here was a prospect dashed out. The two, +then, may marry, and live in a cottage on the borders of his park; +and Vernon can retain his post, and Laetitia her devotion. The +risk of her casting it of had to be faced. Marriage has been known +to have such an effect on the most faithful of women that a +great passion fades to naught in their volatile bosoms when they +have taken a husband. We see in women especially the triumph.of +the animal over the spiritual. Nevertheless, risks must be run +for a purpose in view. + +Having no taste for a discussion with Vernon, whom it was his +habit to confound by breaking away from him abruptly when he had +delivered his opinion, he left it to both the persons interesting +themselves in young Crossjay to imagine that he was meditating on +the question of the lad, and to imagine that it would be wise to +leave him to meditate; for he could be preternaturally acute in +reading any of his fellow-creatures if they crossed the current of +his feelings. And, meanwhile, he instructed the ladies Eleanor and +Isabel to bring Laetitia Dale on a visit to the Hall, where +dinner-parties were soon to be given and a pleasing talker would +be wanted, where also a woman of intellect, steeped in a splendid +sentiment, hitherto a miracle of female constancy, might stir a +younger woman to some emulation. Definitely to resolve to bestow +Laetitia upon Vernon was more than he could do; enough that he +held the card. + +Regarding Clara, his genius for perusing the heart which was not +in perfect harmony with him through the series of responsive +movements to his own, informed him of a something in her character +that might have suggested to Mrs Mountstuart Jenkinson her +indefensible, absurd "rogue in porcelain". Idea there was none in +that phrase; yet, if you looked on Clara as a delicately +inimitable porcelain beauty, the suspicion of a delicately +inimitable ripple over her features touched a thought of innocent +roguery, wildwood roguery; the likeness to the costly and lovely +substance appeared to admit a fitness in the dubious epithet. He +detested but was haunted by the phrase. + +She certainly had at times the look of the nymph that has gazed +too long on the faun, and has unwittingly copied his lurking lip +and long sliding eye. Her play with young Crossjay resembled a +return of the lady to the cat; she flung herself into it as if her +real vitality had been in suspense till she saw the boy. Sir +Willoughby by no means disapproved of a physical liveliness that +promised him health in his mate; but he began to feel in their +conversations that she did not sufficiently think of making +herself a nest for him. Steely points were opposed to him when he, +figuratively, bared his bosom to be taken to the softest and +fairest. She reasoned: in other words, armed her ignorance. She +reasoned against him publicly, and lured Vernon to support her. +Influence is to be counted for power, and her influence over +Vernon was displayed in her persuading him to dance one evening at +Lady Culmer's, after his melancholy exhibitions of himself in the +art; and not only did she persuade him to stand up fronting her, +she manoeuvred him through the dance like a clever boy cajoling a +top to come to him without reeling, both to Vernon's contentment +and to Sir Willoughby's; for he was the last man to object to a +manifestation of power in his bride. Considering her influence +with Vernon, he renewed the discourse upon young Crossjay; and, as +he was addicted to system, he took her into his confidence, that +she might be taught to look to him and act for him. + +"Old Vernon has not spoken to you again of that lad?" he said. + +"Yes, Mr. Whitford has asked me." + +"He does not ask me, my dear!" + +"He may fancy me of greater aid than I am." + +"You see, my love, if he puts Crossjay on me, he will be off. He +has this craze for 'enlisting' his pen in London, as he calls it; +and I am accustomed to him; I don't like to think of him as a +hack scribe, writing nonsense from dictation to earn a pitiful +subsistence; I want him here; and, supposing he goes, he offends +me; he loses a friend; and it will not he the first time that a +friend has tried me too far; but if he offends me, he is extinct." + +"Is what?" cried Clara, with a look of fright. + +"He becomes to me at once as if he had never been. He is extinct." + +"In spite of your affection?" + +"On account of it, I might say. Our nature is mysterious, and mine +as much so as any. Whatever my regrets, he goes out. This is not a +language I talk to the world. I do the man no harm; I am not to be +named unchristian. But ... !" + +Sir Willoughby mildly shrugged, and indicated a spreading out of +the arms. + +"But do, do talk to me as you talk to the world, Willoughby; give +me some relief!" + +"My own Clara, we are one. You should know me at my worst, we will +say, if you like, as well as at my best." + +"Should I speak too?" + +"What could you have to confess?" + +She hung silent; the wave of an insane resolution swelled in her +bosom and subsided before she said, "Cowardice, incapacity to +speak." + +"Women!" said he. + +We do not expect so much of women; the heroic virtues as little as +the vices. They have not to unfold the scroll of character. + +He resumed, and by his tone she understood that she was now in the +inner temple of him: "I tell you these things; I quite acknowledge +they do not elevate me. They help to constitute my character. I +tell you most humbly that I have in me much--too much of the +fallen archangel's pride." + +Clara bowed her head over a sustained in-drawn breath. + +"It must be pride," he said, in a reverie superinduced by her +thoughtfulness over the revelation, and glorying in the black +flames demoniacal wherewith he crowned himself. + +"Can you not correct it?" said she. + +He replied, profoundly vexed by disappointment: "I am what I am. +It might be demonstrated to you mathematically that it is +corrected by equivalents or substitutions in my character. If it +be a failing--assuming that." + +"It seems one to me: so cruelly to punish Mr. Whitford for seeking +to improve his fortunes." + +"He reflects on my share in his fortunes. He has had but to apply +to me for his honorarium to be doubled." + +"He wishes for independence." + +"Independence of me!" + +"Liberty!" + +"At my expense!" + +"Oh, Willoughby!" + +"Ay, but this is the world, and I know it, my love; and beautiful +as your incredulity may be, you will find it more comforting to +confide in my knowledge of the selfishness of the world. My +sweetest, you will?--you do! For a breath of difference between +us is intolerable. Do you not feel how it breaks our magic ring? +One small fissure, and we have the world with its muddy deluge!-- +But my subject was old Vernon. Yes, I pay for Crossjay, if Vernon +consents to stay. I waive my own scheme for the lad, though I +think it the better one. Now, then, to induce Vernon to stay. He +has his ideas about staying under a mistress of the household; and +therefore, not to contest it--he is a man of no argument; a sort +of lunatic determination takes the place of it with old Vernon! +--let him settle close by me, in one of my cottages; very well, +and to settle him we must marry him." + +"Who is there?" said Clara, beating for the lady in her mind. + +"Women," said Willoughby, "are born match-makers, and the most +persuasive is a young bride. With a man--and a man like old Vernon!-- +she is irresistible. It is my wish, and that arms you. It is your +wish, that subjugates him. If he goes, he goes for good. If he +stays, he is my friend. I deal simply with him, as with every one. +It is the secret of authority. Now Miss Dale will soon lose her +father. He exists on a pension; she has the prospect of having to +leave the neighbourhood of the Hall, unless she is established +near us. Her whole heart is in this region; it is the poor soul's +passion. Count on her agreeing. But she will require a little +wooing: and old Vernon wooing! Picture the scene to yourself, my +love. His notion of wooing. I suspect, will be to treat the lady +like a lexicon, and turn over the leaves for the word, and fly +through the leaves for another word, and so get a sentence. Don't +frown at the poor old fellow, my Clara; some have the language on +their tongues, and some have not. Some are very dry sticks; manly +men, honest fellows, but so cut away, so polished away from the +sex, that they are in absolute want of outsiders to supply the +silken filaments to attach them. Actually!" Sir Willoughby laughed +in Clara's face to relax the dreamy stoniness of her look. "But I +can assure you, my dearest, I have seen it. Vernon does not know +how to speak--as we speak. He has, or he had, what is called a +sneaking affection for Miss Dale. It was the most amusing thing +possible; his courtship!--the air of a dog with an uneasy +conscience, trying to reconcile himself with his master! We were +all in fits of laughter. Of course it came to nothing." + +"Will Mr. Whitford," said Clara, "offend you to extinction if he +declines?" + +Willoughby breathed an affectionate "Tush!" to her silliness. + +"We bring them together, as we best can. You see, Clara, I desire, +and I will make some sacrifices to detain him." + +"But what do you sacrifice?--a cottage?" said Clara, combative at +all points. + +"An ideal, perhaps. I lay no stress on sacrifice. I strongly +object to separations. And therefore, you will say, I prepare the +ground for unions? Put your influence to good service, my love. I +believe you could persuade him to give us the Highland fling on +the drawing-room table." + +"There is nothing to say to him of Crossjay?" + +"We hold Crossjay in reserve." + +"It is urgent." + +"Trust me. I have my ideas. I am not idle. That boy bids fair for +a capital horseman. Eventualities might . . ." Sir Willoughby +murmured to himself, and addressing his bride, "The cavalry? If we +put him into the cavalry, we might make a gentleman of him--not +be ashamed of him. Or, under certain eventualities, the Guards. +Think it over, my love. De Craye, who will, I suppose, act best +man for me, supposing old Vernon to pull at the collar, is a +Lieutenant-Colonel in the Guards, a thorough gentleman--of the +brainless class, if you like, but an elegant fellow; an Irishman; +you will see him, and I should like to set a naval lieutenant +beside him in a drawingroom, for you to compare them and consider +the model you would choose for a boy you are interested in. Horace +is grace and gallantry incarnate; fatuous, probably: I have always +been too friendly with him to examine closely. He made himself +one of my dogs, though my elder, and seemed to like to be at my +heels. One of the few men's faces I can call admirably handsome;-- +with nothing behind it, perhaps. As Vernon says, 'a nothing +picked by the vultures and bleached by the desert'. Not a bad +talker, if you are satisfied with keeping up the ball. He will +amuse you. Old Horace does not know how amusing he is!" + +"Did Mr. Whitford say that of Colonel De Craye?" + +"I forget the person of whom he said it. So you have noticed old +Vernon's foible? Quote him one of his epigrams, and he is in +motion head and heels! It is an infallible receipt for tuning him. +If I want to have him in good temper, I have only to remark, 'as +you said'. I straighten his back instantly." + +"I," said Clara, "have noticed chiefly his anxiety concerning the +boy; for which I admire him." + +"Creditable, if not particularly far-sighted and sagacious. well, +then, my dear, attack him at once; lead him to the subject of our +fair neighbour. She is to be our guest for a week or so, and the +whole affair might be concluded far enough to fix him before she +leaves. She is at present awaiting the arrival of a cousin to +attend on her father. A little gentle pushing will precipitate old +Vernon on his knees as far as he ever can unbend them; but when a +lady is made ready to expect a declaration, you know, why, she +does not--does she?--demand the entire formula?--though some +beautiful fortresses . . ." + +He enfolded her. Clara was growing hardened to it. To this she was +fated; and not seeing any way to escape, she invoked a friendly +frost to strike her blood, and passed through the minute +unfeelingly. Having passed it, she reproached herself for making +so much of it, thinking it a lesser endurance than to listen to +him. What could she do?--she was caged; by her word of honour, as +she at one time thought; by her cowardice, at another; and dimly +sensible that the latter was a stronger lock than the former, she +mused on the abstract question whether a woman's cowardice can be +so absolute as to cast her into the jaws of her aversion. Is it to +be conceived? Is there not a moment when it stands at bay? But +haggard-visaged Honour then starts up claiming to be dealt with in +turn; for having courage restored to her, she must have the +courage to break with honour, she must dare to be faithless, and +not merely say, I will be brave, but be brave enough to be +dishonourable. The cage of a plighted woman hungering for her +disengagement has two keepers, a noble and a vile; where on earth +is creature so dreadfully enclosed? It lies with her to overcome +what degrades her, that she may win to liberty by overcoming what +exalts. + +Contemplating her situation, this idea (or vapour of youth taking +the god-like semblance of an idea) sprang, born of her present +sickness, in Clara's mind; that it must be an ill-constructed +tumbling world where the hour of ignorance is made the creator of +our destiny by being forced to the decisive elections upon which +life's main issues hang. Her teacher had brought her to +contemplate his view of the world. + +She thought likewise: how must a man despise women, who can expose +himself as he does to me! + +Miss Middleton owed it to Sir Willoughby Patterne that she ceased +to think like a girl. When had the great change begun? Glancing +back, she could imagine that it was near the period we call in +love the first--almost from the first. And she was led to imagine +it through having become barred from imagining her own emotions of +that season. They were so dead as not to arise even under the form +of shadows in fancy. Without imputing blame to him, for she was +reasonable so far, she deemed herself a person entrapped. In a +dream somehow she had committed herself to a life-long +imprisonment; and, oh terror! not in a quiet dungeon; the barren +walls closed round her, talked, called for ardour, expected +admiration. + +She was unable to say why she could not give it; why she retreated +more and more inwardly; why she invoked the frost to kill her +tenderest feelings. She was in revolt, until a whisper of the day +of bells reduced her to blank submission; out of which a breath of +peace drew her to revolt again in gradual rapid stages, and once +more the aspect of that singular day of merry blackness felled her +to earth. It was alive, it advanced, it had a mouth, it had a +song. She received letters of bridesmaids writing of it, and felt +them as waves that hurl a log of wreck to shore. Following which +afflicting sense of antagonism to the whole circle sweeping on +with her, she considered the possibility of her being in a +commencement of madness. Otherwise might she not be accused of a +capriciousness quite as deplorable to consider? She had written to +certain of these young ladies not very long since of this +gentleman--how?--in what tone? And was it her madness then?-- +her recovery now? It seemed to her that to have written of him +enthusiastically resembled madness more than to shudder away from +the union; but standing alone, opposing all she has consented to +set in motion, is too strange to a girl for perfect justification +to be found in reason when she seeks it. + +Sir Willoughby was destined himself to supply her with that key of +special insight which revealed and stamped him in a title to +fortify her spirit of revolt, consecrate it almost. + +The popular physician of the county and famous anecdotal wit, Dr. +Corney, had been a guest at dinner overnight, and the next day +there was talk of him, and of the resources of his art displayed +by Armand Dehors on his hearing that he was to minister to the +tastes of a gathering of hommes d'esprit. Sir Willoughby glanced at +Dehors with his customary benevolent irony in speaking of the +persons, great in their way, who served him. "Why he cannot give +us daily so good a dinner, one must, I suppose, go to French +nature to learn. The French are in the habit of making up for all +their deficiencies with enthusiasm. They have no reverence; if I +had said to him, 'I want something particularly excellent, +Dehors', I should have had a commonplace dinner. But they have +enthusiasm on draught, and that is what we must pull at. Know one +Frenchman and you know France. I have had Dehors under my eye two +years, and I can mount his enthusiasm at a word. He took hommes +d'esprit to denote men of letters. Frenchmen have destroyed their +nobility, so, for the sake of excitement, they put up the literary +man--not to worship him; that they can't do; it's to put +themselves in a state of effervescence. They will not have real +greatness above them, so they have sham. That they may justly call +it equality, perhaps! Ay, for all your shake of the head, my good +Vernon! You see, human nature comes round again, try as we may to +upset it, and the French only differ from us in wading through +blood to discover that they are at their old trick once more; "I +am your equal, sir, your born equal. Oh! you are a man of letters? +Allow me to be in a bubble about you!" Yes, Vernon, and I believe +the fellow looks up to you as the head of the establishment. I am +not jealous. Provided he attends to his functions! There's a +French philosopher who's for naming the days of the year after +the birthdays of French men of letters. Voltaire-day, Rousseau-day, +Racine-day, so on. Perhaps Vernon will inform us who takes April +1st." + +"A few trifling errors are of no consequence when you are in the +vein of satire," said Vernon. "Be satisfied with knowing a nation +in the person of a cook." + +"They may be reading us English off in a jockey!" said Dr. +Middleton. "I believe that jockeys are the exchange we make for +cooks; and our neighbours do not get the best of the bargain." + +"No; but, my dear good Vernon, it's nonsensical," said Sir +Willoughby; "why be bawling every day the name of men of +letters?" + +"Philosophers." + +"Well, philosophers." + +"Of all countries and times. And they are the benefactors of +humanity." + +"Bene--!" Sir Willoughby's derisive laugh broke the word. +"There's a pretension in all that, irreconcilable with English +sound sense. Surely you see it?" + +"We might," said Vernon, "if you like, give alternative titles to +the days, or have alternating days, devoted to our great families +that performed meritorious deeds upon such a day." + +The rebel Clara, delighting in his banter, was heard: "Can we +furnish sufficient?" + +"A poet or two could help us." + +"Perhaps a statesman," she suggested. + +"A pugilist, if wanted." + +"For blowy days," observed Dr. Middleton, and hastily in penitence +picked up the conversation he had unintentionally prostrated, with +a general remark on new-fangled notions, and a word aside to +Vernon; which created the blissful suspicion in Clara that her +father was indisposed to second Sir Willoughby's opinions even +when sharing them. + +Sir Willoughby had led the conversation. Displeased that the lead +should be withdrawn from him, he turned to Clara and related one +of the after-dinner anecdotes of Dr. Corney; and another, with a +vast deal of human nature in it, concerning a valetudinarian +gentleman, whose wife chanced to be desperately ill, and he went +to the physicians assembled in consultation outside the sick-room, +imploring them by all he valued, and in tears, to save the poor +patient for him, saying: "She is everything to me, everything; and +if she dies I am compelled to run the risks of marrying again; I +must marry again; for she has accustomed me so to the little +attentions of a wife, that in truth I can't. I can't lose her! She +must be saved!" And the loving husband of any devoted wife wrung +his hands. + +"Now, there, Clara, there you have the Egoist," added Sir +Willoughby. "That is the perfect Egoist. You see what he comes to +--and his wife! The man was utterly unconscious of giving vent to +the grossest selfishness." + +"An Egoist!" said Clara. + +"Beware of marrying an Egoist, my dear!" He bowed gallantly; and +so blindly fatuous did he appear to her, that she could hardly +believe him guilty of uttering the words she had heard from him, +and kept her eyes on him vacantly till she came to a sudden full +stop in the thoughts directing her gaze. She looked at Vernon, +she looked at her father, and at the ladies Eleanor and Isabel. +None of them saw the man in the word, none noticed the word; yet +this word was her medical herb, her illuminating lamp, the key of +him (and, alas, but she thought it by feeling her need of one), +the advocate pleading in apology for her. Egoist! She beheld him-- +unfortunate, selfdesignated man that he was!--in his good +qualities as well as bad under the implacable lamp, and his good +were drenched in his first person singular. His generosity roared +of I louder than the rest. Conceive him at the age of Dr. Corney's +hero: "Pray, save my wife for me. I shall positively have to get +another if I lose her, and one who may not love me half so well, +or understand the peculiarities of my character and appreciate my +attitudes." He was in his thirty-second year, therefore a young +man, strong and healthy, yet his garrulous return to his principal +theme, his emphasis on I and me, lent him the seeming of an old +man spotted with decaying youth. + +"Beware of marrying an Egoist." + +Would he help her to escape? The idea of the scene ensuing upon +her petition for release, and the being dragged round the walls of +his egoism, and having her head knocked against the corners, +alarmed her with sensations of sickness. + +There was the example of Constantia. But that desperate young lady +had been assisted by a gallant, loving gentleman; she had met a +Captain Oxford. + +Clara brooded on those two until they seemed heroic. She +questioned herself. Could she . . .? were one to come? She shut +her eyes in languor, leaning the wrong way of her wishes, yet +unable to say No. + +Sir Willoughby had positively said beware! Marrying him would be a +deed committed in spite of his express warning. She went so far +as to conceive him subsequently saying: "I warned you." She +conceived the state of marriage with him as that of a woman tied +not to a man of heart, but to an obelisk lettered all over with +hieroglyphics, and everlastingly hearing him expound them, +relishing renewing his lectures on them. + +Full surely this immovable stone-man would not release her. This +petrifaction of egoism would from amazedly to austerely refuse the +petition. His pride would debar him from understanding her desire +to be released. And if she resolved on it, without doing it +straightway in Constantia's manner, the miserable bewilderment of +her father, for whom such a complication would be a tragic +dilemma, had to be thought of. Her father, with all his tenderness +for his child, would make a stand on the point of honour; though +certain to yield to her, he would be distressed in a tempest of +worry; and Dr. Middleton thus afflicted threw up his arms, he +shunned books, shunned speech, and resembled a castaway on the +ocean, with nothing between himself and his calamity. As for the +world, it would be barking at her heels. She might call the man +she wrenched her hand from, Egoist; jilt, the world would call +her. She dwelt bitterly on her agreement with Sir Willoughby +regarding the world, laying it to his charge that her garden had +become a place of nettles, her horizon an unlighted fourth side of +a square. + +Clara passed from person to person visiting the Hall. There was +universal, and as she was compelled to see, honest admiration of +the host. Not a soul had a suspicion of his cloaked nature. Her +agony of hypocrisy in accepting their compliments as the bride of +Sir Willoughby Patterne was poorly moderated by contempt of them +for their infatuation. She tried to cheat herself with the thought +that they were right and that she was the foolish and wicked +inconstant. In her anxiety to strangle the rebelliousness which +had been communicated from her mind to her blood, and was present +with her whether her mind was in action or not, she encouraged the +ladies Eleanor and Isabel to magnify the fictitious man of their +idolatry, hoping that she might enter into them imaginatively, +that she might to some degree subdue herself to the necessity of +her position. If she partly succeeded in stupefying her +antagonism, five minutes of him undid the work. + +He requested her to wear the Patterne pearls for a dinner-party of +grand ladies, telling her that he would commission Miss Isabel to +take them to her. Clara begged leave to decline them, on the plea +of having no right to wear them. He laughed at her modish modesty. +"But really it might almost be classed with affectation," said he. +"I give you the right. Virtually you are my wife." + +"No." + +"Before heaven?" + +"No. We are not married." + +"As my betrothed, will you wear them, to please me?" + +"I would rather not. I cannot wear borrowed jewels. These I cannot +wear. Forgive me, I cannot. And, Willoughby," she said, scorning +herself for want of fortitude in not keeping to the simply blunt +provocative refusal, "does one not look like a victim decked for +the sacrifice?--the garlanded heifer you see on Greek vases, in +that array of jewellery?" + +"My dear Clara!" exclaimed the astonished lover, "how can you term +them borrowed, when they are the Patterne jewels, our family +heirloom pearls, unmatched, I venture to affirm, decidedly in my +county and many others, and passing to the use of the mistress of +the house in the natural course of things?" + +"They are yours, they are not mine." + +"Prospectively they are yours." + +"It would be to anticipate the fact to wear them." + +"With my consent, my approval? at my request?" + +"I am not yet . . . I never may be . . ." + +"My wife?" He laughed triumphantly, and silenced her by manly +smothering. + +Her scruple was perhaps an honourable one, he said. Perhaps the +jewels were safer in their iron box. He had merely intended a +surprise and gratification to her. + +Courage was coming to enable her to speak more plainly, when his +discontinuing to insist on her wearing the jewels, under an +appearance of deference of her wishes, disarmed her by touching +her sympathies. + +She said, however, "I fear we do not often agree, Willoughby." + +"When you are a little older!" was the irritating answer. + +"It would then be too late to make the discovery." + +"The discovery, I apprehend, is not imperative, my love." + +"It seems to me that our minds are opposed." + +"I should," said he, "have been awake to it at a single +indication, be sure." + +"But I know," she pursued, "I have learned that the ideal of +conduct for women is to subject their minds to the part of an +accompaniment." + +"For women, my love? my wife will be in natural harmony with me." + +"Ah!" She compressed her lips. The yawn would come. "I am sleepier +here than anywhere." + +"Ours, my Clara, is the finest air of the kingdom. It has the +effect of sea-air." + +"But if I am always asleep here?" + +"We shall have to make a public exhibition of the Beauty." + +This dash of his liveliness defeated her. + +She left him, feeling the contempt of the brain feverishly +quickened and fine-pointed, for the brain chewing the cud in the +happy pastures of unawakedness. So violent was the fever, so keen +her introspection, that she spared few, and Vernon was not among +them. Young Crossjay, whom she considered the least able of all to +act as an ally, was the only one she courted with a real desire to +please him, he was the one she affectionately envied; he was the +youngest, the freest, he had the world before him, and he did not +know how horrible the world was, or could be made to look. She +loved the boy from expecting nothing of him. Others, Vernon +Whitford, for instance, could help, and moved no hand. He read her +case. A scrutiny so penetrating under its air of abstract +thoughtfulness, though his eyes did but rest on her a second or +two, signified that he read her line by line, and to the end-- +excepting what she thought of him for probing her with that sharp +steel of insight without a purpose. + +She knew her mind's injustice. It was her case, her lamentable +case--the impatient panic-stricken nerves of a captured wild +creature which cried for help. She exaggerated her sufferings to +get strength to throw them off, and lost it in the recognition +that they were exaggerated: and out of the conflict issued +recklessness, with a cry as wild as any coming of madness; for she +did not blush in saying to herself. "If some one loved me!" Before +hearing of Constantia, she had mused upon liberty as a virgin +Goddess--men were out of her thoughts; even the figure of a +rescuer, if one dawned in her mind, was more angel than hero. That +fair childish maidenliness had ceased. With her body straining in +her dragon's grasp, with the savour of loathing, unable to +contend, unable to speak aloud, she began to speak to herself, and +all the health of her nature made her outcry womanly: "If I were +loved!"--not for the sake of love, but for free breathing; and +her utterance of it was to insure life and enduringness to the +wish, as the yearning of a mother on a drowning ship is to get her +infant to shore. "If some noble gentleman could see me as I am and +not disdain to aid me! Oh! to be caught up out of this prison of +thorns and brambles. I cannot tear my own way out. I am a coward. +My cry for help confesses that. A beckoning of a finger would +change me, I believe. I could fly bleeding and through hootings to +a comrade. Oh! a comrade! I do not want a lover. I should find +another Egoist, not so bad, but enough to make me take a breath +like death. I could follow a soldier, like poor Sally or Molly. He +stakes his life for his country, and a woman may be proud of the +worst of men who do that. Constantia met a soldier. Perhaps she +prayed and her prayer was answered. She did ill. But, oh, how I +love her for it! His name was Harry Oxford. Papa would call him +her Perseus. She must have felt that there was no explaining what +she suffered. She had only to act, to plunge. First she fixed her +mind on Harry Oxford. To be able to speak his name and see him +awaiting her, must have been relief, a reprieve. She did not +waver, she cut the links, she signed herself over. Oh, brave girl! +what do you think of me? But I have no Harry Whitford, I am alone. +Let anything be said against women; we must be very bad to have +such bad things written of us: only, say this, that to ask them to +sign themselves over by oath and ceremony, because of an ignorant +promise, to the man they have been mistaken in, is . . . it is--" +the sudden consciousness that she had put another name for Oxford, +struck her a buffet, drowning her in crimson. + + +CHAPTER XI + +The Double-Blossom Wild Cherry-Tree + +Sir Willoughby chose a moment when Clara was with him and he had a +good retreat through folding-windows to the lawn, in case of +cogency on the enemy's part, to attack his cousin regarding the +preposterous plot to upset the family by a scamper to London: "By +the way, Vernon, what is this you've been mumbling to everybody +save me, about leaving us to pitch yourself into the stew-pot and +be made broth of? London is no better, and you are fit for +considerably better. Don't, I beg you, continue to annoy me. Take +a run abroad, if you are restless. Take two or three months, and +join us as we are travelling home; and then think of settling, +pray. Follow my example, if you like. You can have one of my +cottages, or a place built for you. Anything to keep a man from +destroying the sense of stability about one. In London, my dear +old fellow, you lose your identity. What are you there? I ask you, +what? One has the feeling of the house crumbling when a man is +perpetually for shifting and cannot fix himself. Here you are +known, you can study at your ease; up in London you are nobody; I +tell you honestly, I feel it myself., a week of London literally +drives me home to discover the individual where I left him. Be +advised. You don't mean to go." + +"I have the intention," said Vernon. + +"Why?" + +"I've mentioned it to you." + +"To my face?" + +"Over your shoulder is generally the only chance you give me." + +"You have not mentioned it to me, to my knowledge. As to the +reason, I might hear a dozen of your reasons, and I should not +understand one. It's against your interests and against my wishes. +Come, friend, I am not the only one you distress. Why, Vernon, you +yourself have said that the English would be very perfect Jews if +they could manage to live on the patriarchal system. You said it, +yes, you said it!--but I recollect it clearly. Oh, as for your +double-meanings, you said the thing, and you jeered at the +incapacity of English families to live together, on account of bad +temper; and now you are the first to break up our union! I +decidedly do not profess to be a perfect Jew, but I do . . ." + +Sir Willoughby caught signs of a probably smiling commerce between +his bride and his cousin. He raised his face, appeared to be +consulting his eyelids, and resolved to laugh: "Well, I own it. I +do like the idea of living patriarchally." He turned to Clara. +"The Rev. Doctor one of us!" + +"My father?" she said. + +"Why not?" + +"Papa's habits are those of a scholar." + +"That you might not be separated from him, my dear!" + +Clara thanked Sir Willoughby for the kindness of thinking of her +father, mentally analysing the kindness, in which at least she +found no unkindness, scarcely egoism, though she knew it to be +there. + +"We might propose it," said he.. + +"As a compliment?" + +"If he would condescend to accept it as a compliment. These great +scholars! ... And if Vernon goes, our inducement for Dr. Middleton +to stay ... But it is too absurd for discussion.. Oh, Vernon, +about Master Crossjay; I will see to it." + +He was about to give Vernon his shoulder and step into the +garden, when Clara said, "You will have Crossjay trained for the +navy, Willoughby? There is not a day to lose." + +"Yes, yes; I will see to it. Depend on me for holding the young +rascal in view." + +He presented his hand to her to lead her over the step to the +gravel, surprised to behold how flushed she was. + +She responded to the invitation by putting her hand forth from a +bent elbow, with hesitating fingers. "It should not be postponed, +Willoughby." + +Her attitude suggested a stipulation before she touched him. + +"It's an affair of money, as you know, Willoughby," said Vernon. +"If I'm in London, I can't well provide for the boy for some time +to come, or it's not certain that I can." + +"Why on earth should you go?" + +"That's another matter. I want you to take my place with him." + +"In which case the circumstances are changed. I am responsible for +him, and I have a right to bring him up according to my own +prescription." + +"We are likely to have one idle lout the more." + +"I guarantee to make a gentleman of him." + +"We have too many of your gentlemen already." + +"You can't have enough, my good Vernon." + +"They're the national apology for indolence. Training a penniless +boy to be one of them is nearly as bad as an education in a +thieves" den; he will be just as much at war with society, if not +game for the police." + +"Vernon, have you seen Crossjay's father, the now Captain of +Marines? I think you have." + +"He's a good man and a very gallant officer." + +"And in spite of his qualities he's a cub, and an old cub. He is a +captain now, but he takes that rank very late, you will own. There +you have what you call a good man, undoubtedly a gallant officer, +neutralized by the fact that he is not a gentleman. Holding +intercourse with him is out of the question. No wonder Government +declines to advance him rapidly. Young Crossjay does not bear your +name. He bears mine, and on that point alone I should have a voice +in the settlement of his career. And I say emphatically that a +drawing-room approval of a young man is the best certificate for +his general chances in life. I know of a City of London merchant +of some sort, and I know a firm of lawyers, who will have none but +University men at their office; at least, they have the +preference." + +"Crossjay has a bullet head, fit neither for the University nor +the drawing-room," said Vernon; "equal to fighting and dying for +you, and that's all." + +Sir Willoughby contented himself with replying, "The lad is a +favourite of mine." + +His anxiety to escape a rejoinder caused him to step into the +garden, leaving Clara behind him. "My love!" said he, in apology, +as he turned to her. She could not look stern, but she had a look +without a dimple to soften it, and her eyes shone. For she had +wagered in her heart that the dialogue she provoked upon Crossjay +would expose the Egoist. And there were other motives, wrapped up +and intertwisted, unrecognizable, sufficient to strike her with +worse than the flush of her self-knowledge of wickedness when she +detained him to speak of Crossjay before Vernon. + +At last it had been seen that she was conscious of suffering in +her association with this Egoist! Vernon stood for the world taken +into her confidence. The world, then, would not think so ill of +her, she thought hopefully, at the same time that she thought most +evilly of herself. But self-accusations were for the day of +reckoning; she would and must have the world with her, or the +belief that it was coming to her, in the terrible struggle she +foresaw within her horizon of self, now her utter boundary. She +needed it for the inevitable conflict. Little sacrifices of her +honesty might be made. Considering how weak she was, how solitary, +how dismally entangled, daily disgraced beyond the power of any +veiling to conceal from her fiery sensations, a little hypocrisy +was a poor girl's natural weapon. She crushed her conscientious +mind with the assurance that it was magnifying trifles: not +entirely unaware that she was thereby preparing it for a +convenient blindness in the presence of dread alternatives; but +the pride of laying such stress on small sins gave her purity a +blush of pleasure and overcame the inner warning. In truth she +dared not think evilly of herself for long, sailing into battle as +she was. Nuns and anchorites may; they have leisure. She regretted +the forfeits she had to pay for self-assistance, and, if it might +be won, the world's; regretted, felt the peril of the loss, and +took them up and flung them. + +"You see, old Vernon has no argument," Willoughby said to her. + +He drew her hand more securely on his arm to make her sensible that +she leaned on a pillar of strength. + +"Whenever the little brain is in doubt, perplexed, undecided which +course to adopt, she will come to me, will she not? I shall always +listen," he resumed, soothingly. "My own! and I to you when the +world vexes me. So we round our completeness. You will know me; +you will know me in good time. I am not a mystery to those to whom +I unfold myself. I do not pretend to mystery: yet, I will confess, +your home--your heart's--Willoughby is not exactly identical with +the Willoughby before the world. One must be armed against that +rough beast." + +Certain is the vengeance of the young upon monotony; nothing more +certain. They do not scheme it, but sameness is a poison to their +systems; and vengeance is their heartier breathing, their stretch +of the limbs, run in the fields; nature avenges them. + +"When does Colonel De Craye arrive?" said Clara. + +"Horace? In two or three days. You wish him to be on the spot to +learn his part, my love?" + +She had not flown forward to the thought of Colonel De Craye's +arrival; she knew not why she had mentioned him; but now she flew +back, shocked, first into shadowy subterfuge, and then into the +criminal's dock. + +"I do not wish him to be here. I do not know that he has a part to +learn. I have no wish. Willoughby, did you not say I should come +to you and you would listen?--will you listen? I am so +commonplace that I shall not be understood by you unless you take +my words for the very meaning of the words. I am unworthy. I am +volatile. I love my liberty. I want to be free . . ." + +"Flitch!" he called. + +It sounded necromantic. + +"Pardon me, my love," he said. "The man you see yonder violates my +express injunction that he is not to come on my grounds, and here +I find him on the borders of my garden!" + +Sir Willoughby waved his hand to the abject figure of a man +standing to intercept him. + +"Volatile, unworthy, liberty--my dearest!" he bent to her when +the man had appeased him by departing, "you are at liberty within +the law, like all good women; I shall control and direct your +volatility; and your sense of worthiness must be re-established +when we are more intimate; it is timidity. The sense of +unworthiness is a guarantee of worthiness ensuing. I believe I am +in the vein of a sermon! Whose the fault? The sight of that man +was annoying. Flitch was a stable-boy, groom, and coachman, like +his father before him, at the Hall thirty years; his father died +in our service. Mr. Flitch had not a single grievance here; only +one day the demon seizes him with the notion of bettering himself +he wants his independence, and he presents himself to me with a +story of a shop in our county town.--Flitch! remember, if you go +you go for good.--Oh, he quite comprehended.--Very well; +good-bye, Flitch;--the man was respectful: he looked the fool he +was very soon to turn out to be. Since then, within a period of +several years, I have had him, against my express injunctions, ten +times on my grounds. It's curious to calculate. Of course the shop +failed, and Flitch's independence consists in walking about with +his hands in his empty pockets, and looking at the Hall from some +elevation near." + +"Is he married? Has he children?" said Clara. + +"Nine; and a wife that cannot cook or sew or wash linen." + +"You could not give him employment?" + +"After his having dismissed himself?" + +"It might be overlooked." + +"Here he was happy. He decided to go elsewhere, to be free--of +course, of my yoke. He quitted my service against my warning. +Flitch, we will say, emigrated with his wife and children, and the +ship foundered. He returns, but his place is filled; he is a ghost +here, and I object to ghosts." + +"Some work might be found for him." + +"It will be the same with old Vernon, my dear. If he goes, he goes +for good. It is the vital principle of my authority to insist on +that. A dead leaf might as reasonably demand to return to the +tree. Once off, off for all eternity! I am sorry. but such was +your decision, my friend. I have, you see, Clara, elements in +me--" + +"Dreadful!" + +"Exert your persuasive powers with Vernon. You can do well-nigh +what you will with the old fellow. We have Miss Dale this evening +for a week or two. Lead him to some ideas of her.--Elements in +me, I was remarking, which will no more bear to be handled +carelessly than gunpowder. At the same time, there is no reason +why they should not be respected, managed with some degree of +regard for me and attention to consequences. Those who have not +done so have repented." + +"You do not speak to others of the elements in you," said Clara. + +"I certainly do not: I have but one bride," was his handsome +reply. + +"Is it fair to me that you should show me the worst of you?" + +"All myself, my own?" + +His ingratiating droop and familiar smile rendered "All myself" so +affectionately meaningful in its happy reliance upon her excess of +love, that at last she understood she was expected to worship him +and uphold him for whatsoever he might be, without any estimation +of qualities: as indeed love does, or young love does: as she +perhaps did once, before he chilled her senses. That was before +her "little brain" had become active and had turned her senses to +revolt. + +It was on the full river of love that Sir Willoughby supposed the +whole floating bulk of his personality to be securely sustained; +and therefore it was that, believing himself swimming at his ease, +he discoursed of himself. + +She went straight away from that idea with her mental exclamation: +"Why does he not paint himself in brighter colours to me!" and the +question: "Has he no ideal of generosity and chivalry?" + +But the unfortunate gentleman imagined himself to be loved, on +Love's very bosom. He fancied that everything relating to himself +excited maidenly curiosity, womanly reverence, ardours to know +more of him, which he was ever willing to satisfy by repeating the +same things. His notion of women was the primitive black and +white: there are good women, bad women; and he possessed a good +one. His high opinion of himself fortified the belief that +Providence, as a matter of justice and fitness, must necessarily +select a good one for him--or what are we to think of Providence? +And this female, shaped by that informing hand, would naturally be +in harmony with him, from the centre of his profound identity to +the raying circle of his variations. Know the centre, you know the +circle, and you discover that the variations are simply +characteristics, but you must travel on the rays from the circle +to get to the centre. Consequently Sir Willoughby put Miss +Middleton on one or other of these converging lines from time to +time. Us, too, he drags into the deeps, but when we have harpooned +a whale and are attached to the rope, down we must go; the miracle +is to see us rise again. + +Women of mixed essences shading off the divine to the considerably +lower were outside his vision of woman. His mind could as little +admit an angel in pottery as a rogue in porcelain. For him they +were what they were when fashioned at the beginning; many cracked, +many stained, here and there a perfect specimen designed for the +elect of men. At a whisper of the world he shut the prude's door +on them with a slam; himself would have branded them with the +letters in the hue of fire. Privately he did so; and he was +constituted by his extreme sensitiveness and taste for +ultra-feminine refinement to be a severe critic of them during the +carnival of egoism, the love-season. Constantia ... can it he +told? She had been, be it said, a fair and frank young merchant +with him in that season; she was of a nature to be a mother of +heroes; she met the salute, almost half-way, ingenuously unlike +the coming mothers of the regiments of marionettes, who retire in +vapours, downcast, as by convention; ladies most flattering to the +egoistical gentleman, for they proclaim him the "first". +Constantia's offence had been no greater, but it was not that +dramatic performance of purity which he desired of an affianced +lady, and so the offence was great. + +The love-season is the carnival of egoism, and it brings the +touchstone to our natures. I speak of love, not the mask, and not +of the flutings upon the theme of love, but of the passion; a +flame having, like our mortality, death in it as well as life, +that may or may not be lasting. Applied to Sir Willoughby, as to +thousands of civilized males, the touchstone found him requiring +to be dealt with by his betrothed as an original savage. She was +required to play incessantly on the first reclaiming chord which +led our ancestral satyr to the measures of the dance, the +threading of the maze, and the setting conformably to his partner +before it was accorded to him to spin her with both hands and a +chirrup of his frisky heels. To keep him in awe and hold him +enchained, there are things she must never do, dare never say, +must not think. She must be cloistral. Now, strange and awful +though it be to hear, women perceive this requirement of them in +the spirit of the man; they perceive, too, and it may be +gratefully, that they address their performances less to the +taming of the green and prankish monsieur of the forest than to the +pacification of a voracious aesthetic gluttony, craving them +insatiably, through all the tenses, with shrieks of the lamentable +letter "I" for their purity. Whether they see that it has its +foundation in the sensual, and distinguish the ultra-refined but +lineally great-grandson of the Hoof in this vast and dainty +exacting appetite is uncertain. They probably do not; the more the +damage; for in the appeasement of the glutton they have to +practise much simulation; they are in their way losers like their +ancient mothers. It is the palpable and material of them still +which they are tempted to flourish, wherewith to invite and allay +pursuit: a condition under which the spiritual, wherein their hope +lies, languishes. The capaciously strong in soul among women will +ultimately detect an infinite grossness in the demand for purity +infinite, spotless bloom. Earlier or later they see they have been +victims of the singular Egoist, have worn a mask of ignorance to be +named innocent, have turned themselves into market produce for +his delight, and have really abandoned the commodity in +ministering to the lust for it, suffered themselves to be dragged +ages back in playing upon the fleshly innocence of happy accident +to gratify his jealous greed of possession, when it should have +been their task to set the soul above the fairest fortune and the +gift of strength in women beyond ornamental whiteness. Are they +not of nature warriors, like men?--men's mates to bear them +heroes instead of puppets? But the devouring male Egoist prefers +them as inanimate overwrought polished pure metal precious +vessels, fresh from the hands of the artificer, for him to walk +away with hugging, call all his own, drink of, and fill and drink +of, and forget that he stole them. + +This running off on a by-road is no deviation from Sir Willoughby +Patterne and Miss Clara Middleton. He, a fairly intelligent man, +and very sensitive, was blinded to what was going on within her +visibly enough, by her production of the article he demanded of +her sex. He had to leave the fair young lady to ride to his +county-town, and his design was to conduct her through the covert +of a group of laurels, there to revel in her soft confusion. She +resisted; nay, resolutely returned to the lawn-sward. He +contrasted her with Constantia in the amorous time, and rejoiced +in his disappointment. He saw the goddess Modesty guarding Purity; +and one would be bold to say that he did not hear the Precepts, +Purity's aged grannams maternal and paternal, cawing approval of +her over their munching gums. And if you ask whether a man, +sensitive and a lover, can be so blinded, you are condemned to +re-peruse the foregoing paragraph. + +Miss Middleton was not sufficiently instructed in the position of +her sex to know that she had plunged herself in the thick of the +strife of one of their great battles. Her personal position, +however, was instilling knowledge rapidly, as a disease in the +frame teaches us what we are and have to contend with. Could she +marry this man? He was evidently manageable. Could she condescend +to the use of arts in managing him to obtain a placable life?--a +horror of swampy flatness! So vividly did the sight of that dead +heaven over an unvarying level earth swim on her fancy, that she +shut her eyes in angry exclusion of it as if it were outside, +assailing her; and she nearly stumbled upon young Crossjay. + +"Oh, have I hurt you?" he cried. + +"No," said she, "it was my fault. Lead me somewhere away from +everybody." + +The boy took her hand, and she resumed her thoughts; and, pressing +his fingers and feeling warm to him both for his presence and +silence, so does the blood in youth lead the mind, even cool and +innocent blood, even with a touch, that she said to herself, "And +if I marry, and then ... Where will honour be then? I marry him to +be true to my word of honour, and if then ... !" An intolerable +languor caused her to sigh profoundly. It is written as she +thought it; she thought in blanks, as girls do, and some women. A +shadow of the male Egoist is in the chamber of their brains +overawing them. + +"Were I to marry, and to run!" There is the thought; she is +offered up to your mercy. We are dealing with a girl feeling +herself desperately situated, and not a fool. + +"I'm sure you're dead tired, though," said Crossjay. + +"No, I am not; what makes you think so?" said Clara. + +"I do think so." + +"But why do you think so?" + +"You're so hot." + +"What makes you think that?" + +"You're so red." + +"So are you, Crossjay." + +"I'm only red in the middle of the cheeks, except when I've been +running. And then you talk to yourself, just as boys do when they +are blown." + +"Do they?" + +"They say: 'I know I could have kept up longer', or, 'my buckle +broke', all to themselves, when they break down running." + +"And you have noticed that?" + +"And, Miss Middleton, I don't wish you were a boy, but I should +like to live near you all my life and be a gentleman. I'm coming +with Miss Dale this evening to stay at the Hall and be looked +after, instead of stopping with her cousin who takes care of her +father. Perhaps you and I'll play chess at night." + +"At night you will go to bed, Crossjay." + +"Not if I have Sir Willoughby to catch hold of. He says I'm an +authority on birds" eggs. I can manage rabbits and poultry. Isn't +a farmer a happy man? But he doesn't marry ladies. A cavalry +officer has the best chance." + +"But you are going to be a naval officer." + +"I don't know. It's not positive. I shall bring my two dormice, and +make them perform gymnastics on the dinnertable. They're such dear +little things. Naval officers are not like Sir Willoughby." + +"No, they are not," said Clara, "they give their lives to their +country. + +"And then they're dead," said Crossjay. + +Clara wished Sir Willoughby were confronting her: she could have +spoken. + +She asked the boy where Mr. Whitford was. Crossjay pointed very +secretly in the direction of the double-blossom wild-cherry. +Coming within gaze of the stem, she beheld Vernon stretched at +length, reading, she supposed; asleep, she discovered: his finger +in the leaves of a book; and what book? She had a curiosity to +know the title of the book he would read beneath these boughs, and +grasping Crossjay's hand fast she craned her neck, as one timorous +of a fall in peeping over chasms, for a glimpse of the page; but +immediately, and still with a bent head, she turned her face to +where the load of virginal blossom, whiter than summer-cloud on +the sky, showered and drooped and clustered so thick as to claim +colour and seem, like higher Alpine snows in noon-sunlight, a +flush of white. From deep to deeper heavens of white, her eyes +perched and soared. Wonder lived in her. Happiness in the beauty +of the tree pressed to supplant it, and was more mortal and +narrower. Reflection came, contracting her vision and weighing her +to earth. Her reflection was: "He must be good who loves to be and +sleep beneath the branches of this tree!" She would rather have +clung to her first impression: wonder so divine, so unbounded, was +like soaring into homes of angel-crowded space, sweeping through +folded and on to folded white fountain-bow of wings, in +innumerable columns; but the thought of it was no recovery of it; +she might as well have striven to be a child. The sensation of +happiness promised to be less short-lived in memory, and would +have been had not her present disease of the longing for happiness +ravaged every corner of it for the secret of its existence. The +reflection took root. "He must be good ... !" That reflection +vowed to endure. Poor by comparison with what it displaced, it +presented itself to her as conferring something on him, and she +would not have had it absent though it robbed her. + +She looked down. Vernon was dreamily looking up. + +She plucked Crossjay hurriedly away, whispering that he had better +not wake Mr. Whitford, and then she proposed to reverse their +previous chase, and she be the hound and he the hare. Crossjay +fetched a magnificent start. On his glancing behind he saw Miss +Middleton walking listlessly, with a hand at her side. + +"There's a regular girl!" said he in some disgust; for his theory +was, that girls always have something the matter with them to +spoil a game. + + +CHAPTER XII + +Miss Middleton and Mr. Vernon Whitford + +Looking upward, not quite awakened out of a transient doze, +at a fair head circled in dazzling blossom, one may temporize +awhile with common sense, and take it for a vision after the +eyes have regained direction of the mind. Vernon did so until +the plastic vision interwound with reality alarmingly. This is +the embrace of a Melusine who will soon have the brain if she +is encouraged. Slight dalliance with her makes the very diminutive +seem as big as life. He jumped to his feet, rattled his +throat, planted firmness on his brows and mouth, and attacked +the dream-giving earth with tremendous long strides, that his +blood might be lively at the throne of understanding. Miss +Middleton and young Crossjay were within hail: it was her face he +had seen, and still the idea of a vision, chased from his +reasonable wits, knocked hard and again for readmission. +There was little for a man of humble mind toward the sex to +think of in the fact of a young lady's bending rather low to +peep at him asleep, except that the poise of her slender figure, +between an air of spying and of listening, vividly recalled his +likening of her to the Mountain Echo. Man or maid sleeping in the +open air provokes your tiptoe curiosity. Men, it is +known, have in that state cruelly been kissed; and no rights are +bestowed on them, they are teased by a vapourish rapture; what has +happened to them the poor fellows barely divine: +they have a crazy step from that day. But a vision is not so +distracting; it is our own, we can put it aside and return to it, +play at rich and poor with it, and are not to be summoned before your +laws and rules for secreting it in our treasury. Besides, it +is the golden key of all the possible; new worlds expand beneath +the dawn it brings us. Just outside reality, it illumines, +enriches and softens real things;--and to desire it in +preference to the simple fact is a damning proof of enervation. + +Such was Vernon's winding up of his brief drama of fantasy. He was +aware of the fantastical element in him and soon had it under. +Which of us who is of any worth is without it? He had not much +vanity to trouble him, and passion was quiet, so his task was not +gigantic. Especially be it remarked, that he was a man of quick +pace, the sovereign remedy for the dispersing of the mental +fen-mist. He had tried it and knew that nonsense is to be walked +off + +Near the end of the park young Crossjay overtook him, and after +acting the pumped one a trifle more than needful, cried: "I say, +Mr. Whitford, there's Miss Middleton with her handkerchief out." + +"What for, my lad?" said Vernon. + +"I'm sure I don't know. All of a sudden she bumped down. And, +look what fellows girls are!--here she comes as if nothing had +happened, and I saw her feel at her side." + +Clara was shaking her head to express a denial. "I am not at all +unwell," she said. when she came near. "I guessed Crossjay's +business in running up to you; he's a good-for-nothing, officious +boy. I was tired, and rested for a moment." + +Crossjay peered at her eyelids. Vernon looked away and said: "Are +you too tired for a stroll?" + +"Not now." + +"Shall it be brisk?" + +"You have the lead." + +He led at a swing of the legs that accelerated young Crossjay's to +the double, but she with her short, swift, equal steps glided +along easily on a fine by his shoulder, and he groaned to think +that of all the girls of earth this one should have been +chosen for the position of fine lady. + +"You won't tire me," said she, in answer to his look. + +"You remind me of the little Piedmontese Bersaglieri on the +march." + +"I have seen them trotting into Como from Milan." + +"They cover a quantity of ground in a day, if the ground's flat. +You want another sort of step for the mountains." + +"I should not attempt to dance up." + +"They soon tame romantic notions of them." + +"The mountains tame luxurious dreams, you mean. I see how they are +conquered. I can plod. Anything to be high up!" + +"Well, there you have the secret of good work: to plod on and +still keep the passion fresh." + +"Yes, when we have an aim in view." + +"We always have one." + +"Captives have?" + +"More than the rest of us." + +Ignorant man! What of wives miserably wedded? What aim in view +have these most woeful captives? Horror shrouds it, and shame +reddens through the folds to tell of innermost horror. + +"Take me back to the mountains, if you please, Mr. Whitford," Miss +Middleton said, fallen out of sympathy with him. "Captives have +death in view, but that is not an aim." + +"Why may not captives expect a release?" + +"Hardly from a tyrant." + +"If you are thinking of tyrants, it may be so. Say the tyrant +dies?" + +"The prison-gates are unlocked and out comes a skeleton. But why +will you talk of skeletons! The very name of mountain seems life +in comparison with any other subject." + +"I assure you," said Vernon, with the fervour of a man lighting on +an actual truth in his conversation with a young lady, "it's not +the first time I have thought you would be at home in the Alps. +You would walk and climb as well as you dance." + +She liked to hear Clara Middleton talked of, and of her having +been thought of, and giving him friendly eyes, barely noticing +that he was in a glow. she said: "If you speak so encouragingly I +shall fancy we are near an ascent." + +"I wish we were," said he. + +"We can realize it by dwelling on it, don't you think?" + +"We can begin climbing." + +"Oh!" she squeezed herself shadowily. + +"Which mountain shall it be?" said Vernon, in the right real +earnest tone. + +Miss Middleton suggested a lady's mountain first, for a trial. +"And then, if you think well enough of me--if I have not stumbled +more than twice, or asked more than ten times how far it is from +the top, I should like to be promoted to scale a giant." + +They went up to some of the lesser heights of Switzerland and +Styria, and settled in South Tyrol, the young lady preferring this +district for the strenuous exercise of her climbing powers because +she loved Italian colour; and it seemed an exceedingly good reason +to the genial imagination she had awakened in Mr. Whitford. +"Though," said he, abruptly, "you are not so much Italian as +French." + +She hoped she was English, she remarked. + +"Of course you are English; . . . yes." He moderated his ascent +with the halting affirmative. + +She inquired wonderingly why he spoke in apparent hesitation. + +"Well, you have French feet, for example: French wits, French +impatience," he lowered his voice, "and charm" + +"And love of compliments." + +"Possibly. I was not conscious of paying them" + +"And a disposition to rebel?" + +"To challenge authority, at least." + +"That is a dreadful character." + +"At all events, it is a character." + +"Fit for an Alpine comrade?" + +"For the best of comrades anywhere." + +"It is not a piece of drawing-room sculpture: that is the most one +can say for it!" she dropped a dramatic sigh. + +Had he been willing she would have continued the theme, for the +pleasure a poor creature long gnawing her sensations finds in +seeing herself from the outside. It fell away. After a silence, +she could not renew it; and he was evidently indifferent, having +to his own satisfaction dissected and stamped her a foreigner. +With it passed her holiday. She had forgotten Sir Willoughby: she +remembered him and said. "You knew Miss Durham, Mr. Whitford?" + +He answered briefly, "I did." + +"Was she? . . ." some hot-faced inquiry peered forth and withdrew. + +"Very handsome," said Vernon. + +"English?" + +"Yes; the dashing style of English." + +"Very courageous." + +"I dare say she had a kind of courage." + +"She did very wrong." + +"I won't say no. She discovered a man more of a match with +herself; luckily not too late. We're at the mercy . . + +"Was she not unpardonable?" + +"I should be sorry to think that of any one." + +"But you agree that she did wrong." + +"I suppose I do. She made a mistake and she corrected it. if she +had not, she would have made a greater mistake." + +"The manner. . ." + +"That was bad--as far as we know. The world has not much right to +judge. A false start must now and then be made. It's better not to +take notice of it, I think." + +"What is it we are at the mercy of?" + +"Currents of feeling, our natures. I am the last man to preach on +the subject: young ladies are enigmas to me; I fancy they must +have a natural perception of the husband suitable to them, and the +reverse; and if they have a certain degree of courage, it follows +that they please themselves." + +"They are not to reflect on the harm they do?" said Miss +Middleton. + +"By all means let them reflect; they hurt nobody by doing that." + +"But a breach of faith!" + +"If the faith can be kept through life, all's well." + +"And then there is the cruelty, the injury!" + +"I really think that if a young lady came to me to inform me she +must break our engagement--I have never been put to the proof, +but to suppose it:--I should not think her cruel." + +"Then she would not be much of a loss." + +"And I should not think so for this reason, that it is impossible +for a girl to come to such a resolution without previously showing +signs of it to her. . . the man she is engaged to. I think it +unfair to engage a girl for longer than a week or two, just time +enough for her preparations and publications." + +"If he is always intent on himself, signs are likely to be unheeded +by him," said Miss Middleton. + +He did not answer, and she said, quickly: + +"It must always be a cruelty. The world will think so. It is an +act of inconstancy." + +"If they knew one another well before they were engaged." + +"Are you not singularly tolerant?" said she. + +To which Vernon replied with airy cordiality:-- + +"In some cases it is right to judge by results; we'll leave +severity to the historian, who is bound to be a professional +moralist and put pleas of human nature out of the scales. The lady +in question may have been to blame, but no hearts were broken, and +here we have four happy instead of two miserable." + +His persecuting geniality of countenance appealed to her to +confirm this judgement by results, and she nodded and said: +"Four," as the awe-stricken speak. + +From that moment until young Crossjay fell into the green-rutted +lane from a tree, and was got on his legs half stunned, with a +hanging lip and a face like the inside of a flayed eel-skin, she +might have been walking in the desert, and alone, for the pleasure +she had in society. + +They led the fated lad home between them, singularly drawn +together by their joint ministrations to him, in which her +delicacy had to stand fire, and sweet good-nature made naught of +any trial. They were hand in hand with the little fellow as +physician and professional nurse. + + +CHAPTER XIII + +The First Effort after Freedom + +Crossjay's accident was only another proof, as Vernon told +Miss Dale, that the boy was but half monkey. + +"Something fresh?" she exclaimed on seeing him brought into the +Hall, where she had just arrived. + +"Simply a continuation," said Vernon. "He is not so prehensile as +he should be. He probably in extremity relies on the tail that has +been docked. Are you a man, Crossjay?" + +"I should think I was!" Crossjay replied, with an old man's voice, +and a ghastly twitch for a smile overwhelmed the compassionate +ladies. + +Miss Dale took possession of him. "You err in the other +direction," she remarked to Vernon. + +"But a little bracing roughness is better than spoiling him." said +Miss Middleton. + +She did not receive an answer, and she thought: "Whatever +Willoughby does is right, to this lady!" + +Clara's impression was renewed when Sir Willoughby sat beside Miss +Dale in the evening; and certainly she had never seen him shine so +picturesquely as in his bearing with Miss Dale. The sprightly +sallies of the two, their rallyings, their laughter, and her fine +eyes, and his handsome gestures, won attention like a fencing +match of a couple keen with the foils to display the mutual skill. +And it was his design that she should admire the display; he was +anything but obtuse; enjoying the match as he did and necessarily +did to act so excellent a part in it, he meant the observer to see +the man he was with a lady not of raw understanding. So it went on +from day to day for three days. + +She fancied once that she detected the agreeable stirring of the +brood of jealousy, and found it neither in her heart nor in her +mind, but in the book of wishes, well known to the young where +they write matter which may sometimes be independent of both those +volcanic albums. Jealousy would have been a relief to her, a dear +devil's aid. She studied the complexion of jealousy to delude +herself with the sense of the spirit being in her, and all the +while she laughed, as at a vile theatre whereof the imperfection +of the stage machinery rather than the performance is the wretched +source of amusement. + +Vernon had deeply depressed her. She was hunted by the figure 4. +Four happy instead of two miserable. He had said it, involving her +among the four; and so it must be, she considered. and she must +be as happy as she could; for not only was he incapable of +perceiving her state, he was unable to imagine other circumstances +to surround her. How, to be just to him, were they imaginable by +him or any one? + +Her horrible isolation of secrecy in a world amiable in +unsuspectingness frightened her. To fling away her secret, to +conform, to be unrebellious, uncritical, submissive, became an +impatient desire; and the task did not appear so difficult since +Miss Dale's arrival. Endearments had been rare, more formal; +living bodily untroubled and unashamed, and, as she phrased it, +having no one to care for her, she turned insensibly in the +direction where she was due; she slightly imitated Miss Dale's +colloquial responsiveness. To tell truth, she felt vivacious in a +moderate way with Willoughby after seeing him with Miss Dale. +Liberty wore the aspect of a towering prison-wall; the desperate +undertaking of climbing one side and dropping to the other was +more than she, unaided, could resolve on; consequently, as no one +cared for her, a worthless creature might as well cease dreaming +and stipulating for the fulfilment of her dreams; she might as +well yield to her fate; nay, make the best of it. + +Sir Willoughby was flattered and satisfied. Clara's adopted +vivacity proved his thorough knowledge of feminine nature; nor did +her feebleness in sustaining it displease him. A steady look of +hers had of late perplexed the man, and he was comforted by +signs of her inefficiency where he excelled. The effort and the +failure were both of good omen. + +But she could not continue the effort. He had overweighted her too +much for the mimicry of a sentiment to harden and have an +apparently natural place among her impulses; and now an idea came +to her that he might, it might be hoped, possibly see in Miss +Dale, by present contrast, the mate he sought; by contrast with an +unanswering creature like herself, he might perhaps realize in +Miss Dale's greater accomplishments and her devotion to him the +merit of suitability; he might be induced to do her justice. Dim as +the loop-hole was, Clara fixed her mind on it till it gathered +light. And as a prelude to action, she plunged herself into a +state of such profound humility, that to accuse it of being +simulated would he venturesome, though it was not positive. The +tempers of the young are liquid fires in isles of quicksand; the +precious metals not yet cooled in a solid earth. Her compassion +for Laetitia was less forced, but really she was almost as earnest +in her self-abasement, for she had not latterly been brilliant, not +even adequate to the ordinary requirements of conversation. She +had no courage, no wit, no diligence, nothing that she could +distinguish save discontentment like a corroding acid, and she went +so far in sincerity as with a curious shift of feeling to pity the +man plighted to her. If it suited her purpose to pity Sir +Willoughby, she was not moved by policy, be assured; her needs +were her nature, her moods her mind; she had the capacity to make +anything serve her by passing into it with the glance which +discerned its usefulness; and this is how it is that the young, +when they are in trouble, without approaching the elevation of +scientific hypocrites, can teach that able class lessons in +hypocrisy. + +"Why should not Willoughby be happy?" she said; and the +exclamation was pushed forth by the second thought: "Then I shall +be free!" Still that thought came second. + +The desire for the happiness of Willoughby was fervent on his +behalf and wafted her far from friends and letters to a narrow +Tyrolean valley, where a shallow river ran, with the indentations +of a remotely seen army of winding ranks in column, topaz over the +pebbles to hollows of ravishing emerald. There sat Liberty, after +her fearful leap over the prison-wall, at peace to watch the water +and the falls of sunshine on the mountain above, between +descending pine-stem shadows. Clara's wish for his happiness, as +soon as she had housed herself in the imagination of her freedom, +was of a purity that made it seem exceedingly easy for her to +speak to him. + +The opportunity was offered by Sir Willoughby. Every morning after +breakfast Miss Dale walked across the park to see her father, and +on this occasion Sir Willoughby and Miss Middleton went with her +as far as the lake, all three discoursing of the beauty of various +trees, birches, aspens, poplars, beeches, then in their new green. +Miss Dale loved the aspen, Miss Middleton the beech, Sir +Willoughby the birch, and pretty things were said by each in +praise of the favoured object, particularly by Miss Dale. So much +so that when she had gone on he recalled one of her remarks, and +said: "I believe, if the whole place were swept away to-morrow, +Laetitia Dale could reconstruct it and put those aspens on the +north of the lake in number and situation correctly where you have +them now. I would guarantee her description of it in absence +correct." + +"Why should she be absent?" said Clara, palpitating. + +"Well, why!" returned Sir Willoughby. "As you say, there is no +reason why. The art of life, and mine will be principally a +country life--town is not life, but a tornado whirling atoms +--the art is to associate a group of sympathetic friends in our +neighbourhood; and it is a fact worth noting that if ever I feel +tired of the place, a short talk with Laetitia Dale refreshes it +more than a month or two on the Continent. She has the well of +enthusiasm. And there is a great advantage in having a cultivated +person at command, with whom one can chat of any topic under the +sun. I repeat, you have no need of town if you have friends like +Laetitia Dale within call. My mother esteemed her highly." + +"Willoughby, she is not obliged to go." + +"I hope not. And, my love, I rejoice that you have taken to her. +Her father's health is poor. She would be a young spinster to live +alone in a country cottage." + +"What of your scheme?" + +"Old Vernon is a very foolish fellow." + +"He has declined?" + +"Not a word on the subject! I have only to propose it to be +snubbed, I know." + +"You may not be aware how you throw him into the shade with her." + +"Nothing seems to teach him the art of dialogue with ladies." + +"Are not gentlemen shy when they see themselves outshone?" + +"He hasn't it, my love: Vernon is deficient in the lady's tongue." + +"I respect him for that." + +"Outshone. you say? I do not know of any shining--save to one, who +lights me, path and person!" + +The identity of the one was conveyed to her in a bow and a soft +pressure. + +"Not only has he not the lady's tongue, which I hold to be a man's +proper accomplishment," continued Sir Willoughby, "he cannot turn +his advantages to account. Here has Miss Dale been with him now +four days in the house. They are exactly on the same footing as +when she entered it. You ask? I will tell you. It is this: it is +want of warmth. Old Vernon is a scholar--and a fish. Well, +perhaps he has cause to be shy of matrimony; but he is a fish." + +"You are reconciled to his leaving you?" + +"False alarm! The resolution to do anything unaccustomed is quite +beyond old Vernon." + +"But if Mr. Oxford--Whitford ... your swans coming sailing up the +lake, how beautiful they look when they are indignant! I was going +to ask you, surely men witnessing a marked admiration for some one +else will naturally be discouraged?" + +Sir Willoughby stiffened with sudden enlightenment. + +Though the word jealousy had not been spoken, the drift of her +observations was clear. Smiling inwardly, he said, and the +sentences were not enigmas to her: "Surely, too, young ladies ... +a little?--Too far? But an old friendship! About the same as the +fitting of an old glove to a hand. Hand and glove have only to +meet. Where there is natural harmony you would not have discord. +Ay, but you have it if you check the harmony. My dear girl! You +child!" + +He had actually, in this parabolic, and commendable, obscureness, +for which she thanked him in her soul, struck the very point she +had not named and did not wish to hear named, but wished him to +strike; he was anything but obtuse. His exultation, of the +compressed sort, was extreme, on hearing her cry out: + +"Young ladies may be. Oh! not I, not I. I can convince you. Not +that. Believe me, Willoughby. I do not know what it is to feel +that, or anything like it. I cannot conceive a claim on any one's +life--as a claim: or the continuation of an engagement not +founded on perfect, perfect sympathy. How should I feel it, then? +It is, as you say of Mr. Ox--Whitford, beyond me." + +Sir Willoughby caught up the Ox--Whitford. + +Bursting with laughter in his joyful pride, he called it a +portrait of old Vernon in society. For she thought a trifle too +highly of Vernon, as here and there a raw young lady does think of +the friends of her plighted man. which is waste of substance +properly belonging to him, as it were, in the loftier sense, an +expenditure in genuflexions to wayside idols of the reverence +she should bring intact to the temple. Derision instructs her. + +Of the other subject--her jealousy--he had no desire to hear +more. She had winced: the woman had been touched to smarting in +the girl: enough. She attempted the subject once, but faintly, and +his careless parrying threw her out. Clara could have bitten her +tongue for that reiterated stupid slip on the name of Whitford; +and because she was innocent at heart she persisted in asking +herself how she could be guilty of it. + +"You both know the botanic titles of these wild flowers," she +said. + +"Who?" he inquired. + +"You and Miss Dale." + +Sir Willoughby shrugged. He was amused. + +"No woman on earth will grace a barouche so exquisitely as my +Clara." + +"Where?" said she. + +"During our annual two months in London. I drive a barouche there, +and venture to prophesy that my equipage will create the greatest +excitement of any in London. I see old Horace De Craye gazing!" + +She sighed. She could not drag him to the word, or a hint of it +necessary to her subject. + +But there it was; she saw it. She had nearly let it go, and +blushed at being obliged to name it. + +"Jealousy, do you mean. Willoughby? the people in London would be +jealous?--Colonel De Craye? How strange! That is a sentiment I +cannot understand." + +Sir Willoughby gesticulated the "Of course not" of an established +assurance to the contrary. + +"Indeed, Willoughby, I do not." + +"Certainly not." + +He was now in her trap. And he was imagining himself to he +anatomizing her feminine nature. + +"Can I give you a proof, Willoughby? I am so utterly incapable of +it that--listen to me--were you to come to me to tell me, as you +might, how much better suited to you Miss Dale has appeared than I +am--and I fear I am not; it should be spoken plainly; unsuited +altogether, perhaps--I would, I beseech you to believe--you must +believe me--give you ... give you your freedom instantly; most +truly; and engage to speak of you as I should think of you. +Willoughby, you would have no one to praise you in public and in +private as I should, for you would be to me the most honest, +truthful, chivalrous gentleman alive. And in that case I would +undertake to declare that she would not admire you more than I; +Miss Dale would not; she would not admire you more than I; not +even Miss Dale." + +This, her first direct leap for liberty, set Clara panting, and so +much had she to say that the nervous and the intellectual halves +of her dashed like cymbals, dazing and stunning her with the +appositeness of things to be said, and dividing her in indecision +as to the cunningest to move him of the many pressing. + +The condition of feminine jealousy stood revealed. + +He had driven her farther than he intended. + +"Come, let me allay these . . ." he soothed her with hand and +voice, while seeking for his phrase; "these magnified pinpoints. +Now, my Clara! on my honour! and when I put it forward in +attestation, my honour has the most serious meaning speech can +have; ordinarily my word has to suffice for bonds, promises, or +asseverations; on my honour! not merely is there, my poor child! +no ground of suspicion, I assure you, I declare to you, the fact +of the case is the very reverse. Now, mark me; of her sentiments I +cannot pretend to speak; I did not, to my knowledge, originate, I +am not responsible for them, and I am, before the law, as we will +say, ignorant of them; that is, I have never heard a declaration +of them, and I, am, therefore, under pain of the stigma of +excessive fatuity, bound to be non-cognizant. But as to myself I +can speak for myself and, on my honour! Clara--to be as direct as +possible. even to baldness, and you know I loathe it--I could +not, I repeat, I could not marry Laetitia Dale! Let me impress it +on you. No flatteries--we are all susceptible more or less--no +conceivable condition could bring it about; no amount of +admiration. She and I are excellent friends; we cannot be more. +When you see us together, the natural concord of our minds is of +course misleading. She is a woman of genius. I do not conceal, I +profess my admiration of her. There are times when, I confess, I +require a Laetitia Dale to bring me out, give and take. I am +indebted to her for the enjoyment of the duet few know, few can +accord with, fewer still are allowed the privilege of playing with +a human being. I am indebted, I own. and I feel deep gratitude; I +own to a lively friendship for Miss Dale, but if she is +displeasing in the sight of my bride by ... by the breadth of an +eyelash, then . . ." + +Sir Willoughby's arm waved Miss Dale off away into outer darkness +in the wilderness. + +Clara shut her eyes and rolled her eyeballs in a frenzy of +unuttered revolt from the Egoist. + +But she was not engaged in the colloquy to be an advocate of Miss +Dale or of common humanity. + +"Ah!" she said, simply determining that the subject should not +drop. + +"And, ah!" he mocked her tenderly. "True, though! And who knows +better than my Clara that I require youth, health, beauty, and the +other undefinable attributes fitting with mine and beseeming the +station of the lady called to preside over my household and +represent me? What says my other self? my fairer? But you are! my +love, you are! Understand my nature rightly, and you . . " + +"I do! I do!" interposed Clara; "if I did not by this time I +should be idiotic. Let me assure you, I understand it. Oh! listen +to me: one moment. Miss Dale regards me as the happiest woman on +earth. Willoughby, if I possessed her good qualities, her heart +and mind, no doubt I should be. It is my wish--you must hear me, +hear me out--my wish, my earnest wish, my burning prayer, my wish +to make way for her. She appreciates you: I do not--to my shame, +I do not. She worships you: I do not, I cannot. You are the rising +sun to her. It has been so for years. No one can account for love; +I daresay not for the impossibility of loving ... loving where we +should; all love bewilders me. I was not created to understand it. +But she loves you, she has pined. I believe it has destroyed the +health you demand as one item in your list. But you, Willoughby, +can restore that. Travelling, and ... and your society, the +pleasure of your society would certainly restore it. You look so +handsome together! She has unbounded devotion! as for me, I cannot +idolize. I see faults: I see them daily. They astonish and wound +me. Your pride would not bear to hear them spoken of, least of all +by your wife. You warned me to beware--that is, you said, you +said something." + +Her busy brain missed the subterfuge to cover her slip of the +tongue. + +Sir Willoughby struck in: "And when I say that the entire +concatenation is based on an erroneous observation of facts, and +an erroneous deduction from that erroneous observation!--? No, +no. Have confidence in me. I propose it to you in this instance, +purely to save you from deception. You are cold, my love? you +shivered." + +"I am not cold," said Clara. "Some one, I suppose, was walking +over my grave." + +The gulf of a caress hove in view like an enormous billow +hollowing under the curled ridge. + +She stooped to a buttercup; the monster swept by. + +"Your grave!" he exclaimed over her head; "my own girl!" + +"Is not the orchid naturally a stranger in ground so far away from +the chalk, Willoughby?" + +"I am incompetent to pronounce an opinion on such important +matters. My mother had a passion for every description of flower. +I fancy I have some recollection of her scattering the flower you +mention over the park." + +"If she were living now!" + +"We should be happy in the blessing of the most estimable of +women, my Clara." + +"She would have listened to me. She would have realized what I +mean." + +"Indeed, Clara--poor soul!" he murmured to himself, aloud; +"indeed you are absolutely in error. If I have seemed--but I +repeat, you are deceived. The idea of 'fitness' is a total +hallucination. Supposing you--I do it even in play painfully-- +entirely out of the way, unthought of. . ." + +"Extinct," Clara said low. + +"Non-existent for me," he selected a preferable term. "Suppose it; +I should still, in spite of an admiration I have never thought it +incumbent on me to conceal, still be--I speak emphatically-- +utterly incapable of the offer of my hand to Miss Dale. It may be +that she is embedded in my mind as a friend, and nothing but a +friend. I received the stamp in early youth. People have noticed +it--we do, it seems, bring one another out, reflecting, +counter-reflecting." + +She glanced up at him with a shrewd satisfaction to see that her +wicked shaft had stuck. + +"You do; it is a common remark," she said. "The instantaneous +difference when she comes near, any one might notice." + +"My love," he opened the iron gate into the garden, "you encourage +the naughty little suspicion." + +"But it is a beautiful sight, Willoughby. I like to see you +together. I like it as I like to see colours match." + +"Very well. There is no harm then. We shall often be together. I +like my fair friend. But the instant!--you have only to express a +sentiment of disapprobation." + +"And you dismiss her." + +"I dismiss her. That is, as to the word, I constitute myself your +echo, to clear any vestige of suspicion. She goes." + +"That is a case of a person doomed to extinction without +offending." + +"Not without: for whoever offends my bride, my wife, my sovereign +lady, offends me: very deeply offends me." + +"Then the caprices of your wife . . ." Clara stamped her foot +imperceptibly on the lawn-sward, which was irresponsively soft to +her fretfulness. She broke from the inconsequent meaningless mild +tone of irony, and said: "Willoughby, women have their honour to +swear by equally with men:--girls have: they have to swear an +oath at the altar; may I to you now? Take it for uttered when I +tell you that nothing would make me happier than your union with +Miss Dale. I have spoken as much as I can. Tell me you release +me." + +With the well-known screw-smile of duty upholding weariness worn +to inanition, he rejoined: "Allow me once more to reiterate, that +it is repulsive, inconceivable, that I should ever, under any +mortal conditions, bring myself to the point of taking Miss Dale +for my wife. You reduce me to this perfectly childish protestation +--pitiably childish! But, my love, have I to remind you that you +and I are plighted, and that I am an honourable man?" + +"I know it, I feel it--release me!" cried Clara. + +Sir Willoughby severely reprehended his short-sightedness for +seeing but the one proximate object in the particular attention he +had bestowed on Miss Dale. He could not disavow that they had been +marked, and with an object, and he was distressed by the unwonted +want of wisdom through which he had been drawn to overshoot his +object. His design to excite a touch of the insane emotion in +Clara's bosom was too successful, and, "I was not thinking of +her," he said to himself in his candour, contrite. + +She cried again: "Will you not, Willoughby--release me?" + +He begged her to take his arm. + +To consent to touch him while petitioning for a detachment, +appeared discordant to Clara, but, if she expected him to accede, +it was right that she should do as much as she could, and she +surrendered her hand at arm's length, disdaining the imprisoned +fingers. He pressed them and said: "Dr Middleton is in the +library. I see Vernon is at work with Crossjay in the West-room-- +the boy has had sufficient for the day. Now, is it not like old +Vernon to drive his books at a cracked head before it's half +mended?" + +He signalled to young Crossjay, who was up and out through the +folding windows in a twinkling. + +"And you will go in, and talk to Vernon of the lady in question," +Sir Willoughby whispered to Clara. "Use your best persuasions in +our joint names. You have my warrant for saying that money is no +consideration; house and income are assured. You can hardly have +taken me seriously when I requested you to undertake Vernon +before. I was quite in earnest then as now. I prepare Miss Dale. I +will not have a wedding on our wedding-day; but either before or +after it, I gladly speed their alliance. I think now I give you +the best proof possible, and though I know that with women a +delusion may be seen to be groundless and still be cherished, I +rely on your good sense." + +Vernon was at the window and stood aside for her to enter. Sir +Willoughby used a gentle insistence with her. She bent her head as +if she were stepping into a cave. So frigid was she, that a +ridiculous dread of calling Mr. Whitford Mr. Oxford was her only +present anxiety when Sir Willoughby had closed the window on them. + + +CHAPTER XIV + +Sir Willoughby and Laetitia + +"I prepare Miss Dale." + +Sir Willoughby thought of his promise to Clara. He trifled awhile +with young Crossjay, and then sent the boy flying, and wrapped +himself in meditation. So shall you see standing many a statue of +statesmen who have died in harness for their country. + +In the hundred and fourth chapter of the thirteenth volume of the +Book of Egoism it is written: Possession without obligation to the +object possessed approaches felicity. + +It is the rarest condition of ownership. For example: the +possession of land is not without obligation both to the soil and +the tax-collector; the possession of fine clothing is oppressed by +obligation; gold, jewelry, works of art, enviable household +furniture, are positive fetters; the possession of a wife we find +surcharged with obligation. In all these cases possession is a +gentle term for enslavement, bestowing the sort of felicity +attained to by the helot drunk. You can have the joy, the pride, +the intoxication of possession; you can have no free soul. + +But there is one instance of possession, and that the most perfect, +which leaves us free, under not a shadow of obligation, receiving +ever, never giving. or if giving, giving only of our waste; as it +were (sauf votre respect), by form of perspiration, radiation, if +you like; unconscious poral bountifulness; and it is a beneficent +process for the system. Our possession of an adoring female's +worship is this instance. + +The soft cherishable Parsee is hardly at any season other than +prostrate. She craves nothing save that you continue in being-- +her sun: which is your firm constitutional endeavour: and thus +you have a most exact alliance; she supplying spirit to your +matter, while at the same time presenting matter to your +spirit, verily a comfortable apposition. The Gods do bless it. + +That they do so indeed is evident in the men they select for such +a felicitous crown and aureole. Weak men would be rendered nervous +by the flattery of a woman's worship; or they would be for +returning it, at least partially, as though it could be bandied to +and fro without emulgence of the poetry; or they would be +pitiful, and quite spoil the thing. Some would be for +transforming the beautiful solitary vestal flame by the first +effort of the multiplication-table into your hearth-fire of +slippered affection. So these men are not they whom the Gods have +ever selected, but rather men of a pattern with themselves, very +high and very solid men, who maintain the crown by holding +divinely independent of the great emotion they have sown. + +Even for them a pass of danger is ahead, as we shall see in our +sample of one among the highest of them. + +A clear approach to felicity had long been the portion of Sir +Willoughby Patterne in his relations with Laetitia Dale. She +belonged to him; he was quite unshackled by her. She was +everything that is good in a parasite, nothing that is bad. His +dedicated critic she was, reviewing him with a favour equal to +perfect efficiency in her office; and whatever the world might say +of him, to her the happy gentleman could constantly turn for his +refreshing balsamic bath. She flew to the soul in him, pleasingly +arousing sensations of that inhabitant; and he allowed her the +right to fly, in the manner of kings, as we have heard, consenting +to the privileges acted on by cats. These may not address their +Majesties, but they may stare; nor will it be contested that the +attentive circular eyes of the humble domestic creatures are an +embellishment to Royal pomp and grandeur, such truly as should one +day gain for them an inweaving and figurement--in the place of +bees, ermine tufts, and their various present decorations--upon +the august great robes back-flowing and foaming over the gaspy +page-boys. + +Further to quote from the same volume of The Book: There is pain +in the surrendering of that we are fain to relinquish. + +The idea is too exquisitely attenuate, as are those of the whole +body-guard of the heart of Egoism, and will slip through you +unless you shall have made a study of the gross of volumes of the +first and second sections of The Book, and that will take you up +to senility; or you must make a personal entry into the pages, +perchance; or an escape out of them. There was once a venerable +gentleman for whom a white hair grew on the cop of his nose, +laughing at removals. He resigned himself to it in the end, and +lastingly contemplated the apparition. It does not concern us what +effect was produced on his countenance and his mind; enough that +he saw a fine thing, but not so fine as the idea cited above; +which has been between the two eyes of humanity ever since women +were sought in marriage. With yonder old gentleman it may have +been a ghostly hair or a disease of the optic nerves; but for us +it is a real growth, and humanity might profitably imitate him in +his patient speculation upon it. + +Sir Willoughby Patterne, though ready in the pursuit of duty and +policy (an oft-united couple) to cast Miss Dale away, had to +consider that he was not simply, so to speak, casting her over a +hedge, he was casting her for a man to catch her; and this was a +much greater trial than it had been on the previous occasion, when +she went over bump to the ground. In the arms of a husband, there +was no knowing how soon she might forget her soul's fidelity. It +had not hurt him to sketch the project of the conjunction; +benevolence assisted him; but he winced and smarted on seeing it +take shape. It sullied his idea of Laetitia. + +Still, if, in spite of so great a change in her fortune, her +spirit could be guaranteed changeless, he, for the sake of +pacifying his bride, and to keep two serviceable persons near him. +at command, might resolve to join them. The vision of his +resolution brought with it a certain pallid contempt of the +physically faithless woman; no wonder he betook himself to The +Book, and opened it on the scorching chapters treating of the sex, +and the execrable wiles of that foremost creature of the chase, +who runs for life. She is not spared in the Biggest of Books. But +close it. + +The writing in it having been done chiefly by men, men naturally +receive their fortification from its wisdom, and half a dozen of +the popular sentences for the confusion of women (cut in brass +worn to a polish like sombre gold), refreshed Sir Willoughby for +his undertaking. + +An examination of Laetitia's faded complexion braced him very +cordially. + +His Clara, jealous of this poor leaf! + +He could have desired the transfusion of a quality or two from +Laetitia to his bride; but you cannot, as in cookery, obtain a +mixture of the essences of these creatures; and if, as it is +possible to do, and as he had been doing recently with the pair of +them at the Hall, you stew them in one pot, you are far likelier +to intensify their little birthmarks of individuality. Had they +a tendency to excellence it might be otherwise; they might then +make the exchanges we wish for; or scientifically concocted in a +harem for a sufficient length of time by a sultan anything but +obtuse, they might. It is, however, fruitless to dwell on what was +only a glimpse of a wild regret, like the crossing of two express +trains along the rails in Sir Willoughby's head. + +The ladies Eleanor and Isabel were sitting with Miss Dale, all +three at work on embroideries. He had merely to look at Miss +Eleanor. She rose. She looked at Miss Isabel, and rattled her +chatelaine to account for her departure. After a decent interval +Miss Isabel glided out. Such was the perfect discipline of the +household. + +Sir Willoughby played an air on the knee of his crossed leg. + +Laetitia grew conscious of a meaning in the silence. She said, +"You have not been vexed by affairs to-day?" + +"Affairs," he replied, "must be peculiarly vexatious to trouble +me. Concerning the country or my personal affairs?" + +"I fancy I was alluding to the country." + +"I trust I am as good a patriot as any man living," said he; "but +I am used to the follies of my countrymen, and we are on board a +stout ship. At the worst it's no worse than a rise in rates and +taxes; soup at the Hall gates, perhaps; license to fell timber in +one of the outer copses, or some dozen loads of coal. You hit my +feudalism." + +"The knight in armour has gone," said Laetitia, "and the castle +with the draw-bridge. Immunity for our island has gone too since +we took to commerce." + +"We bartered independence for commerce. You hit our old +controversy. Ay, but we do not want this overgrown population! +However, we will put politics and sociology and the pack of their +modern barbarous words aside. You read me intuitively. I have +been, I will not say annoyed, but ruffled. I have much to do, and +going into Parliament would make me almost helpless if I lose +Vernon. You know of some absurd notion he has?--literary fame, +and bachelor's chambers, and a chop-house, and the rest of it." + +She knew, and thinking differently in the matter of literary fame, +she flushed, and, ashamed of the flush, frowned. + +He bent over to her with the perusing earnestness of a gentleman +about to trifle. + +"You cannot intend that frown?" + +"Did I frown?" + +"You do." + +"Now?" + +"Fiercely." + +"Oh!" + +"Will you smile to reassure me?" + +"Willingly, as well as I can." + +A gloom overcame him. With no woman on earth did he shine so as to +recall to himself seigneur and dame of the old French Court as he +did with Laetitia Dale. He did not wish the period revived, but +reserved it as a garden to stray into when he was in the mood for +displaying elegance and brightness in the society of a lady; and +in speech Laetitia helped him to the nice delusion. She was not +devoid of grace of bearing either. + +Would she preserve her beautiful responsiveness to his ascendency? +Hitherto she had, and for years, and quite fresh. But how of her +as a married woman? Our souls are hideously subject to the +conditions of our animal nature! A wife, possibly mother, it was +within sober calculation that there would be great changes in her. +And the hint of any change appeared a total change to one of the +lofty order who, when they are called on to relinquish possession +instead of aspiring to it, say, All or nothing! + +Well, but if there was danger of the marriage-tie effecting the +slightest alteration of her character or habit of mind, wherefore +press it upon a tolerably hardened spinster! + +Besides, though he did once put her hand in Vernon's for the +dance, he remembered acutely that the injury then done by his +generosity to his tender sensitiveness had sickened and tarnished +the effulgence of two or three successive anniversaries of his +coming of age. Nor had he altogether yet got over the passion of +greed for the whole group of the well-favoured of the fair sex, +which in his early youth had made it bitter for him to submit to +the fickleness, not to say the modest fickleness, of any handsome +one of them in yielding her hand to a man and suffering herself +to be led away. Ladies whom he had only heard of as ladies of some +beauty incurred his wrath for having lovers or taking husbands. He +was of a vast embrace; and do not exclaim, in covetousness;--for +well he knew that even under Moslem law he could not have them all +--but as the enamoured custodian of the sex's purity, that blushes +at such big spots as lovers and husbands; and it was unbearable to +see it sacrificed for others. Without their purity what are they! +--what are fruiterer's plums?--unsaleable. O for the bloom on +them! + +"As I said, I lose my right hand in Vernon," he resumed, "and I +am, it seems, inevitably to lose him, unless we contrive to fasten +him down here. I think, my dear Miss Dale, you have my character. +At least, I should recommend my future biographer to you--with a +caution, of course. You would have to write selfishness with a +dash under it. I cannot endure to lose a member of my household-- +not under any circumstances; and a change of feeling toward me on +the part of any of my friends because of marriage, I think hard. I +would ask you, how can it be for Vernon's good to quit an easy +pleasant home for the wretched profession of Literature?-- +wretchedly paying, I mean," he bowed to the authoress. "Let him +leave the house, if he imagines he will not harmonize with its +young mistress. He is queer, though a good fellow. But he ought, +in that event, to have an establishment. And my scheme for Vernon +--men, Miss Dale, do not change to their old friends when they +marry--my scheme, which would cause the alteration in his system +of life to be barely perceptible, is to build him a poetical +little cottage, large enough for a couple, on the borders of my +park. I have the spot in my eye. The point is, can he live alone +there? Men, I say, do not change. How is it that we cannot say the +same of women?" + +Laetitia remarked: "The generic woman appears to have an +extraordinary faculty for swallowing the individual." + +"As to the individual, as to a particular person, I may be wrong. +Precisely because it is her case I think of, my strong friendship +inspires the fear: unworthy of both, no doubt, but trace it to the +source. Even pure friendship, such is the taint in us, knows a +kind of jealousy; though I would gladly see her established, and +near me, happy and contributing to my happiness with her +incomparable social charm. Her I do not estimate generically, be +sure." + +If you do me the honour to allude to me, Sir Willoughby," said +Laetitia, "I am my father's housemate." + +"What wooer would take that for a refusal? He would beg to be a +third in the house and sharer of your affectionate burden. +Honestly, why not? And I may be arguing against my own happiness; +it may be the end of me!" + +"The end?" + +"Old friends are captious, exacting. No, not the end. Yet if my +friend is not the same to me, it is the end to that form of +friendship: not to the degree possibly. But when one is used to +the form! And do you, in its application to friendship, scorn the +word 'use'? We are creatures of custom. I am, I confess, a +poltroon in my affections; I dread changes. The shadow of the +tenth of an inch in the customary elevation of an eyelid!--to +give you an idea of my susceptibility. And, my dear Miss Dale, I +throw myself on your charity, with all my weakness bare, let me +add, as I could do to none but you. Consider, then, if I lose you! +The fear is due to my pusillanimity entirely. High-souled women +may be wives, mothers, and still reserve that home for their +friend. They can and will conquer the viler conditions of human +life. Our states, I have always contended, our various phases have +to be passed through, and there is no disgrace in it so long as +they do not levy toll on the quintessential, the spiritual +element. You understand me? I am no adept in these abstract +elucidations." + +"You explain yourself clearly," said Laetitia. + +"I have never pretended that psychology was my forte," said he, +feeling overshadowed by her cold commendation: he was not less +acutely sensitive to the fractional divisions of tones than of +eyelids, being, as it were, a melody with which everything was +out of tune that did not modestly or mutely accord; and to bear +about a melody in your person is incomparably more searching than +the best of touchstones and talismans ever invented. "Your +father's health has improved latterly?" + +"He did not complain of his health when I saw him this morning. My +cousin Amelia is with him, and she is an excellent nurse. + +"He has a liking for Vernon." + +"He has a great respect for Mr. Whitford." + +"You have?" + +"Oh, yes; I have it equally." + +"For a foundation, that is the surest. I would have the friends +dearest to me begin on that. The headlong match is--how can we +describe it? By its finale I am afraid. Vernon's abilities are +really to be respected. His shyness is his malady. I suppose he +reflected that he was not a capitalist. He might, one would think, +have addressed himself to me; my purse is not locked." + +"No, Sir Willoughby!" Laetitia said, warmly, for his donations in +charity were famous. + +Her eyes gave him the food he enjoyed, and basking in them, he +continued: + +"Vernon's income would at once have been regulated commensurately +with a new position requiring an increase. This money, money, +money! But the world will have it so. Happily I have inherited +habits of business and personal economy. Vernon is a man who +would do fifty times more with a companion appreciating his +abilities and making light of his little deficiencies. They are +palpable, small enough. He has always been aware of my wishes:-- +when perhaps the fulfilment might have sent me off on another tour +of the world, homebird though I am. When was it that our +friendship commenced? In my boyhood, I know. Very many years +back." + +"I am in my thirtieth year," said Laetitia. + +Surprised and pained by a baldness resembling the deeds of ladies +(they have been known, either through absence of mind, or mania, +to displace a wig) in the deadly intimacy which slaughters poetic +admiration, Sir Willoughby punished her by deliberately reckoning +that she did not look less. + +"Genius," he observed, "is unacquainted with wrinkles"; hardly one +of his prettiest speeches; but he had been wounded, and he never +could recover immediately. Coming on him in a mood of sentiment, +the wound was sharp. He could very well have calculated the lady's +age. It was the jarring clash of her brazen declaration of it upon +his low rich flute-notes that shocked him. + +He glanced at the gold cathedral-clock on the mantel-piece, and +proposed a stroll on the lawn before dinner. Laetitia gathered up +her embroidery work. + +"As a rule," he said, "authoresses are not needle-women." + +"I shall resign the needle or the pen if it stamps me an +exception," she replied. + +He attempted a compliment on her truly exceptional character. As +when the player's finger rests in distraction on the organ, it was +without measure and disgusted his own hearing. Nevertheless, she +had been so good as to diminish his apprehension that the marriage +of a lady in her thirtieth year with his cousin Vernon would be so +much of a loss to him; hence, while parading the lawn, now and +then casting an eye at the window of the room where his Clara and +Vernon were in council, the schemes he indulged for his prospective +comfort and his feelings of the moment were in such striving +harmony as that to which we hear orchestral musicians bringing +their instruments under the process called tuning. It is not +perfect, but it promises to be so soon. We are not angels, which +have their dulcimers ever on the choral pitch. We are mortals +attaining the celestial accord with effort, through a stage of +pain. Some degree of pain was necessary to Sir Willoughby, +otherwise he would not have seen his generosity confronting him. +He grew, therefore, tenderly inclined to Laetitia once more, so +far as to say within himself. "For conversation she would be a +valuable wife". And this valuable wife he was presenting to his +cousin. + +Apparently, considering the duration of the conference of his +Clara and Vernon, his cousin required strong persuasion to accept +the present. + + +CHAPTER XV + +The Petition for a Release + +Neither Clara nor Vernon appeared at the mid-day table. Dr. +Middleton talked with Miss Dale on classical matters, like a +good-natured giant giving a child the jump from stone to stone +across a brawling mountain ford, so that an unedified audience +might really suppose, upon seeing her over the difficulty, she had +done something for herself. Sir Willoughby was proud of her, and +therefore anxious to settle her business while he was in the +humour to lose her. He hoped to finish it by shooting a word or +two at Vernon before dinner. Clara's petition to be set free, +released from him, had vaguely frightened even more than it +offended his pride. + +Miss Isabel quitted the room. + +She came back, saying: "They decline to lunch." + +"Then we may rise," remarked Sir Willoughby. + +"She was weeping," Miss Isabel murmured to him. + +"Girlish enough," he said. + +The two elderly ladies went away together. Miss Dale, pursuing her +theme with the Rev. Doctor, was invited by him to a course in the +library. Sir Willoughby walked up and down the lawn, taking a +glance at the West-room as he swung round on the turn of his leg. +Growing impatient, he looked in at the window and found the room +vacant. + +Nothing was to be seen of Clara and Vernon during the afternoon. +Near the dinner-hour the ladies were informed by Miss Middleton's +maid that her mistress was lying down on her bed, too unwell with +headache to be present. Young Crossjay brought a message from +Vernon (delayed by birds" eggs in the delivery), to say that he +was off over the hills, and thought of dining with Dr. Corney. + +Sir Willoughby despatched condolences to his bride. He was not +well able to employ his mind on its customary topic, being, like +the dome of a bell, a man of so pervading a ring within himself +concerning himself, that the recollection of a doubtful speech or +unpleasant circumstance touching him closely deranged his inward +peace; and as dubious and unpleasant things will often occur, be +had great need of a worshipper, and was often compelled to appeal +to her for signs of antidotal idolatry. In this instance, when +the need of a worshipper was sharply felt, he obtained no signs at +all. The Rev. Doctor had fascinated Miss Dale; so that, both +within and without, Sir Willoughby was uncomforted. His themes in +public were those of an English gentleman; horses, dogs, game, +sport, intrigue, scandal, politics, wines, the manly themes; with +a condescension to ladies" tattle, and approbation of a racy +anecdote. What interest could he possibly take in the Athenian +Theatre and the girl whose flute-playing behind the scenes, +imitating the nightingale, enraptured a Greek audience! He would +have suspected a motive in Miss Dale's eager attentiveness, if the +motive could have been conceived. Besides, the ancients were not +decorous; they did not, as we make our moderns do, write for +ladies. He ventured at the dinner-table to interrupt Dr. Middleton +once:-- + +"Miss Dale will do wisely, I think, sir, by confining herself to +your present edition of the classics." + +"That," replied Dr. Middleton, "is the observation of a student of +the dictionary of classical mythology in the English tongue." + +"The Theatre is a matter of climate, sir. You will grant me that." + +"If quick wits come of climate, it is as you say, sir." + +"With us it seems a matter of painful fostering, or the need of +it," said Miss Dale, with a question to Dr. Middleton, excluding +Sir Willoughby, as though he had been a temporary disturbance of +the flow of their dialogue. + +The ladies Eleanor and Isabel, previously excellent listeners to +the learned talk, saw the necessity of coming to his rescue; but +you cannot converse with your aunts, inmates of your house, on +general subjects at table; the attempt increased his discomposure; +he considered that he had ill-chosen his father-in-law; that +scholars are an impolite race; that young or youngish women are +devotees of power in any form, and will be absorbed by a scholar +for a variation of a man; concluding that he must have a round of +dinner-parties to friends, especially ladies, appreciating him, +during the Doctor's visit. Clara's headache above, and Dr. +Middleton's unmannerliness below, affected his instincts in a way +to make him apprehend that a stroke of misfortune was impending; +thunder was in the air. Still he learned something, by which he +was to profit subsequently. The topic of wine withdrew the doctor +from his classics; it was magical on him. A strong fraternity of +taste was discovered in the sentiments of host and guest upon +particular wines and vintages; they kindled one another by naming +great years of the grape, and if Sir Willoughby had to sacrifice +the ladies to the topic, he much regretted a condition of things +that compelled him to sin against his habit, for the sake of being +in the conversation and probing an elderly gentleman's foible. + +Late at night he heard the house-bell, and meeting Vernon in the +hall, invited him to enter the laboratory and tell him Dr. Corney's +last. Vernon was brief, Corney had not let fly a single anecdote, +he said, and lighted his candle. + +"By the way, Vernon, you had a talk with Miss Middleton?" + +"She will speak to you to-morrow at twelve." + +"To-morrow at twelve?" + +"It gives her four-and-twenty hours." + +Sir Willoughby determined that his perplexity should be seen; but +Vernon said good-night to him, and was shooting up the stairs +before the dramatic exhibition of surprise had yielded to speech. + +Thunder was in the air and a blow coming. Sir Willoughby's +instincts were awake to the many signs, nor, though silenced, were +they hushed by his harping on the frantic excesses to which women +are driven by the passion of jealousy. He believed in +Clara's jealousy because he really had intended to rouse it; under +the form of emulation, feebly. He could not suppose she had spoken +of it to Vernon. And as for the seriousness of her desire to be +released from her engagement, that was little credible. Still the +fixing of an hour for her to speak to him after an interval of +four-and-twenty hours, left an opening for the incredible to add +its weight to the suspicious mass; and who would have fancied +Clara Middleton so wild a victim of the intemperate passion! He +muttered to himself several assuaging observations to excuse a +young lady half demented, and rejected them in a lump for their +nonsensical inapplicability to Clara. In order to obtain some +sleep, he consented to blame himself slightly, in the style of the +enamoured historian of erring beauties alluding to their +peccadilloes. He had done it to edify her. Sleep, however, failed +him. That an inordinate jealousy argued an overpowering love, +solved his problem until he tried to fit the proposition to +Clara's character. He had discerned nothing southern in her. +Latterly, with the blushing Day in prospect, she had contracted +and frozen. There was no reading either of her or of the mystery. + +In the morning, at the breakfast-table, a confession of +sleeplessness was general. Excepting Miss Dale and Dr. Middleton, +none had slept a wink. "I, sir," the Doctor replied to Sir +Willoughby, "slept like a lexicon in your library when Mr. +Whitford and I are out of it." + +Vernon incidentally mentioned that he had been writing through the +night. + +"You fellows kill yourselves," Sir Willoughby reproved him. "For +my part, I make it a principle to get through my work without +self-slaughter." + +Clara watched her father for a symptom of ridicule. He gazed +mildly on the systematic worker. She was unable to guess whether +she would have in him an ally or a judge. The latter, she feared. +Now that she had embraced the strife, she saw the division of the +line where she stood from that one where the world places girls +who are affianced wives; her father could hardly be with her; it +had gone too far. He loved her, but he would certainly take her to +be moved by a maddish whim; he would not try to understand her +case. The scholar's detestation of a disarrangement of human +affairs that had been by miracle contrived to run smoothly, would +of itself rank him against her; and with the world to back his +view of her, he might behave like a despotic father. How could she +defend herself before him? At one thought of Sir Willoughby, her +tongue made ready, and feminine craft was alert to prompt it; but +to her father she could imagine herself opposing only dumbness and +obstinacy. + +"It is not exactly the same kind of work," she said. + +Dr Middleton rewarded her with a bushy eyebrow's beam of his +revolting humour at the baronet's notion of work. + +So little was needed to quicken her that she sunned herself in the +beam, coaxing her father's eyes to stay with hers as long as she +could, and beginning to hope he might be won to her side, if she +confessed she had been more in the wrong than she felt; owned to +him, that is, her error in not earlier disturbing his peace. + +"I do not say it is the same," observed Sir Willoughby, bowing to +their alliance of opinion. "My poor work is for the day, and +Vernon's, no doubt, for the day to come. I contend, nevertheless, +for the preservation of health as the chief implement of work." + +"Of continued work; there I agree with you," said Dr. Middleton, +cordially. + +Clara's heart sunk; so little was needed to deaden her. + +Accuse her of an overweening antagonism to her betrothed; yet +remember that though the words had not been uttered to give her +good reason for it, nature reads nature; captives may be stript of +everything save that power to read their tyrant; remember also +that she was not, as she well knew, blameless; her rage at him was +partly against herself + +The rising from table left her to Sir Willoughby. She swam away +after Miss Dale, exclaiming: "The laboratory! Will you have me +for a companion on your walk to see your father? One breathes +earth and heaven to-day out of doors. Isn't it Summer with a +Spring Breeze? I will wander about your garden and not hurry your +visit, I promise." + +"I shall be very happy indeed. But I am going immediately," said +Laetitia, seeing Sir Willoughby hovering to snap up his bride. + +"Yes; and a garden-hat and I am on the march." + +"I will wait for you on the terrace." + +"You will not have to wait." + +"Five minutes at the most," Sir Willoughby said to Laetitia, and +she passed out, leaving them alone together. + +"Well, and my love!" he addressed his bride almost huggingly; "and +what is the story? and how did you succeed with old Vernon +yesterday? He will and he won't? He's a very woman in these +affairs. I can't forgive him for giving you a headache. You were +found weeping." + +"Yes, I cried," said Clara. + +"And now tell me about it. You know, my dear girl, whether he does +or doesn't, our keeping him somewhere in the neighbourhood-- +perhaps not in the house--that is the material point. It can +hardly be necessary in these days to urge marriages on. I'm sure +the country is over ... Most marriages ought to be celebrated with +the funeral knell!" + +"I think so," said Clara. + +"It will come to this, that marriages of consequence, and none but +those, will be hailed with joyful peals." + +"Do not say such things in public, Willoughby." + +"Only to you, to you! Don't think me likely to expose myself to +the world. Well, and I sounded Miss Dale, and there will be no +violent obstacle. And now about Vernon?" + +"I will speak to you, Willoughby, when I return from my walk with +Miss Dale, soon after twelve." + +"Twelve!" said he + +"I name an hour. It seems childish. I can explain it. But it is +named, I cannot deny, because I am a rather childish person +perhaps, and have it prescribed to me to delay my speaking for a +certain length of time. I may tell you at once that Mr. Whitford +is not to be persuaded by me, and the breaking of our engagement +would not induce him to remain." + +"Vernon used those words?" + +"It was I." + +"'The breaking of our engagement!' Come into the laboratory, my +love." + +"I shall not have time." + +"Time shall stop rather than interfere with our conversation! 'The +breaking ...'! But it's a sort of sacrilege to speak of it." + +"That I feel; yet it has to be spoken of" + +"Sometimes? Why? I can't conceive the occasion. You know, to me, +Clara, plighted faith, the affiancing of two lovers, is a piece of +religion. I rank it as holy as marriage; nay, to me it is holier; +I really cannot tell you how; I can only appeal to you in your +bosom to understand me. We read of divorces with comparative +indifference. They occur between couples who have rubbed off all +romance." + +She could have asked him in her fit of ironic iciness, on hearing +him thus blindly challenge her to speak out, whether the romance +might be his piece of religion. + +He propitiated the more unwarlike sentiments in her by +ejaculating, "Poor souls! let them go their several ways. Married +people no longer lovers are in the category of the unnameable. But +the hint of the breaking of an engagement--our engagement!-- +between us? Oh!" + +"Oh!" Clara came out with a swan's note swelling over mechanical +imitation of him to dolorousness illimitable. "Oh!" she breathed +short, "let it be now. Do not speak till you have heard me. My +head may not be clear by-and-by. And two scenes--twice will be +beyond my endurance. I am penitent for the wrong I have done you. +I grieve for you. All the blame is mine. Willoughby, you must +release me. Do not let me hear a word of that word; jealousy is +unknown to me ... Happy if I could call you friend and see you +with a worthier than I, who might by-and-by call me friend! You +have my plighted troth ... given in ignorance of my feelings. +Reprobate a weak and foolish girl's ignorance. I have thought of +it, and I cannot see wickedness, though the blame is great, +shameful. You have none. You are without any blame. You will not +suffer as I do. You will be generous to me? I have no respect +for myself when I beg you to be generous and release me." + +"But was this the . . ." Willoughby preserved his calmness, +"this, then, the subject of your interview with Vernon?" + +"I have spoken to him. I did my commission, and I spoke to him." + +"Of me?" + +"Of myself. I see how I hurt you; I could not avoid it. Yes, of +you, as far as we are related. I said I believed you would release +me. I said I could he true to my plighted word, but that you +would not insist. Could a gentleman insist? But not a step beyond; +not love; I have none. And, Willoughby, treat me as one perfectly +worthless; I am. I should have known it a year back. I was +deceived in myself. There should be love." + +"Should be!" Willoughby's tone was a pungent comment on her. + +"Love, then, I find I have not. I think I am antagonistic to it. +What people say of it I have not experienced. I find I was +mistaken. It is lightly said, but very painful. You understand me, +that my prayer is for liberty, that I may not be tied. If you can +release and pardon me, or promise ultimately to pardon me, or say +some kind word, I shall know it is because I am beneath you +utterly that I have been unable to give you the love you should +have with a wife. Only say to me, go! It is you who break the +match, discovering my want of a heart. What people think of me +matters little. My anxiety will be to save you annoyance." + +She waited for him; he seemed on the verge of speaking. + +He perceived her expectation; he had nothing but clownish tumult +within, and his dignity counselled him to disappoint her. + +Swaying his head, like the oriental palm whose shade is a blessing +to the perfervid wanderer below, smiling gravely, he was +indirectly asking his dignity what he could say to maintain it and +deal this mad young woman a bitterly compassionate rebuke. What to +think, hung remoter. The thing to do struck him first. + +He squeezed both her hands, threw the door wide open, and said, +with countless blinkings: "In the laboratory we are uninterrupted. +I was at a loss to guess where that most unpleasant effect on the +senses came from. They are always 'guessing' through the nose. I +mean, the remainder of breakfast here. Perhaps I satirized them +too smartly--if you know the letters. When they are not +'calculating'. More offensive than debris of a midnight banquet! +An American tour is instructive, though not so romantic. Not so +romantic as Italy, I mean. Let us escape." + +She held back from his arm. She had scattered his brains; it was +pitiable: but she was in the torrent and could not suffer a pause +or a change of place. + +"It must be here; one minute more--I cannot go elsewhere to begin +again. Speak to me here; answer my request. Once; one word. If you +forgive me, it will be superhuman. But, release me." + +"Seriously," he rejoined, "tea-cups and coffee-cups, breadcrumbs. +egg-shells, caviare, butter, beef, bacon! Can we? The room reeks." + +"Then I will go for my walk with Miss Dale. And you will speak to +me when I return?" + +"At all seasons. You shall go with Miss Dale. But, my dear! my +love! Seriously, where are we? One hears of lover's quarrels. Now +I never quarrel. It is a characteristic of mine. And you speak of +me to my cousin Vernon! Seriously, plighted faith signifies +plighted faith, as much as an iron-cable is iron to hold by. Some +little twist of the mind? To Vernon, of all men! Tush! she has +been dreaming of a hero of perfection, and the comparison is +unfavourable to her Willoughby. But, my Clara, when I say to you, +that bride is bride, and you are mine, mine!" + +"Willoughby, you mentioned them,--those separations of two +married. You said, if they do not love . . . Oh! say, is it not +better--instead of later?" + +He took advantage of her modesty in speaking to exclaim. "Where +are we now? Bride is bride, and wife is wife, and affianced is, in +honour, wedded. You cannot be released. We are united. Recognize +it; united. There is no possibility of releasing a wife!" + +"Not if she ran ... ?" + +This was too direct to be histrionically misunderstood. He had +driven her to the extremity of more distinctly imagining the +circumstance she had cited, and with that cleared view the +desperate creature gloried in launching such a bolt at the man's +real or assumed insensibility as must, by shivering it, waken him. + +But in a moment she stood in burning rose, with dimmed eyesight. +She saw his horror, and, seeing, shared it; shared just then only +by seeing it; which led her to rejoice with the deepest of sighs +that some shame was left in her. + +"Ran? ran? ran?" he said as rapidly as he blinked. "How? where? +what idea ... ?" + +Close was he upon an explosion that would have sullied his +conception of the purity of the younger members of the sex +hauntingly. + +That she, a young lady, maiden, of strictest education, should, +and without his teaching, know that wives ran!--know that by +running they compelled their husbands to abandon pursuit, surrender +possession!--and that she should suggest it of herself as a wife!-- +that she should speak of running! + +His ideal, the common male Egoist ideal of a waxwork sex, would +have been shocked to fragments had she spoken further to fill in +the outlines of these awful interjections. + +She was tempted: for during the last few minutes the fire of her +situation had enlightened her understanding upon a subject far +from her as the ice-fields of the North a short while before; and +the prospect offered to her courage if she would only outstare +shame and seem at home in the doings of wickedness, was his +loathing and dreading so vile a young woman. She restrained +herself; chiefly, after the first bridling of maidenly timidity, +because she could not bear to lower the idea of her sex even in +his esteem. + +The door was open. She had thoughts of flying out to breathe in an +interval of truce. + +She reflected on her situation hurriedly askance: + +"If one must go through this, to be disentangled from an +engagement, what must it be to poor women seeking to be free of a +marriage?" + +Had she spoken it, Sir Willoughby might have learned that she was +not so iniquitously wise of the things of this world as her mere +sex's instinct, roused to the intemperateness of a creature +struggling with fetters, had made her appear in her dash to seize +a weapon, indicated moreover by him. + +Clara took up the old broken vow of women to vow it afresh: "Never +to any man will I give my hand." + +She replied to Sir Willoughby, "I have said all. I cannot explain +what I have said." + +She had heard a step in the passage. Vernon entered. + +Perceiving them, he stated his mission in apology: "Doctor +Middleton left a book in this room. I see it; it's a Heinsius." + +"Ha! by the way, a book; books would not be left here if they +were not brought here, with my compliments to Doctor Middleton, +who may do as he pleases, though, seriously, order is order," said +Sir Willoughby. "Come away to the laboratory, Clara. It's a +comment on human beings that wherever they have been there's a +mess, and you admirers of them," he divided a sickly nod between +Vernon and the stale breakfast-table, "must make what you can of +it. Come, Clara." + +Clara protested that she was engaged to walk with Miss Dale. + +"Miss Dale is waiting in the hall," said Vernon. + +"Miss Dale is waiting?" said Clara. + +"Walk with Miss Dale; walk with Miss Dale," Sir Willoughby +remarked, pressingly. "I will beg her to wait another two minutes. +You shall find her in the hall when you come down." + +He rang the bell and went out. + +"Take Miss Dale into your confidence; she is quite trustworthy," +Vernon said to Clara. + +"I have not advanced one step," she replied. + +"Recollect that you are in a position of your own choosing; and +if, after thinking over it, you mean to escape, you must make up +your mind to pitched battles, and not be dejected if you are +beaten in all of them; there is your only chance." + +"Not my choosing; do not say choosing, Mr. Whitford. I did not +choose. I was incapable of really choosing. I consented." + +"It's the same in fact. But be sure of what you wish." + +"Yes," she assented, taking it for her just punishment that she +should be supposed not quite to know her wishes. "Your advice has +helped me to-day." + +"Did I advise?" + +"Do you regret advising?" + +"I should certainly regret a word that intruded between you and +him." + +"But you will not leave the Hall yet? You will not leave me +without a friend? If papa and I were to leave to-morrow, I foresee +endless correspondence. I have to stay at least some days, and +wear through it, and then, if I have to speak to my poor father, +you can imagine the effect on him." + +Sir Willoughby came striding in, to correct the error of his going +out. + +"Miss Dale awaits you, my dear. You have bonnet, hat?--No? Have +you forgotten your appointment to walk with her?" + +"I am ready," said Clara, departing. + +The two gentlemen behind her separated in the passage. They had +not spoken. + +She had read of the reproach upon women, that they divide the +friendships of men. She reproached herself but she was in action, +driven by necessity, between sea and rock. Dreadful to think of! +she was one of the creatures who are written about. + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Clara and Laetitia + +In spite of his honourable caution, Vernon had said things to +render Miss Middleton more angrily determined than she had been in +the scene with Sir Willoughby. His counting on pitched battles and +a defeat for her in all of them, made her previous feelings +appear slack in comparison with the energy of combat now animating +her. And she could vehemently declare that she had not chosen; she +was too young, too ignorant to choose. He had wrongly used that +word; it sounded malicious; and to call consenting the same in +fact as choosing was wilfully unjust. Mr. Whitford meant well; he +was conscientious, very conscientious. But he was not the hero +descending from heaven bright-sworded to smite a woman's fetters +of her limbs and deliver her from the yawning mouth-abyss. + +His logical coolness of expostulation with her when she cast aside +the silly mission entrusted to her by Sir Willoughby and wept for +herself, was unheroic in proportion to its praiseworthiness. He +had left it to her to do everything she wished done, stipulating +simply that there should be a pause of four-and-twenty hours for +her to consider of it before she proceeded in the attempt to +extricate herself. Of consolation there had not been a word. Said +he, "I am the last man to give advice in such a case". Yet she had +by no means astonished him when her confession came out. It came +out, she knew not how. It was led up to by his declining the idea +of marriage, and her congratulating him on his exemption from the +prospect of the yoke, but memory was too dull to revive the one or +two fiery minutes of broken language when she had been guilty of +her dire misconduct. + +This gentleman was no flatterer, scarcely a friend. He could look +on her grief without soothing her. Supposing he had soothed her +warmly? All her sentiments collected in her bosom to dash in +reprobation of him at the thought. She nevertheless condemned him +for his excessive coolness; his transparent anxiety not to be +compromised by a syllable; his air of saying, "I guessed as much, +but why plead your case to me?" And his recommendation to her to +be quite sure she did know what she meant, was a little insulting. +She exonerated him from the intention; he treated her as a girl. +By what he said of Miss Dale, he proposed that lady for imitation. + +"I must be myself or I shall be playing hypocrite to dig my own +pitfall," she said to herself, while taking counsel with Laetitia +as to the route for their walk, and admiring a becoming curve in +her companion's hat. + +Sir Willoughby, with many protestations of regret that letters of +business debarred him from the pleasure of accompanying them, +remarked upon the path proposed by Miss Dale, "In that case you +must have a footman." + +"Then we adopt the other," said Clara, and they set forth. + +"Sir Willoughby," Miss Dale said to her, "is always in alarm about +our unprotectedness." + +Clara glanced up at the clouds and closed her parasol. She +replied, "It inspires timidity." + +There was that in the accent and character of the answer which +warned Laetitia to expect the reverse of a quiet chatter with Miss +Middleton. + +"You are fond of walking?" She chose a peaceful topic. + +"Walking or riding; yes, of walking," said Clara. "The difficulty +is to find companions." + +"We shall lose Mr. Whitford next week." + +"He goes?" + +"He will be a great loss to me, for I do not ride," Laetitia +replied to the off-hand inquiry. + +"Ah!" + +Miss Middleton did not fan conversation when she simply breathed +her voice. + +Laetitia tried another neutral theme. + +"The weather to-day suits our country," she said. + +"England, or Patterne Park? I am so devoted to mountains that I +have no enthusiasm for flat land." + +"Do you call our country flat, Miss Middleton? We have +undulations, hills, and we have sufficient diversity, meadows, +rivers, copses, brooks, and good roads, and pretty by-paths." + +"The prettiness is overwhelming. It is very pretty to see; but to +live with, I think I prefer ugliness. I can imagine learning to +love ugliness. It's honest. However young you are, you cannot he +deceived by it. These parks of rich people are a part of the +prettiness. I would rather have fields, commons." + +"The parks give us delightful green walks, paths through +beautiful woods." + +"If there is a right-of-way for the public." + +"There should be," said Miss Dale, wondering; and Clara cried: "I +chafe at restraint: hedges and palings everywhere! I should have +to travel ten years to sit down contented among these +fortifications. Of course I can read of this rich kind of English +country with pleasure in poetry. But it seems to me to require +poetry. What would you say of human beings requiring it?" + +"That they are not so companionable but that the haze of distance +improves the view." + +"Then you do know that you are the wisest?" + +Laetitia raised her dark eyelashes; she sought to understand. She +could only fancy she did; and if she did, it meant that Miss +Middleton thought her wise in remaining single. + +Clara was full of a sombre preconception that her "jealousy" had +been hinted to Miss Dale. + +"You knew Miss Durham?" she said. + +"Not intimately." + +"As well as you know me?" + +"Not so well." + +"But you saw more of her?" + +"She was more reserved with me." + +"Oh! Miss Dale, I would not be reserved with you." + +The thrill of the voice caused Laetitia to steal a look. Clara's +eyes were bright, and she had the readiness to run to volubility +of the fever-stricken; otherwise she did not betray excitement. + +"You will never allow any of these noble trees to be felled, Miss +Middleton?" + +"The axe is better than decay, do you not think?" + +"I think your influence will be great and always used to good +purpose. + +"My influence, Miss Dale? I have begged a favour this morning and +can not obtain the grant." + +It was lightly said, but Clara's face was more significant, and +"What?" leaped from Laetitia's lips. + +Before she could excuse herself, Clara had answered: "My liberty." + +In another and higher tone Laetitia said, "What?" and she looked +round on her companion; she looked in the doubt that is open to +conviction by a narrow aperture, and slowly and painfully yields +access. Clara saw the vacancy of her expression gradually filling +with woefulness. + +"I have begged him to release me from my engagement, Miss Dale." + +"Sir Willoughby?" + +"It is incredible to you. He refuses. You see I have no +influence." + +"Miss Middleton, it is terrible!" + +"To be dragged to the marriage service against one's will? Yes." + +"Oh! Miss Middleton!" + +"Do you not think so?" + +"That cannot be your meaning." + +"You do not suspect me of trifling? You know I would not. I am as +much in earnest as a mouse in a trap." + +"No, you will not misunderstand me! Miss Middleton, such a blow to +Sir Willoughby would be shocking, most cruel! He is devoted to +you." + +"He was devoted to Miss Durham." + +"Not so deeply: differently." + +"Was he not very much courted at that time? He is now; not so +much: he is not so young. But my reason for speaking of Miss +Durham was to exclaim at the strangeness of a girl winning her +freedom to plunge into wedlock. Is it comprehensible to you? She +flies from one dungeon into another. These are the acts which +astonish men at our conduct, and cause them to ridicule and, I +dare say, despise us." + +"But, Miss Middleton, for Sir Willoughby to grant such a request, +if it was made . . ." + +"It was made, and by me, and will be made again. I throw it all on +my unworthiness, Miss Dale. So the county will think of me, and +quite justly. I would rather defend him than myself. He requires a +different wife from anything I can be. That is my discovery; +unhappily a late one. The blame is all mine. The world cannot be +too hard on me. But I must be free if I am to be kind in +my judgements even of the gentleman I have injured." + +"So noble a gentleman!" Laetitia sighed. + +"I will subscribe to any eulogy of him," said Clara, with a +penetrating thought as to the possibility of a lady experienced in +him like Laetitia taking him for noble. "He has a noble air. I +say it sincerely, that your appreciation of him proves his +nobility." Her feeling of opposition to Sir Willoughby pushed her +to this extravagance, gravely perplexing Laetitia. "And it is," +added Clara, as if to support what she had said, "a withering +rebuke to me; I know him less, at least have not had so long an +experience of him." + +Laetitia pondered on an obscurity in these words which would have +accused her thick intelligence but for a glimmer it threw on +another most obscure communication. She feared it might be, +strange though it seemed, jealousy, a shade of jealousy affecting +Miss Middleton, as had been vaguely intimated by Sir Willoughby +when they were waiting in the hall. "A little feminine ailment, +a want of comprehension of a perfect friendship;" those were his +words to her: and he suggested vaguely that care must be taken in +the eulogy of her friend. + +She resolved to be explicit. + +"I have not said that I think him beyond criticism, Miss +Middleton." + +"Noble?" + +"He has faults. When we have known a person for years the faults +come out, but custom makes light of them; and I suppose we feel +flattered by seeing what it would be difficult to be blind to! +A very little flatters us! Now, do you not admire that view? It is +my favourite." + +Clara gazed over rolling richness of foliage, wood and water, and +a church-spire, a town and horizon hills. There sung a sky-lark. + +"Not even the bird that does not fly away!" she said; meaning, she +had no heart for the bird satisfied to rise and descend in this +place. + +Laetitia travelled to some notion, dim and immense, of Miss +Middleton's fever of distaste. She shrunk from it in a kind of +dread lest it might be contagious and rob her of her one ever-fresh +possession of the homely picturesque; but Clara melted her by +saying, "For your sake I could love it ... in time; or some dear +old English scene. Since ... since this ... this change in me, I +find I cannot separate landscape from associations. Now I learn +how youth goes. I have grown years older in a week.--Miss Dale, +if he were to give me my freedom? if he were to cast me off? if he +stood alone?" + +"I should pity him." + +"Him--not me! Oh! right! I hoped you would; I knew you would." + +Laetitia's attempt to shift with Miss Middleton's shiftiness was +vain; for now she seemed really listening to the language +of Jealousy:--jealous of the ancient Letty Dale--and immediately +before the tone was quite void of it. + +"Yes," she said, "but you make me feel myself in the dark, and +when I do I have the habit of throwing myself for guidance upon +such light as I have within. You shall know me, if you will, as +well as I know myself. And do not think me far from the point when +I say I have a feeble health. I am what the doctors call anaemic; +a rather bloodless creature. The blood is life, so I have not much +life. Ten years back--eleven, if I must be precise, I thought of +conquering the world with a pen! The result is that I am glad of a +fireside, and not sure of always having one: and that is my +achievement. My days are monotonous, but if I have a dread, it is +that there will be an alteration in them. My father has very +little money. We subsist on what private income he has, and his +pension: he was an army doctor. I may by-and-by have to live in +a town for pupils. I could be grateful to any one who would save +me from that. I should be astonished at his choosing to have me +burden his household as well.--Have I now explained the nature of +my pity? It would be the pity of common sympathy, pure lymph of +pity, as nearly disembodied as can be. Last year's sheddings from +the tree do not form an attractive garland. Their merit is, that +they have not the ambition. I am like them. Now, Miss Middleton, I +cannot make myself more bare to you. I hope you see my sincerity." + +"I do see it," Clara said. + +With the second heaving of her heart, she cried: "See it, and envy +you that humility! proud if I could ape it! Oh, how proud if I +could speak so truthfully true!--You would not have spoken so to +me without some good feeling out of which friends are made. That I +am sure of. To be very truthful to a person, one must have a +liking. So I judge by myself. Do I presume too much?" + +Kindness was on Laetitia's face. + +"But now," said Clara, swimming on the wave in her bosom, "I tax +you with the silliest suspicion ever entertained by one of your +rank. Lady, you have deemed me capable of the meanest of our +vices!--Hold this hand, Laetitia; my friend, will you? Something +is going on in me." + +Laetitia took her hand, and saw and felt that something was going +on. + +Clara said, "You are a woman." + +It was her effort to account for the something. + +She swam for a brilliant instant on tears, and yielded to the +overflow. + +When they had fallen, she remarked upon her first long breath +quite coolly: "An encouraging picture of a rebel, is it not?" + +Her companion murmured to soothe her. + +"It's little, it's nothing," said Clara, pained to keep her lips +in line. + +They walked forward, holding hands, deep-hearted to one another. + +"I like this country better now," the shaken girl resumed. "I +could lie down in it and ask only for sleep. I should like to +think of you here. How nobly self-respecting you must be, to speak +as you did! Our dreams of heroes and heroines are cold glitter +beside the reality. I have been lately thinking of myself as an +outcast of my sex, and to have a good woman liking me a little ... +loving? Oh, Laetitia, my friend, I should have kissed you, and not +made this exhibition of myself--and if you call it hysterics, woe +to you! for I bit my tongue to keep it off when I had hardly +strength to bring my teeth together--if that idea of jealousy had +not been in your head. You had it from him." + +"I have not alluded to it in any word that I can recollect." + +"He can imagine no other cause for my wish to be released. I have +noticed, it is his instinct to reckon on women as constant by +their nature. They are the needles, and he the magnet. Jealousy +of you, Miss Dale! Laetitia, may I speak?" + +"Say everything you please." + +"I could wish:--Do you know my baptismal name?" + +"Clara." + +"At last! I could wish ... that is, if it were your wish. Yes, I +could wish that. Next to independence, my wish would be that. I +risk offending you. Do not let your delicacy take arms against +me. I wish him happy in the only way that he can be made happy. +There is my jealousy." + +"Was it what you were going to say just now?" + +"No." + +"I thought not." + +"I was going to say--and I believe the rack would not make me +truthful like you, Laetitia--well, has it ever struck you: +remember, I do see his merits; I speak to his faithfullest friend, +and I acknowledge he is attractive, he has manly tastes and +habits; but has it never struck you ... I have no right to ask; I +know that men must have faults, I do not expect them to be saints; +I am not one; I wish I were." + +"Has it never struck me ... ?" Laetitia prompted her. + +"That very few women are able to be straightforwardly sincere in +their speech, however much they may desire to be?" + +"They are differently educated. Great misfortune brings it to +them." + +"I am sure your answer is correct. Have you ever known a woman who +was entirely an Egoist?" + +"Personally known one? We are not better than men." + +"I do not pretend that we are. I have latterly become an Egoist, +thinking of no one but myself, scheming to make use of every soul +I meet. But then, women are in the position of inferiors. They are +hardly out of the nursery when a lasso is round their necks; and +if they have beauty, no wonder they turn it to a weapon and make +as many captives as they can. I do not wonder! My sense of shame +at my natural weakness and the arrogance of men would urge me to +make hundreds captive, if that is being a coquette. I should not +have compassion for those lofty birds, the hawks. To see them with +their wings clipped would amuse me. Is there any other way of +punishing them?" + +"Consider what you lose in punishing them." + +"I consider what they gain if we do not." + +Laetitia supposed she was listening to discursive observations +upon the inequality in the relations of the sexes. A suspicion of +a drift to a closer meaning had been lulled, and the colour +flooded her swiftly when Clara said: "Here is the difference I +see; I see it; I am certain of it: women who are called coquettes +make their conquests not of the best of men; but men who are +Egoists have good women for their victims; women on whose devoted +constancy they feed; they drink it like blood. I am sure I am not +taking the merely feminine view. They punish themselves too by +passing over the one suitable to them, who could really give them +what they crave to have, and they go where they . . ." Clara +stopped. "I have not your power to express ideas," she said. + +"Miss Middleton, you have a dreadful power," said Laetitia. + +Clara smiled affectionately. "I am not aware of any. Whose cottage +is this?" + +"My father's. Will you not come in? into the garden?" + +Clara took note of ivied windows and roses in the porch. She +thanked Laetitia and said: "I will call for you in an hour." + +"Are you walking on the road alone?" said Laetitia, incredulously, +with an eye to Sir Willoughby's dismay. + +"I put my trust in the high-road," Clara replied, and turned +away, but turned back to Laetitia and offered her face to be +kissed. + +The "dreadful power" of this young lady had fervently impressed +Laetitia, and in kissing her she marvelled at her gentleness and +girlishness. + +Clara walked on, unconscious of her possession of power of any +kind. + + +CHAPTER XVII + +The Porcelain Vase + +During the term of Clara's walk with Laetitia, Sir Willoughby's +shrunken self-esteem, like a garment hung to the fire after +exposure to tempestuous weather, recovered some of the sleekness +of its velvet pile in the society of Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, +who represented to him the world he feared and tried to keep sunny +for himself by all the arts he could exercise. She expected him +to be the gay Sir Willoughby, and her look being as good as an +incantation summons, he produced the accustomed sprite, giving her +sally for sally. Queens govern the polite. Popularity with men, +serviceable as it is for winning favouritism with women, is of +poor value to a sensitive gentleman, anxious even to prognostic +apprehension on behalf of his pride, his comfort and his +prevalence. And men are grossly purchasable; good wines have them, +good cigars, a goodfellow air: they are never quite worth their +salt even then; you can make head against their ill looks. But the +looks of women will at one blow work on you the downright +difference which is between the cock of lordly plume and the +moulting. Happily they may be gained: a clever tongue will gain +them, a leg. They are with you to a certainty if Nature is with +you; if you are elegant and discreet: if the sun is on you, and +they see you shining in it; or if they have seen you well-stationed +and handsome in the sun. And once gained they are your mirrors +for life, and far more constant than the glass. That tale of +their caprice is absurd. Hit their imaginations once, they are +your slaves, only demanding common courtier service of you. They +will deny that you are ageing, they will cover you from scandal, +they will refuse to see you ridiculous. Sir Willoughby's +instinct, or skin, or outfloating feelers, told him of these +mysteries of the influence of the sex; he had as little need to +study them as a lady breathed on. + +He had some need to know them in fact; and with him the need of a +protection for himself called it forth; he was intuitively a +conjurer in self-defence, long-sighted, wanting no directions to +the herb he was to suck at when fighting a serpent. His dulness of +vision into the heart of his enemy was compensated by the agile +sensitiveness obscuring but rendering him miraculously active, +and, without supposing his need immediate, he deemed it politic to +fascinate Mrs. Mountstuart and anticipate ghastly possibilities in +the future by dropping a hint; not of Clara's fickleness, you may +he sure; of his own, rather; or, more justly, of an altered view of +Clara's character. He touched on the rogue in porcelain. + +Set gently laughing by his relishing humour. "I get nearer to it," +he said. + +"Remember I'm in love with her," said Mrs. Mountstuart. + +"That is our penalty." + +"A pleasant one for you." + +He assented. "Is the 'rogue' to be eliminated?" + +"Ask when she's a mother, my dear Sir Willoughby." + +"This is how I read you:--" + +"I shall accept any interpretation that is complimentary." + +"Not one will satisfy me of being sufficiently so. and so I leave +it to the character to fill out the epigram." + +"Do. what hurry is there? And don't be misled by your objection to +rogue; which would be reasonable if you had not secured her." + +The door of a hollow chamber of horrible reverberation was opened +within him by this remark. + +He tried to say in jest, that it was not always a passionate +admiration that held the rogue fast; but he muddled it in the +thick of his conscious thunder, and Mrs. Mountstuart smiled to see +him shot from the smooth-flowing dialogue into the cataracts by +one simple reminder to the lover of his luck. Necessarily, after +a fall, the pitch of their conversation relaxed. + +"Miss Dale is looking well," he said. + +"Fairly: she ought to marry," said Mrs. Mountstuart. + +He shook his head. "Persuade her." + +She nodded. "Example may have some effect." + +He looked extremely abstracted. "Yes, it is time. Where is the man +you could recommend for her complement? She has now what was +missing before, a ripe intelligence in addition to her happy +disposition--romantic, you would say. I can't think women the +worse for that." + +"A dash of it." + +"She calls it 'leafage'." + +"Very pretty. And have you relented about your horse Achmet?" + +"I don't sell him under four hundred." + +"Poor Johnny Busshe! You forget that his wife doles him out his +money. You're a hard bargainer, Sir Willoughby." + +"I mean the price to be prohibitive." + +"Very well; and 'leafage' is good for hide-and-seek; especially +when there is no rogue in ambush. And that's the worst I can say of +Laetitia Dale. An exaggerated devotion is the scandal of our sex. +They say you're the hardest man of business in the county too, +and I can believe it; for at home and abroad your aim is to get +the best of everybody. You see I've no leafage, I am perfectly +matter-of-fact, bald." + +"Nevertheless, my dear Mrs. Mountstuart, I can assure you +that conversing with you has much the same exhilarating effect on +me as conversing with Miss Dale." + +"But, leafage! leafage! You hard bargainers have no compassion for +devoted spinsters." + +"I tell you my sentiments absolutely." + +"And you have mine moderately expressed." + +She recollected the purpose of her morning's visit, which was to +engage Dr. Middleton to dine with her, and Sir Willoughby conducted +her to the library-door. "Insist," he said. + +Awaiting her reappearance, the refreshment of the talk he had +sustained, not without point, assisted him to distinguish in its +complete abhorrent orb the offence committed against him by his +bride. And this he did through projecting it more and more away +from him, so that in the outer distance it involved his personal +emotions less, while observation was enabled to compass its +vastness, and, as it were, perceive the whole spherical mass of +the wretched girl's guilt impudently turning on its axis. + +Thus to detach an injury done to us, and plant it in space, for +mathematical measurement of its weight and bulk, is an art; it may +also be an instinct of self-preservation; otherwise, as when +mountains crumble adjacent villages are crushed, men of feeling +may at any moment be killed outright by the iniquitous and the +callous. But, as an art, it should be known to those who are for +practising an art so beneficent, that circumstances must lend +their aid. Sir Willoughby's instinct even had sat dull and crushed +before his conversation with Mrs. Mountstuart. She lifted him to +one of his ideals of himself. Among gentlemen he was the English +gentleman; with ladies his aim was the Gallican courtier of any +period from Louis Treize to Louis Quinze. He could doat on those +who led him to talk in that character--backed by English +solidity, you understand. Roast beef stood eminent behind the +souffle and champagne. An English squire excelling his fellows at +hazardous leaps in public, he was additionally a polished +whisperer, a lively dialoguer, one for witty bouts, with something +in him--capacity for a drive and dig or two--beyond mere wit, as +they soon learned who called up his reserves, and had a bosom for +pinking. So much for his ideal of himself. Now, Clara not only +never evoked, never responded to it, she repelled it; there was no +flourishing of it near her. He considerately overlooked these +facts in his ordinary calculations; he was a man of honour and she +was a girl of beauty; but the accidental blooming of his ideal, +with Mrs. Mountstuart, on the very heels of Clara's offence, +restored him to full command of his art of detachment, and he +thrust her out, quite apart from himself, to contemplate her +disgraceful revolutions. + +Deeply read in the Book of Egoism that he was, he knew the wisdom +of the sentence: An injured pride that strikes not out will strike +home. What was he to strike with? Ten years younger, Laetitia +might have been the instrument. To think of her now was +preposterous. Beside Clara she had the hue of Winter under the +springing bough. He tossed her away, vexed to the very soul by an +ostentatious decay that shrank from comparison with the blooming +creature he had to scourge in self-defence, by some agency or +other. + +Mrs. Mountstuart was on the step of her carriage when the silken +parasols of the young ladies were descried on a slope of the park, +where the yellow green of May-clothed beeches flowed over the +brown ground of last year's leaves. + +"Who's the cavalier?" she inquired. + +A gentleman escorted them. + +"Vernon? No! he's pegging at Crossjay," quoth Willoughby. + +Vernon and Crossjay came out for the boy's half-hour's run before +his dinner. Crossjay spied Miss Middleton and was off to meet her +at a bound. Vernon followed him leisurely. + +"The rogue has no cousin, has she?" said Mrs. Mountstuart. + +"It's a family of one son or one daughter for generations," +replied Willoughby. + +"And Letty Dale?" + +"Cousin!" he exclaimed, as if wealth had been imputed to Miss +Dale; adding: "No male cousin." + +A railway station fly drove out of the avenue on the circle to the +hall-entrance. Flitch was driver. He had no right to be there, he +was doing wrong, but he was doing it under cover of an office, to +support his wife and young ones, and his deprecating touches of +the hat spoke of these apologies to his former master with +dog-like pathos. + +Sir Willoughby beckoned to him to approach. + +"So you are here," he said. "You have luggage." + +Flitch jumped from the box and read one of the labels aloud: +"Lieutenant-Colonel H. De Craye." + +"And the colonel met the ladies? Overtook them?" + +Here seemed to come dismal matter for Flitch to relate. + +He began upon the abstract origin of it: he had lost his place in +Sir Willoughby's establishment, and was obliged to look about for +work where it was to be got, and though he knew he had no right to +be where he was, he hoped to be forgiven because of the mouths he +had to feed as a flyman attached to the railway station, where +this gentleman, the colonel, hired him, and he believed Sir +Willoughby would excuse him for driving a friend, which the +colonel was, he recollected well, and the colonel recollected him, +and he said, not noticing how he was rigged: "What! Flitch! back +in your old place? Am I expected?" and he told the colonel his +unfortunate situation. "Not back, colonel; no such luck for me" +and Colonel De Craye was a very kind-hearted gentleman, as he +always had been, and asked kindly after his family. And it might +be that such poor work as he was doing now he might be deprived +of, such is misfortune when it once harpoons a man; you may dive, +and you may fly, but it sticks in you, once do a foolish thing. +"May I humbly beg of you, if you'll be so good, Sir Willoughby," +said Flitch, passing to evidence of the sad mishap. He opened the +door of the fly, displaying fragments of broken porcelain. + +"But, what, what! what's the story of this?" cried Sir Willoughby. + +"What is it?" said Mrs. Mountstuart, pricking up her ears. + +"It was a vaws," Flitch replied in elegy. + +"A porcelain vase!" interpreted Sir Willoughby. + +"China!" Mrs. Mountstuart faintly shrieked. + +One of the pieces was handed to her inspection. + +She held it close, she held it distant. She sighed horribly. + +"The man had better have hanged himself," said she. + +Flitch bestirred his misfortune-sodden features and members for a +continuation of the doleful narrative. + +"How did this occur?" Sir Willoughby peremptorily asked him. + +Flitch appealed to his former master for testimony that he was a +good and a careful driver. + +Sir Willoughby thundered: "I tell you to tell me how this +occurred." + +"Not a drop, my lady! not since my supper last night, if there's +any truth in me!" Flitch implored succour of Mrs Mountstuart. + +"Drive straight," she said, and braced him. + +His narrative was then direct. + +Near Piper's mill, where the Wicker brook crossed the Rebdon +road, one of Hoppner's wagons, overloaded as usual, was forcing +the horses uphill, when Flitch drove down at an easy pace, and saw +himself between Hoppner's cart come to a stand and a young lady +advancing: and just then the carter smacks his whip, the horses +pull half mad. The young lady starts behind the cart, and up jumps +the colonel, and, to save the young lady, Flitch dashed ahead and +did save her, he thanked Heaven for it, and more when he came to +see who the young lady was. + +"She was alone?" said Sir Willoughby in tragic amazement, staring +at Flitch. + +"Very well, you saved her, and you upset the fly," Mountstuart +jogged him on. + +"Bardett, our old head-keeper, was a witness, my lady, had to +drive half up the bank, and it's true--over the fly did go; and +the vaws it shoots out against the twelfth mile-stone, just as +though there was the chance for it! for nobody else was injured, +and knocked against anything else, it never would have flown all +to pieces, so that it took Bardett and me ten minutes to collect +every one, down to the smallest piece there was; and he said, and +I can't help thinking myself, there was a Providence in it, for we +all come together so as you might say we was made to do as we +did." + +"So then Horace adopted the prudent course of walking on with the +ladies instead of trusting his limbs again to this capsizing fly," +Sir Willoughby said to Mrs. Mountstuart; and she rejoined: "Lucky +that no one was hurt." + +Both of them eyed the nose of poor Flitch, and simultaneously they +delivered a verdict in "Humph!" + +Mrs. Mountstuart handed the wretch a half-crown from her purse. +Sir Willoughby directed the footman in attendance to unload the +fly and gather up the fragments of porcelain carefully, bidding +Flitch be quick in his departing. + +"The colonel's wedding-present! I shall call to-morrow." Mrs. +Mountstuart waved her adieu. + +"Come every day!--Yes, I suppose we may guess the destination of +the vase." He bowed her off, and she cried: + +"Well, now, the gift can he shared, if you're either of you for a +division." In the crash of the carriage-wheels he heard, "At any +rate there was a rogue in that porcelain." + +These are the slaps we get from a heedless world. + +As for the vase, it was Horace De Craye's loss. Wedding-present he +would have to produce, and decidedly not in chips. It had the look +of a costly vase, but that was no question for the moment:--What +was meant by Clara being seen walking on the high-road alone?-- +What snare, traceable ad inferas, had ever induced Willoughby +Patterne to make her the repository and fortress of his honour! + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Colonel De Craye + +Clara came along chatting and laughing with Colonel De Craye, +young Crossjay's hand under one of her arms, and her parasol +flashing; a dazzling offender; as if she wished to compel the +spectator to recognize the dainty rogue in porcelain; really +insufferably fair: perfect in height and grace of movement; +exquisitely tressed; red-lipped, the colour striking out to a +distance from her ivory skin; a sight to set the woodland dancing, +and turn the heads of the town; though beautiful, a jury of art +critics might pronounce her not to be. Irregular features are +condemned in beauty. Beautiful figure, they could say. A +description of her figure and her walking would have won her any +praises: and she wore a dress cunning to embrace the shape and +flutter loose about it, in the spirit of a Summer's day. +Calypso-clad, Dr. Middleton would have called her. See the silver +birch in a breeze: here it swells, there it scatters, and it is +puffed to a round and it streams like a pennon, and now gives the +glimpse and shine of the white stem's line within, now hurries +over it, denying that it was visible, with a chatter along the +sweeping folds, while still the white peeps through. She had the +wonderful art of dressing to suit the season and the sky. To-day +the art was ravishingly companionable with her sweet-lighted face: +too sweet, too vividly meaningful for pretty, if not of the strict +severity for beautiful. Millinery would tell us that she wore a +fichu of thin white muslin crossed in front on a dress of the same +light stuff, trimmed with deep rose. She carried a grey-silk +parasol, traced at the borders with green creepers, and across the +arm devoted to Crossjay a length of trailing ivy, and in that hand +a bunch of the first long grasses. These hues of red rose and pale +green ruffled and pouted in the billowy white of the dress +ballooning and valleying softly, like a yacht before the sail +bends low; but she walked not like one blown against; resembling +rather the day of the South-west driving the clouds, gallantly +firm in commotion; interfusing colour and varying in her features +from laugh to smile and look of settled pleasure, like the heavens +above the breeze. + +Sir Willoughby, as he frequently had occasion to protest to Clara, +was no poet: he was a more than commonly candid English gentleman +in his avowed dislike of the poet's nonsense, verbiage, verse; not +one of those latterly terrorized by the noise made about the +fellow into silent contempt; a sentiment that may sleep, and has +not to be defended. He loathed the fellow, fought the fellow. But +he was one with the poet upon that prevailing theme of verse, the +charms of women. He was, to his ill-luck, intensely susceptible, +and where he led men after him to admire, his admiration became a +fury. He could see at a glance that Horace De Craye admired Miss +Middleton. Horace was a man of taste, could hardly, could not, +do other than admire; but how curious that in the setting forth of +Clara and Miss Dale, to his own contemplation and comparison of +them, Sir Willoughby had given but a nodding approbation of his +bride's appearance! He had not attached weight to it recently. + +Her conduct, and foremost, if not chiefly, her having been +discovered, positively met by his friend Horace, walking on the +high-road without companion or attendant, increased a sense of +pain so very unusual with him that he had cause to be indignant. +Coming on this condition, his admiration of the girl who wounded +him was as bitter a thing as a man could feel. Resentment, fed +from the main springs of his nature, turned it to wormwood, and +not a whit the less was it admiration when he resolved to chastise +her with a formal indication of his disdain. Her present gaiety +sounded to him like laughter heard in the shadow of the pulpit. + +"You have escaped!" he said to her, while shaking the hand of his +friend Horace and cordially welcoming him. "My dear fellow! and, +by the way, you had a squeak for it, I hear from Flitch." + +"I, Willoughby? not a bit," said the colonel; "we get into a fly +to get, out of it; and Flitch helped me out as well as in, good +fellow; just dusting my coat as he did it. The only bit of bad +management was that Miss Middleton had to step aside a trifle +hurriedly." + +"You knew Miss Middleton at once?" + +"Flitch did me the favour to introduce me. He first precipitated +me at Miss Middleton's feet, and then he introduced me, in old +oriental fashion, to my sovereign." + +Sir Willoughby's countenance was enough for his friend Horace. +Quarter-wheeling to Clara, he said: " 'Tis the place I'm to occupy +for life, Miss Middleton, though one is not always fortunate to +have a bright excuse for taking it at the commencement." + +Clara said: "Happily you were not hurt, Colonel De Craye." + +"I was in the hands of the Loves. Not the Graces, I'm afraid; I've +an image of myself. Dear, no! My dear Willoughby, you never made +such a headlong declaration as that. It would have looked like a +magnificent impulse, if the posture had only been choicer. And +Miss Middleton didn't laugh. At least I saw nothing but pity." + +"You did not write," said Willoughby. + +"Because it was a toss-up of a run to Ireland or here, and I came +here not to go there; and, by the way, fetched a jug with me to +offer up to the gods of ill-luck; and they accepted the +propitiation." + +"Wasn't it packed in a box?" + +"No, it was wrapped in paper, to show its elegant form. I caught +sight of it in the shop yesterday and carried it off this morning, +and presented it to Miss Middleton at noon, without any form at +all." + +Willoughby knew his friend Horace's mood when the Irish tongue in +him threatened to wag. + +"You see what may happen," he said to Clara. + +"As far as I am in fault I regret it," she answered. + +"Flitch says the accident occurred through his driving up the bank +to save you from the wheels." + +"Flitch may go and whisper that down the neck of his empty +whisky-flask," said Horace De Craye. "And then let him cork it." + +"The consequence is that we have a porcelain vase broken. You +should not walk on the road alone, Clara. You ought to have a +companion, always. It is the rule here." + +"I had left Miss Dale at the cottage." + +"You ought to have had the dogs." + +"Would they have been any protection to the vase?" + +Horace De Craye crowed cordially. + +"I'm afraid not, Miss Middleton. One must go to the witches for +protection to vases; and they're all in the air now, having their +own way with us. which accounts for the confusion in politics and +society, and the rise in the price of broomsticks, to prove it +true, as they tell us, that every nook and corner wants a mighty +sweeping. Miss Dale looks beaming," said De Craye, wishing to +divert Willoughby from his anger with sense as well as nonsense. + +"You have not been visiting Ireland recently?" said Sir +Willoughby. + +"No, nor making acquaintance with an actor in an Irish part in a +drama cast in the Green Island. "'Tis Flitch, my dear Willoughby, +has been and stirred the native in me, and we'll present him to +you for the like good office when we hear after a number of years +that you've not wrinkled your forehead once at your liege lady. +Take the poor old dog back home, will you? He's crazed to be at +the Hall. I say, Willoughby, it would be a good bit of work to +take him back. Think of it; you'll do the popular thing, I'm sure. +I've a superstition that Flitch ought to drive you from the +church-door. If I were in luck, I'd have him drive me." + +"The man's a drunkard, Horace." + +"He fuddles his poor nose. "'Tis merely unction to the exile. +Sober struggles below. He drinks to rock his heart, because he has +one. Now let me intercede for poor Flitch." + +"Not a word of him. He threw up his place." + +"To try his fortune in the world, as the best of us do, though +livery runs after us to tell us there's no being an independent +gentleman, and comes a cold day we haul on the metal-button coat +again, with a good ha! of satisfaction. You'll do the popular +thing. Miss Middleton joins in the pleading." + +"No pleading!" + +"When I've vowed upon my eloquence, Willoughby, I'd bring you to +pardon the poor dog?" + +"Not a word of him!" + +"Just one!" + +Sir Willoughby battled with himself to repress a state of temper +that put him to marked disadvantage beside his friend Horace in +high spirits. Ordinarily he enjoyed these fits of Irish of him, +which were Horace's fun and play, at times involuntary, and then +they indicated a recklessness that might embrace mischief. De +Craye, as Willoughby had often reminded him, was properly Norman. +The blood of two or three Irish mothers in his line, however, was +enough to dance him, and if his fine profile spoke of the stiffer +race, his eyes and the quick run of the lip in the cheek, and a +number of his qualities, were evidence of the maternal legacy. + +"My word has been said about the man," Willoughby replied. + +"But I've wagered on your heart against your word, and +cant afford to lose; and there's a double reason for revoking +for you!" + +"I don't see either of them. Here are the ladies." + +"You'll think of the poor beast, Willoughby." + +"I hope for better occupation." + +"If he drives a wheelbarrow at the Hall he'll be happier than on +board a chariot at large. He's broken-hearted." + +"He's too much in the way of breakages, my dear Horace." + +"Oh, the vase! the bit of porcelain!" sung De Craye. "Well, we'll +talk him over by and by." + +"If it pleases you; but my rules are never amended." + +"Inalterable, are they?--like those of an ancient people, who +might as well have worn a jacket of lead for the comfort they had +of their boast. The beauty of laws for human creatures is their +adaptability to new stitchings." + +Colonel De Craye walked at the heels of his leader to make his bow +to the ladies Eleanor and Isabel. + +Sir Willoughby had guessed the person who inspired his friend +Horace to plead so pertinaciously and inopportunely for the man +Flitch: and it had not improved his temper or the pose of his +rejoinders; he had winced under the contrast of his friend +Horace's easy, laughing, sparkling, musical air and manner with +his own stiffness; and he had seen Clara's face, too, scanning the +contrast--he was fatally driven to exaggerate his discontentment, +which did not restore him to serenity. He would have learned more +from what his abrupt swing round of the shoulder precluded his +beholding. There was an interchange between Colonel De Craye and +Miss Middleton; spontaneous on both sides. His was a look that +said: "You were right"; hers: "I knew it". Her look was calmer, +and after the first instant clouded as by wearifulness of +sameness; his was brilliant, astonished, speculative, and +admiring, pitiful: a look that poised over a revelation, called +up the hosts of wonder to question strange fact. + +It had passed unseen by Sir Willoughby. The observer was the one +who could also supply the key of the secret. Miss Dale had found +Colonel De Craye in company with Miss Middleton at her gateway. +They were laughing and talking together like friends of old +standing, De Craye as Irish as he could be: and the Irish tongue +and gentlemanly manner are an irresistible challenge to the +opening steps of familiarity when accident has broken the ice. +Flitch was their theme; and: "Oh, but if we go tip to Willoughby +hand in hand; and bob a courtesy to "m and beg his pardon for +Mister Flitch, won't he melt to such a pair of suppliants? of +course he will!" Miss Middleton said he would not. Colonel De +Craye wagered he would; he knew Willoughby best. Miss Middleton +looked simply grave; a way of asserting the contrary opinion that +tells of rueful experience. "We'll see," said the colonel. They +chatted like a couple unexpectedly discovering in one another a +common dialect among strangers. Can there be an end to it when +those two meet? They prattle, they fill the minutes, as though +they were violently to be torn asunder at a coming signal, and +must have it out while they can; it is a meeting of mountain +brooks; not a colloquy, but a chasing, impossible to say which +flies, which follows, or what the topic, so interlinguistic are +they and rapidly counterchanging. After their conversation of an +hour before, Laetitia watched Miss Middleton in surprise at her +lightness of mind. Clara bathed in mirth. A boy in a summer stream +shows not heartier refreshment of his whole being. Laetitia could +now understand Vernon's idea of her wit. And it seemed that she +also had Irish blood. Speaking of Ireland, Miss Middleton said she +had cousins there, her only relatives. + +"The laugh told me that," said Colonel De Craye. + +Laetitia and Vernon paced up and down the lawn. Colonel De Craye +was talking with English sedateness to the ladies Eleanor and +Isabel. Clara and young Crossjay strayed. + +"If I might advise, I would say, do not leave the Hall +immediately, not yet," Laetitia said to Vernon. + +"You know, then?" + +"I cannot understand why it was that I was taken into her +confidence." + +"I counselled it." + +"But it was done without an object that I can see." + +"The speaking did her good." + +"But how capricious! how changeful!" + +"Better now than later." + +"Surely she has only to ask to be released?--to ask earnestly: +if it is her wish." + +"You are mistaken." + +"Why does she not make a confidant of her father?" + +"That she will have to do. She wished to spare him." + +"He cannot be spared if she is to break the engagement." + +She thought of sparing him the annoyance. "Now there's to be a +tussle, he must share in it." + +"Or she thought he might not side with her?" + +"She has not a single instinct of cunning. You judge her +harshly." + +"She moved me on the walk out. Coming home I felt differently." + +Vernon glanced at Colonel De Craye. + +"She wants good guidance," continued Laetitia. + +"She has not an idea of treachery." + +"You think so? It may be true. But she seems one born devoid of +patience, easily made reckless. There is a wildness ... I judge +by her way of speaking; that at least appeared sincere. She does +not practise concealment. He will naturally find it almost +incredible. The change in her, so sudden, so wayward, is +unintelligible to me. To me it is the conduct of a creature +untamed. He may hold her to her word and be justified." + +"Let him look out if he does!" + +Is not that harsher than anything I have said of her?" + +"I'm not appointed to praise her. I fancy I read the case; and it's +a case of opposition of temperaments. We never can tell the person +quite suited to us; it strikes us in a flash." + +"That they are not suited to us? Oh, no; that comes by degrees." + +"Yes, but the accumulation of evidence, or sentience, if you like, +is combustible; we don't command the spark; it may be late in +falling. And you argue in her favour. Consider her as a generous +and impulsive girl, outwearied at last." + +"By what?" + +By anything; by his loftiness, if you like. He flies too high for +her, we will say." + +"Sir Willoughby an eagle?" + +"She may be tired of his eyrie." + +The sound of the word in Vernon's mouth smote on a consciousness +she had of his full grasp of Sir Willoughby and her own timid +knowledge, though he was not a man who played on words. + +If he had eased his heart in stressing the first syllable, it was +only temporary relief. He was heavy-browed enough. + +"But I cannot conceive what she expects me to do by confiding her +sense of her position to me," said Laetitia. + +"We none of us know what will be done. We hang on Willoughby, who +hangs on whatever it is that supports him: and there we are in a +swarm." + +"You see the wisdom of staying, Mr. Whitford." + +"It must be over in a day or two. Yes, I stay." + +"She inclines to obey you." + +"I should be sorry to stake my authority on her obedience. We +must decide something about Crossjay, and get the money for his +crammer, if it is to be got. If not, I may get a man to trust me. +I mean to drag the boy away. Willoughby has been at him with the +tune of gentleman, and has laid hold of him by one ear. When I say +'her obedience,' she is not in a situation, nor in a condition to +be led blindly by anybody. She must rely on herself, do everything +herself. It's a knot that won't bear touching by any hand save +hers." + +"I fear . . ." said Laetitia. + +"Have no such fear." + +"If it should come to his positively refusing." + +"He faces the consequences." + +"You do not think of her." + +Vernon looked at his companion. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +Colonel De Craye and Clara Middleton + +MISS MIDDLETON finished her stroll with Crossjay by winding her +trailer of ivy in a wreath round his hat and sticking her bunch of +grasses in the wreath. She then commanded him to sit on the ground +beside a big rhododendron, there to await her return. Crossjay had +informed her of a design he entertained to be off with a horde of +boys nesting in high trees, and marking spots where wasps and +hornets were to be attacked in Autumn: she thought it a dangerous +business, and as the boy's dinner-bell had very little restraint +over him when he was in the flush of a scheme of this description, +she wished to make tolerably sure of him through the charm she not +unreadily believed she could fling on lads of his age. "Promise me +you will not move from here until I come back, and when I come I +will give you a kiss." Crossjay promised. She left him and forgot +him. + +Seeing by her watch fifteen minutes to the ringing of the bell, a +sudden resolve that she would speak to her father without another +minute's delay had prompted her like a superstitious impulse to +abandon her aimless course and be direct. She knew what was good +for her; she knew it now more clearly than in the morning. To be +taken away instantly! was her cry. There could be no further +doubt. Had there been any before? But she would not in the morning +have suspected herself of a capacity for evil, and of a pressing +need to be saved from herself. She was not pure of nature: it may +be that we breed saintly souls which are: she was pure of will: +fire rather than ice. And in beginning to see the elements she +was made of she did not shuffle them to a heap with her sweet +looks to front her. She put to her account some strength, much +weakness; she almost dared to gaze unblinking at a perilous evil +tendency. The glimpse of it drove her to her father. + +"He must take me away at once; to-morrow!" + +She wished to spare her father. So unsparing of herself was she, +that, in her hesitation to speak to him of her change of feeling +for Sir Willoughby, she would not suffer it to be attributed in +her own mind to a daughter's anxious consideration about her +father's loneliness; an idea she had indulged formerly. +Acknowledging that it was imperative she should speak, she +understood that she had refrained, even to the inflicting upon +herself of such humiliation as to run dilating on her woes to +others. because of the silliest of human desires to preserve her +reputation for consistency. She had heard women abused for +shallowness and flightiness: she had heard her father denounce +them as veering weather-vanes, and his oft-repeated quid femina +possit: for her sex's sake, and also to appear an exception to +her sex, this reasoning creature desired to be thought consistent. + +Just on the instant of her addressing him, saying: "Father," a note +of seriousness in his ear. it struck her that the occasion for +saying all had not yet arrived, and she quickly interposed: +"Papa"; and helped him to look lighter. The petition to be taken +away was uttered. + +"To London?" said Dr. Middleton. "I don't know who'll take us in." + +"To France, papa?" + +"That means hotel-life." + +"Only for two or three weeks." + +"Weeks! I am under an engagement to dine with Mrs +Mountstuart Jenkinson five days hence: that is, on Thursday." + +"Could we not find an excuse?" + +"Break an engagement? No, my dear, not even to escape drinking a +widow's wine." + +"Does a word bind us?" + +"Why, what else should?" + +"I think I am not very well." + +"We'll call in that man we met at dinner here: Corney: a capital +doctor; an old-fashioned anecdotal doctor. How is it you are not +well, my love? You look well. I cannot conceive your not being +well." + +"It is only that I want change of air, papa." + +"There we are--a change! semper eadem! Women will be wanting a +change of air in Paradise; a change of angels too, I might surmise. +A change from quarters like these to a French hotel would be a +descent!--'this the seat, this mournful gloom for that celestial +light.?' I am perfectly at home in the library here. That +excellent fellow Whitford and I have real days: and I like him for +showing fight to his elder and better." + +"He is going to leave." + +"I know nothing of it, and I shall append no credit to the tale +until I do know. He is headstrong, but he answers to a rap." + +Clara's bosom heaved. The speechless insurrection threatened her +eyes. + +A South-west shower lashed the window-panes and suggested to Dr. +Middleton shuddering visions of the Channel passage on board a +steamer. + +"Corney shall see you: he is a sparkling draught in person; +probably illiterate, if I may judge from one interruption of my +discourse when he sat opposite me, but lettered enough to respect +Learning and write out his prescription: I do not ask more of men +or of physicians." Dr. Middleton said this rising, glancing at the +clock and at the back of his hands. "'Quod autem secundum litteras +difficillimum esse artificium?' But what after letters is the more +difficult practice? 'Ego puto medicum.' The medicus next to the +scholar: though I have not to my recollection required him next +me, nor ever expected child of mine to be crying for that milk. +Daughter she is--of the unexplained sex: we will send a messenger +for Corney. Change, my dear, you will speedily have, to satisfy +the most craving of women, if Willoughby, as I suppose, is in the +neoteric fashion of spending a honeymoon on a railway: apt image, +exposition and perpetuation of the state of mania conducting to +the institution! In my time we lay by to brood on happiness; we +had no thought of chasing it over a continent, mistaking +hurly-burly clothed in dust for the divinity we sought. A smaller +generation sacrifices to excitement. Dust and hurly-burly must +perforce be the issue. And that is your modern world. Now, my +dear, let us go and wash our hands. Midday-bells expect immediate +attention. They know of no anteroom of assembly." + +Clara stood gathered up, despairing at opportunity lost. He had +noticed her contracted shape and her eyes, and had talked +magisterially to smother and overbear the something disagreeable +prefigured in her appearance. + +"You do not despise your girl, father?" + +I do not; I could not; I love her; I love my girl. But you need +not sing to me like a gnat to propound that question, my dear." + +"Then, father, tell Willoughby to-day we have to leave tomorrow. +You shall return in time for Mrs. Mountstuart's dinner. Friends +will take us in, the Darletons, the Erpinghams. We can go to +Oxford, where you are sure of welcome. A little will recover me. +Do not mention doctors. But you see I am nervous. I am quite +ashamed of it; I am well enough to laugh at it, only I cannot +overcome it; and I feel that a day or two will restore me. Say you +will. Say it in First-Lesson-Book language; anything above a +primer splits my foolish head to-day." + +Dr Middleton shrugged, spreading out his arms. + +"The office of ambassador from you to Willoughby, Clara? You +decree me to the part of ball between two bats. The Play being +assured, the prologue is a bladder of wind. I seem to be +instructed in one of the mysteries of erotic esotery, yet on my +word I am no wiser. If Willoughby is to hear anything from you, he +will hear it from your lips." + +"Yes, father, yes. We have differences. I am not fit for contests +at present; my head is giddy. I wish to avoid an illness. He and +I ... I accuse myself." + +"There is the bell!" ejaculated Dr. Middleton. "I'll debate on it +with Willoughby." + +"This afternoon?" + +"Somewhen, before the dinner-bell. I cannot tie myself to the +minute-hand of the clock, my dear child. And let me direct you, +for the next occasion when you shall bring the vowels I and A, in +verbally detached letters, into collision, that you do not fill +the hiatus with so pronounced a Y. It is the vulgarization of our +tongue of which I accuse you. I do not like my girl to be guilty +of it." + +He smiled to moderate the severity of the correction, and kissed +her forehead. + +She declared her inability to sit and eat; she went to her room, +after begging him very earnestly to send her the assurance that he +had spoken. She had not shed a tear, and she rejoiced in her +self-control; it whispered to her of true courage when she had +given herself such evidence of the reverse. + +Shower and sunshine alternated through the half-hours of the +afternoon, like a procession of dark and fair holding hands and +passing. The shadow came, and she was chill; the light yellow in +moisture, and she buried her face not to be caught up by +cheerfulness. Believing that her head ached, she afflicted herself +with all the heavy symptoms, and oppressed her mind so thoroughly +that its occupation was to speculate on Laetitia Dale's modest +enthusiasm for rural pleasures, for this place especially, with +its rich foliage and peeps of scenic peace. The prospect of an +escape from it inspired thoughts of a loveable round of life where +the sun was not a naked ball of fire, but a friend clothed in +woodland; where park and meadow swept to well-known features East +and West; and distantly circling hills, and the hearts of poor +cottagers too--sympathy with whom assured her of goodness--were +familiar, homely to the dweller in the place, morning and night. +And she had the love of wild flowers, the watchful happiness in +the seasons; poets thrilled her, books absorbed. She dwelt +strongly on that sincerity of feeling; it gave her root in our +earth; she needed it as she pressed a hand on her eyeballs, +conscious of acting the invalid, though the reasons she had for +languishing under headache were so convincing that her brain +refused to disbelieve in it and went some way to produce positive +throbs. Otherwise she had no excuse for shutting herself in her +room. Vernon Whitford would be sceptical. Headache or none, +Colonel De Craye must be thinking strangely of her; she had not +shown him any sign of illness. His laughter and his talk sung +about her and dispersed the fiction; he was the very sea-wind for +bracing unstrung nerves. Her ideas reverted to Sir Willoughby, and +at once they had no more cohesion than the foam on a +torrent-water. + +But soon she was undergoing a variation of sentiment. +Her maid Barclay brought her this pencilled line from her father: + +"Factum est; laetus est; amantium irae, etc." + +That it was done, that Willoughby had put on an air of glad +acquiescence, and that her father assumed the existence of a +lovers" quarrel, was wonderful to her at first sight, simple the +succeeding minute. Willoughby indeed must be tired of her, glad of +her going. He would know that it was not to return. She was +grateful to him for perhaps hinting at the amantium irae, though +she rejected the folly of the verse. And she gazed over dear +homely country through her windows now. Happy the lady of the +place, if happy she can be in her choice! Clara Middleton envied +her the double-blossom wild cherry-tree, nothing else. One sprig +of it, if it had not faded and gone to dust-colour like crusty +Alpine snow in the lower hollows, and then she could depart, +bearing away a memory of the best here! Her fiction of the +headache pained her no longer. She changed her muslin dress for +silk; she was contented with the first bonnet Barclay presented. +Amicable toward every one in the house, Willoughby included, she +threw up her window, breathed. blessed mankind; and she thought: +"If Willoughby would open his heart to nature, he would be +relieved of his wretched opinion of the world." Nature was then +sparkling refreshed in the last drops of a sweeping rain-curtain, +favourably disposed for a background to her joyful optimism. A +little nibble of hunger within, real hunger, unknown to her of +late, added to this healthy view, without precipitating her to +appease it; she was more inclined to foster it, for the sake of +the sinewy activity of mind and limb it gave her; and in the style +of young ladies very light of heart, she went downstairs like a +cascade, and like the meteor observed in its vanishing trace she +alighted close to Colonel De Craye and entered one of the rooms +off the hall. + +He cocked an eye at the half-shut door. + +Now you have only to be reminded that it is the habit of the +sportive gentleman of easy life, bewildered as he would otherwise +be by the tricks, twists, and windings of the hunted sex, to +parcel out fair women into classes; and some are flyers and some +are runners; these birds are wild on the wing, those exposed their +bosoms to the shot. For him there is no individual woman. He +grants her a characteristic only to enroll her in a class. He is +our immortal dunce at learning to distinguish her as a personal +variety, of a separate growth. + +Colonel De Craye's cock of the eye at the door said that he had +seen a rageing coquette go behind it. He had his excuse for +forming the judgement. She had spoken strangely of the fall of his +wedding-present, strangely of Willoughby; or there was a sound of +strangeness in an allusion to her appointed husband: and she had +treated Willoughby strangely when they met. Above all, her word +about Flitch was curious. And then that look of hers! And +subsequently she transferred her polite attentions to Willoughby's +friend. After a charming colloquy, the sweetest give and take +rattle he had ever enjoyed with a girl, she developed headache to +avoid him; and next she developed blindness, for the same purpose. + +He was feeling hurt, but considered it preferable to feel +challenged. + +Miss Middleton came out of another door. She had seen him when +she had passed him and when it was too late to convey her +recognition; and now she addressed him with an air of having bowed +as she went by. + +"No one?" she said. "Am I alone in the house?" + +"There is a figure naught," said he, "but it's as good as +annihilated, and no figure at all, if you put yourself on the +wrong side of it, and wish to be alone in the house." + +"Where is Willoughby?" + +"Away on business." + +"Riding?" + +"Achmet is the horse, and pray don't let him be sold, Miss +Middleton. I am deputed to attend on you." + +"I should like a stroll." + +"Are you perfectly restored?" + +"Perfectly." + +"Strong?" + +"I was never better." + +"It was the answer of the ghost of the wicked old man's wife when +she came to persuade him he had one chance remaining. Then, says +he, I'll believe in heaven if ye'll stop that bottle, and hurls +it; and the bottle broke and he committed suicide, not without +suspicion of her laying a trap for him. These showers curling away +and leaving sweet scents are divine, Miss Middleton. I have the +privilege of the Christian name on the nuptial-day. This park of +Willoughby's is one of the best things in England. There's a +glimpse over the lake that smokes of a corner of Killarney; tempts +the eye to dream, I mean." De Craye wound his finger spirally +upward, like a smoke-wreath. "Are you for Irish scenery?" + +"Irish, English, Scottish." + +"All's one so long as it's beautiful: yes, you speak for me. +Cosmopolitanism of races is a different affair. I beg leave to +doubt the true union of some; Irish and Saxon, for example, let +Cupid be master of the ceremonies and the dwelling-place of the +happy couple at the mouth of a Cornucopia. Yet I have seen a +flower of Erin worn by a Saxon gentleman proudly; and the Hibernian +courting a Rowena! So we'll undo what I said, and consider it +cancelled." + +"Are you of the rebel party, Colonel De Craye?" + +"I am Protestant and Conservative, Miss Middleton." + +"I have not a head for politics." + +"The political heads I have seen would tempt me to that opinion." + +"Did Willoughby say when he would be back?" + +"He named no particular time. Doctor Middleton and Mr. Whitford +are in the library upon a battle of the books." + +"Happy battle!" + +"You are accustomed to scholars. They are rather intolerant of us +poor fellows." + +"Of ignorance perhaps; not of persons." + +"Your father educated you himself, I presume?" + +"He gave me as much Latin as I could take. The fault is mine that +it is little." + +"Greek?" + +"A little Greek." + +"Ah! And you carry it like a feather." + +"Because it is so light." + +"Miss Middleton, I could sit down to be instructed, old as I am. +When women beat us, I verily believe we are the most beaten dogs +in existence. You like the theatre?" + +"Ours?" + +"Acting, then." + +"Good acting, of course." + +"May I venture to say you would act admirably?" + +"The venture is bold, for I have never tried." + +"Let me see; there is Miss Dale and Mr. Whitford; you and I; +sufficient for a two-act piece. THE IRISHMAN IN SPAIN would do." +He bent to touch the grass as she stepped on it. "The lawn is +wet." + +She signified that she had no dread of wet, and said: "English +women afraid of the weather might as well be shut up." + +De Craye proceeded: "Patrick O'Neill passes over from Hibernia to +Iberia, a disinherited son of a father in the claws of the +lawyers, with a letter of introduction to Don Beltran d'Arragon, a +Grandee of the First Class, who has a daughter Dona Seraphina +(Miss Middleton), the proudest beauty of her day, in the custody +of a duenna (Miss Dale), and plighted to Don Fernan, of the Guzman +family (Mr. Whitford). There you have our dramatis personae." + +"You are Patrick?" + +"Patrick himself. And I lose my letter, and I stand on the Prado of +Madrid with the last portrait of Britannia in the palm of my hand, +and crying in the purest brogue of my native land: 'It's all +through dropping a letter I'm here in Iberia instead of Hibernia, +worse luck to the spelling!'" + +"But Patrick will be sure to aspirate the initial letter of +Hibernia." + +"That is clever criticism, upon my word, Miss Middleton! So he +would. And there we have two letters dropped. But he'd do it in a +groan, so that it wouldn't count for more than a ghost of one; and +everything goes on the stage, since it's only the laugh we want on +the brink of the action. Besides you are to suppose the +performance before a London audience, who have a native opposite +to the aspirate and wouldn't bear to hear him spoil a joke, as if +he were a lord or a constable. It's an instinct of the English +democracy. So with my bit of coin turning over and over in an +undecided way, whether it shall commit suicide to supply me a +supper, I behold a pair of Spanish eyes like violet lightning in +the black heavens of that favoured clime. Won't you have violet?" + +"Violet forbids my impersonation." + +"But the lustre on black is dark violet blue." + +"You remind me that I have no pretension to black." + +Colonel De Craye permitted himself to take a flitting gaze at Miss +Middleton's eyes. "Chestnut," he said. "Well, and Spain is the +land of chestnuts." + +"Then it follows that I am a daughter of Spain." + +"Clearly." + +"Logically?" + +"By positive deduction." + +"And do I behold Patrick?" + +"As one looks upon a beast of burden." + +"Oh!" + +Miss Middleton's exclamation was louder than the matter of the +dialogue seemed to require. She caught her hands up. + +In the line of the outer extremity of the rhododendron, screened +from the house windows, young Crossjay lay at his length, with his +head resting on a doubled arm, and his ivy-wreathed hat on his +cheek, just where she had left him, commanding him to stay. +Half-way toward him up the lawn, she saw the poor boy, and the +spur of that pitiful sight set her gliding swiftly. Colonel De +Craye followed, pulling an end of his moustache. + +Crossjay jumped to his feet. + +"My dear, dear Crossjay!" she addressed him and reproached him. +"And how hungry you must be! And you must be drenched! This is +really too had." + +"You told me to wait here," said Crossjay, in shy self-defence. + +"I did, and you should not have done it, foolish boy! I told him +to wait for me here before luncheon, Colonel De Craye, and the +foolish, foolish boy!--he has had nothing to eat, and he must +have been wet through two or three times:--because I did not come +to him!" + +"Quite right. And the lava might overflow him and take the mould +of him. like the sentinel at Pompeii, if he's of the true stuff." + +"He may have caught cold, he may have a fever." + +"He was under your orders to stay." + +"I know. and I cannot forgive myself. Run in, Crossjay, and change +your clothes. Oh, run, run to Mrs. Montague, and get her to give +you a warm bath, and tell her from me to prepare some dinner for +you. And change every garment you have. This is unpardonable of +me. I said--'not for politics!'--I begin to think I have not a +head for anything. But could it be imagined that Crossjay would +not move for the dinner-bell! through all that rain! I forgot +you, Crossjay. I am so sorry; so sorry! You shall make me pay any +forfeit you like. Remember, I am deep, deep in your debt. And now +let me see you run fast. You shall come in to dessert this +evening." + +Crossjay did not run. He touched her hand. + +"You said something?" + +"What did I say, Crossjay?" + +"You promised." + +"What did I promise?" + +"Something." + +"Name it, my dear boy." + +He mumbled, ". . . kiss me." + +Clara plumped down on him, enveloped him and kissed him. + +The affectionately remorseful impulse was too quick for a +conventional note of admonition to arrest her from paying that +portion of her debt. When she had sped him off to Mrs Montague, +she was in a blush. + +"Dear, dear Crossjay!" she said, sighing. + +"Yes, he's a good lad," remarked the colonel. "The fellow may well +be a faithful soldier and stick to his post, if he receives +promise of such a solde. He is a great favourite with you." + +"He is. You will do him a service by persuading Willoughby to send +him to one of those men who get boys through their naval +examination. And, Colonel De Craye, will you be kind enough to ask +at the dinner-table that Crossjay may come in to dessert?" + +"Certainly," said he, wondering. + +"And will you look after him while you are here? See that no one +spoils him. If you could get him away before you leave, it would +he much to his advantage. He is born for the navy and should be +preparing to enter it now." + +"Certainly, certainly," said De Craye, wondering more. + +"I thank you in advance." + +"Shall I not be usurping ... + +"No, we leave to-morrow." + +"For a day?" + +"For longer." + +"Two?" + +"It will be longer." + +"A week? I shall not see you again?" + +"I fear not." + +Colonel De Craye controlled his astonishment; he smothered a +sensation of veritable pain, and amiably said: "I feel a blow, but +I am sure you would not willingly strike. We are all involved in +the regrets." + +Miss Middleton spoke of having to see Mrs. Montague, the +housekeeper, with reference to the bath for Crossjay, and stepped +off the grass. He bowed, watched her a moment, and for parallel +reasons, running close enough to hit one mark, he commiserated his +friend Willoughby. The winning or the losing of that young lady +struck him as equally lamentable for Willoughby. + + + +CHAPTER XX + +An Aged and a Great Wine + +THE leisurely promenade up and down the lawn with ladies and +deferential gentlemen, in anticipation of the dinner-bell, was Dr. +Middleton's evening pleasure. He walked as one who had formerly +danced (in Apollo's time and the young god Cupid's), elastic on +the muscles of the calf and foot, bearing his broad iron-grey head +in grand elevation. The hard labour of the day approved the +cooling exercise and the crowning refreshments of French cookery +and wines of known vintages. He was happy at that hour in +dispensing wisdom or nugae to his hearers, like the Western sun +whose habit it is, when he is fairly treated, to break out in +quiet splendours, which by no means exhaust his treasury. Blessed +indeed above his fellows, by the height of the bow-winged bird in +a fair weather sunset sky above the pecking sparrow, is he that +ever in the recurrent evening of his day sees the best of it ahead +and soon to come. He has the rich reward of a youth and manhood of +virtuous living. Dr. Middleton misdoubted the future as well as the +past of the man who did not, in becoming gravity, exult to dine. +That man he deemed unfit for this world and the next. + +An example of the good fruit of temperance, he had a comfortable +pride in his digestion, and his political sentiments were attuned +by his veneration of the Powers rewarding virtue. We must have a +stable world where this is to be done. + +The Rev. Doctor was a fine old picture; a specimen of art +peculiarly English; combining in himself piety and epicurism, +learning and gentlemanliness, with good room for each and a seat at +one another's table: for the rest, a strong man, an athlete in his +youth, a keen reader of facts and no reader of persons, genial, a +giant at a task, a steady worker besides, but easily discomposed. +He loved his daughter and he feared her. However much he liked +her character, the dread of her sex and age was constantly present +to warn him that he was not tied to perfect sanity while the +damsel Clara remained unmarried. Her mother had been an amiable +woman, of the poetical temperament nevertheless, too enthusiastic, +imaginative, impulsive, for the repose of a sober scholar; an +admirable woman, still, as you see, a woman, a fire-work. The girl +resembled her. Why should she wish to run away from Patterne Hall +for a single hour? Simply because she was of the sex born mutable +and explosive. A husband was her proper custodian, justly +relieving a father. With demagogues abroad and daughters at home, +philosophy is needed for us to keep erect. Let the girl be +Cicero's Tullia: well, she dies! The choicest of them will furnish +us examples of a strange perversity. + +Miss Dale was beside Dr. Middleton. Clara came to them and took the +other side. + +"I was telling Miss Dale that the signal for your subjection is my +enfranchisement," he said to her, sighing and smiling. "We know +the date. The date of an event to come certifies to it as a fact +to be counted on." + +"Are you anxious to lose me?" Clara faltered. + +"My dear, you have planted me on a field where I am to expect the +trumpet, and when it blows I shall be quit of my nerves, no more." + +Clara found nothing to seize on for a reply in these words. She +thought upon the silence of Laetitia. + +Sir Willoughby advanced, appearing in a cordial mood. + +"I need not ask you whether you are better," he said to Clara, +sparkled to Laetitia, and raised a key to the level of Dr. +Middleton's breast, remarking, "I am going down to my inner +cellar." + +"An inner cellar!" exclaimed the doctor. + +"Sacred from the butler. It is interdicted to Stoneman. Shall I +offer myself as guide to you? My cellars are worth a visit." + +"Cellars are not catacombs. They are, if rightly constructed, +rightly considered, cloisters, where the bottle meditates on joys +to bestow, not on dust misused! Have you anything great?" + +"A wine aged ninety." + +"Is it associated with your pedigree that you pronounce the age +with such assurance?" + +"My grandfather inherited it." + +"Your grandfather, Sir Willoughby, had meritorious offspring, not +to speak of generous progenitors. What would have happened had it +fallen into the female line! I shall be glad to accompany you. +Port? Hermitage?" + +"Port." + +"Ah! We are in England!" + +"There will just be time," said Sir Willoughby, inducing Dr. +Middleton to step out. + +A chirrup was in the reverend doctor's tone: "Hocks, too, have +compassed age. I have tasted senior Hocks. Their flavours are as a +brook of many voices; they have depth also. Senatorial Port! we +say. We cannot say that of any other wine. Port is deep-sea deep. +It is in its flavour deep; mark the difference. It is like a +classic tragedy, organic in conception. An ancient Hermitage has +the light of the antique; the merit that it can grow to an extreme +old age; a merit. Neither of Hermitage nor of Hock can you say +that it is the blood of those long years, retaining the strength +of youth with the wisdom of age. To Port for that! Port is our +noblest legacy! Observe, I do not compare the wines; I distinguish +the qualities. Let them live together for our enrichment; they are +not rivals like the Idaean Three. Were they rivals, a fourth +would challenge them. Burgundy has great genius. It does wonders +within its period; it does all except to keep up in the race; it +is short-lived. An aged Burgundy runs with a beardless Port. I +cherish the fancy that Port speaks the sentences of wisdom, +Burgundy sings the inspired Ode. Or put it, that Port is the +Homeric hexameter, Burgundy the pindaric dithyramb. What do you +say?" + +"The comparison is excellent, sir." + +"The distinction, you would remark. Pindar astounds. But his elder +brings us the more sustaining cup. One is a fountain of prodigious +ascent. One is the unsounded purple sea of marching billows." + +"A very fine distinction." + +"I conceive you to be now commending the similes. They pertain to +the time of the first critics of those poets. Touch the Greeks, +and you can nothing new; all has been said: 'Graiis ... praeter, +laudem nullius avaris.' Genius dedicated to Fame is immortal. We, +sir, dedicate genius to the cloacaline floods. We do not address +the unforgetting gods, but the popular stomach." + +Sir Willoughby was patient. He was about as accordantly coupled +with Dr. Middleton in discourse as a drum duetting with a +bass-viol; and when he struck in he received correction from the +paedagogue-instrument. If he thumped affirmative or negative, he +was wrong. However, he knew scholars to be an unmannered species; +and the doctor's learnedness would be a subject to dilate on. + +In the cellar, it was the turn for the drum. Dr. Middleton was +tongue-tied there. Sir Willoughby gave the history of his wine in +heads of chapters; whence it came to the family originally, and +how it had come down to him in the quantity to be seen. +"Curiously, my grandfather, who inherited it, was a water-drinker. +My father died early." + +"Indeed! Dear me!" the doctor ejaculated in astonishment and +condolence. The former glanced at the contrariety of man, the +latter embraced his melancholy destiny. + +He was impressed with respect for the family. This cool vaulted +cellar, and the central square block, or enceinte, where the thick +darkness was not penetrated by the intruding lamp, but rather took +it as an eye, bore witness to forethoughtful practical solidity in +the man who had built the house on such foundations. A house +having a great wine stored below lives in our imaginations as a +joyful house, fast and splendidly rooted in the soil. And +imagination has a place for the heir of the house. His grandfather +a water-drinker, his father dying early, present circumstances to +us arguing predestination to an illustrious heirship and career. +Dr Middleton's musings were coloured by the friendly vision of +glasses of the great wine; his mind was festive; it pleased him, +and he chose to indulge in his whimsical, robustious, +grandiose-airy style of thinking: from which the festive mind will +sometimes take a certain print that we cannot obliterate +immediately. Expectation is grateful, you know; in the mood of +gratitude we are waxen. And he was a self-humouring gentleman. + +He liked Sir Willoughby's tone in ordering the servant at his +heels to take up "those two bottles": it prescribed, without +overdoing it, a proper amount of caution, and it named an +agreeable number. + +Watching the man's hand keenly, he said: + +"But here is the misfortune of a thing super-excellent:--not more +than one in twenty will do it justice." + +Sir Willoughby replied: "Very true, sir; and I think we may pass +over the nineteen." + +"Women, for example; and most men." + +"This wine would be a scaled book to them." + +"I believe it would. It would be a grievous waste." + +"Vernon is a claret man; and so is Horace De Craye. They are both +below the mark of this wine. They will join the ladies. Perhaps +you and I, sir, might remain together." + +"With the utmost good-will on my part." + +"I am anxious for your verdict, sir." + +"You shall have it, sir, and not out of harmony with the chorus +preceding me, I can predict. Cool, not frigid." Dr. Middleton +summed the attributes of the cellar on quitting it. "North side +and South. No musty damp. A pure air. Everything requisite. One +might lie down one's self and keep sweet here." + +Of all our venerable British of the two Isles professing a +suckling attachment to an ancient port-wine, lawyer, doctor, +squire, rosy admiral, city merchant, the classic scholar is he +whose blood is most nuptial to the webbed bottle. The reason must +be, that he is full of the old poets. He has their spirit to sing +with, and the best that Time has done on earth to feed it. He may +also perceive a resemblance in the wine to the studious mind, +which is the obverse of our mortality, and throws off acids and +crusty particles in the piling of the years, until it is fulgent +by clarity. Port hymns to his conservatism. It is magical: at one +sip he is off swimming in the purple flood of the ever-youthful +antique. + +By comparison, then, the enjoyment of others is brutish; they have +not the soul for it; but he is worthy of the wine, as are poets +of Beauty. In truth, these should be severally apportioned to +them, scholar and poet, as his own good thing. Let it be so. + +Meanwhile Dr. Middleton sipped. + +After the departure of the ladies, Sir Willoughby had practised a +studied curtness upon Vernon and Horace. + +"You drink claret," he remarked to them, passing it round. "Port, +I think, Doctor Middleton? The wine before you may serve for a +preface. We shall have your wine in five minutes." + +The claret jug empty, Sir Willoughby offered to send for more. De +Craye was languid over the question. Vernon rose from the table. + +"We have a bottle of Doctor Middleton's port coming in," +Willoughby said to him. + +"Mine, you call it?" cried the doctor. + +"It's a royal wine, that won't suffer sharing," said Vernon. + +"We'll be with you, if you go into the billiard-room, Vernon." + +"I shall hurry my drinking of good wine for no man," said the Rev. +Doctor. + +"Horace?" + +"I'm beneath it, ephemeral, Willoughby. I am going to the +ladies." + +Vernon and De Craye retired upon the arrival of the wine; and Dr. +Middleton sipped. He sipped and looked at the owner of it. + +"Some thirty dozen?" he said. + +"Fifty." + +The doctor nodded humbly. + +"I shall remember, sir," his host addressed him. "whenever I have +the honour of entertaining you, I am cellarer of that wine." + +The Rev. Doctor set down his glass. "You have, sir, in some sense. +an enviable post. It is a responsible one, if that be a blessing. +On you it devolves to retard the day of the last dozen." + +"Your opinion of the wine is favourable, sir?" + +"I will say this:--shallow souls run to rhapsody:--I will say, +that I am consoled for not having lived ninety years back, or at +any period but the present, by this one glass of your ancestral +wine." + +"I am careful of it," Sir Willoughby said, modestly; "still its +natural destination is to those who can appreciate it. You do, +sir." + +"Still my good friend, still! It is a charge; it is a possession, +but part in trusteeship. Though we cannot declare it an entailed +estate, our consciences are in some sort pledged that it shall be +a succession not too considerably diminished." + +"You will not object to drink it, sir, to the health of your +grandchildren. And may you live to toast them in it on their +marriage-day!" + +"You colour the idea of a prolonged existence in seductive hues. +Ha! It is a wine for Tithonus. This wine would speed him to the +rosy Morning--aha!" + +"I will undertake to sit you through it up to morning," said Sir +Willoughby, innocent of the Bacchic nuptiality of the allusion. + +Dr Middleton eyed the decanter. There is a grief in gladness, for +a premonition of our mortal state. The amount of wine in the +decanter did not promise to sustain the starry roof of night and +greet the dawn. "Old wine, my friend, denies us the full bottle!" + +"Another bottle is to follow." + +"No!" + +"It is ordered." + +"I protest." + +"It is uncorked." + +"I entreat." + +"It is decanted." + +"I submit. But, mark, it must be honest partnership. You are my +worthy host, sir, on that stipulation. Note the superiority of +wine over Venus!--I may say, the magnanimity of wine; our +jealousy turns on him that will not share! But the corks, +Willoughby. The corks excite my amazement." + +"The corking is examined at regular intervals. I remember the +occurrence in my father's time. I have seen to it once." + +"It must be perilous as an operation for tracheotomy; which I +should assume it to resemble in surgical skill and firmness of +hand, not to mention the imminent gasp of the patient." + +A fresh decanter was placed before the doctor. + +He said: "I have but a girl to give!" He was melted. + +Sir Willoughby replied: "I take her for the highest prize this +world affords." + +"I have beaten some small stock of Latin into her head, and a note +of Greek. She contains a savour of the classics. I hoped once ... +But she is a girl. The nymph of the woods is in her. Still she +will bring you her flower-cup of Hippocrene. She has that +aristocracy--the noblest. She is fair; a Beauty, some have said, +who judge not by lines. Fair to me, Willoughby! She is my sky. +There were applicants. In Italy she was besought of me. She has no +history. You are the first heading of the chapter. With you she +will have her one tale, as it should be. 'Mulier tum bene olet', +you know. Most fragrant she that smells of naught. She goes to you +from me, from me alone, from her father to her husband. 'Ut flos +in septis secretus nascitur hortis.'" He murmured on the lines to, +"'Sic virgo, dum . . .' I shall feel the parting. She goes to one +who will have my pride in her, and more. I will add, who will be +envied. Mr. Whitford must write you a Carmen Nuptiale." + +The heart of the unfortunate gentleman listening to Dr. Middleton +set in for irregular leaps. His offended temper broke away from +the image of Clara, revealing her as he had seen her in the +morning beside Horace De Craye, distressingly sweet; sweet with +the breezy radiance of an English soft-breathing day; sweet with +sharpness of young sap. Her eyes, her lips, her fluttering dress +that played happy mother across her bosom, giving peeps of the +veiled twins; and her laughter, her slim figure, peerless +carriage, all her terrible sweetness touched his wound to the +smarting quick. + +Her wish to be free of him was his anguish. In his pain he thought +sincerely. When the pain was easier he muffled himself in the idea +of her jealousy of Laetitia Dale, and deemed the wish a fiction. +But she had expressed it. That was the wound he sought to comfort; +for the double reason, that he could love her better after +punishing her, and that to meditate on doing so masked the fear of +losing her--the dread abyss she had succeeded in forcing his +nature to shudder at as a giddy edge possibly near, in spite of +his arts of self-defence. + +"What I shall do to-morrow evening!" he exclaimed. "I do not care +to fling a bottle to Colonel De Craye and Vernon. I cannot open +one for myself. To sit with the ladies will be sitting in the cold +for me. When do you bring me back my bride, sir?" + +"My dear Willoughby!" The Rev. Doctor puffed, composed himself, +and sipped. "The expedition is an absurdity. I am unable to see +the aim of it. She had a headache, vapours. They are over, and +she will show a return of good sense. I have ever maintained that +nonsense is not to be encouraged in girls. I can put my foot on +it. My arrangements are for staying here a further ten days, in +the terms of your hospitable invitation. And I stay." + +"I applaud your resolution, sir. Will you prove firm?" + +"I am never false to my engagement, Willoughby." + +"Not under pressure?" + +"Under no pressure." + +"Persuasion, I should have said." + +"Certainly not. The weakness is in the yielding, either to +persuasion or to pressure. The latter brings weight to bear on us; +the former blows at our want of it." + +"You gratify me, Doctor Middleton, and relieve me." + +"I cordially dislike a breach in good habits, Willoughby. But I +do remember--was I wrong?--informing Clara that you appeared +light-hearted in regard to a departure, or gap in a visit, that +was not, I must confess, to my liking." + +"Simply, my dear doctor, your pleasure was my pleasure; but make +my pleasure yours, and you remain to crack many a bottle with your +son-in-law." + +"Excellently said. You have a courtly speech, Willoughby. I can +imagine you to conduct a lovers" quarrel with a politeness to read +a lesson to well-bred damsels. Aha?" + +"Spare me the futility of the quarrel." + +"All's well?" + +"Clara, replied Sir Willoughby, in dramatic epigram, "is +perfection." + +"I rejoice," the Rev. Doctor responded; taught thus to understand +that the lovers" quarrel between his daughter and his host was at +an end. + +He left the table a little after eleven o'clock. A short dialogue +ensued upon the subject of the ladies. They must have gone to bed? +Why, yes; of course they must. It is good that they should go to +bed early to preserve their complexions for us. Ladies are +creation's glory, but they are anti-climax, following a wine of a +century old. They are anti-climax, recoil, cross-current; morally, +they are repentance, penance; imagerially, the frozen North on the +young brown buds bursting to green. What know they of a critic in +the palate, and a frame all revelry! And mark you, revelry in +sobriety, containment in exultation; classic revelry. Can they, +dear though they be to us, light up candelabras in the brain, to +illuminate all history and solve the secret of the destiny of man? +They cannot; they cannot sympathize with them that can. So +therefore this division is between us; yet are we not turbaned +Orientals, nor are they inmates of the harem. We are not Moslem. +Be assured of it in the contemplation of the table's decanter. + +Dr Middleton said: "Then I go straight to bed." + +"I will conduct you to your door, sir," said his host. + +The piano was heard. Dr. Middleton laid his hand on the banisters, +and remarked: "The ladies must have gone to bed?" + +Vernon came out of the library and was hailed, "Fellow-student!" + +He waved a good-night to the Doctor, and said to Willoughby: "The +ladies are in the drawing-room." + +"I am on my way upstairs," was the reply. + +"Solitude and sleep, after such a wine as that; and forefend us +human society!" the Doctor shouted. "But, Willoughby!" + +"Sir." + +"One to-morrow." + +"You dispose of the cellar, sir." + +"I am fitter to drive the horses of the sun. I would rigidly +counsel, one, and no more. We have made a breach in the fiftieth +dozen. Daily one will preserve us from having to name the fortieth +quite so unseasonably. The couple of bottles per diem +prognosticates disintegration, with its accompanying recklessness. +Constitutionally, let me add, I bear three. I speak for +posterity." + +During Dr. Middleton's allocution the ladies issued from the +drawing-room, Clara foremost, for she had heard her father's +voice, and desired to ask him this in reference to their +departure: "Papa, will you tell me the hour to-morrow?" + +She ran up the stairs to kiss him, saying again: "When will you be +ready to-morrow morning?" + +Dr Middleton announced a stoutly deliberative mind in the +bugle-notes of a repeated ahem. He bethought him of replying in +his doctorial tongue. Clara's eager face admonished him to +brevity: it began to look starved. Intruding on his vision of the +houris couched in the inner cellar to be the reward of valiant +men, it annoyed him. His brows joined. He said: "I shall not be +ready to-morrow morning." + +"In the afternoon?" + +"Nor in the afternoon." + +"When?" + +"My dear, I am ready for bed at this moment, and know of no other +readiness. Ladies," he bowed to the group in the hall below him, +"may fair dreams pay court to you this night!" + +Sir Willoughby had hastily descended and shaken the hands of the +ladies, directed Horace De Craye to the laboratory for a +smoking-room, and returned to Dr. Middleton. Vexed by the scene, +uncertain of his temper if he stayed with Clara, for whom he had +arranged that her disappointment should take place on the morrow, +in his absence, he said: "Good-night, good-night," to her, with +due fervour, bending over her flaccid finger-tips; then offered +his arm to the Rev. Doctor. + +"Ay, son Willoughby, in friendliness, if you will, though I am a +man to bear my load," the father of the stupefied girl addressed +him. "Candles, I believe, are on the first landing. Good-night, +my love. Clara!" + +"Papa!" + +"Good-night." + +"Oh!" she lifted her breast with the interjection, standing in +shame of the curtained conspiracy and herself, "good night". + +Her father wound up the stairs. She stepped down. + +"There was an understanding that papa and I should go to London +to-morrow early," she said, unconcernedly, to the ladies, and her +voice was clear, but her face too legible. De Craye was heartily +unhappy at the sight. + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +Clara's Meditations + +Two were sleepless that night: Miss Middleton and Colonel De +Craye. + +She was in a fever, lying like stone, with her brain burning. +Quick natures run out to calamity in any little shadow of it flung +before. Terrors of apprehension drive them. They stop not short of +the uttermost when they are on the wings of dread. A frown means +tempest, a wind wreck; to see fire is to be seized by it. When it +is the approach of their loathing that they fear, they are in the +tragedy of the embrace at a breath; and then is the wrestle +between themselves and horror, between themselves and evil, which +promises aid; themselves and weakness, which calls on evil; +themselves and the better part of them, which whispers no +beguilement. + +The false course she had taken through sophistical cowardice +appalled the girl; she was lost. The advantage taken of it by +Willoughby put on the form of strength, and made her feel abject, +reptilious; she was lost, carried away on the flood of the +cataract. He had won her father for an ally. Strangely, she knew +not how, he had succeeded in swaying her father, who had +previously not more than tolerated him. "Son Willoughby" on her +father's lips meant something that scenes and scenes would have to +struggle with, to the out-wearying of her father and herself. She +revolved the "Son Willoughby" through moods of stupefaction, +contempt, revolt, subjection. It meant that she was vanquished. +It meant that her father's esteem for her was forfeited. She saw +him a gigantic image of discomposure. + +Her recognition of her cowardly feebleness brought the brood of +fatalism. What was the right of so miserable a creature as she to +excite disturbance, let her fortunes be good or ill? It would be +quieter to float, kinder to everybody. Thank heaven for the +chances of a short life! Once in a net, desperation is graceless. +We may be brutes in our earthly destinies: in our endurance of +them we need not be brutish. + +She was now in the luxury of passivity, when we throw our burden +on the Powers above, and do not love them. The need to love them +drew her out of it, that she might strive with the unbearable, and +by sheer striving, even though she were graceless, come to love +them humbly. It is here that the seed of good teaching supports a +soul, for the condition might be mapped, and where kismet whispers +us to shut eyes, and instruction bids us look up, is at a +well-marked cross-road of the contest. + +Quick of sensation, but not courageously resolved, she perceived +how blunderingly she had acted. For a punishment, it seemed to her +that she who had not known her mind must learn to conquer her +nature, and submit. She had accepted Willoughby; therefore she +accepted him. The fact became a matter of the past, past debating. + +In the abstract this contemplation of circumstances went well. A +plain duty lay in her way. And then a disembodied thought flew +round her, comparing her with Vernon to her discredit. He had for +years borne much that was distasteful to him, for the purpose of +studying, and with his poor income helping the poorer than +himself. She dwelt on him in pity and envy; he had lived in this +place, and so must she; and he had not been dishonoured by his +modesty: he had not failed of self-control, because he had a life +within. She was almost imagining she might imitate him when the +clash of a sharp physical thought, "The difference! the +difference!" told her she was woman and never could submit. Can a +woman have an inner life apart from him she is yoked to? She tried +to nestle deep away in herself: in some corner where the abstract +view had comforted her, to flee from thinking as her feminine +blood directed. It was a vain effort. The difference, the cruel +fate, the defencelessness of women, pursued her, strung her to +wild horses" backs, tossed her on savage wastes. In her case duty +was shame: hence, it could not be broadly duty. That intolerable +difference proscribed the word. + +But the fire of a brain burning high and kindling everything +lighted up herself against herself.--Was one so volatile as she a +person with a will?--Were they not a multitude of flitting wishes +that she took for a will? Was she, feather-headed that she was, a +person to make a stand on physical pride?--If she could yield her +hand without reflection (as she conceived she had done, from +incapacity to conceive herself doing it reflectively) was she much +better than purchaseable stuff that has nothing to say to the +bargain? + +Furthermore, said her incandescent reason, she had not suspected +such art of cunning in Willoughby. Then might she not be deceived +altogether--might she not have misread him? Stronger than she +had fancied, might he not be likewise more estimable? The world +was favourable to him; he was prized by his friends. + +She reviewed him. It was all in one flash. It was not much less +intentionally favourable than the world's review and that of his +friends, but, beginning with the idea of them, she recollected-- +heard Willoughby's voice pronouncing his opinion of his friends +and the world; of Vernon Whitford and Colonel De Craye for +example, and of men and women. An undefined agreement to have the +same regard for him as his friends and the world had, provided +that he kept at the same distance from her, was the termination of +this phase, occupying about a minute in time, and reached through +a series of intensely vivid pictures:--his face, at her petition +to be released, lowering behind them for a background and a +comment. + +"I cannot! I cannot!" she cried, aloud; and it struck her that her +repulsion was a holy warning. Better be graceless than a loathing +wife: better appear inconsistent. Why should she not appear such +as she was? + +Why? We answer that question usually in angry reliance on certain +superb qualities, injured fine qualities of ours undiscovered by +the world, not much more than suspected by ourselves, which are +still our fortress, where pride sits at home, solitary and +impervious as an octogenarian conservative. But it is not possible +to answer it so when the brain is rageing like a pine-torch and +the devouring illumination leaves not a spot of our nature covert. +The aspect of her weakness was unrelieved, and frightened her back +to her loathing. From her loathing, as soon as her sensations had +quickened to realize it, she was hurled on her weakness. She was +graceless, she was inconsistent, she was volatile, she was +unprincipled, she was worse than a prey to wickedness--capable +of it; she was only waiting to be misled. Nay, the idea of being +misled suffused her with languor; for then the battle would be +over and she a happy weed of the sea no longer suffering those +tugs at the roots, but leaving it to the sea to heave and contend. +She would he like Constantia then: like her in her fortunes: never +so brave, she feared. + +Perhaps very like Constantia in her fortunes! + +Poor troubled bodies waking up in the night to behold visually the +spectre cast forth from the perplexed machinery inside them, stare +at it for a space, till touching consciousness they dive down +under the sheets with fish-like alacrity. Clara looked at her +thought, and suddenly headed downward in a crimson gulf. + +She must have obtained absolution, or else it was oblivion, below. +Soon after the plunge her first object of meditation was Colonel +De Craye. She thought of him calmly: he seemed a refuge. He was +very nice, he was a holiday character. His lithe figure, neat firm +footing of the stag, swift intelligent expression, and his ready +frolicsomeness, pleasant humour, cordial temper, and his Irishry, +whereon he was at liberty to play, as on the emblem harp of the +Isle, were soothing to think of. The suspicion that she tricked +herself with this calm observation of him was dismissed. Issuing +out of torture, her young nature eluded the irradiating brain in +search of refreshment, and she luxuriated at a feast in +considering him--shower on a parched land that he was! He spread +new air abroad. She had no reason to suppose he was not a good +man: she could securely think of him. Besides he was bound by his +prospective office in support of his friend Willoughby to be quite +harmless. And besides (you are not to expect logical sequences) +the showery refreshment in thinking of him lay in the sort of +assurance it conveyed, that the more she thought, the less would +he be likely to figure as an obnoxious official--that is, as the +man to do by Willoughby at the altar what her father would, under +the supposition, be doing by her. Her mind reposed on Colonel De +Craye. + +His name was Horace. Her father had worked with her at Horace. She +knew most of the Odes and some of the Satires and Epistles of the +poet. They reflected benevolent beams on the gentleman of the +poet's name. He too was vivacious, had fun, common sense, +elegance; loved rusticity, he said, sighed for a country life, +fancied retiring to Canada to cultivate his own domain; "modus +agri non ita magnus:" a delight. And he, too, when in the +country, sighed for town. There were strong features of +resemblance. He had hinted in fun at not being rich. "Quae virtus +et quanta sit vivere parvo." But that quotation applied to and +belonged to Vernon Whitford. Even so little disarranged her +meditations. + +She would have thought of Vernon, as her instinct of safety +prompted, had not his exactions been excessive. He proposed to +help her with advice only. She was to do everything for herself, +do and dare everything, decide upon everything. He told her flatly +that so would she learn to know her own mind; and flatly, that it +was her penance. She had gained nothing by breaking down and +pouring herself out to him. He would have her bring Willoughby and +her father face to face, and be witness of their interview-- +herself the theme. What alternative was there?--obedience to the +word she had pledged. He talked of patience, of self-examination +and patience. But all of her--she was all marked urgent. This +house was a cage, and the world--her brain was a cage, until she +could obtain her prospect of freedom. + +As for the house, she might leave it; yonder was the dawn. + +She went to her window to gaze at the first colour along the grey. +Small satisfaction came of gazing at that or at herself. She +shunned glass and sky. One and the other stamped her as a slave in +a frame. It seemed to her she had been so long in this place that +she was fixed here: it was her world, and to imagine an Alp was +like seeking to get back to childhood. Unless a miracle intervened +here she would have to pass her days. Men are so little chivalrous +now that no miracle ever intervenes. Consequently she was doomed. + +She took a pen and began a letter to a dear friend, Lucy Darleton, +a promised bridesmaid, bidding her countermand orders for her +bridal dress, and purposing a tour in Switzerland. She wrote of +the mountain country with real abandonment to imagination. It +became a visioned loophole of escape. She rose and clasped a +shawl over her night-dress to ward off chillness, and sitting to +the table again, could not produce a word. The lines she had +written were condemned: they were ludicrously inefficient. The +letter was torn to pieces. She stood very clearly doomed. + +After a fall of tears, upon looking at the scraps, she dressed +herself, and sat by the window and watched the blackbird on the +lawn as he hopped from shafts of dewy sunlight to the +long-stretched dewy tree-shadows, considering in her mind that +dark dews are more meaningful than bright, the beauty of the dews +of woods more sweet than meadow-dews. It signified only that she +was quieter. She had gone through her crisis in the anticipation +of it. That is how quick natures will often be cold and hard, or +not much moved, when the positive crisis arrives, and why it is +that they are prepared for astonishing leaps over the gradations +which should render their conduct comprehensible to us, if not +excuseable. She watched the blackbird throw up his head stiffly, +and peck to right and left, dangling the worm on each side his +orange beak. Specklebreasted thrushes were at work. and a wagtail +that ran as with Clara's own rapid little steps. Thrush and +blackbird flew to the nest. They had wings. The lovely morning +breathed of sweet earth into her open window, and made it painful, +in the dense twitter, chirp, cheep, and song of the air, to resist +the innocent intoxication. O to love! was not said by her, but if +she had sung, as her nature prompted, it would have been. Her war +with Willoughby sprang of a desire to love repelled by distaste. +Her cry for freedom was a cry to be free to love: she discovered +it, half shuddering: to love, oh! no--no shape of man, nor +impalpable nature either: but to love unselfishness, and +helpfulness, and planted strength in something. Then, loving and +being loved a little, what strength would be hers! She could utter +all the words needed to Willoughby and to her father, locked in +her love: walking in this world, living in that. + +Previously she had cried, despairing: If I were loved! Jealousy of +Constantia's happiness, envy of her escape, ruled her then: and +she remembered the cry, though not perfectly her plain-speaking to +herself: she chose to think she had meant: If Willoughby were +capable of truly loving! For now the fire of her brain had sunk, +and refuges and subterfuges were round about it. The thought of +personal love was encouraged, she chose to think, for the sake of +the strength it lent her to carve her way to freedom. She had just +before felt rather the reverse, but she could not exist with that +feeling; and it was true that freedom was not so indistinct in her +fancy as the idea of love. + +Were men, when they were known, like him she knew too well? + +The arch-tempter's question to her was there. + +She put it away. Wherever she turned it stood observing her. She +knew so much of one man, nothing of the rest: naturally she was +curious. Vernon might be sworn to be unlike. But he was +exceptional. What of the other in the house? + +Maidens are commonly reduced to read the masters of their +destinies by their instincts; and when these have been edged by +over-activity they must hoodwink their maidenliness to suffer +themselves to read; and then they must dupe their minds, else men +would soon see they were gifted to discern. Total ignorance being +their pledge of purity to men, they have to expunge the writing of +their perceptives on the tablets of the brain: they have to know +not when they do know. The instinct of seeking to know, crossed by +the task of blotting knowledge out, creates that conflict of the +natural with the artificial creature to which their ultimately +revealed double-face, complained of by ever-dissatisfied men, is +owing. Wonder in no degree that they indulge a craving to be +fools, or that many of them act the character. Jeer at them as +little for not showing growth. You have reared them to this pitch, +and at this pitch they have partly civilized you. Supposing you to +want it done wholly, you must yield just as many points in your +requisitions as are needed to let the wits of young women reap +their due harvest and be of good use to their souls. You will then +have a fair battle, a braver, with better results. + +Clara's inner eye traversed Colonel De Craye at a shot. + +She had immediately to blot out the vision of Captain Oxford in +him, the revelation of his laughing contempt for Willoughby, the +view of mercurial principles, the scribbled histories of light +love-passages. + +She blotted it out, kept it from her mind: so she knew him, knew +him to be a sweeter and a variable Willoughby, a generous kind of +Willoughby, a Willoughby-butterfly, without having the free mind +to summarize him and picture him for a warning. Scattered features +of him, such as the instincts call up, were not sufficiently +impressive. Besides, the clouded mind was opposed to her receiving +impressions. + +Young Crossjay's voice in the still morning air came to her cars. +The dear guileless chatter of the boy's voice. Why, assuredly it +was young Crossjay who was the man she loved. And he loved her. +And he was going to be an unselfish, sustaining, true, strong man, +the man she longed for, for anchorage. Oh, the dear voice! +woodpecker and thrush in one. He never ceased to chatter to Vernon +Whitford walking beside him with a swinging stride off to the lake +for their morning swim. Happy couple! The morning gave them both a +freshness and innocence above human. They seemed to Clara made of +morning air and clear lake water. Crossjay's voice ran up and down +a diatonic scale with here and there a query in semitone and a +laugh on a ringing note. She wondered what he could have to talk +of so incessantly, and imagined all the dialogue. He prattled +of his yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow, which did not imply past +and future, but his vivid present. She felt like one vainly trying +to fly in hearing him; she felt old. The consolation she arrived +at was to feel maternal. She wished to hug the boy. + +Trot and stride, Crossjay and Vernon entered the park, careless +about wet grass, not once looking at the house. Crossjay ranged +ahead and picked flowers, bounding back to show them. Clara's +heart beat at a fancy that her name was mentioned. If those +flowers were for her she would prize them. + +The two bathers dipped over an undulation. + +Her loss of them rattled her chains. + +Deeply dwelling on their troubles has the effect upon the young of +helping to forgetfulness; for they cannot think without imagining, +their imaginations are saturated with their Pleasures, and the +collision, though they are unable to exchange sad for sweet, +distills an opiate. + +"Am I solemnly engaged?" she asked herself. She seemed to be +awakening. + +She glanced at her bed, where she had passed the night of +ineffectual moaning, and out on the high wave of grass, where +Crossjay and his good friend had vanished. + +Was the struggle all to be gone over again? + +Little by little her intelligence of her actual position crept up +to submerge her heart. + +"I am in his house!" she said. It resembled a discovery, so +strangely had her opiate and power of dreaming wrought through her +tortures. She said it gasping. She was in his house, his guest, +his betrothed, sworn to him. The fact stood out cut in steel on +the pitiless daylight. + +That consideration drove her to be an early wanderer in the wake +of Crossjay. + +Her station was among the beeches on the flank of the boy's +return; and while waiting there the novelty of her waiting to +waylay anyone--she who had played the contrary part!--told her +more than it pleased her to think. Yet she could admit that she +did desire to speak with Vernon, as with a counsellor, harsh and +curt, but wholesome. + +The bathers reappeared on the grass-ridge, racing and flapping wet +towels. + +Some one hailed them. A sound of the galloping hoof drew her +attention to the avenue. She saw Willoughby dash across the park +level, and dropping a word to Vernon, ride away. Then she allowed +herself to be seen. + +Crossjay shouted. Willoughby turned his head, but not his horse's +head. The boy sprang up to Clara. He had swum across the lake and +back; he had raced Mr. Whitford--and beaten him! How he wished +Miss Middleton had been able to be one of them! + +Clara listened to him enviously. Her thought was: We women are +nailed to our sex! + +She said: "And you have just been talking to Sir Willoughby." + +Crossjay drew himself up to give an imitation of the baronet's +hand-moving in adieu. + +He would not have done that had he not smelled sympathy with the +performance. + +She declined to smile. Crossjay repeated it, and laughed. He made +a broader exhibition of it to Vernon approaching: "I say. Mr. +Whitford, who's this?" + +Vernon doubled to catch him. Crossjay fled and resumed his +magnificent air in the distance. + +"Good-morning, Miss Middleton; you are out early," said Vernon, +rather pale and stringy from his cold swim, and rather hard-eyed +with the sharp exercise following it. + +She had expected some of the kindness she wanted to reject, for he +could speak very kindly, and she regarded him as her doctor of +medicine, who would at least present the futile drug. + +"Good morning," she replied. + +"Willoughby will not be home till the evening." + +"You could not have had a finer morning for your bath." + +"No." + +"I will walk as fast as you like." + +"I'm perfectly warm." + +"But you prefer fast walking." + +"Out." + +"Ah! yes, that I understand. The walk back! Why is Willoughby away +to-day?" + +"He has business." + +After several steps she said: "He makes very sure of papa." + +"Not without reason, you will find," said Vernon. + +"Can it be? I am bewildered. I had papa's promise." + +"To leave the Hall for a day or two." + +"It would have been. . ." + +"Possibly. But other heads are at work as well as yours. If you +had been in earnest about it you would have taken your father into +your confidence at once. That was the course I ventured to +propose, on the supposition." + +"In earnest! I cannot imagine that you doubt it. I wished to spare +him." + +"This is a case in which he can't be spared." + +"If I had been bound to any other! I did not know then who held me +a prisoner. I thought I had only to speak to him sincerely." + +"Not many men would give up their prize for a word, Willoughby the +last of any." + +"Prize" rang through her thrillingly from Vernon's mouth, and +soothed her degradation. + +She would have liked to protest that she was very little of a +prize; a poor prize; not one at all in general estimation; only +one to a man reckoning his property; no prize in the true sense. + +The importunity of pain saved her. + +"Does he think I can change again? Am I treated as something won +in a lottery? To stay here is indeed more than I can bear. And if +he is calculating--Mr. Whitford, if he calculates on another +change, his plotting to keep me here is inconsiderate, not very +wise. Changes may occur in absence." + +"Wise or not, he has the right to scheme his best to keep you." + +She looked on Vernon with a shade of wondering reproach. + +"Why? What right?" + +"The right you admit when you ask him to release you. He has the +right to think you deluded; and to think you may come to a better +mood if you remain--a mood more agreeable to him, I mean. He has +that right absolutely. You are bound to remember also that you +stand in the wrong. You confess it when you appeal to his +generosity. And every man has the right to retain a treasure in +his hand if he can. Look straight at these facts." + +"You expect me to be all reason!" + +"Try to be. It's the way to learn whether you are really in +earnest." + +"I will try. It will drive me to worse!" + +"Try honestly. What is wisest now is, in my opinion, for you to +resolve to stay. I speak in the character of the person you +sketched for yourself as requiring. Well, then, a friend repeats +the same advice. You might have gone with your father: now you +will only disturb him and annoy him. The chances are he will +refuse to go." + +"Are women ever so changeable as men, then? Papa consented; he +agreed; he had some of my feeling; I saw it. That was yesterday. +And at night! He spoke to each of us at night in a different tone +from usual. With me he was hardly affectionate. But when you +advise me to stay, Mr. Whitford, you do not perhaps reflect that +it would be at the sacrifice of all candour." + +"Regard it as a probational term." + +"It has gone too far with me." + +"Take the matter into the head: try the case there." + +"Are you not counselling me as if I were a woman of intellect?" + +The crystal ring in her voice told him that tears were near to +flowing. + +He shuddered slightly. "You have intellect," he said, nodded. and +crossed the lawn, leaving her. He had to dress. + +She was not permitted to feel lonely, for she was immediately +joined by Colonel De Craye. + + +CHAPTER XXII + +The Ride + +Crossjay darted up to her a nose ahead of the colonel. + +"I say, Miss Middleton, we're to have the whole day to ourselves, +after morning lessons. Will you come and fish with me and see me +bird's-nest?" + +"Not for the satisfaction of beholding another cracked crown, my +son," the colonel interposed: and bowing to Clara: "Miss +Middleton is handed over to my exclusive charge for the day, with +her consent?" + +"I scarcely know," said she, consulting a sensation of languor +that seemed to contain some reminiscence. "If I am here. My +father's plans are uncertain. I will speak to him. If I am here, +perhaps Crossjay would like a ride in the afternoon." + +"Oh, yes," cried the boy; "out over Bournden, through Mewsey up to +Closharn Beacon, and down on Aspenwell, where there's a common for +racing. And ford the stream!" + +"An inducement for you," De Craye said to her. + +She smiled and squeezed the boy's hand. + +"We won't go without you, Crossjay." + +"You don't carry a comb, my man, when you bathe?" + +At this remark of the colonel's young Crossjay conceived the +appearance of his matted locks in the eyes of his adorable lady. +He gave her one dear look through his redness, and fled. + +"I like that boy," said De Craye. + +"I love him," said Clara. + +Crossjay's troubled eyelids in his honest young face became a +picture for her. + +"After all, Miss Middleton, Willoughby's notions about him are +not so bad, if we consider that you will be in the place of a +mother to him." + +"I think them bad." + +"You are disinclined to calculate the good fortune of the boy in +having more of you on land than he would have in crown and anchor +buttons!" + +"You have talked of him with Willoughby," + +"We had a talk last night." + +Of how much? thought she. + +"Willoughby returns?" she said. + +"He dines here, I know; for he holds the key of the inner cellar, +and Doctor Middleton does him the honour to applaud his wine. +Willoughby was good enough to tell me that he thought I might +contribute to amuse you." + +She was brooding in stupefaction on her father and the wine as she +requested Colonel De Craye to persuade Willoughby to take the +general view of Crossjay's future and act on it. + +"He seems fond of the boy, too," said De Craye, musingly. + +"You speak in doubt?" + +"Not at all. But is he not--men are queer fish!--make allowance +for us--a trifle tyrannical, pleasantly, with those he is fond +of?" + +"If they look right and left?" + +It was meant for an interrogation; it was not with the sound of +one that the words dropped. "My dear Crossjay!" she sighed. "I +would willingly pay for him out of my own purse, and I will do so +rather than have him miss his chance. I have not mustered +resolution to propose it." + +"I may be mistaken, Miss Middleton. He talked of the boy's +fondness of him." + +"He would." + +"I suppose he is hardly peculiar in liking to play Pole-star." + +"He may not be." + +"For the rest, your influence should be all-powerful." + +"it is not." + +De Craye looked with a wandering eye at the heavens. + +"We are having a spell of weather perfectly superb. And the odd +thing is, that whenever we have splendid weather at home we're all +for rushing abroad. I'm booked for a Mediterranean cruise-- +postponed to give place to your ceremony." + +"That?" she could not control her accent. + +"What worthier?" + +She was guilty of a pause. + +De Craye saved it from an awkward length. "I have written half an +essay on Honeymoons, Miss Middleton." + +"Is that the same as a half-written essay, Colonel De Craye?" + +"Just the same, with the difference that it's a whole essay written +all on one side." + +"On which side?" + +"The bachelor's." + +"Why does he trouble himself with such topics?" + +"To warm himself for being left out in the cold." + +"Does he feel envy?" + +"He has to confess it." + +"He has liberty." + +"A commodity he can't tell the value of if there's no one to buy." + +"Why should he wish to sell?" + +"He's bent on completing his essay." + +"To make the reading dull." + +"There we touch the key of the subject. For what is to rescue the +pair from a monotony multiplied by two? And so a bachelor's +recommendation, when each has discovered the right sort of person +to be dull with, pushes them from the churchdoor on a round of +adventures containing a spice of peril, if 'tis to be had. Let +them be in danger of their lives the first or second day. A +bachelor's loneliness is a private affair of his own; he hasn't to +look into a face to be ashamed of feeling it and inflicting it at +the same time; 'tis his pillow; he can punch it an he pleases, and +turn it over t'other side, if he's for a mighty variation; there's +a dream in it. But our poor couple are staring wide awake. All +their dreaming's done. They've emptied their bottle of elixir, or +broken it; and she has a thirst for the use of the tongue, and he +to yawn with a crony; and they may converse, they're not aware of +it, more than the desert that has drunk a shower. So as soon as +possible she's away to the ladies, and he puts on his Club. That's +what your bachelor sees and would like to spare them; and if he +didn't see something of the sort he'd be off with a noose round +his neck, on his knees in the dew to the morning milkmaid." + +"The bachelor is happily warned and on his guard," said Clara, +diverted, as he wished her to be. "Sketch me a few of the +adventures you propose." + +"I have a friend who rowed his bride from the Houses of Parliament +up the Thames to the Severn on into North Wales. They shot some +pretty weirs and rapids." + +"That was nice." + +"They had an infinity of adventures, and the best proof of the +benefit they derived is, that they forgot everything about them +except that the adventures occurred." + +"Those two must have returned bright enough to please you. + +"They returned, and shone like a wrecker's beacon to the mariner. +You see, Miss Middleton, there was the landscape, and the +exercise, and the occasional bit of danger. I think it's to be +recommended. The scene is always changing, and not too fast; and +'tis not too sublime, like big mountains, to tire them of their +everlasting big Ohs. There's the difference between going into a +howling wind and launching among zephyrs. They have fresh air and +movement, and not in a railway carriage; they can take in what +they look on. And she has the steering ropes, and that's a wise +commencement. And my lord is all day making an exhibition of his +manly strength, bowing before her some sixty to the minute; and +she, to help him, just inclines when she's in the mood. And +they're face to face in the nature of things, and are not under +the obligation of looking the unutterable, because, you see, +there's business in hand; and the boat's just the right sort of +third party, who never interferes, but must be attended to. And +they feel they re labouring together to get along, all in the +proper proportion; and whether he has to labour in life or not, he +proves his ability. What do you think of it, Miss Middleton?" + +"I think you have only to propose it, Colonel De Craye." + +"And if they capsize, why, 'tis a natural ducking!" + +"You forgot the lady's dressing-bag." + +"The stain on the metal for a constant reminder of his prowess in +saving it! Well, and there's an alternative to that scheme, and a +finer:--This, then: they read dramatic pieces during courtship, +to stop the saying of things over again till the drum of the car +becomes nothing but a drum to the poor head, and a little before +they affix their signatures to the fatal Registry-book of the +vestry, they enter into an engagement with a body of provincial +actors to join the troop on the day of their nuptials, and away +they go in their coach and four, and she is Lady Kitty Caper for a +month, and he Sir Harry Highflyer. See the honeymoon spinning! +The marvel to me is that none of the young couples do it. They +could enjoy the world, see life, amuse the company, and come back +fresh to their own characters, instead of giving themselves a dose +of Africa without a savage to diversify it: an impression they +never get over, I'm told. Many a character of the happiest +auspices has irreparable mischief done it by the ordinary +honeymoon. For my part, I rather lean to the second plan of +campaign." + +Clara was expected to reply, and she said: "Probably because you +are fond of acting. It would require capacity on both sides." + +"Miss Middleton, I would undertake to breathe the enthusiasm for +the stage and the adventure." + +"You are recommending it generally." + +"Let my gentleman only have a fund of enthusiasm. The lady will +kindle. She always does at a spark." + +"If he has not any?" + +"Then I'm afraid they must be mortally dull." + +She allowed her silence to speak; she knew that it did so too +eloquently, and could not control the personal adumbration she +gave to the one point of light revealed in, "if he has not any". +Her figure seemed immediately to wear a cap and cloak of dulness. + +She was full of revolt and anger, she was burning with her +situation; if sensible of shame now at anything that she did, it +turned to wrath and threw the burden on the author of her +desperate distress. The hour for blaming herself had gone by, to +be renewed ultimately perhaps in a season of freedom. She was +bereft of her insight within at present, so blind to herself that, +while conscious of an accurate reading of Willoughby's friend, she +thanked him in her heart for seeking simply to amuse her and +slightly succeeding. The afternoon's ride with him and Crossjay +was an agreeable beguilement to her in prospect. + +Laetitia came to divide her from Colonel De Craye. Dr. Middleton +was not seen before his appearance at the breakfast-table, where a +certain air of anxiety in his daughter's presence produced the +semblance of a raised map at intervals on his forehead. Few sights +on earth are more deserving of our sympathy than a good man who +has a troubled conscience thrust on him. + +The Rev. Doctor's perturbation was observed. The ladies Eleanor +and Isabel, seeing his daughter to be the cause of it, blamed her, +and would have assisted him to escape, but Miss Dale, whom he +courted with that object, was of the opposite faction. She made +way for Clara to lead her father out. He called to Vernon, who +merely nodded while leaving the room by the window with Crossjay. + +Half an eye on Dr. Middleton's pathetic exit in captivity sufficed +to tell Colonel De Craye that parties divided the house. At first +he thought how deplorable it would be to lose Miss Middleton for +two days or three: and it struck him that Vernon Whitford and +Laetitia Dale were acting oddly in seconding her, their aim not +being discernible. For he was of the order of gentlemen of the +obscurely-clear in mind who have a predetermined acuteness in +their watch upon the human play, and mark men and women as pieces +of a bad game of chess, each pursuing an interested course. His +experience of a section of the world had educated him--as gallant, +frank, and manly a comrade as one could wish for--up to this +point. But he soon abandoned speculations, which may be compared +to a shaking anemometer that will not let the troubled indicator +take station. Reposing on his perceptions and his instincts, he +fixed his attention on the chief persons, only glancing at the +others to establish a postulate, that where there are parties in a +house the most bewitching person present is the origin of them. It +is ever Helen's achievement. Miss Middleton appeared to him +bewitching beyond mortal; sunny in her laughter, shadowy in her +smiling; a young lady shaped for perfect music with a lover. + +She was that, and no less, to every man's eye on earth. High +breeding did not freeze her lovely girlishness.--But Willoughby +did. This reflection intervened to blot luxurious picturings of +her, and made itself acceptable by leading him back to several +instances of an evident want of harmony of the pair. + +And now (for purely undirected impulse all within us is not, +though we may be eye-bandaged agents under direction) it became +necessary for an honourable gentleman to cast vehement rebukes at +the fellow who did not comprehend the jewel he had won. How could +Willoughby behave like so complete a donkey! De Craye knew him to +be in his interior stiff, strange, exacting: women had talked of +him; he had been too much for one woman--the dashing Constantia: +he had worn one woman, sacrificing far more for him than +Constantia, to death. Still, with such a prize as Clara +Middleton, Willoughby's behaviour was past calculating in its +contemptible absurdity. And during courtship! And courtship of +that girl! It was the way of a man ten years after marriage. + +The idea drew him to picture her doatingly in her young matronly +bloom ten years after marriage: without a touch of age, matronly +wise, womanly sweet: perhaps with a couple of little ones to love, +never having known the love of a man. + +To think of a girl like Clara Middleton never having at +nine-and-twenty, and with two fair children! known the love of a +man or the loving of a man, possibly, became torture to the +Colonel. + +For a pacification he had to reconsider that she was as yet only +nineteen and unmarried. + +But she was engaged, and she was unloved. One might swear to it, +that she was unloved. And she was not a girl to be satisfied with +a big house and a high-nosed husband. + +There was a rapid alteration of the sad history of Clara the +unloved matron solaced by two little ones. A childless Clara +tragically loving and beloved flashed across the dark glass of the +future. + +Either way her fate was cruel. + +Some astonishment moved De Craye in the contemplation of the +distance he had stepped in this morass of fancy. He distinguished +the choice open to him of forward or back, and he selected +forward. But fancy was dead: the poetry hovering about her grew +invisible to him: he stood in the morass; that was all he knew; +and momently he plunged deeper; and he was aware of an intense +desire to see her face, that he might study her features again: he +understood no more. + +It was the clouding of the brain by the man's heart, which had +come to the knowledge that it was caught. + +A certain measure of astonishment moved him still. It had hitherto +been his portion to do mischief to women and avoid the vengeance +of the sex. What was there in Miss Middleton's face and air to +ensnare a veteran handsome man of society numbering six-and-thirty +years, nearly as many conquests? "Each bullet has got its +commission." He was hit at last. That accident effected by Mr. +Flitch had fired the shot. Clean through the heart. does not tell +us of our misfortune, till the heart is asked to renew its natural +beating. It fell into the condition of the porcelain vase over a +thought of Miss Middleton standing above his prostrate form on the +road, and walking beside him to the Hall. Her words? What have +they been? She had not uttered words, she had shed meanings. He +did not for an instant conceive that he had charmed her: the charm +she had cast on him was too thrilling for coxcombry to lift a +head; still she had enjoyed his prattle. In return for her touch +upon the Irish fountain in him, he had manifestly given her relief +And could not one see that so sprightly a girl would soon be +deadened by a man like Willoughby? Deadened she was: she had not +responded to a compliment on her approaching marriage. An allusion +to it killed her smiling. The case of Mr. Flitch, with the half +wager about his reinstation in the service of the Hall, was +conclusive evidence of her opinion of Willoughby. + +It became again necessary that he should abuse Willoughby for his +folly. Why was the man worrying her? In some way he was worrying +her. + +What if Willoughby as well as Miss Middleton wished to be quit of +the engagement? ... + +For just a second, the handsome, woman-flattered officer proved +his man's heart more whole than he supposed it. That great organ, +instead of leaping at the thought, suffered a check. + +Bear in mind that his heart was not merely man's, it was a +conqueror's. He was of the race of amorous heroes who glory in +pursuing, overtaking, subduing: wresting the prize from a rival, +having her ripe from exquisitely feminine inward conflicts, +plucking her out of resistance in good old primitive fashion. You +win the creature in her delicious flutterings. He liked her thus, +in cooler blood, because of society's admiration of the capturer, +and somewhat because of the strife, which always enhances the +value of a prize, and refreshes our vanity in recollection. + +Moreover, he had been matched against Willoughby: the circumstance +had occurred two or three times. He could name a lady he had won, +a lady he had lost. Willoughby's large fortune and grandeur of +style had given him advantages at the start. But the start often +means the race--with women, and a bit of luck. + +The gentle check upon the galloping heart of Colonel De Craye +endured no longer than a second--a simple side-glance in a +headlong pace. Clara's enchantingness for a temperament like his, +which is to say, for him specially, in part through the testimony +her conquest of himself presented as to her power of sway over the +universal heart known as man's, assured him she was worth winning +even from a hand that dropped her. + +He had now a double reason for exclaiming at the folly of +Willoughby. Willoughby's treatment of her showed either temper or +weariness. Vanity and judgement led De Craye to guess the former. +Regarding her sentiments for Willoughby, he had come to his own +conclusion. The certainty of it caused him to assume that he +possessed an absolute knowledge of her character: she was an +angel, born supple; she was a heavenly soul, with half a dozen of +the tricks of earth. Skittish filly was among his phrases; but she +had a bearing and a gaze that forbade the dip in the common gutter +for wherewithal to paint the creature she was. + +Now, then, to see whether he was wrong for the first time in his +life! If not wrong, he had a chance. + +There could be nothing dishonourable in rescuing a girl from an +engagement she detested. An attempt to think it a service to +Willoughby faded midway. De Craye dismissed that chicanery. It +would be a service to Willoughby in the end, without question. +There was that to soothe his manly honour. Meanwhile he had to +face the thought of Willoughby as an antagonist, and the world +looking heavy on his honour as a friend. + +Such considerations drew him tenderly close to Miss Middleton. It +must, however, be confessed that the mental ardour of Colonel De +Craye had been a little sobered by his glance at the possibility +of both of the couple being of one mind on the subject of their +betrothal. Desirable as it was that they should be united in +disagreeing, it reduced the romance to platitude, and the third +person in the drama to the appearance of a stick. No man likes to +play that part. Memoirs of the favourites of Goddesses, if we had +them, would confirm it of men's tastes in this respect, though the +divinest be the prize. We behold what part they played. + +De Craye chanced to be crossing the hall from the laboratory to +the stables when Clara shut the library-door behind her. He said +something whimsical, and did not stop, nor did he look twice at +the face he had been longing for. + +What he had seen made him fear there would be no ride out with her +that day. Their next meeting reassured him; she was dressed in her +riding-habit, and wore a countenance resolutely cheerful. He +gave himself the word of command to take his tone from her. + +He was of a nature as quick as Clara's. Experience pushed him +farther than she could go in fancy; but experience laid a sobering +finger on his practical steps, and bade them hang upon her +initiative. She talked little. Young Crossjay cantering ahead was +her favourite subject. She was very much changed since the early +morning: his liveliness, essayed by him at a hazard, was +unsuccessful; grave English pleased her best. The descent from +that was naturally to melancholy. She mentioned a regret she had +that the Veil was interdicted to women in Protestant countries. De +Craye was fortunately silent; he could think of no other veil than +the Moslem, and when her meaning struck his witless head, he +admitted to himself that devout attendance on a young lady's mind +stupefies man's intelligence. Half an hour later, he was as +foolish in supposing it a confidence. He was again saved by +silence. + +In Aspenwell village she drew a letter from her bosom and called +to Crossjay to post it. The boy sang out, "Miss Lucy Darleton! +What a nice name!" + +Clara did not show that the name betrayed anything. + +She said to De Craye. "It proves he should not be here thinking of +nice names. " + +Her companion replied, "You may be right." He added, to avoid +feeling too subservient: "Boys will." + +"Not if they have stern masters to teach them their daily lessons, +and some of the lessons of existence." + +"Vernon Whitford is not stern enough?" + +"Mr. Whitford has to contend with other influences here." + +"With Willoughby?" + +"Not with Willoughby." + +He understood her. She touched the delicate indication firmly. +The man's, heart respected her for it; not many girls could be so +thoughtful or dare to be so direct; he saw that she had become +deeply serious, and he felt her love of the boy to be maternal, +past maiden sentiment. + +By this light of her seriousness, the posting of her letter in a +distant village, not entrusting it to the Hall post-box, might +have import; not that she would apprehend the violation of her +private correspondence, but we like to see our letter of weighty +meaning pass into the mouth of the public box. + +Consequently this letter was important. It was to suppose a +sequency in the conduct of a variable damsel. Coupled with her +remark about the Veil, and with other things, not words, breathing +from her (which were the breath of her condition), it was not +unreasonably to be supposed. She might even be a very consistent +person. If one only had the key of her! + +She spoke once of an immediate visit to London, supposing that she +could induce her father to go. De Craye remembered the occurrence +in the Hall at night, and her aspect of distress. + +They raced along Aspenwell Common to the ford; shallow, to the +chagrin of young Crossjay, between whom and themselves they left a +fitting space for his rapture in leading his pony to splash up and +down, lord of the stream. + +Swiftness of motion so strikes the blood on the brain that our +thoughts are lightnings, the heart is master of them. + +De Craye was heated by his gallop to venture on the angling +question: "Am I to hear the names of the bridesmaids?" + +The pace had nerved Clara to speak to it sharply: "There is no +need." + +"Have I no claim?" + +She was mute. + +"Miss Lucy Darleton, for instance; whose name I am almost as much +in love with as Crossjay." + +"She will not be bridesmaid to me." + +"She declines? Add my petition, I beg." + +"To all? or to her?" + +"Do all the bridesmaids decline?" + +"The scene is too ghastly." + +"A marriage?" + +"Girls have grown sick of it." + +"Of weddings? We'll overcome the sickness." + +"With some." + +"Not with Miss Darleton? You tempt my eloquence. + +"You wish it?" + +"To win her consent? Certainly." + +"The scene?" + +"Do I wish that?" + +"Marriage!" exclaimed Clara. dashing into the ford, fearful of her +ungovernable wildness and of what it might have kindled.--You, +father! you have driven me to unmaidenliness!--She forgot +Willoughby, in her father, who would not quit a comfortable house +for her all but prostrate beseeching; would not bend his mind to +her explanations, answered her with the horrid iteration of such +deaf misunderstanding as may be associated with a tolling bell. + +Dc Craye allowed her to catch Crossjay by herself They +entered a narrow lane, mysterious with possible birds" eggs in the +May-green hedges. As there was not room for three abreast, the +colonel made up the rear-guard, and was consoled by having Miss +Middleton's figure to contemplate; but the readiness of her +joining in Crossjay's pastime of the nest-hunt was not so pleasing +to a man that she had wound to a pitch of excitement. Her scornful +accent on "Marriage" rang through him. Apparently she was +beginning to do with him just as she liked, herself entirely +unconcerned. + +She kept Crossjay beside her till she dismounted, and the colonel +was left to the procession of elephantine ideas in his head, whose +ponderousness he took for natural weight. We do not with impunity +abandon the initiative. Men who have yielded it are like cavalry +put on the defensive; a very small force with an ictus will +scatter them. + +Anxiety to recover lost ground reduced the dimensions of his ideas +to a practical standard. + +Two ideas were opposed like duellists bent on the slaughter of one +another. Either she amazed him by confirming the suspicions he had +gathered of her sentiments for Willoughby in the moments of his +introduction to her; or she amazed him as a model for coquettes-- +the married and the widow might apply to her for lessons. + +These combatants exchanged shots, but remained standing; the +encounter was undecided. Whatever the result, no person so +seductive as Clara Middleton had he ever met. Her cry of loathing, +"Marriage!" coming from a girl, rang faintly clear of an ancient +virginal aspiration of the sex to escape from their coil, and +bespoke a pure, cold, savage pride that transplanted his thirst +for her to higher fields. + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Treats of the Union of Temper and Policy + +Sir Willoughby meanwhile was on a line of conduct suiting his +appreciation of his duty to himself. He had deluded himself with +the simple notion that good fruit would come of the union of +temper and policy. + +No delusion is older, none apparently so promising, both parties +being eager for the alliance. Yet, the theorist upon human nature +will say, they are obviously of adverse disposition. And this is +true, inasmuch as neither of them win submit to the yoke of an +established union; as soon as they have done their mischief, they +set to work tugging for a divorce. But they have attractions, the +one for the other, which precipitate them to embrace whenever they +meet in a breast; each is earnest with the owner of it to get him +to officiate forthwith as wedding-priest. And here is the reason: +temper, to warrant its appearance, desires to be thought as +deliberative as policy, and policy, the sooner to prove its +shrewdness, is impatient for the quick blood of temper. + +It will be well for men to resolve at the first approaches of the +amorous but fickle pair upon interdicting even an accidental +temporary junction: for the astonishing sweetness of the couple +when no more than the ghosts of them have come together in a +projecting mind is an intoxication beyond fermented grapejuice or +a witch's brewage; and under the guise of active wits they will +lead us to the parental meditation of antics compared with which +a Pagan Saturnalia were less impious in the sight of sanity. This +is full-mouthed language; but on our studious way through any +human career we are subject to fits of moral elevation; the theme +inspires it, and the sage residing in every civilized bosom +approves it. + +Decide at the outset, that temper is fatal to policy: hold them +with both hands in division. One might add, be doubtful of your +policy and repress your temper: it would be to suppose you wise. +You can, however, by incorporating two or three captains of the +great army of truisms bequeathed to us by ancient wisdom, fix in +your service those veteran old standfasts to check you. They will +not be serviceless in their admonitions to your understanding, and +they will so contrive to reconcile with it the natural caperings +of the wayward young sprig Conduct, that the latter, who commonly +learns to walk upright and straight from nothing softer than raps +of a bludgeon on his crown, shall foot soberly, appearing at least +wary of dangerous corners. + +Now Willoughby had not to be taught that temper is fatal to +policy; he was beginning to see in addition that the temper he +encouraged was particularly obnoxious to the policy he adopted; +and although his purpose in mounting horse after yesterday +frowning on his bride was definite, and might be deemed sagacious, +he bemoaned already the fatality pushing him ever farther from her +in chase of a satisfaction impossible to grasp. + +But the bare fact that her behaviour demanded a line of policy +crossed the grain of his temper: it was very offensive. + +Considering that she wounded him severely, her reversal of their +proper parts, by taking the part belonging to him, and requiring +his watchfulness, and the careful dealings he was accustomed to +expect from others, and had a right to exact of her, was +injuriously unjust. The feelings of a man hereditarily sensitive +to property accused her of a trespassing imprudence, and knowing +himself, by testimony of his household, his tenants, and the +neighbourhood, and the world as well, amiable when he received +his dues, he contemplated her with an air of stiff-backed +ill-treatment, not devoid of a certain sanctification of +martyrdom. + +His bitterest enemy would hardly declare that it was he who was in +the wrong. + +Clara herself had never been audacious enough to say that. +Distaste of his person was inconceivable to the favourite of +society. The capricious creature probably wanted a whipping to +bring her to the understanding of the principle called mastery, +which is in man. + +But was he administering it? If he retained a hold on her, he +could undoubtedly apply the scourge at leisure; any kind of +scourge; he could shun her, look on her frigidly, unbend to her to +find a warmer place for sarcasm, pityingly smile, ridicule, pay +court elsewhere. He could do these things if he retained a hold on +her; and he could do them well because of the faith he had in his +renowned amiability; for in doing them, he could feel that he was +other than he seemed, and his own cordial nature was there to +comfort him while he bestowed punishment. Cordial indeed, the +chills he endured were flung from the world. His heart was in that +fiction: half the hearts now beating have a mild form of it to +keep them merry: and the chastisement he desired to inflict was +really no more than righteous vengeance for an offended goodness +of heart. Clara figuratively, absolutely perhaps, on her knees, he +would raise her and forgive her. He yearned for the situation. To +let her understand how little she had known him! It would be worth +the pain she had dealt, to pour forth the stream of re-established +confidences, to paint himself to her as he was; as he was in the +spirit, not as he was to the world: though the world had reason to +do him honour. + +First, however, she would have to be humbled. + +Something whispered that his hold on her was lost. + +In such a case, every blow he struck would set her flying farther, +till the breach between them would be past bridging. + +Determination not to let her go was the best finish to this +perpetually revolving round which went like the same old +wheel-planks of a water mill in his head at a review of the injury +he sustained. He had come to it before. and he came to it again. +There was his vengeance. It melted him, she was so sweet! She +shone for him like the sunny breeze on water. Thinking of her +caused a catch of his breath. + +The dreadful young woman had a keener edge for the senses of men +than sovereign beauty. + +It would be madness to let her go. + +She affected him like an outlook on the great Patterne estate +after an absence, when his welcoming flag wept for pride above +Patterne Hall! + +It would be treason to let her go. + +It would be cruelty to her. + +He was bound to reflect that she was of tender age, and the +foolishness of the wretch was excusable to extreme youth. + +We toss away a flower that we are tired of smelling and do not +wish to carry. But the rose--young woman--is not cast off with +impunity. A fiend in shape of man is always behind us to +appropriate her. He that touches that rejected thing is larcenous. +Willoughby had been sensible of it in the person of Laetitia: and +by all the more that Clara's charms exceeded the faded creature's, +he felt it now. Ten thousand Furies thickened about him at a +thought of her lying by the road-side without his having crushed +all bloom and odour out of her which might tempt even the +curiosity of the fiend, man. + +On the other hand, supposing her to be there untouched, +universally declined by the sniffling, sagacious dog-fiend, a +miserable spinster for years, he could conceive notions of his +remorse. A soft remorse may be adopted as an agreeable sensation +within view of the wasted penitent whom we have struck a trifle +too hard. Seeing her penitent, he certainly would be willing to +surround her with little offices of compromising kindness. It +would depend on her age. Supposing her still youngish, there might +be captivating passages between them, as thus, in a style not +unfamiliar: + +"And was it my fault, my poor girl? Am I to blame, that you have +passed a lonely, unloved youth?" + +"No, Willoughby! The irreparable error was mine, the blame is +mine, mine only. I live to repent it. I do not seek, for I have +not deserved, your pardon. Had I it, I should need my own +self-esteem to presume to clasp it to a bosom ever unworthy of +you." + +"I may have been impatient, Clara: we are human!" + +"Never be it mine to accuse one on whom I laid so heavy a weight +of forbearance!" + +"Still, my old love!--for I am merely quoting history in naming +you so--I cannot have been perfectly blameless." + +"To me you were, and are." + +"Clara!" + +"Willoughby!" + +"Must I recognize the bitter truth that we two, once nearly one! +so nearly one! are eternally separated?" + +"I have envisaged it. My friend--I may call you friend; you have +ever been my friend, my best friend! oh, that eyes had been mine +to know the friend I had!--Willoughby, in the darkness of night, +and during days that were as night to my soul, I have seen the +inexorable finger pointing my solitary way through the wilderness +from a Paradise forfeited by my most wilful, my wanton, sin. We +have met. It is more than I have merited. We part. In mercy let it +be for ever. Oh, terrible word! Coined by the passions of our +youth, it comes to us for our sole riches when we are bankrupt of +earthly treasures, and is the passport given by Abnegation unto +Woe that prays to quit this probationary sphere. Willoughby, we +part. It is better so." + +"Clara! one--one only--one last--one holy kiss!" + +"If these poor lips, that once were sweet to you ... + +The kiss, to continue the language of the imaginative composition +of his time, favourite readings in which had inspired Sir +Willoughby with a colloquy so pathetic, was imprinted. + +Ay, she had the kiss, and no mean one. It was intended to swallow +every vestige of dwindling attractiveness out of her, and there +was a bit of scandal springing of it in the background that +satisfactorily settled her business, and left her 'enshrined in +memory, a divine recollection to him,' as his popular romances +would say, and have said for years. + +Unhappily, the fancied salute of her lips encircled him with the +breathing Clara. She rushed up from vacancy like a wind summoned +to wreck a stately vessel. + +His reverie had thrown him into severe commotion. The slave of a +passion thinks in a ring, as hares run: he will cease where he +began. Her sweetness had set him off, and he whirled back to her +sweetness: and that being incalculable and he insatiable, you have +the picture of his torments when you consider that her behaviour +made her as a cloud to him + +Riding slack, horse and man, in the likeness of those two ajog +homeward from the miry hunt, the horse pricked his cars, and +Willoughby looked down from his road along the bills on the race +headed by young Crossjay with a short start over Aspenwell Common +to the ford. There was no mistaking who they were, though they +were well-nigh a mile distant below. He noticed that they did not +overtake the boy. They drew rein at the ford, talking not simply +face to face, but face in face. Willoughby's novel feeling of he +knew not what drew them up to him, enabling him to fancy them +bathing in one another's eyes. Then she sprang through the ford, +De Craye following, but not close after--and why not close? She +had flicked him with one of her peremptorily saucy speeches when +she was bold with the gallop. They were not unknown to Willoughby. +They signified intimacy. + +Last night he had proposed to De Craye to take Miss Middleton for +a ride the next afternoon. It never came to his mind then that he +and his friend had formerly been rivals. He wished Clara to be +amused. Policy dictated that every thread should be used to attach +her to her residence at the Hall until he could command his temper +to talk to her calmly and overwhelm her, as any man in earnest, +with command of temper and a point of vantage, may be sure to +whelm a young woman. Policy, adulterated by temper, yet policy it +was that had sent him on his errand in the early morning to beat +about for a house and garden suitable to Dr. Middleton within a +circuit of five, six, or seven miles of Patterne Hall. If the Rev. +Doctor liked the house and took it (and Willoughby had seen the +place to suit him), the neighbourhood would be a chain upon Clara: +and if the house did not please a gentleman rather hard to please +(except in a venerable wine), an excuse would have been started +for his visiting other houses, and he had that response to his +importunate daughter, that he believed an excellent house was on +view. Dr. Middleton had been prepared by numerous hints to meet +Clara's black misreading of a lovers" quarrel, so that everything +looked full of promise as far as Willoughby's exercise of policy +went. + +But the strange pang traversing him now convicted him of a large +adulteration of profitless temper with it. The loyalty of De Craye +to a friend, where a woman walked in the drama, was notorious. It +was there, and a most flexible thing it was: and it soon +resembled reason manipulated by the sophists. Not to have +reckoned on his peculiar loyalty was proof of the blindness cast +on us by temper. + +And De Craye had an Irish tongue; and he had it under control, so +that he could talk good sense and airy nonsense at discretion. The +strongest overboiling of English Puritan contempt of a gabbler, +would not stop women from liking it. Evidently Clara did like it, +and Willoughby thundered on her sex. Unto such brainless things as +these do we, under the irony of circumstances, confide our honour! + +For he was no gabbler. He remembered having rattled in earlier +days; he had rattled with an object to gain, desiring to be taken +for an easy, careless, vivacious, charming fellow, as any young +gentleman may be who gaily wears the golden dish of Fifty thousand +pounds per annum, nailed to the back of his very saintly young +pate. The growth of the critical spirit in him, however, had +informed him that slang had been a principal component of his +rattling; and as he justly supposed it a betraying art for his +race and for him, he passed through the prim and the yawning +phases of affected indifference, to the pine Puritanism of a +leaden contempt of gabblers. + +They snare women, you see--girls! How despicable the host of +girls!--at least, that girl below there! + +Married women understood him: widows did. He placed an exceedingly +handsome and flattering young widow of his acquaintance, Lady Mary +Lewison, beside Clara for a comparison, involuntarily; and at +once, in a flash, in despite of him (he would rather it had been +otherwise), and in despite of Lady Mary's high birth and +connections as well, the silver lustre of the maid sicklied the +poor widow. + +The effect of the luckless comparison was to produce an image of +surpassingness in the features of Clara that gave him the final, +or mace-blow. Jealousy invaded him. + +He had hitherto been free of it, regarding jealousy as a foreign +devil, the accursed familiar of the vulgar. Luckless fellows might +be victims of the disease; he was not; and neither Captain Oxford, +nor Vernon, nor De Craye, nor any of his compeers, had given him +one shrewd pinch: the woman had, not the man; and she in quite a +different fashion from his present wallowing anguish: she had +never pulled him to earth's level, where jealousy gnaws the +grasses. He had boasted himself above the humiliating visitation. + +If that had been the case, we should not have needed to trouble +ourselves much about him. A run or two with the pack of imps would +have satisfied us. But he desired Clara Middleton manfully enough +at an intimation of rivalry to be jealous; in a minute the foreign +devil had him, he was flame: flaming verdigris, one might almost +dare to say, for an exact illustration; such was actually the +colour; but accept it as unsaid. + +Remember the poets upon jealousy. It is to be haunted in the heaven +of two by a Third; preceded or succeeded, therefore surrounded, +embraced, bugged by this infernal Third: it is Love's bed of +burning marl; to see and taste the withering Third in the bosom of +sweetness; to be dragged through the past and find the fair Eden +of it sulphurous; to be dragged to the gates of the future and +glory to behold them blood: to adore the bitter creature trebly +and with treble power to clutch her by the windpipe: it is to be +cheated, derided, shamed, and abject and supplicating, and +consciously demoniacal in treacherousness, and victoriously +self-justified in revenge. + +And still there is no change in what men feel, though in what they +do the modern may be judicious. + +You know the many paintings of man transformed to rageing beast by +the curse: and this, the fieriest trial of our egoism, worked in +the Egoist to produce division of himself from himself, a +concentration of his thoughts upon another object, still himself, +but in another breast, which had to be looked at and into for the +discovery of him. By the gaping jaw-chasm of his greed we may +gather comprehension of his insatiate force of jealousy. Let her +go? Not though he were to become a mark of public scorn in +strangling her with the yoke! His concentration was marvellous. +Unused to the exercise of imaginative powers, he nevertheless +conjured her before him visually till his eyeballs ached. He saw +none but Clara, hated none, loved none, save the intolerable +woman. What logic was in him deduced her to be individual and most +distinctive from the circumstance that only she had ever wrought +these pangs. She had made him ready for them, as we know. An idea +of De Craye being no stranger to her when he arrived at the Hall, +dashed him at De Craye for a second: it might be or might not be +that they had a secret;--Clara was the spell. So prodigiously did +he love and hate, that he had no permanent sense except for her. +The soul of him writhed under her eyes at one moment, and the next +it closed on her without mercy. She was his possession escaping; +his own gliding away to the Third. + +There would be pangs for him too, that Third! Standing at the +altar to see her fast-bound, soul and body, to another, would be +good roasting fire. + +It would be good roasting fire for her too, should she be averse. +To conceive her aversion was to burn her and devour her. She would +then be his!--what say you? Burned and devoured! Rivals would +vanish then. Her reluctance to espouse the man she was plighted to +would cease to be uttered, cease to be felt. + +At last he believed in her reluctance. All that had been wanted to +bring him to the belief was the scene on the common; such a mere +spark, or an imagined spark! But the presence of the Third was +necessary; otherwise he would have had to suppose himself +personally distasteful. + +Women have us back to the conditions of primitive man, or they +shoot us higher than the topmost star. But it is as we please. Let +them tell us what we are to them: for us, they are our back and +front of life: the poet's Lesbia, the poet's Beatrice; ours is the +choice. And were it proved that some of the bright things are in +the pay of Darkness, with the stamp of his coin on their palms, +and that some are the very angels we hear sung of, not the less +might we say that they find us out; they have us by our leanings. +They are to us what we hold of best or worst within. By their +state is our civilization judged: and if it is hugely animal +still, that is because primitive men abound and will have their +pasture. Since the lead is ours, the leaders must bow their heads +to the sentence. Jealousy of a woman is the primitive egoism +seeking to refine in a blood gone to savagery under apprehension of +an invasion of rights; it is in action the tiger threatened by a +rifle when his paw is rigid on quick flesh; he tears the flesh for +rage at the intruder. The Egoist, who is our original male in +giant form, had no bleeding victim beneath his paw, but there was +the sex to mangle. Much as he prefers the well-behaved among +women, who can worship and fawn, and in whom terror can be +inspired, in his wrath he would make of Beatrice a Lesbia +Quadrantaria. + +Let women tell us of their side of the battle. We are not so much +the test of the Egoist in them as they to us. Movements of +similarity shown in crowned and undiademed ladies of intrepid +independence, suggest their occasional capacity to be like men +when it is given to them to hunt. At present they fly, and there +is the difference. Our manner of the chase informs them of the +creature we are. + +Dimly as young women are informed, they have a youthful ardour of +detestation that renders them less tolerant of the Egoist than +their perceptive elder sisters. What they do perceive, however, +they have a redoubtable grasp of, and Clara's behaviour would be +indefensible if her detective feminine vision might not sanction +her acting on its direction. Seeing him as she did, she turned +from him and shunned his house as the antre of an ogre. She had +posted her letter to Lucy Darleton. Otherwise. if it had been open +to her to dismiss Colonel De Craye, she might, with a warm kiss to +Vernon's pupil, have seriously thought of the next shrill +steam-whistle across yonder hills for a travelling companion on +the way to her friend Lucy; so abhorrent was to her the putting of +her horse's head toward the Hall. Oh, the breaking of bread there! +It had to be gone through for another day and more; that is to +say, forty hours, it might be six-and-forty hours; and no prospect +of sleep to speed any of them on wings! + +Such were Clara's inward interjections while poor Willoughby burned +himself out with verdigris flame having the savour of bad metal, +till the hollow of his breast was not unlike to a corroded old +cuirass, found, we will assume, by criminal lantern-beams in a +digging beside green-mantled pools of the sullen soil, lumped with +a strange adhesive concrete. How else picture the sad man?--the +cavity felt empty to him, and heavy; sick of an ancient and mortal +combat, and burning; deeply dinted too: + + With the starry hole + Whence fled the soul: + +very sore; important for aught save sluggish agony; a specimen and +the issue of strife. + +Measurelessly to loathe was not sufficient to save him from pain: +he tried it: nor to despise; he went to a depth there also. The +fact that she was a healthy young woman returned to the surface +of his thoughts like the murdered body pitched into the river, +which will not drown, and calls upon the elements of dissolution +to float it. His grand hereditary desire to transmit his estates, +wealth and name to a solid posterity, while it prompted him in his +loathing and contempt of a nature mean and ephemeral compared with +his, attached him desperately to her splendid healthiness. The +council of elders, whose descendant he was, pointed to this young +woman for his mate. He had wooed her with the idea that they +consented. O she was healthy! And he likewise: but, as if it had +been a duel between two clearly designated by quality of blood to +bid a House endure, she was the first who taught him what it was +to have sensations of his mortality. + +He could not forgive her. It seemed to him consequently politic to +continue frigid and let her have a further taste of his shadow, +when it was his burning wish to strain her in his arms to a +flatness provoking his compassion. + +"You have had your ride?" he addressed her politely in the general +assembly on the lawn. + +"I have had my ride, yes," Clara replied. + +"Agreeable, I trust?" + +"Very agreeable." + +So it appeared. Oh, blushless! + +The next instant he was in conversation with Laetitia, questioning +her upon a dejected droop of her eyelashes. + +"I am, I think," said she, "constitutionally melancholy." + +He murmured to her: "I believe in the existence of specifics, and +not far to seek, for all our ailments except those we bear at the +hands of others." + +She did not dissent. + +De Craye, whose humour for being convinced that Willoughby cared +about as little for Miss Middleton as she for him was nourished by +his immediate observation of them, dilated on the beauty of the +ride and his fair companion's equestrian skill. + +"You should start a travelling circus," Willoughby rejoined. +"But the idea's a worthy one!--There's another alternative to the +expedition I proposed, Miss Middleton," said De Craye. "And I be +clown? I haven't a scruple of objection. I must read up books +of jokes." + +"Don't," said Willoughby. + +"I'd spoil my part! But a natural clown won't keep up an +artificial performance for an entire month, you see; which is the +length of time we propose. He'll exhaust his nature in a day and +be bowled over by the dullest regular donkey-engine with paint on +his cheeks and a nodding topknot." + +"What is this expedition 'we' propose?" + +De Craye was advised in his heart to spare Miss Middleton any +allusion to honeymoons. + +"Merely a game to cure dulness." + +"Ah!" Willoughby acquiesced. "A month, you said?" + +"One'd like it to last for years." + +"Ah! You are driving one of Mr. Merriman's witticisms at me, +Horace; I am dense." + +Willoughby bowed to Dr. Middleton, and drew him from Vernon, +filially taking his turn to talk with him closely. + +De Craye saw Clara's look as her father and Willoughby went aside +thus linked. + +It lifted him over anxieties and casuistries concerning loyalty. +Powder was in the look to make a warhorse breathe high and shiver +for the signal. + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +Contains an Instance of the Generosity of Willoughby + +Observers of a gathering complication and a character in action +commonly resemble gleaners who are intent only on picking up the +cars of grain and huddling their store. Disinterestedly or +interestedly they wax over-eager for the little trifles, and make +too much of them. Observers should begin upon the precept, that not +all we see is worth hoarding, and that the things we see are to be +weighed in the scale with what we know of the situation, before we +commit ourselves to a measurement. And they may be accurate +observers without being good judges. They do not think so, and +their bent is to glean hurriedly and form conclusions as hasty, +when their business should be sift at each step, and question. + +Miss Dale seconded Vernon Whitford in the occupation of counting +looks and tones, and noting scraps of dialogue. She was quite +disinterested; he quite believed that he was; to this degree they +were competent for their post; and neither of them imagined they +could be personally involved in the dubious result of the scenes +they witnessed. They were but anxious observers, diligently +collecting. She fancied Clara susceptible to his advice: he had +fancied it, and was considering it one of his vanities. Each +mentally compared Clara's abruptness in taking them into her +confidence with her abstention from any secret word since the +arrival of Colonel De Craye. Sir Willoughby requested Laetitia to +give Miss Middleton as much of her company as she could; showing +that he was on the alert. Another Constantia Durham seemed beating +her wings for flight. The suddenness of the evident intimacy +between Clara and Colonel De Craye shocked Laetitia; their +acquaintance could be computed by hours. Yet at their first +interview she had suspected the possibility of worse than she now +supposed to be; and she had begged Vernon not immediately to quit +the Hall, in consequence of that faint suspicion. She had been led +to it by meeting Clara and De Craye at her cottage-gate, and +finding them as fluent and laughter-breathing in conversation as +friends. Unable to realize the rapid advance to a familiarity, +more ostensible than actual, of two lively natures, after such an +introduction as they had undergone: and one of the two pining in a +drought of liveliness: Laetitia listened to their wager of nothing +at all--a no against a yes--in the case of poor Flitch; and +Clara's, "Willoughby will not forgive"; and De Craye's "Oh, he's +human": and the silence of Clara and De Craye's hearty cry, +"Flitch shall be a genteman's coachman in his old seat or I +haven't a tongue!" to which there was a negative of Clara's head: +and it then struck Laetitia that this young betrothed lady, whose +alienated heart acknowledged no lord an hour earlier, had met her +match, and, as the observer would have said, her destiny. She +judged of the alarming possibility by the recent revelation to +herself of Miss Middleton's character, and by Clara's having +spoken to a man as well (to Vernon), and previously. That a young +lady should speak on the subject of the inner holies to a man, +though he were Vernon Whitford, was incredible to Laetitia; but it +had to be accepted as one of the dread facts of our inexplicable +life, which drag our bodies at their wheels and leave our minds +exclaiming. Then, if Clara could speak to Vernon, which Laetitia +would not have done for a mighty bribe, she could speak to De +Craye, Laetitia thought deductively: this being the logic of +untrained heads opposed to the proceeding whereby their +condemnatory deduction hangs.--Clara must have spoken to De Craye! + +Laetitia remembered how winning and prevailing Miss Middleton +could be in her confidences. A gentleman hearing her might forget +his duty to his friend, she thought, for she had been strangely +swayed by Clara: ideas of Sir Willoughby that she had never before +imagined herself to entertain had been sown in her, she thought; +not asking herself whether the searchingness of the young lady had +struck them and bidden them rise from where they lay imbedded. +Very gentle women take in that manner impressions of persons, +especially of the worshipped person, wounding them; like the new +fortifications with embankments of soft earth, where explosive +missiles bury themselves harmlessly until they are plucked out; +and it may be a reason why those injured ladies outlive a Clara +Middleton similarly battered. + +Vernon less than Laetitia took into account that Clara was in a +state of fever, scarcely reasonable. Her confidences to him he had +excused, as a piece of conduct, in sympathy with her position. He +had not been greatly astonished by the circumstances confided; +and, on the whole, as she was excited and unhappy, he excused her +thoroughly; he could have extolled her: it was natural that she +should come to him, brave in her to speak so frankly, a compliment +that she should condescend to treat him as a friend. Her position +excused her widely. But she was not excused for making a +confidential friend of De Craye. There was a difference. + +Well, the difference was, that De Craye had not the smarting sense +of honour with women which our meditator had: an impartial +judiciary, it will be seen: and he discriminated between himself +and the other justly: but sensation surging to his brain at the +same instant, he reproached Miss Middleton for not perceiving that +difference as clearly, before she betrayed her position to De +Craye, which Vernon assumed that she had done. Of course he did. +She had been guilty of it once: why, then, in the mind of an +offended friend, she would be guilty of it twice. There was +evidence. Ladies, fatally predestined to appeal to that from which +they have to be guarded, must expect severity when they run off +their railed highroad: justice is out of the question: man's +brains might, his blood cannot administer it to them. By chilling +him to the bone they may get what they cry for. But that is a +method deadening to their point of appeal. + +I the evening, Miss Middleton and the colonel sang a duet. She +had of late declined to sing. Her voice was noticeably firm. Sir +Willoughby said to her, "You have recovered your richness of tone, +Clara." She smiled and appeared happy in pleasing him. He named a +French ballad. She went to the music-rack and gave the song +unasked. He should have been satisfied, for she said to him at the +finish, "Is that as you like it?" He broke from a murmur to Miss +Dale, "Admirable." Some one mentioned a Tuscan popular canzone. +She waited for Willoughby's approval, and took his nod for a +mandate. + +Traitress! he could have bellowed. + +He had read of this characteristic of caressing obedience of the +women about to deceive. He had in his time profited by it. + +"Is it intuitively or by their experience that our neighbours +across Channel surpass us in the knowledge of your sex?" he said +to Miss Dale, and talked through Clara's apostrophe to the +'Santissinia Virgine Maria,' still treating temper as a part +of policy, without any effect on Clara; and that was matter for +sickly green reflections. The lover who cannot wound has indeed +lost anchorage; he is woefully adrift: he stabs air, which is to +stab himself. Her complacent proof-armour bids him know himself +supplanted. + +During the short conversational period before the ladies retired +for the night, Miss Eleanor alluded to the wedding by chance. +Miss Isabel replied to her, and addressed an interrogation to +Clara. De Craye foiled it adroitly. Clara did not utter a +syllable. Her bosom lifted to a wavering height and sank. +Subsequently she looked at De Craye vacantly, like a person +awakened, but she looked. She was astonished by his readiness, and +thankful for the succour. Her look was cold, wide, unfixed, with +nothing of gratitude or of personal in it. The look, however, +stood too long for Willoughby's endurance. + +Ejaculating "Porcelain!" he uncrossed his legs; a signal for the +ladies Eleanor and Isabel to retire. Vernon bowed to Clara as she +was rising. He had not been once in her eyes, and he expected a +partial recognition at the good-night. She said it, turning her +head to Miss Isabel, who was condoling once more with Colonel De +Craye over the ruins of his wedding-present, the porcelain vase, +which she supposed to have been in Willoughby's mind when he +displayed the signal. Vernon walked off to his room, dark as one +smitten blind: bile tumet jecur: her stroke of neglect hit him +there where a blow sends thick obscuration upon eyeballs and brain +alike. + +Clara saw that she was paining him and regretted it when they were +separated. That was her real friend! But he prescribed too hard a +task. Besides, she had done everything he demanded of her, except +the consenting to stay where she was and wear out Willoughby, +whose dexterity wearied her small stock of patience. She had +vainly tried remonstrance and supplication with her father +hoodwinked by his host, she refused to consider how; through wine? +--the thought was repulsive. + +Nevertheless, she was drawn to the edge of it by the contemplation +of her scheme of release. If Lucy Darleton was at home; if Lucy +invited her to come: if she flew to Lucy: oh! then her father +would have cause for anger. He would not remember that but for +hateful wine! ... + +What was there in this wine of great age which expelled +reasonableness, fatherliness? He was her dear father: she was his +beloved child: yet something divided them; something closed her +father's ears to her: and could it be that incomprehensible +seduction of the wine? Her dutifulness cried violently no. She +bowed, stupefied, to his arguments for remaining awhile, and rose +clear-headed and rebellious with the reminiscence of the many +strong reasons she had urged against them. + +The strangeness of men, young and old, the little things (she +regarded a grand wine as a little thing) twisting and changing +them, amazed her. And these are they by whom women are abused for +variability! Only the most imperious reasons, never mean trifles, +move women, thought she. Would women do an injury to one they +loved for oceans of that--ah, pah! + +And women must respect men. They necessarily respect a father. "My +dear, dear father!" Clara said in the solitude of her chamber, +musing on all his goodness, and she endeavoured to reconcile the +desperate sentiments of the position he forced her to sustain, +with those of a venerating daughter. The blow which was to fall on +him beat on her heavily in advance. "I have not one excuse!" she +said, glancing at numbers and a mighty one. But the idea of her +father suffering at her hands cast her down lower than +self-justification. She sought to imagine herself sparing him. It +was too fictitious. + +The sanctuary of her chamber, the pure white room so homely to her +maidenly feelings, whispered peace, only to follow the whisper +with another that went through her swelling to a roar, and leaving +her as a suing of music unkindly smitten. If she stayed in this +house her chamber would no longer be a sanctuary. Dolorous +bondage! Insolent death is not worse. Death's worm we cannot keep +away, but when he has us we are numb to dishonour, happily +senseless. + +Youth weighed her eyelids to sleep, though she was quivering, and +quivering she awoke to the sound of her name beneath her window. +"I can love still, for I love him," she said, as she luxuriated in +young Crossjay's boy's voice, again envying him his bath in the +lake waters, which seemed to her to have the power to wash away +grief and chains. Then it was that she resolved to let Crossjay +see the last of her in this place. He should be made gleeful by +doing her a piece of service; he should escort her on her walk to +the railway station next morning, thence be sent flying for a long +day's truancy, with a little note of apology on his behalf that +she would write for him to deliver to Vernon at night. + +Crossjay came running to her after his breakfast with Mrs +Montague, the housekeeper, to tell her he had called her up. + +"You won't to-morrow: I shall be up far ahead of you," said she; +and musing on her father, while Crossjay vowed to be up the first, +she thought it her duty to plunge into another expostulation. + +Willoughby had need of Vernon on private affairs. Dr. Middleton +betook himself as usual to the library, after answering "I will +ruin you yet," to Willoughby's liberal offer to despatch an order +to London for any books he might want. + +His fine unruffled air, as of a mountain in still morning beams, +made Clara not indisposed to a preliminary scene with Willoughby +that might save her from distressing him, but she could not stop +Willoughby; as little could she look an invitation. He stood in +the Hall, holding Vernon by the arm. She passed him; he did not +speak, and she entered the library. + +"What now, my dear? what is it?" said Dr. Middleton, seeing that +the door was shut on them. + +"Nothing, papa," she replied, calmly. + +"You've not locked the door, my child? You turned something there: +try the handle." + +"I assure you, papa, the door is not locked." + +"Mr. Whitford will be here instantly. We are engaged on tough +matter. Women have not, and opinion is universal that they never +will have, a conception of the value of time." + +"We are vain and shallow, my dear papa." + +"No, no, not you, Clara. But I suspect you to require to learn by +having work in progress how important is ... is a quiet +commencement of the day's task. There is not a scholar who will +not tell you so. We must have a retreat. These invasions!--So you +intend to have another ride to-day? They do you good. To-morrow we +dine with Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, an estimable person indeed, +though I do not perfectly understand our accepting.--You have not +to accuse me of sitting over wine last night, my Clara! I never do +it, unless I am appealed to for my judgement upon a wine." + +"I have come to entreat you to take me away, papa." + +In the midst of the storm aroused by this renewal of perplexity, +Dr Middleton replaced a book his elbow had knocked over in his +haste to dash the hair off his forehead, crying: "Whither? To what +spot? That reading of guide-books, and idle people's notes of +Travel, and picturesque correspondence in the newspapers, +unsettles man and maid. My objection to the living in hotels is +known. I do not hesitate to say that I do cordially abhor it. I +have had penitentially to submit to it in your dear mother's time, +[Greek], up to the full ten thousand times. But will you not +comprehend that to the older man his miseries are multiplied by +his years? But is it utterly useless to solicit your sympathy with +an old man, Clara?" + +"General Darleton will take us in, papa." + +"His table is detestable. I say nothing of that; but his wine is +poison. Let that pass--I should rather say, let it not pass!-- +but our political views are not in accord. True, we are not under +the obligation to propound them in presence, but we are destitute +of an opinion in common. We have no discourse. Military men have +produced, or diverged in, noteworthy epicures; they are often +devout; they have blossomed in lettered men: they are gentlemen; +the country rightly holds them in honour; but, in fine, I reject +the proposal to go to General Darleton.--Tears?" + +"No, papa." + +"I do hope not. Here we have everything man can desire; without +contest, an excellent host. You have your transitory tea-cup +tempests, which you magnify to hurricanes, in the approved +historic manner of the book of Cupid. And all the better; I +repeat, it is the better that you should have them over in the +infancy of the alliance. Come in!" Dr. Middleton shouted cheerily +in response to a knock at the door. + +He feared the door was locked: he had a fear that his daughter +intended to keep it locked. + +"Clara!" he cried. + +She reluctantly turned the handle, and the ladies Eleanor and +Isabel came in, apologizing with as much coherence as Dr. +Middleton ever expected from their sex. They wished to speak to +Clara, but they declined to take her away. In vain the Rev. +Doctor assured them she was at their service; they protested that +they had very few words to say, and would not intrude one moment +further than to speak them. + +Like a shy deputation of young scholars before the master, these +very words to come were preceded by none at all; a dismal and +trying cause; refreshing however to Dr. Middleton, who joyfully +anticipated that the ladies could be induced to take away Clara +when they had finished. + +"We may appear to you a little formal," Miss Isabel began, and +turned to her sister. + +"We have no intention to lay undue weight on our mission, if +mission it can be called," said Miss Eleanor. + +"Is it entrusted to you by Willoughby?" said Clara. + +"Dear child, that you may know it all the more earnest with us, +and our personal desire to contribute to your happiness: +therefore does Willoughby entrust the speaking of it to us." + +Hereupon the sisters alternated in addressing Clara, and she gazed +from one to the other, piecing fragments of empty signification +to get the full meaning when she might. + +"--And in saying your happiness, dear Clara, we have our +Willoughby's in view, which is dependent on yours." + +"--And we never could sanction that our own inclinations should +stand in the way." + +"--No. We love the old place; and if it were only our punishment +for loving it too idolatrously, we should deem it ground enough +for our departure." + +"--Without, really, an idea of unkindness; none, not any." + +"--Young wives naturally prefer to be undisputed queens of their +own establishment." + +"--Youth and age!" + +"But I," said Clara, "have never mentioned, never had a +thought. . ." + +"--You have, dear child, a lover who in his solicitude for your +happiness both sees what you desire and what is due to you." + +"--And for us, Clara, to recognize what is due to you is to act on +it." + +"--Besides, dear, a sea-side cottage has always been one of our +dreams." + +"--We have not to learn that we are a couple of old maids, +incongruous associates for a young wife in the government of a +great house." + +"--With our antiquated notions, questions of domestic management +might arise, and with the best will in the world to be +harmonious!" + +"--So, dear Clara, consider it settled." + +"--From time to time gladly shall we be your guests." + +"--Your guests, dear, not censorious critics." + +"And you think me such an Egoist!--dear ladies! The suggestion +of so cruel a piece of selfishness wounds me. I would not have had +you leave the Hall. I like your society; I respect you. My +complaint, if I had one, would be, that you do not sufficiently +assert yourselves. I could have wished you to be here for an +example to me. I would not have allowed you to go. What can he +think of me! Did Willoughby speak of it this morning?" + +It was hard to distinguish which was the completer dupe of these +two echoes of one another in worship of a family idol. + +"Willoughby," Miss Eleanor presented herself to be stamped with +the title hanging ready for the first that should open her lips, +"our Willoughby is observant--he is ever generous--and he is not +less forethoughtful. His arrangement is for our good on all +sides." + +"An index is enough," said Miss Isabel, appearing in her turn the +monster dupe. + +"You will not have to leave, dear ladies. Were I mistress here I +should oppose it." + +"Willoughby blames himself for not reassuring you before." + +"Indeed we blame ourselves for not undertaking to go." + +"Did he speak of it first this morning?" said Clara; but she could +draw no reply to that from them. They resumed the duet, and she +resigned herself to have her cars boxed with nonsense. + +"So, it is understood?" said Miss Eleanor. + +"I see your kindness, ladies." + +"And I am to be Aunt Eleanor again?" + +"And I Aunt Isabel?" + +Clara could have wrung her hands at the impediment which +prohibited her delicacy from telling them why she could not name +them so as she had done in the earlier days of Willoughby's +courtship. She kissed them warmly, ashamed of kissing, though the +warmth was real. + +They retired with a flow of excuses to Dr. Middleton for +disturbing him. He stood at the door to bow them out, and holding +the door for Clara, to wind up the procession, discovered her at a +far corner of the room. + +He was debating upon the advisability of leaving her there, when +Vernon Whitford crossed the hall from the laboratory door, a +mirror of himself in his companion air of discomposure. + +That was not important, so long as Vernon was a check on Clara; +but the moment Clara, thus baffled, moved to quit the library, Dr. +Middleton felt the horror of having an uncomfortable face +opposite. + +"No botheration, I hope? It's the worst thing possible to work on. +Where have you been? I suspect your weak point is not to arm +yourself in triple brass against bother and worry, and no good +work can you do unless you do. You have come out of that +laboratory." + +"I have, sir.--Can I get you any book?" Vernon said to Clara. + +She thanked him, promising to depart immediately. + +"Now you are at the section of Italian literature, my love," said +Dr Middleton. "Well, Mr. Whitford, the laboratory--ah!--where +the amount of labour done within the space of a year would not +stretch an electric current between this Hall and the railway +station: say, four miles, which I presume the distance to be. +Well, sir, and a dilettantism costly in time and machinery is as +ornamental as foxes' tails and deers' horns to an independent +gentleman whose fellows are contented with the latter decorations +for their civic wreath. Willoughby, let me remark, has recently +shown himself most considerate for my girl. As far as I could +gather--I have been listening to a dialogue of ladies--he is as +generous as he is discreet. There are certain combats in which to +be the one to succumb is to claim the honours;--and that is what +women will not learn. I doubt their seeing the glory of it." + +"I have heard of it; I have been with Willoughby," Vernon said, +hastily, to shield Clara from her father's allusive attacks. He +wished to convey to her that his interview with Willoughby had not +been profitable in her interests, and that she had better at once, +having him present to support her, pour out her whole heart to her +father. But how was it to be conveyed? She would not meet his +eyes, and he was too poor an intriguer to be ready on the instant +to deal out the verbal obscurities which are transparencies to +one. + +"I shall regret it, if Willoughby has annoyed you, for he stands +high in my favour," said Dr. Middleton. + +Clara dropped a book. Her father started higher than the nervous +impulse warranted in his chair. Vernon tried to win a glance, and +she was conscious of his effort, but her angry and guilty +feelings, prompting her resolution to follow her own counsel, kept +her eyelids on the defensive. + +"I don't say he annoys me, sir. I am here to give him my advice, +and if he does not accept it I have no right to be annoyed. +Willoughby seems annoyed that Colonel De Craye should talk of +going to-morrow or next day." + +"He likes his friends about him. Upon my word, a man of a more +genial heart you might march a day without finding. But you have +it on the forehead, Mr. Whitford." + +"Oh! no, sir." + +"There," Dr. Middleton drew his finger along his brows. + +Vernon felt along his own, and coined an excuse for their +blackness; not aware that the direction of his mind toward Clara +pushed him to a kind of clumsy double meaning, while he satisfied +an inward and craving wrath, as he said: "By the way, I have been +racking my head; I must apply to you, sir. I have a line, and I am +uncertain of the run of the line. Will this pass, do you think? + + 'In Asination's tongue he asinates'; + +signifying that he excels any man of us at donkey-dialect." + +After a decent interval for the genius of criticism to seem to +have been sitting under his frown, Dr. Middleton rejoined with +sober jocularity: "No, sir, it will not pass; and your uncertainty +in regard to the run of the line would only be extended were the +line centipedal. Our recommendation is, that you erase it before +the arrival of the ferule. This might do: + + 'In Assignation's name he assignats'; + +signifying that he pre-eminently flourishes hypothetical promises, +to pay by appointment. That might pass. But you will forbear to +cite me for your authority." + +"The line would be acceptable if I could get it to apply," said +Vernon. + +"Or this . . ." Dr. Middleton was offering a second suggestion, but +Clara fled, astonished at men as she never yet had been. Why, in a +burning world they would be exercising their minds in absurdities! +And those two were scholars, learned men! And both knew they were +in the presence of a soul in a tragic fever! + +A minute after she had closed the door they were deep in their +work. Dr. Middleton forgot his alternative line. + +"Nothing serious?" he said in reproof of the want of honourable +clearness on Vernon's brows. + +"I trust not, sir; it's a case for common sense." + +"And you call that not serious?" + +"I take Hermann's praise of the versus dochmiachus to be not only +serious but unexaggerated," said Vernon. + +Dr. Middleton assented and entered on the voiceful ground of Greek +metres, shoving your dry dusty world from his elbow. + + +CHAPTER XXV + +The Flight in Wild Weather + +The morning of Lucy Darleton's letter of reply to her friend Clara +was fair before sunrise, with luminous colours that are an omen to +the husbandman. Clara had no weather-eye for the rich Eastern +crimson, nor a quiet space within her for the beauty. She looked +on it as her gate of promise, and it set her throbbing with a +revived belief in radiant things which she had once dreamed of to +surround her life, but her accelerated pulses narrowed her +thoughts upon the machinery of her project. She herself was metal, +pointing all to her one aim when in motion. Nothing came amiss to +it, everything was fuel; fibs, evasions, the serene battalions of +white lies parallel on the march with dainty rogue falsehoods. She +had delivered herself of many yesterday in her engagements for +to-day. Pressure was put on her to engage herself, and she did so +liberally, throwing the burden of deceitfulness on the extraordinary +pressure. "I want the early part of the morning; the rest of the +day I shall be at liberty." She said it to Willoughby, Miss Dale, +Colonel De Craye, and only the third time was she aware of the +delicious double meaning. Hence she associated it with the +colonel. + +Your loudest outcry against the wretch who breaks your rules is in +asking how a tolerably conscientious person could have done this +and the other besides the main offence, which you vow you could +overlook but for the minor objections pertaining to conscience, +the incomprehensible and abominable lies, for example, or the +brazen coolness of the lying. Yet you know that we live in an +undisciplined world, where in our seasons of activity we are +servants of our design, and that this comes of our passions, and +those of our position. Our design shapes us for the work in hand, +the passions man the ship, the position is their apology: and now +should conscience be a passenger on board, a merely seeming +swiftness of our vessel will keep him dumb as the unwilling guest +of a pirate captain scudding from the cruiser half in cloven brine +through rocks and shoals to save his black flag. Beware the false +position. + +That is easy to say: sometimes the tangle descends on us like a +net of blight on a rose-bush. There is then an instant choice for +us between courage to cut loose, and desperation if we do not. But +not many men are trained to courage; young women are trained to +cowardice. For them to front an evil with plain speech is to be +guilty of effrontery and forfeit the waxen polish of purity, and +therewith their commanding place in the market. They are trained +to please man's taste, for which purpose they soon learn to live +out of themselves, and look on themselves as he looks, almost as +little disturbed as he by the undiscovered. Without courage, +conscience is a sorry guest; and if all goes well with the pirate +captain, conscience will be made to walk the plank for being of no +service to either party. + +Clara's fibs and evasions disturbed her not in the least that +morning. She had chosen desperation, and she thought herself very +brave because she was just brave enough to fly from her +abhorrence. She was light-hearted, or, more truly, +drunken-hearted. Her quick nature realized the out of prison as +vividly and suddenly as it had sunk suddenly and leadenly under +the sense of imprisonment. Vernon crossed her mind: that was a +friend! Yes, and there was a guide; but he would disapprove, and +even he, thwarting her way to sacred liberty, must be thrust +aside. + +What would he think? They might never meet, for her to know. Or +one day in the Alps they might meet, a middleaged couple, he +famous, she regretful only to have fallen below his lofty +standard. "For, Mr. Whitford," says she, very earnestly, "I did +wish at that time, believe me or not, to merit your approbation." +The brows of the phantom Vernon whom she conjured up were stern, +as she had seen them yesterday in the library. + +She gave herself a chiding for thinking of him when her mind +should be intent on that which he was opposed to. + +It was a livelier relaxation to think of young Crossjay's +shame-faced confession presently, that he had been a laggard in +bed while she swept the dews. She laughed at him, and immediately +Crossjay popped out on her from behind a tree, causing her to clap +hand to heart and stand fast. A conspirator is not of the stuff to +bear surprises. He feared he had hurt her, and was manly in his +efforts to soothe: he had been up "hours", he said, and had watched +her coming along the avenue, and did not mean to startle her: it +was the kind of fun he played with fellows, and if he had hurt +her, she might do anything to him she liked, and she would see if +he could not stand to be punished. He was urgent with her to +inflict corporal punishment on him. + +"I shall leave it to the boatswain to do that when you're in the +navy," said Clara. + +"The boatswain daren't strike an officer! so now you see what you +know of the navy," said Crossjay. + +"But you could not have been out before me, you naughty boy, for I +found all the locks and bolts when I went to the door." + +"But you didn't go to the back door, and Sir Willoughby's private +door: you came out by the hall door; and I know what you want, +Miss Middleton, you want not to pay what you've lost." + +"What have I lost, Crossjay?" + +"Your wager." + +"What was that?" + +"You know." + +"Speak." + +"A kiss." + +"Nothing of the sort. But, dear boy, I don't love you less for not +kissing you. All that is nonsense: you have to think only of +learning, and to be truthful. Never tell a story: suffer anything +rather than be dishonest." She was particularly impressive upon +the silliness and wickedness of falsehood, and added: "Do you +hear?" + +"Yes: but you kissed me when I had been out in the rain that day." + +"Because I promised." + +"And, Miss Middleton, you betted a kiss yesterday." + +"I am sure, Crossjay--no, I will not say I am sure: but can you +say you are sure you were out first this morning? Well, will you +say you are sure that when you left the house you did not see me +in the avenue? You can't: ah!" + +"Miss Middleton, I do really believe I was dressed first." + +"Always be truthful, my dear boy, and then you may feel that Clara +Middleton will always love you." + +"But, Miss Middleton, when you're married you won't be Clara +Middleton." + +"I certainly shall, Crossjay." + +"No, you won't, because I'm so fond of your name!" + +She considered, and said: "You have warned me, Crossjay, and I +shall not marry. I shall wait," she was going to say, "for you," +but turned the hesitation to a period. "Is the village where I +posted my letter the day before yesterday too far for you?" + +Crossjay howled in contempt. "Next to Clara, my favourite's Lucy," +he said. + +"I thought Clara came next to Nelson," said she; "and a long way +off too, if you're not going to be a landlubber." + +"I'm not going to be a landlubber. Miss Middleton, you may be +absolutely positive on your solemn word." + +"You're getting to talk like one a little now and then, Crossjay." + +"Then I won't talk at all." + +He stuck to his resolution for one whole minute. + +Clara hoped that on this morning of a doubtful though imperative +venture she had done some good. + +They walked fast to cover the distance to the village post-office, +and back before the breakfast hour: and they had plenty of time, +arriving too early for the opening of the door, so that Crossjay +began to dance with an appetite, and was despatched to besiege a +bakery. Clara felt lonely without him: apprehensively timid in +the shuttered, unmoving village street. She was glad of his +return. When at last her letter was handed to her, on the +testimony of the postman that she was the lawful applicant, +Crossjay and she put out on a sharp trot to be back at the Hall in +good time. She took a swallowing glance of the first page of +Lucy's writing: + +"Telegraph, and I will meet you. I will supply you with everything +you can want for the two nights, if you cannot stop longer." + +That was the gist of the letter. A second. less voracious, glance +at it along the road brought sweetness:--Lucy wrote: + +"Do I love you as I did? my best friend, you must fall into +unhappiness to have the answer to that." + +Clara broke a silence. + +"Yes, dear Crossjay, and if you like you shall have another walk +with me after breakfast. But, remember, you must not say where you +have gone with me. I shall give you twenty shillings to go and buy +those bird's eggs and the butterflies you want for your +collection; and mind, promise me, to-day is your last day of +truancy. Tell Mr. Whitford how ungrateful you know you have been, +that he may have some hope of you. You know the way across the +fields to the railway station?" + +"You save a mile; you drop on the road by Combline's mill, and +then there's another five-minutes" cut, and the rest's road." + +"Then, Crossjay, immediately after breakfast run round behind the +pheasantry, and there I'll find you. And if any one comes to you +before I come, say you are admiring the plumage of the Himalaya-- +the beautiful Indian bird; and if we're found together, we run a +race, and of course you can catch me, but you mustn't until we're +out of sight. Tell Mr. Vernon at night--tell Mr. Whitford at +night you had the money from me as part of my allowance to you for +pocket-money. I used to like to have pocket-money, Crossjay. And +you may tell him I gave you the holiday, and I may write to him +for his excuse, if he is not too harsh to grant it. He can be +very harsh." + +"You look right into his eyes next time, Miss Middleton. I used +to think him awful till he made me look at him. He says men ought +to look straight at one another, just as we do when he gives me my +boxing-lesson, and then we won't have quarrelling half so much. I +can't recollect everything he says." + +"You are not bound to, Crossjay." + +"No, but you like to hear." + +"Really, dear boy. I can't accuse myself of having told you that." + +"No, but, Miss Middleton, you do. And he's fond of your singing +and playing on the piano, and watches you." + +"We shall be late if we don't mind," said Clara, starting to a +pace close on a run. + +"They were in time for a circuit in the park to the wild double +cherry-blossom, no longer all white. Clara gazed up from under it, +where she had imagined a fairer visible heavenliness than any other +sight of earth had ever given her. That was when Vernon lay +beneath. But she had certainly looked above, not at him. The tree +seemed sorrowful in its withering flowers of the colour of trodden +snow. + +Crossjay resumed the conversation. + +"He says ladies don't like him much." + +"Who says that?" + +"Mr. Whitford." + +"Were those his words?" + +"I forget the words: but he said they wouldn't be taught by him, +like me, ever since you came; and since you came I've liked him +ten times more." + +"The more you like him the more I shall like you, Crossjay." + +The boy raised a shout and scampered away to Sir Willoughby, at +the appearance of whom Clara felt herself nipped and curling +inward. Crossjay ran up to him with every sign of pleasure. Yet he +had not mentioned him during the walk; and Clara took it for a +sign that the boy understood the entire satisfaction Willoughby +had in mere shows of affection, and acted up to it. Hardly blaming +Crossjay, she was a critic of the scene, for the reason that +youthful creatures who have ceased to love a person, hunger for +evidence against him to confirm their hard animus, which will seem +to them sometimes, when he is not immediately irritating them, +brutish, because they can not analyze it and reduce it to the +multitude of just antagonisms whereof it came. It has passed by +large accumulation into a sombre and speechless load upon the +senses, and fresh evidence, the smallest item, is a champion to +speak for it. Being about to do wrong, she grasped at this +eagerly, and brooded on the little of vital and truthful that +there was in the man and how he corrupted the boy. Nevertheless, +she instinctively imitated Crossjay in an almost sparkling salute +to him. + +"Good-morning, Willoughby; it was not a morning to lose: have you +been out long?" + +He retained her hand. "My dear Clara! and you, have you not +overfatigued yourself? Where have you been?" + +"Round--everywhere! And I am certainly not tired." + +"Only you and Crossjay? You should have loosened the dogs." + +"Their barking would have annoyed the house." + +"Less than I am annoyed to think of you without protection." + +He kissed her fingers: it was a loving speech. + +"The household . . ." said Clara, but would not insist to convict +him of what he could not have perceived. + +"If you outstrip me another morning, Clara, promise me to take the +dogs; will you?" + +"Yes." + +"To-day I am altogether yours." + +"Are you?" + +"From the first to the last hour of it!--So you fall in with +Horace's humour pleasantly?" + +"He is very amusing." + +"As good as though one had hired him." + +"Here comes Colonel De Craye." + +"He must think we have hired him!" + +She noticed the bitterness of Willoughby's tone. He sang out a +good-morning to De Craye, and remarked that he must go to the +stables. + +"Darleton? Darleton, Miss Middleton?" said the colonel, rising +from his bow to her: "a daughter of General Darleton? If so, I +have had the honour to dance with her. And have not you?-- +practised with her, I mean; or gone off in a triumph to dance it +out as young ladies do? So you know what a delightful partner she +is." + +"She is!" cried Clara, enthusiastic for her succouring friend, +whose letter was the treasure in her bosom. + +"Oddly, the name did not strike me yesterday, Miss Middleton. In +the middle of the night it rang a little silver bell in my ear, +and I remembered the lady I was half in love with, if only for her +dancing. She is dark, of your height, as light on her feet; a +sister in another colour. Now that I know her to be your friend +... !" + +"Why, you may meet her, Colonel De Craye." + +"It'll be to offer her a castaway. And one only meets a charming +girl to hear that she's engaged! "'Tis not a line of a ballad, Miss +Middleton, but out of the heart." + +"Lucy Darleton . . . You were leading me to talk seriously to you, +Colonel De Craye." + +"Will you one day?--and not think me a perpetual tumbler! You +have heard of melancholy clowns. You will find the face not so +laughable behind my paint. When I was thirteen years younger I was +loved, and my dearest sank to the grave. Since then I have not +been quite at home in life; probably because of finding no one so +charitable as she. "'Tis easy to win smiles and hands, but not so +easy to win a woman whose faith you would trust as your own heart +before the enemy. I was poor then. She said. 'The day after my +twenty-first birthday'; and that day I went for her, and I wondered +they did not refuse me at the door. I was shown upstairs, and I +saw her, and saw death. She wished to marry me, to leave me her +fortune!" + +"Then, never marry," said Clara, in an underbreath. + +She glanced behind. + +Sir Willoughby was close, walking on turf. + +"I must be cunning to escape him after breakfast," she thought. + +He had discarded his foolishness of the previous days, and the +thought in him could have replied: "I am a dolt if I let you out +of my sight." + +Vernon appeared, formal as usual of late. Clara begged his excuse +for withdrawing Crossjay from his morning swim. He nodded. + +De Craye called to Willoughby for a book of the trains. + +"There's a card in the smoking-room; eleven, one, and four are the +hours, if you must go," said Willoughby. + +"You leave the Hall, Colonel De Craye?" + +"In two or three days, Miss Middleton." + +She did not request him to stay: his announcement produced no +effect on her. Consequently, thought he--well, what? nothing: +well, then, that she might not be minded to stay herself. +Otherwise she would have regretted the loss of an amusing +companion: that is the modest way of putting it. There is a modest +and a vain for the same sentiment; and both may be simultaneously +in the same breast; and each one as honest as the other; so shy is +man's vanity in the presence of here and there a lady. She liked +him: she did not care a pin for him--how could she? yet she liked +him: O, to be able to do her some kindling bit of service! These +were his consecutive fancies, resolving naturally to the +exclamation, and built on the conviction that she did not love +Willoughby, and waited for a spirited lift from circumstances. His +call for a book of the trains had been a sheer piece of impromptu, +in the mind as well as on the mouth. It sprang, unknown to him, of +conjectures he had indulged yesterday and the day before. This +morning she would have an answer to her letter to her friend, Miss +Lucy Darleton, the pretty dark girl, whom De Craye was astonished +not to have noticed more when he danced with her. She, pretty as +she was, had come to his recollection through the name and rank of +her father, a famous general of cavalry, and tactician in that +arm. The colonel despised himself for not having been devoted to +Clara Middleton's friend. + +The morning's letters were on the bronze plate in the hall. +Clara passed on her way to her room without inspecting them. De +Craye opened an envelope and went upstairs to scribble a line. Sir +Willoughby observed their absence at the solemn reading to the +domestic servants in advance of breakfast. Three chairs were +unoccupied. Vernon had his own notions of a mechanical service-- +and a precious profit he derived from them! but the other two +seats returned the stare Willoughby cast at their backs with an +impudence that reminded him of his friend Horace's calling for +a book of the trains, when a minute afterward he admitted he was +going to stay at the Hall another two days, or three. The man +possessed by jealousy is never in need of matter for it: he +magnifies; grass is jungle, hillocks are mountains. Willoughby's +legs crossing and uncrossing audibly, and his tight-folded arms +and clearing of the throat, were faint indications of his condition. + +"Are you in fair health this morning, Willoughby?" Dr. Middleton +said to him after he had closed his volumes. + +"The thing is not much questioned by those who know me +intimately," he replied. + +"Willoughby unwell!" and, "He is health incarnate!" exclaimed the +ladies Eleanor and Isabel. + +Laetitia grieved for him. Sun-rays on a pest-stricken city, she +thought, were like the smile of his face. She believed that he +deeply loved Clara, and had learned more of her alienation. + +He went into the ball to look into the well for the pair of +malefactors; on fire with what he could not reveal to a soul. + +De Craye was in the housekeeper's room, talking to young Crossjay, +and Mrs. Montague just come up to breakfast. He had heard the boy +chattering, and as the door was ajar he peeped in, and was invited +to enter. Mrs. Montague was very fond of hearing him talk: he paid +her the familiar respect which a lady of fallen fortunes, at a +certain period after the fall, enjoys as a befittingly sad +souvenir, and the respectfulness of the lord of the house was more +chilling. + +She bewailed the boy's trying his constitution with long walks +before he had anything in him to walk on. + +"And where did you go this morning, my lad?" said De Craye. + +"Ah, you know the ground, colonel," said Crossjay. "I am hungry! I +shall eat three eggs and some bacon, and buttered cakes, and jam, +then begin again, on my second cup of coffee." + +"It's not braggadocio," remarked Mrs. Montague. "He waits empty +from five in the morning till nine, and then he comes famished to +my table, and cats too much." + +"Oh! Mrs. Montague, that is what the country people call +roemancing. For, Colonel De Craye, I had a bun at seven o'clock. +Miss Middleton forced me to go and buy it" + +"A stale bun, my boy?" + +"Yesterday's: there wasn't much of a stopper to you in it, like a +new bun." + +"And where did you leave Miss Middleton when you went to buy the +bun? You should never leave a lady; and the street of a country +town is lonely at that early hour. Crossjay, you surprise me." + +"She forced me to go, colonel. Indeed she did. What do I care for +a bun! And she was quite safe. We could hear the people stirring in +the post-office, and I met our postman going for his letter-bag. I +didn't want to go: bother the bun!--but you can't disobey Miss +Middleton. I never want to, and wouldn't." + +"There we're of the same mind," said the colonel, and Crossjay +shouted, for the lady whom they exalted was at the door. + +"You will be too tired for a ride this morning," De Craye said to +her, descending the stairs. + +She swung a bonnet by the ribands. "I don't think of riding +to-day." + +"Why did you not depute your mission to me?" + +"I like to bear my own burdens, as far as I can." + +"Miss Darleton is well?" + +"I presume so." + +"Will you try her recollection for me?" + +"It will probably be quite as lively as yours was." + +"Shall you see her soon?" + +"I hope so." + +Sir Willoughby met her at the foot of the stairs, but refrained +from giving her a hand that shook. + +"We shall have the day together," he said. + +Clara bowed. + +At the breakfast-table she faced a clock. + +De Craye took out his watch. "You are five and a half minutes too +slow by that clock, Willoughby." + +"The man omitted to come from Rendon to set it last week, Horace. +He will find the hour too late here for him when he does come." + +One of the ladies compared the time of her watch with De Craye's, +and Clara looked at hers and gratefully noted that she was four +minutes in arrear. + +She left the breakfast-room at a quarter to ten, after kissing her +father. Willoughby was behind her. He had been soothed by thinking +of his personal advantages over De Craye, and he felt assured that +if he could be solitary with his eccentric bride and fold her in +himself, he would, cutting temper adrift, be the man he had been +to her not so many days back. Considering how few days back, his +temper was roused, but he controlled it. + +They were slightly dissenting as De Craye stepped into the hall. + +"A present worth examining," Willoughby said to her: "and I do not +dwell on the costliness. Come presently, then. I am at your +disposal all day. I will drive you in the afternoon to call on +Lady Busshe to offer your thanks: but you must see it first. It is +laid out in the laboratory." + +"There is time before the afternoon," said Clara. + +"Wedding presents?" interposed De Craye. + +"A porcelain service from Lady Busshe, Horace." + +"Not in fragments? Let me have a look at it. I'm haunted by an +idea that porcelain always goes to pieces. I'll have a look and +take a hint. We're in the laboratory, Miss Middleton." + +He put his arm under Willoughby's. The resistance to him was +momentary: Willoughby had the satisfaction of the thought that De +Craye being with him was not with Clara; and seeing her giving +orders to her maid Barclay, he deferred his claim on her company +for some short period. + +De Craye detained him in the laboratory, first over the China cups +and saucers, and then with the latest of London--tales of +youngest Cupid upon subterranean adventures, having high titles to +light him. Willoughby liked the tale thus illuminated, for without +the title there was no special savour in such affairs, and it +pulled down his betters in rank. He was of a morality to reprobate +the erring dame while he enjoyed the incidents. He could not help +interrupting De Craye to point at Vernon through the window, +striding this way and that, evidently on the hunt for young +Crossjay. "No one here knows how to manage the boy except myself +But go on, Horace," he said, checking his contemptuous laugh; and +Vernon did look ridiculous, out there half-drenched already in a +white rain, again shuffled off by the little rascal. It seemed +that he was determined to have his runaway: he struck up the +avenue at full pedestrian racing pace. + +"A man looks a fool cutting after a cricket-ball; but, putting on +steam in a storm of rain to catch a young villain out of sight, +beats anything I've witnessed," Willoughby resumed, in his +amusement. + +"Aiha!" said De Craye, waving a hand to accompany the melodious +accent, "there are things to beat that for fun." + +He had smoked in the laboratory, so Willoughby directed a servant +to transfer the porcelain service to one of the sitting-rooms for +Clara's inspection of it. + +"You're a bold man," De Craye remarked. "The luck may be with you, +though. I wouldn't handle the fragile treasure for a trifle." + +"I believe in my luck," said Willoughby. + +Clara was now sought for. The lord of the house desired her +presence impatiently, and had to wait. She was in none of the +lower rooms. Barclay, her maid, upon interrogation, declared she +was in none of the upper. Willoughby turned sharp on De Craye: he +was there. + +The ladies Eleanor and Isabel and Miss Dale were consulted. They +had nothing to say about Clara's movements, more than that they +could not understand her exceeding restlessness. The idea of her +being out of doors grew serious; heaven was black, hard thunder +rolled, and lightning flushed the battering rain. Men bearing +umbrellas, shawls, and cloaks were dispatched on a circuit of the +park. De Craye said: "I'll be one." + +"No," cried Willoughby, starting to interrupt him, "I can't allow +it." + +"I've the scent of a hound, Willoughby; I'll soon be on the +track." + +"My dear Horace, I won't let you go." + +"Adieu, dear boy! and if the lady's discoverable, I'm the one to +find her." + +He stepped to the umbrella-stand. There was then a general +question whether Clara had taken her umbrella. Barclay said she +had. The fact indicated a wider stroll than round inside the park: +Crossjay was likewise absent. De Craye nodded to himself. + +Willoughby struck a rattling blow on the barometer. + +"Where's Pollington?" he called, and sent word for his man +Pollington to bring big fishing-boots and waterproof wrappers. + +An urgent debate within him was in progress. + +Should he go forth alone on his chance of discovering Clara and +forgiving her under his umbrella and cloak? or should he prevent +De Craye from going forth alone on the chance he vaunted so +impudently? + +"You will offend me, Horace, if you insist," he said. + +"Regard me as an instrument of destiny, Willoughby," replied De +Craye. + +"Then we go in company." + +"But that's an addition of one that cancels the other by +conjunction, and's worse than simple division: for I can't trust +my wits unless I rely on them alone, you see." + +"Upon my word, you talk at times most unintelligible stuff, to be +frank with you, Horace. Give it in English." + +"'Tis not suited, perhaps, to the genius of the language, for I +thought I talked English." + +"Oh, there's English gibberish as well as Irish, we know!" + +"And a deal foolisher when they do go at it; for it won't bear +squeezing, we think, like Irish." + +"Where!" exclaimed the ladies, "where can she be! The storm is +terrible." + +Laetitia suggested the boathouse. + +"For Crossjay hadn't a swim this morning!" said De Craye. + +No one reflected on the absurdity that Clara should think of +taking Crossjay for a swim in the lake, and immediately after his +breakfast: it was accepted as a suggestion at least that she and +Crossjay had gone to the lake for a row. + +In the hopefulness of the idea, Willoughby suffered De Craye to go +on his chance unaccompanied. He was near chuckling. He projected a +plan for dismissing Crossjay and remaining in the boathouse with +Clara, luxuriating in the prestige which would attach to him for +seeking and finding her. Deadly sentiments intervened. Still he +might expect to be alone with her where she could not slip from +him. + +The throwing open of the hall-doors for the gentlemen presented a +framed picture of a deluge. All the young-leaved trees were steely +black, without a gradation of green, drooping and pouring, and the +song of rain had become an inveterate hiss. + +The ladies beholding it exclaimed against Clara, even +apostrophized her, so dark are trivial errors when circumstances +frown. She must be mad to tempt such weather: she was very giddy; +she was never at rest. Clara! Clara! how could you be so wild! +Ought we not to tell Dr. Middleton? + +Laetitia induced them to spare him. + +"Which way do you take?" said Willoughby, rather fearful that his +companion was not to be got rid of now. + +"Any way," said De Craye. "I chuck up my head like a halfpenny, +and go by the toss." + +This enraging nonsense drove off Willoughby. De Craye saw him +cast a furtive eye at his heels to make sure he was not followed, +and thought, "Jove! he may be fond of her. But he's not on the +track. She's a determined girl, if I'm correct. She's a girl of a +hundred thousand. Girls like that make the right sort of wives for +the right men. They're the girls to make men think of marrying. +To-morrow! only give me a chance. They stick to you fast when they +do stick." + +Then a thought of her flower-like drapery and face caused him +fervently to hope she had escaped the storm. + +Calling at the West park-lodge he heard that Miss Middleton had +been seen passing through the gate with Master Crossjay; but she +had not been seen coming back. Mr. Vernon Whitford had passed +through half an hour later. + +"After his young man!" said the colonel. + +The lodge-keeper's wife and daughter knew of Master Crossjay's +pranks; Mr. Whitford, they said, had made inquiries about him and +must have caught him and sent him home to change his dripping +things; for Master Crossjay had come back, and had declined +shelter in the lodge; he seemed to be crying; he went away soaking +over the wet grass, hanging his head. The opinion at the lodge was +that Master Crossjay was unhappy. + +"He very properly received a wigging from Mr. Whitford, I have no +doubt," said Colonel Do Craye. + +Mother and daughter supposed it to be the case, and considered +Crossjay very wilful for not going straight home to the Hall to +change his wet clothes; he was drenched. + +Do Craye drew out his watch. The time was ten minutes past eleven. +If the surmise he had distantly spied was correct, Miss Middleton +would have been caught in the storm midway to her destination. By +his guess at her character (knowledge of it, he would have said), +he judged that no storm would daunt her on a predetermined +expedition. He deduced in consequence that she was at the present +moment flying to her friend, the charming brunette Lucy Darleton. + +Still, as there was a possibility of the rain having been too much +for her, and as he had no other speculation concerning the route +she had taken, he decided upon keeping along the road to Rendon, +with a keen eye at cottage and farmhouse windows. + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +Vernon in Pursuit + +The lodge-keeper had a son, who was a chum of Master Crossjay's, +and errant-fellow with him upon many adventures; for this boy's +passion was to become a gamekeeper, and accompanied by one of the +head-gamekeeper's youngsters, he and Crossjay were in the habit of +rangeing over the country, preparing for a profession delightful +to the tastes of all three. Crossjay's prospective connection with +the mysterious ocean bestowed the title of captain on him by +common consent; he led them, and when missing for lessons he was +generally in the society of Jacob Croom or Jonathan Fernaway. +Vernon made sure of Crossjay when he perceived Jacob Croom sitting +on a stool in the little lodge-parlour. Jacob's appearance of a +diligent perusal of a book he had presented to the lad, he took +for a decent piece of trickery. It was with amazement that he +heard from the mother and daughter, as well as Jacob, of Miss +Middleton's going through the gate before ten o'clock with +Crossjay beside her, the latter too hurried to spare a nod to +Jacob. That she, of all on earth, should be encouraging Crossjay +to truancy was incredible. Vernon had to fall back upon Greek and +Latin aphoristic shots at the sex to believe it. + +Rain was universal; a thick robe of it swept from hill to hill; +thunder rumbled remote, and between the ruffled roars the downpour +pressed on the land with a great noise of eager gobbling, much +like that of the swine's trough fresh filled, as though a vast +assembly of the hungered had seated themselves clamorously and +fallen to on meats and drinks in a silence, save of the chaps. A +rapid walker poetically and humourously minded gathers multitudes +of images on his way. And rain, the heaviest you can meet, is a +lively companion when the resolute pacer scorns discomfort of wet +clothes and squealing boots. South-western rain-clouds, too, are +never long sullen: they enfold and will have the earth in a good +strong glut of the kissing overflow; then, as a hawk with feathers +on his beak of the bird in his claw lifts head, they rise and take +veiled feature in long climbing watery lines: at any moment they +may break the veil and show soft upper cloud, show sun on it, show +sky, green near the verge they spring from, of the green of grass +in early dew; or, along a travelling sweep that rolls asunder +overhead, heaven's laughter of purest blue among titanic white +shoulders: it may mean fair smiling for awhile, or be the lightest +interlude; but the watery lines, and the drifting, the chasing, +the upsoaring, all in a shadowy fingering of form, and the +animation of the leaves of the trees pointing them on, the bending +of the tree-tops, the snapping of branches, and the hurrahings of +the stubborn hedge at wrestle with the flaws, yielding but a leaf +at most, and that on a fling, make a glory of contest and wildness +without aid of colour to inflame the man who is at home in them from +old association on road, heath, and mountain. Let him be drenched, +his heart will sing. And thou, trim cockney, that jeerest, +consider thyself, to whom it may occur to be out in such a scene, +and with what steps of a nervous dancing-master it would be thine +to play the hunted rat of the elements, for the preservation of +the one imagined dryspot about thee, somewhere on thy luckless +person! The taking of rain and sun alike befits men of our +climate, and he who would have the secret of a strengthening +intoxication must court the clouds of the South-west with a +lover's blood. + +Vernon's happy recklessness was dashed by fears for Miss +Middleton. Apart from those fears, he had the pleasure of a gull +wheeling among foam-streaks of the wave. He supposed the Swiss and +Tyrol Alps to have hidden their heads from him for many a day to +come, and the springing and chiming South-west was the next best +thing. A milder rain descended; the country expanded darkly +defined underneath the moving curtain; the clouds were as he liked +to see them, scaling; but their skirts dragged. Torrents were in +store, for they coursed streamingly still and had not the higher +lift, or eagle ascent, which he knew for one of the signs of +fairness, nor had the hills any belt of mist-like vapour. + +On a step of the stile leading to the short-cut to Rendon young +Crossjay was espied. A man-tramp sat on the top-bar. + +"There you are; what are you doing there? Where's Miss Middleton?" +said Vernon. "Now, take care before you open your mouth." + +Crossjay shut the mouth he had opened. + +"The lady has gone away over to a station, sir," said the tramp. + +"You fool!" roared Crossjay, ready to fly at him. + +"But ain't it now, young gentleman? Can you say it ain't?" + +"I gave you a shilling, you ass!" + +"You give me that sum, young gentleman, to stop here and take care +of you, and here I stopped." + +"Mr. Whitford!" Crossjay appealed to his master, and broke of in +disgust. "Take care of me! As if anybody who knows me would think +I wanted taking care of! Why, what a beast you must be. you +fellow!" + +"Just as you like, young gentleman. I chaunted you all I know, to +keep up your downcast spirits. You did want comforting. You wanted +it rarely. You cried like an infant." + +"I let you 'chaunt', as you call it, to keep you from swearing." + +"And why did I swear. young gentleman? because I've got an itchy +coat in the wet, and no shirt for a lining. And no breakfast to +give me a stomach for this kind of weather. That's what I've come +to in this world! I'm a walking moral. No wonder I swears, when I +don't strike up a chaunt." + +"But why are you sitting here wet through, Crossjay! Be off home at +once, and change, and get ready for me." + +"Mr. Whitford, I promised, and I tossed this fellow a shilling +not to go bothering Miss Middleton." + +"The lady wouldn't have none o" the young gentleman, sir, and I +offered to go pioneer for her to the station, behind her, at a +respectful distance." + +"As if!--you treacherous cur!" Crossjay ground his teeth at the +betrayer. "Well, Mr. Whitford, and I didn't trust him, and I stuck +to him, or he'd have been after her whining about his coat and +stomach, and talking of his being a moral. He repeats that to +everybody." + +"She has gone to the station?" said Vernon. + +Not a word on that subject was to be won from Crossjay. + +"How long since?" Vernon partly addressed Mr. Tramp. + +The latter became seized with shivers as he supplied the +information that it might be a quarter of an hour or twenty +minutes. "But what's time to me, sir? If I had reglar meals, I +should carry a clock in my inside. I got the rheumatics instead." + +"Way there!" Vernon cried, and took the stile at a vault. + +"That's what gentlemen can do, who sleeps in their beds warm," +moaned the tramp. "They've no joints." + +Vernon handed him a half-crown piece, for he had been of use for +once. + +"Mr. Whitford, let me come. If you tell me to come I may. Do let +me come," Crossjay begged with great entreaty. "I sha'n't see her +for . . ." + +"Be off, quick!" Vernon cut him short and pushed on. + +The tramp and Crossjay were audible to him; Crossjay spurning the +consolations of the professional sad man. + +Vernon spun across the fields, timing himself by his watch to +reach Rendon station ten minutes before eleven, though without +clearly questioning the nature of the resolution which +precipitated him. Dropping to the road, he had better foothold +than on the slippery field-path, and he ran. His principal hope +was that Clara would have missed her way. Another pelting of rain +agitated him on her behalf. Might she not as well be suffered to +go?--and sit three hours and more in a railway-carriage with wet +feet! + +He clasped the visionary little feet to warm them on his breast.-- +But Willoughby's obstinate fatuity deserved the blow!--But +neither she nor her father deserved the scandal. But she was +desperate. Could reasoning touch her? if not, what would? He knew +of nothing. Yesterday he had spoken strongly to Willoughby, to +plead with him to favour her departure and give her leisure to +sound her mind, and he had left his cousin, convinced that Clara's +best measure was flight: a man so cunning in a pretended +obtuseness backed by senseless pride, and in petty tricks that +sprang of a grovelling tyranny, could only be taught by facts. + +Her recent treatment of him, however, was very strange; so strange +that he might have known himself better if he had reflected on the +bound with which it shot him to a hard suspicion. De Craye had +prepared the world to hear that he was leaving the Hall. Were they +in concert? The idea struck at his heart colder than if her damp +little feet had been there. + +Vernon's full exoneration of her for making a confidant of +himself, did not extend its leniency to the young lady's character +when there was question of her doing the same with a second +gentleman. He could suspect much: he could even expect to find De +Craye at the station. + +That idea drew him up in his run, to meditate on the part he +should play; and by drove little Dr. Corney on the way to Rendon +and hailed him, and gave his cheerless figure the nearest approach +to an Irish bug in the form of a dry seat under an umbrella and +water-proof covering. + +"Though it is the worst I can do for you, if you decline to +supplement it with a dose of hot brandy and water at the Dolphin," +said he: "and I'll see you take it, if you please. I'm bound to +ease a Rendon patient out of the world. Medicine's one of their +superstitions, which they cling to the harder the more useless it +gets. Pill and priest launch him happy between them.--'And what's +on your conscience, Pat?--It's whether your blessing, your +Riverence, would disagree with another drop. Then put the horse +before the cart, my son, and you shall have the two in harmony, +and God speed ye!'--Rendon station, did you say, Vernon? You +shall have my prescription at the Railway Arms, if you're hurried. +You have the look. What is it? Can I help?" + +"No. And don't ask." + +"You're like the Irish Grenadier who had a bullet in a humiliating +situation. Here's Rendon, and through it we go with a spanking +clatter. Here's Doctor Corney's dog-cart post-haste again. For +there's no dying without him now, and Repentance is on the +death-bed for not calling him in before. Half a charge of humbug +hurts no son of a gun, friend Vernon, if he'd have his firing take +effect. Be tender to't in man or woman, particularly woman. So, by +goes the meteoric doctor, and I'll bring noses to window-panes, +you'll see, which reminds me of the sweetest young lady I ever saw, +and the luckiest man. When is she off for her bridal trousseau? +And when are they spliced? I'll not call her perfection, for +that's a post, afraid to move. But she's a dancing sprig of the +tree next it. Poetry's wanted to speak of her. I'm Irish and +inflammable, I suppose, but I never looked on a girl to make a man +comprehend the entire holy meaning of the word rapturous, like +that one. And away she goes! We'll not say another word. But +you're a Grecian, friend Vernon. Now, couldn't you think her just +a whiff of an idea of a daughter of a peccadillo-Goddess?" + +"Deuce take you, Corney, drop me here; I shall be late for the +train," said Vernon, laying hand on the doctor's arm to check him +on the way to the station in view. + +Dr Corney had a Celtic intelligence for a meaning behind an +illogical tongue. He drew up, observing. "Two minutes run won't +hurt you." + +He slightly fancied he might have given offence, though he was +well acquainted with Vernon and had a cordial grasp at the +parting. + +The truth must be told that Vernon could not at the moment bear +any more talk from an Irishman. Dr. Corney had succeeded in +persuading him not to wonder at Clara Middleton's liking for +Colonel de Craye. + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +At the Railway Station + +Clara stood in the waiting-room contemplating the white rails of +the rain-swept line. Her lips parted at the sight of Vernon. + +"You have your ticket?" said he. + +She nodded, and breathed more freely; the matter-of-fact question +was reassuring. + +"You are wet," he resumed; and it could not be denied. + +"A little. I do not feel it." + +"I must beg you to come to the inn hard by--half a dozen steps. +We shall see your train signalled. Come." + +She thought him startlingly authoritative, but he had good sense +to back him; and depressed as she was by the dampness, she was +disposed to yield to reason if he continued to respect her +independence. So she submitted outwardly, resisted inwardly, on +the watch to stop him from taking any decisive lead. + +"Shall we be sure to see the signal, Mr. Whitford?" + +"I'll provide for that." + +He spoke to the station-clerk, and conducted her across the road. + +"You are quite alone, Miss Middleton?" + +"I am: I have not brought my maid." + +"You must take off boots and stockings at once, and have them +dried. I'll put you in the hands of the landlady." + +"But my train!" + +"You have full fifteen minutes, besides fair chances of delay. " + +He seemed reasonable, the reverse of hostile, in spite of his +commanding air, and that was not unpleasant in one friendly to her +adventure. She controlled her alert distrustfulness, and passed +from him to the landlady, for her feet were wet and cold, the +skirts of her dress were soiled; generally inspecting herself, she +was an object to be shuddered at, and she was grateful to Vernon +for his inattention to her appearance. + +Vernon ordered Dr. Corney's dose, and was ushered upstairs to a +room of portraits, where the publican's ancestors and family sat +against the walls, flat on their canvas as weeds of the botanist's +portfolio, although corpulency was pretty generally insisted on, +and there were formidable battalions of bust among the females. +All of them had the aspect of the national energy which has +vanquished obstacles to subside on its ideal. They all gazed +straight at the guest. "Drink, and come to this!" they might have +been labelled to say to him. He was in the private Walhalla of a +large class of his countrymen. The existing host had taken +forethought to be of the party in his prime, and in the central +place, looking fresh-fattened there and sanguine from the +performance. By and by a son would shove him aside; meanwhile he +shelved his parent, according to the manners of energy. + +One should not be a critic of our works of Art in uncomfortable +garments. Vernon turned from the portraits to a stuffed pike in a +glass case, and plunged into sympathy with the fish for a refuge. + +Clara soon rejoined him, saying: "But you, you must be very wet. +You were without an umbrella. You must be wet through, Mr. +Whitford." + +"We're all wet through, to-day," said Vernon. "Crossjay's wet +through, and a tramp he met." + +"The horrid man! But Crossjay should have turned back when I told +him. Cannot the landlord assist you? You are not tied to time. I +begged Crossjay to turn back when it began to rain: when it became +heavy I compelled him. So you met my poor Crossjay?" + +"You have not to blame him for betraying you. The tramp did that. +I was thrown on your track quite by accident. Now pardon me for +using authority, and don't be alarmed, Miss Middleton; you are +perfectly free for me; but you must not run a risk to your health. +I met Doctor Corney coming along, and he prescribed hot brandy and +water for a wet skin, especially for sitting in it. There's the +stuff on the table; I see you have been aware of a singular odour; +you must consent to sip some, as medicine; merely to give you +warmth." + +"Impossible, Mr. Whitford: I could not taste it. But pray, obey Dr. +Corney, if he ordered it for you." + +"I can't. unless you do." + +"I will, then: I will try." + +She held the glass, attempted, and was baffled by the reek of +it. + +"Try: you can do anything," said Vernon. + +"Now that you find me here, Mr. Whitford! Anything for myself it +would seem, and nothing to save a friend. But I will really try." + +"It must be a good mouthful." + +"I will try. And you will finish the glass?" + +"With your permission, if you do not leave too much." + +They were to drink out of the same glass; and she was to drink +some of this infamous mixture: and she was in a kind of hotel +alone with him: and he was drenched in running after her:--all +this came of breaking loose for an hour! + +"Oh! what a misfortune that it should be such a day, Mr. +Whitford!" + +"Did you not choose the day?" + +"Not the weather." + +"And the worst of it is, that Willoughby will come upon Crossjay +wet to the bone, and pump him and get nothing but shufflings, +blank lies, and then find him out and chase him from the house." + +Clara drank immediately, and more than she intended. She held the +glass as an enemy to be delivered from, gasping, uncertain of her +breath. + +"Never let me be asked to endure such a thing again!" + +"You are unlikely to be running away from father and friends +again." + +She panted still with the fiery liquid she had gulped: and she +wondered that it should belie its reputation in not fortifying +her, but rendering her painfully susceptible to his remarks. + +"Mr. Whitford, I need not seek to know what you think of me." + +"What I think? I don't think at all; I wish to serve you if I +can." + +"Am I right in supposing you a little afraid of me? You should not +be. I have deceived no one. I have opened my heart to you, and am +not ashamed of having done so." + +"It is an excellent habit, they say." + +"It is not a habit with me." + +He was touched, and for that reason, in his dissatisfaction with +himself, not unwilling to hurt. "We take our turn, Miss Middleton. +I'm no hero, and a bad conspirator, so I am not of much avail." + +"You have been reserved--but I am going, and I leave my character +behind. You condemned me to the poison-bowl; you have not touched +it yourself" + +"In vino veritas: if I do I shall be speaking my mind." + +"Then do, for the sake of mind and body." + +"It won't be complimentary." + +"You can be harsh. Only say everything." + +"Have we time?" + +They looked at their watches. + +"Six minutes," Clara said. + +Vernon's had stopped, penetrated by his total drenching. + +She reproached herself. He laughed to quiet her. "My dies solemnes +are sure to give me duckings; I'm used to them. As for the watch, +it will remind me that it stopped when you went." + +She raised the glass to him. She was happier and hoped for some +little harshness and kindness mixed that she might carry away to +travel with and think over. + +He turned the glass as she had given it, turned it round in +putting it to his lips: a scarce perceptible manoeuvre, but that +she had given it expressly on one side. + +It may be hoped that it was not done by design. Done even +accidentally, without a taint of contrivance, it was an affliction +to see, and coiled through her, causing her to shrink and redden. + +Fugitives are subject to strange incidents; they are not vessels +lying safe in harbour. She shut her lips tight, as if they had +stung. The realizing sensitiveness of her quick nature accused +them of a loss of bloom. And the man who made her smart like this +was formal as a railway official on a platform. + +"Now we are both pledged in the poison-bowl," said he. "And it +has the taste of rank poison, I confess. But the doctor prescribed +it, and at sea we must be sailors. Now, Miss Middleton, time +presses: will you return with me?" + +"No! no!" + +"Where do you propose to go?" + +"To London; to a friend--Miss Darleton." + +"What message is there for your father?" + +"Say I have left a letter for him in a letter to be delivered to +you. + +"To me! And what message for Willoughby?" + +"My maid Barclay will hand him a letter at noon." + +"You have sealed Crossjay's fate." + +"How?" + +"He is probably at this instant undergoing an interrogation. You +may guess at his replies. The letter will expose him, and +Willoughby does not pardon." + +"I regret it. I cannot avoid it. Poor boy! My dear Crossjay! I +did not think of how Willoughby might punish him. I was very +thoughtless. Mr. Whitford, my pin-money shall go for his +education. Later, when I am a little older, I shall be able to +support him." + +"That's an encumbrance; you should not tie yourself to drag it +about. You are unalterable, of course, but circumstances are not, +and as it happens, women are more subject to them than we are." + +"But I will not be!" + +"Your command of them is shown at the present moment." + +"Because I determine to be free?" + +"No: because you do the contrary; you don't determine: you run +away from the difficulty, and leave it to your father and friends +to bear. As for Crossjay, you see you destroy one of his chances. +I should have carried him off before this, if I had not thought it +prudent to keep him on terms with Willoughby. We'll let Crossjay +stand aside. He'll behave like a man of honour, imitating others +who have had to do the same for ladies." + +"Have spoken falsely to shelter cowards, you mean, Mr. Whitford. +Oh, I know.--I have but two minutes. The die is cast. I cannot go +back. I must get ready. Will you see me to the station? I would +rather you should hurry home." + +"I will see the last of you. I will wait for you here. An express +runs ahead of your train, and I have arranged with the clerk for a +signal; I have an eye on the window." + +"You are still my best friend, Mr. Whitford." + +"Though?" + +"Well, though you do not perfectly understand what torments have +driven me to this." + +"Carried on tides and blown by winds?" + +"Ah! you do not understand." + +"Mysteries?" + +"Sufferings are not mysteries, they are very simple facts." + +"Well, then, I don't understand. But decide at once. I wish you to +have your free will." + +She left the room. + +Dry stockings and boots are better for travelling in than wet +ones, but in spite of her direct resolve, she felt when drawing +them on like one that has been tripped. The goal was desirable, +the ardour was damped. Vernon's wish that she should have her free +will compelled her to sound it: and it was of course to go, to be +liberated, to cast off incubus and hurt her father? injure +Crossjay? distress her friends? No, and ten times no! + +She returned to Vernon in haste, to shun the reflex of her mind. + +He was looking at a closed carriage drawn up at the station door. + +"Shall we run over now, Mr. Whitford?" + +"There's no signal. Here it's not so chilly." + +I ventured to enclose my letter to papa in yours, trusting you +would attend to my request to you to break the news to him gently +and plead for me." + +"We will all do the utmost we can." + +"I am doomed to vex those who care for me. I tried to follow your +counsel." + +"First you spoke to me, and then you spoke to Miss Dale; and at +least you have a clear conscience." + +"No." + +"What burdens it?" + +"I have done nothing to burden it." + +"Then it's a clear conscience." + +"No." + +Vernon's shoulders jerked. Our patience with an innocent duplicity +in women is measured by the place it assigns to us and another. If +he had liked he could have thought: "You have not done but +meditated something to trouble conscience." That was evident, and +her speaking of it was proof too of the willingness to be dear. He +would not help her. Man's blood, which is the link with women and +responsive to them on the instant for or against, obscured him. He +shrugged anew when she said: "My character would have been +degraded utterly by my staying there. Could you advise it?" + +"Certainly not the degradation of your character," he said, black +on the subject of De Craye, and not lightened by feelings which +made him sharply sensible of the beggarly dependant that he was, +or poor adventuring scribbler that he was to become. + +"Why did you pursue me and wish to stop me, Mr. Whitford?" said +Clara, on the spur of a wound from his tone. + +He replied: "I suppose I'm a busybody; I was never aware of it +till now." + +"You are my friend. Only you speak in irony so much. That was +irony, about my clear conscience. I spoke to you and to Miss Dale: +and then I rested and drifted. Can you not feel for me, that to +mention it is like a scorching furnace? Willoughby has entangled +papa. He schemes incessantly to keep me entangled. I fly from his +cunning as much as from anything. I dread it. I have told you +that I am more to blame than he, but I must accuse him. And +wedding-presents! and congratulations! And to be his guest!" + +"All that makes up a plea in mitigation," said Vernon. + +"Is it not sufficient for you?" she asked him timidly. + +"You have a masculine good sense that tells you you won't be +respected if you run. Three more days there might cover a retreat +with your father." + +"He will not listen to me. He confuses me; Willoughby has +bewitched him." + +"Commission me: I will see that he listens." + +"And go back? Oh, no! To London! Besides, there is the dining with +Mrs. Mountstuart this evening; and I like her very well, but I +must avoid her. She has a kind of idolatry ... And what answers +can I give? I supplicate her with looks. She observes them, my +efforts to divert them from being painful produce a comic +expression to her, and I am a charming 'rogue', and I am +entertained on the topic she assumes to be principally interesting +me. I must avoid her. The thought of her leaves me no choice. She +is clever. She could tattoo me with epigrams." + +"Stay.. there you can hold your own." + +"She has told me you give me credit for a spice of wit. I have not +discovered my possession. We have spoken of it; we call it your +delusion. She grants me some beauty; that must be hers." + +"There's no delusion in one case or the other, Miss Middleton. You +have beauty and wit; public opinion will say, wildness: +indifference to your reputation will be charged on you, and your +friends will have to admit it. But you will be out of this +difficulty." + +"Ah--to weave a second?" + +"Impossible to judge until we see how you escape the first. And I +have no more to say. I love your father. His humour of +sententiousness and doctorial stilts is a mask he delights in, but +you ought to know him and not be frightened by it. If you sat with +him an hour at a Latin task, and if you took his hand and told +him you could not leave him, and no tears!--he would answer you +at once. It would involve a day or two further; disagreeable to +you, no doubt: preferable to the present mode of escape, as I +think. But I have no power whatever to persuade. I have not the +'lady's tongue'. My appeal is always to reason." + +"It is a compliment. I loathe the 'lady's tongue'." + +"It's a distinctly good gift, and I wish I had it. I might have +succeeded instead of failing, and appearing to pay a compliment." + +"Surely the express train is very late, Mr. Whitford?" + +"The express has gone by." + +"Then we will cross over." + +"You would rather not be seen by Mrs. Mountstuart. That is her +carriage drawn up at the station, and she is in it." + +Clara looked, and with the sinking of her heart said: "I must +brave her!" + +"In that case I will take my leave of you here, Miss Middleton." + +She gave him her hand. "Why is Mrs. Mountstuart at the station +to-day?" + +"I suppose she has driven to meet one of the guests for her +dinner-party. Professor Crooklyn was promised to your father, and +he may be coming by the down-train." + +"Go back to the Hall!" exclaimed Clara. "How can I? I have no more +endurance left in me. If I had some support!--if it were the +sense of secretly doing wrong, it might help me through. I am in a +web. I cannot do right, whatever I do. There is only the thought +of saving Crossjay. Yes, and sparing papa.--Good-bye, Mr. +Whitford. I shall remember your kindness gratefully. I cannot go +back." + +"You will not?" said he, tempting her to hesitate. + +"No." + +"But if you are seen by Mrs. Mountstuart, you must go back. I'll +do my best to take her away. Should she see you, you must patch up +a story and apply to her for a lift. That, I think, is +imperative." + +"Not to my mind," said Clara. + +He bowed hurriedly, and withdrew. After her confession, peculiar +to her, of possibly finding sustainment in secretly doing wrong, +her flying or remaining seemed to him a choice of evils: and +whilst she stood in bewildered speculation on his reason for +pursuing her--which was not evident--he remembered the special +fear inciting him, and so far did her justice as to have at +himself on that subject. He had done something perhaps to save her +from a cold: such was his only consolatory thought. He had also +behaved like a man of honour, taking no personal advantage of her +situation; but to reflect on it recalled his astonishing dryness. +The strict man of honour plays a part that he should not reflect +on till about the fall of the curtain, otherwise he will be likely +sometimes to feel the shiver of foolishness at his good conduct. + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +The Return + +Posted in observation at a corner of the window Clara saw Vernon +cross the road to Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson's carriage, +transformed to the leanest pattern of himself by narrowed +shoulders and raised coat-collar. He had such an air of saying, +"Tom's a-cold", that her skin crept in sympathy. + +Presently he left the carriage and went into the station: a bell +had rung. Was it her train? He approved her going, for he was +employed in assisting her to go: a proceeding at variance with +many things he had said, but he was as full of contradiction +to-day as women are accused of being. The train came up. She +trembled: no signal had appeared, and Vernon must have deceived +her. + +He returned; he entered the carriage, and the wheels were soon in +motion. Immediately thereupon, Flitch's fly drove past, containing +Colonel De Craye. + +Vernon could not but have perceived him! + +But what was it that had brought the colonel to this place? The +pressure of Vernon's mind was on her and foiled her efforts to +assert her perfect innocence, though she knew she had done nothing +to allure the colonel hither. Excepting Willoughby, Colonel De +Craye was the last person she would have wished to encounter. + +She had now a dread of hearing the bell which would tell her that +Vernon had not deceived her, and that she was out of his hands, in +the hands of some one else. + +She bit at her glove; she glanced at the concentrated eyes of the +publican's family portraits, all looking as one; she noticed the +empty tumbler, and went round to it and touched it, and the silly +spoon in it. + +A little yielding to desperation shoots us to strange distances! + +Vernon had asked her whether she was alone. Connecting that +inquiry, singular in itself, and singular in his manner of putting +it, with the glass of burning liquid, she repeated: "He must +have seen Colonel De Craye!" and she stared at the empty glass, as +at something that witnessed to something: for Vernon was not your +supple cavalier assiduously on the smirk to pin a gallantry to +commonplaces. But all the doors are not open in a young lady's +consciousness, quick of nature though she may be: some are locked +and keyless, some will not open to the key, some are defended by +ghosts inside. She could not have said what the something +witnessed to. If we by chance know more, we have still no right +to make it more prominent than it was with her. And the smell of +the glass was odious; it disgraced her. She had an impulse to +pocket the spoon for a memento, to show it to grandchildren for a +warning. Even the prelude to the morality to be uttered on the +occasion sprang to her lips: "Here, my dears, is a spoon you would +he ashamed to use in your teacups, yet it was of more value to me +at one period of my life than silver and gold in pointing out, +etc.": the conclusion was hazy, like the conception; she had her +idea. + +And in this mood she ran down-stairs and met Colonel De Craye on +the station steps. + +The bright illumination of his face was that of the confident man +confirmed in a risky guess in the crisis of doubt and dispute. + +"Miss Middleton!" his joyful surprise predominated; the pride of +an accurate forecast, adding: "I am not too late to be of +service?" + +She thanked him for the offer. + +"Have you dismissed the fly, Colonel De Craye?" + +"I have just been getting change to pay Mr. Flitch. He passed me +on the road. He is interwound with our fates to a certainty. I had +only to jump in; I knew it, and rolled along like a magician +commanding a genie." + +"Have I been . . ." + +"Not seriously, nobody doubts you being under shelter. You will +allow me to protect you? My time is yours." + +"I was thinking of a running visit to my friend Miss Darleton." + +"May I venture? I had the fancy that you wished to see Miss +Darleton to-day. You cannot make the journey unescorted." + +"Please retain the fly. Where is Willoughby?" + +"He is in jack-boots. But may I not, Miss Middleton? +I shall never be forgiven if you refuse me." + +"There has been searching for me?" + +"Some hallooing. But why am I rejected? Besides, I don't require +the fly; I shall walk if I am banished. Flitch is a wonderful +conjurer, but the virtue is out of him for the next +four-and-twenty hours. And it will be an opportunity to me to make +my bow to Miss Darleton!" + +"She is rigorous on the conventionalities, Colonel De Craye." + +"I'll appear before her as an ignoramus or a rebel, whichever she +likes best to take in leading-strings. I remember her. I was +greatly struck by her." + +"Upon recollection!" + +"Memory didn't happen to be handy at the first mention of the +lady's name. As the general said of his ammunition and transport, +there's the army!--but it was leagues in the rear. Like the +footman who went to sleep after smelling fire in the house, I was +thinking of other things. It will serve me right to be forgotten-- +if I am. I've a curiosity to know: a remainder of my coxcombry. +Not that exactly: a wish to see the impression I made on your +friend.--None at all? But any pebble casts a ripple." + +"That is hardly an impression," said Clara, pacifying her +irresoluteness with this light talk. + +"The utmost to be hoped for by men like me! I have your +permission?--one minute--I will get my ticket." + +"Do not," said Clara. + +"Your man-servant entreats you!" + +She signified a decided negative with the head, but her eyes were +dreamy. She breathed deep: this thing done would cut the cord. Her +sensation of languor swept over her. + +De Craye took a stride. He was accosted by one of the +railway-porters. Flitch's fly was in request for a gentleman. A +portly old gentleman bothered about luggage appeared on the +landing. + +"The gentleman can have it," said De Craye, handing Flitch his +money. + +"Open the door." Clara said to Flitch. + +He tugged at the handle with enthusiasm. The door was open: she +stepped in. + +"Then mount the box and I'll jump up beside you," De Craye called +out, after the passion of regretful astonishment had melted from +his features. + +Clara directed him to the seat fronting her; he protested +indifference to the wet; she kept the door unshut. His temper +would have preferred to buffet the angry weather. The invitation +was too sweet. + +She heard now the bell of her own train. Driving beside the +railway embankment she met the train: it was eighteen minutes +late, by her watch. And why, when it flung up its whale-spouts of +steam, she was not journeying in it, she could not tell. She had +acted of her free will: that she could say. Vernon had not induced +her to remain; assuredly her present companion had not; and her +whole heart was for flight: yet she was driving back to the Hall, +not devoid of calmness. She speculated on the circumstance enough +to think herself incomprehensible, and there left it, intent on +the scene to come with Willoughby. + +"I must choose a better day for London," she remarked. + +De Craye bowed, but did not remove his eyes from her. + +"Miss Middleton, you do not trust me." + +She answered: "Say in what way. It seems to me that I do." + +"I may speak?" + +"If it depends on my authority." + +"Fully?" + +"Whatever you have to say. Let me stipulate, be not very grave. I +want cheering in wet weather." + +"Miss Middleton, Flitch is charioteer once more. Think of it. +There's a tide that carries him perpetually to the place where he +was cast forth, and a thread that ties us to him in continuity. I +have not the honour to be a friend of long standing: one ventures +on one's devotion: it dates from the first moment of my seeing +you. Flitch is to blame, if any one. Perhaps the spell would be +broken, were he reinstated in his ancient office." + +"Perhaps it would," said Clara, not with her best of smiles. +Willoughby's pride of relentlessness appeared to her to be +receiving a blow by rebound, and that seemed high justice. + +"I am afraid you were right; the poor fellow has no chance," De +Craye pursued. He paused, as for decorum in the presence of +misfortune, and laughed sparklingly: "Unless I engage him, or +pretend to! I verily believe that Flitch's melancholy person on +the skirts of the Hall completes the picture of the Eden within.-- +Why will you not put some trust in me, Miss Middleton?" + +"But why should you not pretend to engage him then, Colonel De +Craye?" + +"We'll plot it, if you like. Can you trust me for that?" + +"For any act of disinterested kindness, I am sure." + +"You mean it?" + +"Without reserve. You could talk publicly of taking him to +London." + +"Miss Middleton, just now you were going. My arrival changed your +mind. You distrust me: and ought I to wonder? The wonder would be +all the other way. You have not had the sort of report of me which +would persuade you to confide, even in a case of extremity. I +guessed you were going. Do you ask me how? I cannot say. Through +what they call sympathy, and that's inexplicable. There's natural +sympathy, natural antipathy. People have to live together to +discover how deep it is!" + +Clara breathed her dumb admission of his truth. + +The fly jolted and threatened to lurch. + +"Flitch, my dear man!" the colonel gave a murmuring remonstrance; +"for," said he to Clara, whom his apostrophe to Flitch had set +smiling, "we're not safe with him, however we make believe, and +he'll be jerking the heart out of me before he has done.--But if +two of us have not the misfortune to be united when they come to +the discovery, there's hope. That is, if one has courage and the +other has wisdom. Otherwise they may go to the yoke in spite of +themselves. The great enemy is Pride, who has them both in a coach +and drives them to the fatal door, and the only thing to do is to +knock him off his box while there's a minute to spare. And as +there's no pride like the pride of possession, the deadliest wound +to him is to make that doubtful. Pride won't be taught wisdom in +any other fashion. But one must have the courage to do it!" + +De Craye trifled with the window-sash, to give his words time to +sink in solution. + +Who but Willoughby stood for Pride? And who, swayed by languor, +had dreamed of a method that would be surest and swiftest to teach +him the wisdom of surrendering her? + +"You know, Miss Middleton, I study character," said the colonel. + +"I see that you do," she answered. + +"You intend to return?" + +"Oh, decidedly." + +"The day is unfavourable for travelling, I must say." + +"It is." + +"You may count on my discretion in the fullest degree. I throw +myself on your generosity when I assure you that it was not my +design to surprise a secret. I guessed the station, and went +there, to put myself at your disposal." + +"Did you," said Clara, reddening slightly, "chance to see Mrs. +Mountstuart Jenkinson's carriage pass you when you drove up to the +station?" + +De Craye had passed a carriage. "I did not see the lady. She was +in it?" + +"Yes. And therefore it is better to put discretion on one side: +we may be certain she saw you." + +"But not you, Miss Middleton." + +"I prefer to think that I am seen. I have a description of +courage, Colonel De Craye, when it is forced on me." + +"I have not suspected the reverse. Courage wants training, as well +as other fine capacities. Mine is often rusty and rheumatic." + +"I cannot hear of concealment or plotting." + +"Except, pray, to advance the cause of poor Flitch!" + +"He shall be excepted." + +The colonel screwed his head round for a glance at his coachman's +back. + +"Perfectly guaranteed to-day!" he said of Flitch's look of +solidity. "The convulsion of the elements appears to sober our +friend; he is only dangerous in calms. Five minutes will bring us +to the park-gates." + +Clara leaned forward to gaze at the hedgeways in the neighbourhood +of the Hall strangely renewing their familiarity with her. Both in +thought and sensation she was like a flower beaten to earth, and +she thanked her feminine mask for not showing how nerveless and +languid she was. She could have accused Vernon of a treacherous +cunning for imposing it on her free will to decide her fate. + +Involuntarily she sighed. + +"There is a train at three," said De Craye, with splendid +promptitude. + +"Yes, and one at five. We dine with Mrs. Mountstuart tonight. And +I have a passion for solitude! I think I was never intended for +obligations. The moment I am bound I begin to brood on freedom." + +"Ladies who say that, Miss Middleton!..." + +"What of them?" + +"They're feeling too much alone." + +She could not combat the remark: by her self-assurance that she +had the principle of faithfulness, she acknowledged to herself the +truth of it:--there is no freedom for the weak. Vernon had said +that once. She tried to resist the weight of it, and her sheer +inability precipitated her into a sense of pitiful dependence. + +Half an hour earlier it would have been a perilous condition to be +traversing in the society of a closely scanning reader of fair +faces. Circumstances had changed. They were at the gates of the +park. + +"Shall I leave you?" said De Craye. + +"Why should you?" she replied. + +He bent to her gracefully. + +The mild subservience flattered Clara's languor. He had not +compelled her to be watchful on her guard, and she was unaware +that he passed it when she acquiesced to his observation, "An +anticipatory story is a trap to the teller." + +"It is," she said. She had been thinking as much. + +He threw up his head to consult the brain comically with a dozen +little blinks. + +"No, you are right, Miss Middleton, inventing beforehand never +prospers; "t is a way to trip our own cleverness. Truth and +mother-wit are the best counsellors: and as you are the former, +I'll try to act up to the character you assign me." + +Some tangle, more prospective than present, seemed to be about her +as she reflected. But her intention being to speak to Willoughby +without subterfuge, she was grateful to her companion for not +tempting her to swerve. No one could doubt his talent for elegant +fibbing, and she was in the humour both to admire and adopt the +art, so she was glad to be rescued from herself. How mother-wit +was to second truth she did not inquire, and as she did not happen +to be thinking of Crossjay, she was not troubled by having to +consider how truth and his tale of the morning would be likely to +harmonize. + +Driving down the park, she had full occupation in questioning +whether her return would be pleasing to Vernon, who was the +virtual cause of it, though he had done so little to promote it: +so little that she really doubted his pleasure in seeing her +return. + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +In Which the Sensitiveness of Sir Willoughby Is +Explained: and He Receives Much Instruction + +THE Hall-dock over the stables was then striking twelve. It was +the hour for her flight to be made known, and Clara sat in a +turmoil of dim apprehension that prepared her nervous frame for a +painful blush on her being asked by Colonel De Craye whether she +had set her watch correctly. He must, she understood, have seen +through her at the breakfast table: and was she not cruelly +indebted to him for her evasion of Willoughby? Such perspicacity +of vision distressed and frightened her; at the same time she was +obliged to acknowledge that he had not presumed on it. Her dignity +was in no way the worse for him. But it had been at a man's mercy, +and there was the affliction. + +She jumped from the fly as if she were leaving danger behind. She +could at the moment have greeted Willoughby with a conventionally +friendly smile. The doors were thrown open and young Crossjay flew +out to her. He hung and danced on her hand, pressed the hand to +his mouth, hardly believing that he saw and touched her, and in a +lingo of dashes and asterisks related how Sir Willoughby had found +him under the boathouse eaves and pumped him, and had been sent +off to Hoppner's farm, where there was a sick child, and on +along the road to a labourer's cottage: "For I said you're so kind +to poor people, Miss Middleton; that's true, now that is true. +And I said you wouldn't have me with you for fear of contagion!" +This was what she had feared. + +"Every crack and bang in a boys vocabulary," remarked the colonel, +listening to him after he had paid Flitch. + +The latter touched his hat till he had drawn attention to himself, +when he exclaimed, with rosy melancholy: "Ah! my lady, ah! +colonel, if ever I lives to drink some of the old port wine in the +old Hall at Christmastide!" Their healths would on that occasion +be drunk, it was implied. He threw up his eyes at the windows, +humped his body and drove away. + +"Then Mr. Whitford has not come back?" said Clara to Crossjay. + +"No, Miss Middleton. Sir Willoughby has, and he's upstairs in +his room dressing." + +"Have you seen Barclay?" + +"She has just gone into the laboratory. I told her Sir Willoughby +wasn't there." + +"Tell me, Crossjay, had she a letter?" + +"She had something." + +"Run: say I am here; I want the letter, it is mine." + +Crossjay sprang away and plunged into the arms of Sir Willoughby. + +"One has to catch the fellow like a football," exclaimed the +injured gentleman, doubled across the boy and holding him fast, +that he might have an object to trifle with, to give himself +countenance: he needed it. "Clara, you have not been exposed to +the weather?" + +"Hardly at all." + +"I rejoice. You found shelter?" + +"Yes." + +"In one of the cottages?" + +"Not in a cottage; but I was perfectly sheltered. Colonel De Craye +passed a fly before he met me . . + +"Flitch again!" ejaculated the colonel. + +"Yes, you have luck, you have luck," Willoughby addressed him, +still clutching Crossjay and treating his tugs to get loose as an +invitation to caresses. But the foil barely concealed his livid +perturbation. + +"Stay by me, sir," he said at last sharply to Crossjay, and Clara +touched the boy's shoulder in admonishment of him. + +She turned to the colonel as they stepped into the hall: "I have +not thanked you, Colonel De Craye." She dropped her voice to its +lowest: "A letter in my handwriting in the laboratory." + +Crossjay cried aloud with pain. + +"I have you!" Willoughby rallied him with a laugh not unlike the +squeak of his victim. + +"You squeeze awfully hard, sir." + +"Why, you milksop!" + +"Am I! But I want to get a book." + +"Where is the book?" + +"In the laboratory." + +Colonel De Craye, sauntering by the laboratory door, sung out: +"I'll fetch you your book. What is it? EARLY NAVIGATORS? INFANT +HYMNS? I think my cigar-case is in here." + +"Barclay speaks of a letter for me," Willoughby said to Clara, +"marked to be delivered to me at noon!" + +"In case of my not being back earlier; it was written to avert +anxiety," she replied. + +"You are very good." + +"Oh, good! Call me anything but good. Here are the ladies. Dear +ladies!" Clara swam to meet them as they issued from a +morning-room into the hall, and interjections reigned for a couple +of minutes. + +Willoughby relinquished his grasp of Crossjay, who darted +instantaneously at an angle to the laboratory, whither he followed, +and he encountered De Craye coming out, but passed him in silence. + +Crossjay was rangeing and peering all over the room. Willoughby +went to his desk and the battery-table and the mantelpiece. He +found no letter. Barclay had undoubtedly informed him that she had +left a letter for him in the laboratory, by order of her mistress +after breakfast. + +He hurried out and ran upstairs in time to see De Craye and +Barclay breaking a conference. + +He beckoned to her. The maid lengthened her upper lip and beat her +dress down smooth: signs of the apprehension of a crisis and of +the getting ready for action. + +"My mistress's bell has just rung, Sir Willoughby." + +"You had a letter for me." + +"I said . . ." + +"You said when I met you at the foot of the stairs that you had +left a letter for me in the laboratory." + +"It is lying on my mistress's toilet-table." + +"Get it." + +Barclay swept round with another of her demure grimaces. It was +apparently necessary with her that she should talk to herself in +this public manner. + +Willoughby waited for her; but there was no reappearance of the +maid. + +Struck by the ridicule of his posture of expectation, and of his +whole behaviour, he went to his bedroom suite, shut himself in, +and paced the chambers, amazed at the creature he had become. +Agitated like the commonest of wretches, destitute of +self-control, not able to preserve a decent mask, be, accustomed +to inflict these emotions and tremours upon others, was at once +the puppet and dupe of an intriguing girl. His very stature seemed +lessened. The glass did not say so, but the shrunken heart within +him did, and wailfully too. Her compunction--'Call me anything +but good'--coming after her return to the Hall beside De Craye, +and after the visible passage of a secret between them in his +presence, was a confession: it blew at him with the fury of a +furnace-blast in his face. Egoist agony wrung the outcry from him +that dupery is a more blessed condition. He desired to be +deceived. + +He could desire such a thing only in a temporary transport; for +above all he desired that no one should know of his being +deceived; and were he a dupe the deceiver would know it, and her +accomplice would know it, and the world would soon know of it: +that world against whose tongue he stood defenceless. Within the +shadow of his presence he compressed opinion, as a strong frost +binds the springs of earth, but beyond it his shivering +sensitiveness ran about in dread of a stripping in a wintry +atmosphere. This was the ground of his hatred of the world: it was +an appalling fear on behalf of his naked eidolon, the tender +infant Self swaddled in his name before the world, for which he +felt as the most highly civilized of men alone can feel, and which +it was impossible for him to stretch out hands to protect. There +the poor little loveable creature ran for any mouth to blow on; +and frostnipped and bruised, it cried to him, and he was of no +avail! Must we not detest a world that so treats us? We loathe it +the more, by the measure of our contempt for them, when we have +made the people within the shadow-circle of our person slavish. + +And he had been once a young prince in popularity: the world had +been his possession. Clara's treatment of him was a robbery of +land and subjects. His grander dream had been a marriage with a +lady of so glowing a fame for beauty and attachment to her lord +that the world perforce must take her for witness to merits which +would silence detraction and almost, not quite (it was +undesireable), extinguish envy. But for the nature of women his +dream would have been realized. He could not bring himself to +denounce Fortune. It had cost him a grievous pang to tell Horace +De Craye he was lucky; he had been educated in the belief that +Fortune specially prized and cherished little Willoughby: hence of +necessity his maledictions fell upon women, or he would have +forfeited the last blanket of a dream warm as poets revel in. + +But if Clara deceived him, he inspired her with timidity. There +was matter in that to make him wish to be deceived. She had not +looked him much in the face: she had not crossed his eyes: she had +looked deliberately downward, keeping her head up, to preserve an +exterior pride. The attitude had its bewitchingness: the girl's +physical pride of stature scorning to bend under a load of +conscious guilt, had a certain black-angel beauty for which he +felt a hugging hatred: and according to his policy when these fits +of amorous meditation seized him, he burst from the present one +in the mood of his more favourable conception of Clara, and sought +her out. + +The quality of the mood of hugging hatred is, that if you are +disallowed the hug, you do not hate the fiercer. + +Contrariwise the prescription of a decorous distance of two feet +ten inches, which is by measurement the delimitation exacted of a +rightly respectful deportment, has this miraculous effect on the +great creature man, or often it has: that his peculiar hatred +returns to the reluctant admiration begetting it, and his passion +for the hug falls prostrate as one of the Faithful before the +shrine; he is reduced to worship by fasting. + +(For these mysteries, consult the sublime chapter in the GREAT +BOOK, tile Seventy-first on LOVE, wherein nothing is written, but +the Reader receives a Lanthorn, a Powder-cask and a Pick-axe, and +therewith pursues his yellow-dusking path across the rubble of +preceding excavators in the solitary quarry: a yet more +instructive passage than the overscrawled Seventieth, or French +Section, whence the chapter opens, and where hitherto the polite +world has halted.) + +The hurry of the hero is on us, we have no time to spare for +mining works: he hurried to catch her alone, to wreak his tortures +on her in a bitter semblance of bodily worship, and satiated, then +comfortably to spurn. He found her protected by Barclay on the +stairs. + +"That letter for me?" he said. + +"I think I told you, Willoughby, there was a letter I left with +Barclay to reassure you in case of my not returning early," said +Clara. "It was unnecessary for her to deliver it." + +"Indeed? But any letter, any writing of yours, and from you to me! +You have it still?" + +No, I have destroyed it." + +"That was wrong." + +"It could not have given you pleasure." + +"My dear Clara, one line from you!" + +"There were but three." + +Barclay stood sucking her lips. A maid in the secrets of her +mistress is a purchaseable maid, for if she will take a bribe with +her right hand she will with her left; all that has to be +calculated is the nature and amount of the bribe: such was the +speculation indulged by Sir Willoughby, and he shrank from the +thought and declined to know more than that he was on a volcanic +hillside where a thin crust quaked over lava. This was a new +condition with him, representing Clara's gain in their combat. +Clara did not fear his questioning so much as he feared her +candour. + +Mutually timid, they were of course formally polite, and no plain +speaking could have told one another more distinctly that each was +defensive. Clara stood pledged to the fib; packed, scaled and +posted; and he had only to ask to have it, supposing that he asked +with a voice not exactly peremptory. + +She said in her heart, "It is your fault: you are relentless and +you would ruin Crossjay to punish him for devoting himself to me, +like the poor thoughtless boy he is! and so I am bound in honour +to do my utmost for him." + +The reciprocal devotedness, moreover, served two purposes: it +preserved her from brooding on the humiliation of her lame flight, +and flutter back, and it quieted her mind in regard to the +precipitate intimacy of her relations with Colonel De Craye. +Willoughby's boast of his implacable character was to blame. She +was at war with him, and she was compelled to put the case in that +light. Crossjay must be shielded from one who could not spare an +offender, so Colonel De Craye quite naturally was called on for +his help, and the colonel's dexterous aid appeared to her more +admirable than alarming. + +Nevertheless, she would not have answered a direct question +falsely. She was for the fib, but not the lie; at a word she could +be disdainful of subterfuges. Her look said that. Willoughby +perceived it. She had written him a letter of three lines: "There +were but three": and she had destroyed the letter. Something +perchance was repented by her? Then she had done him an injury! +Between his wrath at the suspicion of an injury, and the prudence +enjoined by his abject coveting of her, he consented to be fooled +for the sake of vengeance, and something besides. + +"Well! here you are, safe; I have you!" said he, with courtly +exultation: "and that is better than your handwriting. I have been +all over the country after you." + +"Why did you? We are not in a barbarous land," said Clara. + +"Crossjay talks of your visiting a sick child, my love:--you have +changed your dress?" + +"You see." + +"The boy declared you were going to that farm of Hoppner's, and +some cottage. I met at my gates a tramping vagabond who swore to +seeing you and the boy in a totally contrary direction." + +"Did you give him money?" + +"I fancy so." + +"Then he was paid for having seen me." + +Willoughby tossed his head: it might be as she suggested; beggars +are liars. + +"But who sheltered you, my dear Clara? You had not been heard of +at Hoppner's." + +"The people have been indemnified for their pains. To pay them +more would be to spoil them. You disperse money too liberally. +There was no fever in the place. Who could have anticipated such a +downpour! I want to consult Miss Dale on the important theme of a +dress I think of wearing at Mrs Mountstuart's to-night." + +"Do. She is unerring." + +"She has excellent taste." + +"She dresses very simply herself." + +"But it becomes her. She is one of the few women whom I feel I +could not improve with a touch." + +"She has judgement." + +He reflected and repeated his encomium. + +The shadow of a dimple in Clara's cheek awakened him to the idea +that she had struck him somewhere: and certainly he would never +again be able to put up the fiction of her jealousy of Laetitia. +What, then, could be this girl's motive for praying to be +released? The interrogation humbled him: he fled from the answer. + +Willoughby went in search of De Craye. That sprightly intriguer +had no intention to let himself be caught solus. He was +undiscoverable until the assembly sounded, when Clara dropped a +public word or two, and he spoke in perfect harmony with her. +After that, he gave his company to Willoughby for an hour at +billiards, and was well beaten. + +The announcement of a visit of Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson took the +gentlemen to the drawing-room, rather suspecting that something +stood in the way of her dinner-party. As it happened, she was +lamenting only the loss of one of the jewels of the party: to wit, +the great Professor Crooklyn, invited to meet Dr. Middleton at her +table; and she related how she had driven to the station by +appointment, the professor being notoriously a bother-headed +traveller: as was shown by the fact that he had missed his train +in town, for he had not arrived; nothing had been seen of him. She +cited Vernon Whitford for her authority that the train had been +inspected, and the platform scoured to find the professor. + +"And so," said she, "I drove home your Green Man to dry him; he +was wet through and chattering; the man was exactly like a +skeleton wrapped in a sponge, and if he escapes a cold he must be +as invulnerable as he boasts himself. These athletes are terrible +boasters." + +"They climb their Alps to crow," said Clara, excited by her +apprehension that Mrs. Mountstuart would speak of having seen the +colonel near the station. + +There was a laugh, and Colonel De Craye laughed loudly as it +flashed through him that a quick-witted impressionable girl like +Miss Middleton must, before his arrival at the Hall, have +speculated on such obdurate clay as Vernon Whitford was, with +humourous despair at his uselessness to her. Glancing round, he +saw Vernon standing fixed in a stare at the young lady. + +"You heard that, Whitford?" he said, and Clara's face betokening +an extremer contrition than he thought was demanded, the colonel +rallied the Alpine climber for striving to be the tallest of them +--Signor Excelsior!--and described these conquerors of mountains +pancaked on the rocks in desperate embraces, bleached here, burned +there, barked all over, all to be able to say they had been up "so +high"--had conquered another mountain! He was extravagantly funny +and self-satisfied: a conqueror of the sex having such different +rewards of enterprise. + +Vernon recovered in time to accept the absurdities heaped on him. + +"Climbing peaks won't compare with hunting a wriggler," said he. + +His allusion to the incessant pursuit of young Crossjay to pin him +to lessons was appreciated. + +Clara felt the thread of the look he cast from herself to Colonel +De Craye. She was helpless, if he chose to misjudge her. Colonel +De Craye did not! + +Crossjay had the misfortune to enter the drawing-room while Mrs. +Mountstuart was compassionating Vernon for his ducking in pursuit +of the wriggler; which De Craye likened to "going through the +river after his eel:" and immediately there was a +cross-questioning of the boy between De Craye and Willoughby on +the subject of his latest truancy, each gentleman trying to run +him down in a palpable fib. They were succeeding brilliantly when +Vernon put a stop to it by marching him off to hard labour. Mrs. +Mountstuart was led away to inspect the beautiful porcelain +service, the present of Lady Busshe. "Porcelain again!" she said +to Willoughby, and would have signalled to the "dainty rogue" to +come with them, had not Clara been leaning over to Laetitia, +talking to her in an attitude too graceful to be disturbed. She +called his attention to it, slightly wondering at his impatience. +She departed to meet an afternoon train on the chance that it +would land the professor. "But tell Dr. Middleton," said she, "I +fear I shall have no one worthy of him! And," she added to +Willoughby, as she walked out to her carriage, "I shall expect you +to do the great-gunnery talk at table." + +"Miss Dale keeps it up with him best," said Willoughby. + +"She does everything best! But my dinner-table is involved, and I +cannot count on a young woman to talk across it. I would hire a +lion of a menagerie, if one were handy, rather than have a famous +scholar at my table, unsupported by another famous scholar. Doctor +Middleton would ride down a duke when the wine is in him. He will +terrify my poor flock. The truth is, we can't leaven him: I +foresee undigested lumps of conversation, unless you devote +yourself." + +"I will devote myself," said Willoughby. + +"I can calculate on Colonel De Craye and our porcelain beauty for +any quantity of sparkles, if you promise that. They play well +together. You are not to be one of the gods to-night, but a kind +of Jupiter's cup-bearer;--Juno's, if you like; and Lady Busshe +and Lady Culmer, and all your admirers shall know subsequently +what you have done. You see my alarm. I certainly did not rank +Professor Crooklyn among the possibly faithless, or I never would +have ventured on Doctor Middleton at my table. My dinner-parties +have hitherto been all successes. Naturally I feel the greater +anxiety about this one. For a single failure is all the more +conspicuous. The exception is everlastingly cited! It is not so +much what people say, but my own sentiments. I hate to fail. +However, if you are true, we may do." + +"Whenever the great gun goes off I will fall on my face, madam!" + +"Something of that sort," said the dame, smiling, and leaving him +to reflect on the egoism of women. For the sake of her +dinner-party he was to be a cipher in attendance on Dr. Middleton, +and Clara and De Craye were to be encouraged in sparkling +together! And it happened that he particularly wished to shine. +The admiration of his county made him believe he had a flavour in +general society that was not yet distinguished by his bride, and +he was to relinquish his opportunity in order to please Mrs. +Mountstuart! Had she been in the pay of his rival, she could not +have stipulated for more. + +He remembered young Crossjay's instant quietude, after struggling +in his grasp, when Clara laid her hand on the boy: and from that +infinitesimal circumstance he deduced the boy's perception of a +differing between himself and his bride, and a transfer of +Crossjay's allegiance from him to her. She shone; she had the +gift of female beauty; the boy was attracted to it. That boy must +be made to feel his treason. But the point of the cogitation was, +that similarly were Clara to see her affianced shining, as shine +he could when lighted up by admirers, there was the probability +that the sensation of her littleness would animate her to take aim +at him once more. And then was the time for her chastisement. + +A visit to Dr. Middleton in the library satisfied him that she had +not been renewing her entreaties to leave Patterne. No, the +miserable coquette had now her pastime, and was content to stay. +Deceit was in the air: he heard the sound of the shuttle of deceit +without seeing it; but, on the whole, mindful of what he had +dreaded during the hours of her absence, he was rather flattered, +witheringly flattered. What was it that he had dreaded? Nothing +less than news of her running away. Indeed a silly fancy, a +lover's fancy! yet it had led him so far as to suspect, after +parting with De Craye in the rain, that his friend and his bride +were in collusion, and that he should not see them again. He had +actually shouted on the rainy road the theatric call "Fooled!" one +of the stage-cries which are cries of nature! particularly the cry +of nature with men who have driven other men to the cry. + +Constantia Durham had taught him to believe women capable of +explosions of treason at half a minute's notice. And strangely, +to prove that women are all of a pack, she had worn exactly the +same placidity of countenance just before she fled, as Clara +yesterday and to-day; no nervousness, no flushes, no twitches of +the brows, but smoothness, ease of manner--an elegant +sisterliness, one might almost say: as if the creature had found a +midway and borderline to walk on between cruelty and kindness, and +between repulsion and attraction; so that up to the verge of her +breath she did forcefully attract, repelling at one foot's length +with her armour of chill serenity. Not with any disdain, with no +passion: such a line as she herself pursued she indicated to him +on a neighbouring parallel. The passion in her was like a place of +waves evaporated to a crust of salt. Clara's resemblance to +Constantia in this instance was ominous. For him whose tragic +privilege it had been to fold each of them in his arms, and weigh +on their eyelids, and see the dissolving mist-deeps in their eyes, +it was horrible. Once more the comparison overcame him. Constantia +he could condemn for revealing too much to his manly sight: she +had met him almost half-way: well, that was complimentary and +sanguine: but her frankness was a baldness often rendering it +doubtful which of the two, lady or gentleman, was the object of +the chase--an extreme perplexity to his manly soul. Now Clara's +inner spirit was shyer, shy as a doe down those rose-tinged +abysses; she allured both the lover and the hunter; forests of +heavenliness were in her flitting eyes. Here the difference of +these fair women made his present fate an intolerable anguish. For +if Constantia was like certain of the ladies whom he had rendered +unhappy, triumphed over, as it is queerly called, Clara was not. +Her individuality as a woman was a thing he had to bow to. It was +impossible to roll her up in the sex and bestow a kick on the +travelling bundle. Hence he loved her, though she hurt him. Hence +his wretchedness, and but for the hearty sincerity of his faith in +the Self he loved likewise and more, he would have been hangdog +abject. + +As for De Craye, Willoughby recollected his own exploits too +proudly to put his trust in a man. That fatal conjunction of +temper and policy had utterly thrown him off his guard, or he +would not have trusted the fellow even in the first hour of his +acquaintance with Clara. But he had wished her to be amused while +he wove his plans to retain her at the Hall:--partly imagining +that she would weary of his neglect: vile delusion! In truth he +should have given festivities, he should have been the sun of a +circle, and have revealed himself to her in his more dazzling +form. He went near to calling himself foolish after the tremendous +reverberation of "Fooled!" had ceased to shake him. + +How behave? It slapped the poor gentleman's pride in the face to +ask. A private talk with her would rouse her to renew her +supplications. He saw them flickering behind the girl's +transparent calmness. That calmness really drew its dead ivory hue +from the suppression of them: something as much he guessed; and he +was not sure either of his temper or his policy if he should hear +her repeat her profane request. + +An impulse to address himself to Vernon and discourse with him +jocularly on the childish whim of a young lady, moved perhaps by +some whiff of jealousy, to shun the yoke, was checked. He had +always taken so superior a pose with Vernon that he could not +abandon it for a moment: on such a subject too! Besides, Vernon +was one of your men who entertain the ideas about women of fellows +that have never conquered one: or only one, we will say in his +case, knowing his secret history; and that one no flag to boast +of. Densely ignorant of the sex, his nincompoopish idealizations, +at other times preposterous, would now be annoying. He would +probably presume on Clara's inconceivable lapse of dignity to read +his master a lecture: he was quite equal to a philippic upon +woman's rights. This man had not been afraid to say that he talked +common sense to women. He was an example of the consequence! + +Another result was that Vernon did not talk sense to men. +Willoughby's wrath at Clara's exposure of him to his cousin +dismissed the proposal of a colloquy so likely to sting his +temper, and so certain to diminish his loftiness. Unwilling to +speak to anybody, he was isolated, yet consciously begirt by the +mysterious action going on all over the house. from Clara and De +Craye to Laetitia and young Crossjay, down to Barclay the maid. +His blind sensitiveness felt as we may suppose a spider to feel +when plucked from his own web and set in the centre of another's. +Laetitia looked her share in the mystery. A burden was on her +eyelashes. How she could have come to any suspicion of the +circumstances, he was unable to imagine. Her intense personal +sympathy, it might be; he thought so with some gentle pity for her +--of the paternal pat-back order of pity. She adored him, by +decree of Venus; and the Goddess had not decreed that he should +find consolation in adoring her. Nor could the temptings of +prudent counsel in his head induce him to run the risk of such a +total turnover as the incurring of Laetitia's pity of himself by +confiding in her. He checked that impulse also, and more +sovereignly. For him to be pitied by Laetitia seemed an upsetting +of the scheme of Providence. Providence, otherwise the +discriminating dispensation of the good things of life, had made +him the beacon, her the bird: she was really the last person to +whom he could unbosom. The idea of his being in a position that +suggested his doing so, thrilled him with fits of rage; and it +appalled him. There appeared to be another Power. The same which +had humiliated him once was menacing him anew. For it could not be +Providence, whose favourite he had ever been. We must have a +couple of Powers to account for discomfort when Egoism is the +kernel of our religion. Benevolence had singled him for uncommon +benefits: malignancy was at work to rob him of them. And you think +well of the world, do you! + +Of necessity he associated Clara with the darker Power pointing +the knife at the quick of his pride. Still, he would have raised +her weeping: he would have stanched her wounds bleeding: he had an +infinite thirst for her misery, that he might ease his heart of +its charitable love. Or let her commit herself, and be cast off +Only she must commit herself glaringly, and be cast off by the +world as well. Contemplating her in the form of a discarded weed. +he had a catch of the breath: she was fair. He implored his Power +that Horace De Craye might not be the man! Why any man? An +illness, fever, fire, runaway horses, personal disfigurement, a +laming, were sufficient. And then a formal and noble offer on his +part to keep to the engagement with the unhappy wreck: yes, and to +lead the limping thing to the altar, if she insisted. His +imagination conceived it, and the world's applause besides. + +Nausea, together with a sense of duty to his line, extinguished +that loathsome prospect of a mate, though without obscuring his +chivalrous devotion to his gentleman's word of honour, which +remained in his mind to compliment him permanently. + +On the whole, he could reasonably hope to subdue her to +admiration. He drank a glass of champagne at his dressing; an +unaccustomed act, but, as he remarked casually to his man +Pollington, for whom the rest of the bottle was left, he had taken +no horse-exercise that day. + +Having to speak to Vernon on business, he went to the schoolroom, +where he discovered Clara, beautiful in full evening attire, with +her arm on young Crossjay's shoulder, and heard that the hard +task-master had abjured Mrs. Mountstuart's party, and had already +excused himself, intending to keep Crossjay to the grindstone. +Willoughby was for the boy, as usual, and more sparklingly than +usual. Clara looked at him in some surprise. He rallied Vernon +with great zest, quite silencing him when he said: "I bear witness +that the fellow was here at his regular hour for lessons, and were +you?" He laid his hand on Crossjay, touching Clara's. + +"You will remember what I told you, Crossjay," said she, rising +from the seat gracefully to escape the touch. "It is my command." + +Crossjay frowned and puffed. + +"But only if I'm questioned," he said. + +"Certainly," she replied. + +"Then I question the rascal," said Willoughby, causing a start. +"What, sir, is your opinion of Miss Middleton in her robe of state +this evening?" + +"Now, the truth, Crossjay!" Clara held up a finger; and the boy +could see she was playing at archness, but for Willoughby it was +earnest. "The truth is not likely to offend you or me either," he +murmured to her. + +"I wish him never, never, on any excuse, to speak anything else." + +"I always did think her a Beauty," Crossjay growled. He hated the +having to say it. + +"There!" exclaimed Sir Willoughby, and bent, extending an arm to +her. "You have not suffered from the truth, my Clara!" + +Her answer was: "I was thinking how he might suffer if he were +taught to tell the reverse." + +"Oh! for a fair lady!" + +"That is the worst of teaching, Willoughby." + +"We'll leave it to the fellow's instinct; he has our blood in him. +I could convince you, though, if I might cite circumstances. Yes! +But yes! And yes again! The entire truth cannot invariably be +told. I venture to say it should not." + +"You would pardon it for the 'fair lady'?" + +"Applaud, my love." + +He squeezed the hand within his arm, contemplating her. + +She was arrayed in a voluminous robe of pale blue silk vapourous +with trimmings of light gauze of the same hue, gaze de Chambery, +matching her fair hair and dear skin for the complete overthrow of +less inflammable men than Willoughby. + +"Clara!" sighed be. + +"If so, it would really be generous," she said, "though the +teaching h bad." + +"I fancy I can be generous." + +"Do we ever know?" + +He turned his head to Vernon, issuing brief succinct instructions +for letters to be written, and drew her into the hall, saying: +"Know? There are people who do not know themselves and as they are +the majority they manufacture the axioms. And it is assumed that +we have to swallow them. I may observe that I think I know. I +decline to be engulphed in those majorities. 'Among them, but not +of them.' I know this, that my aim in life is to be generous." + +"Is it not an impulse or disposition rather than an aim?" + +"So much I know," pursued Willoughby, refusing to be tripped. But +she rang discordantly in his ear. His "fancy that he could be +generous" and his "aim at being generous" had met with no +response. "I have given proofs," he said, briefly, to drop a +subject upon which he was not permitted to dilate; and he +murmured, "People acquainted with me ... !" She was asked if she +expected him to boast of generous deeds. "From childhood!" she +heard him mutter; and she said to herself, "Release me, and you +shall be everything!" + +The unhappy gentleman ached as he talked: for with men and with +hosts of women to whom he was indifferent, never did he converse +in this shambling, third-rate, sheepish manner, devoid of all +highness of tone and the proper precision of an authority. He was +unable to fathom the cause of it, but Clara imposed it on him, and +only in anger could he throw it off. The temptation to an outburst +that would flatter him with the sound of his authoritative voice +had to be resisted on a night when he must be composed if he +intended to shine, so he merely mentioned Lady Busshe's present, +to gratify spleen by preparing the ground for dissension, and +prudently acquiesced in her anticipated slipperiness. She would +rather not look at it now, she said. + +"Not now; very well," said he. + +His immediate deference made her regretful. "There is hardly +time, Willoughby." + +"My dear, we shall have to express our thanks to her." + +"I cannot." + +His arm contracted sharply. He was obliged to be silent. + +Dr Middleton, Laetitia, and the ladies Eleanor and Isabel joining +them in the hall, found two figures linked together in a shadowy +indication of halves that have fallen apart and hang on the last +thread of junction. Willoughby retained her hand on his arm; he +held to it as the symbol of their alliance, and oppressed the +girl's nerves by contact, with a frame labouring for breath. De +Craye looked on them from overhead. The carriages were at the +door, and Willoughby said, "Where's Horace? I suppose he's taking +a final shot at his Book of Anecdotes and neat collection of +Irishisms." + +"No," replied the colonel, descending. "That's a spring works of +itself and has discovered the secret of continuous motion, more's +the pity!--unless you'll be pleased to make it of use to +Science." + +He gave a laugh of good-humour. + +"Your laughter, Horace, is a capital comment on your wit." + +Willoughby said it with the air of one who has flicked a whip. + +"'Tis a genial advertisement of a vacancy," said De Craye. + +Precisely: three parts auctioneer to one for the property." + +"Oh, if you have a musical quack, score it a point in his favour, +Willoughby, though you don't swallow his drug." + +"If he means to be musical, let him keep time." + +"Am I late?" said De Craye to the ladies, proving himself an adept +in the art of being gracefully vanquished, and so winning tender +hearts. + +Willoughby had refreshed himself. At the back of his mind there was +a suspicion that his adversary would not have yielded so flatly +without an assurance of practically triumphing, secretly getting +the better of him; and it filled him with venom for a further bout +at the next opportunity: but as he had been sarcastic and mordant, +he had shown Clara what he could do in a way of speaking different +from the lamentable cooing stuff, gasps and feeble protestations +to which, he knew not how, she reduced him. Sharing the opinion of +his race, that blunt personalities, or the pugilistic form, +administered directly on the salient features, are exhibitions of +mastery in such encounters, he felt strong and solid, eager for +the successes of the evening. De Craye was in the first carriage +as escort to the ladies Eleanor and Isabel. Willoughby, with +Clara, Laetitia, and Dr. Middleton, followed, all silent, for the +Rev. Doctor was ostensibly pondering; and Willoughby was damped a +little when he unlocked his mouth to say: + +"And yet I have not observed that Colonel de Craye is anything of +a Celtiberian Egnatius meriting fustigation for an untimely +display of well-whitened teeth, sir: 'quicquid est, ubicunque est, +quodcunque agit, renidet:':--ha? a morbus neither charming nor +urbane to the general eye, however consolatory to the actor. But +this gentleman does not offend so, or I am so strangely +prepossessed in his favour as to be an incompetent witness." + +Dr Middleton's persistent ha? eh? upon an honest frown of inquiry +plucked an answer out of Willoughby that was meant to be +humourously scornful, and soon became apologetic under the Doctor's +interrogatively grasping gaze. + +"These Irishmen," Willoughby said, "will play the professional +jester as if it were an office they were born to. We must play +critic now and then, otherwise we should have them deluging us +with their Joe Millerisms." + +"With their O'Millerisms you would say, perhaps?" + +Willoughby did his duty to the joke, but the Rev. Doctor, though +he wore the paternal smile of a man that has begotten hilarity, +was not perfectly propitiated, and pursued: "Nor to my +apprehension is 'the man's laugh the comment on his wit' +unchallengeably new: instances of cousinship germane to the phrase +will recur to you. But it has to be noted that it was a phrase of +assault; it was ostentatiously battery; and I would venture to +remind you, friend, that among the elect, considering that it is +as fatally facile to spring the laugh upon a man as to deprive him +of his life, considering that we have only to condescend to the +weapon, and that the more popular necessarily the more murderous +that weapon is,--among the elect, to which it is your distinction +to aspire to belong, the rule holds to abstain from any employment +of the obvious, the percoct, and likewise, for your own sake, from +the epitonic, the overstrained; for if the former, by readily +assimilating with the understandings of your audience, are +empowered to commit assassination on your victim, the latter come +under the charge of unseemliness, inasmuch as they are a +description of public suicide. Assuming, then, manslaughter to be +your pastime, and hari-kari not to be your bent, the phrase, to +escape criminality, must rise in you as you would have it fall on +him, ex improviso. Am I right?" + +"I am in the habit of thinking it impossible, sir, that you can be +in error," said Willoughby. + +Dr Middleton left it the more emphatic by saying nothing further. + +Both his daughter and Miss Dale, who had disapproved the waspish +snap at Colonel De Craye, were in wonderment of the art of speech +which could so soothingly inform a gentleman that his behaviour +had not been gentlemanly. + +Willoughby was damped by what he comprehended of it for a few +minutes. In proportion as he realized an evening with his ancient +admirers he was restored, and he began to marvel greatly at his +folly in not giving banquets and Balls, instead of making a +solitude about himself and his bride. For solitude, thought he, is +good for the man, the man being a creature consumed by passion; +woman's love, on the contrary, will only be nourished by the +reflex light she catches of you in the eyes of others, she having +no passion of her own, but simply an instinct driving her to +attach herself to whatsoever is most largely admired, most +shining. So thinking, he determined to change his course of +conduct, and he was happier. In the first gush of our wisdom drawn +directly from experience there is a mental intoxication that +cancels the old world and establishes a new one, not allowing us +to ask whether it is too late. + + +CHAPTER XXX + +Treating of the Dinner-Party at Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson's + +Vernon and young Crossjay had tolerably steady work together for a +couple of hours, varied by the arrival of a plate of meat on a +tray for the master, and some interrogations put to him from time +to time by the boy in reference to Miss Middleton. Crossjay made +the discovery that if he abstained from alluding to Miss +Middleton's beauty he might water his dusty path with her name +nearly as much as he liked. Mention of her beauty incurred a +reprimand. On the first occasion his master was wistful. "Isn't +she glorious!" Crossjay fancied he had started a sovereign receipt +for blessed deviations. He tried it again, but paedagogue-thunder +broke over his head. + +"Yes, only I can't understand what she means, Mr. Whitford," he +excused himself "First I was not to tell; I know I wasn't, because +she said so; she quite as good as said so. Her last words were: +'Mind, Crossjay, you know nothing about me', when I stuck to that +beast of a tramp, who's a 'walking moral,' and gets money out of +people by snuffling it." + +"Attend to your lesson, or you'll be one," said Vernon. + +"Yes, but, Mr. Whitford, now I am to tell. I'm to answer straight +out to every question." + +"Miss Middleton is anxious that you should be truthful." + +"Yes; but in the morning she told me not to tell." + +"She was in a hurry. She has it on her conscience that you may +have misunderstood her, and she wishes you never to be guilty of +an untruth, least of all on her account." + +Crossjay committed an unspoken resolution to the air in a violent +sigh: "Ah!" and said: "If I were sure!" + +"Do as she bids you, my boy." + +"But I don't know what it is she wants." + +"Hold to her last words to you." + +"So I do. If she told me to run till I dropped, on I'd go." + +"She told you to study your lessons; do that." + +Crossjay buckled to his book, invigorated by an imagination of his +liege lady on the page. + +After a studious interval, until the impression of his lady had +subsided. he resumed: "She's so funny. She's just like a girl, and +then she's a lady, too. She's my idea of a princess. And Colonel +De Craye! Wasn't he taught dancing! When he says something funny +he ducks and seems to be setting to his partner. I should like to +be as clever as her father. That is a clever man. I dare say +Colonel De Craye will dance with her tonight. I wish I was there." + +"It's a dinner-party, not a dance," Vernon forced himself to say, +to dispel that ugly vision. + +"Isn't it, sir? I thought they danced after dinner-parties, Mr. +Whitford, have you ever seen her run?" + +Vernon pointed him to his task. + +They were silent for a lengthened period. + +"But does Miss Middleton mean me to speak out if Sir Willoughby +asks me?" said Crossjay. + +"Certainly. You needn't make much of it. All's plain and simple." + +"But I'm positive, Mr. Whitford, he wasn't to hear of her going to +the post-office with me before breakfast. And how did Colonel De +Craye find her and bring her back, with that old Flitch? He's a +man and can go where he pleases, and I'd have found her, too. give +me the chance. You know. I'm fond of Miss Dale, but she--I'm very +fond of her--but you can't think she's a girl as well. And about +Miss Dale, when she says a thing, there it is, clear. But Miss +Middleton has a lot of meanings. Never mind; I go by what's +inside, and I'm pretty sure to please her." + +"Take your chin off your hand and your elbow off the book, and fix +yourself," said Vernon, wrestling with the seduction of Crossjay's +idolatry, for Miss Middleton's appearance had been preternaturally +sweet on her departure, and the next pleasure to seeing her was +hearing of her from the lips of this passionate young poet. + +"Remember that you please her by speaking truth," Vernon added, +and laid himself open to questions upon the truth, by which he +learnt, with a perplexed sense of envy and sympathy, that the +boy's idea of truth strongly approximated to his conception of +what should be agreeable to Miss Middleton. + +He was lonely, bereft of the bard, when he had tucked Crossjay up +in his bed and left him. Books he could not read; thoughts were +disturbing. A seat in the library and a stupid stare helped to +pass the hours, and but for the spot of sadness moving meditation +in spite of his effort to stun himself, he would have borne a +happy resemblance to an idiot in the sun. He had verily no +command of his reason. She was too beautiful! Whatever she did was +best. That was the refrain of the fountain-song in him; the burden +being her whims, variations, inconsistencies, wiles; her +tremblings between good and naughty, that might be stamped to +noble or to terrible; her sincereness, her duplicity, her courage, +cowardice, possibilities for heroism and for treachery. By dint of +dwelling on the theme, he magnified the young lady to +extraordinary stature. And he had sense enough to own that her +character was yet liquid in the mould, and that she was a creature +of only naturally youthful wildness provoked to freakishness by +the ordeal of a situation shrewd as any that can happen to her sex +in civilized life. But he was compelled to think of her +extravagantly, and he leaned a little to the discrediting of her, +because her actual image ummanned him and was unbearable; and to +say at the end of it: "She is too beautiful! whatever she does is +best," smoothed away the wrong he did her. Had it been in his +power he would have thought of her in the abstract--the stage +contiguous to that which he adopted: but the attempt was luckless; +the Stagyrite would have faded in it. What philosopher could +have set down that face of sun and breeze and nymph in shadow as a +point in a problem? + +The library door was opened at midnight by Miss Dale. She dosed it +quietly. "You are not working, Mr. Whitford? I fancied you would +wish to hear of the evening. Professor Crooklyn arrived after all! +Mrs. Mountstuart is bewildered: she says she expected you, and +that you did not excuse yourself to her, and she cannot +comprehend, et caetera. That is to say, she chooses bewilderment +to indulge in the exclamatory. She must be very much annoyed. The +professor did come by the train she drove to meet!" + +"I thought it probable," said Vernon. + +"He had to remain a couple of hours at the Railway Inn; no +conveyance was to be found for him. He thinks he has caught a +cold, and cannot stifle his fretfulness about it. He may be as +learned as Doctor Middleton; he has not the same happy +constitution. Nothing more unfortunate could have occurred; he +spoilt the party. Mrs. Mountstuart tried petting him, which drew +attention to him, and put us all in his key for several awkward +minutes, more than once. She lost her head; she was unlike +herself I may be presumptuous in criticizing her, but should not +the president of a dinner-table treat it like a battlefield, and +let the guest that sinks descend, and not allow the voice of a +discordant, however illustrious, to rule it? Of course, it is when +I see failures that I fancy I could manage so well: comparison is +prudently reserved in the other cases. I am a daring critic, no +doubt, because I know I shall never be tried by experiment. I have +no ambition to be tried." + +She did not notice a smile of Vernon's, and continued: "Mrs +Mountstuart gave him the lead upon any subject he chose. I thought +the professor never would have ceased talking of a young lady who +had been at the inn before him drinking hot brandy and water with +a gentleman!" + +"How did he hear of that?" cried Vernon, roused by the malignity +of the Fates. + +"From the landlady, trying to comfort him. And a story of her +lending shoes and stockings while those of the young lady were +drying. He has the dreadful snappish humourous way of recounting +which impresses it; the table took up the subject of this +remarkable young lady, and whether she was a lady of the +neighbourhood, and who she could be that went abroad on foot in +heavy rain. It was painful to me; I knew enough to be sure of who +she was." + +"Did she betray it?" + +"No." + +"Did Willoughby look at her?" + +"Without suspicion then." + +"Then?" + +"Colonel De Craye was diverting us, and he was very amusing. +Mrs. Mountstuart told him afterward that he ought to be paid +salvage for saving the wreck of her party. Sir Willoughby was a +little too cynical; he talked well; what he said was good, but it +was not good-humoured; he has not the reckless indifference of +Colonel De Craye to uttering nonsense that amusement may come of +it. And in the drawing-room he lost such gaiety as he had. I was +close to Mrs. Mountstuart when Professor Crooklyn approached her +and spoke in my hearing of that gentleman and that young lady. +They were, you could see by his nods, Colonel De Craye and Miss +Middleton." + +"And she at once mentioned it to Willoughby?" + +"Colonel De Craye gave her no chance, if she sought it. He courted +her profusely. Behind his rattle he must have brains. It ran in +all directions to entertain her and her circle." + +"Willoughby knows nothing?" + +"I cannot judge. He stood with Mrs. Mountstuart a minute as we +were taking leave. She looked strange. I heard her say: 'The +rogue!' He laughed. She lifted her shoulders. He scarcely opened +his mouth on the way home." + +"The thing must run its course," Vernon said, with the +philosophical air which is desperation rendered decorous. +"Willoughby deserves it. A man of full growth ought to know that +nothing on earth tempts Providence so much as the binding of a +young woman against her will. Those two are mutually attracted: +they're both ... They meet, and the mischief's done: both are +bright. He can persuade with a word. Another might discourse like +an angel and it would be useless. I said everything I could think +of, to no purpose. And so it is: there are those attractions! +-just as, with her, Willoughby is the reverse, he repels. I'm in +about the same predicament--or should be if she were plighted to +me. That is, for the length of five minutes; about the space of +time I should require for the formality of handing her back her +freedom. How a sane man can imagine a girl like that ... ! But if +she has changed, she has changed! You can't conciliate a withered +affection. This detaining her, and tricking, and not listening, +only increases her aversion; she learns the art in turn. Here she +is, detained by fresh plots to keep Dr. Middleton at the Hall. +That's true, is it not?" He saw that it was. "No, she's not to +blame! She has told him her mind; he won't listen. The question +then is, whether she keeps to her word, or breaks it. It's a +dispute between a conventional idea of obligation and an injury to +her nature. Which is the more dishonourable thing to do? Why, you +and I see in a moment that her feelings guide her best. It's one +of the few cases in which nature may be consulted like an oracle." + +"Is she so sure of her nature?" said Miss Dale. + +"You may doubt it; I do not. I am surprised at her coming back. De +Craye is a man of the world, and advised it, I suppose. He--well, +I never had the persuasive tongue, and my failing doesn't count +for much." + +"But the suddenness of the intimacy!" + +"The disaster is rather famous 'at first sight'. He came in a +fortunate hour... for him. A pigmy's a giant if he can manage to +arrive in season. Did you not notice that there was danger, at +their second or third glance? You counselled me to hang on here, +where the amount of good I do in proportion to what I have to +endure is microscopic." + +"It was against your wishes, I know," said Laetitia, and when the +words were out she feared that they were tentative. Her delicacy +shrank from even seeming to sound him in relation to a situation +so delicate as Miss Middleton's. + +The same sentiment guarded him from betraying himself, and he +said: "Partly against. We both foresaw the possible--because, +like most prophets, we knew a little more of circumstances +enabling us to see the fatal. A pigmy would have served, but De +Craye is a handsome, intelligent, pleasant fellow." + +"Sir Willoughby's friend!" + +"Well, in these affairs! A great deal must be charged on the +goddess." + +"That is really Pagan fatalism!" + +"Our modern word for it is Nature. Science condescends to speak of +natural selection. Look at these! They are both graceful and +winning and witty, bright to mind and eye, made for one another, +as country people say. I can't blame him. Besides, we don't know +that he's guilty. We're quite in the dark, except that we're +certain how it must end. If the chance should occur to you of +giving Willoughby a word of counsel--it may--you might, without +irritating him as my knowledge of his plight does, hint at your +eyes being open. His insane dread of a detective world makes him +artificially blind. As soon as he fancies himself seen, he sets to +work spinning a web, and he discerns nothing else. It's generally +a clever kind of web; but if it's a tangle to others it's the same +to him, and a veil as well. He is preparing the catastrophe, he +forces the issue. Tell him of her extreme desire to depart. Treat +her as mad, to soothe him. Otherwise one morning he will wake a +second time ... ! It is perfectly certain. And the second time it +will be entirely his own fault. Inspire him with some philosophy." + +"I have none." + +"I if I thought so, I would say you have better. There are two +kinds of philosophy, mine and yours. Mine comes of coldness, yours +of devotion." + +"He is unlikely to choose me for his confidante." + +Vernon meditated. "One can never quite guess what he will do, from +never knowing the heat of the centre in him which precipitates his +actions: he has a great art of concealment. As to me, as you +perceive, my views are too philosophical to let me be of use to +any of them. I blame only the one who holds to the bond. The +sooner I am gone!--in fact, I cannot stay on. So Dr. Middleton and +the Professor did not strike fire together?" + +"Doctor Middleton was ready, and pursued him, but Professor +Crooklyn insisted on shivering. His line of blank verse, 'A +Railway platform and a Railway inn!' became pathetic in +repetition. He must have suffered." + +"Somebody has to!" + +"Why the innocent?" + +"He arrives a propos. But remember that Fridolin sometimes +contrives to escape and have the guilty scorched. The Professor +would not have suffered if he had missed his train, as he appears +to be in the habit of doing. Thus his unaccustomed good-fortune +was the cause of his bad." + +"You saw him on the platform?" + +"I am unacquainted with the professor. I had to get Mrs +Mountstuart out of the way." + +"She says she described him to you. 'Complexion of a sweetbread, +consistency of a quenelle, grey, and like a Saint without his +dish behind the head.'" + +"Her descriptions are strikingly accurate, but she forgot to +sketch his back, and all that I saw was a narrow sloping back and +a broad hat resting the brim on it. My report to her spoke of an +old gentleman of dark complexion, as the only traveller on the +platform. She has faith in the efficiency of her descriptive +powers, and so she was willing to drive off immediately. The +intention was a start to London. Colonel De Craye came up and +effected in five minutes what I could not compass in thirty." + +"But you saw Colonel De Craye pass you?" + +"My work was done; I should have been an intruder. Besides I was +acting wet jacket with Mrs. Mountstuart to get her to drive off +fast, or she might have jumped out in search of her Professor +herself." + +"She says you were lean as a fork, with the wind whistling through +the prongs." + +"You see how easy it is to deceive one who is an artist in +phrases. Avoid them, Miss Dale; they dazzle the penetration of the +composer. That is why people of ability like Mrs Mountstuart see +so little; they are so bent on describing brilliantly. However, +she is kind and charitable at heart. I have been considering +to-night that, to cut this knot as it is now, Miss Middleton +might do worse than speak straight out to Mrs. Mountstuart. No one +else would have such influence with Willoughby. The simple fact of +Mrs. Mountstuart's knowing of it would be almost enough. But +courage would he required for that. Good-night, Miss Dale." + +"Good-night, Mr. Whitford. You pardon me for disturbing you?" + +Vernon pressed her hand reassuringly. He had but to look at her +and review her history to think his cousin Willoughby punished by +just retribution. Indeed, for any maltreatment of the dear boy +Love by man or by woman, coming under your cognizance, you, if you +be of common soundness, shall behold the retributive blow struck +in your time. + +Miss Dale retired thinking how like she and Vernon were to one +another in the toneless condition they had achieved through +sorrow. He succeeded in masking himself from her, owing to her awe +of the circumstances. She reproached herself for not having the +same devotion to the cold idea of duty as he had; and though it +provoked inquiry, she would not stop to ask why he had left Miss +Middleton a prey to the sparkling colonel. It seemed a proof of +the philosophy he preached. + +As she was passing by young Crossjay's bedroom door a face +appeared. Sir Willoughby slowly emerged and presented himself in +his full length, beseeching her to banish alarm. + +He said it in a hushed voice, with a face qualified to create +sentiment. + +"Are you tired? sleepy?" said he. + +She protested that she was not: she intended to read for an hour. + +He begged to have the hour dedicated to him. "I shall be relieved +by conversing with a friend." + +No subterfuge crossed her mind; she thought his midnight visit to +the boy's bedside a pretty feature in him; she was full of pity, +too; she yielded to the strange request, feeling that it did not +become "an old woman" to attach importance even to the public +discovery of midnight interviews involving herself as one, and +feeling also that she was being treated as an old friend in the +form of a very old woman. Her mind was bent on arresting any +recurrence to the project she had so frequently outlined in the +tongue of innuendo, of which, because of her repeated tremblings +under it, she thought him a master. + +He conducted her along the corridor to the private sitting-room of +the ladies Eleanor and Isabel. + +"Deceit!" he said, while lighting the candles on the mantelpiece. + +She was earnestly compassionate, and a word that could not relate +to her personal destinies refreshed her by displacing her +apprehensive antagonism and giving pity free play. + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +Sir Willoughby Attempts and Achieves Pathos + +Both were seated. Apparently he would have preferred to watch her +dark downcast eyelashes in silence under sanction of his air of +abstract meditation and the melancholy superinducing it. +Blood-colour was in her cheeks; the party had inspirited her +features. Might it be that lively company, an absence of economical +solicitudes, and a flourishing home were all she required to make +her bloom again? The supposition was not hazardous in presence of +her heightened complexion. + +She raised her eyes. He could not meet her look without speaking. + +"Can you forgive deceit?" + +"It would be to boast of more charity than I know myself to +possess, were I to say that I can, Sir Willoughby. I hope I am +able to forgive. I cannot tell. I should like to say yes." + +"Could you live with the deceiver?" + +"No." + +"No. I could have given that answer for you. No semblance of union +should be maintained between the deceiver and ourselves. +Laetitia!" + +"Sir Willoughby?" + +"Have I no right to your name?" + +"If it pleases you to . . ." + +"I speak as my thoughts run, and they did not know a Miss Dale so +well as a dear Laetitia: my truest friend! You have talked with +Clara Middleton?" + +"We had a conversation." + +Her brevity affrighted him. He flew off in a cloud. + +"Reverting to that question of deceivers: is it not your opinion +that to pardon, to condone, is to corrupt society by passing off +as pure what is false? Do we not," he wore the smile of haggard +playfulness of a convalescent child the first day back to its +toys, "Laetitia, do we not impose a counterfeit on the currency?" + +"Supposing it to be really deception." + +"Apart from my loathing of deception, of falseness in any shape, +upon any grounds, I hold it an imperious duty to expose, punish, +off with it. I take it to be one of the forms of noxiousness which +a good citizen is bound to extirpate. I am not myself good citizen +enough, I confess, for much more than passive abhorrence. I do not +forgive: I am at heart serious and I cannot forgive:--there is no +possible reconciliation, there can be only an ostensible truce, +between the two hostile powers dividing this world." + +She glanced at him quickly. + +"Good and evil!" he said. + +Her face expressed a surprise relapsing on the heart. + +He spelt the puckers of her forehead to mean that she feared he +might be speaking unchristianly. + +"You will find it so in all religions, my dear Laetitia: the +Hindoo, the Persian, ours. It is universal; an experience of our +humanity. Deceit and sincerity cannot live together. Truth must +kill the lie, or the lie will kill truth. I do not forgive. All I +say to the person is, go!" + +"But that is right! that is generous!" exclaimed Laetitia, glad to +approve him for the sake of escaping her critical soul, and +relieved by the idea of Clara's difficulty solved. + +"Capable of generosity, perhaps," he mused, aloud. + +She wounded him by not supplying the expected enthusiastic +asseveration of her belief in his general tendency to magnanimity. + +He said, after a pause: "But the world is not likely to be +impressed by anything not immediately gratifying it. People +change, I find: as we increase in years we cease to be the heroes +we were. I myself am insensible to change: I do not admit the +charge. Except in this we will say: personal ambition. I have it +no more. And what is it when we have it? Decidedly a confession of +inferiority! That is, the desire to be distinguished is an +acknowledgement of insufficiency. But I have still the craving for +my dearest friends to think well of me. A weakness? Call it so. +Not a dishonourable weakness!" + +Laetitia racked her brain for the connection of his present speech +with the preceding dialogue. She was baffled, from not knowing +"the heat of the centre in him", as Vernon opaquely phrased it in +charity to the object of her worship. + +"Well," said he, unappeased, "and besides the passion to excel, I +have changed somewhat in the heartiness of my thirst for the +amusements incident to my station. I do not care to keep a stud-- +I was once tempted: nor hounds. And I can remember the day when I +determined to have the best kennels and the best breed of horses +in the kingdom. Puerile! What is distinction of that sort, or of +any acquisition and accomplishment? We ask! one's self is not the +greater. To seek it, owns to our smallness, in real fact; and when +it is attained, what then? My horses are good, they are admired, I +challenge the county to surpass them: well? These are but my +horses; the praise is of the animals, not of me. I decline to +share in it. Yet I know men content to swallow the praise of their +beasts and be semi-equine. The littleness of one's fellows in the +mob of life is a very strange experience! One may regret to have +lost the simplicity of one's forefathers, which could accept those +and other distinctions with a cordial pleasure, not to say pride. +As, for instance, I am, as it is called, a dead shot. 'Give your +acclamations, gentlemen, to my ancestors, from whom I inherited a +steady hand and quick sight.' They do not touch me. Where I do +not find myself--that I am essentially I--no applause can move +me. To speak to you as I would speak to none, admiration--you +know that in my early youth I swam in flattery--I had to swim to +avoid drowning!--admiration of my personal gifts has grown +tasteless. Changed, therefore, inasmuch as there has been a growth +of spirituality. We are all in submission to mortal laws, and so +far I have indeed changed. I may add that it is unusual for +country gentlemen to apply themselves to scientific researches. +These are, however, in the spirit of the time. I apprehended that +instinctively when at College. I forsook the classics for science. +And thereby escaped the vice of domineering self-sufficiency +peculiar to classical men, of which you had an amusing example in +the carriage, on the way to Mrs. Mountstuart's this evening. +Science is modest; slow, if you like; it deals with facts, and +having mastered them, it masters men; of necessity, not with a +stupid, loud-mouthed arrogance: words big and oddly garbed as the +Pope's body-guard. Of course, one bows to the Infallible; we must, +when his giant-mercenaries level bayonets." + +Sir Willoughby offered Miss Dale half a minute that she might in +gentle feminine fashion acquiesce in the implied reproof of Dr. +Middleton's behaviour to him during the drive to Mrs. +Mountstuart's. She did not. + +Her heart was accusing Clara of having done it a wrong and a hurt. +For while he talked he seemed to her to justify Clara's feelings +and her conduct: and her own reawakened sensations of injury came +to the surface a moment to look at him, affirming that they +pardoned him, and pitied, but hardly wondered. + +The heat of the centre in him had administered the comfort he +wanted, though the conclusive accordant notes he loved on woman's +lips, that subservient harmony of another instrument desired of +musicians when they have done their solo-playing, came not to wind +up the performance: not a single bar. She did not speak. Probably +his Laetitia was overcome, as he had long known her to be when +they conversed; nerve-subdued, unable to deploy her mental +resources or her musical. Yet ordinarily she had command of the +latter.--Was she too condoling? Did a reason exist for it? Had +the impulsive and desperate girl spoken out to Laetitia to the +fullest?--shameless daughter of a domineering sire that she was! +Ghastlier inquiry (it struck the centre of him with a sounding +ring), was Laetitia pitying him overmuch for worse than the pain +of a little difference between lovers--for treason on the part of +his bride? Did she know of a rival? know more than he? + +When the centre of him was violently struck he was a genius in +penetration. He guessed that she did know: and by this was he +presently helped to achieve pathos. + +"So my election was for Science," he continued; "and if it makes +me, as I fear, a rara avis among country gentlemen, it unites me, +puts me in the main, I may say, in the only current of progress-- +a word sufficiently despicable in their political jargon.--You +enjoyed your evening at Mrs. Mountstuart's?" + +"Very greatly." + +"She brings her Professor to dine here the day after tomorrow. +Does it astonish you? You started." + +"I did not hear the invitation." + +"It was arranged at the table: you and I were separated--cruelly, +I told her: she declared that we see enough of one another, and +that it was good for me that we should be separated; neither of +which is true. I may not have known what is the best for me: I do +know what is good. If in my younger days I egregiously erred, +that, taken of itself alone, is, assuming me to have sense and +feeling, the surer proof of present wisdom. I can testify in +person that wisdom is pain. If pain is to add to wisdom, let me +suffer! Do you approve of that, Laetitia?" + +"It is well said." + +"It is felt. Those who themselves have suffered should know the +benefit of the resolution." + +"One may have suffered so much as to wish only for peace." + +"True: but you! have you?" + +"It would be for peace, if I prayed for any earthly gift." + +Sir Willoughby dropped a smile on her. "I mentioned the Pope's +parti-coloured body-guard just now. In my youth their singular +attire impressed me. People tell me they have been re-uniformed: I +am sorry. They remain one of my liveliest recollections of the +Eternal City. They affected my sense of humour, always alert in +me, as you are aware. We English have humour. It is the first +thing struck in us when we land on the Continent: our risible +faculties are generally active all through the tour. Humour, or +the clash of sense with novel examples of the absurd, is our +characteristic. I do not condescend to boisterous displays of it. +I observe, and note the people's comicalities for my +correspondence. But you have read my letters--most of them, if +not all?" + +"Many of them." + +I was with you then!--I was about to say--that Swiss-guard +reminded me--you have not been in Italy. I have constantly +regretted it. You are the very woman, you have the soul for Italy. +I know no other of whom I could say it, with whom I should not +feel that she was out of place, discordant with me. Italy and +Laetitia! often have I joined you together. We shall see. I begin +to have hopes. Here you have literally stagnated. Why, a +dinner-party refreshes you! What would not travel do, and that +heavenly climate! You are a reader of history and poetry. Well, +poetry! I never yet saw the poetry that expressed the tenth part +of what I feel in the presence of beauty and magnificence, and +when I really meditate--profoundly. Call me a positive mind. I +feel: only I feel too intensely for poetry. By the nature of it, +poetry cannot be sincere. I will have sincerity. Whatever touches +our emotions should be spontaneous, not a craft. I know you are in +favour of poetry. You would win me, if any one could. But history! +there I am with you. Walking over ruins: at night: the arches of +the solemn black amphitheatre pouring moonlight on us--the +moonlight of Italy!" + +"You would not laugh there, Sir Willoughby?" said Laetitia, +rousing herself from a stupor of apprehensive amazement, to utter +something and realize actual circumstances. + +"Besides, you, I think, or I am mistaken in you"--he deviated +from his projected speech--"you are not a victim of the sense of +association and the ludicrous." + +"I can understand the influence of it: I have at least a conception +of the humourous, but ridicule would not strike me in the Coliseum +of Rome. I could not bear it, no, Sir Willoughby!" + +She appeared to be taking him in very strong earnest, by thus +petitioning him not to laugh in the Coliseum, and now he said: +"Besides, you are one who could accommodate yourself to the +society of the ladies, my aunts. Good women, Laetitia! I cannot +imagine them de trop in Italy, or in a household. I have of course +reason to be partial in my judgement." + +"They are excellent and most amiable ladies; I love them," said +Laetitia, fervently; the more strongly excited to fervour by her +enlightenment as to his drift. + +She read it that he designed to take her to Italy with the ladies: +--after giving Miss Middleton her liberty; that was necessarily +implied. And that was truly generous. In his boyhood he had +been famous for his bountifulness in scattering silver and gold. +Might he not have caused himself to be misperused in later life? + +Clara had spoken to her of the visit and mission of the ladies to +the library: and Laetitia daringly conceived herself to be on the +certain track of his meaning, she being able to enjoy their +society as she supposed him to consider that Miss Middleton did +not, and would not either abroad or at home. + +Sir Willoughby asked her: "You could travel with them?" + +"Indeed I could!" + +"Honestly?" + +"As affirmatively as one may protest. Delightedly." + +"Agreed. It is an undertaking." He put his hand out. + +"Whether I be of the party or not! To Italy, Laetitia! It would +give me pleasure to be with you, and it will, if I must be +excluded, to think of you in Italy." + +His hand was out. She had to feign inattention or yield her own. +She had not the effrontery to pretend not to see, and she yielded +it. He pressed it, and whenever it shrunk a quarter inch to +withdraw, he shook it up and down, as an instrument that had been +lent him for due emphasis to his remarks. And very emphatic an +amorous orator can make it upon a captive lady. + +"I am unable to speak decisively on that or any subject. I am, I +think you once quoted, 'tossed like a weed on the ocean.' Of +myself I can speak: I cannot speak for a second person. I am +infinitely harassed. If I could cry, 'To Italy tomorrow!' Ah! ... +Do not set me down for complaining. I know the lot of man. But, +Laetitia, deceit! deceit! It is a bad taste in the mouth. It +sickens us of humanity. I compare it to an earthquake: we lose all +our reliance on the solidity of the world. It is a betrayal not +simply of the person; it is a betrayal of humankind. My friend! +Constant friend! No, I will not despair. Yes, I have faults; I +will remember them. Only, forgiveness is another question. Yes, +the injury I can forgive; the falseness never. In the interests of +humanity, no. So young, and such deceit!" + +Laetitia's bosom rose: her hand was detained: a lady who has +yielded it cannot wrestle to have it back; those outworks which +protect her treacherously shelter the enemy aiming at the citadel +when he has taken them. In return for the silken armour bestowed +on her by our civilization, it is exacted that she be soft and +civil nigh up to perishing-point. She breathed tremulously high, +saying on her top-breath: "If it--it may not be so; it can +scarcely. . ." A deep sigh intervened. It saddened her that she +knew so much. + +"For when I love I love," said Sir Willoughby; "my friends and my +servants know that. There can be no medium: not with me. I give +all, I claim all. As I am absorbed, so must I absorb. We both +cancel and create, we extinguish and we illumine one another. The +error may be in the choice of an object: it is not in the passion. +Perfect confidence, perfect abandonment. I repeat, I claim it +because I give it. The selfishness of love may be denounced: it is +a part of us. My answer would be, it is an element only of the +noblest of us! Love, Laetitia! I speak of love. But one who breaks +faith to drag us through the mire, who betrays, betrays and hands +us over to the world, whose prey we become identically because of +virtues we were educated to think it a blessing to possess: tell +me the name for that!--Again, it has ever been a principle with +me to respect the sex. But if we see women false, treacherous ... +Why indulge in these abstract views, you would ask! The world +presses them on us, full as it is of the vilest specimens. They +seek to pluck up every rooted principle: they sneer at our +worship: they rob us of our religion. This bitter experience of +the world drives us back to the antidote of what we knew before we +plunged into it: of one ... of something we esteemed and still +esteem. Is that antidote strong enough to expel the poison? I hope +so! I believe so! To lose faith in womankind is terrible." + +He studied her. She looked distressed: she was not moved. + +She was thinking that, with the exception of a strain of +haughtiness, he talked excellently to men, at least in the tone of +the things he meant to say; but that his manner of talking to +women went to an excess in the artificial tongue--the tutored +tongue of sentimental deference of the towering male: he fluted +exceedingly; and she wondered whether it was this which had +wrecked him with Miss Middleton. + +His intuitive sagacity counselled him to strive for pathos to +move her. It was a task; for while he perceived her to be not +ignorant of his plight, he doubted her knowing the extent of it, +and as his desire was merely to move her without an exposure of +himself, he had to compass being pathetic as it were under the +impediments of a mailed and gauntletted knight, who cannot easily +heave the bosom, or show it heaving. + +Moreover, pathos is a tide: often it carries the awakener of it +off his feet, and whirls him over and over armour and all in +ignominious attitudes of helpless prostration, whereof he may well +be ashamed in the retrospect. We cannot quite preserve our dignity +when we stoop to the work of calling forth tears. Moses had +probably to take a nimble jump away from the rock after that +venerable Law-giver had knocked the water out of it. + +However, it was imperative in his mind that he should be sure he +had the power to move her. + +He began; clumsily at first, as yonder gauntletted knight attempting +the briny handkerchief. + +"What are we! We last but a very short time. Why not live to +gratify our appetites? I might really ask myself why. All the +means of satiating them are at my disposal. But no: I must aim at +the highest:--at that which in my blindness I took for the +highest. You know the sportsman's instinct, Laetitia; he is not +tempted by the stationary object. Such are we in youth, toying +with happiness, leaving it, to aim at the dazzling and +attractive." + +"We gain knowledge," said Laetitia. + +"At what a cost!" + +The exclamation summoned self-pity to his aid, and pathos was +handy. + +"By paying half our lives for it and all our hopes! Yes, we gain +knowledge, we are the wiser; very probably my value surpasses now +what it was when I was happier. But the loss! That youthful bloom +of the soul is like health to the body; once gone, it leaves +cripples behind. Nay, my friend and precious friend, these four +fingers I must retain. They seem to me the residue of a wreck: you +shall be released shortly: absolutely, Laetitia, I have nothing +else remaining--We have spoken of deception; what of being +undeceived?--when one whom we adored is laid bare, and the +wretched consolation of a worthy object is denied to us. No +misfortune can be like that. Were it death, we could worship +still. Death would be preferable. But may you be spared to know a +situation in which the comparison with your inferior is forced on +you to your disadvantage and your loss because of your generously +giving up your whole heart to the custody of some shallow, +light-minded, self--! ... We will not deal in epithets. If I were +to find as many bad names for the serpent as there are spots on +his body, it would be serpent still, neither better nor worse. The +loneliness! And the darkness! Our luminary is extinguished. +Self-respect refuses to continue worshipping, but the affection +will not be turned aside. We are literally in the dust, we grovel, +we would fling away self-respect if we could; we would adopt for a +model the creature preferred to us; we would humiliate, degrade +ourselves; we cry for justice as if it were for pardon . . ." + +"For pardon! when we are straining to grant it!" Laetitia +murmured, and it was as much as she could do. She remembered how +in her old misery her efforts after charity had twisted her round +to feel herself the sinner, and beg forgiveness in prayer: a noble +sentiment, that filled her with pity of the bosom in which it had +sprung. There was no similarity between his idea and hers, but her +idea had certainly been roused by his word "pardon", and he had +the benefit of it in the moisture of her eyes. Her lips trembled, +tears fell. + +He had heard something; he had not caught the words, but they were +manifestly favourable; her sign of emotion assured him of it and +of the success he had sought. There was one woman who bowed to him +to all eternity! He had inspired one woman with the mysterious, +man-desired passion of self-abandonment, self-immolation! The +evidence was before him. At any instant he could, if he pleased, +fly to her and command her enthusiasm. + +He had, in fact, perhaps by sympathetic action, succeeded in +striking the same springs of pathos in her which animated his +lively endeavour to produce it in himself + +He kissed her hand; then released it, quitting his chair to bend +above her soothingly. + +"Do not weep, Laetitia, you see that I do not; I can smile. Help +me to bear it; you must not unman me." + +She tried to stop her crying, but self-pity threatened to rain all +her long years of grief on her head, and she said: "I must go ... +I am unfit ... good-night, Sir Willoughby." + +Fearing seriously that he had sunk his pride too low in her +consideration, and had been carried farther than he intended on +the tide of pathos, he remarked: "We will speak about Crossjay +to-morrow. His deceitfulness has been gross. As I said, I am +grievously offended by deception. But you are tired. Good-night, +my dear friend." + +"Good-night, Sir Willoughby." + +She was allowed to go forth. + +Colonel De Craye coming up from the smoking-room, met her and +noticed the state of her eyelids, as he wished her goodnight. He +saw Willoughby in the room she had quitted, but considerately +passed without speaking, and without reflecting why he was +considerate. + +Our hero's review of the scene made him, on the whole, satisfied +with his part in it. Of his power upon one woman he was now +perfectly sure:--Clara had agonized him with a doubt of his +personal mastery of any. One was a poor feast, but the pangs of +his flesh during the last few days and the latest hours caused him +to snatch at it, hungrily if contemptuously. A poor feast, she was +yet a fortress, a point of succour, both shield and lance; a cover +and an impetus. He could now encounter Clara boldly. Should she +resist and defy him, he would not be naked and alone; he foresaw +that he might win honour in the world's eye from his position--a +matter to be thought of only in most urgent need. The effect on +him of his recent exercise in pathos was to compose him to +slumber. He was for the period well satisfied. + +His attendant imps were well satisfied likewise, and danced around +about his bed after the vigilant gentleman had ceased to debate on +the question of his unveiling of himself past forgiveness of her +to Laetitia, and had surrendered to sleep the present direction of +his affairs. + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +Laetitia Dale Discovers a Spiritual Change and Dr Middleton a +Physical + +Clara tripped over the lawn in the early morning to Laetitia to +greet her. She broke away from a colloquy with Colonel De Craye +under Sir Willoughby's windows. The colonel had been one of the +bathers, and he stood like a circus-driver flicking a wet towel at +Crossjay capering. + +"My dear, I am very unhappy!" said Clara. + +"My dear, I bring you news," Laetitia replied. + +"Tell me. But the poor boy is to be expelled! He burst into +Crossjay's bedroom last night and dragged the sleeping boy out of +bed to question him, and he had the truth. That is one comfort: +only Crossjay is to be driven from the Hall, because he was +untruthful previously--for me; to serve me; really, I feel it was +at my command. Crossjay will be out of the way to-day, and has +promised to come back at night to try to be forgiven. You must +help me, Laetitia." + +"You are free, Clara! If you desire it, you have but to ask for +your freedom." + +"You mean . . ." + +"He will release you." + +"You are sure?" + +"We had a long conversation last night." + +"I owe it to you?" + +"Nothing is owing to me. He volunteered it." + +Clara made as if to lift her eyes in apostrophe. "Professor +Crooklyn! Professor Crooklyn! I see. I did not guess that." + +"Give credit for some generosity, Clara; you are unjust! + +"By and by: I will be more than just by and by. I will practise on +the trumpet: I will lecture on the greatness of the souls of men +when we know them thoroughly. At present we do but half know them, +and we are unjust. You are not deceived, Laetitia? There is to be +no speaking to papa? no delusions? You have agitated me. I feel +myself a very small person indeed. I feel I can understand those +who admire him. He gives me back my word simply? clearly? without +--Oh, that long wrangle in scenes and letters? And it will be +arranged for papa and me to go not later than to-morrow? Never +shall I be able to explain to any one how I fell into this! I am +frightened at myself when I think of it. I take the whole blame: I +have been scandalous. And, dear Laetitia! you came out so early in +order to tell me?" + +"I wished you to hear it." + +"Take my heart." + +"Present me with a part--but for good." + +"Fie! But you have a right to say it." + +"I mean no unkindness; but is not the heart you allude to an +alarmingly searching one?" + +"Selfish it is, for I have been forgetting Crossjay. If we are +going to be generous, is not Crossjay to be forgiven? If it were +only that the boy's father is away fighting for his country, +endangering his life day by day, and for a stipend not enough to +support his family, we are bound to think of the boy! Poor dear +silly lad! with his 'I say, Miss Middleton, why wouldn't (some +one) see my father when he came here to call on him, and had to +walk back ten miles in the rain?'--I could almost fancy that did +me mischief... But we have a splendid morning after yesterday's +rain. And we will be generous. Own, Laetitia, that it is possible +to gild the most glorious day of creation." + +"Doubtless the spirit may do it and make its hues permanent," said +Laetitia. + +"You to me, I to you, he to us. Well, then, if he does, it shall +be one of my heavenly days. Which is for the probation of +experience. We are not yet at sunset." + +"Have you seen Mr. Whitford this morning?" + +"He passed me." + +"Do not imagine him ever ill-tempered." + +"I had a governess, a learned lady, who taught me in person the +picturesqueness of grumpiness. Her temper was ever perfect, +because she was never in the wrong, but I being so, she was +grumpy. She carried my iniquity under her brows, and looked out on +me through it. I was a trying child." + +Laetitia said, laughing: "I can believe it!" + +"Yet I liked her and she liked me: we were a kind of foreground +and background: she threw me into relief and I was an apology for +her existence." + +"You picture her to me." + +"She says of me now that I am the only creature she has loved. Who +knows that I may not come to say the same of her?" + +"You would plague her and puzzle her still." + +"Have I plagued and puzzled Mr. Whitford?" + +"He reminds you of her?" + +"You said you had her picture." + +"Ah! do not laugh at him. He is a true friend." + +"The man who can be a friend is the man who will presume to be a +censor." + +"A mild one." + +"As to the sentence he pronounces, I am unable to speak, but his +forehead is Rhadamanthine condemnation." + +"Dr Middleton!" + +Clara looked round. "Who? I? Did you hear an echo of papa? He +would never have put Rhadamanthus over European souls, because it +appears that Rhadamanthus judged only the Asiatic; so you are +wrong, Miss Dale. My father is infatuated with Mr. Whitford. What +can it be? We women cannot sound the depths of scholars, probably +because their pearls have no value in our market; except when they +deign to chasten an impertinent; and Mr. Whitford stands aloof +from any notice of small fry. He is deep, studious, excellent; and +does it not strike you that if he descended among us he would be +like a Triton ashore?" + +Laetitia's habit of wholly subservient sweetness, which was her +ideal of the feminine, not yet conciliated with her acuter +character, owing to the absence of full pleasure from her life-- +the unhealed wound she had sustained and the cramp of a bondage of +such old date as to seem iron--induced her to say, as if +consenting: "You think he is not quite at home in society?" But +she wished to defend him strenuously, and as a consequence she had +to quit the self-imposed ideal of her daily acting, whereby--the +case being unwonted, very novel to her--the lady's intelligence +became confused through the process that quickened it; so +sovereign a method of hoodwinking our bright selves is the acting +of a part, however naturally it may come to us! and to this will +each honest autobiographical member of the animated world bear +witness. + +She added: "You have not found him sympathetic? He is. You fancy +him brooding, gloomy? He is the reverse, he is cheerful, he is +indifferent to personal misfortune. Dr. Corney says there is no +laugh like Vernon Whitford's, and no humour like his. Latterly he +certainly ... But it has not been your cruel word grumpiness. The +truth is, he is anxious about Crossjay: and about other things; +and he wants to leave. He is at a disadvantage beside very lively +and careless gentlemen at present, but your 'Triton ashore' is +unfair, it is ugly. He is, I can say, the truest man I know." + +"I did not question his goodness, Laetitia." + +"You threw an accent on it." + +"Did I? I must be like Crossjay, who declares he likes fun best." + +"Crossjay ought to know him, if anybody should. Mr. Whitford has +defended you against me, Clara, even since I took to calling you +Clara. Perhaps when you supposed him so like your ancient +governess, he was meditating how he could aid you. Last night he +gave me reasons for thinking you would do wisely to confide in +Mrs. Mountstuart. It is no longer necessary. I merely mention it. +He is a devoted friend." + +"He is an untiring pedestrian." + +"Oh!" + +Colonel De Craye, after hovering near the ladies in the hope of +seeing them divide, now adopted the system of making three that +two may come of it. + +As he joined them with his glittering chatter, Laetitia looked at +Clara to consult her, and saw the face rosy as a bride's. + +The suspicion she had nursed sprung out of her arms a muscular +fact on the spot. + +"Where is my dear boy?" Clara said. + +"Out for a holiday," the colonel answered in her tone. + +"Advise Mr. Whitford not to waste his time in searching for +Crossjay, Laetitia. Crossjay is better out of the way to-day. At +least, I thought so just now. Has he pocket-money, Colonel De +Craye?" + +"My lord can command his inn." + +"How thoughtful you are!" + +Laetitia's bosom swelled upon a mute exclamation, equivalent to: +"Woman! woman! snared ever by the sparkling and frivolous! +undiscerning of the faithful, the modest and beneficent!" + +In the secret musings of moralists this dramatic rhetoric +survives. + +The comparison was all of her own making, and she was indignant at +the contrast, though to what end she was indignant she could not +have said, for she had no idea of Vernon as a rival of De Craye in +the favour of a plighted lady. But she was jealous on behalf of +her sex: her sex's reputation seemed at stake, and the purity of +it was menaced by Clara's idle preference of the shallower man. +When the young lady spoke so carelessly of being like Crossjay, +she did not perhaps know that a likeness, based on a similarity of +their enthusiasms, loves, and appetites, had been established +between women and boys. Laetitia had formerly chafed at it, +rejecting it utterly, save when now and then in a season of +bitterness she handed here and there a volatile young lady (none +but the young) to be stamped with the degrading brand. Vernon +might be as philosophical as he pleased. To her the gaiety of +these two, Colonel De Craye and Clara Middleton, was distressingly +musical: they harmonized painfully. The representative of her sex +was hurt by it. + +She had to stay beside them: Clara held her arm. The colonel's +voice dropped at times to something very like a whisper. He was +answered audibly and smoothly. The quickwitted gentleman accepted +the correction: but in immediately paying assiduous attentions to +Miss Dale, in the approved intriguer's fashion, he showed himself +in need of another amounting to a reproof. Clara said: "We have +been consulting, Laetitia, what is to be done to cure Professor +Crooklyn of his cold." De Craye perceived that he had taken a +wrong step, and he was mightily surprised that a lesson in +intrigue should be read to him of all men. Miss Middleton's +audacity was not so astonishing: he recognized grand capabilities +in the young lady. Fearing lest she should proceed further and cut +away from him his vantage-ground of secrecy with her, he turned +the subject and was adroitly submissive. + +Clara's manner of meeting Sir Willoughby expressed a timid +disposition to friendliness upon a veiled inquiry, understood by +none save Laetitia, whose brain was racked to convey assurances to +herself of her not having misinterpreted him. Could there be any +doubt? She resolved that there could not be; and it was upon this +basis of reason that she fancied she had led him to it. Legitimate +or not, the fancy sprang from a solid foundation. Yesterday +morning she could not have conceived it. Now she was endowed to +feel that she had power to influence him, because now, since the +midnight, she felt some emancipation from the spell of his physical +mastery. He did not appear to her as a different man, but she had +grown sensible of being a stronger woman. He was no more the cloud +over her, nor the magnet; the cloud once heaven-suffused, the +magnet fatally compelling her to sway round to him. She admired +him still: his handsome air, his fine proportions, the courtesy +of his bending to Clara and touching of her hand, excused a +fanatical excess of admiration on the part of a woman in her +youth, who is never the anatomist of the hero's lordly graces. But +now she admired him piecemeal. When it came to the putting of him +together, she did it coldly. To compassionate him was her utmost +warmth. Without conceiving in him anything of the strange old +monster of earth which had struck the awakened girl's mind of Miss +Middleton, Laetitia classed him with other men; he was "one of +them". And she did not bring her disenchantment as a charge +against him. She accused herself, acknowledged the secret of the +change to be, and her youthfulness was dead:--otherwise could she +have given him compassion, and not herself have been carried on +the flood of it? The compassion was fervent, and pure too. She +supposed he would supplicate; she saw that Clara Middleton was +pleasant with him only for what she expected of his generosity. +She grieved. Sir Willoughby was fortified by her sorrowful gaze as +he and Clara passed out together to the laboratory arm in arm. + +Laetitia had to tell Vernon of the uselessness of his beating the +house and grounds for Crossjay. Dr. Middleton held him fast in +discussion upon an overnight's classical wrangle with Professor +Crooklyn, which was to be renewed that day. The Professor had +appointed to call expressly to renew it. "A fine scholar," said +the Rev. Doctor, "but crotchety, like all men who cannot stand +their Port." + +"I hear that he had a cold," Vernon remarked. "I hope the wine was +good, sir." + +As when the foreman of a sentimental jury is commissioned to +inform an awful Bench exact in perspicuous English, of a +verdict that must of necessity be pronounced in favour of the +hanging of the culprit, yet would fain attenuate the crime of a +palpable villain by a recommendation to mercy, such foreman, +standing in the attentive eye of a master of grammatical +construction, and feeling the weight of at least three sentences +on his brain, together with a prospect of Judicial interrogation +for the discovery of his precise meaning, is oppressed, himself is +put on trial, in turn, and he hesitates, he recapitulates, the +fear of involution leads him to be involved; as far as a man so +posted may, he on his own behalf appeals for mercy; entreats that +his indistinct statement of preposterous reasons may be taken for +understood, and would gladly, were permission to do it credible, +throw in an imploring word that he may sink back among the crowd +without for the one imperishable moment publicly swinging in his +lordship's estimation:--much so, moved by chivalry toward a lady, +courtesy to the recollection of a hostess, and particularly by the +knowledge that his hearer would expect with a certain frigid +rigour charity of him, Dr. Middleton paused, spoke and paused: he +stammered. Ladies, he said, were famous poisoners in the Middle +Ages. His opinion was, that we had a class of manufacturing wine +merchants on the watch for widows in this country. But he was +bound to state the fact of his waking at his usual hour to the +minute unassailed by headache. On the other hand, this was a +condition of blessedness unanticipated when he went to bed. Mr. +Whitford, however, was not to think that he entertained rancour +toward the wine. It was no doubt dispensed with the honourable +intention of cheering. In point of flavour execrable, judging by +results it was innocuous. + + +"The test of it shall be the effect of it upon Professor Crooklyn, +and his appearance in the forenoon according to promise," Dr. +Middleton came to an end with his perturbed balancings. "If I +hear more of the eight or twelve winds discharged at once upon a +railway platform, and the young lady who dries herself of a +drenching by drinking brandy and water with a gentleman at a +railway inn, I shall solicit your sanction to my condemnation of +the wine as anti-Bacchic and a counterfeit presentment. Do not +misjudge me. Our hostess is not responsible. But widows should +marry." + +"You must contrive to stop the Professor, sir, if he should attack +his hostess in that manner," said Vernon. + +"Widows should marry!" Dr. Middleton repeated. + +He murmured of objecting to be at the discretion of a butler; +unless, he was careful to add, the aforesaid functionary could +boast of an University education; and even then, said he, it +requires a line of ancestry to train a man's taste. + +The Rev. Doctor smothered a yawn. The repression of it caused a +second one, a real monster, to come, big as our old friend of the +sea advancing on the chained-up Beauty. + +Disconcerted by this damning evidence of indigestion, his +countenance showed that he considered himself to have been too +lenient to the wine of an unhusbanded hostess. He frowned +terribly. + +In the interval Laetitia told Vernon of Crossjay's flight for the +day, hastily bidding the master to excuse him: she had no time to +hint the grounds of excuse. Vernon mentally made a guess. + +Dr Middleton took his arm and discharged a volley at the +crotchetty scholarship of Professor Crooklyn, whom to confute by +book, he directed his march to the library. Having persuaded +himself that he was dyspeptic, he had grown irascible. He +denounced all dining out, eulogized Patterne Hall as if it were +his home, and remembered he had dreamed in the night--a most +humiliating sign of physical disturbance. "But let me find a house +in proximity to Patterne, as I am induced to suppose I shall," he +said, "and here only am I to be met when I stir abroad." + +Laetitia went to her room. She was complacently anxious enough to +prefer solitude and be willing to read. She was more seriously +anxious about Crossjay than about any of the others. For Clara +would be certain to speak very definitely, and how then could a +gentleman oppose her? He would supplicate, and could she be +brought to yield? It was not to be expected of a young lady who +had turned from Sir Willoughby. His inferiors would have had a +better chance. Whatever his faults, he had that element of +greatness which excludes the intercession of pity. Supplication +would be with him a form of condescension. It would be seen to be +such. His was a monumental pride that could not stoop. She had +preserved this image of the gentleman for a relic in the shipwreck +of her idolatry. So she mused between the lines of her book, and +finishing her reading and marking the page, she glanced down on +the lawn. Dr. Middleton was there, and alone; his hands behind his +back, his head bent. His meditative pace and unwonted perusal of +the turf proclaimed that a non-sentimental jury within had +delivered an unmitigated verdict upon the widow's wine. + +Laetitia hurried to find Vernon. + +He was in the hall. As she drew near him, the laboratory door +opened and shut. + +"It is being decided," said Laetitia. + +Vernon was paler than the hue of perfect calmness. + +"I want to know whether I ought to take to my heels like Crossjay, +and shun the Professor," he said. + +They spoke in under-tones, furtively watching the door. + +"I wish what she wishes, I am sure; but it will go badly with the +boy," said Laetitia. + +"Oh, well, then I'll take him," said Vernon, "I would rather. I +think I can manage it." + +Again the laboratory door opened. This time it shut behind Miss +Middleton. She was highly flushed. Seeing them, she shook the +storm from her brows, with a dead smile; the best piece of +serenity she could put on for public wear. + +She took a breath before she moved. + +Vernon strode out of the house. + +Clara swept up to Laetitia. + +"You were deceived!" + +The hard sob of anger barred her voice. + +Laetitia begged her to come to her room with her. + +"I want air: I must be by myself," said Clara, catching at her +garden-hat. + +She walked swiftly to the portico steps and turned to the right, +to avoid the laboratory windows. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +In Which the Comic Muse Has an Eye on Two Good Souls + +Clara met Vernon on the bowling-green among the laurels. She +asked him where her father was. + +"Don't speak to him now," said Vernon. + +"Mr. Whitford, will you?" + +"It is not advisable just now. Wait." + +"Wait? Why not now?" + +"He is not in the right humour." + +She choked. There are times when there is no medicine for us in +sages, we want slaves; we scorn to temporize, we must overbear. On +she sped, as if she had made the mistake of exchanging words with +a post. + +The scene between herself and Willoughby was a thick mist in her +head, except the burden and result of it, that he held to her +fast, would neither assist her to depart nor disengage her. + +Oh, men! men! They astounded the girl; she could not define them +to her understanding. Their motives, their tastes, their vanity, +their tyranny, and the domino on their vanity, the baldness of +their tyranny, clinched her in feminine antagonism to brute power. +She was not the less disposed to rebellion by a very present sense +of the justice of what could be said to reprove her. She had but +one answer: "Anything but marry him!" It threw her on her nature, +our last and headlong advocate, who is quick as the flood to hurry +us from the heights to our level, and lower, if there be +accidental gaps in the channel. For say we have been guilty +of misconduct: can we redeem it by violating that which we are and +live by? The question sinks us back to the luxuriousness of a +sunny relinquishment of effort in the direction against tide. Our +nature becomes ingenious in devices, penetrative of the enemy, +confidently citing its cause for being frankly elvish or worse. +Clara saw a particular way of forcing herself to be surrendered. +She shut her eyes from it: the sight carried her too violently to +her escape; but her heart caught it up and huzzaed. To press the +points of her fingers at her bosom, looking up to the sky as she +did, and cry: "I am not my own; I am his!" was instigation +sufficient to make her heart leap up with all her body's blush to +urge it to recklessness. A despairing creature then may say she +has addressed the heavens and has had no answer to restrain her. + +Happily for Miss Middleton, she had walked some minutes in her +chafing fit before the falcon eye of Colonel De Craye spied her +away on one of the beech-knots. + +Vernon stood irresolute. It was decidedly not a moment for +disturbing Dr. Middleton's composure. He meditated upon a +conversation, as friendly as possible, with Willoughby. Round on +the front-lawn, he beheld Willoughby and Dr. Middleton together, +the latter having halted to lend attentive ear to his excellent +host. Unnoticed by them or disregarded, Vernon turned back to +Laetitia, and sauntered, talking with her of things current for as +long as he could endure to listen to praise of his pure +self-abnegation; proof of how well he had disguised himself, but +it smacked unpleasantly to him. His humourous intimacy with men's +minds likened the source of this distaste to the gallant +all-or-nothing of the gambler, who hates the little when he cannot +have the much, and would rather stalk from the tables clean-picked +than suffer ruin to be tickled by driblets of the glorious fortune +he has played for and lost. If we are not to be beloved, spare us +the small coin of compliments on character; especially when they +compliment only our acting. It is partly endurable to win eulogy +for our stately fortitude in losing, but Laetitia was unaware that +he flung away a stake; so she could not praise him for his merits. + +"Willoughby makes the pardoning of Crossjay conditional," he said, +"and the person pleading for him has to grant the terms. How could +you imagine Willoughby would give her up! How could he! Who! +... He should, is easily said. I was no witness of the scene +between them just now, but I could have foretold the end of it; I +could almost recount the passages. The consequence is, that +everything depends upon the amount of courage she possesses. Dr. +Middleton won't leave Patterne yet. And it is of no use to speak +to him to-day. And she is by nature impatient, and is rendered +desperate." + +"Why is it of no use to speak to Dr. Middleton today?" cried +Laetitia. + +"He drank wine yesterday that did not agree with him; he can't +work. To-day he is looking forward to Patterne Port. He is not +likely to listen to any proposals to leave to-day." + +"Goodness!" + +"I know the depth of that cry!" + +"You are excluded, Mr. Whitford." + +"Not a bit of it; I am in with the rest. Say that men are to be +exclaimed at. Men have a right to expect you to know your own +minds when you close on a bargain. You don't know the world or +yourselves very well, it's true; still the original error is on +your side, and upon that you should fix your attention. She +brought her father here, and no sooner was he very comfortably +established than she wished to dislocate him." + +"I cannot explain it; I cannot comprehend it," said Laetitia. + +"You are Constancy." + +"No." She coloured. "I am 'in with rest'. I do not say I should +have done the same. But I have the knowledge that I must not sit +in judgement on her. I can waver." + +She coloured again. She was anxious that he should know her to be +not that stupid statue of Constancy in a corner doating on the +antic Deception. Reminiscences of the interview overnight made it +oppressive to her to hear herself praised for always pointing like +the needle. Her newly enfranchised individuality pressed to assert +its existence. Vernon, however, not seeing this novelty, +continued, to her excessive discomfort, to baste her old abandoned +image with his praises. They checked hers; and, moreover, he had +suddenly conceived an envy of her life-long, uncomplaining, almost +unaspiring, constancy of sentiment. If you know lovers when they +have not reason to be blissful, you will remember that in this +mood of admiring envy they are given to fits of uncontrollable +maundering. Praise of constancy, moreover, smote shadowily a +certain inconstant, enough to seem to ruffle her smoothness and do +no hurt. He found his consolation in it, and poor Laetitia writhed. +Without designing to retort, she instinctively grasped at a weapon +of defence in further exalting his devotedness; which reduced him +to cast his head to the heavens and implore them to partially +enlighten her. Nevertheless, maunder he must; and he recurred to +it in a way so utterly unlike himself that Laetitia stared in his +face. She wondered whether there could be anything secreted behind +this everlasting theme of constancy. He took her awakened gaze for +a summons to asseverations of sincerity, and out they came. She +would have fled from him, but to think of flying was to think how +little it was that urged her to fly, and yet the thought of +remaining and listening to praises undeserved and no longer +flattering, was a torture. + +"Mr. Whitford, I bear no comparison with you." + +"I do and must set you for my example, Miss Dale." + +"Indeed, you do wrongly; you do not know me." + +"I could say that. For years ... + +"Pray, Mr. Whitford!" + +"Well, I have admired it. You show us how self can be smothered." + +"An echo would be a retort on you!" + +"On me? I am never thinking of anything else." + +"I could say that." + +"You are necessarily conscious of not swerving." + +"But I do; I waver dreadfully; I am not the same two days +running." + +"You are the same, with 'ravishing divisions' upon the same. + +"And you without the 'divisions.' I draw such support as I have +from you." + +"From some simulacrum of me, then. And that will show you how +little you require support." + +"I do not speak my own opinion only." + +"Whose?" + +"I am not alone." + +"Again let me say, I wish I were like you!" + +"Then let me add, I would willingly make the exchange!" + +"You would be amazed at your bargain." + +"Others would be!" + +"Your exchange would give me the qualities I'm in want of, Miss +Dale." + +"Negative, passive, at the best, Mr. Whitford. But I should have . +. ." + +"Oh!--pardon me. But you inflict the sensations of a boy, with a +dose of honesty in him, called up to receive a prize he has won by +the dexterous use of a crib." + +"And how do you suppose she feels who has a crown of Queen o" the +May forced on her head when she is verging on November?" + +He rejected her analogy, and she his. They could neither of them +bring to light the circumstances which made one another's +admiration so unbearable. The more he exalted her for constancy, +the more did her mind become bent upon critically examining the +object of that imagined virtue; and the more she praised him for +possessing the spirit of perfect friendliness, the fiercer grew +the passion in him which disdained the imputation, hissing like a +heated iron-bar that flings the waterdrops to steam. He would none +of it; would rather have stood exposed in his profound +foolishness. + +Amiable though they were, and mutually affectionate, they came to +a stop in their walk, longing to separate, and not seeing how it +was to be done, they had so knit themselves together with the +pelting of their interlaudation. + +"I think it is time for me to run home to my father for an hour," +said Laetitia. + +"I ought to be working," said Vernon. + +Good progress was made to the disgarlanding of themselves thus +far; yet, an acutely civilized pair, the abruptness of the +transition from floweriness to commonplace affected them both, +Laetitia chiefly, as she had broken the pause, and she remarked:-- +"I am really Constancy in my opinions." + +"Another title is customary where stiff opinions are concerned. +Perhaps by and by you will learn your mistake, and then you will +acknowledge the name for it." + +"How?" said she. "What shall I learn?" + +"If you learn that I am a grisly Egoist?" + +"You? And it would not be egoism," added Laetitia, revealing to +him at the same instant as to herself that she swung suspended on +a scarce credible guess. + +"--Will nothing pierce your ears, Mr. Whitford?" + +He heard the intruding voice, but he was bent on rubbing out the +cloudy letters Laetitia had begun to spell, and he stammered, +in a tone of matter-of-fact: "Just that and no better"; then +turned to Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson. + +"--Or are you resolved you will never see Professor Crooklyn when +you look on him?" said the great lady. + +Vernon bowed to the Professor and apologized to him shufflingly +and rapidly, incoherently, and with a red face; which induced Mrs. +Mountstuart to scan Laetitia's. + +After lecturing Vernon for his abandonment of her yesterday +evening, and flouting his protestations, she returned to the +business of the day. "We walked from the lodge-gates to see the +park and prepare ourselves for Dr. Middleton. We parted last night +in the middle of a controversy and are rageing to resume it. Where +is our redoubtable antagonist?" + +Mrs. Mountstuart wheeled Professor Crooklyn round to accompany +Vernon. + +"We," she said, "are for modern English scholarship, opposed to +the champion of German." + +"The contrary," observed Professor Crooklyn. + +"Oh! We," she corrected the error serenely, "are for German +scholarship opposed to English." + +"Certain editions." + +"We defend certain editions." + +"Defend is a term of imperfect application to my position, ma'am." + +"My dear Professor, you have in Dr. Middleton a match for you in +conscientious pugnacity, and you will not waste it upon me. There, +there they are; there he is. Mr. Whitford will conduct you. I +stand away from the first shock." + +Mrs. Mountstuart fell back to Laetitia, saying: "He pores over a +little inexactitude in phrases, and pecks at it like a domestic +fowl." + +Professor Crooklyn's attitude and air were so well described that +Laetitia could have laughed. + +"These mighty scholars have their flavour," the great lady +hastened to add, lest her younger companion should be misled to +suppose that they were not valuable to a governing hostess: "their +shadow-fights are ridiculous, but they have their flavour at a +table. Last night, no: I discard all mention of last night. We +failed: as none else in this neighbourhood could fail, but we +failed. If we have among us a cormorant devouring young lady who +drinks up all the--ha!--brandy and water--of our inns and +occupies all our flys, why, our condition is abnormal, and we must +expect to fail: we are deprived of accommodation for accidental +circumstances. How Mr. Whitford could have missed seeing +Professor Crooklyn! And what was he doing at the station, Miss +Dale?" + +"Your portrait of Professor Crooklyn was too striking, Mrs +Mountstuart, and deceived him by its excellence. He appears to +have seen only the blank side of the slate." + +"Ah! He is a faithful friend of his cousin, do you not think?" + +"He is the truest of friends." + +"As for Dr. Middleton," Mrs. Mountstuart diverged from her +inquiry, "he will swell the letters of my vocabulary to gigantic +proportions if I see much of him: he is contagious." + +"I believe it is a form of his humour." + +"I caught it of him yesterday at my dinner-table in my distress, +and must pass it off as a form of mine, while it lasts. I talked +Dr. Middleton half the dreary night through to my pillow. Your +candid opinion, my dear, come! As for me, I don't hesitate. We +seemed to have sat down to a solitary performance on the +bass-viol. We were positively an assembly of insects during +thunder. My very soul thanked Colonel De Craye for his diversions, +but I heard nothing but Dr. Middleton. It struck me that my table +was petrified, and every one sat listening to bowls played +overhead." + +"I was amused." + +"Really? You delight me. Who knows but that my guests were sincere +in their congratulations on a thoroughly successful evening? I +have fallen to this, you see! And I know, wretched people! that as +often as not it is their way of condoling with one. I do it +myself: but only where there have been amiable efforts. But +imagine my being congratulated for that!--Good-morning, Sir +Willoughby.--The worst offender! and I am in no pleasant mood +with him," Mrs. Mountstuart said aside to Laetitia, who drew back, +retiring. + +Sir Willoughby came on a step or two. He stopped to watch +Laetitia's figure swimming to the house. + +So, as, for instance, beside a stream, when a flower on the +surface extends its petals drowning to subside in the clear still +water, we exercise our privilege to be absent in the charmed +contemplation of a beautiful natural incident. + +A smile of pleased abstraction melted on his features. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +Mrs. Mountstuart and Sir Willoughby + +"Good morning, my dear Mrs. Mountstuart," Sir Willoughby wakened +himself to address the great lady. "Why has she fled?" + +"Has any one fled?" + +"Laetitia Dale." + +"Letty Dale? Oh, if you call that flying. Possibly to renew a +close conversation with Vernon Whitford, that I cut short. You +frightened me with your 'Shepherds-tell-me' air and tone. Lead me +to one of your garden-seats: out of hearing to Dr. Middleton, I +beg. He mesmerizes me, he makes me talk Latin. I was curiously +susceptible last night. I know I shall everlastingly associate him +with an abortive entertainment and solos on big instruments. We +were flat." + +"Horace was in good vein." + +"You were not." + +"And Laetitia--Miss Dale talked well, I thought." + +"She talked with you, and no doubt she talked well. We did not +mix. The yeast was bad. You shot darts at Colonel De Craye: you +tried to sting. You brought Dr. Middleton down on you. Dear me, +that man is a reverberation in my head. Where is your lady and +love?" + +"Who?" + +"Am I to name her?" + +"Clara? I have not seen her for the last hour. Wandering, I +suppose. + +"A very pretty summer bower," said Mrs. Mountstuart, seating +herself "Well, my dear Sir Willoughby, preferences, preferences +are not to be accounted for, and one never knows whether to pity +or congratulate, whatever may occur. I want to see Miss +Middleton." + +"Your 'dainty rogue in porcelain' will be at your beck--you lunch +with us?--before you leave." + +"So now you have taken to quoting me, have you?" + +"But 'a romantic tale on her eyelashes' is hardly descriptive any +longer." + +"Descriptive of whom? Now you are upon Laetitia Dale!" + +"I quote you generally. She has now a graver look." + +"And well may have!" + +"Not that the romance has entirely disappeared." + +"No; it looks as if it were in print." + +"You have hit it perfectly, as usual, ma'am." + +Sir Willoughby mused. + +Like one resuming his instrument to take up the melody in a +concerted piece, he said: "I thought Laetitia Dale had a +singularly animated air last night." + +"Why!--" Mrs. Mountstuart mildly gaped. + +"I want a new description of her. You know, I collect your mottoes +and sentences." + +"It seems to me she is coming three parts out of her shell, and +wearing it as a hood for convenience." + +"Ready to issue forth at an invitation? Admirable! exact!" + +"Ay, my good Sir Willoughby, but are we so very admirable and +exact? Are we never to know our own minds?" + +He produced a polysyllabic sigh, like those many-jointed compounds +of poets in happy languages, which are copious in a single +expression: "Mine is known to me. It always has been. Cleverness +in women is not uncommon. Intellect is the pearl. A woman of +intellect is as good as a Greek statue; she is divinely wrought, +and she is divinely rare." + +"Proceed," said the lady, confiding a cough to the air. + +"The rarity of it: and it is not mere intellect, it is a +sympathetic intellect; or else it is an intellect in perfect +accord with an intensely sympathetic disposition;--the rarity of +it makes it too precious to be parted with when once we have met +it. I prize it the more the older I grow." + +"Are we on the feminine or the neuter?" + +"I beg pardon?" + +"The universal or the individual?" + +He shrugged. "For the rest, psychological affinities may exist +coincident with and entirely independent of material or moral +prepossessions, relations, engagements, ties." + +"Well, that is not the raving of passion, certainly," said Mrs +Mountstuart, "and it sounds as if it were a comfortable doctrine +for men. On that plea, you might all of you be having Aspasia and +a wife. We saw your fair Middleton and Colonel de Craye at a +distance as we entered the park. Professor Crooklyn is under some +hallucination." + +"What more likely?" + +The readiness and the double-bearing of the reply struck her +comic sense with awe. + +"The Professor must hear that. He insists on the fly, and the inn, +and the wet boots, and the warming mixture, and the testimony of +the landlady and the railway porter." + +"I say, what more likely?" + +"Than that he should insist?" + +"If he is under the hallucination!" + +"He may convince others." + +"I have only to repeat. . ." + +"'What more likely?' It's extremely philosophical. Coincident +with a pursuit of the psychological affinities." + +"Professor Crooklyn will hardly descend, I suppose, from his +classical altitudes to lay his hallucinations before Dr. +Middleton?" + +"Sir Willoughby, you are the pink of chivalry!" + +By harping on Laetitia, he had emboldened Mrs. Mountstuart to lift +the curtain upon Clara. It was offensive to him, but the injury +done to his pride had to be endured for the sake of his general +plan of self-protection. + +"Simply desirous to save my guests from annoyance of any kind", he +said. "Dr Middleton can look 'Olympus and thunder', as Vernon +calls it." + +"Don't. I see him. That look! It is Dictionary-bitten! Angry, +homed Dictionary!--an apparition of Dictionary in the night--to +a dunce!" + +"One would undergo a good deal to avoid the sight." + +"What the man must be in a storm! Speak as you please of yourself: +you are a true and chivalrous knight to dread it for her. But now, +candidly, how is it you cannot condescend to a little management? +Listen to an old friend. You are too lordly. No lover can afford +to be incomprehensible for half an hour. Stoop a little. +Sermonizings are not to be thought of. You can govern unseen. You +are to know that I am one who disbelieves in philosophy in love. I +admire the look of it, I give no credit to the assumption. I +rather like lovers to be out at times: it makes them picturesque, +and it enlivens their monotony. I perceived she had a spot of +wildness. It's proper that she should wear it off before +marriage." + +"Clara? The wildness of an infant!" said Willoughby, paternally, +musing over an inward shiver. "You saw her at a distance just now, +or you might have heard her laughing. Horace diverts her +excessively." + +"I owe him my eternal gratitude for his behaviour last night. She +was one of my bright faces. Her laughter was delicious; rain in +the desert! It will tell you what the load on me was, when I +assure you those two were merely a spectacle to me--points I +scored in a lost game. And I know they were witty." + +"They both have wit; a kind of wit," Willoughby assented. + +"They struck together like a pair of cymbals." + +"Not the highest description of instrument. However, they amuse +me. I like to hear them when I am in the vein." + +"That vein should be more at command with you, my friend. You can +be perfect, if you like." + +"Under your tuition." + +Willoughby leaned to her, bowing languidly. He was easier in his +pain for having hoodwinked the lady. She was the outer world to +him; she could tune the world's voice; prescribe which of the two +was to be pitied, himself or Clara; and he did not intend it to be +himself, if it came to the worst. They were far away from that at +present, and he continued: + +"Probably a man's power of putting on a face is not equal to a +girl's. I detest petty dissensions. Probably I show it when all is +not quite smooth. Little fits of suspicion vex me. It is a +weakness, not to play them off, I know. Men have to learn the arts +which come to women by nature. I don't sympathize with suspicion, +from having none myself," + +His eyebrows shot up. That ill-omened man Flitch had sidled round +by the bushes to within a few feet of him. Flitch primarily +defended himself against the accusation of drunkenness, which was +hurled at him to account for his audacity in trespassing against +the interdict; but he admitted that he had taken "something short" +for a fortification in visiting scenes where he had once been +happy--at Christmastide, when all the servants, and the butler at +head, grey old Mr. Chessington, sat in rows, toasting the young +heir of the old Hall in the old port wine! Happy had he been then, +before ambition for a shop, to be his own master and an +independent gentleman, had led him into his quagmire:--to look +back envying a dog on the old estate, and sigh for the smell of +Patterne stables: sweeter than Arabia, his drooping nose appeared +to say. + +He held up close against it something that imposed silence on Sir +Willoughby as effectively as a cunning exordium in oratory will +enchain mobs to swallow what is not complimenting them; and this +he displayed secure in its being his licence to drivel his +abominable pathos. Sir Willoughby recognized Clara's purse. He +understood at once how the must have come by it: he was not so +quick in devising a means of stopping the tale. Flitch foiled him. +"Intact," he replied to the question: "What have you there?" He +repeated this grand word. And then he turned to Mrs. Mountstuart +to speak of Paradise and Adam, in whom he saw the prototype of +himself: also the Hebrew people in the bondage of Egypt, +discoursed of by the clergymen, not without a likeness to him. + +"Sorrows have done me one good, to send me attentive to church, my +lady," said Flitch, "when I might have gone to London, the +coachman's home, and been driving some honourable family, with no +great advantage to my morals, according to what I hear of. And a +purse found under the seat of a fly in London would have a poor +chance of returning intact to the young lady losing it." + +"Put it down on that chair; inquiries will be made, and you will +see Sir Willoughby," said Mrs. Mountstuart. "Intact, no doubt; it +is not disputed." + +With one motion of a finger she set the man rounding. + +Flitch halted; he was very regretful of the termination of his +feast of pathos, and he wished to relate the finding of the purse, +but he could not encounter Mrs. Mountstuart's look; he slouched +away in very close resemblance to the ejected Adam of illustrated +books. + +"It's my belief that naturalness among the common people has died +out of the kingdom," she said. + +Willoughby charitably apologized for him. "He has been fuddling +himself." + +Her vigilant considerateness had dealt the sensitive gentleman a +shock, plainly telling him she had her ideas of his actual +posture. Nor was he unhurt by her superior acuteness and her +display of authority on his grounds. + +He said, boldly, as he weighed the purse, half tossing it: "It's +not unlike Clara's." + +He feared that his lips and cheeks were twitching, and as he grew +aware of a glassiness of aspect that would reflect any suspicion +of a keen-eyed woman, he became bolder still! + +"Laetitia's, I know it is not. Hers is an ancient purse." + +"A present from you!" + +"How do you hit on that, my dear lady?" + +"Deductively." + +"Well, the purse looks as good as new in quality, like the owner. + +"The poor dear has not much occasion for using it." + +"You are mistaken: she uses it daily." + +"If it were better filled, Sir Willoughby, your old scheme might +be arranged. The parties do not appear so unwilling. Professor +Crooklyn and I came on them just now rather by surprise, and I +assure you their heads were close, faces meeting, eyes musing." + +"Impossible." + +"Because when they approach the point, you won't allow it! +Selfish!" + +"Now," said Willoughby, very animatedly, "question Clara. Now, +do, my dear Mrs. Mountstuart, do speak to Clara on that head; she +will convince you I have striven quite recently against myself, if +you like. I have instructed her to aid me, given her the fullest +instructions, carte blanche. She cannot possibly have a doubt. I +may look to her to remove any you may entertain from your mind on +the subject. I have proposed, seconded, and chorussed it, and it +will not be arranged. If you expect me to deplore that fact, I +can only answer that my actions are under my control, my feelings +are not. I will do everything consistent with the duties of a man +of honour perpetually running into fatal errors because he did not +properly consult the dictates of those feelings at the right +season. I can violate them: but I can no more command them than I +can my destiny. They were crushed of old, and so let them be now. +Sentiments we won't discuss; though you know that sentiments have +a bearing on social life: are factors, as they say in their +later jargon. I never speak of mine. To you I could. It is not +necessary. If old Vernon, instead of flattening his chest at a +desk, had any manly ambition to take part in public affairs, she +would be the woman for him. I have called her my Egeria. She would +be his Cornelia. One could swear of her that she would have noble +offspring!--But old Vernon has had his disappointment, and will +moan over it up to the end. And she? So it appears. I have tried; +yes, personally: without effect. In other matters I may have +influence with her: not in that one. She declines. She will live +and die Laetitia Dale. We are alone: I confess to you, I love the +name. It's an old song in my ears. Do not be too ready with a name +for me. Believe me--I speak from my experience hitherto--there +is a fatality in these things. I cannot conceal from my poor girl +that this fatality exists . . ." + +"Which is the poor girl at present?" said Mrs. Mountstuart, cool +in a mystification. + +"And though she will tell you that I have authorized and Clara +Middleton--done as much as man can to institute the union you +suggest, she will own that she is conscious of the presence of +this--fatality, I call it for want of a better title between us. +It drives her in one direction, me in another--or would, if I +submitted to the pressure. She is not the first who has been +conscious of it." + +"Are we laying hold of a third poor girl?" said Mrs. Mountstuart. +"Ah! I remember. And I remember we used to call it playing fast +and loose in those days, not fatality. It is very strange. It may +be that you were unblushingly courted in those days, and +excusable; and we all supposed ... but away you went for your +tour." + +"My mother's medical receipt for me. Partially it succeeded. She +was for grand marriages: not I. I could make, I could not be, a +sacrifice. And then I went in due time to Dr. Cupid on my own +account. She has the kind of attraction. . . But one changes! On +revient toujours. First we begin with a liking; then we give +ourselves up to the passion of beauty: then comes the serious +question of suitableness of the mate to match us; and perhaps we +discover that we were wiser in early youth than somewhat later. +However, she has beauty. Now, Mrs Mountstuart, you do admire her. +Chase the idea of the 'dainty rogue' out of your view of her: you +admire her: she is captivating; she has a particular charm of her +own, nay, she has real beauty." + +Mrs. Mountstuart fronted him to say: "Upon my word, my dear Sir +Willoughby, I think she has it to such a degree that I don't know +the man who could hold out against her if she took the field. She +is one of the women who are dead shots with men. Whether it's in +their tongues or their eyes, or it's an effusion and an atmosphere +--whatever it is, it's a spell, another fatality for you!" + +"Animal; not spiritual!" + +"Oh, she hasn't the head of Letty Dale." + +Sir Willoughby allowed Mrs. Mountstuart to pause and follow her +thoughts. + +"Dear me!" she exclaimed. "I noticed a change in Letty Dale last +night; and to-day. She looked fresher and younger; extremely +well: which is not what I can say for you, my friend. Fatalizing +is not good for the complexion." + +"Don't take away my health, pray," cried Willoughby, with a +snapping laugh. + +"Be careful," said Mrs. Mountstuart. "You have got a sentimental +tone. You talk of 'feelings crushed of old'. It is to a woman, not +to a man that you speak, but that sort of talk is a way of making +the ground slippery. I listen in vain for a natural tongue; and +when I don't hear it, I suspect plotting in men. You show your +under-teeth too at times when you draw in a breath, like a +condemned high-caste Hindoo my husband took me to see in a jail in +Calcutta, to give me some excitement when I was pining for +England. The creature did it regularly as he breathed; you did it +last night, and you have been doing it to-day, as if the air cut +you to the quick. You have been spoilt. You have been too much +anointed. What I've just mentioned is a sign with me of a settled +something on the brain of a man." + +"The brain?" said Sir Willoughby, frowning. + +"Yes, you laugh sourly, to look at," said she. "Mountstuart told +me that the muscles of the mouth betray men sooner than the eyes, +when they have cause to be uneasy in their minds." + +"But, ma'am, I shall not break my word; I shall not, not; I +intend, I have resolved to keep it. I do not fatalize, let my +complexion be black or white. Despite my resemblance to a +high-caste malefactor of the Calcutta prison-wards ..." + +"Friend! friend! you know how I chatter." + +He saluted her finger-ends. "Despite the extraordinary display of +teeth, you will find me go to execution with perfect calmness; +with a resignation as good as happiness." + +"Like a Jacobite lord under the Georges." + +"You have told me that you wept to read of one: like him, then. My +principles have not changed, if I have. When I was younger, I had +an idea of a wife who would be with me in my thoughts as well as +aims: a woman with a spirit of romance, and a brain of solid +sense. I shall sooner or later dedicate myself to a public life; +and shall, I suppose, want the counsellor or comforter who ought +always to be found at home. It may be unfortunate that I have the +ideal in my head. But I would never make rigorous demands for +specific qualities. The cruellest thing in the world is to set up +a living model before a wife, and compel her to copy it. In any +case, here we are upon the road: the die is cast. I shall not +reprieve myself. I cannot release her. Marriage represents facts, +courtship fancies. She will be cured by-and-by of that coveting of +everything that I do, feel, think, dream, imagine . . . +ta-ta-ta-ta ad infinitum. Laetitia was invited here to show her +the example of a fixed character--solid as any concrete substance +you would choose to build on, and not a whit the less feminine." + +"Ta-ta-ta-ta ad infinitum. You need not tell me you have a design +in all that you do, Willoughby Patterne." + +"You smell the autocrat? Yes, he can mould and govern the +creatures about him. His toughest rebel is himself! If you see +Clara ... You wish to see her, I think you said?" + +"Her behaviour to Lady Busshe last night was queer." + +"If you will. She makes a mouth at porcelain. Toujours la +porcelaine! For me, her pettishness is one of her charms, I +confess it. Ten years younger, I could not have compared them." + +"Whom?" + +"Laetitia and Clara." + +"Sir Willoughby, in any case, to quote you, here we are all upon +the road, and we must act as if events were going to happen; and I +must ask her to help me on the subject of my wedding-present, for +I don't want to have her making mouths at mine, however pretty-- +and she does it prettily." + +"'Another dedicatory offering to the rogue in me!' she says of +porcelain." + +"Then porcelain it shall not be. I mean to consult her; I have +come determined upon a chat with her. I think I understand. But +she produces false impressions on those who don't know you both. +'I shall have that porcelain back,' says Lady Busshe to me, when +we were shaking hands last night: 'I think,' says she, 'it should +have been the Willow Pattern.' And she really said: 'He's in for +being jilted a second time!'" + +Sir Willoughby restrained a bound of his body that would have sent +him up some feet into the air. He felt his skull thundered at +within. + +"Rather than that it should fan upon her!" ejaculated he, +correcting his resemblance to the high-caste culprit as soon as it +recurred to him. + +"But you know Lady Busshe," said Mrs. Mountstuart, genuinely +solicitous to ease the proud man of his pain. She could see +through him to the depth of the skin, which his fencing +sensitiveness vainly attempted to cover as it did the heart of +him. "Lady Busshe is nothing without her flights, fads, and +fancies. She has always insisted that you have an unfortunate +nose. I remember her saying on the day of your majority, it was +the nose of a monarch destined to lose a throne." + +"Have I ever offended Lady Busshe?" + +"She trumpets you. She carries Lady Culmer with her too, and you +may expect a visit of nods and hints and pots of alabaster. They +worship you: you are the hope of England in their eyes, and no +woman is worthy of you: but they are a pair of fatalists, and if +you begin upon Letty Dale with them, you might as well forbid your +banns. They will be all over the country exclaiming on +predestination and marriages made in heaven." + +"Clara and her father!" cried Sir Willoughby. + +Dr Middleton and his daughter appeared in the circle of shrubs and +flowers. + +"Bring her to me, and save me from the polyglot," said Mrs +Mountstuart, in afright at Dr. Middleton's manner of pouring forth +into the ears of the downcast girl. + +The leisure he loved that he might debate with his genius upon any +next step was denied to Willoughby: he had to place his trust in +the skill with which he had sown and prepared Mrs Mountstuart's +understanding to meet the girl--beautiful abhorred that she was! +detested darling! thing to squeeze to death and throw to the dust, +and mourn over! + +He had to risk it; and at an hour when Lady Busshe's prognostic +grievously impressed his intense apprehensiveness of nature. + +As it happened that Dr. Middleton's notion of a disagreeable duty +in colloquy was to deliver all that he contained, and escape the +listening to a syllable of reply, Willoughby withdrew his daughter +from him opportunely. + +"Mrs. Mountstuart wants you, Clara." + +"I shall be very happy," Clara replied, and put on a new face. An +imperceptible nervous shrinking was met by another force in her +bosom, that pushed her to advance without a sign of reluctance. +She seemed to glitter. + +She was handed to Mrs. Mountstuart. + +Dr Middleton laid his hand over Willoughby's shoulder, retiring on +a bow before the great lady of the district. He blew and said: "An +opposition of female instincts to masculine intellect necessarily +creates a corresponding antagonism of intellect to instinct." + +"Her answer, sir? Her reasons? Has she named any?" + +"The cat," said Dr. Middleton, taking breath for a sentence, "that +humps her back in the figure of the letter H, or a Chinese bridge +has given the dog her answer and her reasons, we may presume: but +he that undertakes to translate them into human speech might +likewise venture to propose an addition to the alphabet and a +continuation of Homer. The one performance would be not more +wonderful than the other. Daughters, Willoughby, daughters! Above +most human peccancies, I do abhor a breach of faith. She will not +be guilty of that. I demand a cheerful fulfilment of a pledge: +and I sigh to think that I cannot count on it without +administering a lecture." + +"She will soon be my care, sir." + +"She shall be. Why, she is as good as married. She is at the +altar. She is in her house. She is--why, where is she not? She +has entered the sanctuary. She is out of the market. This maenad +shriek for freedom would happily entitle her to the Republican cap +--the Phrygian--in a revolutionary Parisian procession. To me it +has no meaning; and but that I cannot credit child of mine with +mania, I should be in trepidation of her wits." + +Sir Willoughby's livelier fears were pacified by the information +that Clara had simply emitted a cry. Clara had once or twice given +him cause for starting and considering whether to think of her sex +differently or condemningly of her, yet he could not deem her +capable of fully unbosoming herself even to him, and under +excitement. His idea of the cowardice of girls combined with his +ideal of a waxwork sex to persuade him that though they are often +(he had experienced it) wantonly desperate in their acts, their +tongues are curbed by rosy prudency. And this was in his favour. +For if she proved speechless and stupid with Mrs. Mountstuart, the +lady would turn her over, and beat her flat, beat her angular, in +fine, turn her to any shape, despising her, and cordially believe +him to be the model gentleman of Christendom. She would fill in +the outlines he had sketched to her of a picture that he had small +pride in by comparison with his early vision of a fortune-favoured, +triumphing squire, whose career is like the sun's, intelligibly +lordly to all comprehensions. Not like your model gentleman, that +has to be expounded--a thing for abstract esteem! However, it +was the choice left to him. And an alternative was enfolded in +that. Mrs. Mountstuart's model gentleman could marry either one of +two women, throwing the other overboard. He was bound to marry: he +was bound to take to himself one of them: and whichever one he +selected would cast a lustre on his reputation. At least she +would rescue him from the claws of Lady Busshe, and her owl's +hoot of "Willow Pattern", and her hag's shriek of "twice jilted". +That flying infant Willoughby--his unprotected little incorporeal +omnipresent Self (not thought of so much as passionately felt for) +--would not be scoffed at as the luckless with women. A fall +indeed from his original conception of his name of fame abroad! +But Willoughby had the high consolation of knowing that others +have fallen lower. There is the fate of the devils to comfort us, +if we are driven hard. "For one of your pangs another bosom is +racked by ten", we read in the solacing Book. + +With all these nice calculations at work, Willoughby stood above +himself, contemplating his active machinery, which he could partly +criticize but could not stop, in a singular wonderment at the aims +and schemes and tremours of one who was handsome, manly, +acceptable in the world's eyes: and had he not loved himself most +heartily he would have been divided to the extent of repudiating +that urgent and excited half of his being, whose motions appeared +as those of a body of insects perpetually erecting and repairing a +structure of extraordinary pettiness. He loved himself too +seriously to dwell on the division for more than a minute or so. +But having seen it, and for the first time, as he believed, his +passion for the woman causing it became surcharged with +bitterness, atrabiliar. + +A glance behind him, as he walked away with Dr. Middleton, showed +Clara, cunning creature that she was, airily executing her +malicious graces in the preliminary courtesies with Mrs. +Mountstuart. + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +Miss Middleton and Mrs. Mountstuart + +"Sit beside me, fair Middleton," said the great lady. + +"Gladly," said Clara, bowing to her title. + +"I want to sound you, my dear." + +Clara presented an open countenance with a dim interrogation on +the forehead. "Yes?" she said, submissively. + +"You were one of my bright faces last night. I was in love with +you. Delicate vessels ring sweetly to a finger-nail, and if the +wit is true, you answer to it; that I can see, and that is what I +like. Most of the people one has at a table are drums. A +ruba-dub-dub on them is the only way to get a sound. When they can +be persuaded to do it upon one another, they call it +conversation." + +"Colonel De Craye was very funny." + +"Funny, and witty too." + +"But never spiteful." + +"These Irish or half Irishmen are my taste. If they're not +politicians, mind; I mean Irish gentlemen. I will never have +another dinner-party without one. Our men's tempers are uncertain. +You can't get them to forget themselves. And when the wine is in +them the nature comes out, and they must be buffetting, and +up start politics, and good-bye to harmony! My husband, I am sorry +to say, was one of those who have a long account of ruined dinners +against them. I have seen him and his friends red as the roast and +white as the boiled with wrath on a popular topic they had excited +themselves over, intrinsically not worth a snap of the fingers. In +London!" exclaimed Mrs. Mountstuart, to aggravate the charge +against her lord in the Shades. "But town or country, the table +should be sacred. I have heard women say it is a plot on the side +of the men to teach us our littleness. I don't believe they have a +plot. It would be to compliment them on a talent. I believe they +fall upon one another blindly, simply because they are full; +which is, we are told, the preparation for the fighting Englishman. +They cannot eat and keep a truce. Did you notice that dreadful Mr. +Capes?" + +"The gentleman who frequently contradicted papa? But Colonel De +Craye was good enough to relieve us." + +"How, my dear?" + +"You did not hear him? He took advantage of an interval when Mr. +Capes was breathing after a paean to his friend, the Governor--I +think--of one of the presidencies, to say to the lady beside him: +'He was a wonderful administrator and great logician; he married +an Anglo-Indian widow, and soon after published a pamphlet in +favour of Suttee.'" + +"And what did the lady say?" + +"She said: 'Oh.'" + +"Hark at her! And was it heard?" + +"Mr. Capes granted the widow, but declared he had never seen the +pamphlet in favour of Suttee, and disbelieved in it. He insisted +that it was to be named Sati. He was vehement." + +"Now I do remember:--which must have delighted the colonel. And +Mr. Capes retired from the front upon a repetition of 'in toto, in +toto'. As if 'in toto' were the language of a dinner-table! But +what will ever teach these men? Must we import Frenchmen to give +them an example in the art of conversation, as their grandfathers +brought over marquises to instruct them in salads? And our young +men too! Women have to take to the hunting-field to be able to +talk with them, and be on a par with their grooms. Now, there was +Willoughby Patterne, a prince among them formerly. Now, did you +observe him last night? did you notice how, instead of conversing, +instead of assisting me--as he was bound to do doubly owing to +the defection of Vernon Whitford: a thing I don't yet comprehend-- +there he sat sharpening his lower lip for cutting remarks. And at +my best man! at Colonel De Craye! If he had attacked Mr. Capes, +with his Governor of Bomby, as the man pronounces it, or Colonel +Wildjohn and his Protestant Church in Danger, or Sir Wilson +Pettifer harping on his Monarchical Republic, or any other! No, he +preferred to be sarcastic upon friend Horace, and he had the worst +of it. Sarcasm is so silly! What is the gain if he has been smart? +People forget the epigram and remember the other's good temper. On +that field, my dear, you must make up your mind to be beaten by +'friend Horace'. I have my prejudices and I have my +prepossessions, but I love good temper, and I love wit, and when I +see a man possessed of both, I set my cap at him, and there's my +flat confession, and highly unfeminine it is." + +"Not at all!" cried Clara. + +"We are one, then." + +Clara put up a mouth empty of words: she was quite one with her. +Mrs. Mountstuart pressed her hand. "When one does get intimate +with a dainty rogue!" she said. "You forgive me all that, for I +could vow that Willoughby has betrayed me." + +Clara looked soft, kind, bright, in turns, and clouded instantly +when the lady resumed: "A friend of my own sex, and young, and a +close neighbour, is just what I would have prayed for. And I'll +excuse you, my dear, for not being so anxious about the friendship +of an old woman. But I shall be of use to you, you will find. In +the first place, I never tap for secrets. In the second, I keep +them. Thirdly, I have some power. And fourth, every young married +woman has need of a friend like me. Yes, and Lady Patterne heading +all the county will be the stronger for my backing. You don't look +so mighty well pleased, my dear. Speak out." + +"Dear Mrs. Mountstuart!" + +"I tell you, I am very fond of Willoughby, but I saw the faults of +the boy and see the man's. He has the pride of a king, and it's a +pity if you offend it. He is prodigal in generosity, but he can't +forgive. As to his own errors, you must be blind to them as a +Saint. The secret of him is, that he is one of those excessively +civilized creatures who aim at perfection: and I think he ought to +be supported in his conceit of having attained it; for the more +men of that class, the greater our influence. He excels in manly +sports, because he won't be excelled in anything, but as men don't +comprehend his fineness, he comes to us; and his wife must manage +him by that key. You look down at the idea of managing. It has to +be done. One thing you may be assured of, he will be proud of +you. His wife won't be very much enamoured of herself if she is +not the happiest woman in the world. You will have the best +horses, the best dresses, the finest jewels in England; and an +incomparable cook. The house will be changed the moment you enter +it as Lady Patterne. And, my dear, just where he is, with all his +graces, deficient of attraction, yours will tell. The sort of +Othello he would make, or Leontes, I don't know, and none of us +ever needs to know. My impression is, that if even a shadow of a +suspicion flitted across him, he is a sort of man to double-dye +himself in guilt by way of vengeance in anticipation of an +imagined offence. Not uncommon with men. I have heard strange +stories of them: and so will you in your time to come, but not +from me. No young woman shall ever be the sourer for having been +my friend. One word of advice now we are on the topic: never play +at counter-strokes with him. He will be certain to out-stroke you, +and you will be driven further than you meant to go. They say we +beat men at that game; and so we do, at the cost of beating +ourselves. And if once we are started, it is a race-course ending +on a precipice--over goes the winner. We must be moderately +slavish to keep our place; which is given us in appearance; but +appearances make up a remarkably large part of life, and far the +most comfortable, so long as we are discreet at the right moment. +He is a man whose pride, when hurt, would run his wife to +perdition to solace it. If he married a troublesome widow, his +pamphlet on Suttee would be out within the year. Vernon Whitford +would receive instructions about it the first frosty moon. You +like Miss Dale?" + +"I think I like her better than she likes me," said Clara. + +"Have you never warmed together?" + +"I have tried it. She is not one bit to blame. I can see how it is +that she misunderstands me: or justly condemns me, perhaps I +should say." + +"The hero of two women must die and be wept over in common before +they can appreciate one another. You are not cold?" + +"No." + +"You shuddered, my dear." + +"Did l?" + +"I do sometimes. Feet will be walking over ones grave, wherever it +lies. Be sure of this: Willoughby Patterne is a man of +unimpeachable honour." + +"I do not doubt it." + +"He means to be devoted to you. He has been accustomed to have +women hanging around him like votive offerings." + +"I ...!" + +"You cannot: of course not: any one could see that at a glance. +You are all the sweeter to me for not being tame. Marriage cures +a multitude of indispositions." + +"Oh! Mrs. Mountstuart, will you listen to me?" + +"Presently. Don't threaten me with confidences. Eloquence is a +terrible thing in woman. I suspect, my dear, that we both know as +much as could be spoken." + +"You hardly suspect the truth, I fear." + +"Let me tell you one thing about jealous men--when they are not +blackamoors married to disobedient daughters. I speak of our civil +creature of the drawing-rooms: and lovers, mind, not husbands: two +distinct species, married or not:--they're rarely given to +jealousy unless they are flighty themselves. The jealousy fixes +them. They have only to imagine that we are for some fun likewise +and they grow as deferential as my footman, as harmless as the +sportsman whose gun has burst. Ah! my fair Middleton, am I +pretending to teach you? You have read him his lesson, and my +table suffered for it last night, but I bear no rancour." + +"You bewilder me, Mrs. Mountstuart." + +"Not if I tell you that you have driven the poor man to try +whether it would be possible for him to give you up." + +"I have?" + +"Well, and you are successful." + +"I am?" + +"Jump, my dear!" + +"He will?" + +"When men love stale instead of fresh, withered better than +blooming, excellence in the abstract rather than the palpable. +With their idle prate of feminine intellect, and a grotto nymph, +and a mother of Gracchi! Why, he must think me dazed with +admiration of him to talk to me! One listens, you know. And he is +one of the men who cast a kind of physical spell on you while he +has you by the ear, until you begin to think of it by talking to +somebody else. I suppose there are clever people who do see deep +into the breast while dialogue is in progress. One reads of them. +No, my dear, you have very cleverly managed to show him that it +isn't at all possible: he can't. And the real cause for alarm, in +my humble opinion, is lest your amiable foil should have been a +trifle, as he would say, deceived, too much in earnest, led too +far. One may reprove him for not being wiser, but men won't learn +without groaning that they are simply weapons taken up to be put +down when done with. Leave it to me to compose him.--Willoughby +can't give you up. I'm certain he has tried; his pride has been +horridly wounded. You were shrewd, and he has had his lesson. If +these little rufflings don't come before marriage they come after; +so it's not time lost; and it's good to be able to look back on +them. You are very white, my child." + +"Can you, Mrs. Mountstuart, can you think I would be so +heartlessly treacherous?" + +"Be honest, fair Middleton, and answer me: Can you say you had not +a corner of an idea of producing an effect on Willoughby?" + +Clara checked the instinct of her tongue to defend her reddening +cheeks, with a sense that she was disintegrating and crumbling, +but she wanted this lady for a friend, and she had to submit to +the conditions, and be red and silent. + +Mrs. Mountstuart examined her leisurely. + +"That will do. Conscience blushes. One knows it by the +conflagration. Don't be hard on yourself.. there you are in the +other extreme. That blush of yours would count with me against any +quantity of evidence--all the Crooklyns in the kingdom. You lost +your purse." + +"I discovered that it was lost this morning." + +"Flitch has been here with it. Willoughby has it. You will ask him +for it; he will demand payment: you will be a couple of yards" +length or so of cramoisy: and there ends the episode, nobody +killed, only a poor man melancholy-wounded, and I must offer him +my hand to mend him, vowing to prove to him that Suttee was +properly abolished. Well, and now to business. I said I wanted to +sound you. You have been overdone with porcelain. Poor Lady Busshe +is in despair at your disappointment. Now, I mean my +wedding-present to be to your taste." + +"Madam!" + +"Who is the madam you are imploring?" + +"Dear Mrs. Mountstuart!" + +"Well?" + +"I shall fall in your esteem. Perhaps you will help me. No one +else can. I am a prisoner: I am compelled to continue this +imposture. Oh, I shun speaking much: you object to it and I +dislike it: but I must endeavour to explain to you that I am +unworthy of the position you think a proud one." + +"Tut-tut; we are all unworthy, cross our arms, bow our heads; and +accept the honours. Are you playing humble handmaid? What an old +organ-tune that is! Well? Give me reasons." + +"I do not wish to marry." + +"He's the great match of the county!" + +"I cannot marry him." + +"Why, you are at the church door with him! Cannot marry him?" + +"It does not bind me." + +"The church door is as binding as the altar to an honourable girl. +What have you been about? Since I am in for confidences, half ones +won't do. We must have honourable young women as well as men of +honour. You can't imagine he is to be thrown over now, at this +hour? What have you against him? come!" + +"I have found that I do not . . + +"What?" + +"Love him." + +Mrs. Mountstuart grimaced transiently. "That is no answer. The +cause!" she said. "What has he done? + +"Nothing." + +"And when did you discover this nothing?" + +"By degrees: unknown to myself; suddenly." + +"Suddenly and by degrees? I suppose it's useless to ask for a +head. But if all this is true, you ought not to be here." + +"I wish to go; I am unable." + +"Have you had a scene together?" + +"I have expressed my wish." + +"In roundabout?--girl's English?" + +"Quite clearly. oh, very clearly." + +"Have you spoken to your father?" + +"I have." + +"And what does Dr. Middleton say?" + +"It is incredible to him." + +"To me too! I can understand little differences, little whims, +caprices: we don't settle into harness for a tap on the shoulder +as a man becomes a knight: but to break and bounce away from an +unhappy gentleman at the church door is either madness or it's one +of the things without a name. You think you are quite sure of +yourself?" + +"I am so sure. that I look back with regret on the time when I +was not." + +"But you were in love with him." + +"I was mistaken." + +"No love?" + +"I have none to give. + +"Dear me!--Yes, yes, but that tone of sorrowful conviction is +often a trick, it's not new: and I know that assumption of plain +sense to pass off a monstrosity." Mrs. Mountstuart struck her lap. +"Soh! but I've had to rack my brain for it: feminine disgust? You +have been hearing imputations of his past life? moral character? +No? Circumstances might make him behave unkindly, not +unhandsomely: and we have no claim over a man's past, or it's too +late to assert it. What is the case?" + +"We are quite divided." + +"Nothing in the way of ... nothing green-eyed?" + +"Far from that!" + +"Then name it." + +"We disagree." + +"Many a very good agreement is founded on disagreeing. It's to be +regretted that you are not portionless. If you had been, you would +have made very little of disagreeing. You are just as much bound +in honour as if you had the ring on your finger." + +"In honour! But I appeal to his, I am no wife for him." + +"But if he insists, you consent?" + +"I appeal to reason. Is it, madam . . ." + +"But, I say, if he insists, you consent?" + +"He will insist upon his own misery as well as mine." + +Mrs. Mountstuart rocked herself "My poor Sir Willoughby! What a +fate!--And I took you for a clever girl! Why, I have been +admiring your management of him! And here am I bound to take a +lesson from Lady Busshe. My dear good Middleton, don't let it be +said that Lady Busshe saw deeper than I! I put some little vanity +in it, I own: I won't conceal it. She declares that when she sent +her present--I don't believe her--she had a premonition that it +would come back. Surely you won't justify the extravagances of a +woman without common reverence:--for anatomize him as we please +to ourselves, he is a splendid man (and I did it chiefly to +encourage and come at you). We don't often behold such a +lordly-looking man: so conversable too when he feels at home; a +picture of an English gentleman! The very man we want married for +our neighbourhood! A woman who can openly talk of expecting him to +be twice jilted! You shrink. It is repulsive. It would be +incomprehensible: except, of course, to Lady Busshe, who rushed to +one of her violent conclusions, and became a prophetess. Conceive +a woman's imagining it could happen twice to the same man! I am +not sure she did not send the identical present that arrived and +returned once before: you know, the Durham engagement. She told +me last night she had it back. I watched her listening very +suspiciously to Professor Crooklyn. My dear, it is her passion to +foretell disasters--her passion! And when they are confirmed, she +triumphs, of course. We shall have her domineering over us with +sapient nods at every trifle occurring. The county will be +unendurable. Unsay it, my Middleton! And don't answer like an +oracle because I do all the talking. Pour out to me. You'll soon +come to a stop and find the want of reason in the want of words. I +assure you that's true. Let me have a good gaze at you. No," said +Mrs. Mountstuart, after posturing herself to peruse Clara's +features, "brains you have; one can see it by the nose and the +mouth. I could vow you are the girl I thought you; you have your +wits on tiptoe. How of the heart?" + +"None," Clara sighed. + +The sigh was partly voluntary, though unforced; as one may with +ready sincerity act a character that is our own only through +sympathy. + +Mrs. Mountstuart felt the extra weight in the young lady's falling +breath. There was no necessity for a deep sigh over an absence of +heart or confession of it. If Clara did not love the man to whom +she was betrothed, sighing about it signified what? some pretence; +and a pretence is the cloak of a secret. Girls do not sigh in that +way with compassion for the man they have no heart for, unless at +the same time they should be oppressed by the knowledge or dread +of having a heart for some one else. As a rule, they have no +compassion to bestow on him: you might as reasonably expect a +soldier to bewail the enemy he strikes in action: they must be +very disengaged to have it. And supposing a show of the thing to +be exhibited, when it has not been worried out of them, there is a +reserve in the background: they are pitying themselves under a +mask of decent pity of their wretch. + +So ran Mrs. Mountstuart's calculations, which were like her +suspicion, coarse and broad, not absolutely incorrect, but not of +an exact measure with the truth. That pin's head of the truth is +rarely hit by design. The search after it of the professionally +penetrative in the dark of a bosom may bring it forth by the heavy +knocking all about the neighbourhood that we call good guessing, +but it does not come out clean; other matter adheres to it; and +being more it is less than truth. The unadulterate is to be had +only by faith in it or by waiting for it. + +A lover! thought the sagacious dame. There was no lover: some +love there was: or, rather, there was a preparation of the +chamber, with no lamp yet lighted. + +"Do you positively tell me you have no heart for the position of +first lady of the county?" said Mrs. Mountstuart. + +Clara's reply was firm: "None whatever." + +"My dear, I will believe you on one condition. Look at me. You +have eyes. If you are for mischief, you are armed for it. But how +much better, when you have won a prize, to settle down and wear +it! Lady Patterne will have entire occupation for her flights and +whimsies in leading the county. And the man, surely the man--he +behaved badly last night: but a beauty like this," she pushed a +finger at Clara's cheek, and doated a half instant, "you have the +very beauty to break in an ogre's temper. And the man is as +governable as he is presentable. You have the beauty the French +call--no, it's the beauty of a queen of elves: one sees them +lurking about you, one here, one there. Smile--they dance: be +doleful--they hang themselves. No, there's not a trace of +satanic; at least, not yet. And come, come, my Middleton, the man +is a man to be proud of. You can send him into Parliament to wear +off his humours. To my thinking, he has a fine style: conscious? I +never thought so before last night. I can't guess what has happened +to him recently. He was once a young Grand Monarque. He was really +a superb young English gentleman. Have you been wounding him?" + +"It is my misfortune to be obliged to wound him," said Clara. + +"Quite needlessly, my child, for marry him you must." + +Clara's bosom rose: her shoulders rose too, narrowing, and her +head fell slight back. + +Mrs. Mountstuart exclaimed: "But the scandal! You would never, +never think of following the example of that Durham girl?--whether +she was provoked to it by jealousy or not. It seems to have gone +so astonishingly far with you in a very short time, that one is +alarmed as to where you will stop. Your look just now was +downright revulsion." + +"I fear it is. It is. I am past my own control. Dear madam, you +have my assurance that I will not behave scandalously or +dishonourably. What I would entreat of you is to help me. I know +this of myself.. I am not the best of women. I am impatient, +wickedly. I should be no good wife. Feelings like mine teach me +unhappy things of myself." + +"Rich, handsome, lordly, influential, brilliant health, fine +estates," Mrs. Mountstuart enumerated in petulant accents as there +started across her mind some of Sir Willoughby's attributes for +the attraction of the soul of woman. "I suppose you wish me to +take you in earnest?" + +"I appeal to you for help." + +"What help?" + +"Persuade him of the folly of pressing me to keep my word." + +"I will believe you, my dear Middleton, on one condition: your +talk of no heart is nonsense. A change like this, if one is to +believe in the change, occurs through the heart, not because there +is none. Don't you see that? But if you want me for a friend, you +must not sham stupid. It's bad enough in itself: the imitation's +horrid. You have to be honest with me, and answer me right out. +You came here on this visit intending to marry Willoughby +Patterne." + +"Yes." + +"And gradually you suddenly discovered, since you came here, that +you did not intend it, if you could find a means of avoiding it." + +"Oh, madam, yes, it is true." + +"Now comes the test. And, my lovely Middleton, your flaming cheeks +won't suffice for me this time. The old serpent can blush like an +innocent maid on occasion. You are to speak, and you are to tell +me in six words why that was: and don't waste one on 'madam', or +'Oh! Mrs. Mountstuart" Why did you change?" + +"I came--When I came I was in some doubt. Indeed I speak the +truth. I found I could not give him the admiration he has, I dare +say, a right to expect. I turned--it surprised me; it surprises +me now. But so completely! So that to think of marrying him is . . +." + +"Defer the simile," Mrs. Mountstuart interposed. "If you hit on a +clever one, you will never get the better of it. Now, by just as +much as you have outstripped my limitation of words to you, you +show me you are dishonest." + +"I could make a vow." + +"You would forswear yourself." + +"Will you help me?" + +"If you are perfectly ingenuous, I may try." + +"Dear lady, what more can I say?" + +"It may be difficult. You can reply to a catechism." + +"I shall have your help?" + +"Well, yes; though I don't like stipulations between friends. +There is no man living to whom you could willingly give your hand? +That is my question. I cannot possibly take a step unless I know. +Reply briefly: there is or there is not." Clara sat back with +bated breath, mentally taking the leap into the abyss, realizing +it, and the cold prudence of abstention, and the delirium of the +confession. Was there such a man? It resembled freedom to think +there was: to avow it promised freedom. + +"Oh, Mrs. Mountstuart!" + +"Well?" + +"You will help me?" + +"Upon my word, I shall begin to doubt your desire for it." + +"Willingly give my hand, madam?" + +"For shame! And with wits like yours, can't you perceive where +hesitation in answering such a question lands you?" + +"Dearest lady, will you give me your hand? may I whisper?" + +"You need not whisper; I won't look." + +Clara's voice trembled on a tense chord. + +"There is one ... compared with him I feel my insignificance. If I +could aid him." + +"What necessity have you to tell me more than that there is one?" + +"Ah, madam, it is different: not as you imagine. You bid me be +scrupulously truthful: I am: I wish you to know the different +kind of feeling it is from what might be suspected from ... a +confession. To give my hand, is beyond any thought I have ever +encouraged. If you had asked me whether there is one whom I admire +--yes, I do. I cannot help admiring a beautiful and brave +self-denying nature. It is one whom you must pity, and to pity +casts you beneath him: for you pity him because it is his +nobleness that has been the enemy of his fortunes. He lives for +others." + +Her voice was musically thrilling in that low muted tone of the +very heart, impossible to deride or disbelieve. + +Mrs. Mountstuart set her head nodding on springs. + +"Is he clever?" + +"Very." + +"He talks well?" + +"Yes." + +"Handsome?" + +"He might be thought so." + +"Witty?" + +"I think he is." + +"Gay, cheerful?" + +"In his manner." + +"Why, the man would be a mountebank if he adopted any other. And +poor?" + +"He is not wealthy." + +Mrs. Mountstuart preserved a lengthened silence, but nipped +Clara's fingers once or twice to reassure her without approving. +"Of course he's poor," she said at last; "directly the reverse of +what you could have, it must be. Well, my fair Middleton, I can't +say you have been dishonest. I'll help you as far as I'm able. +How, it is quite impossible to tell. We're in the mire. The best +way seems to me to get this pitiable angel to cut some ridiculous +capers and present you another view of him. I don't believe in his +innocence. He knew you to be a plighted woman." + +"He has not once by word or sign hinted a disloyalty." + +"Then how do you know." + +"I do not know." + +"He is not the cause of your wish to break your engagement?" + +"No." + +"Then you have succeeded in just telling me nothing. What is?" + +"Ah! madam!" + +"You would break your engagement purely because the admirable +creature is in existence?" + +Clara shook her head: she could not say she was dizzy. She had +spoken out more than she had ever spoken to herself. and in doing +so she had cast herself a step beyond the line she dared to +contemplate. + +"I won't detain you any longer," said Mrs. Mountstuart. "The more +we learn, the more we are taught that we are not so wise as we +thought we were. I have to go to school to Lady Busshe! I really +took you for a very clever girl. If you change again, you will +notify the important circumstance to me, I trust." + +"I will," said Clara, and no violent declaration of the +impossibility of her changeing again would have had such an effect +on her hearer. + +Mrs. Mountstuart scanned her face for a new reading of it to match +with her later impressions. + +"I am to do as I please with the knowledge I have gained?" + +"I am utterly in your hands, madam." + +"I have not meant to be unkind." + +"You have not been unkind; I could embrace you." + +"I am rather too shattered, and kissing won't put me together. I +laughed at Lady Busshe! No wonder you went off like a rocket with +a disappointing bouquet when I told you you had been successful +with poor Sir Willoughby and he could not give you up. I noticed +that. A woman like Lady Busshe, always prying for the lamentable, +would have required no further enlightenment. Has he a temper?" + +Clara did not ask her to signalize the person thus abruptly +obtruded. + +"He has faults," she said. + +"There's an end to Sir Willoughby, then! Though I don't say he +will give you up even when he hears the worst, if he must hear it, +as for his own sake he should. And I won't say he ought to give +you up. He'll be the pitiable angel if he does. For you--but you +don't deserve compliments; they would be immoral. You have behaved +badly, badly, badly. I have never had such a right-about-face in +my life. You will deserve the stigma: you will he notorious: you +will be called Number Two. Think of that! Not even original! We +will break the conference, or I shall twaddle to extinction. I +think I heard the luncheon bell." + +"It rang." + +"You don't look fit for company, but you had better come. + +"Oh, yes; every day it's the same." + +"Whether you're in my hands or I'm in yours, we're a couple of +arch-conspirators against the peace of the family whose table +we're sitting at, and the more we rattle the viler we are, but we +must do it to ease our minds." + +Mrs. Mountstuart spread the skirts of her voluminous dress, +remarking further: "At a certain age our teachers are young +people: we learn by looking backward. It speaks highly for me that +I have not called you mad.--Full of faults, goodish-looking, not +a bad talker, cheerful, poorish;--and she prefers that to this!" +the great lady exclaimed in her reverie while emerging from the +circle of shrubs upon a view of the Hall. Colonel De Craye +advanced to her; certainly good-looking, certainly cheerful, by no +means a bad talker, nothing of a Croesus, and variegated with +faults. + +His laughing smile attacked the irresolute hostility of her mien, +confident as the sparkle of sunlight in a breeze. The effect of it +on herself angered her on behalf of Sir Willoughby's bride. + +"Good-morning, Mrs. Mountstuart; I believe I am the last to greet +you." + +And how long do you remain here, Colonel De Craye?" + +"I kissed earth when I arrived, like the Norman William, and +consequently I've an attachment to the soil, ma'am." + +"You're not going to take possession of it, I suppose?" + +"A handful would satisfy me." + +"You play the Conqueror pretty much, I have heard. But property is +held more sacred than in the times of the Norman William." + +"And speaking of property, Miss Middleton, your purse is found." he +said. + +"I know it is," she replied as unaffectedly as Mrs. Mountstuart +could have desired, though the ingenuous air of the girl incensed +her somewhat. + +Clara passed on. + +"You restore purses," observed Mrs. Mountstuart. + +Her stress on the word and her look thrilled De Craye; for there +had been a long conversation between the young lady and the dame. + +"It was an article that dropped and was not stolen," said he. + +"Barely sweet enough to keep, then!" + +"I think I could have felt to it like poor Flitch, the flyman, who +was the finder." + +"If you are conscious of these temptations to appropriate what is +not your own, you should quit the neighbourhood." + +"And do it elsewhere? But that's not virtuous counsel." + +"And I'm not counselling in the interests of your virtue, Colonel +De Craye." + +"And I dared for a moment to hope that you were, ma'am," he said, +ruefully drooping. + +They were close to the dining-room window, and Mrs Mountstuart +preferred the terminating of a dialogue that did not promise to +leave her features the austerely iron cast with which she had +commenced it. She was under the spell of gratitude for his +behaviour yesterday evening at her dinner-table; she could not be +very severe. + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +Animated Conversation at a Luncheon-Table + +Vernon was crossing the hall to the dining-room as Mrs Mountstuart +stepped in. She called to him: "Are the champions reconciled?" + +He replied: "Hardly that, but they have consented to meet at an +altar to offer up a victim to the gods in the shape of modern +poetic imitations of the classical." + +"That seems innocent enough. The Professor has not been anxious +about his chest?" + +"He recollects his cough now and then." + +"You must help him to forget it." + +"Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer are here," said Vernon, not supposing +it to be a grave announcement until the effect of it on Mrs. +Mountstuart admonished him. + +She dropped her voice: "Engage my fair friend for one of your +walks the moment we rise from table. You may have to rescue her; +but do. I mean it." + +"She's a capital walker." Vernon remarked in simpleton style. + +"There's no necessity for any of your pedestrian feats," Mrs +Mountstuart said, and let him go, turning to Colonel De Craye to +pronounce an encomium on him: "The most open-minded man I know! +Warranted to do perpetual service, and no mischief. If you were all +... instead of catching at every prize you covet! Yes, you would +have your reward for unselfishness, I assure you. Yes, and where +you seek it! That is what none of you men will believe." + +"When you behold me in your own livery!" cried the colonel. + +"Do I?" said she, dallying with a half-formed design to he +confidential. "How is it one is always tempted to address you in +the language of innuendo? I can't guess." + +"Except that as a dog doesn't comprehend good English we naturally +talk bad to him." + +The great lady was tickled. Who could help being amused by this +man? And after all, if her fair Middleton chose to be a fool there +could be no gainsaying her, sorry though poor Sir Willoughby's +friends must feel for him. + +She tried not to smile. + +"You are too absurd. Or a baby, you might have added." + +"I hadn't the daring." + +"I'll tell you what, Colonel De Craye, I shall end by falling in +love with you; and without esteeming you, I fear." + +"The second follows as surely as the flavour upon a draught of +Bacchus, if you'll but toss off the glass, ma'am." + +"We women, sir, think it should be first." + +"'Tis to transpose the seasons, and give October the blossom and +April the apple, and no sweet one! Esteem's a mellow thing that +comes after bloom and fire, like an evening at home; because if +it went before it would have no father and couldn't hope for +progeny; for there'd be no nature in the business. So please, +ma'am, keep to the original order, and you'll be nature's child, +and I the most blessed of mankind." + +"Really, were I fifteen years younger. I am not so certain ... I +might try and make you harmless." + +"Draw the teeth of the lamb so long as you pet him!" + +"I challenged you, colonel, and I won't complain of your pitch. +But now lay your wit down beside your candour, and descend to an +every-day level with me for a minute." + +"Is it innuendo?" + +"No; though I daresay it would be easier for you to respond to if +it were." + +"I'm the straightforwardest of men at a word of command." + +"This is a whisper. Be alert, as you were last night. Shuffle the +table well. A little liveliness will do it. I don't imagine +malice, but there's curiosity, which is often as bad, and not so +lightly foiled. We have Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer here." + +"To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky!" + +"Well, then, can you fence with broomsticks?" + +"I have had a bout with them in my time." + +"They are terribly direct." + +"They 'give point', as Napoleon commanded his cavalry to do." + +"You must help me to ward it." + +"They will require variety in the conversation." + +"Constant. You are an angel of intelligence, and if I have the +judgeing of you, I'm afraid you'll be allowed to pass, in spite of +the scandal above. Open the door; I don't unbonnet." + +De Craye threw the door open. + +Lady Busshe was at that moment saying, "And are we indeed to have +you for a neighbour, Dr. Middleton?" + +The Rev. Doctor's reply was drowned by the new arrivals. + +"I thought you had forsaken us," observed Sir Willoughby to Mrs. +Mountstuart. + +"And run away with Colonel De Craye? I'm too weighty, my dear +friend. Besides, I have not looked at the wedding-presents yet." + +"The very object of our call!" exclaimed Lady Culmer. + +"I have to confess I am in dire alarm about mine," Lady Busshe +nodded across the table at Clara. "Oh! you may shake your head, +but I would rather hear a rough truth than the most complimentary +evasion." + +"How would you define a rough truth, Dr. Middleton?" +said Mrs. Mountstuart. + +Like the trained warrior who is ready at all hours for the trumpet +to arms, Dr. Middleton waked up for judicial allocution in a trice. + +"A rough truth, madam, I should define to be that description of +truth which is not imparted to mankind without a powerful +impregnation of the roughness of the teller." + +"It is a rough truth, ma'am, that the world is composed of +fools, and that the exceptions are knaves," Professor Crooklyn +furnished that example avoided by the Rev. Doctor. + +"Not to precipitate myself into the jaws of the foregone +definition, which strikes me as being as happy as Jonah's whale, +that could carry probably the most learned man of his time inside +without the necessity of digesting him," said De Craye, "a rough +truth is a rather strong charge of universal nature for the firing +off of a modicum of personal fact." + +"It is a rough truth that Plato is Moses atticizing," said Vernon +to Dr. Middleton, to keep the diversion alive. + +"And that Aristotle had the globe under his cranium," rejoined the +Rev. Doctor. + +"And that the Moderns live on the Ancients." + +"And that not one in ten thousand can refer to the particular +treasury he filches." + +"The Art of our days is a revel of rough truth," remarked +Professor Crooklyn. + +"And the literature has laboriously mastered the adjective, +wherever it may be in relation to the noun, Dr. Middleton added. + +"Orson's first appearance at court was in the figure of a rough +truth, causing the Maids of Honour, accustomed to Tapestry Adams, +astonishment and terror," said De Craye. That he might not be left +out of the sprightly play, Sir Willoughby levelled a lance at the +quintain, smiling on Laetitia: "In fine, caricature is rough +truth." + +She said, "Is one end of it, and realistic directness is the +other." + +He bowed. "The palm is yours." + +Mrs. Mountstuart admired herself as each one trotted forth in turn +characteristically, with one exception unaware of the aid which +was being rendered to a distressed damsel wretchedly incapable of +decent hypocrisy. Her intrepid lead had shown her hand to the +colonel and drawn the enemy at a blow. + +Sir Willoughby's "in fine", however, did not please her: still +less did his lackadaisical Lothario-like bowing and smiling to +Miss Dale: and he perceived it and was hurt. For how, carrying +his tremendous load, was he to compete with these unhandicapped +men in the game of nonsense she had such a fondness for starting +at a table? He was further annoyed to hear Miss Eleanor and Miss +Isabel Patterne agree together that "caricature" was the final +word of the definition. Relatives should know better than to +deliver these awards to us in public. + +"Well?" quoth Lady Busshe, expressive of stupefaction at the +strange dust she had raised. + +"Are they on view, Miss Middleton?" inquired Lady Culmer. + +"There's a regiment of us on view and ready for inspection." +Colonel De Craye bowed to her, but she would not be foiled. + +"Miss Middleton's admirers are always on view." said he. + +"Are they to be seen?" said Lady Busshe. + +Clara made her face a question, with a laudable smoothness. + +"The wedding-presents," Lady Culmer explained. + +"No." + +"Otherwise, my dear, we are in danger of duplicating and +triplicating and quadruplicating, not at all to the satisfaction +of the bride." + +"But there's a worse danger to encounter in the 'on view', my +lady," said De Craye; "and that's the magnetic attraction a +display of wedding-presents is sure to have for the ineffable +burglar, who must have a nuptial soul in him, for wherever there's +that collection on view, he's never a league off. And 'tis said he +knows a lady's dressing-case presented to her on the occasion +fifteen years after the event." + +"As many as fifteen?" said Mrs. Mountstuart. + +"By computation of the police. And if the presents are on view, +dogs are of no use, nor bolts, nor bars:--he's worse than Cupid. +The only protection to be found, singular as it may be thought, is +in a couple of bottles of the oldest Jamaica rum in the British +isles." + +"Rum?" cried Lady Busshe. + +"The liquor of the Royal Navy, my lady. And with your permission, +I'll relate the tale in proof of it. I had a friend engaged to a +young lady, niece of an old sea-captain of the old school, the +Benbow school, the wooden leg and pigtail school; a perfectly salt +old gentleman with a pickled tongue, and a dash of brine in every +deed he committed. He looked rolled over to you by the last wave +on the shore, sparkling: he was Neptune's own for humour. And when +his present to the bride was opened, sure enough there lay a +couple of bottles of the oldest Jamaica rum in the British Isles, +born before himself, and his father to boot. 'Tis a fabulous +spirit I beg you to believe in, my lady, the sole merit of the +story being its portentous veracity. The bottles were tied to make +them appear twins, as they both had the same claim to seniority. +And there was a label on them, telling their great age, to +maintain their identity. They were in truth a pair of patriarchal +bottles rivalling many of the biggest houses in the kingdom for +antiquity. They would have made the donkey that stood between the +two bundles of hay look at them with obliquity: supposing him to +have, for an animal, a rum taste, and a turn for hilarity. +Wonderful old bottles! So, on the label, just over the date, was +written large: UNCLE BENJAMIN'S WEDDING PRESENT TO HIS NIECE +BESSY. Poor Bessy shed tears of disappointment and indignation +enough to float the old gentleman on his native element, ship and +all. She vowed it was done curmudgeonly to vex her, because her +uncle hated wedding-presents and had grunted at the exhibition of +cups and saucers, and this and that beautiful service, and +epergnes and inkstands, mirrors, knives and forks, dressing-cases, +and the whole mighty category. She protested, she flung herself +about, she declared those two ugly bottles should not join the +exhibition in the dining-room, where it was laid out for days, and +the family ate their meals where they could, on the walls, like +flies. But there was also Uncle Benjamin's legacy on view, in the +distance, so it was ruled against her that the bottles should have +their place. And one fine morning down came the family after a +fearful row of the domestics; shouting, screaming, cries for the +police, and murder topping all. What did they see? They saw two +prodigious burglars extended along the floor, each with one of the +twin bottles in his hand, and a remainder of the horror of the +midnight hanging about his person like a blown fog, sufficient to +frighten them whilst they kicked the rascals entirely intoxicated. +Never was wilder disorder of wedding-presents, and not one lost!-- +owing, you'll own, to Uncle Benjy's two bottles of ancient Jamaica +rum." + +Colonel De Craye concluded with an asseveration of the truth of +the story. + +"A most provident, far-sighted old sea-captain!" exclaimed Mrs. +Mountstuart, laughing at Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer. These +ladies chimed in with her gingerly. + +"And have you many more clever stories, Colonel De Craye?" said +Lady Busshe. + +"Ah! my lady, when the tree begins to count its gold 'tis nigh +upon bankruptcy." + +"Poetic!" ejaculated Lady Culmer, spying at Miss Middleton's +rippled countenance, and noting that she and Sir Willoughby had +not interchanged word or look. + +"But that in the case of your Patterne Port a bottle of it would +outvalue the catalogue of nuptial presents, Willoughby, I would +recommend your stationing some such constabulary to keep watch and +ward." said Dr. Middleton, as he filled his glass, taking Bordeaux +in the middle of the day, under a consciousness of virtue and its +reward to come at half-past seven in the evening. + +"The rascals would require a dozen of that, sir," said De Craye. + +"Then it is not to be thought of. Indeed one!" Dr. Middleton +negatived the idea. + +"We are no further advanced than when we began," observed Lady +Busshe. + +"If we are marked to go by stages," Mrs. Mountstuart assented. + +"Why, then, we shall be called old coaches," remarked the colonel. + +"You," said Lady Culmer, "have the advantage of us in a closer +acquaintance with Miss Middleton. You know her tastes, and how far +they have been consulted in the little souvenirs already grouped +somewhere, although not yet for inspection. I am at sea. And here +is Lady Busshe in deadly alarm. There is plenty of time to effect +a change--though we are drawing on rapidly to the fatal day, Miss +Middleton. We are, we are very near it. Oh! yes. I am one who +thinks that these little affairs should be spoken of openly, +without that ridiculous bourgeois affectation, so that we may be +sure of giving satisfaction. It is a transaction like everything +else in life. I, for my part, wish to be remembered favourably. I +put it as a test of breeding to speak of these things as plain +matter-of-fact. You marry; I wish you to have something by you to +remind you of me. What shall it be?--useful or ornamental. For an +ordinary household the choice is not difficult. But where wealth +abounds we are in a dilemma." + +"And with persons of decided tastes," added Lady Busshe. + +"I am really very unhappy," she protested to Clara. + +Sir Willoughby dropped Laetitia; Clara's look of a sedate +resolution to preserve silence on the topic of the nuptial gifts +made a diversion imperative. + +"Your porcelain was exquisitely chosen, and I profess to be a +connoisseur," he said. "I am poor in Old Saxony, as you know; I +can match the country in Savres, and my inheritance of China will +not easily be matched in the country." + +"You may consider your Dragon vases a present from young +Crossjay," said De Craye. + +"How?" + +"Hasn't he abstained from breaking them? the capital boy! +Porcelain and a boy in the house together is a case of prospective +disaster fully equal to Flitch and a fly." + +"You should understand that my friend Horace--whose wit is in +this instance founded on another tale of a boy--brought us a +magnificent piece of porcelain, destroyed by the capsizing of his +conveyance from the station," said Sir Willoughby to Lady Busshe. + +She and Lady Culmer gave out lamentable Ohs, while Miss Eleanor +and Miss Isabel Patterne sketched the incident. Then the lady +visitors fixed their eyes in united sympathy upon Clara: +recovering from which, after a contemplation of marble, Lady +Busshe emphasized, "No, you do not love porcelain, it is evident, +Miss Middleton." + +"I am glad to be assured of it," said Lady Culmer. + +"Oh, I know that face: I know that look," Lady Busshe affected to +remark rallyingly: "it is not the first time I have seen it." + +Sir Willoughby smarted to his marrow. "We will rout these fancies +of an overscrupulous generosity, my dear Lady Busshe." + +Her unwonted breach of delicacy in speaking publicly of her +present, and the vulgar persistency of her sticking to the theme, +very much perplexed him. And if he mistook her not, she had just +alluded to the demoniacal Constantia Durham. + +It might be that he had mistaken her: he was on guard against his +terrible sensitiveness. Nevertheless it was hard to account for +this behaviour of a lady greatly his friend and admirer, a lady of +birth. And Lady Culmer as well!--likewise a lady of birth. Were +they in collusion? had they a suspicion? He turned to Laetitia's +face for the antidote to his pain. + +"Oh, but you are not one yet, and I shall require two voices to +convince me," Lady Busshe rejoined, after another stare at the +marble. + +"Lady Busshe, I beg you not to think me ungrateful," said Clara. + +"Fiddle!--gratitude! it is to please your taste, to satisfy you. +I care for gratitude as little as for flattery." + +"But gratitude is flattering," said Vernon. + +" Now, no metaphysics, Mr. Whitford." + +"But do care a bit for flattery, my lady," said De Craye. "'Tis +the finest of the Arts; we might call it moral sculpture. Adepts +in it can cut their friends to any shape they like by practising +it with the requisite skill. I myself, poor hand as I am, have +made a man act Solomon by constantly praising his wisdom. He took +a sagacious turn at an early period of the dose. He weighed the +smallest question of his daily occasions with a deliberation truly +oriental. Had I pushed it, he'd have hired a baby and a couple of +mothers to squabble over the undivided morsel." + +"I shall hope for a day in London with you," said Lady Culmer to +Clara. + +"You did not forget the Queen of Sheba?" said Mrs. Mountstuart to +De Craye. + +"With her appearance, the game has to be resigned to her +entirely," he rejoined. + +"That is," Lady Culmer continued, "if you do not despise an old +woman for your comrade on a shopping excursion." + +"Despise whom we fleece!" exclaimed Dr. Middleton. "Oh, no, Lady +Culmer, the sheep is sacred." + +"I am not so sure," said Vernon. + +"In what way, and to what extent, are you not so sure?" said Dr. +Middleton. + +"The natural tendency is to scorn the fleeced." + +"I stand for the contrary. Pity, if you like: particularly when +they bleat." + +"This is to assume that makers of gifts are a fleeced people: I +demur," said Mrs. Mountstuart. + +"Madam, we are expected to give; we are incited to give; you have +dubbed it the fashion to give; and the person refusing to give, or +incapable of giving, may anticipate that he will be regarded as +benignly as a sheep of a drooping and flaccid wool by the farmer, +who is reminded by the poor beast's appearance of a strange dog +that worried the flock. Even Captain Benjamin, as you have seen, +was unable to withstand the demand on him. The hymeneal pair are +licensed freebooters levying blackmail on us; survivors of an +uncivilized period. But in taking without mercy, I venture to +trust that the manners of a happier era instruct them not to scorn +us. I apprehend that Mr. Whitford has a lower order of latrons in +his mind." + +"Permit me to say, sir, that you have not considered the ignoble +aspect of the fleeced," said Vernon. "I appeal to the ladies: +would they not, if they beheld an ostrich walking down a Queen's +Drawing Room, clean-plucked, despise him though they were wearing +his plumes?" + +"An extreme supposition, indeed," said Dr. Middleton, frowning over +it; "scarcely legitimately to be suggested." + +"I think it fair, sir, as an instance." + +"Has the circumstance occurred, I would ask?" + +"In life? a thousand times." + +"I fear so," said Mrs. Mountstuart. + +Lady Busshe showed symptoms of a desire to leave a profitless +table. + +Vernon started up, glancing at the window. + +"Did you see Crossjay?" he said to Clara. + +"No; I must, if he is there," said she. + +She made her way out, Vernon after her. They both had the excuse. + +"Which way did the poor boy go?" she asked him. + +"I have not the slightest idea," he replied. "But put on your +bonnet, if you would escape that pair of inquisitors." + +"Mr. Whitford, what humiliation!" + +"I suspect you do not feel it the most, and the end of it can't be +remote, said he. + +Thus it happened that when Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer quitted the +dining-room, Miss Middleton had spirited herself away from +summoning voice and messenger. + +Sir Willoughby apologized for her absence. "If I could be jealous, +it would be of that boy Crossjay." + +"You are an excellent man, and the best of cousins," was Lady +Busshe's enigmatical answer. + +The exceedingly lively conversation at his table was lauded by +Lady Culmer. + +"Though," said she, "what it all meant, and what was the drift of +it, I couldn't tell to save my life. Is it every day the same with +you here?" + +"Very much." + +"How you must enjoy a spell of dulness!" + +"If you said simplicity and not talking for effect! I generally +cast anchor by Laetitia Dale." + +"Ah!" Lady Busshe coughed. "But the fact is, Mrs. Mountstuart is +made for cleverness!" + +"I think, my lady, Laetitia Dale is to the full as clever as any +of the stars Mrs. Mountstuart assembles, or I." + +"Talkative cleverness, I mean." + +"In conversation as well. Perhaps you have not yet given her a +chance." + +"Yes, yes, she is clever, of course, poor dear. She is looking +better too." + +"Handsome, I thought," said Lady Culmer. + +"She varies," observed Sir Willoughby. + +The ladies took seat in their carriage and fell at once into a +close-bonnet colloquy. Not a single allusion had they made to the +wedding-presents after leaving the luncheon-table. The cause of +their visit was obvious. + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +Contains Clever Fencing and Intimations of the Need for It + +That woman, Lady Busshe, had predicted, after the event, +Constantia Durham's defection. She had also, subsequent to +Willoughby's departure on his travels, uttered sceptical things +concerning his rooted attachment to Laetitia Dale. In her bitter +vulgarity, that beaten rival of Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson for the +leadership of the county had taken his nose for a melancholy +prognostic of his fortunes; she had recently played on his name: +she had spoken the hideous English of his fate. Little as she +knew, she was alive to the worst interpretation of appearances. No +other eulogy occurred to her now than to call him the best of +cousins, because Vernon Whitford was housed and clothed and fed by +him. She had nothing else to say for a man she thought luckless! +She was a woman barren of wit, stripped of style, but she was +wealthy and a gossip--a forge of showering sparks--and she +carried Lady Culmer with her. The two had driven from his house to +spread the malignant rumour abroad; already they blew the biting +world on his raw wound. Neither of them was like Mrs. Mountstuart, +a witty woman, who could be hoodwinked; they were dull women, who +steadily kept on their own scent of the fact, and the only way to +confound such inveterate forces was to be ahead of them, and seize +and transform the expected fact, and astonish them, when they came +up to him, with a totally unanticipated fact. + +"You see, you were in error, ladies." + +"And so we were, Sir Willoughby, and we acknowledge it. We never +could have guessed that!" + +Thus the phantom couple in the future delivered themselves, as +well they might at the revelation. He could run far ahead. + +Ay, but to combat these dolts, facts had to be encountered, deeds +done, in groaning earnest. These representatives of the +pig-sconces of the population judged by circumstances: airy shows +and seems had no effect on them. Dexterity of fence was thrown +away. + +A flying peep at the remorseless might of dulness in compelling us +to a concrete performance counter to our inclinations, if we would +deceive its terrible instinct, gave Willoughby for a moment the +survey of a sage. His intensity of personal feeling struck so +vivid an illumination of mankind at intervals that he would have +been individually wise, had he not been moved by the source of his +accurate perceptions to a personal feeling of opposition to his +own sagacity. He loathed and he despised the vision, so his mind +had no benefit of it, though he himself was whipped along. He +chose rather (and the choice is open to us all) to be flattered by +the distinction it revealed between himself and mankind. + +But if he was not as others were, why was he discomfited, +solicitous, miserable? To think that it should be so, ran dead +against his conqueror's theories wherein he had been trained, +which, so long as he gained success awarded success to native +merit, grandeur to the grand in soul, as light kindles light: +nature presents the example. His early training, his bright +beginning of life, had taught him to look to earth's principal +fruits as his natural portion, and it was owing to a girl that he +stood a mark for tongues, naked, wincing at the possible malignity +of a pair of harridans. Why not whistle the girl away? + +Why, then he would he free to enjoy, careless, younger than his +youth in the rebound to happiness! + +And then would his nostrils begin to lift and sniff at the +creeping up of a thick pestiferous vapour. Then in that volume of +stench would he discern the sullen yellow eye of malice. A +malarious earth would hunt him all over it. The breath of the +world, the world's view of him, was partly his vital breath, his +view of himself. The ancestry of the tortured man had bequeathed +him this condition of high civilization among their other +bequests. Your withered contracted Egoists of the hut and the grot +reck not of public opinion; they crave but for liberty and leisure +to scratch themselves and soothe an excessive scratch. Willoughby +was expansive, a blooming one, born to look down upon a tributary +world, and to exult in being looked to. Do we wonder at his +consternation in the prospect of that world's blowing foul on +him? Princes have their obligations to teach them they are mortal, +and the brilliant heir of a tributary world is equally enchained +by the homage it brings him;--more, inasmuch as it is immaterial, +elusive, not gathered by the tax, and he cannot capitally punish +the treasonable recusants. Still must he be brilliant; he must +court his people. He must ever, both in his reputation and his +person, aching though he be, show them a face and a leg. + +The wounded gentleman shut himself up in his laboratory, where he +could stride to and fro, and stretch out his arms for physical +relief, secure from observation of his fantastical shapes, under +the idea that he was meditating. There was perhaps enough to make +him fancy it in the heavy fire of shots exchanged between his +nerves and the situation; there were notable flashes. He would not +avow that he was in an agony: it was merely a desire for +exercise. + +Quintessence of worldliness, Mrs. Mountstuart appeared through his +farthest window, swinging her skirts on a turn at the end of the +lawn, with Horace De Craye smirking beside her. And the woman's +vaunted penetration was unable to detect the histrionic Irishism +of the fellow. Or she liked him for his acting and nonsense; nor +she only. The voluble beast was created to snare women. Willoughby +became smitten with an adoration of stedfastness in women. The +incarnation of that divine quality crossed his eyes. She was clad +in beauty. A horrible nondescript convulsion composed of yawn and +groan drove him to his instruments, to avert a renewal of the +shock; and while arranging and fixing them for their unwonted +task, he compared himself advantageously with men like Vernon and +De Craye, and others of the county, his fellows in the +hunting-field and on the Magistrate's bench, who neither +understood nor cared for solid work, beneficial practical work, +the work of Science. + +He was obliged to relinquish it: his hand shook. + +"Experiments will not advance much at this rate," he said, casting +the noxious retardation on his enemies. + +It was not to be contested that he must speak with Mrs +Mountstuart, however he might shrink from the trial of his facial +muscles. Her not coming to him seemed ominous: nor was her +behaviour at the luncheon-table quite obscure. She had evidently +instigated the gentlemen to cross and counterchatter Lady Busshe +and Lady Culmer. For what purpose? + +Clara's features gave the answer. + +They were implacable. And he could be the same. + +In the solitude of his room he cried right out: "I swear it, I +will never yield her to Horace De Craye! She shall feel some of my +torments, and try to get the better of them by knowing she +deserves them." He had spoken it, and it was an oath upon the +record. + +Desire to do her intolerable hurt became an ecstasy in his veins, +and produced another stretching fit that terminated in a violent +shake of the body and limbs; during which he was a spectacle for +Mrs. Mountstuart at one of the windows. He laughed as he went to +her, saying: "No, no work to-day; it won't be done, positively +refuses." + +"I am taking the Professor away," said she; "he is fidgety about +the cold he caught." + +Sir Willoughby stepped out to her. "I was trying at a bit of work +for an hour, not to be idle all day." + +"You work in that den of yours every clay? + +"Never less than an hour, if I can snatch it." + +"It is a wonderful resource!" + +The remark set him throbbing and thinking that a prolongation of +his crisis exposed him to the approaches of some organic malady, +possibly heart-disease. + +"A habit," he said. "In there I throw off the world." + +"We shall see some results in due time." + +"I promise none: I like to be abreast of the real knowledge of my +day, that is all." + +"And a pearl among country gentlemen!" + +"In your gracious consideration, my dear lady. Generally speaking, +it would be more advisable to become a chatterer and keep an +anecdotal note-book. I could not do it, simply because I could not +live with my own emptiness for the sake of making an occasional +display of fireworks. I aim at solidity. It is a narrow aim, no +doubt; not much appreciated." + +"Laetitia Dale appreciates it." + +A smile of enforced ruefulness, like a leaf curling in heat, +wrinkled his mouth. + +Why did she not speak of her conversation with Clara? + +"Have they caught Crossjay?" he said. + +"Apparently they are giving chase to him." + +The likelihood was, that Clara had been overcome by timidity. + +"Must you leave us?" + +"I think it prudent to take Professor Crooklyn away." + +"He still . . .?" + +"The extraordinary resemblance!" + +"A word aside to Dr. Middleton will dispel that." + +"You are thoroughly good." + +This hateful encomium of commiseration transfixed him. Then she +knew of his calamity! + +"Philosophical," he said, "would be the proper term, I think." + +"Colonel De Craye, by the way, promises me a visit when he leaves +you." + +"To-morrow?" + +"The earlier the better. He is too captivating; he is delightful. +He won me in five minutes. I don't accuse him. Nature gifted him to +cast the spell. We are weak women, Sir Willoughby." + +She knew! + +"Like to like: the witty to the witty, ma'am." + +"You won't compliment me with a little bit of jealousy?" + +"I forbear from complimenting him." + +"Be philosophical, of course, if you have the philosophy." + +"I pretend to it. Probably I suppose myself to succeed because I +have no great requirement of it; I cannot say. We are riddles to +ourselves." + +Mrs. Mountstuart pricked the turf with the point of her parasol. +She looked down and she looked up. + +"Well?" said he to her eyes. + +"Well, and where is Laetitia Dale?" + +He turned about to show his face elsewhere. + +When he fronted her again, she looked very fixedly, and set her +head shaking. + +"It will not do, my dear Sir Willoughby!" + +"What?" + +I never could solve enigmas." + +"Playing ta-ta-ta-ta ad infinitum, then. Things have gone far. All +parties would be happier for an excursion. Send her home." + +"Laetitia? I can't part with her." + +Mrs. Mountstuart put a tooth on her under lip as her head renewed +its brushing negative. + +"In what way can it be hurtful that she should be here, ma'am?" he +ventured to persist. + +"Think." + +"She is proof." + +"Twice!" + +The word was big artillery. He tried the affectation of a staring +stupidity. She might have seen his heart thump, and he quitted +the mask for an agreeable grimace. + +"She is inaccessible. She is my friend. I guarantee her, on my +honour. Have no fear for her. I beg you to have confidence in me. +I would perish rather. No soul on earth is to be compared with +her." + +Mrs. Mountstuart repeated "Twice!" + +The low monosyllable, musically spoken in the same tone of warning +of a gentle ghost, rolled a thunder that maddened him, but he +dared not take it up to fight against it on plain terms. + +"Is it for my sake?" he said. + +"It will not do, Sir Willoughby." + +She spurred him to a frenzy. + +"My dear Mrs. Mountstuart, you have been listening to tales. I am +not a tyrant. I am one of the most easy-going of men. Let us +preserve the forms due to society: I say no more. As for poor old +Vernon, people call me a good sort of cousin; I should like to see +him comfortably married; decently married this time. I have +proposed to contribute to his establishment. I mention it to show +that the case has been practically considered. He has had a +tolerably souring experience of the state; he might be inclined +if, say, you took him in hand, for another venture. It's a +demoralizing lottery. However, Government sanctions it." + +"But, Sir Willoughby, what is the use of my taking him in hand +when, as you tell me, Laetitia Dale holds back?" + +"She certainly does." + +"Then we are talking to no purpose, unless you undertake to melt +her." + +He suffered a lurking smile to kindle to some strength of meaning. + +"You are not over-considerate in committing me to such an office." + +"You are afraid of the danger?" she all but sneered. + +Sharpened by her tone, he said, "I have such a love of stedfastness +of character, that I should be a poor advocate in the endeavour to +break it. And frankly, I know the danger. I saved my honour when +I made the attempt: that is all I can say." + +"Upon my word," Mrs. Mountstuart threw back her head to let her +eyes behold him summarily over their fine aquiline bridge, "you +have the art of mystification, my good friend." + +"Abandon the idea of Laetitia Dale." + +"And marry your cousin Vernon to whom? Where are we?" + +"As I said, ma'am, I am an easy-going man. I really have not a +spice of the tyrant in me. An intemperate creature held by the +collar may have that notion of me, while pulling to be released as +promptly as it entered the noose. But I do strictly and sternly +object to the scandal of violent separations, open breaches of +solemn engagements, a public rupture. Put it that I am the cause, +I will not consent to a violation of decorum. Is that clear? It is +just possible for things to be arranged so that all parties may be +happy in their way without much hubbub. Mind, it is not I who +have willed it so. I am, and I am forced to be, passive. But I +will not be obstructive." + +He paused, waving his hand to signify the vanity of the more that +might be said. + +Some conception of him, dashed by incredulity, excited the lady's +intelligence. + +"Well!" she exclaimed, "you have planted me in the land of +conjecture. As my husband used to say, I don't see light, but I +think I see the lynx that does. We won't discuss it at present. I +certainly must be a younger woman than I supposed, for I am +learning hard.--Here comes the Professor, buttoned up to the +ears, and Dr. Middleton flapping in the breeze. There will be a +cough, and a footnote referring to the young lady at the station, +if we stand together, so please order my carriage." + +"You found Clara complacent? roguish?" + +"I will call to-morrow. You have simplified my task, Sir +Willoughby, very much; that is, assuming that I have not entirely +mistaken you. I am so far in the dark that I have to help myself +by recollecting how Lady Busshe opposed my view of a certain matter +formerly. Scepticism is her forte. It will be the very oddest +thing if after all ...! No, I shall own, romance has not departed. +Are you fond of dupes?" + +"I detest the race." + +"An excellent answer. I could pardon you for it." She refrained +from adding, "If you are making one of me." + +Sir Willoughby went to ring for her carriage. + +She knew. That was palpable: Clara had betrayed him. + +"The earlier Colonel De Craye leaves Patterne Hall the better:" +she had said that: and, "all parties would be happier for an +excursion." She knew the position of things and she guessed the +remainder. But what she did not know, and could not divine, was +the man who fenced her. He speculated further on the witty and the +dull. These latter are the redoubtable body. They will have facts +to convince them: they had, he confessed it to himself, +precipitated him into the novel sphere of his dark hints to Mrs. +Mountstuart; from which the utter darkness might allow him to +escape, yet it embraced him singularly, and even pleasantly, with +the sense of a fact established. + +It embraced him even very pleasantly. There was an end to his +tortures. He sailed on a tranquil sea, the husband of a stedfast +woman--no rogue. The exceeding beauty of stedfastness in women +clothed Laetitia in graces Clara could not match. A tried stedfast +woman is the one jewel of the sex. She points to her husband like +the sunflower; her love illuminates him; she lives in him, for +him; she testifies to his worth; she drags the world to his feet; +she leads the chorus of his praises; she justifies him in his own +esteem. Surely there is not on earth such beauty! + +If we have to pass through anguish to discover it and cherish the +peace it gives to clasp it, calling it ours, is a full reward. +Deep in his reverie, he said his adieus to Mrs. Mountstuart, and +strolled up the avenue behind the carriage-wheels, unwilling to +meet Laetitia till he had exhausted the fresh savour of the cud +of fancy. + +Supposing it done!-- + +It would be generous on his part. It would redound to his credit. + +His home would be a fortress, impregnable to tongues. He would +have divine security in his home. + +One who read and knew and worshipped him would be sitting there +star-like: sitting there, awaiting him, his fixed star. + +It would be marriage with a mirror, with an echo; marriage with a +shining mirror, a choric echo. + +It would be marriage with an intellect, with a fine understanding; +to make his home a fountain of repeatable wit: to make his dear +old Patterne Hall the luminary of the county. + +He revolved it as a chant: with anon and anon involuntarily a +discordant animadversion on Lady Busshe. Its attendant imps heard +the angry inward cry. + +Forthwith he set about painting Laetitia in delectable human +colours, like a miniature of the past century, reserving her ideal +figure for his private satisfaction. The world was to bow to her +visible beauty, and he gave her enamel and glow, a taller stature, +a swimming air, a transcendency that exorcized the image of the +old witch who had driven him to this. + +The result in him was, that Laetitia became humanly and avowedly +beautiful. Her dark eyelashes on the pallor of her cheeks lent +their aid to the transformation, which was a necessity to him, so +it was performed. He received the waxen impression. + +His retinue of imps had a revel. We hear wonders of men, and we +see a lifting up of hands in the world. The wonders would be +explained, and never a hand need to interject, if the mystifying +man were but accompanied by that monkey-eyed confraternity. They +spy the heart and its twists. + +The heart is the magical gentleman. None of them would follow +where there was no heart. The twists of the heart are the comedy. + +"The secret of the heart is its pressing love of self ", says the +Book. + +By that secret the mystery of the organ is legible: and a +comparison of the heart to the mountain rillet is taken up to show +us the unbaffled force of the little channel in seeking to swell +its volume, strenuously, sinuously, ever in pursuit of self; the +busiest as it is the most single-aiming of forces on our earth. +And we are directed to the sinuosities for posts of observation +chiefly instructive. + +Few maintain a stand there. People see, and they rush away to +interchange liftings of hands at the sight, instead of patiently +studying the phenomenon of energy. + +Consequently a man in love with one woman, and in all but absolute +consciousness, behind the thinnest of veils, preparing his mind to +love another, will be barely credible. The particular hunger of +the forceful but adaptable heart is the key of him. Behold the +mountain rillet, become a brook, become a torrent, how it inarms a +handsome boulder: yet if the stone will not go with it, on it +hurries, pursuing self in extension, down to where perchance a dam +has been raised of a sufficient depth to enfold and keep it from +inordinate restlessness. Laetitia represented this peaceful +restraining space in prospect. + +But she was a faded young woman. He was aware of it; and +systematically looking at himself with her upturned orbs, he +accepted her benevolently as a God grateful for worship, and used +the divinity she imparted to paint and renovate her. His heart +required her so. The heart works the springs of imagination; +imagination received its commission from the heart, and was a +cunning artist. + +Cunning to such a degree of seductive genius that the masterpiece +it offered to his contemplation enabled him simultareously to +gaze on Clara and think of Laetitia. Clara came through the +park-gates with Vernon, a brilliant girl indeed, and a shallow +one: a healthy creature, and an animal; attractive, but +capricious, impatient, treacherous, foul; a woman to drag men +through the mud. She approached. + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +In Which We Take a Step to the Centre of Egoism + +They met; Vernon soon left them. + +"You have not seen Crossjay?" Willoughby inquired. + +"No," said Clara. "Once more I beg you to pardon him. He spoke +falsely, owing to his poor boy's idea of chivalry." + +"The chivalry to the sex which commences in lies ends by creating +the woman's hero, whom we see about the world and in certain +courts of law." + +His ability to silence her was great: she could not reply to +speech like that. + +"You have," said he, " made a confidante of Mrs. Mountstuart." + +"Yes." + +"This is your purse." + +"I thank you." + +"Professor Crooklyn has managed to make your father acquainted +with your project. That, I suppose, is the railway ticket in the +fold of the purse. He was assured at the station that you had +taken a ticket to London, and would not want the fly." + +"It is true. I was foolish." + +"You have had a pleasant walk with Vernon--turning me in and +out?" + +"We did not speak of you. You allude to what he would never +consent to." + +"He's an honest fellow, in his old-fashioned way. He's a secret +old fellow. Does he ever talk about his wife to you?" + +Clara dropped her purse, and stooped and picked it up. + +"I know nothing of Mr. Whitford's affairs," she said, and she +opened the purse and tore to pieces the railway ticket. + +"The story's a proof that romantic spirits do not furnish the +most romantic history. You have the word 'chivalry' frequently on +your lips. He chivalrously married the daughter of the +lodging-house where he resided before I took him. We obtained +information of the auspicious union in a newspaper report of Mrs. +Whitford's drunkenness and rioting at a London railway terminus-- +probably the one whither your ticket would have taken you +yesterday, for I heard the lady was on her way to us for supplies, +the connubial larder being empty." + +"I am sorry; I am ignorant; I have heard nothing; I know nothing," +said Clara. + +"You are disgusted. But half the students and authors you hear of +marry in that way. And very few have Vernon's luck." + +"She had good qualities?" asked Clara. + +Her under lip hung. + +It looked like disgust; he begged her not indulge the feeling. + +"Literary men, it is notorious, even with the entry to society, +have no taste in women. The housewife is their object. Ladies +frighten and would, no doubt, be an annoyance and hindrance to +them at home." + +"You said he was fortunate." + +"You have a kindness for him." + +"I respect him." + +"He is a friendly old fellow in his awkward fashion; honourable, +and so forth. But a disreputable alliance of that sort sticks to a +man. The world will talk. Yes, he was fortunate so far; he fell +into the mire and got out of it. Were he to marry again . . + +"She ..." + +"Died. Do not be startled; it was a natural death. She responded +to the sole wishes left to his family. He buried the woman, and I +received him. I took him on my tour. A second marriage might cover +the first: there would be a buzz about the old business: the +woman's relatives write to him still, try to bleed him, I dare +say. However, now you understand his gloominess. I don't imagine +he regrets his loss. He probably sentimentalizes, like most men +when they are well rid of a burden. You must not think the worse +of him." + +"I do not," said Clara. + +"I defend him whenever the matter's discussed." + +"I hope you do." + +"Without approving his folly. I can't wash him clean." + +They were at the Hall-doors. She waited for any personal +communications he might be pleased to make, and as there was none, +she ran upstairs to her room. + +He had tossed her to Vernon in his mind, not only painlessly, but +with a keen acid of satisfaction. The heart is the wizard. + +Next he bent his deliberate steps to Laetitia. + +The mind was guilty of some hesitation; the feet went forward. + +She was working at an embroidery by an open window. Colonel De +Craye leaned outside, and Willoughby pardoned her air of demure +amusement, on hearing him say: "No, I have had one of the +pleasantest half-hours of my life, and would rather idle here, if +idle you will have it, than employ my faculties on horse-back," + +"Time is not lost in conversing with Miss Dale," said +Willoughby. + +The light was tender to her complexion where she sat in partial +shadow. + +De Craye asked whether Crossjay had been caught. + +Laetitia murmured a kind word for the boy. Willoughby examined her +embroidery. + +The ladies Eleanor and Isabel appeared. + +They invited her to take carriage exercise with them. + +Laetitia did not immediately answer, and Willoughby remarked: +"Miss Dale has been reproving Horace for idleness and I recommend +you to enlist him to do duty, while I relieve him here." + +The ladies had but to look at the colonel. He was at their +disposal, if they would have him. He was marched to the carriage. + +Laetitia plied her threads. + +"Colonel De Craye spoke of Crossjay," she said. "May I hope you +have forgiven the poor boy, Sir Willoughby?" + +He replied: "Plead for him." + +"I wish I had eloquence." + +"In my opinion you have it." + +"If he offends, it is never from meanness. At school, among +comrades, he would shine. He is in too strong a light; his +feelings and his moral nature are over-excited." + +"That was not the case when he was at home with you. + +"I am severe; I am stern." + +"A Spartan mother!" + +"My system of managing a boy would be after that model: except in +this: he should always feet that he could obtain forgiveness." + +"Not at the expense of justice?" + +"Ah! young creatures are not to be arraigned before the higher +Courts. It seems to me perilous to terrify their imaginations. +If we do so, are we not likely to produce the very evil we are +combating? The alternations for the young should be school and +home: and it should be in their hearts to have confidence that +forgiveness alternates with discipline. They are of too tender an +age for the rigours of the world; we are in danger of hardening +them. I prove to you that I am not possessed of eloquence. You +encouraged me to speak, Sir Willoughby." + +"You speak wisely, Laetitia." + +"I think it true. Will not you reflect on it? You have only to do +so to forgive him. I am growing bold indeed, and shall have to beg +forgiveness for myself." + +"You still write? you continue to work with your pen?" said +Willoughby. + +"A little; a very little." + +"I do not like you to squander yourself, waste yourself, on the +public. You are too precious to feed the beast. Giving out +incessantly must end by attenuating. Reserve yourself for your +friends. Why should they be robbed of so much of you? Is it not +reasonable to assume that by lying fallow you would be more +enriched for domestic life? Candidly, had I authority I would +confiscate your pen: I would 'away with that bauble'. You will not +often find me quoting Cromwell, but his words apply in this +instance. I would say rather, that lancet. Perhaps it is the more +correct term. It bleeds you, it wastes you. For what? For a breath +of fame!" + +"I write for money." + +"And there--I would say of another--you subject yourself to the +risk of mental degradation. Who knows?--moral! Trafficking the +brains for money must bring them to the level of the purchasers in +time. I confiscate your pen, Laetitia." + +"It will be to confiscate your own gift, Sir Willoughby." + +"Then that proves--will you tell me the date?" + +"You sent me a gold pen-holder on my sixteenth birthday." + +"It proves my utter thoughtlessness then, and later. And later!" + +He rested an elbow on his knee, and covered his eyes, murmuring in +that profound hollow which is haunted by the voice of a contrite +past: "And later!" + +The deed could be done. He had come to the conclusion that it +could be done, though the effort to harmonize the figure sitting +near him, with the artistic figure of his purest pigments, had +cost him labour and a blinking of the eyelids. That also could be +done. Her pleasant tone, sensible talk, and the light favouring +her complexion, helped him in his effort. She was a sober cup; +sober and wholesome. Deliriousness is for adolescence. The men who +seek intoxicating cups are men who invite their fates. + +Curiously, yet as positively as things can be affirmed, the +husband of this woman would be able to boast of her virtues and +treasures abroad, as he could not--impossible to say why not-- +boast of a beautiful wife or a blue-stocking wife. One of her +merits as a wife would be this extraordinary neutral merit of a +character that demanded colour from the marital hand, and would +take it. + +Laetitia had not to learn that he had much to distress him. Her +wonder at his exposure of his grief counteracted a fluttering of +vague alarm. She was nervous; she sat in expectation of some burst +of regrets or of passion. + +"I may hope that you have pardoned Crossjay?" she said. + +"My friend," said he, uncovering his face, "I am governed by +principles. Convince me of an error, I shall not obstinately +pursue a premeditated course. But you know me. Men who have not +principles to rule their conduct are--well, they are unworthy of +a half hour of companionship with you. I will speak to you +to-night. I have letters to dispatch. To-night: at twelve: in the +room where we spoke last. Or await me in the drawing-room. I have +to attend to my guests till late." + +He bowed; he was in a hurry to go. + +The deed could he done. It must be done; it was his destiny. + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +In the Heart of the Egoist + +But already he had begun to regard the deed as his executioner. He +dreaded meeting Clara. The folly of having retained her stood +before him. How now to look on her and keep a sane resolution +unwavering? She tempted to the insane. Had she been away, he could +have walked through the performance composed by the sense of doing +a duty to himself; perhaps faintly hating the poor wretch he made +happy at last, kind to her in a manner, polite. Clara's presence +in the house previous to the deed, and, oh, heaven! after it, +threatened his wits. Pride? He had none; he cast it down for her +to trample it; he caught it back ere it was trodden on. Yes; he +had pride: he had it as a dagger in his breast: his pride was his +misery. But he was too proud to submit to misery. "What I do is +right." He said the words, and rectitude smoothed his path, till +the question clamoured for answer: Would the world countenance and +endorse his pride in Laetitia? At one time, yes. And now? Clara's +beauty ascended, laid a beam on him. We are on board the labouring +vessel of humanity in a storm, when cries and countercries ring +out, disorderliness mixes the crew, and the fury of +self-preservation divides: this one is for the ship, that one for +his life. Clara was the former to him, Laetitia the latter. But +what if there might not be greater safety in holding tenaciously +to Clara than in casting her off for Laetitia? No, she had done +things to set his pride throbbing in the quick. She had gone +bleeding about first to one, then to another; she had betrayed him +to Vernon, and to Mrs. Mountstuart; a look in the eyes of Horace +De Craye said, to him as well: to whom not? He might hold to her +for vengeance; but that appetite was short-lived in him if it +ministered nothing to his purposes. "I discard all idea of +vengeance," he said, and thrilled burningly to a smart in his +admiration of the man who could be so magnanimous under mortal +injury; for the more admirable he, the more pitiable. He drank a +drop or two of self-pity like a poison, repelling the assaults of +public pity. Clara must be given up. It must be seen by the world +that, as he felt, the thing he did was right. Laocoon of his own +serpents, he struggled to a certain magnificence of attitude in +the muscular net of constrictions he flung around himself. Clara +must be given up. Oh, bright Abominable! She must be given up: but +not to one whose touch of her would be darts in the blood of the +yielder, snakes in his bed: she must be given up to an +extinguisher; to be the second wife of an old-fashioned +semi-recluse, disgraced in his first. And were it publicly known +that she had been cast off, and had fallen on old Vernon for a +refuge, and part in spite, part in shame, part in desperation, +part in a fit of good sense under the circumstances, espoused him, +her beauty would not influence the world in its judgement. The +world would know what to think. As the instinct of +self-preservation whispered to Willoughby, the world, were it +requisite, might be taught to think what it assuredly would not +think if she should be seen tripping to the altar with Horace De +Craye. Self-preservation, not vengeance, breathed that whisper. He +glanced at her iniquity for a justification of it, without any +desire to do her a permanent hurt: he was highly civilized: but +with a strong intention to give her all the benefit of a scandal, +supposing a scandal, or ordinary tattle. + +"And so he handed her to his cousin and secretary, Vernon +Whitford, who opened his mouth and shut his eyes." + +You hear the world? How are we to stop it from chattering? Enough +that he had no desire to harm her. Some gentle anticipations of +her being tarnished were imperative; they came spontaneously to +him; otherwise the radiance of that bright Abominable in loss +would have been insufferable; he could not have borne it; he could +never have surrendered her. Moreover, a happy present effect was +the result. He conjured up the anticipated chatter and shrug of +the world so vividly that her beauty grew hectic with the stain, +bereft of its formidable magnetism. He could meet her calmly; he +had steeled himself. Purity in women was his principal stipulation. +and a woman puffed at, was not the person to cause him tremours. + +Consider him indulgently: the Egoist is the Son of Himself. He is +likewise the Father. And the son loves the father, the father the +son; they reciprocate affection through the closest of ties; and +shall they view behaviour unkindly wounding either of them, not +for each other's dear sake abhorring the criminal? They would not +injure you, but they cannot consent to see one another suffer or +crave in vain. The two rub together in sympathy besides +relationship to an intenser one. Are you, without much offending, +sacrificed by them, it is on the altar of their mutual love, to +filial piety or paternal tenderness: the younger has offered a +dainty morsel to the elder, or the elder to the younger. Absorbed +in their great example of devotion do they not think of you. They +are beautiful. + +Yet is it most true that the younger has the passions of youth: +whereof will come division between them; and this is a tragic +state. They are then pathetic. This was the state of Sir +Willoughby lending ear to his elder, until he submitted to bite at +the fruit proposed to him--with how wry a mouth the venerable +senior chose not to mark. At least, as we perceive, a half of him +was ripe of wisdom in his own interests. The cruder half had but +to be obedient to the leadership of sagacity for his interests to +be secured, and a filial disposition assisted him; painfully +indeed; but the same rare quality directed the good gentleman to +swallow his pain. That the son should bewail his fate were a +dishonour to the sire. He reverenced, and submitted. Thus, to say, +consider him indulgently, is too much an appeal for charity on +behalf of one requiring but initial anatomy--a slicing in halves +--to exonerate, perchance exalt him. The Egoist is our +fountain-head, primeval man: the primitive is born again, the +elemental reconstituted. Born again, into new conditions, the +primitive may be highly polished of men, and forfeit nothing save +the roughness of his original nature. He is not only his own +father, he is ours; and he is also our son. We have produced him. +he us. Such were we, to such are we returning: not other, sings +the poet, than one who toilfully works his shallop against the +tide, "si brachia forte remisit":--let him haply relax the +labour of his arms, however high up the stream, and back he goes, +"in pejus", to the early principle of our being, with seeds and +plants, that are as carelessly weighed in the hand and as +indiscriminately husbanded as our humanity. + +Poets on the other side may be cited for an assurance that the +primitive is not the degenerate: rather is he a sign of the +indestructibility of the race, of the ancient energy in removing +obstacles to individual growth; a sample of what we would be, had +we his concentrated power. He is the original innocent, the pure +simple. It is we who have fallen; we have melted into Society, +diluted our essence, dissolved. He stands in the midst +monumentally, a land-mark of the tough and honest old Ages, with +the symbolic alphabet of striking arms and running legs, our early +language, scrawled over his person, and the glorious first flint +and arrow-head for his crest: at once the spectre of the +Kitchen-midden and our ripest issue. + +But Society is about him. The occasional spectacle of the +primitive dangling on a rope has impressed his mind with the +strength of his natural enemy: from which uncongenial sight he has +turned shuddering hardly less to behold the blast that is blown +upon a reputation where one has been disrespectful of the many. By +these means, through meditation on the contrast of circumstances +in life, a pulse of imagination has begun to stir, and he has +entered the upper sphere or circle of spiritual Egoism: he has +become the civilized Egoist; primitive still, as sure as man has +teeth, but developed in his manner of using them. + +Degenerate or not (and there is no just reason to suppose it) Sir +Willoughby was a social Egoist, fiercely imaginative in whatsoever +concerned him. He had discovered a greater realm than that of the +sensual appetites, and he rushed across and around it in his +conquering period with an Alexander's pride. On these wind-like +journeys he had carried Constantia, subsequently Clara; and +however it may have been in the case of Miss Durham, in that of +Miss Middleton it is almost certain she caught a glimpse of his +interior from sheer fatigue in hearing him discourse of it. What +he revealed was not the cause of her sickness: women can bear +revelations--they are exciting: but the monotonousness. He slew +imagination. There is no direr disaster in love than the death of +imagination. He dragged her through the labyrinths of his +penetralia, in his hungry coveting to be loved more and still +more, more still, until imagination gave up the ghost, and he +talked to her plain hearing like a monster. It must have been +that; for the spell of the primitive upon women is masterful up to +the time of contact. + +"And so he handed her to his cousin and secretary, Vernon +Whitford, who opened his mouth and shut his eyes." + +The urgent question was, how it was to be accomplished. +Willoughby worked at the subject with all his power of +concentration: a power that had often led him to feel and say, +that as a barrister, a diplomatist, or a general, he would have +won his grades: and granting him a personal interest in the +business, he might have achieved eminence: he schemed and fenced +remarkably well. + +He projected a scene, following expressions of anxiety on account +of old Vernon and his future settlement: and then Clara +maintaining her doggedness, to which he was now so accustomed that +he could not conceive a change in it--says he: "If you determine +on breaking I give you back your word on one condition." Whereupon +she starts: he insists on her promise: she declines: affairs +resume their former footing; she frets: she begs for the +disclosure: he flatters her by telling her his desire to keep her +in the family: she is unilluminated, but strongly moved by +curiosity: he philosophizes on marriage "What are we? poor +creatures! we must get through life as we can, doing as much good +as we can to those we love; and think as you please, I love old +Vernon. Am I not giving you the greatest possible proof of it?" +She will not see. Then flatly out comes the one condition. That +and no other. "Take Vernon and I release you." She refuses. Now +ensues the debate, all the oratory being with him. "Is it because +of his unfortunate first marriage? You assured me you thought no +worse of him," etc. She declares the proposal revolting. He can +distinguish nothing that should offend her in a proposal to make +his cousin happy if she will not him. Irony and sarcasm relieve +his emotions, but he convinces her he is dealing plainly and +intends generosity. She is confused; she speaks in maiden fashion. +He touches again on Vernon's early escapade. She does not enjoy +it. The scene closes with his bidding her reflect on it, and +remember the one condition of her release. Mrs. Mountstuart +Jenkinson, now reduced to believe that he burns to be free, is then +called in for an interview with Clara. His aunts Eleanor and +Isabel besiege her. Laetitia in passionate earnest besieges her. +Her father is wrought on to besiege her. Finally Vernon is +attacked by Willoughby and Mrs. Mountstuart:--and here, +Willoughby chose to think, was the main difficulty. But the girl +has money; she is agreeable; Vernon likes her; she is fond of his +"Alps", they have tastes in common, he likes her father, and in +the end he besieges her. Will she yield? De Craye is absent. There +is no other way of shunning a marriage she is incomprehensibly but +frantically averse to. She is in the toils. Her father will stay +at Patterne Hall as long as his host desires it. She hesitates, +she is overcome; in spite of a certain nausea due to Vernon's +preceding alliance, she yields. + +Willoughby revolved the entire drama in Clara's presence. It +helped him to look on her coolly. Conducting her to the +dinner-table, he spoke of Crossjay, not unkindly; and at table, he +revolved the set of scenes with a heated animation that took fire +from the wine and the face of his friend Horace, while he +encouraged Horace to be flowingly Irish. He nipped the fellow +good-humouredly once or twice, having never felt so friendly to +him since the day of his arrival; but the position of critic is +instinctively taken by men who do not flow: and Patterne Port kept +Dr Middleton in a benevolent reserve when Willoughby decided that +something said by De Craye was not new, and laughingly accused him +of failing to consult his anecdotal notebook for the double-cross +to his last sprightly sally. "Your sallies are excellent, Horace, +but spare us your Aunt Sallies!" De Craye had no repartee, nor did +Dr. Middleton challenge a pun. We have only to sharpen our wits +to trip your seductive rattler whenever we may choose to think +proper; and evidently, if we condescended to it, we could do +better than he. The critic who has hatched a witticism is +impelled to this opinion. Judging by the smiles of the ladies, +they thought so, too. + +Shortly before eleven o'clock Dr. Middleton made a Spartan stand +against the offer of another bottle of Port. The regulation couple +of bottles had been consumed in equal partnership, and the Rev. +Doctor and his host were free to pay a ceremonial visit to the +drawing-room, where they were not expected. A piece of work of the +elder ladies, a silken boudoir sofa-rug, was being examined, with +high approval of the two younger. Vernon and Colonel De Craye had +gone out in search of Crossjay, one to Mr. Dale's cottage, the +other to call at the head and under-gamekeeper's. They were said +to be strolling and smoking, for the night was fine. Willoughby +left the room and came back with the key of Crossjay's door in his +pocket. He foresaw that the delinquent might be of service to +him. + +Laetitia and Clara sang together. Laetitia was flushed, Clara +pale. At eleven they saluted the ladies Eleanor and Isabel. +Willoughby said "Good-night" to each of them, contrasting as he +did so the downcast look of Laetitia with Clara's frigid +directness. He divined that they were off to talk over their one +object of common interest, Crossjay. Saluting his aunts, he took +up the rug, to celebrate their diligence and taste; and that he +might make Dr. Middleton impatient for bed, he provoked him to +admire it, held it out and laid it out, and caused the courteous +old gentleman some confusion in hitting on fresh terms of +commendation. + +Before midnight the room was empty. Ten minutes later Willoughby +paid it a visit, and found it untenanted by the person he had +engaged to be there. Vexed by his disappointment, he paced up and +down, and chanced abstractedly to catch the rug in his hand; for +what purpose, he might well ask himself; admiration of ladies" +work, in their absence, was unlikely to occur to him. +Nevertheless. the touch of the warm, soft silk was meltingly +feminine. A glance at the mantel-piece clock told him Laetitia was +twenty minutes behind the hour. Her remissness might endanger all +his plans, alter the whole course of his life. The colours in +which he painted her were too lively to last; the madness in his +head threatened to subside. Certain it was that he could not be +ready a second night for the sacrifice he had been about to +perform. + +The clock was at the half hour after twelve. He flung the silken +thing on the central ottoman, extinguished the lamps, and walked +out of the room, charging the absent Laetitia to bear her +misfortune with a consciousness of deserving it. + + + +CHAPTER XL + +Midnight: Sir Willoughby and Laetitia: with Young Crossjay under a +Coverlet + +Young Crossjay was a glutton at holidays and never thought of home +till it was dark. The close of the day saw him several miles away +from the Hall, dubious whether he would not round his numerous +adventures by sleeping at an inn; for he had lots of money, and +the idea of jumping up in the morning in a strange place was +thrilling. Besides, when he was shaken out of sleep by Sir +Willoughby, he had been told that he was to go, and not to show +his face at Patterne again. On the other hand, Miss Middleton had +bidden him come back. There was little question with him which +person he should obey: he followed his heart. + +Supper at an inn, where he found a company to listen to his +adventures, delayed him, and a short cut, intended to make up for +it, lost him his road. He reached the Hall very late, ready to be +in love with the horrible pleasure of a night's rest under the +stars, if necessary. But a candle burned at one of the back +windows. He knocked, and a kitchen-maid let him in. She had a bowl +of hot soup prepared for him. Crossjay tried a mouthful to please +her. His head dropped over it. She roused him to his feet, and he +pitched against her shoulder. The dry air of the kitchen +department had proved too much for the tired youngster. Mary, the +maid, got him to step as firmly as he was able, and led him by the +back-way to the hall, bidding him creep noiselessly to bed. He +understood his position in the house, and though he could have +gone fast to sleep on the stairs, he took a steady aim at his room +and gained the door cat-like. The door resisted. He was appalled +and unstrung in a minute. The door was locked. Crossjay felt as if +he were in the presence of Sir Willoughby. He fled on ricketty +legs, and had a fall and bumps down half a dozen stairs. A door +opened above. He rushed across the hall to the drawing-room, +invitingly open, and there staggered in darkness to the ottoman +and rolled himself in something sleek and warm, soft as hands of +ladies, and redolent of them; so delicious that he hugged the +folds about his head and heels. While he was endeavouring to think +where he was, his legs curled, his eyelids shut, and he was in the +thick of the day's adventures, doing yet more wonderful things. + +He heard his own name: that was quite certain. He knew that he +heard it with his ears, as he pursued the fleetest dreams ever +accorded to mortal. It did not mix: it was outside him, and like +the danger-pole in the ice, which the skater shooting hither and +yonder comes on again, it recurred; and now it marked a point in +his career, how it caused him to relax his pace; he began to +circle, and whirled closer round it, until, as at a blow, his +heart knocked, he tightened himself, thought of bolting, and lay +dead-still to throb and hearken. + +"Oh! Sir Willoughby," a voice had said. + +The accents were sharp with alarm. + +"My friend! my dearest!" was the answer. + +"I came to speak of Crossjay." + +"Will you sit here on the ottoman?" + +"No, I cannot wait. I hoped I had heard Crossjay return. I would +rather not sit down. May I entreat you to pardon him when he comes +home?" + +"You, and you only, may do so. I permit none else. Of Crossjay +to-morrow." + +"He may be lying in the fields. We are anxious." + +"The rascal can take pretty good care of himself." + +"Crossjay is perpetually meeting accidents." + +"He shall be indemnified if he has had excess of punishment." + +"I think I will say good-night, Sir Willoughby." + +"When freely and unreservedly you have given me your hand." + +There was hesitation. + +"To say good-night?" + +"I ask you for your hand." + +"Good-night, Sir Willoughby." + +"You do not give it. You are in doubt? Still? What language must I +use to convince you? And yet you know me. Who knows me but you? +You have always known me. You are my home and my temple. Have you +forgotten your verses of the day of my majority? + + 'The dawn-star has arisen + In plenitude of light.. .'" + +"Do not repeat them, pray!" cried Laetitia, with a gasp. + +"I have repeated them to myself a thousand times: in India, +America, Japan: they were like our English skylark, carolling to +me. + + 'My heart, now burst thy prison + With proud aerial flight!'" + +"Oh, I beg you will not force me to listen to nonsense that I +wrote when I was a child. No more of those most foolish lines! If +you knew what it is to write and despise one's writing, you would +not distress me. And since you will not speak of Crossjay +to-night, allow me to retire." + +"You know me, and therefore you know my contempt for verses, as a +rule, Laetitia. But not for yours to me. Why should you call them +foolish? They expressed your feelings--hold them sacred. They are +something religious to me, not mere poetry. Perhaps the third +verse is my favourite . . ." + +"It will be more than I can bear!" + +"You were in earnest when you wrote them?" + +"I was very young, very enthusiastic, very silly." + +"You were and are my image of constancy!" + +"It is an error, Sir Willoughby; I am far from being the same." + +"We are all older, I trust wiser. I am, I will own; much wiser. +Wise at last! I offer you my hand." + +She did not reply. "I offer you my hand and name, Laetitia." + +No response. + +"You think me bound in honour to another?" + +She was mute. + +"I am free. Thank Heaven! I am free to choose my mate--the woman I +have always loved! Freely and unreservedly, as I ask you to give +your hand, I offer mine. You are the mistress of Patterne Hall; my +wife." + +She had not a word. + +"My dearest! do you not rightly understand? The hand I am offering +you is disengaged. It is offered to the lady I respect above all +others. I have made the discovery that I cannot love without +respecting; and as I will not marry without loving, it ensues that +I am free--I am yours. At last?--your lips move: tell me the +words. Have always loved, I said. You carry in your bosom the +magnet of constancy, and I, in spite of apparent deviations, +declare to you that I have never ceased to be sensible of the +attraction. And now there is not an impediment. We two against +the world! we are one. Let me confess to an old foible--perfectly +youthful, and you will ascribe it to youth: once I desired to +absorb. I mistrusted; that was the reason: I perceive it. You +teach me the difference of an alliance with a lady of intellect. +The pride I have in you, Laetitia, definitely cures me of that +insane passion--call it an insatiable hunger. I recognize it as +a folly of youth. I have, as it were, gone the tour, to come home +to you--at last?--and live our manly life of comparative equals. +At last, then! But remember that in the younger man you would have +had a despot--perhaps a jealous despot. Young men, I assure you, +are orientally inclined in their ideas of love. Love gets a bad +name from them. We, my Laetitia, do not regard love as a +selfishness. If it is, it is the essence of life. At least it is +our selfishness rendered beautiful. I talk to you like a man who +has found a compatriot in a foreign land. It seems to me that I +have not opened my mouth for an age. I certainly have not unlocked +my heart. Those who sing for joy are not unintelligible to me. If +I had not something in me worth saying I think I should sing. In +every sense you reconcile me to men and the world, Laetitia. Why +press you to speak? I will be the speaker. As surely as you know +me, I know you: and ..." + +Laetitia burst forth with: "No!" + +"I do not know you?" said he, searchingly mellifluous. + +"Hardly." + +"How not?" + +"I am changed." + +"In what way?" + +"Deeply." + +"Sedater?" + +"Materially." + +"Colour will come back: have no fear; I promise it. If you imagine +you want renewing, I have the specific, I, my love, I!" + +"Forgive me--will you tell me, Sir Willoughby, whether you have +broken with Miss Middleton?" + +"Rest satisfied, my dear Laetitia. She is as free as I am. I can +do no more than a man of honour should do. She releases me. +To-morrow or next day she departs. We, Laetitia, you and I, my +love, are home birds. It does not do for the home bird to couple +with the migratory. The little imperceptible change you allude to, +is nothing. Italy will restore you. I am ready to stake my own +health--never yet shaken by a doctor of medicine:--I say +medicine advisedly, for there are doctors of divinity who would +shake giants:--that an Italian trip will send you back--that I +shall bring you home from Italy a blooming bride. You shake your +head--despondently? My love, I guarantee it. Cannot I give you +colour? Behold! Come to the light, look in the glass." + +"I may redden," said Laetitia. "I suppose that is due to the +action of the heart. I am changed. Heart, for any other purpose, I +have not. I am like you, Sir Willoughby, in this: I could not +marry without loving, and I do not know what love is, except that +it is an empty dream." + +"Marriage, my dearest..." + +"You are mistaken." + +"I will cure you, my Laetitia. Look to me, I am the tonic. It is +not common confidence, but conviction. I, my love, I!" + +"There is no cure for what I feel, Sir Willoughby." + +"Spare me the formal prefix, I beg. You place your hand in mine, +relying on me. I am pledge for the remainder. We end as we began: +my request is for your hand--your hand in marriage." + +"I cannot give it." + +"To be my wife!" + +"It is an honour; I must decline it." + +"Are you quite well, Laetitia? I propose in the plainest terms I +can employ, to make you Lady Patterne--mine." + +"I am compelled to refuse." + +"Why? Refuse? Your reason!" + +"The reason has been named." + +He took a stride to inspirit his wits. + +"There's a madness comes over women at times, I know. Answer me, +Laetitia:--by all the evidence a man can have, I could swear it: +--but answer me; you loved me once?" + +"I was an exceedingly foolish, romantic girl." + +"You evade my question: I am serious. Oh!" he walked away from her +booming a sound of utter repudiation of her present imbecility, +and hurrying to her side, said: "But it was manifest to the whole +world! It was a legend. To love like Laetitia Dale, was a current +phrase. You were an example, a light to women: no one was your +match for devotion. You were a precious cameo, still gazing! And I +was the object. You loved me. You loved me, you belonged to me, +you were mine, my possession, my jewel; I was prouder of your +constancy than of anything else that I had on earth. It was a part +of the order of the universe to me. A doubt of it would have +disturbed my creed. Why, good heaven! where are we? Is nothing +solid on earth? You loved me!" + +"I was childish, indeed." + +"You loved me passionately!" + +"Do you insist on shaming me through and through, Sir Willoughby? +I have been exposed enough." + +"You cannot blot out the past: it is written, it is recorded. You +loved me devotedly, silence is no escape. You loved me." + +"I did." + +"You never loved me, you shallow woman! 'I did!' As if there could +be a cessation of a love! What are we to reckon on as ours? We +prize a woman's love; we guard it jealously, we trust to it, dream +of it; there is our wealth; there is our talisman! And when we +open the casket it has flown!--barren vacuity!--we are poorer +than dogs. As well think of keeping a costly wine in potter's clay +as love in the heart of a woman! There are women--women! Oh, +they are all of a stamp coin! Coin for any hand! It's a fiction, +an imposture--they cannot love. They are the shadows of men. +Compared with men, they have as much heart in them as the shadow +beside the body. Laetitia!" + +"Sir Willoughby." + +"You refuse my offer?" + +"I must." + +"You refuse to take me for your husband?" + +"I cannot be your wife." + +"You have changed? ... you have set your heart? ... you could +marry? ... there is a man? ... you could marry one! I will have +an answer, I am sick of evasions. What was in the mind of Heaven +when women were created, will be the riddle to the end of the +world! Every good man in turn has made the inquiry. I have a right +to know who robs me--We may try as we like to solve it.--Satan +is painted laughing!--I say I have a right to know who robs me. +Answer me." + +"I shall not marry." + +"That is not an answer." + +"I love no one." + +"You loved me.--You are silent?--but you confessed it. Then you +confess it was a love that could die! Are you unable to perceive +how that redounds to my discredit? You loved me, you have ceased +to love me. In other words you charge me with incapacity to +sustain a woman's love. You accuse me of inspiring a miserable +passion that cannot last a lifetime! You let the world see that I +am a man to be aimed at for a temporary mark! And simply because I +happen to be in your neighbourhood at an age when a young woman is +impressionable! You make a public example of me as a for whom +women may have a caprice, but that is all; he cannot enchain them; +he fascinates passingly; they fall off. Is it just, for me to be +taken up and cast down at your will? Reflect on that scandal! +Shadows? Why, a man's shadow is faithful to him at least. What are +women? There is not a comparison in nature that does not tower +above them! not one that does not hoot at them! I, throughout my +life, guided by absolute deference to their weakness--paying them +politeness, courtesy--whatever I touch I am happy in, except when +I touch women! How is it? What is the mystery? Some monstrous +explanation must exist. What can it be? I am favoured by fortune +from my birth until I enter into relations with women. But will +you be so good as to account for it in your defence of them? Oh! +were the relations dishonourable, it would be quite another +matter. Then they ... I could recount ... I disdain to chronicle +such victories. Quite another matter. But they are flies, and I am +something more stable. They are flies. I look beyond the day; I +owe a duty to my line. They are flies. I foresee it, I shall be +crossed in my fate so long as I fail to shun them--flies! Not +merely born for the day, I maintain that they are spiritually +ephemeral--Well, my opinion of your sex is directly traceable to +you. You may alter it, or fling another of us men out on the world +with the old bitter experience. Consider this, that it is on your +head if my ideal of women is wrecked. It rests with you to restore +it. I love you. I discover that you are the one woman I have +always loved. I come to you, I sue you, and suddenly--you have +changed! 'I have changed: I am not the same.' What can it mean? 'I +cannot marry: I love no one.' And you say you do not know what +love is--avowing in the same breath that you did love me! Am I +the empty dream? My hand, heart, fortune, name, are yours, at your +feet; you kick them hence. I am here--you reject me. But why, for +what mortal reason am I here other than my faith in your love? You +drew me to you, to repel me, and have a wretched revenge." + +"You know it is not that, Sir Willoughby." + +"Have you any possible suspicion that I am still entangled, not, +as I assure you I am, perfectly free in fact and in honour?" + +"It is not that." + +"Name it; for you see your power. Would you have me kneel to you, +madam?" + +"Oh, no; it would complete my grief." + +"You feel grief? Then you believe in my affection, and you hurl it +away. I have no doubt that as a poetess you would say, love is +eternal. And you have loved me. And you tell me you love me no +more. You are not very logical, Laetitia Dale." + +"Poetesses rarely are: if I am one, which I little pretend to be +for writing silly verses. I have passed out of that delusion, with +the rest." + +"You shall not wrong those dear old days, Laetitia. I see them +now; when I rode by your cottage and you were at your window, pen +in hand, your hair straying over your forehead. Romantic, yes; +not foolish. Why were you foolish in thinking of me? Some day I +will commission an artist to paint me that portrait of you from my +description. And I remember when we first whispered ... I remember +your trembling. You have forgotten--I remember. I remember our +meeting in the park on the path to church. I remember the heavenly +morning of my return from my travels, and the same Laetitia +meeting me, stedfast and unchangeable. Could I ever forget? Those +are ineradicable scenes; pictures of my youth, interwound with me. +I may say, that as I recede from them, I dwell on them the more. +Tell me, Laetitia, was there not a certain prophecy of your +father's concerning us two? I fancy I heard of one. There was +one." + +"He was an invalid. Elderly people nurse illusions." + +"Ask yourself Laetitia, who is the obstacle to the fulfilment of +his prediction?--truth, if ever a truth was foreseen on earth. +You have not changed so far that you would feel no pleasure in +gratifying him? I go to him to-morrow morning with the first +light." + +"You will compel me to follow, and undeceive him." + +"Do so, and I denounce an unworthy affection you are ashamed to +avow." + +"That would be idle, though it would be base." + +"Proof of love, then! For no one but you should it be done, and +no one but you dare accuse me of a baseness." + +"Sir Willoughby, you will let my father die in peace." + +"He and I together will contrive to persuade you." + +"You tempt me to imagine that you want a wife at any cost." + +"You, Laetitia, you." + +"I am tired," she said. "It is late, I would rather not hear more. +I am sorry if I have caused you pain. I suppose you to have spoken +with candour. I defend neither my sex nor myself. I can only say I +am a woman as good as dead: happy to be made happy in my way, but +so little alive that I cannot realize any other way. As for love, +I am thankful to have broken a spell. You have a younger woman in +your mind; I am an old one: I have no ambition and no warmth. My +utmost prayer is to float on the stream--a purely physical desire +of life: I have no strength to swim. Such a woman is not the wife +for you, Sir Willoughby. Good night." + +"One final word. Weigh it. Express no conventional regrets. +Resolutely you refuse?" + +"Resolutely I do." + +"You refuse?" + +"Yes." + +"I have sacrificed my pride for nothing! You refuse?" + +"Yes." + +"Humbled myself! And this is the answer! You do refuse?" + +"I do." + +"Good night, Laetitia Dale." + +He gave her passage. + +"Good night, Sir Willoughby." + +"I am in your power," he said, in a voice between supplication and +menace that laid a claw on her, and she turned and replied: + +"You will not be betrayed." + +"I can trust you ... ?" + +"I go home to-morrow before breakfast." + +"Permit me to escort you upstairs." + +"If you please: but I see no one here either to-night or +tomorrow." + +"It is for the privilege of seeing the last of you." + +They withdrew. + +Young Crossjay listened to the drumming of his head. Somewhere in +or over the cavity a drummer rattled tremendously. + +Sir Willoughby's laboratory door shut with a slam. + +Crossjay tumbled himself off the ottoman. He stole up to the +unclosed drawing-room door, and peeped. Never was a boy more +thoroughly awakened. His object was to get out of the house and go +through the night avoiding everything human, for he was big with +information of a character that he knew to be of the nature of +gunpowder, and he feared to explode. He crossed the hall. In the +passage to the scullery he ran against Colonel De Craye. + +"So there you are," said the colonel, "I've been hunting you." + +Crossjay related that his bedroom door was locked and the key +gone, and Sir Willoughby sitting up in the laboratory. + +Colonel De Craye took the boy to his own room, where Crossjay lay +on a sofa, comfortably covered over and snug in a swelling +pillow; but he was restless; he wanted to speak, to bellow, to +cry; and he bounced round to his left side, and bounced to his +right, not knowing what to think, except that there was treason to +his adored Miss Middleton. + +"Why, my lad, you're not half a campaigner," the colonel called +out to him; attributing his uneasiness to the material discomfort +of the sofa: and Crossjay had to swallow the taunt, bitter though +it was. A dim sentiment of impropriety in unburdening his +overcharged mind on the subject of Miss Middleton to Colonel De +Craye restrained him from defending himself; and so he heaved and +tossed about till daybreak. At an early hour, while his +hospitable friend, who looked very handsome in profile half breast +and head above the sheets, continued to slumber, Crossjay was on +his legs and away. "He says I'm not half a campaigner, and a +couple of hours of bed are enough for me," the boy thought +proudly, and snuffed the springing air of the young sun on the +fields. A glance back at Patterne Hall dismayed him, for he knew +not how to act, and he was immoderately combustible, too full of +knowledge for self-containment; much too zealously excited on +behalf of his dear Miss Middleton to keep silent for many hours of +the day. + + +CHAPTER XLI + +The Rev. Dr. Middleton, Clara, and Sir Willoughby + +When Master Crossjay tumbled down the stairs, Laetitia was in +Clara's room, speculating on the various mishaps which might have +befallen that battered youngster; and Clara listened anxiously +after Laetitia had run out, until she heard Sir Willoughby's +voice; which in some way satisfied her that the boy was not in the +house. + +She waited, expecting Miss Dale to return; then undressed, went to +bed, tried to sleep. She was tired of strife. Strange thoughts for +a young head shot through her: as, that it is possible for the +sense of duty to counteract distaste; and that one may live a life +apart from one's admirations and dislikes: she owned the singular +strength of Sir Willoughby in outwearying: she asked herself how +much she had gained by struggling:--every effort seemed to +expend her spirit's force, and rendered her less able to get the +clear vision of her prospects, as though it had sunk her deeper: +the contrary of her intention to make each further step confirm +her liberty. Looking back, she marvelled at the things she had +done. Looking round, how ineffectual they appeared! She had still +the great scene of positive rebellion to go through with her +father. + +The anticipation of that was the cause of her extreme +discouragement. He had not spoken to her since he became aware of +her attempted flight: but the scene was coming; and besides the +wish not to inflict it on him, as well as to escape it herself, +the girl's peculiar unhappiness lay in her knowledge that they +were alienated and stood opposed, owing to one among the more +perplexing masculine weaknesses, which she could not hint at, +dared barely think of, and would not name in her meditations. +Diverting to other subjects, she allowed herself to exclaim, +"Wine, wine!" in renewed wonder of what there could be in wine to +entrap venerable men and obscure their judgements. She was too +young to consider that her being very much in the wrong gave all +the importance to the cordial glass in a venerable gentleman's +appreciation of his dues. Why should he fly from a priceless wine +to gratify the caprices of a fantastical child guilty of seeking +to commit a breach of faith? He harped on those words. Her fault +was grave. No doubt the wine coloured it to him, as a drop or two +will do in any cup: still her fault was grave. + +She was too young for such considerations. She was ready to +expatiate on the gravity of her fault, so long as the humiliation +assisted to her disentanglement: her snared nature in the toils +would not permit her to reflect on it further. She had never +accurately perceived it: for the reason perhaps that Willoughby +had not been moving in his appeals: but, admitting the charge of +waywardness, she had come to terms with conscience, upon the +understanding that she was to perceive it and regret it and do +penance for it by-and-by:--by renouncing marriage altogether? How +light a penance! + +In the morning, she went to Laetitia's room, knocked, and had no +answer. + +She was informed at the breakfast-table of Miss Dale's departure. +The ladies Eleanor and Isabel feared it to be a case of urgency at +the cottage. No one had seen Vernon, and Clara requested Colonel +De Craye to walk over to the cottage for news of Crossjay. He +accepted the commission, simply to obey and be in her service: +assuring her, however, that there was no need to be disturbed +about the boy. He would have told her more. had not Dr. Middleton +led her out. + +Sir Willoughby marked a lapse of ten minutes by his watch. His +excellent aunts had ventured a comment on his appearance that +frightened him lest he himself should be the person to betray his +astounding discomfiture. He regarded his conduct as an act of +madness, and Laetitia's as no less that of a madwoman--happily +mad! Very happily mad indeed! Her rejection of his ridiculously +generous proposal seemed to show an intervening hand in his +favour, that sent her distraught at the right moment. He entirely +trusted her to be discreet; but she was a miserable creature, who +had lost the one last chance offered her by Providence, and +furnished him with a signal instance of the mediocrity of woman's +love. + +Time was flying. In a little while Mrs. Mountstuart would arrive. +He could not fence her without a design in his head; he was +destitute of an armoury if he had no scheme: he racked the brain +only to succeed in rousing phantasmal vapours. Her infernal +"Twice!" would cease now to apply to Laetitia; it would be an echo +of Lady Busshe. Nay, were all in the secret, Thrice jilted! might +become the universal roar. And this, he reflected bitterly, of a +man whom nothing but duty to his line had arrested from being the +most mischievous of his class with women! Such is our reward for +uprightness! + +At the expiration of fifteen minutes by his watch, he struck a +knuckle on the library door. Dr. Middleton held it open to him. + +"You are disengaged, sir?" + +"The sermon is upon the paragraph which is toned to awaken the +clerk," replied the Rev. Doctor. + +Clara was weeping. + +Sir Willoughby drew near her solicitously. + +Dr Middleton's mane of silvery hair was in a state bearing witness +to the vehemence of the sermon, and Willoughby said: "I hope, sir, +you have not made too much of a trifle." + +"I believe, sir, that I have produced an effect, and that was the +point in contemplation." + +"Clara! my dear Clara!" Willoughby touched her. + +"She sincerely repents her conduct, I may inform you," said Dr. +Middleton. + +"My love!" Willoughby whispered. "We have had a misunderstanding. +I am at a loss to discover where I have been guilty, but I take +the blame, all the blame. I implore you not to weep. Do me the +favour to look at me. I would not have had you subjected to any +interrogation whatever." + +"You are not to blame," Clara said on a sob. + +"Undoubtedly Willoughby is not to blame. It was not he who was +bound on a runaway errand in flagrant breach of duty and decorum, +nor he who inflicted a catarrh on a brother of my craft and +cloth," said her father. + +"The clerk, sir, has pronounced Amen," observed Willoughby. + +"And no man is happier to hear an ejaculation that he has laboured +for with so much sweat of his brow than the parson, I can assure +you," Dr. Middleton mildly groaned. "I have notions of the trouble +of Abraham. A sermon of that description is an immolation of the +parent, however it may go with the child." + +Willoughby soothed his Clara. + +"I wish I had been here to share it. I might have saved you some +tears. I may have been hasty in our little dissensions. I will +acknowledge that I have been. My temper is often irascible." + +"And so is mine!" exclaimed Dr. Middleton. "And yet I am not aware +that I made the worse husband for it. Nor do I rightly comprehend +how a probably justly excitable temper can stand for a plea in +mitigation of an attempt at an outrageous breach of faith." + +"The sermon is over, sir." + +"Reverberations!" the Rev. Doctor waved his arm placably. +"Take it for thunder heard remote." + +"Your hand, my love," Willoughby murmured. + +The hand was not put forth. + +Dr. Middleton remarked the fact. He walked to the window. and +perceiving the pair in the same position when he faced about, he +delivered a cough of admonition. + +"It is cruel!" said Clara. + +"That the owner of your hand should petition you for it?" inquired +her father. + +She sought refuge in a fit of tears. + +Willoughby bent above her, mute. + +"Is a scene that is hardly conceivable as a parent's obligation +once in a lustrum, to be repeated within the half hour?" shouted +her father. + +She drew up her shoulders and shook; let them fall and dropped her +head. + +"My dearest! your hand!" fluted Willoughby. + +The hand surrendered; it was much like the icicle of a sudden +thaw. + +Willoughby squeezed it to his ribs. + +Dr. Middleton marched up and down the room with his arms locked +behind him. The silence between the young people seemed to +denounce his presence. + +He said, cordially: "Old Hiems has but to withdraw for buds to +burst. 'Jam ver egelidos refert tepores." The equinoctial fury +departs. I will leave you for a term." + +Clara and Willoughby simultaneously raised their faces with +opposing expressions. + +"My girl!" Her father stood by her, laying gentle hand on her. + +"Yes, papa, I will come out to you," she replied to his apology +for the rather heavy weight of his vocabulary, and smiled. + +"No, sir, I beg you will remain," said Willoughby. + +"I keep you frost-bound." + +Clara did not deny it. + +Willoughby emphatically did. + +Then which of them was the more lover-like? Dr. Middleton would for +the moment have supposed his daughter. + +Clara said: "Shall you be on the lawn, papa?" + +Willoughby interposed. "Stay, sir; give us your blessing." + +"That you have." Dr. Middleton hastily motioned the paternal +ceremony in outline. + +"A few minutes, papa," said Clara. + +"Will she name the day?" came eagerly from Willoughby. + +"I cannot!" Clara cried in extremity. + +"The day is important on its arrival," said her father; "but I +apprehend the decision to be of the chief importance at present. +First prime your piece of artillery, my friend." + +"The decision is taken, sir." + +"Then I will be out of the way of the firing. Hit what day you +please." + +Clara checked herself on an impetuous exclamation. It was done +that her father might not be detained. + +Her astute self-compression sharpened Willoughby as much as it +mortified and terrified him. He understood how he would stand in +an instant were Dr. Middleton absent. Her father was the tribunal +she dreaded, and affairs must be settled and made irrevocable +while he was with them. To sting the blood of the girl, he called +her his darling, and half enwound her, shadowing forth a salute. + +She strung her body to submit, seeing her father take it as a +signal for his immediate retirement. + +Willoughby was upon him before he reached the door. + +"Hear us out, sir. Do not go. Stay, at my entreaty. I fear we have +not come to a perfect reconcilement." + +"If that is your opinion," said Clara, "it is good reason for not +distressing my father." + +"Dr Middleton, I love your daughter. I wooed her and won her; I +had your consent to our union, and I was the happiest of mankind. +In some way, since her coming to my house, I know not how--she +will not tell me, or cannot--I offended. One may be innocent and +offend. I have never pretended to impeccability, which is an +admission that I may very naturally offend. My appeal to her is +for an explanation or for pardon. I obtain neither. Had our +positions been reversed, oh, not for any real offence--not for +the worst that can be imagined--I think not--I hope not--could +I have been tempted to propose the dissolution of our engagement. +To love is to love, with me; an engagement a solemn bond. With all +my errors I have that merit of utter fidelity--to the world +laughable! I confess to a multitude of errors; I have that single +merit, and am not the more estimable in your daughter's eyes on +account of it, I fear. In plain words, I am, I do not doubt, one +of the fools among men; of the description of human dog commonly +known as faithful--whose destiny is that of a tribe. A man who +cries out when he is hurt is absurd, and I am not asking for +sympathy. Call me luckless. But I abhor a breach of faith. A +broken pledge is hateful to me. I should regard it myself as a +form of suicide. There are principles which civilized men must +contend for. Our social fabric is based on them. As my word stands +for me, I hold others to theirs. If that is not done, the world is +more or less a carnival of counterfeits. In this instance--Ah! +Clara, my love! and you have principles: you have inherited, you +have been indoctrinated with them: have I, then, in my ignorance, +offended past penitence, that you, of all women? ... And without +being able to name my sin!--Not only for what I lose by it, but +in the abstract, judicially--apart from the sentiment of personal +interest, grief, pain, and the possibility of my having to endure +that which no temptation would induce me to commit:--judicially;-- +I fear, sir, I am a poor forensic orator . . ." + +"The situation, sir, does not demand a Cicero: proceed," said Dr. +Middleton, balked in his approving nods at the right true things +delivered. + +"Judicially, I am bold to say, though it may appear a presumption +in one suffering acutely, I abhor a breach of faith." + +Dr. Middleton brought his nod down low upon the phrase he had +anticipated. "And I," said he, "personally, and presently, abhor a +breach of faith. Judicially? Judicially to examine, judicially to +condemn: but does the judicial mind detest? I think, sir, we are +not on the bench when we say that we abhor: we have unseated +ourselves. Yet our abhorrence of bad conduct is very certain. You +would signify, impersonally: which suffices for this exposition of +your feelings." + +He peered at the gentleman under his brows, and resumed: + +"She has had it, Willoughby; she has had it in plain Saxon and in +uncompromising Olympian. There is, I conceive, no necessity to +revert to it." + +"Pardon me, sir, but I am still unforgiven." + +"You must babble out the rest between you. I am about as much at +home as a turkey with a pair of pigeons." + +"Leave us, father," said Clara. + +"First join our hands, and let me give you that title, sir." + +"Reach the good man your hand, my girl; forthright, from the +shoulder, like a brave boxer. Humour a lover. He asks for his +own." + +"It is more than I can do, father." + +"How, it is more than you can do? You are engaged to him, a +plighted woman." + +"I do not wish to marry." + +"The apology is inadequate." + +"I am unworthy..." + +"Chatter! chatter!" + +"I beg him to release me." + +"Lunacy!" + +"I have no love to give him." + +"Have you gone back to your cradle, Clara Middleton?" + +"Oh, leave us, dear father!" + +"My offence, Clara, my offence! What is it? Will you only name +it?" + +"Father, will you leave us? We can better speak together . . + +"We have spoken, Clara, how often!" Willoughby resumed, +"with what result?--that you loved me, that you have ceased to +love me: that your heart was mine, that you have withdrawn it, +plucked it from me: that you request me to consent to a sacrifice +involving my reputation, my life. And what have I done? I am the +same, unchangeable. I loved and love you: my heart was yours, and +is, and will be yours forever. You are my affianced--that is, my +wife. What have I done?" + +"It is indeed useless," Clara sighed. + +"Not useless, my girl, that you should inform this gentleman, your +affianced husband, of the ground of the objection you conceived +against him." + +"I cannot say." + +"Do you know?" + +"If I could name it, I could hope to overcome it." + +Dr. Middleton addressed Sir Willoughby. + +"I verily believe we are directing the girl to dissect a caprice. +Such things are seen large by these young people, but as they have +neither organs, nor arteries, nor brains, nor membranes, +dissection and inspection will he alike profitlessly practised. +Your inquiry is natural for a lover, whose passion to enter into +relations with the sex is ordinarily in proportion to his ignorance +of the stuff composing them. At a particular age they traffic in +whims: which are, I presume, the spiritual of hysterics; and are +indubitably preferable, so long as they are not pushed too far. +Examples are not wanting to prove that a flighty initiative on the +part of the male is a handsome corrective. In that case, we should +probably have had the roof off the house, and the girl now at your +feet. Ha!" + +"Despise me, father. I am punished for ever thinking myself the +superior of any woman," said Clara. + +"Your hand out to him, my dear, since he is for a formal +reconciliation; and I can't wonder." + +"Father! I have said I do not ... I have said I cannot ... + +"By the most merciful! what? what? the name for it, words for it!" + +"Do not frown on me, father. I wish him happiness. I cannot marry +him. I do not love him." + +"You will remember that you informed me aforetime that you did +love him." + +"I was ignorant ... I did not know myself. I wish him to be +happy." + +"You deny him the happiness you wish him!" + +"It would not be for his happiness were I to wed him." + +"Oh!" burst from Willoughby. + +"You hear him. He rejects your prediction, Clara Middleton." She +caught her clasped hands up to her throat. "Wretched, wretched, +both!" + +"And you have not a word against him, miserable girl." + +"Miserable! I am." + +"It is the cry of an animal!" + +"Yes, father." + +"You feel like one? Your behaviour is of that shape. You have not +a word?" + +"Against myself, not against him." + +"And I, when you speak so generously, am to yield you? give you +up?" cried Willoughby. "Ah! my love, my Clara, impose what you +will on me; not that. It is too much for man. It is, I swear it, +beyond my strength." + +"Pursue, continue the strain; 'tis in the right key," said Dr. +Middleton, departing. + +Willoughby wheeled and waylaid him with a bound. + +"Plead for me, sir; you are all-powerful. Let her be mine, she +shall be happy, or I will perish for it. I will call it on my +head.--Impossible! I cannot lose her. Lose you, my love? it would +be to strip myself of every blessing of body and soul. It would +be to deny myself possession of grace, beauty, wit, all the +incomparable charms of loveliness of mind and person in woman, and +plant myself in a desert. You are my mate, the sum of everything I +call mine. Clara, I should be less than man to submit to such a +loss. Consent to it? But I love you! I worship you! How can I +consent to lose you ... ?" + +He saw the eyes of the desperately wily young woman slink +sideways. Dr. Middleton was pacing at ever shorter lengths closer +by the door. + +"You hate me?" Willoughby sunk his voice. + +"If it should turn to hate!" she murmured. + +"Hatred of your husband?" + +"I could not promise," she murmured, more softly in her wiliness. + +"Hatred?" he cried aloud, and Dr. Middleton stopped in his walk and +flung up his head: "Hatred of your husband? of the man you have +vowed to love and honour? Oh, no! Once mine, it is not to he +feared. I trust to my knowledge of your nature; I trust in your +blood, I trust in your education. Had I nothing else to inspire +confidence, I could trust in your eyes. And, Clara, take the +confession: I would rather be hated than lose you. For if I lose +you, you are in another world, out of this one holding me in its +death-like cold; but if you hate me we are together, we are still +together. Any alliance, any, in preference to separation!" + +Clara listened with critical ear. His language and tone were new; +and comprehending that they were in part addressed to her father, +whose phrase: "A breach of faith": he had so cunningly used, +disdain of the actor prompted the extreme blunder of her saying-- +frigidly though she said it: + +"You have not talked to me in this way before." + +"Finally," remarked her father, summing up the situation to settle +it from that little speech, "he talks to you in this way now; and +you are under my injunction to stretch your hand out to him for a +symbol of union, or to state your objection to that course. He, by +your admission, is at the terminus, and there, failing the why +not, must you join him." + +Her head whirled. She had been severely flagellated and weakened +previous to Willoughby's entrance. Language to express her +peculiar repulsion eluded her. She formed the words, and perceived +that they would not stand to bear a breath from her father. She +perceived too that Willoughby was as ready with his agony of +supplication as she with hers. If she had tears for a resource, he +had gestures quite as eloquent; and a cry of her loathing of the +union would fetch a countervailing torrent of the man's love.-- +What could she say? he is an Egoist? The epithet has no meaning in +such a scene. Invent! shrieked the hundred-voiced instinct of +dislike within her, and alone with her father, alone with +Willoughby, she could have invented some equivalent, to do her +heart justice for the injury it sustained in her being unable to +name the true and immense objection: but the pair in presence +paralyzed her. She dramatized them each springing forward by +turns, with crushing rejoinders. The activity of her mind revelled +in giving them a tongue, but would not do it for herself. Then +ensued the inevitable consequence of an incapacity to speak at the +heart's urgent dictate: heart and mind became divided. One +throbbed hotly, the other hung aloof, and mentally, while the sick +inarticulate heart kept clamouring, she answered it with all that +she imagined for those two men to say. And she dropped poison on +it to still its reproaches: bidding herself remember her fatal +postponements in order to preserve the seeming of consistency +before her father; calling it hypocrite; asking herself, what was +she! who loved her! And thus beating down her heart, she completed +the mischief with a piercing view of the foundation of her +father's advocacy of Willoughby, and more lamentably asked herself +what her value was, if she stood bereft of respect for her father. + +Reason, on the other hand, was animated by her better nature to +plead his case against her: she clung to her respect for him, and +felt herself drowning with it: and she echoed Willoughby +consciously, doubling her horror with the consciousness, in crying +out on a world where the most sacred feelings are subject to such +lapses. It doubled her horror, that she should echo the man: but +it proved that she was no better than be: only some years younger. +Those years would soon be outlived: after which, he and she would +be of a pattern. She was unloved: she did no harm to any one by +keeping her word to this man; she had pledged it, and it would be +a breach of faith not to keep it. No one loved her. Behold the +quality of her father's love! To give him happiness was now the +principal aim for her, her own happiness being decently buried; +and here he was happy: why should she be the cause of his going +and losing the poor pleasure he so much enjoyed? + +The idea of her devotedness flattered her feebleness. She betrayed +signs of hesitation; and in hesitating, she looked away from a +look at Willoughby, thinking (so much against her nature was it to +resign herself to him) that it would not have been so difficult +with an ill-favoured man. With one horribly ugly, it would have +been a horrible exultation to cast off her youth and take the +fiendish leap. + +Unfortunately for Sir Willoughby, he had his reasons for pressing +impatience; and seeing her deliberate, seeing her hasty look at +his fine figure, his opinion of himself combined with his +recollection of a particular maxim of the Great Book to assure him +that her resistance was over: chiefly owing, as he supposed, to +his physical perfections. + +Frequently indeed, in the contest between gentlemen and ladies, +have the maxims of the Book stimulated the assailant to victory. +They are rosy with blood of victims. To bear them is to hear a +horn that blows the mort: has blown it a thousand times. It is +good to remember how often they have succeeded, when, for the +benefit of some future Lady Vauban, who may bestir her wits to +gather maxims for the inspiriting of the Defence, the circumstance +of a failure has to be recorded. + +Willoughby could not wait for the melting of the snows. He saw +full surely the dissolving process; and sincerely admiring and +coveting her as he did, rashly this ill-fated gentleman attempted +to precipitate it, and so doing arrested. + +Whence might we draw a note upon yonder maxim, in words akin to +these: Make certain ere a breath come from thee that thou be not a +frost. + +"Mine! She is mine!" he cried: "mine once more! mine utterly! mine +eternally!" and he followed up his devouring exclamations in +person as she, less decidedly, retreated. She retreated as young +ladies should ever do, two or three steps, and he would not notice +that she had become an angry Dian, all arrows: her maidenliness in +surrendering pleased him. Grasping one fair hand, he just allowed +her to edge on the outer circle of his embrace, crying: "Not a +syllable of what I have gone through! You shall not have to +explain it, my Clara. I will study you more diligently, to be +guided by you, my darling. If I offend again, my wife will not +find it hard to speak what my bride withheld--I do not ask why: +perhaps not able to weigh the effect of her reticence: not at that +time, when she was younger and less experienced, estimating the +sacredness of a plighted engagement. It is past, we are one, my +dear sir and father. You may leave us now." + +"I profoundly rejoice to hear that I may," said Dr. Middleton. +Clara writhed her captured hand. + +"No, papa, stay. It is an error, an error. You must not leave me. +Do not think me utterly, eternally, belonging to any one but you. +No one shall say I am his but you." + +"Are you quicksands, Clara Middleton, that nothing can be built on +you? Whither is a flighty head and a shifty will carrying the +girl?" + +"Clara and I, sir," said Willoughby. + +"And so you shall," said the Doctor, turning about. + +"Not yet, papa:" Clara sprang to him. + +"Why, you, you, you, it was you who craved to be alone with +Willoughby!" her father shouted; "and here we are rounded to our +starting-point, with the solitary difference that now you do not +want to be alone with Willoughby. First I am bidden go; next I am +pulled back; and judging by collar and coat-tag, I suspect you to +be a young woman to wear an angel's temper threadbare before you +determine upon which one of the tides driving him to and fro you +intend to launch on yourself, Where is your mind?" + +Clara smoothed her forehead. + +"I wish to please you, papa." + +"I request you to please the gentleman who is your appointed +husband." + +"I am anxious to perform my duty." + +"That should be a satisfactory basis for you, Willoughby; as +girls go!" + +"Let me, sir, simply entreat to have her hand in mine before you." + +"Why not, Clara?" + +"Why an empty ceremony, papa?" + +"The implication is, that she is prepared for the important one, +friend Willoughby." + +"Her hand, sir; the reassurance of her hand in mine under your +eyes:--after all that I have suffered, I claim it, I think I +claim it reasonably, to restore me to confidence." + +"Quite reasonably; which is not to say, necessarily; but, I will +add, justifiably; and it may be, sagaciously, when dealing with +the volatile." + +"And here," said Willoughby, "is my hand." + +Clara recoiled. + +He stepped on. Her father frowned. She lifted both her hands from +the shrinking elbows, darted a look of repulsion at her pursuer, +and ran to her father, crying: "Call it my mood! I am volatile, +capricious, flighty, very foolish. But you see that I attach a +real meaning to it, and feel it to be binding: I cannot think it +an empty ceremony, if it is before you. Yes, only be a little +considerate to your moody girl. She will be in a fitter state in a +few hours. Spare me this moment; I must collect myself. I thought +I was free; I thought he would not press me. If I give my hand +hurriedly now, I shall, I know, immediately repent it. There is +the picture of me! But, papa, I mean to try to be above that, and +if I go and walk by myself, I shall grow calm to perceive where my +duty lies . . ." + +"In which direction shall you walk?" said Willoughby. + +"Wisdom is not upon a particular road," said Dr. Middleton. + +"I have a dread, sir, of that one which leads to the +railway-station." + +"With some justice!" Dr. Middleton sighed over his daughter. + +Clara coloured to deep crimson: but she was beyond anger, and was +rather gratified by an offence coming from Willoughby. + +"I will promise not to leave his grounds, papa." + +"My child, you have threatened to be a breaker of promises." + +"Oh!" she wailed. "But I will make it a vow to you." + +"Why not make it a vow to me this moment, for this gentleman's +contentment, that he shall be your husband within a given period?" + +"I will come to you voluntarily. I burn to be alone." + +"I shall lose her," exclaimed Willoughby, in heartfelt earnest. + +"How so?" said Dr. Middleton. "I have her, sir, if you will favour +me by continuing in abeyance.--You will come within an hour +voluntarily, Clara; and you will either at once yield your hand to +him or you will furnish reasons, and they must be good ones, for +withholding it." + +"Yes, papa." + +"You will?" + +"I will." + +"Mind, I say reasons." + +"Reasons, papa. If I have none ..." + +"If you have none that are to my satisfaction, you implicitly and +instantly, and cordially obey my command." + +"I will obey." + +"What more would you require?" Dr. Middleton bowed to Sir +Willoughby in triumph. + +"Will she..." + +"Sir! Sir!" + +"She is your daughter, sir. I am satisfied." + +"She has perchance wrestled with her engagement, as the +aboriginals of a land newly discovered by a crew of adventurous +colonists do battle with the garments imposed on them by our +considerate civilization;--ultimately to rejoice with excessive +dignity in the wearing of a battered cocked-hat and trowsers not +extending to the shanks: but she did not break her engagement, +sir; and we will anticipate that, moderating a young woman's +native wildness, she may, after the manner of my comparison, take +a similar pride in her fortune in good season." + +Willoughby had not leisure to sound the depth of Dr. Middleton's +compliment. He had seen Clara gliding out of the room during the +delivery; and his fear returned on him that, not being won, she +was lost. + +"She has gone." Her father noticed her absence. "She does not +waste time in her mission to procure that astonishing product of a +shallow soil, her reasons; if such be the object of her search. +But no: it signifies that she deems herself to have need of +composure--nothing more. No one likes to be turned about; we like +to turn ourselves about; and in the question of an act to be +committed, we stipulate that it shall be our act--girls and +others. After the lapse of an hour, it will appear to her as her +act. Happily, Willoughby, we do not dine away from Patterne +to-night." + +"No, sir." + +"It may be attributable to a sense of deserving, but I could plead +guilty to a weakness for old Port to-day." + +"There shall be an extra bottle, sir." + +"All going favourably with you, as I have no cause to doubt," said +Dr Middleton, with the motion of wafting his host out of the +library. + + + +CHAPTER XLII + +Shows the Divining Arts of a Perceptive Mind + +Starting from the Hall a few minutes before Dr. Middleton and Sir +Willoughby had entered the drawing-room overnight, Vernon parted +company with Colonel De Craye at the park-gates, and betook himself +to the cottage of the Dales, where nothing had been heard of his +wanderer; and he received the same disappointing reply from Dr. +Corney, out of the bedroom window of the genial physician, whose +astonishment at his covering so long a stretch of road at night +for news of a boy like Crossjay--gifted with the lives of a cat-- +became violent and rapped Punch-like blows on the window-sill at +Vernon's refusal to take shelter and rest. Vernon's excuse was +that he had "no one but that fellow to care for", and he strode +off, naming a farm five miles distant. Dr. Corney howled an +invitation to early breakfast to him, in the event of his passing +on his way back, and retired to bed to think of him. The result of +a variety of conjectures caused him to set Vernon down as Miss +Middleton's knight, and he felt a strong compassion for his poor +friend. "Though," thought he, "a hopeless attachment is as pretty +an accompaniment to the tune of life as a gentleman might wish to +have, for it's one of those big doses of discord which make all +the minor ones fit in like an agreeable harmony, and so he +shuffles along as pleasantly as the fortune-favoured, when they +come to compute!" + +Sir Willoughby was the fortune-favoured in the little doctor's +mind; that high-stepping gentleman having wealth, and public +consideration, and the most ravishing young lady in the world for +a bride. Still, though he reckoned all these advantages enjoyed by +Sir Willoughby at their full value, he could imagine the ultimate +balance of good fortune to be in favour of Vernon. But to do so, +he had to reduce the whole calculation to the extreme abstract, +and feed his lean friend, as it were, on dew and roots; and the +happy effect for Vernon lay in a distant future, on the borders of +old age, where he was to be blessed with his lady's regretful +preference, and rejoice in the fruits of good constitutional +habits. The reviewing mind was Irish. Sir Willoughby was a +character of man profoundly opposed to Dr. Corney's nature; the +latter's instincts bristled with antagonism--not to his race, for +Vernon was of the same race, partly of the same blood, and Corney +loved him: the type of person was the annoyance. And the +circumstance of its prevailing successfulness in the country where +he was placed, while it held him silent as if under a law, heaped +stores of insurgency in the Celtic bosom. Corney contemplating Sir +Willoughby, and a trotting kern governed by Strongbow, have a +point of likeness between them; with the point of difference, that +Corney was enlightened to know of a friend better adapted for +eminent station, and especially better adapted to please a lovely +lady--could these high-bred Englishwomen but be taught to +conceive another idea of manliness than the formal carved-in-wood +idol of their national worship! + +Dr Corney breakfasted very early, without seeing Vernon. He was +off to a patient while the first lark of the morning carolled +above, and the business of the day, not yet fallen upon men in the +shape of cloud, was happily intermixed with nature's hues and +pipings. Turning off the high-road tip a green lane, an hour +later, he beheld a youngster prying into a hedge head and arms, by +the peculiar strenuous twist of whose hinder parts, indicative of +a frame plunged on the pursuit in hand, he clearly distinguished +young Crossjay. Out came eggs. The doctor pulled up. + +"What bird?" he bellowed. + +"Yellowhammer," Crossjay yelled back. + +"Now, sir, you'll drop a couple of those eggs in the nest." + +"Don't order me," Crossjay was retorting. "Oh, it's you, Doctor +Corney. Good morning. I said that, because I always do drop a +couple back. I promised Mr. Whitford I would, and Miss Middleton +too." + +"Had breakfast?" + +"Not yet." + +"Not hungry?" + +"I should be if I thought about it." + +"Jump up." + +"I think I'd rather not, Doctor Corney." + +"And you'll just do what Doctor Corney tells you; and set your +mind on rashers of curly fat bacon and sweetly smoking coffee, +toast, hot cakes, marmalade, and damson-jam. Wide go the fellow's +nostrils, and there's water at the dimples of his mouth! Up, my +man." + +Crossjay jumped up beside the doctor, who remarked, as he touched +his horse: "I don't want a man this morning, though I'll enlist +you in my service if I do. You're fond of Miss Middleton?" + +Instead of answering, Crossjay heaved the sigh of love that bears +a burden. + +"And so am I," pursued the doctor: "You'll have to put up with a +rival. It's worse than fond: I'm in love with her. How do you like +that?" + +"I don't mind how many love her," said Crossjay. + +"You're worthy of a gratuitous breakfast in the front parlour of +the best hotel of the place they call Arcadia. And how about your +bed last night?" + +"Pretty middling." + +"Hard, was it, where the bones haven't cushion?" + +"I don't care for bed. A couple of hours, and that's enough for +me." + +"But you're fond of Miss Middleton anyhow, and that's a virtue." + +To his great surprise, Dr. Corney beheld two big round tears force +their way out of this tough youngster's eyes, and all the while +the boy's face was proud. + +Crossjay said, when he could trust himself to disjoin his lips: + +"I want to see Mr. Whitford." + +"Have you got news for him?" + +"I've something to ask him. It's about what I ought to do." + +"Then, my boy, you have the right name addressed in the wrong +direction: for I found you turning your shoulders on Mr. Whitford. +And he has been out of his bed hunting you all the unholy night +you've made it for him. That's melancholy. What do you say to +asking my advice?" + +Crossjay sighed. "I can't speak to anybody but Mr. Whitford." + +"And you're hot to speak to him?" + +"I want to." + +"And I found you running away from him. You're a curiosity, Mr. +Crossjay Patterne." + +"Ah! so'd anybody be who knew as much as I do," said Crossjay. +with a sober sadness that caused the doctor to treat him +seriously. + +"The fact is," he said, "Mr. Whitford is beating the country for +you. My best plan will be to drive you to the Hall." + +"I'd rather not go to the Hall," Crossjay spoke resolutely. + +"You won't see Miss Middleton anywhere but at the Hall." + +"I don't want to see Miss Middleton, if I can't be a bit of use to +her." + +"No danger threatening the lady, is there?" + +Crossjay treated the question as if it had not been put. + +"Now, tell me," said Dr. Corney, "would there be a chance for me, +supposing Miss Middleton were disengaged?" + +The answer was easy. "I'm sure she wouldn't." + +"And why, sir, are you so cock sure?" + +There was no saying; but the doctor pressed for it, and at last +Crossjay gave his opinion that she would take Mr. Whitford. + +The doctor asked why; and Crossjay said it was because Mr. +Whitford was the best man in the world. To which, with a lusty +"Amen to that," Dr. Corney remarked: "I should have fancied Colonel +De Craye would have had the first chance: he's more of a lady's +man." + +Crossjay surprised him again by petulantly saying: "Don't." + +The boy added: "I don't want to talk, except about birds and +things. What a jolly morning it is! I saw the sun rise. No rain +to-day. You're right about hungry, Doctor Corney!" + +The kindly little man swung his whip. Crossjay informed him of his +disgrace at the Hall, and of every incident connected with it, +from the tramp to the baronet, save Miss Middleton's adventure and +the night scene in the drawing-room. A strong smell of something +left out struck Dr. Corney, and he said: "You'll not let Miss +Middleton know of my affection. After all, it's only a little bit +of love. But, as Patrick said to Kathleen, when she owned to such +a little bit, 'that's the best bit of all!' and he was as right +as I am about hungry." + +Crossjay scorned to talk of loving, he declared. "I never tell +Miss Middleton what I feel. Why, there's Miss Dale's cottage!" + +"It's nearer to your empty inside than my mansion," said the +doctor, "and we'll stop just to inquire whether a bed's to be had +for you there to-night, and if not, I'll have you with me, and +bottle you, and exhibit you, for you're a rare specimen. +Breakfast you may count on from Mr. Dale. I spy a gentleman." + +"It's Colonel De Craye." + +"Come after news of you." + +"I wonder!" + +"Miss Middleton sends him; of course she does." + +Crossjay turned his full face to the doctor. "I haven't seen her +for such a long time! But he saw me last night, and he might have +told her that, if she's anxious.--Good-morning, colonel. I've had +a good walk, and a capital drive, and I'm as hungry as the boat's +crew of Captain Bligh." + +He jumped down. + +The colonel and the doctor saluted, smiling. + +"I've rung the bell," said De Craye. + +A maid came to the gate, and upon her steps appeared Miss Dale, +who flung herself at Crossjay, mingling kisses and reproaches. She +scarcely raised her face to the colonel more than to reply to his +greeting, and excuse the hungry boy for hurrying indoors to +breakfast. + +"I'll wait," said De Craye. He had seen that she was paler than +usual. So had Dr. Corney; and the doctor called to her concerning +her father's health. She reported that he had not yet risen, and +took Crossjay to herself. + +"That's well," said the doctor, "if the invalid sleeps long. The +lady is not looking so well, though. But ladies vary; they show +the mind on the countenance, for want of the punching we meet with +to conceal it; they're like military flags for a funeral or a +gala; one day furled, and next day streaming. Men are ships" +figure-heads, about the same for a storm or a calm, and not too +handsome, thanks to the ocean. It's an age since we encountered +last, colonel: on board the Dublin boat, I recollect, and a night +it was." + +"I recollect that you set me on my legs, doctor." + +"Ah! and you'll please to notify that Corney's no quack at sea, by +favour of the monks of the Chartreuse, whose elixir has power to +still the waves. And we hear that miracles are done with!" + +"Roll a physician and a monk together, doctor!" + +"True: it'll be a miracle if they combine. Though the cure of the +soul is often the entire and total cure of the body: and it's +maliciously said that the body given over to our treatment is a +signal to set the soul flying. By the way, colonel, that boy has a +trifle on his mind." + +"I suppose he has been worrying a farmer or a gamekeeper." + +"Try him. You'll find him tight. He's got Miss Middleton on the +brain. There's a bit of a secret; and he's not so cheerful about +it." + +"We'll see," said the colonel. + +Dr Corney nodded. "I have to visit my patient here presently. I'm +too early for him: so I'll make a call or two on the lame birds +that are up," he remarked, and drove away. + +De Craye strolled through the garden. He was a gentleman of those +actively perceptive wits which, if ever they reflect, do so by +hops and jumps: upon some dancing mirror within, we may fancy. He +penetrated a plot in a flash; and in a flash he formed one; but in +both cases, it was after long hovering and not over-eager +deliberation, by the patient exercise of his quick perceptives. +The fact that Crossjay was considered to have Miss Middleton on +the brain, threw a series of images of everything relating to +Crossjay for the last forty hours into relief before him: and as +he did not in the slightest degree speculate on any one of them, +but merely shifted and surveyed them, the falcon that he was in +spirit as well as in his handsome face leisurely allowed his +instinct to direct him where to strike. A reflective disposition +has this danger in action, that it commonly precipitates +conjecture for the purpose of working upon probabilities with the +methods and in the tracks to which it is accustomed: and to +conjecture rashly is to play into the puzzles of the maze. He who +can watch circling above it awhile, quietly viewing, and +collecting in his eye, gathers matter that makes the secret thing +discourse to the brain by weight and balance; he will get either +the right clue or none; more frequently none; but he will escape +the entanglement of his own cleverness, he will always be nearer +to the enigma than the guesser or the calculator, and he will +retain a breadth of vision forfeited by them. He must, however, to +have his chance of success, be acutely besides calmly perceptive, +a reader of features, audacious at the proper moment. + +De Craye wished to look at Miss Dale. She had returned home very +suddenly, not, as it appeared, owing to her father's illness; and +he remembered a redness of her eyelids when he passed her on the +corridor one night. She sent Crossjay out to him as soon as the +boy was well filled. He sent Crossjay back with a request. She did +not yield to it immediately. She stepped to the front door +reluctantly, and seemed disconcerted. De Craye begged for a +message to Miss Middleton. There was none to give. He persisted. +But there was really none at present, she said. + +"You won't entrust me with the smallest word?" said he, and set +her visibly thinking whether she could dispatch a word. She could +not; she had no heart for messages. + +"I shall see her in a day or two, Colonel De Craye." + +"She will miss you severely." + +"We shall soon meet." + +"And poor Willoughby!" + +Laetitia coloured and stood silent. + +A butterfly of some rarity allured Crossjay. + +"I fear he has been doing mischief," she said. "I cannot get him +to look at me." + +"His appetite is good?" + +"Very good indeed." + +De Craye nodded. A boy with a noble appetite is never a hopeless +lock. + +The colonel and Crossjay lounged over the garden. + +"And now," said the colonel, "we'll see if we can't arrange a +meeting between you and Miss Middleton. You're a lucky fellow, for +she's always thinking of you." + +"I know I'm always thinking of her," said Crossjay. + +"If ever you're in a scrape, she's the person you must go to." + +"Yes, if I know where she is!" + +"Why, generally she'll be at the Hall." + +There was no reply: Crossjay's dreadful secret jumped to his +throat. He certainly was a weaker lock for being full of +breakfast. + +"I want to see Mr. Whitford so much," he said. + +"Something to tell him?" + +"I don't know what to do: I don't understand it!" The secret +wriggled to his mouth. He swallowed it down. "Yes, I want to talk +to Mr. Whitford." + +"He's another of Miss Middleton's friends." + +"I know he is. He's true steel." + +"We're all her friends, Crossjay. I flatter myself I'm a Toledo when +I'm wanted. How long had you been in the house last night before +you ran into me?" + +"I don't know, sir; I fell asleep for some time, and then I woke! . +. ." + +"Where did you find yourself?" + +"I was in the drawing-room." + +"Come, Crossjay, you're not a fellow to be scared by ghosts? You +looked it when you made a dash at my midriff." + +"I don't believe there are such things. Do you, colonel? You +can't!" + +"There's no saying. We'll hope not; for it wouldn't be fair +fighting. A man with a ghost to back him'd beat any ten. We +couldn't box him or play cards, or stand a chance with him as a +rival in love. Did you, now, catch a sight of a ghost?" + +"They weren't ghosts!" Crossjay said what he was sure of, and his +voice pronounced his conviction. + +"I doubt whether Miss Middleton is particularly happy," remarked +the colonel. "Why? Why, you upset her, you know, now and then." + +The boy swelled. "I'd do ... I'd go ... I wouldn't have her +unhappy ... It's that! that's it! And I don't know what I ought to +do. I wish I could see Mr. Whitford." + +"You get into such headlong scrapes, my lad." + +"I wasn't in any scrape yesterday." + +"So you made yourself up a comfortable bed in the drawing-room? +Luckily Sir Willoughby didn't see you." + +"He didn't, though!" + +"A close shave, was it?" + +"I was under a covering of something silk." + +"He woke you?" + +"I suppose he did. I heard him." + +"Talking?" + +"He was talking." + +"What! talking to himself?" + +"No." + +The secret threatened Crossjay to be out or suffocate him. De +Craye gave him a respite. + +"You like Sir Willoughby, don't you?" + +Crossjay produced a still-born affirmative. + +"He's kind to you," said the colonel; "he'll set you up and look +after your interests." + +"Yes, I like him," said Crossjay, with his customary rapidity in +touching the subject; "I like him; he's kind and all that, and +tips and plays with you, and all that; but I never can make out +why he wouldn't see my father when my father came here to see him +ten miles, and had to walk back ten miles in the rain, to go by +rail a long way, down home, as far as Devonport, because Sir +Willoughby wouldn't see him, though he was at home, my father saw. +We all thought it so odd: and my father wouldn't let us talk much +about it. My father's a very brave man." + +"Captain Patterne is as brave a man as ever lived," said De Craye. + +"I'm positive you'd like him, colonel." + +"I know of his deeds, and I admire him, and that's a good step to +liking." + +He warmed the boy's thoughts of his father. + +"Because, what they say at home is, a little bread and cheese, and +a glass of ale, and a rest, to a poor man--lots of great houses +will give you that, and we wouldn't have asked for more than that. +My sisters say they think Sir Willoughby must be selfish. He's +awfully proud; and perhaps it was because my father wasn't dressed +well enough. But what can we do? We're very poor at home, and lots +of us, and all hungry. My father says he isn't paid very well for +his services to the Government. He's only a marine." + +"He's a hero!" said De Craye. + +"He came home very tired, with a cold, and had a doctor. But Sir +Willoughby did send him money, and mother wished to send it back, +and my father said she was not like a woman--with our big family. +He said he thought Sir Willoughby an extraordinary man." + +"Not at all; very common; indigenous," said De Craye. "The art of +cutting is one of the branches of a polite education in this +country, and you'll have to learn it, if you expect to be looked +on as a gentleman and a Patterne, my boy. I begin to see how it is +Miss Middleton takes to you so. Follow her directions. But I hope +you did not listen to a private conversation. Miss Middleton would +not approve of that." + +"Colonel De Craye, how could I help myself? I heard a lot before I +knew what it was. There was poetry!" + +"Still, Crossjay, if it was important--was it?" + +The boy swelled again, and the colonel asked him, "Does Miss Dale +know of your having played listener?" + +"She!" said Crossjay. "Oh, I couldn't tell her." + +He breathed thick; then came a threat of tears. "She wouldn't do +anything to hurt Miss Middleton. I'm sure of that. It wasn't her +fault. She--There goes Mr. Whitford!" Crossjay bounded away. + +The colonel had no inclination to wait for his return. He walked +fast up the road, not perspicuously conscious that his motive was +to be well in advance of Vernon Whitford: to whom, after all, the +knowledge imparted by Crossjay would be of small advantage. That +fellow would probably trot of to Willoughby to row him for breaking +his word to Miss Middleton! There are men, thought De Craye, who +see nothing, feel nothing. + +He crossed a stile into the wood above the lake, where, as he was +in the humour to think himself signally lucky, espying her, he +took it as a matter of course that the lady who taught his heart +to leap should be posted by the Fates. And he wondered little at +her power, for rarely had the world seen such union of princess +and sylph as in that lady's figure. She stood holding by a +beech-branch, gazing down on the water. + +She had not heard him. When she looked she flushed at the +spectacle of one of her thousand thoughts, but she was not +startled; the colour overflowed a grave face. + +"And 'tis not quite the first time that Willoughby has played this +trick!" De Craye said to her, keenly smiling with a parted mouth. + +Clara moved her lips to recall remarks introductory to so abrupt +and strange a plunge. + +He smiled in that peculiar manner of an illuminated comic +perception: for the moment he was all falcon; and he surprised +himself more than Clara, who was not in the mood to take +surprises. It was the sight of her which had animated him to +strike his game; he was down on it. + +Another instinct at work (they spring up in twenties oftener than +in twos when the heart is the hunter) prompted him to directness +and quickness, to carry her on the flood of the discovery. + +She regained something of her mental self-possession as soon as +she was on a level with a meaning she had not yet inspected; but +she had to submit to his lead, distinctly perceiving where its +drift divided to the forked currents of what might be in his mind +and what was in hers. + +"Miss Middleton, I bear a bit of a likeness to the messenger to +the glorious despot--my head is off if I speak not true! +Everything I have is on the die. Did I guess wrong your wish?--I +read it in the dark, by the heart. But here's a certainty: +Willoughby sets you free." + +"You have come from him?" she could imagine nothing else, and she +was unable to preserve a disguise; she trembled. + +"From Miss Dale." + +"Ah!" Clara drooped. "She told me that once." + +"'Tis the fact that tells it now." + +"You have not seen him since you left the house?" + +"Darkly: clear enough: not unlike the hand of destiny--through a +veil. He offered himself to Miss Dale last night, about between the +witching hours of twelve and one." + +"Miss Dale . . ." + +"Would she other? Could she? The poor lady has languished beyond a +decade. She's love in the feminine person." + +"Are you speaking seriously, Colonel De Craye?" + +"Would I dare to trifle with you, Miss Middleton?" + +"I have reason to know it cannot be." + +"If I have a head, it is a fresh and blooming truth. And more--I +stake my vanity on it!" + +"Let me go to her." She stepped. + +"Consider," said he. + +"Miss Dale and I are excellent friends. It would not seem +indelicate to her. She has a kind of regard for me, through +Crossjay.--Oh, can it be? There must be some delusion. You have +seen--you wish to be of service to me; you may too easily be +deceived. Last night?--he last night ... ? And this morning!" + +"'Tis not the first time our friend has played the trick, Miss +Middleton." + +"But this is incredible, that last night ... and this morning, in +my father's presence, he presses! ... You have seen Miss Dale? +Everything is possible of him: they were together, I know. +Colonel De Craye, I have not the slightest chance of concealment +with you. I think I felt that when I first saw you. Will you let +me hear why you are so certain?" + +"Miss Middleton, when I first had the honour of looking on you, it +was in a posture that necessitated my looking up, and morally so +it has been since. I conceived that Willoughby had won the +greatest prize of earth. And next I was led to the conclusion that +he had won it to lose it. Whether he much cares, is the mystery I +haven't leisure to fathom. Himself is the principal consideration +with himself, and ever was." + +"You discovered it!" said Clara. + +"He uncovered it," said De Craye. "The miracle was, that the world +wouldn't see. But the world is a piggy-wiggy world for the +wealthy fellow who fills a trough for it, and that he has always +very sagaciously done. Only women besides myself have detected +him. I have never exposed him; I have been an observer pure and +simple; and because I apprehended another catastrophe--making +something like the fourth, to my knowledge, one being public . . +." + +"You knew Miss Durham?" + +"And Harry Oxford too. And they're a pair as happy as blackbirds +in a cherry-tree, in a summer sunrise, with the owner of the +garden asleep. Because of that apprehension of mine, I refused the +office of best man till Willoughby had sent me a third letter. He +insisted on my coming. I came, saw, and was conquered. I trust +with all my soul I did not betray myself, I owed that duty to my +position of concealing it. As for entirely hiding that I had used +my eyes, I can't say: they must answer for it." + +The colonel was using his eyes with an increasing suavity that +threatened more than sweetness. + +"I believe you have been sincerely kind," said Clara. "We will +descend to the path round the lake." + +She did not refuse her hand on the descent, and he let it escape +the moment the service was done. As he was performing the +admirable character of the man of honour, he had to attend to the +observance of details; and sure of her though he was beginning to +feel, there was a touch of the unknown in Clara Middleton which +made him fear to stamp assurance; despite a barely resistible +impulse, coming of his emotions and approved by his maxims. He +looked at the hand, now a free lady's hand. Willoughby settled, +his chance was great. Who else was in the way? No one. He +counselled himself to wait for her; she might have ideas of +delicacy. Her face was troubled, speculative; the brows clouded, +the lips compressed. + +"You have not heard this from Miss Dale?" she said. + +"Last night they were together: this morning she fled. I saw her +this morning distressed. She is unwilling to send you a message: +she talks vaguely of meeting you some days hence. And it is not +the first time he has gone to her for his consolation." + +"That is not a proposal," Clara reflected. "He is too prudent. He +did not propose to her at the time you mention. Have you not been +hasty, Colonel De Craye?" + +Shadows crossed her forehead. She glanced in the direction of the +house and stopped her walk. + +"Last night, Miss Middleton, there was a listener." + +"Who?" + +"Crossjay was under that pretty silk coverlet worked by the Miss +Patternes. He came home late, found his door locked, and dashed +downstairs into the drawing-room, where he snuggled up and dropped +asleep. The two speakers woke him; they frightened the poor dear +lad in his love for you, and after they had gone, he wanted to run +out of the house, and I met him just after I had come back from my +search, bursting, and took him to my room, and laid him on the +sofa, and abused him for not lying quiet. He was restless as a +fish on a bank. When I woke in the morning he was off. Doctor +Corney came across him somewhere on the road and drove him to the +cottage. I was ringing the bell. Corney told me the boy had you on +his brain, and was miserable, so Crossjay and I had a talk." + +"Crossjay did not repeat to you the conversation he had heard?" +said Clara. + +"No." + +She smiled rejoicingly, proud of the boy. as she walked on. + +"But you'll pardon me, Miss Middleton--and I'm for him as much as +you are--if I was guilty of a little angling." + +"My sympathies are with the fish." + +"The poor fellow had a secret that hurt him. It rose to the +surface crying to be hooked, and I spared him twice or thrice, +because he had a sort of holy sentiment I respected, that none but +Mr. Whitford ought to be his father confessor." + +"Crossjay!" she cried, hugging her love of the boy. + +"The secret was one not to be communicated to Miss Dale of all +people." + +"He said that?" + +"As good as the very words. She informed me, too, that she +couldn't induce him to face her straight." + +"Oh, that looks like it. And Crossjay was unhappy? Very unhappy?" + +"He was just where tears are on the brim, and would have been +over, if he were not such a manly youngster." + +"It looks..." She reverted in thought to Willoughby, and doubted, +and blindly stretched hands to her recollection of the strange old +monster she had discovered in him. Such a man could do anything. + +That conclusion fortified her to pursue her walk to the house and +give battle for freedom. Willoughby appeared to her scarce human, +unreadable, save by the key that she could supply. She determined +to put faith in Colonel De Craye's marvellous divination of +circumstances in the dark. Marvels are solid weapons when we are +attacked by real prodigies of nature. Her countenance cleared. She +conversed with De Craye of the polite and the political world, +throwing off her personal burden completely, and charming him. + +At the edge of the garden, on the bridge that crossed the haha +from the park, he had a second impulse, almost a warning within, +to seize his heavenly opportunity to ask for thanks and move her +tender lowered eyelids to hint at his reward. He repressed it, +doubtful of the wisdom. + +Something like "heaven forgive me" was in Clara's mind, though she +would have declared herself innocent before the scrutator. + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + +In Which Sir Willoughby Is Led to Think That the Elements Have +Conspired Against Him + +Clara had not taken many steps in the garden before she learned +how great was her debt of gratitude to Colonel De Craye. +Willoughby and her father were awaiting her. De Craye, with his +ready comprehension of circumstances, turned aside unseen among +the shrubs. She advanced slowly. + +"The vapours, we may trust, have dispersed?" her father hailed +her. + +"One word, and these discussions are over, we dislike them +equally," said Willoughby. + +"No scenes," Dr. Middleton added. "Speak your decision, my girl, +pro forma, seeing that he who has the right demands it, and pray +release me." + +Clara looked at Willoughby. + +"I have decided to go to Miss Dale for her advice." + +There was no appearance in him of a man that has been shot. + +"To Miss Dale?--for advice?" + +Dr Middleton invoked the Furies. "What is the signification of +this new freak?" + +"Miss Dale must be consulted, papa." + +"Consulted with reference to the disposal of your hand in +marriage?" + +"She must be." + +"Miss Dale, do you say?" + +"I do, Papa." + +Dr Middleton regained his natural elevation from the bend of body +habitual with men of an established sanity, paedagogues and +others, who are called on at odd intervals to inspect the +magnitude of the infinitesimally absurd in human nature: small, +that is, under the light of reason, immense in the realms of +madness. + +His daughter profoundly confused him. He swelled out his chest, +remarking to Willoughby: "I do not wonder at your scared +expression of countenance, my friend. To discover yourself engaged +to a girl mad as Cassandra, without a boast of the distinction of +her being sun-struck, can be no specially comfortable +enlightenment. I am opposed to delays, and I will not have a +breach of faith committed by daughter of mine." + +"Do not repeat those words," Clara said to Willoughby. He started. +She had evidently come armed. But how, within so short a space? +What could have instructed her? And in his bewilderment he gazed +hurriedly above, gulped air, and cried: "Scared, sir? I am not +aware that my countenance can show a scare. I am not accustomed to +sue for long: I am unable to sustain the part of humble +supplicant. She puts me out of harmony with creation--We are +plighted, Clara. It is pure waste of time to speak of soliciting +advice on the subject." + +"Would it be a breach of faith for me to break my engagement?" she +said. + +"You ask?" + +"It is a breach of sanity to propound the interrogation," said her +father. + +She looked at Willoughby. "Now?" + +He shrugged haughtily. + +"Since last night?" she said. + +"Last night?" + +"Am I not released?" + +"Not by me." + +"By your act." + +"My dear Clara!" + +"Have you not virtually disengaged me?" + +"I who claim you as mine?" + +"Can you?" + +"I do and must." + +"After last night?" + +"Tricks! shufflings! jabber of a barbarian woman upon the +evolutions of a serpent!" exclaimed Dr. Middleton. "You were to +capitulate, or to furnish reasons for your refusal. You have none. +Give him your hand, girl, according to the compact. I praised you +to him for returning within the allotted term, and now forbear to +disgrace yourself and me." + +"Is he perfectly free to offer his? Ask him, papa." + +"Perform your duty. Do let us have peace!" + +"Perfectly free! as on the day when I offered it first." +Willoughby frankly waved his honourable hand. + +His face was blanched: enemies in the air seemed to have whispered +things to her: he doubted the fidelity of the Powers above. + +"Since last night?" said she. + +"Oh! if you insist, I reply, since last night." + +"You know what I mean, Sir Willoughby." + +"Oh! certainly." + +"You speak the truth?" + +"'Sir Willoughby!'" her father ejaculated in wrath. "But will you +explain what you mean, epitome that you are of all the +contradictions and mutabilities ascribed to women from the +beginning! 'Certainly', he says, and knows no more than I. She +begs grace for an hour, and returns with a fresh store of +evasions, to insult the man she has injured. It is my humiliation +to confess that our share in this contract is rescued from public +ignominy by his generosity. Nor can I congratulate him on his +fortune, should he condescend to bear with you to the utmost; for +instead of the young woman I supposed myself to be bestowing on +him, I see a fantastical planguncula enlivened by the wanton +tempers of a nursery chit. If one may conceive a meaning in her, +in miserable apology for such behaviour, some spirit of jealousy +informs the girl." + +"I can only remark that there is no foundation for it," said +Willoughby. "I am willing to satisfy you, Clara. Name the person +who discomposes you. I can scarcely imagine one to exist: but who +can tell?" + +She could name no person. The detestable imputation of jealousy +would be confirmed if she mentioned a name: and indeed Laetitia +was not to be named. + +He pursued his advantage: "Jealousy is one of the fits I am a +stranger to,--I fancy, sir, that gentlemen have dismissed it. I +speak for myself.--But I can make allowances. In some cases, it +is considered a compliment; and often a word will soothe it. The +whole affair is so senseless! However, I will enter the +witness-box, or stand at the prisoner's bar! Anything to quiet a +distempered mind." + +"Of you, sir," said Dr. Middleton, "might a parent be justly +proud." + +"It is not jealousy; I could not be jealous!" Clara cried, stung by +the very passion; and she ran through her brain for a suggestion +to win a sign of meltingness if not esteem from her father. She +was not an iron maiden, but one among the nervous natures which +live largely in the moment, though she was then sacrificing it to +her nature's deep dislike. "You may be proud of me again, papa." + +She could hardly have uttered anything more impolitic. + +"Optume; but deliver yourself ad rem," he rejoined, alarmingly +pacified. "Firmavit fidem. Do you likewise, and double on us no +more like puss in the field." + +"I wish to see Miss Dale," she said. + +Up flew the Rev. Doctor's arms in wrathful despair resembling an +imprecation. + +"She is at the cottage. You could have seen her," said Willoughby. + +Evidently she had not. + +"Is it untrue that last night, between twelve o'clock and one, in +the drawing-room, you proposed marriage to Miss Dale?" He became +convinced that she must have stolen down-stairs during his +colloquy with Laetitia, and listened at the door. + +"On behalf of old Vernon?" he said, lightly laughing. "The idea is +not novel, as you know. They are suited, if they could see it.-- +Laetitia Dale and my cousin Vernon Whitford, sir." + +"Fairly schemed, my friend, and I will say for you, you have the +patience, Willoughby, of a husband!" + +Willoughby bowed to the encomium, and allowed some fatigue to be +visible. He half yawned: "I claim no happier title, sir," and made +light of the weariful discussion. + +Clara was shaken: she feared that Crossjay had heard incorrectly, +or that Colonel De Craye had guessed erroneously. It was too +likely that Willoughby should have proposed Vernon to Laetitia. + +There was nothing to reassure her save the vision of the panic +amazement of his face at her persistency in speaking of Miss Dale. +She could have declared on oath that she was right, while +admitting all the suppositions to be against her. And unhappily +all the Delicacies (a doughty battalion for the defence of ladies +until they enter into difficulties and are shorn of them at a +blow, bare as dairymaids), all the body-guard of a young +gentlewoman, the drawing-room sylphides, which bear her train, +which wreathe her hair, which modulate her voice and tone her +complexion, which are arrows and shield to awe the creature man, +forbade her utterance of what she felt, on pain of instant +fulfilment of their oft-repeated threat of late to leave her to +the last remnant of a protecting sprite. She could not, as in a +dear melodrama, from the aim of a pointed finger denounce him, on +the testimony of her instincts, false of speech, false in deed. +She could not even declare that she doubted his truthfulness. The +refuge of a sullen fit, the refuge of tears, the pretext of a +mood, were denied her now by the rigour of those laws of decency +which are a garment to ladies of pure breeding. + +"One more respite, papa," she implored him, bitterly conscious of +the closer tangle her petition involved, and, if it must be +betrayed of her, perceiving in an illumination how the knot might +become so woefully Gordian that haply in a cloud of wild events +the intervention of a gallant gentleman out of heaven, albeit in +the likeness of one of earth, would have to cut it: her cry +within, as she succumbed to weakness, being fervider, "Anything +but marry this one!" She was faint with strife and dejected, a +condition in the young when their imaginative energies hold revel +uncontrolled and are projectively desperate. + +"No respite!" said Willoughby, genially. + +"And I say, no respite!" observed her father. "You have assumed a +position that has not been granted you, Clara Middleton." + +"I cannot bear to offend you, father." + +"Him! Your duty is not to offend him. Address your excuses to +him. I refuse to be dragged over the same ground, to reiterate the +same command perpetually." + +"If authority is deputed to me, I claim you," said Willoughby. + +"You have not broken faith with me?" + +"Assuredly not, or would it be possible for me to press my claim?" + +"And join the right hand to the right," said Dr. Middleton; no, it +would not be possible. What insane root she has been nibbling, I +know not, but she must consign herself to the guidance of those +whom the gods have not abandoned, until her intellect is +liberated. She was once ... there: I look not back--if she it +was, and no simulacrum of a reasonable daughter. I welcome the +appearance of my friend Mr. Whitford. He is my sea-bath and supper +on the beach of Troy, after the day's battle and dust." + +Vernon walked straight up to them: an act unusual with him, +for he was shy of committing an intrusion. + +Clara guessed by that, and more by the dancing frown of +speculative humour he turned on Willoughby, that he had come +charged in support of her. His forehead was curiously lively, as +of one who has got a surprise well under, to feed on its amusing +contents. + +"Have you seen Crossjay, Mr. Whitford?" she said. + +"I've pounced on Crossjay; his bones are sound." + +"Where did he sleep?" + +"On a sofa, it seems." + +She smiled, with good hope--Vernon had the story. + +Willoughby thought it just to himself that he should defend his +measure of severity. + +"The boy lied; he played a double game." + +"For which he should have been reasoned with at the Grecian +portico of a boy," said the Rev. Doctor. + +"My system is different, sir. I could not inflict what I would +not endure myself" + +"So is Greek excluded from the later generations; and you leave a +field, the most fertile in the moralities in youth, unplowed and +unsown. Ah! well. This growing too fine is our way of relapsing +upon barbarism. Beware of over-sensitiveness, where nature has +plainly indicated her alternative gateway of knowledge. And now, I +presume, I am at liberty." + +"Vernon will excuse us for a minute or two." + +"I hold by Mr. Whitford now I have him." + +"I'll join you in the laboratory, Vernon," Willoughby nodded +bluntly. + +"We will leave them, Mr. Whitford. They are at the time-honoured +dissension upon a particular day, that, for the sake of dignity, +blushes to be named." + +"What day?" said Vernon, like a rustic. + +"THE day, these people call it." + +Vernon sent one of his vivid eyeshots from one to the other. His +eyes fixed on Willoughby's with a quivering glow, beyond +amazement, as if his humour stood at furnace-heat, and absorbed +all that came. + +Willoughby motioned to him to go. + +"Have you seen Miss Dale, Mr. Whitford?" said Clara. + +He answered, "No. Something has shocked her." + +"Is it her feeling for Crossjay?" + +"Ah!" Vernon said to Willoughby, "your pocketing of the key of +Crossjay's bedroom door was a master-stroke!" + +The celestial irony suffused her, and she bathed and swam in it, +on hearing its dupe reply: "My methods of discipline are short. I +was not aware that she had been to his door." + +"But I may hope that Miss Dale will see me," said Clara. "We are +in sympathy about the boy." + +"Mr. Dale might be seen. He seems to be of a divided mind with his +daughter," Vernon rejoined. "She has locked herself up in her +room." + +"He is not the only father in that unwholesome predicament," said +Dr Middleton. + +"He talks of coming to you, Willoughby." + +"Why to me?" Willoughby chastened his irritation: "He will be +welcome, of course. It would be better that the boy should come." + +"If there is a chance of your forgiving him," said Clara. "Let +the Dales know I am prepared to listen to the boy, Vernon. There +can be no necessity for Mr. Dale to drag himself here." + +"How are Mr. Dale and his daughter of a divided mind, Mr. +Whitford?" said Clara. + +Vernon simulated an uneasiness. With a vacant gaze that enlarged +around Willoughby and was more discomforting than intentness, he +replied: "Perhaps she is unwilling to give him her entire +confidence, Miss Middleton." + +"In which respect, then, our situations present their solitary +point of unlikeness in resemblance, for I have it in excess," +observed Dr. Middleton. + +Clara dropped her eyelids for the wave to pass over. "It struck me +that Miss Dale was a person of the extremest candour." + +"Why should we be prying into the domestic affairs of the Dales?" +Willoughby interjected, and drew out his watch, merely for a +diversion; he was on tiptoe to learn whether Vernon was as well +instructed as Clara, and hung to the view that he could not be, +while drenching in the sensation that he was:--and if so, what +were the Powers above but a body of conspirators? He paid Laetitia +that compliment. He could not conceive the human betrayal of the +secret. Clara's discovery of it had set his common sense adrift. + +"The domestic affairs of the Dales do not concern me," said +Vernon. + +"And yet, my friend," Dr. Middleton balanced himself, and with an +air of benevolent slyness the import of which did not awaken +Willoughby, until too late, remarked: "They might concern you. I +will even add, that there is a probability of your being not less +than the fount and origin of this division of father and daughter, +though Willoughby in the drawingroom last night stands accusably +the agent." + +"Favour me, sir, with an explanation," said Vernon, seeking to +gather it from Clara. + +Dr Middleton threw the explanation upon Willoughby. + +Clara, communicated as much as she was able in one of those looks +of still depth which say, Think! and without causing a thought to +stir, takes us into the pellucid mind. + +Vernon was enlightened before Willoughby had spoken. +His mouth shut rigidly, and there was a springing increase of the +luminous wavering of his eyes. Some star that Clara had watched +at night was like them in the vivid wink and overflow of its +light. Yet, as he was perfectly sedate, none could have suspected +his blood to be chasing wild with laughter, and his frame strung +to the utmost to keep it from volleying. So happy was she in his +aspect, that her chief anxiety was to recover the name of the star +whose shining beckons and speaks, and is in the quick of +spirit-fire. It is the sole star which on a +night of frost and strong moonlight preserves an indomitable +fervency: that she remembered, and the picture of a hoar earth and +a lean Orion in flooded heavens, and the star beneath Eastward of +him: but the name! the name!--She heard Willoughby indistinctly. + +"Oh, the old story; another effort; you know my wish; a failure, +of course, and no thanks on either side, I suppose I must ask your +excuse.--They neither of them see what's good for them, sir." + +"Manifestly, however," said Dr. Middleton, "if one may opine from +the division we have heard of, the father is disposed to back your +nominee." + +"I can't say; as far as I am concerned, I made a mess of it." +Vernon withstood the incitement to acquiesce, but he sparkled with +his recognition of the fact. + +"You meant well, Willoughby." + +"I hope so, Vernon." + +"Only you have driven her away." + +"We must resign ourselves." + +"It won't affect me, for I'm off to-morrow." + +"You see, sir, the thanks I get." + +"Mr. Whitford," said Dr. Middleton, "You have a tower of strength +in the lady's father." + +"Would you have me bring it to bear upon the lady, sir?" + +"Wherefore not?" + +"To make her marriage a matter of obedience to her father?" + +"Ay, my friend, a lusty lover would have her gladly on those +terms, well knowing it to be for the lady's good. What do you say, +Willoughby?" + +"Sir! Say? What can I say? Miss Dale has not plighted her faith. +Had she done so, she is a lady who would never dishonour it." + +"She is an ideal of constancy, who would keep to it though it had +been broken on the other side," said Vernon, and Clara thrilled. + +"I take that, sir, to be a statue of constancy, modelled upon +which a lady of our flesh may be proclaimed as graduating for the +condition of idiocy," said Dr. Middleton. + +"But faith is faith, sir." + +"But the broken is the broken, sir, whether in porcelain or in +human engagements; and all that one of the two continuing +faithful, I should rather say, regretful, can do, is to devote the +remainder of life to the picking up of the fragments; an +occupation properly to be pursued, for the comfort of mankind, +within the enclosure of an appointed asylum." + +"You destroy the poetry of sentiment, Dr. Middleton." + +"To invigorate the poetry of nature, Mr. Whitford." + +"Then you maintain, sir, that when faith is broken by one, the +engagement ceases, and the other is absolutely free?" + +"I do; I am the champion of that platitude, and sound that knell +to the sentimental world; and since you have chosen to defend it, +I will appeal to Willoughby, and ask him if he would not side with +the world of good sense in applauding the nuptials of man or maid +married within a month of a jilting?" Clara slipped her arm under +her father's. + +"Poetry, sir," said Willoughby, "I never have been hypocrite +enough to pretend to understand or care for." + +Dr. Middleton laughed. Vernon too seemed to admire his cousin for a +reply that rung in Clara's ears as the dullest ever spoken. Her +arm grew cold on her father's. She began to fear Willoughby again. + +He depended entirely on his agility to elude the thrusts that +assailed him. Had he been able to believe in the treachery of the +Powers above, he would at once have seen design in these deadly +strokes, for his feelings had rarely been more acute than at the +present crisis; and he would then have led away Clara, to wrangle +it out with her, relying on Vernon's friendliness not to betray +him to her father: but a wrangle with Clara promised no immediate +fruits, nothing agreeable; and the lifelong trust he had reposed in +his protecting genii obscured his intelligence to evidence he +would otherwise have accepted on the spot, on the faith of his +delicate susceptibility to the mildest impressions which wounded +him. Clara might have stooped to listen at the door: she might +have heard sufficient to create a suspicion. But Vernon was not in +the house last night; she could not have communicated it to him, +and he had not seen Laetitia, who was, besides trustworthy, an +admirable if a foolish and ill-fated woman. + +Preferring to consider Vernon a pragmatical moralist played upon +by a sententious drone, he thought it politic to detach them, and +vanquish Clara while she was in the beaten mood, as she had +appeared before Vernon's vexatious arrival. + +"I'm afraid, my dear fellow, you are rather too dainty and fussy +for a very successful wooer," he said. "It's beautiful on paper, +and absurd in life. We have a bit of private business to discuss. +We will go inside, sir, I think. I will soon release you." Clara +pressed her father's arm. + +"More?" said he. + +"Five minutes. There's a slight delusion to clear, sir. My dear +Clara, you will see with different eyes." + +"Papa wishes to work with Mr. Whitford." + +Her heart sunk to hear her father say: "No, 'tis a lost morning. I +must consent to pay tax of it for giving another young woman to +the world. I have a daughter! You will, I hope, compensate me, Mr. +Whitford, in the afternoon. Be not downcast. I have observed you +meditative of late. You will have no clear brain so long as that +stuff is on the mind. I could venture to propose to do some +pleading for you, should it be needed for the prompter expedition +of the affair." + +Vernon briefly thanked him, and said: + +"Willoughby has exerted all his eloquence, and you see the result: +you have lost Miss Dale and I have not won her. He did everything +that one man can do for another in so delicate a case: even to the +repeating of her famous birthday verses to him, to flatter the +poetess. His best efforts were foiled by the lady's indisposition +for me." + +"Behold," said Dr. Middleton, as Willoughby, electrified by the +mention of the verses, took a sharp stride or two, "you have in +him an advocate who will not be rebuffed by one refusal, and I +can affirm that he is tenacious, pertinacious as are few. Justly +so. Not to believe in a lady's No is the approved method of +carrying that fortress built to yield. Although unquestionably to +have a young man pleading in our interests with a lady, counts its +objections. Yet Willoughby being notoriously engaged, may be held +to enjoy the privileges of his elders." + +"As an engaged man, sir, he was on a level with his elders in +pleading on my behalf with Miss Dale," said Vernon. Willoughby +strode and muttered. Providence had grown mythical in his +thoughts, if not malicious: and it is the peril of this worship +that the object will wear such an alternative aspect when it +appears no longer subservient. + +"Are we coming, sir?" he said, and was unheeded. The Rev. Doctor +would not be defrauded of rolling his billow. + +"As an honourable gentleman faithful to his own engagement and +desirous of establishing his relatives, he deserves, in my +judgement, the lady's esteem as well as your cordial thanks; nor +should a temporary failure dishearten either of you, +notwithstanding the precipitate retreat of the lady from Patterne, +and her seclusion in her sanctum on the occasion of your recent +visit." + +"Supposing he had succeeded," said Vernon, driving Willoughby to +frenzy, "should I have been bound to marry?" Matter for cogitation +was offered to Dr. Middleton. + +"The proposal was without your sanction?" + +"Entirely." + +"You admire the lady?" + +"Respectfully." + +"You do not incline to the state?" + +"An inch of an angle would exaggerate my inclination." + +"How long are we to stand and hear this insufferable nonsense you +talk?" cried Willoughby. + +"But if Mr. Whitford was not consulted. . ." Dr. Middleton said, +and was overborne by Willoughby's hurried, "Oblige me, sir.-- +Oblige me, my good fellow!" He swept his arm to Vernon, and +gestured a conducting hand to Clara. + +"Here is Mrs. Mountstuart!" she exclaimed. + +Willoughby stared. Was it an irruption of a friend or a foe? He +doubted, and stood petrified between the double question. Clara +had seen Mrs. Mountstuart and Colonel De Craye separating: and now +the great lady sailed along the sward like a royal barge in +festival trim. + +She looked friendly, but friendly to everybody, which was always a +frost on Willoughby, and terribly friendly to Clara. + +Coming up to her she whispered: "News, indeed! Wonderful! I could +not credit his hint of it yesterday. Are you satisfied?" + +"Pray, Mrs. Mountstuart, take an opportunity to speak to papa," +Clara whispered in return. + +Mrs. Mountstuart bowed to Dr. Middleton, nodded to Vernon, and swam +upon Willoughby, with, "Is it? But is it? Am I really to believe? +You have? My dear Sir Willoughby? Really? The confounded +gentleman heaved on a bare plank of wreck in mid sea. + +He could oppose only a paralyzed smile to the assault. + +His intuitive discretion taught him to fall back a step while she +said, "So!" the plummet word of our mysterious deep fathoms; and +he fell back further saying, "Madam?" in a tone advising her to +speak low. + +She recovered her volubility, followed his partial retreat, and +dropped her voice,-- + +"Impossible to have imagined it as an actual fact! You were always +full of surprises, but this! this! Nothing manlier, nothing more +gentlemanly has ever been done: nothing: nothing that so +completely changes an untenable situation into a comfortable and +proper footing for everybody. It is what I like: it is what I +love:--sound sense! Men are so selfish: one cannot persuade them +to be reasonable in such positions. But you, Sir Willoughby, have +shown wisdom and sentiment: the rarest of all combinations in +men." + +"Where have you? . . ." Willoughby contrived to say. + +"Heard? The hedges, the housetops, everywhere. All the +neighbourhood will have it before nightfall. Lady Busshe and Lady +Culmer will soon be rushing here, and declaring they never +expected anything else, I do not doubt. I am not so pretentious. I +beg your excuse for that 'twice' of mine yesterday. Even if it +hurt my vanity, I should be happy to confess my error: I was +utterly out. But then I did not reckon on a fatal attachment, I +thought men were incapable of it. I thought we women were the only +poor creatures persecuted by a fatality. It is a fatality! You +tried hard to escape, indeed you did. And she will do honour to +your final surrender, my dear friend. She is gentle, and very +clever, very: she is devoted to you: she will entertain +excellently. I see her like a flower in sunshine. She will expand +to a perfect hostess. Patterne will shine under her reign; you +have my warrant for that. And so will you. Yes, you flourish best +when adored. It must be adoration. You have been under a cloud of +late. Years ago I said it was a match, when no one supposed you +could stoop. Lady Busshe would have it was a screen, and she was +deemed high wisdom. The world will be with you. All the women +will be: excepting, of course, Lady Busshe, whose pride is in +prophecy; and she will soon be too glad to swell the host. There, +my friend, your sincerest and oldest admirer congratulates you. I +could not contain myself; I was compelled to pour forth. And now +I must go and be talked to by Dr. Middleton. How does he take it? +They leave?" + +"He is perfectly well," said Willoughby, aloud, quite distraught. + +She acknowledged his just correction of her for running on to an +extreme in low-toned converse, though they stood sufficiently +isolated from the others. These had by this time been joined by +Colonel De Craye, and were all chatting in a group--of himself, +Willoughby horribly suspected. + +Clara was gone from him! Gone! but he remembered his oath and +vowed it again: not to Horace de Craye! She was gone, lost, sunk +into the world of waters of rival men, and he determined that his +whole force should be used to keep her from that man, the false +friend who had supplanted him in her shallow heart, and might, if +he succeeded, boast of having done it by simply appearing on the +scene. + +Willoughby intercepted Mrs. Mountstuart as she was passing over to +Dr Middleton. "My dear lady! spare me a minute." + +De Craye sauntered up, with a face of the friendliest humour: + +"Never was man like you, Willoughby, for shaking new patterns in a +kaleidoscope." + +"Have you turned punster, Horace?" Willoughby replied, smarting to +find yet another in the demon secret, and he draw Dr. Middleton two +or three steps aside, and hurriedly begged him to abstain from +prosecuting the subject with Clara. + +"We must try to make her happy as we best can, sir. She may have +her reasons--a young lady's reasons!" He laughed, and left the +Rev. Doctor considering within himself under the arch of his lofty +frown of stupefaction. + +De Craye smiled slyly and winningly as he shadowed a deep droop on +the bend of his head before Clara, signifying his absolute +devotion to her service, and this present good fruit for witness +of his merits. + +She smiled sweetly though vaguely. There was no concealment of +their intimacy. + +"The battle is over," Vernon said quietly, when Willoughby had +walked some paces beside Mrs. Mountstuart, adding: "You may expect +to see Mr. Dale here. He knows." + +Vernon and Clara exchanged one look, hard on his part, in contrast +with her softness, and he proceeded to the house. De Craye waited +for a word or a promising look. He was patient, being +self-assured, and passed on. + +Clara linked her arm with her father's once more, and said, on a +sudden brightness: "Sirius, papa!" " He repeated it in the +profoundest manner: "Sirius! And is there," he asked, "a feminine +scintilla of sense in that?" + +"It is the name of the star I was thinking of, dear papa." + +"It was the star observed by King Agamemnon before the sacrifice in +Aulis. You were thinking of that? But, my love, my Iphigenia, you +have not a father who will insist on sacrificing you." + +"Did I hear him tell you to humour me, papa?" + +Dr Middleton humphed. + +"Verily the dog-star rages in many heads," he responded. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + +Dr Middleton: the Ladies Eleanor and Isabel: and Mr. Dale + +Clara looked up at the flying clouds. She travelled with them now, +and tasted freedom, but she prudently forbore to vex her father; +she held herself in reserve. + +They were summoned by the midday bell. + +Few were speakers at the meal, few were eaters. Clara was +impelled to join it by her desire to study Mrs. Mountstuart's +face. Willoughby was obliged to preside. It was a meal of an +assembly of mutes and plates, that struck the ear like the +well-known sound of a collection of offerings in church after an +impressive exhortation from the pulpit. A sally of Colonel De +Craye's met the reception given to a charity-boy's muffled burst +of animal spirits in the silence of the sacred edifice. Willoughby +tried politics with Dr. Middleton, whose regular appetite preserved +him from uncongenial speculations when the hour for appeasing it +had come; and he alone did honour to the dishes, replying to his +host: + +"Times are bad, you say, and we have a Ministry doing with us what +they will. Well, sir, and that being so, and opposition a manner +of kicking them into greater stability, it is the time for wise +men to retire within themselves, with the steady determination of +the seed in the earth to grow. Repose upon nature, sleep in firm +faith, and abide the seasons. That is my counsel to the weaker +party." + +The counsel was excellent, but it killed the topic. + +Dr. Middleton's appetite was watched for the signal to rise and +breathe freely; and such is the grace accorded to a good man of an +untroubled conscience engaged in doing his duty to himself, that +he perceived nothing of the general restlessness; he went through +the dishes calmly, and as calmly he quoted Milton to the ladies +Eleanor and Isabel, when the company sprung up all at once upon +his closing his repast. Vernon was taken away from him by +Willoughby. Mrs Mountstuart beckoned covertly to Clara. Willoughby +should have had something to say to him, Dr. Middleton thought: the +position was not clear. But the situation was not disagreeable; +and he was in no serious hurry, though he wished to be +enlightened. + +"This," Dr. Middleton said to the spinster aunts, as he accompanied +them to the drawing-room, "shall be no lost day for me if I may +devote the remainder of it to you." + +"The thunder, we fear, is not remote," murmured one. + +"We fear it is imminent," sighed the other. + +They took to chanting in alternation. + +"--We are accustomed to peruse our Willoughby, and we know him +by a shadow." + +"--From his infancy to his glorious youth and his established +manhood." + +"--He was ever the soul of chivalry." + +"--Duty: duty first. The happiness of his family. The well-being +of his dependants." + +"--If proud of his name it was not an overweening pride; it was +founded in the conscious possession of exalted qualities. He could +be humble when occasion called for it." + +Dr Middleton bowed to the litany, feeling that occasion called +for humbleness from him. + +"Let us hope ... !" he said, with unassumed penitence on behalf of +his inscrutable daughter. + +The ladies resumed:-- + +"--Vernon Whitford, not of his blood, is his brother!" + +"--A thousand instances! Laetitia Dale remembers them better than +we." + +"--That any blow should strike him!" + +"--That another should be in store for him!" + +"--It seems impossible he can be quite misunderstood!" + +"Let us hope ... !" said Dr. Middleton. + +"--One would not deem it too much for the dispenser of goodness to +expect to be a little looked up to!" + +"--When he was a child he one day mounted a chair, and there he +stood in danger, would not let us touch him because he was taller +than we, and we were to gaze. Do you remember him, Eleanor? 'I am +the sun of the house!' It was inimitable!" + +"--Your feelings; he would have your feelings! He was fourteen +when his cousin Grace Whitford married, and we lost him. They had +been the greatest friends; and it was long before he appeared +among us. He has never cared to see her since." + +"--But he has +befriended her husband. Never has he failed in generosity. His +only fault is--" + +"--His sensitiveness. And that is--" + +"--His secret. And that--" + +"--You are not to discover! It is the same with him in +manhood. No one will accuse Willoughby Patterne of a deficiency of +manlinesss: but what is it?--he suffers, as none suffer, if he is +not loved. He himself is inalterably constant in affection." + +"--What it is no one can say. We have lived with him all his life, +and we know him ready to make any sacrifice; only, he does demand +the whole heart in return. And if he doubts, he looks as we have +seen him to-day." + +"--Shattered: as we have never seen him look before." + +"We will hope," said Dr. Middleton, this time hastily. He tingled +to say, "what it was": he had it in him to solve perplexity in +their inquiry. He did say, adopting familiar speech to suit the +theme, "You know, ladies, we English come of a rough stock. A dose +of rough dealing in our youth does us no harm, braces us. +Otherwise we are likely to feel chilly: we grow too fine where +tenuity of stature is necessarily buffetted by gales, namely, in +our self-esteem. We are barbarians, on a forcing soil of wealth, +in a conservatory of comfortable security; but still barbarians. +So, you see, we shine at our best when we are plucked out of that, +to where hard blows are given, in a state of war. In a state of +war we are at home, our men are high-minded fellows, Scipios and +good legionaries. In the state of peace we do not live in peace: +our native roughness breaks out in unexpected places, under +extraordinary aspects--tyrannies, extravagances, domestic +exactions: and if we have not had sharp early training ... within +and without ... the old-fashioned island-instrument to drill into +us the civilization of our masters, the ancients, we show it by +running here and there to some excess. Ahem. Yet," added the Rev. +Doctor, abandoning his effort to deliver a weighty truth obscurely +for the comprehension of dainty spinster ladies, the +superabundance of whom in England was in his opinion largely the +cause of our decay as a people, "Yet I have not observed this +ultra-sensitiveness in Willoughby. He has borne to hear more than +I, certainly no example of the frailty, could have endured." + +"He concealed it," said the ladies. "It is intense." + +"Then is it a disease?" + +"It bears no explanation; it is mystic." + +"It is a cultus, then, a form of self-worship." + +"Self!" they ejaculated. "But is not Self indifferent to others? +Is it Self that craves for sympathy, love, and devotion?" + +"He is an admirable host, ladies." + +"He is admirable in all respects." + +"Admirable must he be who can impress discerning women, +his life-long housemates, so favourably. He is, I repeat, a +perfect host." + +"He will be a perfect husband." + +"In all probability." + +"It is a certainty. Let him be loved and obeyed, he will be +guided. That is the secret for her whom he so fatally loves. +That, if we had dared, we would have hinted to her. She will rule +him through her love of him, and through him all about her. And it +will not be a rule he submits to, but a love he accepts. If she +could see it!" + +"If she were a metaphysician!" sighed Dr. Middleton. + +"--But a sensitiveness so keen as his might--" + +"--Fretted by an unsympathizing mate--" + +"--In the end become, for the best of us is mortal--" + +"--Callous!" + +"--He would feel perhaps as much--" + +"--Or more!--" + +"--He would still be tender--" + +"--But he might grow outwardly hard!" + +Both ladies looked up at Dr. Middleton, as they revealed the +dreadful prospect. + +"It is the story told of corns!" he said, sad as they. + +The three stood drooping: the ladies with an attempt to digest his +remark; the Rev. Doctor in dejection lest his gallantry should no +longer continue to wrestle with his good sense. + +He was rescued. + +The door opened and a footman announced:-- + +"Mr. Dale." + +Miss Eleanor and Miss Isabel made a sign to one another of +raising their hands. + +They advanced to him, and welcomed him. + +"Pray be seated, Mr. Dale. You have not brought us bad news of our +Laetitia?" + +"So rare is the pleasure of welcoming you here, Mr. Dale, that we +are in some alarm, when, as we trust, it should be matter for +unmixed congratulation." + +"Has Doctor Corney been doing wonders?" + +"I am indebted to him for the drive to your house, ladies," said +Mr. Dale, a spare, close-buttoned gentleman, with an Indian +complexion deadened in the sick-chamber. "It is unusual for me to +stir from my precincts." + +"The Rev. Dr. Middleton." + +Mr. Dale bowed. He seemed surprised. + +"You live in a splendid air, sir," observed the Rev. Doctor. + +"I can profit little by it, sir," replied Mr. Dale. He asked the +ladies: "Will Sir Willoughby be disengaged?" + +They consulted. "He is with Vernon. We will send to him." + +The bell was rung. + +"I have had the gratification of making the acquaintance of your +daughter, Mr. Dale, a most estimable lady," said Dr. Middleton. + +Mr. Dale bowed. "She is honoured by your praises, sir. To the best +of my belief--I speak as a father--she merits them. Hitherto I +have had no doubts." + +"Of Laetitia?" exclaimed the ladies; and spoke of her as +gentleness and goodness incarnate. + +"Hitherto I have devoutly thought so," said Mr. Dale. + +"Surely she is the very sweetest nurse, the most devoted of +daughters." + +"As far as concerns her duty to her father, I can say she is that, +ladies." + +"In all her relations, Mr. Dale!" + +"It is my prayer," he said. + +The footman appeared. He announced that Sir Willoughby was in the +laboratory with Mr. Whitford, and the door locked. + +"Domestic business," the ladies remarked. "You know Willoughby's +diligent attention to affairs, Mr. Dale." + +"He is well?" Mr. Dale inquired. + +"In excellent health." + +"Body and mind?" + +"But, dear Mr. Dale, he is never ill." + +"Ah! for one to hear that who is never well! And Mr. Whitford is +quite sound?" + +"Sound? The question alarms me for myself," said Dr. Middleton. +"Sound as our Constitution, the Credit of the country, the +reputation of our Prince of poets. I pray you to have no fears for +him." + +Mr. Dale gave the mild little sniff of a man thrown deeper into +perplexity. + +He said: "Mr. Whitford works his head; he is a hard student; he +may not be always, if I may so put it, at home on worldly +affairs." + +"Dismiss that defamatory legend of the student, Mr. Dale; and take +my word for it, that he who persistently works his head has the +strongest for all affairs." + +"Ah! Your daughter, sir, is here?" + +"My daughter is here, sir, and will be most happy to present her +respects to the father of her friend, Miss Dale." + +"They are friends?" + +"Very cordial friends." + +Mr. Dale administered another feebly pacifying sniff to himself. + +"Laetitia!" he sighed, in apostrophe, and swept his forehead with +a hand seen to shake. + +The ladies asked him anxiously whether he felt the heat of the +room; and one offered him a smelling-bottle. + +He thanked them. "I can hold out until Sir Willoughby comes." + +"We fear to disturb him when his door is locked, Mr. Dale; but, if +you wish it, we will venture on a message. You have really no bad +news of our Laetitia? She left us hurriedly this morning, without +any leave-taking, except a word to one of the maids, that your +condition required her immediate presence." + +"My condition! And now her door is locked to me! We have spoken +through the door, and that is all. I stand sick and stupefied +between two locked doors, neither of which will open, it appears, +to give me the enlightenment I need more than medicine." + +"Dear me!" cried Dr. Middleton, "I am struck by your description +of your position, Mr. Dale. It would aptly apply to our humanity +of the present generation; and were these the days when I +sermonized, I could propose that it should afford me an +illustration for the pulpit. For my part, when doors are closed I +try not their locks; and I attribute my perfect equanimity, health +even, to an uninquiring acceptation of the fact that they are +closed to me. I read my page by the light I have. On the contrary, +the world of this day, if I may presume to quote you for my +purpose, is heard knocking at those two locked doors of the secret +of things on each side of us, and is beheld standing sick and +stupefied because it has got no response to its knocking. Why, +sir, let the world compare the diverse fortunes of the beggar and +the postman: knock to give, and it is opened unto you: knock to +crave, and it continues shut. I say, carry a letter to your locked +door, and you shall have a good reception: but there is none that +is handed out. For which reason . . ." + +Mr. Dale swept a perspiring forehead, and extended his hand in +supplication. "I am an invalid, Dr. Middleton," he said. "I am +unable to cope with analogies. I have but strength for the slow +digestion of facts." + +"For facts, we are bradypeptics to a man, sir. We know not yet if +nature be a fact or an effort to master one. The world has not yet +assimilated the first fact it stepped on. We are still in the +endeavour to make good blood of the fact of our being." Pressing +his hands at his temples, Mr. Dale moaned: "My head twirls; I did +unwisely to come out. I came on an impulse; I trust, honourable. I +am unfit--I cannot follow you, Dr. Middleton. Pardon me." + +"Nay, sir, let me say, from my experience of my countrymen, that +if you do not follow me and can abstain from abusing me in +consequence, you are magnanimous," the Rev. Doctor replied, +hardly consenting to let go the man he had found to indemnify him +for his gallant service of acquiescing as a mute to the ladies, +though he knew his breathing robustfulness to be as an East wind +to weak nerves, and himself an engine of punishment when he had +been torn for a day from his books. + +Miss Eleanor said: "The enlightenment you need, Mr. Dale? Can we +enlighten you?" + +"I think not," he answered, faintly. "I think I will wait for Sir +Willoughby ... or Mr. Whitford. If I can keep my strength. Or +could I exchange--I fear to break down--two words with the young +lady who is, was . . . " + +"Miss Middleton, my daughter, sir? She shall be at your +disposition; I will bring her to you." Dr. Middleton stopped at the +window. "She, it is true, may better know the mind of Miss Dale +than I. But I flatter myself I know the gentleman better. I +think, Mr. Dale, addressing you as the lady's father, you will +find me a persuasive, I could be an impassioned, advocate in his +interests." + +Mr. Dale was confounded; the weakly sapling caught in a gust falls +back as he did. + +"Advocate?" he said. He had little breath. + +"His impassioned advocate, I repeat; for I have the highest +opinion of him. You see, sir, I am acquainted with the +circumstances. I believe," Dr. Middleton half turned to the ladies, +"we must, until your potent inducements, Mr. Dale, have been +joined to my instances, and we overcome what feminine scruples +there may be, treat the circumstances as not generally public. Our +Strephon may be chargeable with shyness. But if for the present it +is incumbent on us, in proper consideration for the parties, not +to be nominally precise, it is hardly requisite in this household +that we should be. He is now for protesting indifference to the +state. I fancy we understand that phase of amatory frigidity. +Frankly, Mr. Dale, I was once in my life myself refused by a lady, +and I was not indignant, merely indifferent to the marriage-tie." + +"My daughter has refused him, sir?" + +"Temporarily it would appear that she has declined the proposal." + +"He was at liberty? . . . he could honourably?. . ." + +"His best friend and nearest relative is your guarantee." + +"I know it; I hear so; I am informed of that: I have heard of the +proposal, and that he could honourably make it. Still, I am +helpless, I cannot move, until I am assured that my daughter's +reasons are such as a father need not underline." + +"Does the lady, perchance, equivocate?" + +"I have not seen her this morning; I rise late. I hear an +astounding account of the cause for her departure from Patterne, +and I find her door locked to me--no answer." + +"It is that she had no reasons to give, and she feared the demand +for them." + +"Ladies!" dolorously exclaimed Mr. Dale. + +"We guess the secret, we guess it!" they exclaimed in reply; and +they looked smilingly. as Dr. Middleton looked. + +"She had no reasons to give?" Mr. Dale spelled these words to his +understanding. "Then, sir, she knew you not adverse?" + +"Undoubtedly, by my high esteem for the gentleman, she must have +known me not adverse. But she would not consider me a principal. +She could hardly have conceived me an obstacle. I am simply the +gentleman's friend. A zealous friend, let me add." + +Mr. Dale put out an imploring hand; it was too much for him. + +"Pardon me; I have a poor head. And your daughter the same, sir?" + +"We will not measure it too closely, but I may say, my daughter +the same, sir. And likewise--may I not add--these ladies." + +Mr. Dale made sign that he was overfilled. "Where am I! And +Laetitia refused him?" + +"Temporarily, let us assume. Will it not partly depend on you, Mr. +Dale?" + +"But what strange things have been happening during my daughter's +absence from the cottage!" cried Mr. Dale, betraying an elixir in +his veins. "I feel that I could laugh if I did not dread to be +thought insane. She refused his hand, and he was at liberty to +offer it? My girl! We are all on our heads. The fairy-tales were +right and the lesson-books were wrong. But it is really, it is +really very demoralizing. An invalid--and I am one, and no +momentary exhilaration will be taken for the contrary--clings to +the idea of stability, order. The slightest disturbance of the +wonted course of things unsettles him. Why, for years I have been +prophesying it! and for years I have had everything against me, +and now when it is confirmed, I am wondering that I must not call +myself a fool!" + +"And for years, dear Mr. Dale, this union, in spite of +counter-currents and human arrangements, has been our Willoughby's +constant preoccupation," said Miss Eleanor. + +"His most cherished aim," said Miss Isabel. + +"The name was not spoken by me," said Dr. Middleton. + +"But it is out, and perhaps better out, if we would avoid the +chance of mystifications. I do not suppose we are seriously +committing a breach of confidence, though he might have wished to +mention it to you first himself. I have it from Willoughby that +last night he appealed to your daughter, Mr. Dale--not for the +first time, if I apprehend him correctly; and unsuccessfully. He +despairs. I do not: supposing, that is, your assistance vouchsafed +to us. And I do not despair, because the gentleman is a gentleman +of worth, of acknowledged worth. You know him well enough to +grant me that. I will bring you my daughter to help me in sounding +his praises." + +Dr Middleton stepped through the window to the lawn on an elastic +foot, beaming with the happiness he felt charged to confer on his +friend Mr. Whitford. + +"Ladies! it passes all wonders," Mr. Dale gasped. + +"Willoughby's generosity does pass all wonders," they said in +chorus. + +The door opened; Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer were announced. + + +CHAPTER XLV + +The Patterne Ladies: Mr. Dale: Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer: with +Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson + +Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer entered spying to right and left. At +the sight of Mr. Dale in the room Lady Busshe murmured to her +friend: "Confirmation!" + +Lady Culmer murmured: "Corney is quite reliable." + +"The man is his own best tonic." + +"He is invaluable for the country." + +Miss Eleanor and Miss Isabel greeted them. + +The amiability of the Patterne ladies combined with their total +eclipse behind their illustrious nephew invited enterprising women +of the world to take liberties, and they were not backward. + +Lady Busshe said: "Well? the news! we have the outlines. Don't be +astonished: we know the points: we have heard the gun. I could +have told you as much yesterday. I saw it. And I guessed it the +day before. Oh, I do believe in fatalities now. Lady Culmer and I +agree to take that view: it is the simplest. Well, and are you +satisfied, my dears?" + +The ladies grimaced interrogatively: "With what?" + +"With it? with all! with her! with him!" + +"Our Willoughby?" + +"Can it be possible that they require a dose of Corney?" Lady +Busshe remarked to Lady Culmer. + +"They play discretion to perfection," said Lady Culmer. "But, my +dears, we are in the secret." + +"How did she behave?" whispered Lady Busshe. "No high flights and +flutters, I do hope. She was well-connected, they say; though I +don't comprehend what they mean by a line of scholars--one thinks +of a row of pinafores: and she was pretty. + +"That is well enough at the start. It never will stand against +brains. He had the two in the house to contrast them, and ... the +result! A young woman with brains--in a house--beats all your +beauties. Lady Culmer and I have determined on that view. He +thought her a delightful partner for a dance, and found her rather +tiresome at the end of the gallopade. I saw it yesterday, clear as +daylight. She did not understand him, and he did understand her. +That will be our report." + +"She is young: she will learn," said the ladies uneasily, but in +total ignorance of her meaning. + +"And you are charitable, and always were. I remember you had a +good word for that girl Durham." + +Lady Busshe crossed the room to Mr. Dale, who was turning over +leaves of a grand book of the heraldic devices of our great +Families. + +"Study it," she said, "study it, my dear Mr. Dale; you are in it, +by right of possessing a clever and accomplished daughter. +At page 300 you will find the Patterne crest. And mark me, she +will drag you into the peerage before she has done--relatively, +you know. Sir Willoughby and wife will not be contented to sit +down and manage the estates. Has not Laetitia immense ambition? +And very creditable, I say." + +Mr. Dale tried to protest something. He shut the book, examining +the binding, flapped the cover with a finger, hoped her ladyship +was in good health, alluded to his own and the strangeness of the +bird out of the cage. + +"You will probably take up your residence here, in a larger and +handsomer cage. Mr. Dale." + +He shook his head. "Do I apprehend . . ." he said. + +"I know," said she. + +"Dear me, can it be?" + +Mr. Dale gazed upward, with the feelings of one awakened late to +see a world alive in broad daylight. + +Lady Busshe dropped her voice. She took the liberty permitted to +her with an inferior in station, while treating him to a tone of +familiarity in acknowledgment of his expected rise; which is high +breeding, or the exact measurement of social dues. + +"Laetitia will be happy, you may be sure. I love to see a long and +faithful attachment rewarded--love it! Her tale is the triumph of +patience. Far above Grizzel! No woman will be ashamed of pointing +to Lady Patterne. You are uncertain? You are in doubt? Let me +hear--as low as you like. But there is no doubt of the new +shifting of the scene?--no doubt of the proposal? Dear Mr. Dale! +a very little louder. You are here because--? of course you wish +to see Sir Willoughby. She? I did not catch you quite. She? ... it +seems, you say.. ? + +Lady Culmer said to the Patterne ladies:-- + +"You must have had a distressing time. These affairs always mount +up to a climax, unless people are very well bred. We saw it coming. +Naturally we did not expect such a transformation of brides: who +could? If I had laid myself down on my back to think, I should +have had it. I am unerring when I set to speculating on my back. +One is cooler: ideas come; they have not to be forced. That is why +I am brighter on a dull winter afternoon, on the sofa, beside my +tea-service, than at any other season. However, your trouble is +over. When did the Middletons leave?" + +"The Middletons leave?" said the ladies. + +"Dr. Middleton and his daughter." + +"They have not left us." + +"The Middletons are here?" + +"They are here, yes. Why should they have left Patterne?" + +"Why?" + +"Yes. They are likely to stay some days longer." + +"Goodness!" + +"There is no ground for any report to the contrary, Lady Culmer." + +"No ground!" + +Lady Culmer called out to Lady Busshe. + +A cry came back from that startled dame. + +"She has refused him!" + +"Who?" + +"She has." + +"She?--Sir Willoughby?" + +"Refused!--declines the honour." + +"Oh, never! No, that carries the incredible beyond romance. But is +he perfectly at . . ." + +"Quite, it seems. And she was asked in due form and refused." + +"No, and no again!" + +"My dear, I have it from Mr. Dale." + +"Mr. Dale, what can be the signification of her conduct?" + +"Indeed, Lady Culmer," said Mr. Dale, not unpleasantly agitated by +the interest he excited, in spite of his astonishment at a public +discussion of the matter in this house, "I am in the dark. Her +father should know, but I do not. Her door is locked to me; I have +not seen her. I am absolutely in the dark. I am a recluse. I have +forgotten the ways of the world. I should have supposed her father +would first have been addressed." + +"Tut-tut. Modern gentlemen are not so formal; they are creatures +of impulse and take a pride in it. He spoke. We settle that. But +where did you get this tale of a refusal?" + +"I have it from Dr. Middleton." + +"From Dr. Middleton?" shouted Lady Busshe. + +"The Middletons are here," said Lady Culmer. + +"What whirl are we in?" Lady Busshe got up, ran two or three steps +and seated herself in another chair. "Oh! do let us proceed upon +system. If not we shall presently be rageing; we shall be +dangerous. The Middletons are here, and Dr. Middleton himself +communicates to Mr. Dale that Laetitia Dale has refused the hand +of Sir Willoughby, who is ostensibly engaged to his own daughter! +And pray, Mr. Dale, how did Dr. Middleton speak of it? Compose +yourself; there is no violent hurry, though our sympathy with you +and our interest in all the parties does perhaps agitate us a +little. Quite at your leisure--speak!" + +"Madam ... Lady Busshe." Mr. Dale gulped a ball in his throat. "I +see no reason why I should not speak. I do not see how I can have +been deluded. The Miss Patternes heard him. Dr. Middleton began +upon it, not I. I was unaware, when I came, that it was a refusal. +I had been informed that there was a proposal. My authority for +the tale was positive. The object of my visit was to assure myself +of the integrity of my daughter's conduct. She had always the +highest sense of honour. But passion is known to mislead, and +there was this most strange report. I feared that our humblest +apologies were due to Dr. Middleton and his daughter. I know the +charm Laetitia can exercise. Madam, in the plainest language, +without a possibility of my misapprehending him, Dr. Middleton +spoke of himself as the advocate of the suitor for my daughter's +hand. I have a poor head. I supposed at once an amicable rupture +between Sir Willoughby and Miss Middleton, or that the version +which had reached me of their engagement was not strictly +accurate. My head is weak. Dr. Middleton's language is trying to a +head like mine; but I can speak positively on the essential +points: he spoke of himself as ready to be the impassioned +advocate of the suitor for my daughter's hand. Those were his +words. I understood him to entreat me to intercede with her. Nay, +the name was mentioned. There was no concealment. I am certain +there could not be a misapprehension. And my feelings were touched +by his anxiety for Sir Willoughby's happiness. I attributed it to +a sentiment upon which I need not dwell. Impassioned advocate, he +said." + +"We are in a perfect maelstrom!" cried Lady Busshe, turning to +everybody. + +"It is a complete hurricane!" cried Lady Culmer. + +A light broke over the faces of the Patterne ladies. They exchanged +it with one another. + +They had been so shocked as to be almost offended by Lady Busshe, +but their natural gentleness and habitual submission rendered them +unequal to the task of checking her. + +"Is it not," said Miss Eleanor, "a misunderstanding that a change +of names will rectify?" + +"This is by no means the first occasion," said Miss Isabel, "that +Willoughby has pleaded for his cousin Vernon." + +"We deplore extremely the painful error into which Mr. Dale has +fallen." + +"It springs, we now perceive, from an entire misapprehension of Dr. +Middleton." + +"Vernon was in his mind. It was clear to us." + +"Impossible that it could have been Willoughby!" + +"You see the impossibility, the error!" + +"And the Middletons here!" said Lady Busshe. "Oh! if we leave +unilluminated we shall be the laughing-stock of the county. Mr. +Dale, please, wake up. Do you see? You may have been mistaken." + +"Lady Busshe," he woke up; "I may have mistaken Dr. Middleton; he +has a language that I can compare only to a review-day of the field +forces. But I have the story on authority that I cannot question: +it is confirmed by my daughter's unexampled behaviour. And if I +live through this day I shall look about me as a ghost +to-morrow." + +"Dear Mr. Dale!" said the Patterne ladies, compassionately. Lady +Busshe murmured to them: "You know the two did not agree; they did +not get on: I saw it; I predicted it." + +"She will understand him in time," said they. + +"Never. And my belief is, they have parted by consent, and Letty +Dale wins the day at last. Yes, now I do believe it." + +The ladies maintained a decided negative, but they knew too much +not to feel perplexed, and they betrayed it, though they said: +"Dear Lady Busshe! is it credible, in decency?" + +"Dear Mrs. Mountstuart!" Lady Busshe invoked her great rival +appearing among them: "You come most opportunely; we are in a +state of inextricable confusion: we are bordering on frenzy. You, +and none but you, can help us. You know, you always know; we hang +on you. Is there any truth in it? a particle?" + +Mrs. Mountstuart seated herself regally "Ah, Mr. Dale!" she said, +inclining to him. "Yes, dear Lady Busshe, there is a particle." + +"Now, do not roast us. You can; you have the art. I have the whole +story. That is, I have a part. I mean, I have the outlines, I +cannot be deceived, but you can fill thern in, I know you can. I +saw it yesterday. Now, tell us, tell us. It must be quite true or +utterly false. Which is it?" + +"Be precise." + +"His fatality! you called her. Yes, I was sceptical. But here we +have it all come round again, and if the tale is true, I shall own +you infallible. Has he?--and she?" + +"Both." + +"And the Middletons here? They have not gone; they keep the field. +And more astounding, she refuses him. And to add to it, Dr. +Middleton intercedes with Mr. Dale for Sir Willoughby." + +"Dr. Middleton intercedes!" This was rather astonishing to Mrs. +Mountstuart. + +"For Vernon," Miss Eleanor emphasized. + +"For Vernon Whitford, his cousin." said Miss Isabel, still more +emphatically. + +"Who," said Mrs. Mountstuart, with a sovereign lift and turn of +her head, "speaks of a refusal?" + +"I have it from Mr. Dale," said Lady Busshe. + +"I had it, I thought, distinctly from Dr. Middleton," said Mr. +Dale. + +"That Willoughby proposed to Laetitia for his cousin Vernon, +Doctor Middleton meant," said Miss Eleanor. + +Her sister followed: "Hence this really ridiculous misconception! +--sad, indeed," she added, for balm to Mr. Dale. + +"Willoughby was Vernon's proxy. His cousin, if not his first, is +ever the second thought with him." + +"But can we continue ... ? + +"Such a discussion!" + +Mrs. Mountstuart gave them a judicial hearing. They were regarded +in the county as the most indulgent of nonentities, and she as +little as Lady Busshe was restrained from the burning topic in +their presence. She pronounced: + +"Each party is right, and each is wrong." + +A dry: "I shall shriek!" came from Lady Busshe. + +"Cruel!" groaned Lady Culmer. + +"Mixed, you are all wrong. Disentangled, you are each of you +right. Sir Willoughby does think of his cousin Vernon; he is +anxious to establish him; he is the author of a proposal to that +effect." + +"We know it!" the Patterne ladies exclaimed. "And Laetitia +rejected poor Vernon once more!" + +"Who spoke of Miss Dale's rejection of Mr. Whitford?" + +"Is he not rejected?" Lady Culmer inquired. + +"It is in debate, and at this moment being decided." + +"Oh! do he seated, Mr. Dale," Lady Busshe implored him, rising to +thrust him back to his chair if necessary. "Any dislocation, and +we are thrown out again! We must hold together if this riddle is +ever to be read. Then, dear Mrs. Mountstuart, we are to say that +there is-no truth in the other story?" + +"You are to say nothing of the sort, dear Lady Busshe." + +"Be merciful! And what of the fatality?" + +"As positive as the Pole to the needle." + +"She has not refused him?" + +"Ask your own sagacity." + +"Accepted?" + +"Wait." + +"And all the world's ahead of me! Now, Mrs. Mountstuart, you are +oracle. Riddles, if you like, only speak. If we can't have corn, +why, give us husks." + +"Is any one of us able to anticipate events, Lady Busshe?" + +"Yes, I believe that you are. I bow to you. I do sincerely. So +it's another person for Mr. Whitford? You nod. And it is our +Laetitia for Sir Willoughby? You smile. You would not deceive me? +A very little, and I run about crazed and howl at your doors. And +Dr. Middleton is made to play blind man in the midst? And the +other person is--now I see day! An amicable rupture, and a smooth +new arrangement. She has money; she was never the match for our +hero; never; I saw it yesterday, and before, often; and so he +hands her over--tuthe-rum-tum-tum, tuthe-rum-tum-tum," Lady +Busshe struck a quick march on her knee. "Now isn't that clever +guessing? The shadow of a clue for me. And because I know human +nature. One peep, and I see the combination in a minute. So he +keeps the money in the family, becomes a benefactor to his cousin +by getting rid of the girl, and succumbs to his fatality. Rather a +pity he let it ebb and flow so long. Time counts the tides, you +know. But it improves the story. I defy any other county in the +kingdom to produce one fresh and living to equal it. Let me tell +you I suspected Mr. Whitford, and I hinted it yesterday." + +"Did you indeed!" said Mrs. Mountstuart, humouring her excessive +acuteness. + +"I really did. There is that dear good man on his feet again. And +looks agitated again." + +Mr. Dale had been compelled both by the lady's voice and his +interest in the subject to listen. He had listened more than +enough; he was exceedingly nervous. He held on by his chair, +afraid to quit his moorings, and "Manners!" he said to himself +unconsciously aloud, as he cogitated on the libertine way with +which these chartered great ladies of the district discussed his +daughter. He was heard and unnoticed. The supposition, if any, +would have been that he was admonishing himself. At this juncture +Sir Willoughby entered the drawing-room by the garden window, and +simultaneously Dr. Middleton by the door. + + + +CHAPTER XLVI + +The Scene of Sir Willoughby's Generalship + +History, we may fear, will never know the qualities of leadership +inherent in Sir Willoughby Patterne to fit him for the post of +Commander of an army, seeing that he avoided the fatigues of the +service and preferred the honours bestowed in his country upon the +quiet administrators of their own estates: but his possession of +particular gifts, which are military, and especially of the +proleptic mind, which is the stamp and sign-warrant of the +heaven-sent General, was displayed on every urgent occasion when, +in the midst of difficulties likely to have extinguished one less +alert than he to the threatening aspect of disaster, he had to +manoeuvre himself. + +He had received no intimation of Mr. Dale's presence in his house, +nor of the arrival of the dreaded women Lady Busshe and Lady +Culmer: his locked door was too great a terror to his domestics. +Having finished with Vernon, after a tedious endeavour to bring +the fellow to a sense of the policy of the step urged on him, he +walked out on the lawn with the desire to behold the opening of an +interview not promising to lead to much, and possibly to profit by +its failure. Clara had been prepared, according to his directions, +by Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, as Vernon had been prepared by him. +His wishes, candidly and kindly expressed both to Vernon and Mrs +Mountstuart, were, that since the girl appeared disinclined to +make him a happy man, she would make one of his cousin. +Intimating to Mrs. Mountstuart that he would be happier without +her, he alluded to the benefit of the girl's money to poor old +Vernon, the general escape from a scandal if old Vernon could +manage to catch her as she dropped, the harmonious arrangement it +would be for all parties. And only on the condition of her taking +Vernon would he consent to give her up. This he said imperatively, +adding that such was the meaning of the news she had received +relating to Laetitia Dale. From what quarter had she received it? +he asked. She shuffled in her reply, made a gesture to signify +that it was in the air, universal, and fell upon the proposed +arrangement. He would listen to none of Mrs. Mountstuart's +woman-of-the-world instances of the folly of pressing it upon a +girl who had shown herself a girl of spirit. She foretold the +failure. He would not be advised; he said: "It is my scheme"; and +perhaps the look of mad benevolence about it induced the lady to +try whether there was a chance that it would hit the madness in +our nature, and somehow succeed or lead to a pacification. Sir +Willoughby condescended to arrange things thus for Clara's good; +he would then proceed to realize his own. Such was the face he put +upon it. We can wear what appearance we please before the world +until we are found out, nor is the world's praise knocking upon +hollowness always hollow music; but Mrs Mountstuart's laudation of +his kindness and simplicity disturbed him; for though he had +recovered from his rebuff enough to imagine that Laetitia could +not refuse him under reiterated pressure, he had let it be +supposed that she was a submissive handmaiden throbbing for her +elevation; and Mrs Mountstuart's belief in it afflicted his recent +bitter experience; his footing was not perfectly secure. Besides, +assuming it to be so, he considered the sort of prize he had won; +and a spasm of downright hatred of a world for which we make +mighty sacrifices to be repaid in a worn, thin, comparatively +valueless coin, troubled his counting of his gains. Laetitia, it +was true, had not passed through other hands in coming to him, as +Vernon would know it to be Clara's case: time only had worn her: +but the comfort of the reflection was annoyed by the physical +contrast of the two. Hence an unusual melancholy in his tone that +Mrs. Mountstuart thought touching. It had the scenic effect on her +which greatly contributes to delude the wits. She talked of him to +Clara as being a man who had revealed an unsuspected depth. + +Vernon took the communication curiously. He seemed readier to be +in love with his benevolent relative than with the lady. He was +confused, undisguisedly moved, said the plan was impossible, out +of the question, but thanked Willoughby for the best of +intentions, thanked him warmly. After saying that the plan was +impossible, the comical fellow allowed himself to be pushed forth +on the lawn to see how Miss Middleton might have come out of +her interview with Mrs. Mountstuart. Willoughby observed Mrs. +Mountstuart meet him, usher him to the place she had quitted among +the shrubs, and return to the open turf-spaces. He sprang to her. + +"She will listen." Mrs. Mountstuart said: "She likes him, respects +him, thinks he is a very sincere friend, clever, a scholar, and a +good mountaineer; and thinks you mean very kindly. So much I have +impressed on her, but I have not done much for Mr. Whitford." + +"She consents to listen," said Willoughby, snatching at that as the +death-blow to his friend Horace. + +"She consents to listen, because you have arranged it so that if +she declined she would be rather a savage." + +"You think it will have no result?" + +"None at all." + +"Her listening will do." + +"And you must be satisfied with it." + +"We shall see." + +"'Anything for peace', she says: and I don't say that a gentleman +with a tongue would not have a chance. She wishes to please you." + +"Old Vernon has no tongue for women, poor fellow! You will have us +be spider or fly, and if a man can't spin a web all he can hope is +not to be caught in one. She knows his history, too, and that +won't be in his favour. How did she look when you left them?" + +"Not so bright: like a bit of china that wants dusting. She looked +a trifle gauche, it struck me; more like a country girl with the +hoyden taming in her than the well-bred creature she is. I did not +suspect her to have feeling. You must remember, Sir Willoughby, +that she has obeyed your wishes, done her utmost: I do think we +may say she has made some amends; and if she is to blame she +repents, and you will not insist too far." + +"I do insist," said he. + +"Beneficent, but a tyrant!" + +"Well, well." He did not dislike the character. + +They perceived Dr. Middleton wandering over the lawn, and +Willoughby went to him to put him on the wrong track: Mrs. +Mountstuart swept into the drawing-room. Willoughby quitted the +Rev. Doctor, and hung about the bower where he supposed his pair +of dupes had by this time ceased to stutter mutually:--or what if +they had found the word of harmony? He could bear that, just bear +it. He rounded the shrubs, and, behold, both had vanished. The +trellis decorated emptiness. His idea was, that they had soon +discovered their inability to be turtles: and desiring not to lose +a moment while Clara was fretted by the scene, he rushed to the +drawing-room with the hope of lighting on her there, getting her +to himself, and finally, urgently, passionately offering her the +sole alternative of what she had immediately rejected. Why had he +not used passion before, instead of limping crippled between +temper and policy? He was capable of it: as soon as imagination in +him conceived his personal feelings unwounded and unimperiled, the +might of it inspired him with heroical confidence, and Clara +grateful, Clara softly moved, led him to think of Clara melted. +Thus anticipating her he burst into the room. + +One step there warned him that he was in the jaws of the world. We +have the phrase, that a man is himself under certain trying +circumstances. There is no need to say it of Sir Willoughby: he +was thrice himself when danger menaced, himself inspired him. He +could read at a single glance the Polyphemus eye in the general +head of a company. Lady Busshe, Lady Culmer, Mrs. Mountstuart, Mr. +Dale, had a similarity in the variety of their expressions that +made up one giant eye for him perfectly, if awfully, legible. He +discerned the fact that his demon secret was abroad, universal. He +ascribed it to fate. He was in the jaws of the world, on the +world's teeth. This time he thought Laetitia must have betrayed +him, and bowing to Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer, gallantly pressing +their fingers and responding to their becks and archnesses, he +ruminated on his defences before he should accost her father. He +did not want to be alone with the man, and he considered how his +presence might be made useful. + +"I am glad to see you, Mr. Dale. Pray, be seated. Is it nature +asserting her strength? or the efficacy of medicine? I fancy it +can't be both. You have brought us back your daughter?" + +Mr. Dale sank into a chair, unable to resist the hand forcing him. + +"No, Sir Willoughby, no. I have not; I have not seen her since she +came home this morning from Patterne." + +"Indeed? She is unwell?" + +"I cannot say. She secludes herself." + +"Has locked herself in," said Lady Busshe. + +Willoughby threw her a smile. It made them intimate. + +This was an advantage against the world, but an exposure of +himself to the abominable woman. + +Dr. Middleton came up to Mr. Dale to apologize for not presenting +his daughter Clara, whom he could find neither in nor out of the +house. + +"We have in Mr. Dale, as I suspected," he said to Willoughby, "a +stout ally." + +"If I may beg two minutes with you, Sir Willoughby," said Mr. +Dale. + +"Your visits are too rare for me to allow of your numbering the +minutes," Willoughby replied. "We cannot let Mr. Dale escape us +now that we have him, I think, Dr. Middleton." + +"Not without ransom," said the Rev. Doctor. + +Mr. Dale shook his head. "My strength, Sir Willoughby, will not +sustain me long." + +"You are at home, Mr. Dale." + +"Not far from home, in truth, but too far for an invalid beginning +to grow sensible of weakness." + +"You will regard Patterne as your home, Mr. Dale," Willoughby +repeated for the world to hear. + +"Unconditionally?" Dr. Middleton inquired, with a humourous air of +dissenting. + +Willoughby gave him a look that was coldly courteous, and then he +looked at Lady Busshe. She nodded imperceptibly. Her eyebrows +rose, and Willoughby returned a similar nod. + +Translated, the signs ran thus: + +"--Pestered by the Rev. gentleman:--I see you are. Is the story I +have heard correct?--Possibly it may err in a few details." + +This was fettering himself in loose manacles. + +But Lady Busshe would not be satisfied with the compliment of the +intimate looks and nods. She thought she might still be behind +Mrs. Mountstuart; and she was a bold woman, and anxious about him, +half-crazed by the riddle of the pot she was boiling in, and +having very few minutes to spare. Not extremely reticent by +nature, privileged by station, and made intimate with him by his +covert looks, she stood up to him. "One word to an old friend. +Which is the father of the fortunate creature? I don't know how to +behave to them." No time was afforded him to be disgusted with her +vulgarity and audacity. + +He replied, feeling her rivet his gyves: "The house will be empty +to-morrow." + +"I see. A decent withdrawal, and very well cloaked. We had a tale +here of her running off to decline the honour, afraid, or on her +dignity or something." + +How was it that the woman was ready to accept the altered posture +of affairs in his house--if she had received a hint of them? He +forgot that he had prepared her in self-defence. + +"From whom did you have that?" he asked. + +"Her father. And the lady aunts declare it was the cousin she +refused!" Willoughby's brain turned over. He righted it for +action, and crossed the room to the ladies Eleanor and Isabel. His +ears tingled. He and his whole story discussed in public! Himself +unroofed! And the marvel that he of all men should be in such a +tangle, naked and blown on, condemned to use his cunningest arts +to unwind and cover himself, struck him as though the lord of his +kind were running the gauntlet of a legion of imps. He felt their +lashes. + +The ladies were talking to Mrs. Mountstuart and Lady Culmer of +Vernon and the suitableness of Laetitia to a scholar. He made sign +to them, and both rose. + +"It is the hour for your drive. To the cottage! Mr. Dale is in. +She must come. Her sick father! No delay, going or returning. +Bring her here at once." + +"Poor man!" they sighed; and "Willoughby," said one, and the other +said: "There is a strange misconception you will do well to +correct." + +They were about to murmur what it was. He swept his hand round, +and excusing themselves to their guests, obediently they retired. + +Lady Busshe at his entreaty remained, and took a seat beside Lady +Culmer and Mrs. Mountstuart. + +She said to the latter: "You have tried scholars. What do you +think?" + +"Excellent, but hard to mix," was the reply. + +"I never make experiments," said Lady Culmer. + +"Some one must!" Mrs. Mountstuart groaned over her dull dinner-party. + +Lady Busshe consoled her. "At any rate, the loss of a scholar is +no loss to the county." + +"They are well enough in towns," Lady Culmer said. + +"And then I am sure you must have them by themselves." + +"We have nothing to regret." + +"My opinion." + +The voice of Dr. Middleton in colloquy with Mr. Dale swelled on a +melodious thunder: "For whom else should I plead as the passionate +advocate I proclaimed myself to you, sir? There is but one man +known to me who would move me to back him upon such an adventure. +Willoughby, join me. I am informing Mr. Dale . . ." + +Willoughby stretched his hands out to Mr. Dale to support him on +his legs, though he had shown no sign of a wish to rise. + +"You are feeling unwell, Mr. Dale." + +"Do I look very ill, Sir Willoughby?" + +"It will pass. Laetitia will be with us in twenty minutes." Mr. +Dale struck his hands in a clasp. He looked alarmingly ill, and +satisfactorily revealed to his host how he could be made to look +so. + +"I was informing Mr. Dale that the petitioner enjoys our +concurrent good wishes: and mine in no degree less than yours, +Willoughby," observed Dr. Middleton, whose billows grew the bigger +for a check. He supposed himself speaking confidentially. "Ladies +have the trick, they have, I may say, the natural disposition for +playing enigma now and again. Pressure is often a sovereign +specific. Let it be tried upon her all round from every radiating +line of the circle. You she refuses. Then I venture to propose +myself to appeal to her. My daughter has assuredly an esteem for +the applicant that will animate a woman's tongue in such a case. +The ladies of the house will not be backward. Lastly, if +necessary, we trust the lady's father to add his instances. My +prescription is, to fatigue her negatives; and where no rooted +objection exists, I maintain it to be the unfailing receipt for +the conduct of the siege. No woman can say No forever. The +defence has not such resources against even a single assailant, +and we shall have solved the problem of continuous motion before +she will have learned to deny in perpetuity. That I stand on." + +Willoughby glanced at Mrs. Mountstuart. + +"What is that?" she said. "Treason to our sex, Dr. Middleton?" + +"I think I heard that no woman can say No forever!" remarked Lady +Busshe. + +"To a loyal gentleman, ma'am: assuming the field of the recurring +request to be not unholy ground; consecrated to affirmatives +rather." + +Dr Middleton was attacked by three angry bees. They made him say +yes and no alternately so many times that he had to admit in men a +shiftier yieldingness than women were charged with. + +Willoughby gesticulated as mute chorus on the side of the ladies; +and a little show of party spirit like that, coming upon their +excitement under the topic, inclined them to him genially. He +drew Mr. Dale away while the conflict subsided in sharp snaps of +rifles and an interval rejoinder of a cannon. Mr. Dale had shown +by signs that he was growing fretfully restive under his burden +of doubt. + +"Sir Willoughby, I have a question. I beg you to lead me where I +may ask it. I know my head is weak." + +"Mr. Dale, it is answered when I say that my house is your home, +and that Laetitia will soon be with us." + +"Then this report is true?" + +"I know nothing of reports. You are answered." + +"Can my daughter be accused of any shadow of falseness, +dishonourable dealing?" + +"As little as I." + +Mr. Dale scanned his face. He saw no shadow. + +"For I should go to my grave bankrupt if that could be said of +her; and I have never yet felt poor, though you know the extent of +a pensioner's income. Then this tale of a refusal ... ?" + +"Is nonsense." + +"She has accepted?" + +"There are situations, Mr. Dale, too delicate to be clothed in +positive definitions." + +"Ah, Sir Willoughby, but it becomes a father to see that his +daughter is not forced into delicate situations. I hope all is +well. I am confused. It may be my head. She puzzles me. You are +not ... Can I ask it here? You are quite ... ? Will you moderate +my anxiety? My infirmities must excuse me." + +Sir Willoughby conveyed by a shake of the head and a pressure of +Mr. Dale's hand, that he was not, and that he was quite. + +"Dr Middleton?" said Mr. Dale. + +"He leaves us to-morrow." + +"Really!" The invalid wore a look as if wine had been poured into +him. He routed his host's calculations by calling to the Rev. +Doctor. "We are to lose you, sir?" + +Willoughby attempted an interposition, but Dr. Middleton crashed +through it like the lordly organ swallowing a flute. + +"Not before I score my victory, Mr. Dale, and establish my friend +upon his rightful throne." + +"You do not leave to-morrow, sir?" + +"Have you heard, sir, that I leave to-morrow?" + +Mr. Dale turned to Sir Willoughby. + +The latter said: "Clara named to-day. To-morrow I thought +preferable." + +"Ah!" Dr. Middleton towered on the swelling exclamation, but with +no dark light. He radiated splendidly. "Yes, then, to-morrow. That +is, if we subdue the lady." + +He advanced to Willoughby, seized his hand, squeezed it, thanked +him, praised him. He spoke under his breath, for a wonder; but: +"We are in your debt lastingly, my friend", was heard, and he was +impressive, he seemed subdued, and saying aloud: "Though I should +wish to aid in the reduction of that fortress", he let it be seen +that his mind was rid of a load. + +Dr. Middleton partly stupefied Willoughby by his way of taking it, +but his conduct was too serviceable to allow of speculation on his +readiness to break the match. It was the turning-point of the +engagement. + +Lady Busshe made a stir. + +"I cannot keep my horses waiting any longer," she said, and +beckoned. Sir Willoughby was beside her immediately. + +"You are admirable! perfect! Don't ask me to hold my tongue. I +retract, I recant. It is a fatality. I have resolved upon that +view. You could stand the shot of beauty, not of brains. That is +our report. There! And it's delicious to feel that the county wins +you. No tea. I cannot possibly wait. And, oh! here she is. I must +have a look at her. My dear Laetitia Dale!" + +Willoughby hurried to Mr. Dale. + +"You are not to be excited, sir: compose yourself. You will +recover and be strong to-morrow: you are at home; you are in your +own house; you are in Laetitia's drawing-room. All will be clear +to-morrow. Till to-morrow we talk riddles by consent. Sit, I beg. +You stay with us." + +He met Laetitia and rescued her from Lady Busshe, murmuring, with +the air of a lover who says, "my love! my sweet!" that she had +done rightly to come and come at once. Her father had been thrown +into the proper condition of clammy nervousness to create the +impression. Laetitia's anxiety sat prettily on her long eyelashes +as she bent over him in his chair. + +Hereupon Dr. Corney appeared; and his name had a bracing effect on +Mr. Dale. "Corney has come to drive me to the cottage," he said. +"I am ashamed of this public exhibition of myself, my dear. Let +us go. My head is a poor one." + +Dr. Corney had been intercepted. He broke from Sir Willoughby with +a dozen little nods of accurate understanding of him, even to +beyond the mark of the communications. He touched his patient's +pulse lightly, briefly sighed with professional composure, and +pronounced: "Rest. Must not be moved. No, no, nothing serious," he +quieted Laetitia's fears, "but rest, rest. A change of residence +for a night will tone him. I will bring him a draught in the +course of the evening. Yes, yes, I'll fetch everything wanted from +the cottage for you and for him. Repose on Corney's forethought." + +"You are sure, Dr. Corney?" said Laetitia, frightened on her +father's account and on her own. + +"Which aspect will be the best for Mr. Dale's bedroom?" +the hospitable ladies Eleanor and Isabel inquired. + +"Southeast, decidedly: let him have the morning sun: a warm air, +a vigorous air, and a bright air, and the patient wakes and sings +in his bed." + +Still doubtful whether she was in a trap, Laetitia whispered to +her father of the privacy and comforts of his home. He replied to +her that he thought he would rather be in his own home. + +Dr Corney positively pronounced No to it. + +Laetitia breathed again of home, but with the sigh of one +overborne. + +The ladies Eleanor and Isabel took the word from Willoughby, and +said: "But you are at home, my dear. This is your home. Your +father will be at least as well attended here as at the cottage." + +She raised her eyelids on them mournfully, and by chance diverted +her look to Dr. Middleton, quite by chance. + +It spoke eloquently to the assembly of all that Willoughby desired +to be imagined. + +"But there is Crossjay," she cried. "My cousin has gone, and the +boy is left alone. I cannot have him left alone. If we, if, Dr. +Corney, you are sure it is unsafe for papa to be moved to-day, +Crossjay must ... he cannot be left." + +"Bring him with you, Corney," said Sir Willoughby; and the little +doctor heartily promised that he would, in the event of his +finding Crossjay at the cottage, which he thought a distant +probability. + +"He gave me his word he would not go out till my return," said +Laetitia. + +"And if Crossjay gave you his word," the accents of a new voice +vibrated close by, "be certain that he will not come back with Dr. +Corney unless he has authority in your handwriting." + +Clara Middleton stepped gently to Laetitia, and with a manner +that was an embrace, as much as kissed her for what she was doing +on behalf of Crossjay. She put her lips in a pouting form to +simulate saying: "Press it." + +"He is to come," said Laetitia. + +"Then write him his permit." + +There was a chatter about Crossjay and the sentinel true to his +post that he could be, during which Laetitia distressfully +scribbled a line for Dr. Corney to deliver to him. Clara stood +near. She had rebuked herself for want of reserve in the presence +of Lady Busshe and Lady Culmer, and she was guilty of a slightly +excessive containment when she next addressed Laetitia. It was, +like Laetitia's look at Dr. Middleton, opportune: enough to make a +man who watched as Willoughby did a fatalist for life: the shadow +of a difference in her bearing toward Laetitia sufficed to impute +acting either to her present coolness or her previous warmth. +Better still, when Dr. Middleton said: "So we leave to-morrow, my +dear, and I hope you have written to the Darletons," Clara flushed +and beamed, and repressed her animation on a sudden, with one +grave look, that might be thought regretful, to where Willoughby +stood. + +Chance works for us when we are good captains. + +Willoughby's pride was high, though he knew himself to be keeping +it up like a fearfully dexterous juggler, and for an empty reward: +but he was in the toils of the world. + +"Have you written? The post-bag leaves in half an hour," he +addressed her. + +"We are expected, but I will write," she replied: and her not +having yet written counted in his favour. + +She went to write the letter. Dr. Corney had departed on his +mission to fetch Crossjay and medicine. Lady Busshe was impatient +to be gone. "Corney," she said to Lady Culmer, "is a deadly +gossip." + +"Inveterate," was the answer. + +"My poor horses!" + +"Not the young pair of bays?" + +"Luckily they are, my dear. And don't let me hear of dining +to-night!" + +Sir Willoughby was leading out Mr. Dale to a quiet room, +contiguous to the invalid gentleman's bedchamber. He resigned +him to Laetitia in the hall, that he might have the pleasure +of conducting the ladies to their carriage. + +"As little agitation as possible. Corney will soon be back," he +said, bitterly admiring the graceful subservience of Laetitia's +figure to her father's weight on her arm. + +He had won a desperate battle, but what had he won? + +What had the world given him in return for his efforts to gain it? +Just a shirt, it might be said: simple scanty clothing, no warmth. +Lady Busshe was unbearable; she gabbled; she was ill-bred, +permitted herself to speak of Dr. Middleton as ineligible, no loss +to the county. And Mrs. Mountstuart was hardly much above her, with +her inevitable stroke of caricature:--"You see Doctor +Middleton's pulpit scampering after him with legs!" Perhaps the +Rev. Doctor did punish the world for his having forsaken his +pulpit, and might be conceived as haunted by it at his heels, but +Willoughby was in the mood to abhor comic images; he hated the +perpetrators of them and the grinners. Contempt of this laughing +empty world, for which he had performed a monstrous immolation, +led him to associate Dr. Middleton in his mind, and Clara too, with +the desireable things he had sacrificed--a shape of youth and +health; a sparkling companion; a face of innumerable charms; and +his own veracity; his inner sense of his dignity; and his temper, +and the limpid frankness of his air of scorn, that was to him a +visage of candid happiness in the dim retrospect. Haply also he +had sacrificed more: he looked scientifically into the future: he +might have sacrificed a nameless more. And for what? he asked +again. For the favourable looks and tongues of these women whose +looks and tongues he detested! + +"Dr Middleton says he is indebted to me: I am deeply in his +debt," he remarked. + +"It is we who are in your debt for a lovely romance, my dear Sir +Willoughby," said Lady Busshe, incapable of taking a correction, +so thoroughly had he imbued her with his fiction, or with the +belief that she had a good story to circulate. Away she drove, +rattling her tongue to Lady Culmer. + +"A hat and horn, and she would be in the old figure of a post-boy +on a hue-and-cry sheet," said Mrs. Mountstuart. + +Willoughby thanked the great lady for her services, and she +complimented the polished gentleman on his noble self-possession. +But she complained at the same time of being defrauded of her +"charmer" Colonel De Craye, since luncheon. An absence of warmth +in her compliment caused Willoughby to shrink and think the +wretched shirt he had got from the world no covering after all: a +breath flapped it. + +"He comes to me to-morrow, I believe," she said, reflecting on her +superior knowledge of facts in comparison with Lady Busshe, who +would presently be hearing of something novel, and exclaiming: +"So, that is why you patronized the colonel!" And it was nothing +of the sort, for Mrs. Mountstuart could honestly say she was not +the woman to make a business of her pleasure. + +"Horace is an enviable fellow," said Willoughby, wise in The Book, +which bids us ever, for an assuagement to fancy our friend's +condition worse than our own, and recommends the deglutition of +irony as the most balsamic for wounds in the whole moral +pharmacopoeia. + +"I don't know," she replied, with a marked accent of deliberation. + +"The colonel is to have you to himself to-morrow!" + +"I can't be sure of what I shall have in the colonel!" + +"Your perpetual sparkler?" + +Mrs. Mountstuart set her head in motion. She left the matter +silent. + +"I'll come for him in the morning," she said, and her carriage +whirled her off. Either she had guessed it, or Clara had confided +to her the treacherous passion of Horace De Craye. + +However, the world was shut away from Patterne for the night. + + + +CHAPTER XLVII + +Sir Willoughby and His Friend Horace De Craye + +Willoughby shut himself up in his laboratory to brood awhile after +the conflict. Sounding through himself, as it was habitual with +him to do, for the plan most agreeable to his taste, he came on a +strange discovery among the lower circles of that microcosm. He +was no longer guided in his choice by liking and appetite: he had +to put it on the edge of a sharp discrimination, and try it by his +acutest judgement before it was acceptable to his heart: and +knowing well the direction of his desire, he was nevertheless +unable to run two strides on a wish. He had learned to read the +world: his partial capacity for reading persons had fled. The +mysteries of his own bosom were bare to him; but he could +comprehend them only in their immediate relation to the world +outside. This hateful world had caught him and transformed him to +a machine. The discovery he made was, that in the gratification +of the egoistic instinct we may so beset ourselves as to deal a +slaughtering wound upon Self to whatsoever quarter we turn. + +Surely there is nothing stranger in mortal experience. The man was +confounded. At the game of Chess it is the dishonour of our +adversary when we are stale-mated: but in life, cornbatting the +world, such a winning of the game questions our sentiments. + +Willoughby's interpretation of his discovery was directed by pity: +he had no other strong emotion left in him. He pitied himself, and +he reached the conclusion that he suffered because he was active; +he could not be quiescent. Had it not been for his devotion to his +house and name, never would he have stood twice the victim of +womankind. Had he been selfish, he would have been the happiest of +men! He said it aloud. He schemed benevolently for his unborn +young, and for the persons about him: hence he was in a position +forbidding a step under pain of injury to his feelings. He was +generous: otherwise would he not in scorn of soul, at the outset, +straight off have pitched Clara Middleton to the wanton winds? He +was faithful in his affection: Laetitia Dale was beneath his roof +to prove it. Both these women were examples of his power of +forgiveness, and now a tender word to Clara might fasten shame on +him--such was her gratitude! And if he did not marry Laetitia, +laughter would be devilish all around him--such was the world's! +Probably Vernon would not long be thankful for the chance which +varied the monotony of his days. What of Horace? Willoughby +stripped to enter the ring with Horace: he cast away disguise. +That man had been the first to divide him in the all but equal +slices of his egoistic from his amatory self: murder of his +individuality was the crime of Horace De Craye. And further, +suspicion fixed on Horace (he knew not how, except that The Book +bids us be suspicious of those we hate) as the man who had +betrayed his recent dealings with Laetitia. + +Willoughby walked the thoroughfares of the house to meet Clara and +make certain of her either for himself, or, if it must be, for +Vernon, before he took another step with Laetitia Dale. Clara +could reunite him, turn him once more into a whole and an animated +man; and she might be willing. Her willingness to listen to Vernon +promised it. "A gentleman with a tongue would have a chance", Mrs. +Mountstuart had said. How much greater the chance of a lover! For +he had not yet supplicated her: he had shown pride and temper. He +could woo, he was a torrential wooer. And it would be glorious to +swing round on Lady Busshe and the world, with Clara nestling +under an arm, and protest astonishment at the erroneous and +utterly unfounded anticipations of any other development. And it +would righteously punish Laetitia. + +Clara came downstairs, bearing her letter to Miss Darleton. + +"Must it be posted?" Willoughby said, meeting her in the hall. + +"They expect us any day, but it will be more comfortable for +papa," was her answer. She looked kindly in her new shyness. + +She did not seem to think he had treated her contemptuously in +flinging her to his cousin, which was odd. + +"You have seen Vernon?" + +"It was your wish." + +"You had a talk?" + +"We conversed." + +"A long one?" + +"We walked some distance." + +"Clara, I tried to make the best arrangement I could." + +"Your intention was generous." + +"He took no advantage of it?" + +"It could not be treated seriously." + +"It was meant seriously." + +"There I see the generosity." + +Willoughby thought this encomium, and her consent to speak on the +subject, and her scarcely embarrassed air and richness of tone in +speaking, very strange: and strange was her taking him quite in +earnest. Apparently she had no feminine sensation of the +unwontedness and the absurdity of the matter! + +"But, Clara, am I to understand that he did not speak out?" + +"We are excellent friends." + +"To miss it, though his chance were the smallest!" + +"You forget that it may not wear that appearance to him." + +"He spoke not one word of himself?" + +"No." + +"Ah! the poor old fellow was taught to see it was hopeless-- +chilled. May I plead? Will you step into the laboratory for a +minute? We are two sensible persons . . ." + +"Pardon me, I must go to papa." + +"Vernon's personal history, perhaps ..." + +"I think it honourable to him." + +"Honourable!--'hem!" + +"By comparison." + +"Comparison with what?" + +"With others." + +He drew up to relieve himself of a critical and condemnatory +expiration of a certain length. This young lady knew too much. +But how physically exquisite she was! + +"Could you, Clara, could you promise me--I hold to it. I must +have it, I know his shy tricks--promise me to give him +ultimately another chance? Is the idea repulsive to you?" + +"It is one not to be thought of." + +"It is not repulsive?" + +"Nothing could be repulsive in Mr. Whitford." + +"I have no wish to annoy you, Clara." + +"I feel bound to listen to you, Willoughby. Whatever I can do to +please you, I will. It is my life-long duty." + +"Could you, Clara, could you conceive it, could you simply +conceive it--give him your hand?" + +"As a friend. Oh, yes." + +"In marriage." + +She paused. She, so penetrative of him when he opposed her, was +hoodwinked when he softened her feelings: for the heart, though +the clearest, is not the most constant instructor of the head; the +heart, unlike the often obtuser head, works for itself and not for +the commonwealth. + +"You are so kind ... I would do much . . ." she said. + +"Would you accept him--marry him? He is poor." + +"I am not ambitious of wealth." + +"Would you marry him?" + +"Marriage is not in my thoughts." + +"But could you marry him?" + +Willoughby expected no. In his expectation of it he hung inflated. + +She said these words: "I could engage to marry no one else." His +amazement breathed without a syllable. + +He flapped his arms, resembling for the moment those birds of +enormous body which attempt a rise upon their wings and achieve a +hop. + +"Would you engage it?" he said, content to see himself stepped on +as an insect if he could but feel the agony of his false friend +Horace--their common pretensions to win her were now of that +comparative size. + +"Oh! there can be no necessity. And an oath--no!" said Clara, +inwardly shivering at a recollection. + +"But you could?" + +"My wish is to please you." + +"You could?" + +"I said so." + +It has been known to the patriotic mountaineer of a hoary pile of +winters, with little life remaining in him, but that little on +fire for his country, that by the brink of the precipice he has +flung himself on a young and lusty invader, dedicating himself +exultingly to death if only he may score a point for his country +by extinguishing in his country's enemy the stronger man. So +likewise did Willoughby, in the blow that deprived him of hope, +exult in the toppling over of Horace De Craye. They perished +together, but which one sublimely relished the headlong descent? +And Vernon taken by Clara would be Vernon simply tolerated. And +Clara taken by Vernon would be Clara previously touched, smirched. +Altogether he could enjoy his fall. + +It was at least upon a comfortable bed, where his pride would be +dressed daily and would never be disagreeably treated. + +He was henceforth Laetitia's own. The bell telling of Dr. Corney's +return was a welcome sound to Willoughby, and he said +good-humouredly: "Wait, Clara, you will see your hero Crossjay." + +Crossjay and Dr. Corney tumbled into the hall. Willoughby caught +Crossjay under the arms to give him a lift in the old fashion +pleasing to Clara to see. The boy was heavy as lead. + +"I had work to hook him and worse to net him," said Dr. Corney. "I +had to make him believe he was to nurse every soul in the house, +you among them, Miss Middleton." + +Willoughby pulled the boy aside. + +Crossjay came back to Clara heavier in looks than his limbs had +been. She dropped her letter in the hall-box, and took his hand to +have a private hug of him. When they were alone, she said: +"Crossjay, my dear, my dear! you look unhappy." + +"Yes, and who wouldn't be, and you're not to marry Sir +Willoughby!" his voice threatened a cry. "I know you're not, for +Dr. Corney says you are going to leave." + +"Did you so very much wish it, Crossjay?" + +"I should have seen a lot of you, and I sha'n't see you at all, +and I'm sure if I'd known I wouldn't have--And he has been and +tipped me this." + +Crossjay opened his fist in which lay three gold pieces. + +"That was very kind of him," said Clara. + +"Yes, but how can I keep it?" + +"By handing it to Mr. Whitford to keep for you." + +"Yes, but, Miss Middleton, oughtn't I to tell him? I mean Sir +Willoughby." + +"What?" + +"Why, that I"--Crossjay got close to her--"why, that I, that I-- +you know what you used to say. I wouldn't tell a lie, but oughtn't +I, without his asking ... and this money! I don't mind being +turned out again." + +"Consult Mr. Whitford," said Clara. + +"I know what you think, though." + +"Perhaps you had better not say anything at present, dear boy." + +"But what am I to do with this money?" + +Crossjay held the gold pieces out as things that had not yet +mingled with his ideas of possession. + +"I listened, and I told of him," he said. "I couldn't help +listening, but I went and told; and I don't like being here, and +his money, and he not knowing what I did. Haven't you heard? I'm +certain I know what you think, and so do I, and I must take my +luck. I'm always in mischief, getting into a mess or getting out +of it. I don't mind, I really don't, Miss Middleton, I can sleep +in a tree quite comfortably. If you're not going to be here, I'd +just as soon be anywhere. I must try to earn my living some day. +And why not a cabin-boy? Sir Cloudesley Shovel was no better. And +I don't mind his being wrecked at last, if you're drowned an +admiral. So I shall go and ask him to take his money back, and if +he asks me I shall tell him, and there. You know what it is: I +guessed that from what Dr. Corney said. I'm sure I know you're +thinking what's manly. Fancy me keeping his money, and you not +marrying him! I wouldn't mind driving a plough. I shouldn't make a +bad gamekeeper. Of course I love boats best, but you can't have +everything." + +"Speak to Mr. Whitford first," said Clara, too proud of the boy +for growing as she had trained him, to advise a course of conduct +opposed to his notions of manliness, though now that her battle +was over she would gladly have acquiesced in little casuistic +compromises for the sake of the general peace. + +Some time later Vernon and Dr. Corney were arguing upon the +question. Corney was dead against the sentimental view of the +morality of the case propounded by Vernon as coming from Miss +Middleton and partly shared by him. "If it's on the boy's mind," +Vernon said, "I can't prohibit his going to Willoughby and making +a clean breast of it, especially as it involves me, and sooner or +later I should have to tell him myself." + +Dr. Corney said no at all points. "Now hear me," he said, finally. +"This is between ourselves, and no breach of confidence, which I'd +not be guilty of for forty friends, though I'd give my hand from +the wrist-joint for one--my left, that's to say. Sir Willoughby +puts me one or two searching interrogations on a point of interest +to him, his house and name. Very well, and good night to that, and +I wish Miss Dale had been ten years younger, or had passed the +ten with no heartrisings and sinkings wearing to the tissues of +the frame and the moral fibre to boot. She'll have a fairish +health, with a little occasional doctoring; taking her rank and +wealth in right earnest, and shying her pen back to Mother Goose. +She'll do. And, by the way, I think it's to the credit of my +sagacity that I fetched Mr. Dale here fully primed, and roused the +neighbourhood, which I did, and so fixed our gentleman, neat as a +prodded eel on a pair of prongs--namely, the positive fact and the +general knowledge of it. But, mark me, my friend. We understand +one another at a nod. This boy, young Squire Crossjay, is a good +stiff hearty kind of a Saxon boy, out of whom you may cut as +gallant a fellow as ever wore epaulettes. I like him, you like +him, Miss Dale and Miss Middleton like him; and Sir Willoughby +Patterne, of Patterne Hall and other places, won't be indisposed +to like him mightily in the event of the sun being seen to shine +upon him with a particular determination to make him appear a +prominent object, because a solitary, and a Patterne." Dr. Corney +lifted his chest and his finger: "Now mark me, and verbum sap: +Crossjay must not offend Sir Willoughby. I say no more. Look +ahead. Miracles happen, but it's best to reckon that they won't. +Well, now, and Miss Dale. She'll not be cruel." + +"It appears as if she would," said Vernon, meditating on the +cloudy sketch Dr. Corney had drawn. + +"She can't, my friend. Her position's precarious; her father has +little besides a pension. And her writing damages her health. She +can't. And she likes the baronet. Oh, it's only a little fit of +proud blood. She's the woman for him. She'll manage him--give him +an idea he's got a lot of ideas. It'd kill her father if she were +obstinate. He talked to me, when I told him of the business, about +his dream fulfilled, and if the dream turns to vapour, he'll be +another example that we hang more upon dreams than realities for +nourishment, and medicine too. Last week I couldn't have got him +out of his house with all my art and science. Oh, she'll come round. +Her father prophesied this, and I'll prophesy that. She's fond of +him." + +"She was." + +"She sees through him?" + +"Without quite doing justice to him now," said Vernon. "He can +be generous--in his way." + +"How?" Corney inquired, and was informed that he should hear in +time to come. + +Meanwhile Colonel De Craye, after hovering over the park and about +the cottage for the opportunity of pouncing on Miss Middleton +alone, had returned crest-fallen for once, and plumped into +Willoughby's hands. + +"My dear Horace," Willoughby said, "I've been looking for you all +the afternoon. The fact is--I fancy you'll think yourself lured +down here on false pretences: but the truth is, I am not so much +to blame as the world will suppose. In point of fact, to be brief, +Miss Dale and I ... I never consult other men how they would have +acted. The fact of the matter is, Miss Middleton ... I fancy you +have partly guessed it." + +"Partly," said De Craye. + +"Well, she has a liking that way, and if it should turn out strong +enough, it's the best arrangement I can think of," The lively play +of the colonel's features fixed in a blank inquiry. + +"One can back a good friend for making a good husband," said +Willoughby. "I could not break with her in the present stage of +affairs without seeing to that. And I can speak of her highly, +though she and I have seen in time that we do not suit one +another. My wife must have brains." + +"I have always thought it," said Colonel De Craye, glistening, and +looking hungry as a wolf through his wonderment. + +"There will not be a word against her, you understand. You know my +dislike of tattle and gossip. However, let it fall on me; my +shoulders are broad. I have done my utmost to persuade her, and +there seems a likelihood of her consenting. She tells me her wish +is to please me, and this will please me." + +"Certainly. Who's the gentleman?" + +"My best friend, I tell you. I could hardly have proposed another. +Allow this business to go on smoothly just now." There was an +uproar within the colonel to blind his wits, and Willoughby looked +so friendly that it was possible to suppose the man of projects +had mentioned his best friend to Miss Middleton. + +And who was the best friend? + +Not having accused himself of treachery, the quick-eyed colonel +was duped. + +"Have you his name handy, Willoughby?" + +"That would be unfair to him at present, Horace--ask yourself-- +and to her. Things are in a ticklish posture at present. Don't be +hasty." + +"Certainly. I don't ask. Initials'll do." + +"You have a remarkable aptitude for guessing, Horace, and this +case offers you no tough problem--if ever you acknowledged +toughness. I have a regard for her and for him--for both pretty +equally; you know I have, and I should be thoroughly thankful to +bring the matter about." + +"Lordly!" said De Craye. + +"I don't see it. I call it sensible." + +"Oh, undoubtedly. The style, I mean. Tolerably antique?" + +"Novel, I should say, and not the worse for that. We want plain +practical dealings between men and women. Usually we go the wrong +way to work. And I loathe sentimental rubbish." + +De Craye hummed an air. "But the lady?" said he. + +"I told you, there seems a likelihood of her consenting." + +Willoughby's fish gave a perceptible little leap now that he had +been taught to exercise his aptitude for guessing. + +"Without any of the customary preliminaries on the side of the +gentleman?" he said. + +"We must put him through his paces, friend Horace. He's a +notorious blunderer with women; hasn't a word for them, never +marked a conquest." + +De Craye crested his plumes under the agreeable banter. He +presented a face humourously sceptical. + +"The lady is positively not indisposed to give the poor fellow a +hearing?" + +"I have cause to think she is not," said Willoughby, glad of +acting the indifference to her which could talk of her +inclinations. + +"Cause?" + +"Good cause." + +"Bless us!" + +"As good as one can have with a woman." + +"Ah?" + +"I assure you." + +"Ah! Does it seem like her, though?" + +"Well, she wouldn't engage herself to accept him." + +"Well, that seems more like her." + +"But she said she could engage to marry no one else." + +The colonel sprang up, crying: "Clara Middleton said it?" He +curbed himself "That's a bit of wonderful compliancy." + +"She wishes to please me. We separate on those terms. And I wish +her happiness. I've developed a heart lately and taken to think of +others." + +"Nothing better. You appear to make cock sure of the other party-- +our friend?" + +"You know him too well, Horace, to doubt his readiness." + +"Do you, Willoughby?" + +"She has money and good looks. Yes, I can say I do." + +"It wouldn't be much of a man who'd want hard pulling to that +lighted altar!" + +"And if he requires persuasion, you and I, Horace, might bring him +to his senses." + +"Kicking, "t would be!" + +"I like to see everybody happy about me," said Willoughby, naming +the hour as time to dress for dinner. + +The sentiment he had delivered was De Craye's excuse for grasping +his hand and complimenting him; but the colonel betrayed himself +by doing it with an extreme fervour almost tremulous. + +"When shall we hear more?" he said. + +"Oh, probably to-morrow," said Willoughby. "Don't he in such a +hurry." + +"I'm an infant asleep!" the colonel replied, departing. + +He resembled one, to Willoughby's mind: or a traitor drugged. + +"There is a fellow I thought had some brains!" + +Who are not fools to beset spinning if we choose to whip them with +their vanity! it is the consolation of the great to watch them +spin. But the pleasure is loftier, and may comfort our unmerited +misfortune for a while, in making a false friend drunk. + +Willoughby, among his many preoccupations, had the satisfaction of +seeing the effect of drunkenness on Horace De Craye when the +latter was in Clara's presence. He could have laughed. Cut in keen +epigram were the marginal notes added by him to that chapter of +The Book which treats of friends and a woman; and had he not been +profoundly preoccupied, troubled by recent intelligence +communicated by the ladies, his aunts, he would have played the +two together for the royal amusement afforded him by his friend +Horace. + + + +CHAPTER XLVIII + +The Lovers + +The hour was close upon eleven at night. Laetitia sat in the room +adjoining her father's bedchamber. Her elbow was on the table +beside her chair, and two fingers pressed her temples. The state +between thinking and feeling, when both are molten and flow by us, +is one of our natures coming after thought has quieted the fiery +nerves, and can do no more. She seemed to be meditating. She was +conscious only of a struggle past. + +She answered a tap at the door, and raised her eyes on Clara. +Clara stepped softly. "Mr. Dale is asleep?" + +"I hope so." + +"Ah! dear friend." + +Laetitia let her hand be pressed. + +"Have you had a pleasant evening?" + +"Mr. Whitford and papa have gone to the library." + +"Colonel De Craye has been singing?" + +"Yes--with a voice! I thought of you upstairs, but could not ask +him to sing piano." + +"He is probably exhilarated." + +"One would suppose it: he sang well." + +"You are not aware of any reason?" + +"It cannot concern me." + +Clara was in rosy colour, but could meet a steady gaze. + +"And Crossjay has gone to bed?" + +"Long since. He was at dessert. He would not touch anything." + +"He is a strange boy." + +"Not very strange, Laetitia." + +"He did not come to me to wish me good-night." + +"That is not strange." + +"It is his habit at the cottage and here; and he professes to like +me." + +"Oh, he does. I may have wakened his enthusiasm, but you he +loves." + +"Why do you say it is not strange, Clara?" + +"He fears you a little." + +"And why should Crossjay fear me?" + +"Dear, I will tell you. Last night--You will forgive him, for it +was by accident: his own bed-room door was locked and he ran down +to the drawing-room and curled himself up on the ottoman, and fell +asleep, under that padded silken coverlet of the ladies--boots +and all, I am afraid!" + +Laetitia profited by this absurd allusion, thanking Clara in her +heart for the refuge. + +"He should have taken off his boots," she said. + +"He slept there, and woke up. Dear, he meant no harm. Next day he +repeated what he had heard. You will blame him. He meant well in +his poor boy's head. And now it is over the county. Ah! do not +frown." + +"That explains Lady Busshe!" exclaimed Laetitia. + +"Dear, dear friend," said Clara. "Why--I presume on your +tenderness for me; but let me: to-morrow I go--why will you +reject your happiness? Those kind good ladies are deeply troubled. +They say your resolution is inflexible; you resist their +entreaties and your father's. Can it be that you have any doubt of +the strength of this attachment? I have none. I have never had a +doubt that it was the strongest of his feelings. If before I go I +could see you ... both happy, I should be relieved, I should +rejoice." + +Laetitia said, quietly: "Do you remember a walk we had one day +together to the cottage?" + +Clara put up her hands with the motion of intending to stop her +ears. + +"Before I go!" said she. "If I might know this was to be, which +all desire, before I leave, I should not feel as I do now. I long +to see you happy ... him, yes, him too. Is it like asking you to +pay my debt? Then, please! But, no; I am not more than partly +selfish on this occasion. He has won my gratitude. He can be +really generous." + +"An Egoist?" + +"Who is?" + +"You have forgotten our conversation on the day of our walk to the +cottage?" + +"Help me to forget it--that day, and those days, and all those +days! I should be glad to think I passed a time beneath the earth, +and have risen again. I was the Egoist. I am sure, if I had been +buried, I should not have stood up seeing myself more vilely +stained, soiled, disfigured--oh! Help me to forget my conduct, +Laetitia. He and I were unsuited--and I remember I blamed myself +then. You and he are not: and now I can perceive the pride that +can be felt in him. The worst that can be said is that he schemes +too much." + +"Is there any fresh scheme?" said Laetitia. + +The rose came over Clara's face. + +"You have not heard? It was impossible, but it was kindly +intended. Judging by my own feeling at this moment, I can +understand his. We love to see our friends established." + +Laetitia bowed. "My curiosity is piqued, of course." + +"Dear friend, to-morrow we shall be parted. I trust to be thought +of by you as a little better in grain than I have appeared, and my +reason for trusting it is that I know I have been always honest-- +a boorish young woman in my stupid mad impatience: but not +insincere. It is no lofty ambition to desire to be remembered in +that character, but such is your Clara, she discovers. I will tell +you. It is his wish ... his wish that I should promise to give my +hand to Mr. Whitford. You see the kindness." + +Laetitia's eyes widened and fixed: + +"You think it kindness?" + +"The intention. He sent Mr. Whitford to me, and I was taught to +expect him." + +"Was that quite kind to Mr. Whitford?" + +"What an impression I must have made on you during that walk to +the cottage, Laetitia! I do not wonder; I was in a fever." + +"You consented to listen?" + +"I really did. It astonishes me now, but I thought I could not +refuse." + +"My poor friend Vernon Whitford tried a love speech?" + +"He? no: Oh! no." + +"You discouraged him?" + +"I? No." + +"Gently, I mean." + +"No." + +"Surely you did not dream of trifling? He has a deep heart." + +"Has he?" + +"You ask that: and you know something of him. + +"He did not expose it to me, dear; not even the surface of the +mighty deep." + +Laetitia knitted her brows. + +"No," said Clara, "not a coquette: she is not a coquette, I assure +you. + +With a laugh, Laetitia replied: "You have still the 'dreadful +power' you made me feel that day." + +"I wish I could use it to good purpose!" + +"He did not speak?" + +"Of Switzerland, Tyrol, the Iliad, Antigone." + +"That was all?" + +"No, Political Economy. Our situation, you will own, was +unexampled: or mine was. Are you interested in me?" + +"I should be if I knew your sentiments." + +"I was grateful to Sir Willoughby: grieved for Mr. Whitford." + +"Real grief?" + +"Because the task unposed on him of showing me politely that he +did not enter into his cousin's ideas was evidently very great, +extremely burdensome." + +"You, so quick-eyed in some things, Clara!" + +"He felt for me. I saw that in his avoidance of... And he was, as +he always is, pleasant. We rambled over the park for I know not +how long, though it did not seem long." + +"Never touching that subject?" + +"Not ever neighbouring it, dear. A gentleman should esteem the girl +he would ask ... certain questions. I fancy he has a liking for me +as a volatile friend." + +"If he had offered himself?" + +"Despising me?" + +"You can be childish, Clara. Probably you delight to tease. He +had his time of it, and it is now my turn." + +"But he must despise me a little." + +"Are you blind?" + +"Perhaps, dear, we both are, a little." + +The ladies looked deeper into one another. + +"Will you answer me?" said Laetitia. + +"Your if? If he had, it would have been an act of condescension." + +"You are too slippery." + +"Stay, dear Laetitia. He was considerate in forbearing to pain +me." + +"That is an answer. You allowed him to perceive that it would have +pained you." + +"Dearest, if I may convey to you what I was, in a simile for +comparison: I think I was like a fisherman's float on the water, +perfectly still, and ready to go down at any instant, or up. So +much for my behaviour." + +"Similes have the merit of satisfying the finder of them, and +cheating the hearer," said Laetitia. "You admit that your feelings +would have been painful." + +"I was a fisherman's float: please admire my simile; any way you +like, this way or that, or so quiet as to tempt the eyes to go to +sleep. And suddenly I might have disappeared in the depths, or +flown in the air. But no fish bit." + +"Well, then, to follow you, supposing the fish or the fisherman, +for I don't know which is which . . . Oh! no, no: this is too +serious for imagery. I am to understand that you thanked him at +least for his reserve." + +"Yes." + +"Without the slightest encouragement to him to break it?" + +"A fisherman's float, Laetitia!" + +Baffled and sighing, Laetitia kept silence for a space. The simile +chafed her wits with a suspicion of a meaning hidden in it. + +"If he had spoken?" she said. + +"He is too truthful a man." + +"And the railings of men at pussy women who wind about and will +not be brought to a mark, become intelligible to me." + +"Then Laetitia, if he had spoken, if, and one could have imagined +him sincere . . " + +"So truthful a man?" + +"I am looking at myself If!--why, then, I should have burnt to +death with shame. Where have I read?--some story--of an +inextinguishable spark. That would have been shot into my heart." + +"Shame, Clara? You are free." + +"As much as remains of me." + +"I could imagine a certain shame, in such a position, where there +was no feeling but pride." + +"I could not imagine it where there was no feeling but pride." + +Laetitia mused. "And you dwell on the kindness of a proposition so +extraordinary!" Gaining some light, impatiently she cried: "Vernon +loves you." + +"Do not say it!" + +"I have seen it." + +"I have never had a sign of it." + +"There is the proof." + +"When it might have been shown again and again!" + +"The greater proof!" + +"Why did he not speak when he was privileged?--strangely, but +privileged." + +"He feared." + +"Me?" + +"Feared to wound you--and himself as well, possibly. Men may be +pardoned for thinking of themselves in these cases." + +"But why should he fear?" + +"That another was dearer to you?" + +"What cause had I given ... Ah I see! He could fear that; suspect +it! See his opinion of me! Can he care for such a girl? Abuse +me, Laetitia. I should like a good round of abuse. I need +purification by fire. What have I been in this house? I have a +sense of whirling through it like a madwoman. And to be loved, +after it all!--No! we must be hearing a tale of an antiquary +prizing a battered relic of the battle-field that no one else +would look at. To be loved, I see, is to feel our littleness, +hollowness--feel shame. We come out in all our spots. Never to +have given me one sign, when a lover would have been so tempted! +Let me be incredulous, my own dear Laetitia. Because he is a man +of honour, you would say! But are you unconscious of the torture +you inflict? For if I am--you say it--loved by this gentleman, +what an object it is he loves--that has gone clamouring about +more immodestly than women will bear to hear of, and she herself +to think of! Oh, I have seen my own heart. It is a frightful +spectre. I have seen a weakness in me that would have carried me +anywhere. And truly I shall be charitable to women--I have gained +that. But loved! by Vernon Whitford! The miserable little me to be +taken up and loved after tearing myself to pieces! Have you been +simply speculating? You have no positive knowledge of it! Why do +you kiss me?" + +"Why do you tremble and blush so?" + +Clara looked at her as clearly as she could. She bowed her head. +"It makes my conduct worse!" + +She received a tenderer kiss for that. It was her avowal, and it +was understood: to know that she had loved or had been ready to +love him, shadowed her in the retrospect. + +"Ah! you read me through and through," said Clara, sliding to her +for a whole embrace. + +"Then there never was cause for him to fear?" Laetitia whispered. + +Clara slid her head more out of sight. "Not that my heart ... But +I said I have seen it; and it is unworthy of him. And if, as I +think now, I could have been so rash, so weak, wicked, unpardonable +--such thoughts were in me!--then to hear him speak would make +it necessary for me to uncover myself and tell him--incredible to +you, yes!--that while ... yes, Laetitia, all this is true: and +thinking of him as the noblest of men, I could have welcomed any +help to cut my knot. So there," said Clara, issuing from her nest +with winking eyelids, "you see the pain I mentioned." + +"Why did you not explain it to me at once?" + +"Dearest, I wanted a century to pass." + +"And you feel that it has passed?" + +"Yes; in Purgatory--with an angel by me. My report of the place +will be favourable. Good angel, I have yet to say something." + +"Say it, and expiate." + +"I think I did fancy once or twice, very dimly, and especially +to-day ... properly I ought not to have had any idea: but his +coming to me, and his not doing as another would have done, seemed +... A gentleman of real nobleness does not carry the common light +for us to read him by. I wanted his voice; but silence, I think, +did tell me more: if a nature like mine could only have had faith +without bearing the rattle of a tongue. + +A knock at the door caused the ladies to exchange looks. Laetitia +rose as Vernon entered. + +"I am just going to my father for a few minutes," she said. + +"And I have just come from yours." Vernon said to Clara. She +observed a very threatening expression in him. The sprite +of contrariety mounted to her brain to indemnify her for her recent +self-abasement. Seeing the bedroom door shut on Laetitia, she +said: "And of course papa has gone to bed"; implying, "otherwise . +. ." + +"Yes, he has gone. He wished me well." + +"His formula of good-night would embrace that wish." + +"And failing, it will be good-night for good to me!" + +Clara's breathing gave a little leap. "We leave early tomorrow. + +"I know. I have an appointment at Bregenz for June." + +"So soon? With papa?" + +"And from there we break into Tyrol, and round away to the right, +Southward." + +"To the Italian Alps! And was it assumed that I should be of this +expedition?" + +"Your father speaks dubiously." + +"You have spoken of me, then?" + +"I ventured to speak of you. I am not over-bold, as you know." + +Her lovely eyes troubled the lids to hide their softness. + +"Papa should not think of my presence with him dubiously." + +"He leaves it to you to decide." + +"Yes, then: many times: all that can be uttered." + +"Do you consider what you are saying?" + +"Mr. Whitford, I shut my eyes and say Yes." + +"Beware. I give you one warning. If you shut your eyes . . ." + +"Of course," she flew from him, "big mountains must be satisfied +with my admiration at their feet." + +"That will do for a beginning." + +"They speak encouragingly." + +"One of them." Vernon's breast heaved high. + +"To be at your feet makes a mountain of you?" said she. + +"With the heart of a mouse if that satisfies me!" + +"You tower too high; you are inaccessible." + +"I give you a second warning. You may he seized and lifted." + +"Some one would stoop, then." + +"To plant you like the flag on the conquered peak!" + +"You have indeed been talking to papa, Mr. Whitford." + +Vernon changed his tone. + +"Shall I tell you what he said?" + +"I know his language so well." + +"He said--" + +"But you have acted on it?" + +"Only partly. He said--" + +"You will teach me nothing." + +"He said . . ." + +"Vernon, no! oh! not in this house!" + +That supplication coupled with his name confessed the end to which +her quick vision perceived she was being led, where she would +succumb. + +She revived the same shrinking in him from a breath of their great +word yet: not here; somewhere in the shadow of the mountains. + +But he was sure of her. And their hands might join. The two hands +thought so, or did not think, behaved like innocents. + +The spirit of Dr. Middleton, as Clara felt, had been blown into +Vernon, rewarding him for forthright outspeaking. Over their +books, Vernon had abruptly shut up a volume and related the tale +of the house. "Has this man a spice of religion in him?" the Rev. +Doctor asked midway. Vernon made out a fair general case for his +cousin in that respect. "The complemental dot on his i of a +commonly civilized human creature!" said Dr. Middleton, looking at +his watch and finding it too late to leave the house before +morning. The risky communication was to come. Vernon was +proceeding with the narrative of Willoughby's generous plan when +Dr. Middleton electrified him by calling out: "He whom of all men +living I should desire my daughter to espouse!" and Willoughby +rose in the Rev. Doctor's esteem: he praised that sensibly minded +gentleman, who could acquiesce in the turn of mood of a little +maid, albeit Fortune had withheld from him a taste of the switch +at school. The father of the little maid's appreciation of her +volatility was exhibited in his exhortation to Vernon to be off to +her at once with his authority to finish her moods and assure him +of peace in the morning. Vernon hesitated. Dr. Middleton remarked +upon being not so sure that it was not he who had done the +mischief. Thereupon Vernon, to prove his honesty, made his own +story bare. "Go to her," said Dr. Middleton. Vernon proposed a +meeting in Switzerland, to which Dr. Middleton assented, adding: +"Go to her": and as he appeared a total stranger to the decorum of +the situation, Vernon put his delicacy aside, and taking his heart +up, obeyed. He too had pondered on Clara's consent to meet him +after she knew of Willoughby's terms, and her grave sweet manner +during the ramble over the park. Her father's breath had been +blown into him; so now, with nothing but the faith lying in +sensation to convince him of his happy fortune (and how +unconvincing that may be until the mind has grasped and stamped +it, we experience even then when we acknowledge that we are most +blessed), he held her hand. And if it was hard for him, for both, +but harder for the man, to restrain their particular word from a +flight to heaven when the cage stood open and nature beckoned, he +was practised in self-mastery, and she loved him the more. + +Laetitia was a witness of their union of hands on her coming back +to the room. + +They promised to visit her very early in the morning, neither of +them conceiving that they left her to a night of storm and tears. + +She sat meditating on Clara's present appreciation of Sir +Willoughby's generosity. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIX + +Laetitia and Sir Willoughby + +We cannot be abettors of the tribes of imps whose revelry is in +the frailties of our poor human constitution. They have their +place and their service, and so long as we continue to be what we +are now, they will hang on to us, restlessly plucking at the +garments which cover our nakedness, nor ever ceasing to twitch +them and strain at them until they have stripped us for one of +their horrible Walpurgis nights: when the laughter heard is of a +character to render laughter frightful to the ears of men +throughout the remainder of their days. But if in these festival +hours under the beam of Hecate they are uncontrollable by the +Comic Muse, she will not flatter them with her presence during the +course of their insane and impious hilarities, whereof a +description would out-Brocken Brockens and make Graymalkin and +Paddock too intimately our familiars. + +It shall suffice to say that from hour to hour of the midnight to +the grey-eyed morn, assisted at intervals by the ladies Eleanor +and Isabel, and by Mr. Dale awakened and re-awakened--hearing the +vehemence of his petitioning outcry to soften her obduracy--Sir +Willoughby pursued Laetitia with solicitations to espouse him, +until the inveteracy of his wooing wore the aspect of the +life-long love he raved of aroused to a state of mania. He +appeared, he departed, he returned; and all the while his imps +were about him and upon him, riding him, prompting, driving, +inspiring him with outrageous pathos, an eloquence to move any one +but the dead, which its object seemed to be in her torpid +attention. He heard them, he talked to them, caressed them; he +flung them off, and ran from them, and stood vanquished for them +to mount him again and swarm on him. There are men thus +imp-haunted. Men who, setting their minds upon an object, must +have it, breed imps. They are noted for their singularities, as +their converse with the invisible and amazing distractions are +called. Willoughby became aware of them that night. He said to +himself, upon one of his dashes into solitude: I believe I am +possessed! And if he did not actually believe it, but only +suspected it, or framed speech to account for the transformation +he had undergone into a desperately beseeching creature, having +lost acquaintance with his habitual personality, the operations of +an impish host had undoubtedly smitten his consciousness. + +He had them in his brain: for while burning with an ardour for +Laetitia, that incited him to frantic excesses of language and +comportment, he was aware of shouts of the names of Lady Busshe +and Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, the which, freezing him as they +did, were directly the cause of his hurrying to a wilder +extravagance and more headlong determination to subdue before +break of day the woman he almost dreaded to behold by daylight, +though he had now passionately persuaded himself of his love of +her. He could not, he felt, stand in the daylight without her. She +was his morning. She was, he raved, his predestinated wife. He +cried, "Darling!" both to her and to solitude. Every prescription +of his ideal of demeanour as an example to his class and country, +was abandoned by the enamoured gentleman. He had lost command of +his countenance. He stooped so far as to kneel, and not gracefully. +Nay, it is in the chronicles of the invisible host around him, +that in a fit of supplication, upon a cry of "Laetitia!" twice +repeated, he whimpered. + +Let so much suffice. And indeed not without reason do the +multitudes of the servants of the Muse in this land of social +policy avoid scenes of an inordinate wantonness, which detract +from the dignity of our leaders and menace human nature with +confusion. Sagacious are they who conduct the individual on broad +lines, over familiar tracks, under well-known characteristics. +What men will do, and amorously minded men will do, is less the +question than what it is politic they should be shown to do. + +The night wore through. Laetitia was bent, but had not yielded. +She had been obliged to say--and how many times she could not +bear to recollect: "I do not love you; I have no love to give"; +and issuing from such a night to look again upon the face of day, +she scarcely felt that she was alive. + +The contest was renewed by her father with the singing of the +birds. Mr. Dale then produced the first serious impression she had +received. He spoke of their circumstances, of his being taken from +her and leaving her to poverty, in weak health; of the injury done +to her health by writing for bread; and of the oppressive weight +he would be relieved of by her consenting. + +He no longer implored her; he put the case on common ground. + +And he wound up: "Pray do not be ruthless, my girl." + +The practical statement, and this adjuration incongruously to +conclude it, harmonized with her disordered understanding, her +loss of all sentiment and her desire to be kind. She sighed to +herself. "Happily, it is over!" + +Her father was too weak to rise. He fell asleep. She was bound +down to the house for hours; and she walked through her suite, +here at the doors, there at the windows, thinking of Clara's +remark "of a century passing". She had not wished it, but a light +had come on her to show her what she would have supposed a century +could not have effected: she saw the impossible of overnight a +possible thing: not desireable, yet possible, wearing the features +of the possible. Happily, she had resisted too firmly to be again +besought. + +Those features of the possible once beheld allured the mind to +reconsider them. Wealth gives us the power to do good on earth. +Wealth enables us to see the world, the beautiful scenes of the +earth. Laetitia had long thirsted both for a dowering money-bag +at her girdle, and the wings to fly abroad over lands which had +begun to seem fabulous in her starved imagination. Then, moreover, +if her sentiment for this gentleman was gone, it was only a +delusion gone; accurate sight and knowledge of him would not make +a woman the less helpful mate. That was the mate he required: and +he could be led. A sentimental attachment would have been +serviceless to him. Not so the woman allied by a purely rational +bond: and he wanted guiding. Happily, she had told him too much of +her feeble health and her lovelessness to be reduced to submit to +another attack. + +She busied herself in her room, arranging for her departure, so +that no minutes might be lost after her father had breakfasted and +dressed. + +Clara was her earliest visitor, and each asked the other whether +she had slept, and took the answer from the face presented to her. +The rings of Laetitia's eyes were very dark. Clara was her mirror, +and she said: "A singular object to be persecuted through a night +for her hand! I know these two damp dead leaves I wear on my +cheeks to remind me of midnight vigils. But you have slept well, +Clara." + +"I have slept well, and yet I could say I have not slept at all, +Laetitia. I was with you, dear, part in dream and part in thought: +hoping to find you sensible before I go." + +"Sensible. That is the word for me." + +Laetitia briefly sketched the history of the night; and Clara +said, with a manifest sincerity that testified of her gratitude to +Sir Willoughby: "Could you resist him, so earnest as he is?" +Laetitia saw the human nature, without sourness: and replied, "I +hope, Clara, you will not begin with a large stock of sentiment, +for there is nothing like it for making you hard, matter-of-fact, +worldly, calculating." + +The next visitor was Vernon, exceedingly anxious for news of Mr. +Dale. Laetitia went into her father's room to obtain it for him. +Returning, she found them both with sad visages, and she ventured, +in alarm for them, to ask the cause. + +"It's this," Vernon said: "Willoughby will everlastingly tease +that boy to be loved by him. Perhaps. poor fellow, he had an excuse +last night. Anyhow, he went into Crossjay's room this morning, +woke him up and talked to him, and set the lad crying, and what +with one thing and another Crossjay got a berry in his throat, as +he calls it, and poured out everything he knew and all he had +done. I needn't tell you the consequence. He has ruined himself +here for good, so I must take him." + +Vernon glanced at Clara. "You must indeed," said she. "He is my +boy as well as yours. No chance of pardon?" + +"It's not likely." + +"Laetitia!" + +"What can I do?" + +"Oh! what can you not do?" + +"I do not know." + +"Teach him to forgive!" + +Laetitia's brows were heavy and Clara forbore to torment her. + +She would not descend to the family breakfast-table. Clara would +fain have stayed to drink tea with her in her own room, but a last +act of conformity was demanded of the liberated young lady. She +promised to run up the moment breakfast was over. Not unnaturally, +therefore, Laetitia supposed it to be she to whom she gave +admission, half an hour later, with a glad cry of, "Come in, +dear." + +The knock had sounded like Clara's. + +Sir Willoughby entered. + +He stepped forward. He seized her hands. "Dear!" he said. + +"You cannot withdraw that. You call me dear. I am, I must be dear +to you. The word is out, by accident or not, but, by heaven, I +have it and I give it up to no one. And love me or not--marry me, +and my love will bring it back to you. You have taught me I am not +so strong. I must have you by my side. You have powers I did not +credit you with." + +"You are mistaken in me, Sir Willoughby." Laetitia said feebly, +outworn as she was. + +"A woman who can resist me by declining to be my wife, through a +whole night of entreaty, has the quality I need for my house, and +I will batter at her ears for months, with as little rest as I had +last night, before I surrender my chance of her. But I told you +last night I want you within the twelve hours. I have staked my +pride on it. By noon you are mine: you are introduced to Mrs. +Mountstuart as mine, as the lady of my life and house. And to the +world! I shall not let you go. + +"You will not detain me here, Sir Willoughby?" + +"I will detain you. I will use force and guile. I will spare +nothing." + +He raved for a term, as he had done overnight. + +On his growing rather breathless, Laetitia said: "You do not ask +me for love?" + +"I do not. I pay you the higher compliment of asking for you, love +or no love. My love shall be enough. Reward me or not. I am not +used to be denied." + +"But do you know what you ask for? Do you remember what I told you +of myself? I am hard, materialistic; I have lost faith in romance, +the skeleton is present with me all over life. And my health is +not good. I crave for money. I should marry to be rich. I should +not worship you. I should be a burden, barely a living one, +irresponsive and cold. Conceive such a wife, Sir Willoughby!" + +"It will be you!" + +She tried to recall how this would have sung in her cars long +back. Her bosom rose and fell in absolute dejection. Her +ammunition of arguments against him had been expended overnight. + +"You are so unforgiving," she said. + +"Is it I who am?" + +"You do not know me." + +"But you are the woman of all the world who knows me, Laetitia." + +"Can you think it better for you to be known?" + +He was about to say other words: he checked them. "I believe I do +not know myself. Anything you will, only give me your hand; give +it; trust to me; you shall direct me. If I have faults, help me to +obliterate them." + +"Will you not expect me to regard them as the virtues of meaner +men?" + +"You will be my wife!" + +Laetitia broke from him, crying: "Your wife, your critic! Oh, I +cannot think it possible. Send for the ladies. Let them hear me." + +"They are at hand," said Willoughby, opening the door. + +They were in one of the upper rooms anxiously on the watch. + +"Dear ladies," Laetitia said to them, as they entered. "I am going +to wound you, and I grieve to do it: but rather now than later, if +I am to be your housemate. He asks me for a hand that cannot +carry a heart, because mine is dead. I repeat it. I used to think +the heart a woman's marriage portion for her husband. I see now +that she may consent, and he accept her, without one. But it is +right that you should know what I am when I consent. I was once a +foolish, romantic girl; now I am a sickly woman, all illusions +vanished. Privation has made me what an abounding fortune usually +makes of others--I am an Egoist. I am not deceiving you. That is +my real character. My girl's view of him has entirely changed; and +I am almost indifferent to the change. I can endeavour to respect +him, I cannot venerate." + +"Dear child!" the ladies gently remonstrated. + +Willoughby motioned to them. + +"If we are to live together, and I could very happily live with +you," Laetitia continued to address them, "you must not be +ignorant of me. And if you, as I imagine, worship him blindly, I +do not know how we are to live together. And never shall you quit +this house to make way for me. I have a hard detective eye. I see +many faults." + +"Have we not all of us faults, dear child?" + +"Not such as he has; though the excuses of a gentleman nurtured in +idolatry may be pleaded. But he should know that they are seen, +and seen by her he asks to be his wife, that no misunderstanding +may exist, and while it is yet time he may consult his feelings. +He worships himself." + +"Willoughby?" + +"He is vindictive!" + +"Our Willoughby?" + +"That is not your opinion, ladies. It is firmly mine. Time has +taught it me. So, if you and I are at such variance, how can we +live together? It is an impossibility." + +They looked at Willoughby. He nodded imperiously. + +"We have never affirmed that our dear nephew is devoid of faults. +if he is offended ... And supposing he claims to be foremost, is +it not his rightful claim, made good by much generosity? Reflect, +dear Laetitia. We are your friends too." + +She could not chastise the kind ladies any further. + +"You have always been my good friends." + +"And you have no other charge against him?" + +Laetitia was milder in saying, "He is unpardoning." + +"Name one instance, Laetitia." + +"He has turned Crossjay out of his house, interdicting the poor +boy ever to enter it again." + +"Crossjay," said Willoughby, "was guilty of a piece of infamous +treachery." + +"Which is the cause of your persecuting me to become your wife!" + +There was a cry of "Persecuting!" + +"No young fellow behaving so basely can come to good," said +Willoughby, stained about the face with flecks of redness at the +lashings he received. + +"Honestly," she retorted. "He told of himself: and he must have +anticipated the punishment he would meet. He should have been +studying with a master for his profession. He has been kept here +in comparative idleness to be alternately petted and discarded: no +one but Vernon Whitford, a poor gentleman doomed to struggle for a +livelihood by literature--I know something of that struggle--too +much for me!--no one but Mr. Whitford for his friend." + +"Crossjay is forgiven," said Willoughby. + +"You promise me that?" + +"He shall be packed off to a crammer at once." + +"But my home must be Crossjay's home." + +"You are mistress of my house, Laetitia." + +She hesitated. Her eyelashes grew moist. "You can be generous." + +"He is, dear child!" the ladies cried. "He is. Forget his errors, +in his generosity, as we do." + +"There is that wretched man Flitch." + +"That sot has gone about the county for years to get me a bad +character," said Willoughby. + +"It would have been generous in you to have offered him another +chance. He has children." + +"Nine. And I am responsible for them?" + +"I speak of being generous." + +"Dictate." Willoughby spread out his arms. + +"Surely now you should be satisfied, Laetitia?" said the ladies. + +"Is he?" + +Willoughby perceived Mrs. Mountstuart's carriage coming down the +avenue. + +"To the full." He presented his hand. + +She raised hers with the fingers catching back before she ceased +to speak and dropped it:-- + +"Ladies. You are witnesses that there is no concealment, there has +been no reserve, on my part. May Heaven grant me kinder eyes than +I have now. I would not have you change your opinion of him; only +that you should see how I read him. For the rest, I vow to do my +duty by him. Whatever is of worth in me is at his service. I am +very tired. I feel I must yield or break. This is his wish, and I +submit." + +"And I salute my wife," said Willoughby, making her hand his own, +and warming to his possession as he performed the act. + +Mrs. Mountstuart's indecent hurry to be at the Hall before the +departure of Dr. Middleton and his daughter, afflicted him with +visions of the physical contrast which would be sharply +perceptible to her this morning of his Laetitia beside Clara. + +But he had the lady with brains! He had: and he was to learn the +nature of that possession in the woman who is our wife. + + + +CHAPTER L + +Upon Which the Curtain Falls + +"Plain sense upon the marriage question is my demand upon man and +woman, for the stopping of many a tragedy." + +These were Dr. Middleton's words in reply to Willoughby's brief +explanation. + +He did not say that he had shown it parentally while the tragedy +was threatening, or at least there was danger of a precipitate +descent from the levels of comedy. The parents of hymeneal men and +women he was indisposed to consider as dramatis personae. Nor did +he mention certain sympathetic regrets he entertained in +contemplation of the health of Mr. Dale, for whom, poor +gentleman, the proffer of a bottle of the Patterne Port would be +an egregious mockery. He paced about, anxious for his departure, +and seeming better pleased with the society of Colonel De Craye +than with that of any of the others. Colonel De Craye assiduously +courted him, was anecdotal, deferential, charmingly vivacious, the +very man the Rev. Doctor liked for company when plunged in the +bustle of the preliminaries to a journey. + +"You would be a cheerful travelling comrade. sir," he remarked, and +spoke of his doom to lead his daughter over the Alps and Alpine +lakes for the Summer months. + +Strange to tell, the Alps, for the Summer months, was a settled +project of the colonel's. + +And thence Dr. Middleton was to be hauled along to the habitable +quarters of North Italy in high Summer-tide. + +That also had been traced for a route on the map of Colonel De +Craye. + +"We are started in June, I am informed," said Dr. Middleton. + +June, by miracle, was the month the colonel had fixed upon. + +"I trust we shall meet, sir," said he. + +"I would gladly reckon it in my catalogue of pleasures," the Rev. +Doctor responded; "for in good sooth it is conjecturable that I +shall he left very much alone." + +"Paris, Strasburg, Basle?" the colonel inquired. + +"The Lake of Constance, I am told," said Dr. Middleton. Colonel +De Craye spied eagerly for an opportunity of exchanging a pair of +syllables with the third and fairest party of this glorious +expedition to come. + +Willoughby met him, and rewarded the colonel's frankness in +stating that he was on the look-out for Miss Middleton to take his +leave of her, by furnishing him the occasion. He conducted his +friend Horace to the Blue Room, where Clara and Laetitia were +seated circling a half embrace with a brook of chatter, and +contrived an excuse for leading Laetitia forth. Some minutes +later Mrs. Mountstuart called aloud for the colonel, to drive him +away. Willoughby, whose good offices were unabated by the services +he performed to each in rotation, ushered her into the Blue Room, +hearing her say, as she stood at the entrance: "Is the man coming +to spend a day with me with a face like that?" + +She was met and detained by Clara. + +De Craye came out. + +"What are you thinking of?" said Willoughby. + +"I was thinking," said the colonel, "of developing a heart, like +you, and taking to think of others." + +"At last!" + +"Ay, you're a true friend, Willoughby, a true friend. And a cousin +to boot!" + +"What! has Clara been communicative?" + +"The itinerary of a voyage Miss Middleton is going to make." + +"Do you join them?" + +"Why, it would be delightful, Willoughby, but it happens I've got +a lot of powder I want to let off, and so I've an idea of +shouldering my gun along the sea-coast and shooting gulls: +which'll be a harmless form of committing patricide and matricide +and fratricide--for there's my family, and I come of it!--the +gull! And I've to talk lively to Mrs. Mountstuart for something +like a matter of twelve hours, calculating that she goes to bed at +midnight: and I wouldn't bet on it; such is the energy of ladies +of that age!" + +Willoughby scorned the man who could not conceal a blow, even +though be joked over his discomfiture. + +"Gull!" he muttered. + +"A bird that's easy to be had, and better for stuffing than for +eating," said De Craye. "You'll miss your cousin." + +"I have," replied Willoughby, "one fully equal to supplying his +place." + +There was confusion in the hall for a time, and an assembly of the +household to witness the departure of Dr. Middleton and his +daughter. Vernon had been driven off by Dr. Corney, who further +recommended rest for Mr. Dale, and promised to keep an eye for +Crossjay along the road. + +"I think you will find him at the station, and if you do, command +him to come straight back here," Laetitia said to Clara. The +answer was an affectionate squeeze, and Clara's hand was extended +to Willoughby, who bowed over it with perfect courtesy, bidding +her adieu. + +So the knot was cut. And the next carriage to Dr. Middleton's was +Mrs. Mountstuart's, conveying the great lady and Colonel De Craye. + +"I beg you not to wear that face with me," she said to him. + +"I have had to dissemble, which I hate, and I have quite enough to +endure, and I must be amused, or I shall run away from you and +enlist that little countryman of yours, and him I can count on to +be professionally restorative. Who can fathom the heart of a girl! +Here is Lady Busshe right once more! And I was wrong. She must be +a gambler by nature. I never should have risked such a guess as +that. Colonel De Craye, you lengthen your face preternaturally, +you distort it purposely." + +"Ma'am," returned De Craye, "the boast of our army is never to +know when we are beaten, and that tells of a great-hearted +soldiery. But there's a field where the Briton must own his +defeat, whether smiling or crying, and I'm not so sure that a +short howl doesn't do him honour." + +"She was, I am certain, in love with Vernon Whitford all along. +Colonel De Craye!" + +"Ah!" the colonel drank it in. "I have learnt that it was not the +gentleman in whom I am chiefly interested. So it was not so hard +for the lady to vow to friend Willoughby she would marry no one +else?" + +"Girls are unfathomable! And Lady Busshe--I know she did not go +by character--shot one of her random guesses, and she triumphs. +We shall never hear the last of it. And I had all the +opportunities. I'm bound to confess I had." + +"Did you by chance, ma'am," De Craye said, with a twinkle, "drop a +hint to Willoughby of her turn for Vernon Whitford?" + +"No," said Mrs. Mountstuart, "I'm not a mischief-maker; and the +policy of the county is to keep him in love with himself, or +Patterne will be likely to be as dull as it was without a lady +enthroned. When his pride is at ease he is a prince. I can read +men. Now, Colonel De Craye, pray, be lively." + +"I should have been livelier, I'm afraid, if you had dropped a bit +of a hint to Willoughby. But you're the magnanimous person, ma'am, +and revenge for a stroke in the game of love shows us unworthy to +win." + +Mrs. Mountstuart menaced him with her parasol. "I forbid +sentiments, Colonel De Craye. They are always followed by sighs." + +"Grant me five minutes of inward retirement, and I'll come out +formed for your commands, ma'am," said he. + +Before the termination of that space De Craye was enchanting Mrs. +Mountstuart, and she in consequence was restored to her natural +wit. + +So, and much so universally, the world of his dread and his +unconscious worship wagged over Sir Willoughby Patterne and his +change of brides, until the preparations for the festivities of the +marriage flushed him in his county's eyes to something of the +splendid glow he had worn on the great day of his majority. That was +upon the season when two lovers met between the Swiss and Tyrol Alps +over the Lake of Constance. Sitting beside them the Comic Muse is +grave and sisterly. But taking a glance at the others of her late +company of actors, she compresses her lips. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext of The Egoist, by George Meredith + |