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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mrs. General Talboys, by Anthony Trollope
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
+other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions 
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
+the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at 
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
+to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
+
+
+
+
+Title: Mrs. General Talboys
+
+
+Author: Anthony Trollope
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 16, 2015  [eBook #3716]
+[This file was first posted on August 7, 2001]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. GENERAL TALBOYS***
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman and Hall "Tales of All Countries"
+edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
+
+
+
+
+
+                          MRS. GENERAL TALBOYS.
+
+
+WHY Mrs. General Talboys first made up her mind to pass the winter of
+1859 at Rome I never clearly understood.  To myself she explained her
+purposes, soon after her arrival at the Eternal City, by declaring, in
+her own enthusiastic manner, that she was inspired by a burning desire to
+drink fresh at the still living fountains of classical poetry and
+sentiment.  But I always thought that there was something more than this
+in it.  Classical poetry and sentiment were doubtless very dear to her;
+but so also, I imagine, were the substantial comforts of Hardover Lodge,
+the General's house in Berkshire; and I do not think that she would have
+emigrated for the winter had there not been some slight domestic
+misunderstanding.  Let this, however, be fully made clear,--that such
+misunderstanding, if it existed, must have been simply an affair of
+temper.  No impropriety of conduct has, I am very sure, ever been imputed
+to the lady.  The General, as all the world knows, is hot; and Mrs.
+Talboys, when the sweet rivers of her enthusiasm are unfed by congenial
+waters, can, I believe, make herself disagreeable.
+
+But be this as it may, in November, 1859, Mrs. Talboys came among us
+English at Rome, and soon succeeded in obtaining for herself a
+comfortable footing in our society.  We all thought her more remarkable
+for her mental attributes than for physical perfection; but,
+nevertheless, she was, in her own way, a sightly woman.  She had no
+special brilliance, either of eye or complexion, such as would produce
+sudden flames in susceptible hearts; nor did she seem to demand instant
+homage by the form and step of a goddess; but we found her to be a
+good-looking woman of some thirty or thirty-three years of age, with
+soft, peach-like cheeks,--rather too like those of a cherub, with
+sparkling eyes which were hardly large enough, with good teeth, a white
+forehead, a dimpled chin and a full bust.  Such, outwardly, was Mrs.
+General Talboys.  The description of the inward woman is the purport to
+which these few pages will be devoted.
+
+There are two qualities to which the best of mankind are much subject,
+which are nearly related to each other, and as to which the world has not
+yet decided whether they are to be classed among the good or evil
+attributes of our nature.  Men and women are under the influence of them
+both, but men oftenest undergo the former, and women the latter.  They
+are ambition and enthusiasm.  Now Mrs. Talboys was an enthusiastic woman.
+
+As to ambition, generally as the world agrees with Mark Antony in
+stigmatising it as a grievous fault, I am myself clear that it is a
+virtue; but with ambition at present we have no concern.  Enthusiasm
+also, as I think, leans to virtue's side; or, at least, if it be a fault,
+of all faults it is the prettiest.  But then, to partake at all of
+virtue, or even to be in any degree pretty, the enthusiasm must be true.
+
+Bad coin is known from good by the ring of it; and so is bad enthusiasm.
+Let the coiner be ever so clever at his art, in the coining of enthusiasm
+the sound of true gold can never be imparted to the false metal.  And I
+doubt whether the cleverest she in the world can make false enthusiasm
+palatable to the taste of man.  To the taste of any woman the enthusiasm
+of another woman is never very palatable.
+
+We understood at Home that Mrs. Talboys had a considerable family,--four
+or five children, we were told; but she brought with her only one
+daughter, a little girl about twelve years of age.  She had torn herself
+asunder, as she told me, from the younger nurslings of her heart, and had
+left them to the care of a devoted female attendant, whose love was all
+but maternal.  And then she said a word or two about the General, in
+terms which made me almost think that this quasi-maternal love extended
+itself beyond the children.  The idea, however, was a mistaken one,
+arising from the strength of her language, to which I was then
+unaccustomed.  I have since become aware that nothing can be more
+decorous than old Mrs. Upton, the excellent head-nurse at Hardover Lodge;
+and no gentleman more discreet in his conduct than General Talboys.
+
+And I may as well here declare, also, that there could be no more
+virtuous woman than the General's wife.  Her marriage vow was to her
+paramount to all other vows and bonds whatever.  The General's honour was
+quite safe when he sent her off to Rome by herself; and he no doubt knew
+that it was so.  Illi robur et aes triplex, of which I believe no weapons
+of any assailant could get the better.  But, nevertheless, we used to
+fancy that she had no repugnance to impropriety in other women,--to what
+the world generally calls impropriety.  Invincibly attached herself to
+the marriage tie, she would constantly speak of it as by no means
+necessarily binding on others; and, virtuous herself as any griffin of
+propriety, she constantly patronised, at any rate, the theory of
+infidelity in her neighbours.  She was very eager in denouncing the
+prejudices of the English world, declaring that she had found existence
+among them to be no longer possible for herself.  She was hot against the
+stern unforgiveness of British matrons, and equally eager in reprobating
+the stiff conventionalities of a religion in which she said that none of
+its votaries had faith, though they all allowed themselves to be
+enslaved.
+
+We had at that time a small set at Rome, consisting chiefly of English
+and Americans, who habitually met at each other's rooms, and spent many
+of our evening hours in discussing Italian politics.  We were, most of
+us, painters, poets, novelists, or sculptors;--perhaps I should say
+would-be painters, poets, novelists, and sculptors,--aspirants hoping to
+become some day recognised; and among us Mrs. Talboys took her place,
+naturally enough, on account of a very pretty taste she had for painting.
+
+I do not know that she ever originated anything that was grand; but she
+made some nice copies, and was fond, at any rate, of art conversation.
+She wrote essays, too, which she showed in confidence to various
+gentlemen, and had some idea of taking lessons in modelling.
+
+In all our circle Conrad Mackinnon, an American, was, perhaps, the person
+most qualified to be styled its leader.  He was one who absolutely did
+gain his living, and an ample living too, by his pen, and was regarded on
+all sides as a literary lion, justified by success in roaring at any tone
+he might please.  His usual roar was not exactly that of a sucking-dove
+or a nightingale; but it was a good-humoured roar, not very offensive to
+any man, and apparently acceptable enough to some ladies.  He was a big
+burly man, near to fifty as I suppose, somewhat awkward in his gait, and
+somewhat loud in his laugh.  But though nigh to fifty, and thus ungainly,
+he liked to be smiled on by pretty women, and liked, as some said, to be
+flattered by them also.  If so, he should have been happy, for the ladies
+at Rome at that time made much of Conrad Mackinnon.
+
+Of Mrs. Mackinnon no one did make very much, and yet she was one of the
+sweetest, dearest, quietest, little creatures that ever made glad a man's
+fireside.  She was exquisitely pretty, always in good humour, never
+stupid, self-denying to a fault, and yet she was generally in the
+background.  She would seldom come forward of her own will, but was
+contented to sit behind her teapot and hear Mackinnon do his roaring.  He
+was certainly much given to what the world at Rome called flirting, but
+this did not in the least annoy her.  She was twenty years his junior,
+and yet she never flirted with any one.  Women would tell
+her--good-natured friends--how Mackinnon went on; but she received such
+tidings as an excellent joke, observing that he had always done the same,
+and no doubt always would until he was ninety.  I do believe that she was
+a happy woman; and yet I used to think that she should have been happier.
+There is, however, no knowing the inside of another man's house, or
+reading the riddles of another man's joy and sorrow.
+
+We had also there another lion,--a lion cub,--entitled to roar a little,
+and of him also I must say something.  Charles O'Brien was a young man,
+about twenty-five years of age, who had sent out from his studio in the
+preceding year a certain bust, supposed by his admirers to be unsurpassed
+by any effort of ancient or modern genius.  I am no judge of sculpture,
+and will not, therefore, pronounce an opinion; but many who considered
+themselves to be judges, declared that it was a "goodish head and
+shoulders," and nothing more.  I merely mention the fact, as it was on
+the strength of that head and shoulders that O'Brien separated himself
+from a throng of others such as himself in Rome, walked solitary during
+the days, and threw himself at the feet of various ladies when the days
+were over.  He had ridden on the shoulders of his bust into a prominent
+place in our circle, and there encountered much feminine admiration--from
+Mrs. General Talboys and others.
+
+Some eighteen or twenty of us used to meet every Sunday evening in Mrs.
+Mackinnon's drawing-room.  Many of us, indeed, were in the habit of
+seeing each other daily, and of visiting together the haunts in Rome
+which are best loved by art-loving strangers; but here, in this
+drawing-room, we were sure to come together, and here before the end of
+November, Mrs. Talboys might always be found, not in any accustomed seat,
+but moving about the room as the different male mental attractions of our
+society might chance to move themselves.  She was at first greatly taken
+by Mackinnon,--who also was, I think, a little stirred by her admiration,
+though he stoutly denied the charge.  She became, however, very dear to
+us all before she left us, and certainly we owed to her our love, for she
+added infinitely to the joys of our winter.
+
+"I have come here to refresh myself," she said to Mackinnon one
+evening--to Mackinnon and myself; for we were standing together.
+
+"Shall I get you tea?" said I.
+
+"And will you have something to eat?" Mackinnon asked.
+
+"No, no, no;" she answered.  "Tea, yes; but for Heaven's sake let nothing
+solid dispel the associations of such a meeting as this!"
+
+"I thought you might have dined early," said Mackinnon.  Now Mackinnon
+was a man whose own dinner was very dear to him.  I have seen him become
+hasty and unpleasant, even under the pillars of the Forum, when he
+thought that the party were placing his fish in jeopardy by their desire
+to linger there too long.
+
+"Early!  Yes.  No; I know not when it was.  One dines and sleeps in
+obedience to that dull clay which weighs down so generally the particle
+of our spirit.  But the clay may sometimes be forgotten.  Here I can
+always forget it."
+
+"I thought you asked for refreshment," I said.  She only looked at me,
+whose small attempts at prose composition had, up to that time, been
+altogether unsuccessful, and then addressed herself in reply to
+Mackinnon.
+
+"It is the air which we breathe that fills our lungs and gives us life
+and light.  It is that which refreshes us if pure, or sinks us into
+stagnation if it be foul.  Let me for awhile inhale the breath of an
+invigorating literature.  Sit down, Mr. Mackinnon; I have a question that
+I must put to you."  And then she succeeded in carrying him off into a
+corner.  As far as I could see he went willingly enough at that time,
+though he soon became averse to any long retirement in company with Mrs.
+Talboys.
+
+We none of us quite understood what were her exact ideas on the subject
+of revealed religion.  Somebody, I think, had told her that there were
+among us one or two whose opinions were not exactly orthodox according to
+the doctrines of the established English church.  If so, she was
+determined to show us that she also was advanced beyond the prejudices of
+an old and dry school of theology.  "I have thrown down all the barriers
+of religion," she said to poor Mrs. Mackinnon, "and am looking for the
+sentiments of a pure Christianity."
+
+"Thrown down all the barriers of religion!" said Mrs. Mackinnon, in a
+tone of horror which was not appreciated.
+
+"Indeed, yes," said Mrs. Talboys, with an exulting voice.  "Are not the
+days for such trammels gone by?"
+
+"But yet you hold by Christianity?"
+
+"A pure Christianity, unstained by blood and perjury, by hypocrisy and
+verbose genuflection.  Can I not worship and say my prayers among the
+clouds?"  And she pointed to the lofty ceiling and the handsome
+chandelier.
+
+"But Ida goes to church," said Mrs. Mackinnon.  Ida Talboys was her
+daughter.  Now, it may be observed, that many who throw down the barriers
+of religion, so far as those barriers may affect themselves, still
+maintain them on behalf of their children.  "Yes," said Mrs. Talboys;
+"dear Ida! her soft spirit is not yet adapted to receive the perfect
+truth.  We are obliged to govern children by the strength of their
+prejudices."  And then she moved away, for it was seldom that Mrs.
+Talboys remained long in conversation with any lady.
+
+Mackinnon, I believe, soon became tired of her.  He liked her flattery,
+and at first declared that she was clever and nice; but her niceness was
+too purely celestial to satisfy his mundane tastes.  Mackinnon himself
+can revel among the clouds in his own writings, and can leave us
+sometimes in doubt whether he ever means to come back to earth; but when
+his foot is on terra firma, he loves to feel the earthly substratum which
+supports his weight.  With women he likes a hand that can remain an
+unnecessary moment within his own, an eye that can glisten with the
+sparkle of champagne, a heart weak enough to make its owner's arm tremble
+within his own beneath the moonlight gloom of the Coliseum arches.  A
+dash of sentiment the while makes all these things the sweeter; but the
+sentiment alone will not suffice for him.  Mrs. Talboys did, I believe,
+drink her glass of champagne, as do other ladies; but with her it had no
+such pleasing effect.  It loosened only her tongue, but never her eye.
+Her arm, I think, never trembled, and her hand never lingered.  The
+General was always safe, and happy, perhaps, in his solitary safety.
+
+It so happened that we had unfortunately among us two artists who had
+quarrelled with their wives.  O'Brien, whom I have before mentioned, was
+one of them.  In his case, I believe him to have been almost as free from
+blame as a man can be whose marriage was in itself a fault.  However, he
+had a wife in Ireland some ten years older than himself; and though he
+might sometimes almost forget the fact, his friends and neighbours were
+well aware of it.  In the other case the whole fault probably was with
+the husband.  He was an ill-tempered, bad-hearted man, clever enough, but
+without principle; and he was continually guilty of the great sin of
+speaking evil of the woman whose name he should have been anxious to
+protect.  In both cases our friend Mrs. Talboys took a warm interest, and
+in each of them she sympathised with the present husband against the
+absent wife.
+
+Of the consolation which she offered in the latter instance we used to
+hear something from Mackinnon.  He would repeat to his wife, and to me
+and my wife, the conversations which she had with him.  "Poor Brown;" she
+would say, "I pity him, with my very heart's blood."
+
+"You are aware that he has comforted himself in his desolation,"
+Mackinnon replied.
+
+"I know very well to what you allude.  I think I may say that I am
+conversant with all the circumstances of this heart-blighting sacrifice."
+Mrs. Talboys was apt to boast of the thorough confidence reposed in her
+by all those in whom she took an interest.  "Yes, he has sought such
+comfort in another love as the hard cruel world would allow him."
+
+"Or perhaps something more than that," said Mackinnon.  "He has a family
+here in Rome, you know; two little babies."
+
+"I know it, I know it," she said.  "Cherub angels!" and as she spoke she
+looked up into the ugly face of Marcus Aurelius; for they were standing
+at the moment under the figure of the great horseman on the Campidoglio.
+"I have seen them, and they are the children of innocence.  If all the
+blood of all the Howards ran in their veins it could not make their birth
+more noble!"
+
+"Not if the father and mother of all the Howards had never been married,"
+said Mackinnon.
+
+"What; that from you, Mr. Mackinnon!" said Mrs. Talboys, turning her back
+with energy upon the equestrian statue, and looking up into the faces,
+first of Pollux and then of Castor, as though from them she might gain
+some inspiration on the subject which Marcus Aurelius in his coldness had
+denied to her.  "From you, who have so nobly claimed for mankind the
+divine attributes of free action!  From you, who have taught my mind to
+soar above the petty bonds which one man in his littleness contrives for
+the subjection of his brother.  Mackinnon! you who are so great!"  And
+she now looked up into his face.  "Mackinnon, unsay those words."
+
+"They _are_ illegitimate," said he; "and if there was any landed
+property--"
+
+"Landed property! and that from an American!"
+
+"The children are English, you know."
+
+"Landed property!  The time will shortly come--ay, and I see it
+coming--when that hateful word shall be expunged from the calendar; when
+landed property shall be no more.  What! shall the free soul of a
+God-born man submit itself for ever to such trammels as that?  Shall we
+never escape from the clay which so long has manacled the subtler
+particles of the divine spirit?  Ay, yes, Mackinnon;" and then she took
+him by the arm, and led him to the top of the huge steps which lead down
+from the Campidoglio into the streets of modern Rome.  "Look down upon
+that countless multitude."  Mackinnon looked down, and saw three groups
+of French soldiers, with three or four little men in each group; he saw,
+also, a couple of dirty friars, and three priests very slowly beginning
+the side ascent to the church of the Ara Coeli.  "Look down upon that
+countless multitude," said Mrs. Talboys, and she stretched her arms out
+over the half-deserted city.  "They are escaping now from these
+trammels,--now, now,--now that I am speaking."
+
+"They have escaped long ago from all such trammels as that of landed
+property," said Mackinnon.
+
+"Ay, and from all terrestrial bonds," she continued, not exactly
+remarking the pith of his last observation; "from bonds quasi-terrestrial
+and quasi-celestial.  The full-formed limbs of the present age, running
+with quick streams of generous blood, will no longer bear the ligatures
+which past times have woven for the decrepit.  Look down upon that
+multitude, Mackinnon; they shall all be free."  And then, still clutching
+him by the arm, and still standing at the top of those stairs, she gave
+forth her prophecy with the fury of a Sybil.
+
+"They shall all be free.  Oh, Rome, thou eternal one! thou who hast bowed
+thy neck to imperial pride and priestly craft; thou who hast suffered
+sorely, even to this hour, from Nero down to Pio Nono,--the days of thine
+oppression are over.  Gone from thy enfranchised ways for ever is the
+clang of the Praetorian cohorts and the more odious drone of meddling
+monks!"  And yet, as Mackinnon observed, there still stood the dirty
+friars and the small French soldiers; and there still toiled the slow
+priests, wending their tedious way up to the church of the Ara Coeli.
+But that was the mundane view of the matter,--a view not regarded by Mrs.
+Talboys in her ecstasy.  "O Italia," she continued, "O Italia una, one
+and indivisible in thy rights, and indivisible also in thy wrongs! to us
+is it given to see the accomplishment of thy glory.  A people shall arise
+around thine altars greater in the annals of the world than thy Scipios,
+thy Gracchi, or thy Caesars.  Not in torrents of blood, or with screams
+of bereaved mothers, shall thy new triumphs be stained.  But mind shall
+dominate over matter; and doomed, together with Popes and Bourbons, with
+cardinals, diplomatists, and police spies, ignorance and prejudice shall
+be driven from thy smiling terraces.  And then Rome shall again become
+the fair capital of the fairest region of Europe.  Hither shall flock the
+artisans of the world, crowding into thy marts all that God and man can
+give.  Wealth, beauty, and innocence shall meet in thy streets--"
+
+"There will be a considerable change before that takes place," said
+Mackinnon.
+
+"There shall be a considerable change," she answered.  "Mackinnon, to
+thee it is given to read the signs of the time; and hast thou not read?
+Why have the fields of Magenta and Solferino been piled with the corpses
+of dying heroes?  Why have the waters of the Mincio ran red with the
+blood of martyrs?  That Italy might be united and Rome immortal.  Here,
+standing on the Capitolium of the ancient city, I say that it shall be
+so; and thou, Mackinnon, who hearest me, knowest that my words are true."
+
+There was not then in Rome,--I may almost say there was not in Italy, an
+Englishman or an American who did not wish well to the cause for which
+Italy was and is still contending; as also there is hardly one who does
+not now regard that cause as well-nigh triumphant; but, nevertheless, it
+was almost impossible to sympathise with Mrs. Talboys.  As Mackinnon
+said, she flew so high that there was no comfort in flying with her.
+
+"Well," said he, "Brown and the rest of them are down below.  Shall we go
+and join them?"
+
+"Poor Brown!  How was it that, in speaking of his troubles, we were led
+on to this heart-stirring theme?  Yes, I have seen them, the sweet
+angels; and I tell you also that I have seen their mother.  I insisted on
+going to her when I heard her history from him."
+
+"And what is she like, Mrs. Talboys?"
+
+"Well; education has done more for some of us than for others; and there
+are those from whose morals and sentiments we might thankfully draw a
+lesson, whose manners and outward gestures are not such as custom has
+made agreeable to us.  You, I know, can understand that.  I have seen
+her, and feel sure that she is pure in heart and high in principle.  Has
+she not sacrificed herself; and is not self-sacrifice the surest
+guarantee for true nobility of character?  Would Mrs. Mackinnon object to
+my bringing them together?"
+
+Mackinnon was obliged to declare that he thought his wife would object;
+and from that time forth he and Mrs. Talboys ceased to be very close in
+their friendship.  She still came to the house every Sunday evening,
+still refreshed herself at the fountains of his literary rills; but her
+special prophecies from henceforth were poured into other ears.  And it
+so happened that O'Brien now became her chief ally.  I do not remember
+that she troubled herself much further with the cherub angels or with
+their mother; and I am inclined to think that, taking up warmly, as she
+did, the story of O'Brien's matrimonial wrongs, she forgot the little
+history of the Browns.  Be that as it may, Mrs. Talboys and O'Brien now
+became strictly confidential, and she would enlarge by the half-hour
+together on the miseries of her friend's position, to any one whom she
+could get to hear her.
+
+"I'll tell you what, Fanny," Mackinnon said to his wife one day,--to his
+wife and to mine, for we were all together; "we shall have a row in the
+house if we don't take care.  O'Brien will be making love to Mrs.
+Talboys."
+
+"Nonsense," said Mrs. Mackinnon.  "You are always thinking that somebody
+is going to make love to some one."
+
+"Somebody always is," said he.
+
+"She's old enough to be his mother," said Mrs. Mackinnon.
+
+"What does that matter to an Irishman?" said Mackinnon.  "Besides, I
+doubt if there is more than five years' difference between them."
+
+"There must be more than that," said my wife.  "Ida Talboys is twelve, I
+know, and I am not quite sure that Ida is the eldest."
+
+"If she had a son in the Guards it would make no difference," said
+Mackinnon.  "There are men who consider themselves bound to make love to
+a woman under certain circumstances, let the age of the lady be what it
+may.  O'Brien is such a one; and if she sympathises with him much
+oftener, he will mistake the matter, and go down on his knees.  You ought
+to put him on his guard," he said, addressing himself to his wife.
+
+"Indeed, I shall do no such thing," said she; "if they are two fools,
+they must, like other fools, pay the price of their folly."  As a rule
+there could be no softer creature than Mrs. Mackinnon; but it seemed to
+me that her tenderness never extended itself in the direction of Mrs.
+Talboys.
+
+Just at this time, towards the end, that is, of November, we made a party
+to visit the tombs which lie along the Appian Way, beyond that most
+beautiful of all sepulchres, the tomb of Cecilia Metella.  It was a
+delicious day, and we had driven along this road for a couple of miles
+beyond the walls of the city, enjoying the most lovely view which the
+neighbourhood of Rome affords,--looking over the wondrous ruins of the
+old aqueducts, up towards Tivoli and Palestrina.  Of all the environs of
+Rome this is, on a fair clear day, the most enchanting; and here perhaps,
+among a world of tombs, thoughts and almost memories of the old, old days
+come upon one with the greatest force.  The grandeur of Rome is best seen
+and understood from beneath the walls of the Coliseum, and its beauty
+among the pillars of the Forum and the arches of the Sacred Way; but its
+history and fall become more palpable to the mind, and more clearly
+realised, out here among the tombs, where the eyes rest upon the
+mountains whose shades were cool to the old Romans as to us,--than
+anywhere within the walls of the city.  Here we look out at the same
+Tivoli and the same Praeneste, glittering in the sunshine, embowered
+among the far-off valleys, which were dear to them; and the blue
+mountains have not crumbled away into ruins.  Within Rome itself we can
+see nothing as they saw it.
+
+Our party consisted of some dozen or fifteen persons, and as a hamper
+with luncheon in it had been left on the grassy slope at the base of the
+tomb of Cecilia Metella, the expedition had in it something of the nature
+of a picnic.  Mrs. Talboys was of course with us, and Ida Talboys.
+O'Brien also was there.  The hamper had been prepared in Mrs. Mackinnon's
+room, under the immediate eye of Mackinnon himself, and they therefore
+were regarded as the dominant spirits of the party.  My wife was leagued
+with Mrs. Mackinnon, as was usually the case; and there seemed to be a
+general opinion among those who were closely in confidence together, that
+something would happen in the O'Brien-Talboys matter.  The two had been
+inseparable on the previous evening, for Mrs. Talboys had been urging on
+the young Irishman her counsels respecting his domestic troubles.  Sir
+Cresswell Cresswell, she had told him, was his refuge.  "Why should his
+soul submit to bonds which the world had now declared to be intolerable?
+Divorce was not now the privilege of the dissolute rich.  Spirits which
+were incompatible need no longer be compelled to fret beneath the same
+cobbles."  In short, she had recommended him to go to England and get rid
+of his wife, as she would, with a little encouragement, have recommended
+any man to get rid of anything.  I am sure that, had she been skilfully
+brought on to the subject, she might have been induced to pronounce a
+verdict against such ligatures for the body as coats, waistcoats, and
+trowsers.  Her aspirations for freedom ignored all bounds, and, in
+theory, there were no barriers which she was not willing to demolish.
+
+Poor O'Brien, as we all now began to see, had taken the matter amiss.  He
+had offered to make a bust of Mrs. Talboys, and she had consented,
+expressing a wish that it might find a place among those who had devoted
+themselves to the enfranchisement of their fellow-creatures.  I really
+think she had but little of a woman's customary personal vanity.  I know
+she had an idea that her eye was lighted up in her warmer moments by some
+special fire, that sparks of liberty shone round her brow, and that her
+bosom heaved with glorious aspirations; but all these feelings had
+reference to her inner genius, not to any outward beauty.  But O'Brien
+misunderstood the woman, and thought it necessary to gaze into her face,
+and sigh as though his heart were breaking.  Indeed he declared to a
+young friend that Mrs. Talboys was perfect in her style of beauty, and
+began the bust with this idea.  It was gradually becoming clear to us all
+that he would bring himself to grief; but in such a matter who can
+caution a man?
+
+Mrs. Mackinnon had contrived to separate them in making the carriage
+arrangements on this day, but this only added fuel to the fire which was
+now burning within O'Brien's bosom.  I believe that he really did love
+her, in his easy, eager, susceptible Irish way.  That he would get over
+the little episode without any serious injury to his heart no one
+doubted; but then, what would occur when the declaration was made?  How
+would Mrs. Talboys bear it?
+
+"She deserves it," said Mrs. Mackinnon.
+
+"And twice as much," my wife added.  Why is it that women are so spiteful
+to each other?
+
+Early in the day Mrs. Talboys clambered up to the top of a tomb, and made
+a little speech, holding a parasol over her head.  Beneath her feet, she
+said, reposed the ashes of some bloated senator, some glutton of the
+empire, who had swallowed into his maw the provision necessary for a
+tribe.  Old Rome had fallen through such selfishness as that; but new
+Rome would not forget the lesson.  All this was very well, and then
+O'Brien helped her down; but after this there was no separating them.
+For her own part she would sooner have had Mackinnon at her elbow.  But
+Mackinnon now had found some other elbow.
+
+"Enough of that was as good as a feast," he had said to his wife.  And
+therefore Mrs. Talboys, quite unconscious of evil, allowed herself to be
+engrossed by O'Brien.
+
+And then, about three o'clock, we returned to the hamper.  Luncheon under
+such circumstances always means dinner, and we arranged ourselves for a
+very comfortable meal.  To those who know the tomb of Cecilia Metella no
+description of the scene is necessary, and to those who do not, no
+description will convey a fair idea of its reality.  It is itself a large
+low tower of great diameter, but of beautiful proportion, standing far
+outside the city, close on to the side of the old Roman way.  It has been
+embattled on the top by some latter-day baron, in order that it might be
+used for protection to the castle, which has been built on and attached
+to it.  If I remember rightly, this was done by one of the Frangipani,
+and a very lovely ruin he has made of it.  I know no castellated old
+tumble-down residence in Italy more picturesque than this baronial
+adjunct to the old Roman tomb, or which better tallies with the ideas
+engendered within our minds by Mrs. Radcliffe and the Mysteries of
+Udolpho.  It lies along the road, protected on the side of the city by
+the proud sepulchre of the Roman matron, and up to the long ruined walls
+of the back of the building stretches a grassy slope, at the bottom of
+which are the remains of an old Roman circus.  Beyond that is the long,
+thin, graceful line of the Claudian aqueduct, with Soracte in the
+distance to the left, and Tivoli, Palestine, and Frascati lying among the
+hills which bound the view.  That Frangipani baron was in the right of
+it, and I hope he got the value of his money out of the residence which
+he built for himself.  I doubt, however, that he did but little good to
+those who lived in his close neighbourhood.
+
+We had a very comfortable little banquet seated on the broken lumps of
+stone which lie about under the walls of the tomb.  I wonder whether the
+shade of Cecilia Metella was looking down upon us.  We have heard much of
+her in these latter days, and yet we know nothing about her, nor can
+conceive why she was honoured with a bigger tomb than any other Roman
+matron.  There were those then among our party who believed that she
+might still come back among us, and with due assistance from some cognate
+susceptible spirit, explain to us the cause of her widowed husband's
+liberality.  Alas, alas! if we may judge of the Romans by ourselves, the
+true reason for such sepulchral grandeur would redound little to the
+credit of the lady Cecilia Metella herself, or to that of Crassus, her
+bereaved and desolate lord.
+
+She did not come among us on the occasion of this banquet, possibly
+because we had no tables there to turn in preparation for her presence;
+but, had she done so, she could not have been more eloquent of things of
+the other world than was Mrs. Talboys.  I have said that Mrs. Talboys'
+eye never glanced more brightly after a glass of champagne, but I am
+inclined to think that on this occasion it may have done so.  O'Brien
+enacted Ganymede, and was, perhaps, more liberal than other latter-day
+Ganymedes, to whose services Mrs. Talboys had been accustomed.  Let it
+not, however, be suspected by any one that she exceeded the limits of a
+discreet joyousness.  By no means!  The generous wine penetrated,
+perhaps, to some inner cells of her heart, and brought forth thoughts in
+sparkling words, which otherwise might have remained concealed; but there
+was nothing in what she thought or spoke calculated to give umbrage
+either to an anchorite or to a vestal.  A word or two she said or sung
+about the flowing bowl, and once she called for Falernian; but beyond
+this her converse was chiefly of the rights of man and the weakness of
+women; of the iron ages that were past, and of the golden time that was
+to come.
+
+She called a toast and drank to the hopes of the latter historians of the
+nineteenth century.  Then it was that she bade O'Brien "Fill high the
+bowl with Samian wine."  The Irishman took her at her word, and she
+raised the bumper, and waved it over her head before she put it to her
+lips.  I am bound to declare that she did not spill a drop.  "The true
+'Falernian grape,'" she said, as she deposited the empty beaker on the
+grass beneath her elbow.  Viler champagne I do not think I ever
+swallowed; but it was the theory of the wine, not its palpable body
+present there, as it were, in the flesh, which inspired her.  There was
+really something grand about her on that occasion, and her enthusiasm
+almost amounted to reality.
+
+Mackinnon was amused, and encouraged her, as, I must confess, did I also.
+Mrs. Mackinnon made useless little signs to her husband, really fearing
+that the Falernian would do its good offices too thoroughly.  My wife,
+getting me apart as I walked round the circle distributing viands,
+remarked that "the woman was a fool, and would disgrace herself."  But I
+observed that after the disposal of that bumper she worshipped the rosy
+god in theory only, and therefore saw no occasion to interfere.  "Come,
+Bacchus," she said; "and come, Silenus, if thou wilt; I know that ye are
+hovering round the graves of your departed favourites.  And ye, too,
+nymphs of Egeria," and she pointed to the classic grove which was all but
+close to us as we sat there.  "In olden days ye did not always despise
+the abodes of men.  But why should we invoke the presence of the
+gods,--we, who can become godlike ourselves!  We ourselves are the
+deities of the present age.  For us shall the tables be spread with
+ambrosia; for us shall the nectar flow."
+
+Upon the whole it was very good fooling,--for awhile; and as soon as we
+were tired of it we arose from our seats, and began to stroll about the
+place.  It was beginning to be a little dusk, and somewhat cool, but the
+evening air was pleasant, and the ladies, putting on their shawls, did
+not seem inclined at once to get into the carriages.  At any rate, Mrs.
+Talboys was not so inclined, for she started down the hill towards the
+long low wall of the old Roman circus at the bottom; and O'Brien, close
+at her elbow, started with her.
+
+"Ida, my dear, you had better remain here," she said to her daughter;
+"you will be tired if you come as far as we are going."
+
+"Oh, no, mamma, I shall not," said Ida.  "You get tired much quicker than
+I do."
+
+"Oh, yes, you will; besides I do not wish you to come."  There was an end
+of it for Ida, and Mrs. Talboys and O'Brien walked off together, while we
+all looked into each other's faces.
+
+"It would be a charity to go with them," said Mackinnon.
+
+"Do you be charitable, then," said his wife.
+
+"It should be a lady," said he.
+
+"It is a pity that the mother of the spotless cherubim is not here for
+the occasion," said she.  "I hardly think that any one less gifted will
+undertake such a self sacrifice."  Any attempt of the kind would,
+however, now have been too late, for they were already at the bottom of
+the hill.  O'Brien had certainly drunk freely of the pernicious contents
+of those long-necked bottles; and though no one could fairly accuse him
+of being tipsy, nevertheless that which might have made others drunk had
+made him bold, and he dared to do--perhaps more than might become a man.
+If under any circumstances he could be fool enough to make an avowal of
+love to Mrs. Talboys, he might be expected, as we all thought, to do it
+now.
+
+We watched them as they made for a gap in the wall which led through into
+the large enclosed space of the old circus.  It had been an arena for
+chariot games, and they had gone down with the avowed purpose of
+searching where might have been the meta, and ascertaining how the
+drivers could have turned when at their full speed.  For awhile we had
+heard their voices,--or rather her voice especially.  "The heart of a
+man, O'Brien, should suffice for all emergencies," we had heard her say.
+She had assumed a strange habit of calling men by their simple names, as
+men address each other.  When she did this to Mackinnon, who was much
+older than herself, we had been all amused by it, and, other ladies of
+our party had taken to call him "Mackinnon" when Mrs. Talboys was not by;
+but we had felt the comedy to be less safe with O'Brien, especially when,
+on one occasion, we heard him address her as Arabella.  She did not seem
+to be in any way struck by his doing so, and we supposed, therefore, that
+it had become frequent between them.  What reply he made at the moment
+about the heart of a man I do not know;--and then in a few minutes they
+disappeared through the gap in the wall.
+
+None of us followed them, though it would have seemed the most natural
+thing in the world to do so had nothing out of the way been expected.  As
+it was we remained there round the tomb quizzing the little foibles of
+our dear friend, and hoping that O'Brien would be quick in what he was
+doing.  That he would undoubtedly get a slap in the
+face--metaphorically--we all felt certain, for none of us doubted the
+rigid propriety of the lady's intentions.  Some of us strolled into the
+buildings, and some of us got out on to the road; but we all of us were
+thinking that O'Brien was very slow a considerable time before we saw
+Mrs. Talboys reappear through the gap.
+
+At last, however, she was there, and we at once saw that she was alone.
+She came on, breasting the hill with quick steps, and when she drew near
+we could see that there was a frown as of injured majesty on her brow.
+Mackinnon and his wife went forward to meet her.  If she were really in
+trouble it would be fitting in some way to assist her; and of all women
+Mrs. Mackinnon was the last to see another woman suffer from ill-usage
+without attempting to aid her.  "I certainly never liked her," Mrs.
+Mackinnon said afterwards; "but I was bound to go and hear her tale, when
+she really had a tale to tell."
+
+And Mrs. Talboys now had a tale to tell,--if she chose to tell it.  The
+ladies of our party declared afterwards that she would have acted more
+wisely had she kept to herself both O'Brien's words to her and her
+answer.  "She was well able to take care of herself," Mrs. Mackinnon
+said; "and, after all, the silly man had taken an answer when he got it."
+Not, however, that O'Brien had taken his answer quite immediately, as far
+as I could understand from what we heard of the matter afterwards.
+
+At the present moment Mrs. Talboys came up the rising ground all alone,
+and at a quick pace.  "The man has insulted me," she said aloud, as well
+as her panting breath would allow her, and as soon as she was near enough
+to Mrs. Mackinnon to speak to her.
+
+"I am sorry for that," said Mrs. Mackinnon.  "I suppose he has taken a
+little too much wine."
+
+"No; it was a premeditated insult.  The base-hearted churl has failed to
+understand the meaning of true, honest sympathy."
+
+"He will forget all about it when he is sober," said Mackinnon, meaning
+to comfort her.
+
+"What care I what he remembers or what he forgets!" she said, turning
+upon poor Mackinnon indignantly.  "You men grovel so in your ideas--"
+"And yet," as Mackinnon said afterwards, "she had been telling me that I
+was a fool for the last three weeks."--"You men grovel so in your ideas,
+that you cannot understand the feelings of a true-hearted woman.  What
+can his forgetfulness or his remembrance be to me?  Must not I remember
+this insult?  Is it possible that I should forget it?"
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Mackinnon only had gone forward to meet her; but,
+nevertheless, she spoke so loud that all heard her who were still
+clustered round the spot on which we had dined.
+
+"What has become of Mr. O'Brien?" a lady whispered to me.
+
+I had a field-glass with me, and, looking round, I saw his hat as he was
+walking inside the walls of the circus in the direction towards the city.
+"And very foolish he must feel," said the lady.
+
+"No doubt he is used to it," said another.
+
+"But considering her age, you know," said the first, who might have been
+perhaps three years younger than Mrs. Talboys, and who was not herself
+averse to the excitement of a moderate flirtation.  But then why should
+she have been averse, seeing that she had not as yet become subject to
+the will of any imperial lord?
+
+"He would have felt much more foolish," said the third, "if she had
+listened to what he said to her."
+
+"Well I don't know," said the second; "nobody would have known anything
+about it then, and in a few weeks they would have gradually become tired
+of each other in the ordinary way."
+
+But in the meantime Mrs. Talboys was among us.  There had been no attempt
+at secresy, and she was still loudly inveighing against the grovelling
+propensities of men.  "That's quite true, Mrs. Talboys," said one of the
+elder ladies; "but then women are not always so careful as they should
+be.  Of course I do not mean to say that there has been any fault on your
+part."
+
+"Fault on my part!  Of course there has been fault on my part.  No one
+can make any mistake without fault to some extent.  I took him to be a
+man of sense, and he is a fool.  Go to Naples indeed!"
+
+"Did he want you to go to Naples?" asked Mrs. Mackinnon.
+
+"Yes; that was what he suggested.  We were to leave by the train for
+Civita Vecchia at six to-morrow morning and catch the steamer which
+leaves Leghorn to-night.  Don't tell me of wine.  He was prepared for
+it!"  And she looked round about on us with an air of injured majesty in
+her face which was almost insupportable.
+
+"I wonder whether he took the tickets over-night," said Mackinnon.
+
+"Naples!" she said, as though now speaking exclusively to herself; "the
+only ground in Italy which has as yet made no struggle on behalf of
+freedom;--a fitting residence for such a dastard!"
+
+"You would have found it very pleasant at this season," said the
+unmarried lady, who was three years her junior.
+
+My wife had taken Ida out of the way when the first complaining note from
+Mrs. Talboys had been heard ascending the hill.  But now, when matters
+began gradually to become quiescent, she brought her back, suggesting, as
+she did so, that they might begin to think of returning.
+
+"It is getting very cold, Ida, dear, is it not?" said she.
+
+"But where is Mr. O'Brien?" said Ida.
+
+"He has fled,--as poltroons always fly," said Mrs. Talboys.  I believe in
+my heart that she would have been glad to have had him there in the
+middle of the circle, and to have triumphed over him publicly among us
+all.  No feeling of shame would have kept her silent for a moment.
+
+"Fled!" said Ida, looking up into her mother's face.
+
+"Yes, fled, my child."  And she seized her daughter in her arms, and
+pressed her closely to her bosom.  "Cowards always fly."
+
+"Is Mr. O'Brien a coward?" Ida asked.
+
+"Yes, a coward, a very coward!  And he has fled before the glance of an
+honest woman's eye.  Come, Mrs. Mackinnon, shall we go back to the city?
+I am sorry that the amusement of the day should have received this
+check."  And she walked forward to the carriage and took her place in it
+with an air that showed that she was proud of the way in which she had
+conducted herself.
+
+"She is a little conceited about it after all," said that unmarried lady.
+"If poor Mr. O'Brien had not shown so much premature anxiety with
+reference to that little journey to Naples, things might have gone
+quietly after all."
+
+But the unmarried lady was wrong in her judgment.  Mrs. Talboys was proud
+and conceited in the matter,--but not proud of having excited the
+admiration of her Irish lover.  She was proud of her own subsequent
+conduct, and gave herself credit for coming out strongly as a
+noble-minded matron.  "I believe she thinks," said Mrs. Mackinnon, "that
+her virtue is quite Spartan and unique; and if she remains in Rome she'll
+boast of it through the whole winter."
+
+"If she does, she may be certain that O'Brien will do the same," said
+Mackinnon.  "And in spite of his having fled from the field, it is upon
+the cards that he may get the best of it.  Mrs. Talboys is a very
+excellent woman.  She has proved her excellence beyond a doubt.  But,
+nevertheless, she is susceptible of ridicule."
+
+We all felt a little anxiety to hear O'Brien's account of the matter, and
+after having deposited the ladies at their homes, Mackinnon and I went
+off to his lodgings.  At first he was denied to us, but after awhile we
+got his servant to acknowledge that he was at home, and then we made our
+way up to his studio.  We found him seated behind a half-formed model, or
+rather a mere lump of clay punched into something resembling the shape of
+a head, with a pipe in his mouth and a bit of stick in his hand.  He was
+pretending to work, though we both knew that it was out of the question
+that he should do anything in his present frame of mind.
+
+"I think I heard my servant tell you that I was not at home," said he.
+
+"Yes, he did," said Mackinnon, "and would have sworn to it too if we
+would have let him.  Come, don't pretend to be surly."
+
+"I am very busy, Mr. Mackinnon."
+
+"Completing your head of Mrs. Talboys, I suppose, before you start for
+Naples."
+
+"You don't mean to say that she has told you all about it," and he turned
+away from his work, and looked up into our faces with a comical
+expression, half of fun and half of despair.
+
+"Every word of it," said I.  "When you want a lady to travel with you,
+never ask her to get up so early in winter."
+
+"But, O'Brien, how could you be such an ass?" said Mackinnon.  "As it has
+turned out, there is no very great harm done.  You have insulted a
+respectable middle-aged woman, the mother of a family, and the wife of a
+general officer, and there is an end of it;--unless, indeed, the general
+officer should come out from England to call you to account."
+
+"He is welcome," said O'Brien, haughtily.
+
+"No doubt, my dear fellow," said Mackinnon; "that would be a dignified
+and pleasant ending to the affair.  But what I want to know is
+this;--what would you have done if she had agreed to go?"
+
+"He never calculated on the possibility of such a contingency," said I.
+
+"By heavens, then, I thought she would like it," said he.
+
+"And to oblige her you were content to sacrifice yourself," said
+Mackinnon.
+
+"Well, that was just it.  What the deuce is a fellow to do when a woman
+goes on in that way.  She told me down there, upon the old race course
+you know, that matrimonial bonds were made for fools and slaves.  What
+was I to suppose that she meant by that?  But to make all sure, I asked
+her what sort of a fellow the General was.  'Dear old man,' she said,
+clasping her hands together.  'He might, you know, have been my father.'
+'I wish he were,' said I, 'because then you'd be free.'  'I am free,'
+said she, stamping on the ground, and looking up at me as much as to say
+that she cared for no one.  'Then,' said I, 'accept all that is left of
+the heart of Wenceslaus O'Brien,' and I threw myself before her in her
+path.  'Hand,' said I, 'I have none to give, but the blood which runs red
+through my veins is descended from a double line of kings.'  I said that
+because she is always fond of riding a high horse.  I had gotten close
+under the wall, so that none of you should see me from the tower."
+
+"And what answer did she make?" said Mackinnon.
+
+"Why she was pleased as Punch;--gave me both her hands, and declared that
+we would be friends for ever.  It is my belief, Mackinnon, that that
+woman never heard anything of the kind before.  The General, no doubt,
+did it by letter."
+
+"And how was it that she changed her mind?"
+
+"Why; I got up, put my arm round her waist, and told her that we would be
+off to Naples.  I'm blest if she didn't give me a knock in the ribs that
+nearly sent me backwards.  She took my breath away, so that I couldn't
+speak to her."
+
+"And then--"
+
+"Oh, there was nothing more.  Of course I saw how it was.  So she walked
+off one way and I the other.  On the whole I consider that I am well out
+of it."
+
+"And so do I," said Mackinnon, very gravely.  "But if you will allow me
+to give you my advice, I would suggest that it would be well to avoid
+such mistakes in future."
+
+"Upon my word," said O'Brien, excusing himself, "I don't know what a man
+is to do under such circumstances.  I give you my honour that I did it
+all to oblige her."
+
+We then decided that Mackinnon should convey to the injured lady the
+humble apology of her late admirer.  It was settled that no detailed
+excuses should be made.  It should be left to her to consider whether the
+deed which had been done might have been occasioned by wine, or by the
+folly of a moment,--or by her own indiscreet enthusiasm.  No one but the
+two were present when the message was given, and therefore we were
+obliged to trust to Mackinnon's accuracy for an account of it.
+
+She stood on very high ground indeed, he said, at first refusing to hear
+anything that he had to say on the matter.  "The foolish young man," she
+declared, "was below her anger and below her contempt."
+
+"He is not the first Irishman that has been made indiscreet by beauty,"
+said Mackinnon.
+
+"A truce to that," she replied, waving her hand with an air of assumed
+majesty.  "The incident, contemptible as it is, has been unpleasant to
+me.  It will necessitate my withdrawal from Rome."
+
+"Oh, no, Mrs. Talboys; that will be making too much of him."
+
+"The greatest hero that lives," she answered, "may have his house made
+uninhabitable by a very small insect."  Mackinnon swore that those were
+her own words.  Consequently a sobriquet was attached to O'Brien of which
+he by no means approved.  And from that day we always called Mrs. Talboys
+"the hero."
+
+Mackinnon prevailed at last with her, and she did not leave Rome.  She
+was even induced to send a message to O'Brien, conveying her forgiveness.
+They shook hands together with great eclat in Mrs. Mackinnon's
+drawing-room; but I do not suppose that she ever again offered to him
+sympathy on the score of his matrimonial troubles.
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MRS. GENERAL TALBOYS***
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