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diff --git a/4409.txt b/4409.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a039336 --- /dev/null +++ b/4409.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3554 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of The Ordeal of Richard Feverel by Meredith, v4 +#15 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 distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. 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It is the dull +commonplace man into whose slow brain she drops like a celestial light, +and burns lastingly. The poet, for instance, is a connoisseur of beauty: +to the artist she is a model. These gentlemen by much contemplation of +her charms wax critical. The days when they had hearts being gone, they +are haply divided between the blonde and the brunette; the aquiline nose +and the Proserpine; this shaped eye and that. But go about among simple +unprofessional fellows, boors, dunderheads, and here and there you shall +find some barbarous intelligence which has had just strength enough to +conceive, and has taken Beauty as its Goddess, and knows but one form to +worship, in its poor stupid fashion, and would perish for her. Nay, +more: the man would devote all his days to her, though he is dumb as a +dog. And, indeed, he is Beauty's Dog. Almost every Beauty has her Dog. +The hero possesses her; the poet proclaims her; the painter puts her upon +canvas; and the faithful Old Dog follows her: and the end of it all is +that the faithful Old Dog is her single attendant. Sir Hero is revelling +in the wars, or in Armida's bowers; Mr. Poet has spied a wrinkle; the +brush is for the rose in its season. She turns to her Old Dog then. She +hugs him; and he, who has subsisted on a bone and a pat till there he +squats decrepit, he turns his grateful old eyes up to her, and has not a +notion that she is hugging sad memories in him: Hero, Poet, Painter, in +one scrubby one! Then is she buried, and the village hears languid +howls, and there is a paragraph in the newspapers concerning the +extraordinary fidelity of an Old Dog. + +Excited by suggestive recollections of Nooredeen and the Fair Persian, +and the change in the obscure monotony of his life by his having quarters +in a crack hotel, and living familiarly with West-End people--living on +the fat of the land (which forms a stout portion of an honest youth's +romance), Ripton Thompson breakfasted next morning with his chief at +half-past eight. The meal had been fixed overnight for seven, but Ripton +slept a great deal more than the nightingale, and (to chronicle his exact +state) even half-past eight rather afflicted his new aristocratic senses +and reminded him too keenly of law and bondage. He had preferred to +breakfast at Algernon's hour, who had left word for eleven. Him, +however, it was Richard's object to avoid, so they fell to, and Ripton no +longer envied Hippias in bed. Breakfast done, they bequeathed the +consoling information for Algernon that they were off to hear a popular +preacher, and departed. + +"How happy everybody looks!" said Richard, in the quiet Sunday streets. + +"Yes--jolly!" said Ripton. + +"When I'm--when this is over, I'll see that they are, too--as many as I +can make happy," said the hero; adding softly: "Her blind was down at a +quarter to six. I think she slept well!" + +"You've been there this morning?" Ripton exclaimed; and an idea of what +love was dawned upon his dull brain. + +"Will she see me, Ricky?" + +"Yes. She'll see you to-day. She was tired last night." + +"Positively?" + +Richard assured him that the privilege would be his. + +"Here," he said, coming under some trees in the park, "here's where I +talked to you last night. What a time it seems! How I hate the night!" + +On the way, that Richard might have an exalted opinion of him, Ripton +hinted decorously at a somewhat intimate and mysterious acquaintance with +the sex. Headings of certain random adventures he gave. + +"Well!" said his chief, "why not marry her?" + +Then was Ripton shocked, and cried, "Oh!" and had a taste of the feeling +of superiority, destined that day to be crushed utterly. + +He was again deposited in Mrs. Berry's charge for a term that caused him +dismal fears that the Fair Persian still refused to show her face, but +Richard called out to him, and up Ripton went, unaware of the +transformation he was to undergo. Hero and Beauty stood together to +receive him. From the bottom of the stairs he had his vivaciously +agreeable smile ready for them, and by the time he entered the room his +cheeks were painfully stiff, and his eyes had strained beyond their exact +meaning. Lucy, with one hand anchored to her lover, welcomed him kindly. +He relieved her shyness by looking so extremely silly. They sat down, +and tried to commence a conversation, but Ripton was as little master of +his tongue as he was of his eyes. After an interval, the Fair Persian +having done duty by showing herself, was glad to quit the room. Her lord +and possessor then turned inquiringly to Ripton. + +"You don't wonder now, Rip?" he said. + +"No, Richard!" Ripton waited to reply with sufficient solemnity, "indeed +I don't!" + +He spoke differently; he looked differently. He had the Old Dog's eyes +in his head. They watched the door she had passed through; they listened +for her, as dogs' eyes do. When she came in, bonneted for a walk, his +agitation was dog-like. When she hung on her lover timidly, and went +forth, he followed without an idea of envy, or anything save the secret +raptures the sight of her gave him, which are the Old Dog's own. For +beneficent Nature requites him: His sensations cannot be heroic, but they +have a fulness and a wagging delight as good in their way. And this +capacity for humble unaspiring worship has its peculiar guerdon. When +Ripton comes to think of Miss Random now, what will he think of himself? +Let no one despise the Old Dog. Through him doth Beauty vindicate her +sex. + +It did not please Ripton that others should have the bliss of beholding +her, and as, to his perceptions, everybody did, and observed her +offensively, and stared, and turned their heads back, and interchanged +comments on her, and became in a minute madly in love with her, he had to +smother low growls. They strolled about the pleasant gardens of +Kensington all the morning, under the young chestnut buds, and round the +windless waters, talking, and soothing the wild excitement of their +hearts. If Lucy spoke, Ripton pricked up his ears. She, too, made the +remark that everybody seemed to look happy, and he heard it with thrills +of joy. "So everybody is, where you are!" he would have wished to say, +if he dared, but was restrained by fears that his burning eloquence would +commit him. Ripton knew the people he met twice. It would have been +difficult to persuade him they were the creatures of accident. + +From the Gardens, in contempt of Ripton's frowned protest, Richard boldly +struck into the park, where solitary carriages were beginning to perform +the circuit. Here Ripton had some justification for his jealous pangs. +The young girl's golden locks of hair; her sweet, now dreamily sad, face; +her gentle graceful figure in the black straight dress she wore; a sort +of half-conventual air she had--a mark of something not of class, that +was partly beauty's, partly maiden innocence growing conscious, partly +remorse at her weakness and dim fear of the future it was sowing--did +attract the eye-glasses. Ripton had to learn that eyes are bearable, but +eye-glasses an abomination. They fixed a spell upon his courage; for +somehow the youth had always ranked them as emblems of our nobility, and +hearing two exquisite eye-glasses, who had been to front and rear several +times, drawl in gibberish generally imputed to lords, that his heroine +was a charming little creature, just the size, but had no style,--he was +abashed; he did not fly at them and tear them. He became dejected. +Beauty's dog is affected by the eye-glass in a manner not unlike the +common animal's terror of the human eye. + +Richard appeared to hear nothing, or it was homage that he heard. He +repeated to Lucy Diaper Sandoe's verses-- + + "The cockneys nod to each other aside, + The coxcombs lift their glasses," + +and projected hiring a horse for her to ride every day in the park, and +shine among the highest. + +They had turned to the West, against the sky glittering through the bare +trees across the water, and the bright-edged rack. The lover, his +imagination just then occupied in clothing earthly glories in celestial, +felt where his senses were sharpest the hand of his darling falter, and +instinctively looked ahead. His uncle Algernon was leisurely jolting +towards them on his one sound leg. The dismembered Guardsman talked to a +friend whose arm supported him, and speculated from time to time on the +fair ladies driving by. The two white faces passed him unobserved. +Unfortunately Ripton, coming behind, went plump upon the Captain's live +toe--or so he pretended, crying, "Confound it, Mr. Thompson! you might +have chosen the other." + +The horrible apparition did confound Ripton, who stammered that it was +extraordinary. + +"Not at all," said Algernon. "Everybody makes up to that fellow. +Instinct, I suppose!" + +He had not to ask for his nephew. Richard turned to face the matter. + +"Sorry I couldn't wait for you this morning, uncle," he said, with the +coolness of relationship. "I thought you never walked so far." + +His voice was in perfect tone--the heroic mask admirable. + +Algernon examined the downcast visage at his side, and contrived to +allude to the popular preacher. He was instantly introduced to Ripton's +sister, Miss Thompson. + +The Captain bowed, smiling melancholy approval of his nephew's choice of +a minister. After a few stray remarks, and an affable salute to Miss +Thompson, he hobbled away, and then the three sealed volcanoes breathed, +and Lucy's arm ceased to be squeezed quite so much up to the heroic +pitch. + +This incident quickened their steps homeward to the sheltering wings of +Mrs. Berry. All that passed between them on the subject comprised a +stammered excuse from Ripton for his conduct, and a good-humoured +rejoinder from Richard, that he had gained a sister by it: at which +Ripton ventured to wish aloud Miss Desborough would only think so, and a +faint smile twitched poor Lucy's lips to please him. She hardly had +strength to reach her cage. She had none to eat of Mrs. Berry's nice +little dinner. To be alone, that she might cry and ease her heart of its +accusing weight of tears, was all she prayed for. Kind Mrs. Berry, +slipping into her bedroom to take off her things, found the fair body in +a fevered shudder, and finished by undressing her completely and putting +her to bed. + +"Just an hour's sleep, or so," the mellifluous woman explained the case +to the two anxious gentlemen. "A quiet sleep and a cup of warm tea goes +for more than twenty doctors, it do--when there's the flutters," she +pursued. "I know it by myself. And a good cry beforehand's better than +the best of medicine." + +She nursed them into a make-believe of eating, and retired to her softer +charge and sweeter babe, reflecting, "Lord! Lord! the three of 'em don't +make fifty! I'm as old as two and a half of 'em, to say the least." +Mrs. Berry used her apron, and by virtue of their tender years took them +all three into her heart. + +Left alone, neither of the young men could swallow a morsel. + +"Did you see the change come over her?" Richard whispered. + +Ripton fiercely accused his prodigious stupidity. + +The lover flung down his knife and fork: "What could I do? If I had said +nothing, we should have been suspected. I was obliged to speak. And she +hates a lie! See! it has struck her down. God forgive me!" + +Ripton affected a serene mind: "It was a fright, Richard," he said. +"That's what Mrs. Berry means by flutters. Those old women talk in that +way. You heard what she said. And these old women know. I'll tell you +what it is. It's this, Richard!--it's because you've got a fool for your +friend!" + +"She regrets it," muttered the lover. "Good God! I think she fears me." +He dropped his face in his hands. + +Ripton went to the window, repeating energetically for his comfort: "It's +because you've got a fool for your friend!" + +Sombre grew the street they had last night aroused. The sun was buried +alive in cloud. Ripton saw himself no more in the opposite window. He +watched the deplorable objects passing on the pavement. His aristocratic +visions had gone like his breakfast. Beauty had been struck down by his +egregious folly, and there he stood--a wretch! + +Richard came to him: "Don't mumble on like that, Rip!" he said. "Nobody +blames you." + +"Ah! you're very kind, Richard," interposed the wretch, moved at the face +of misery he beheld. + +"Listen to me, Rip! I shall take her home to-night. Yes! If she's +happier away from me!--do you think me a brute, Ripton? Rather than have +her shed a tear, I'd!--I'll take her home to-night!" + +Ripton suggested that it was sudden; adding from his larger experience, +people perhaps might talk. + +The lover could not understand what they should talk about, but he said: +"If I give him who came for her yesterday the clue? If no one sees or +hears of me, what can they say? O Rip! I'll give her up. I'm wrecked +for ever! What of that? Yes--let them take her! The world in arms +should never have torn her from me, but when she cries--Yes! all's over. +I'll find him at once." + +He searched in out-of-the-way corners for the hat of resolve. Ripton +looked on, wretcheder than ever. + +The idea struck him:--"Suppose, Richard, she doesn't want to go?" + +It was a moment when, perhaps, one who sided with parents and guardians +and the old wise world, might have inclined them to pursue their +righteous wretched course, and have given small Cupid a smack and sent +him home to his naughty Mother. Alas!(it is The Pilgrim's Scrip +interjecting) women are the born accomplices of mischief! In bustles +Mrs. Berry to clear away the refection, and finds the two knights helmed, +and sees, though 'tis dusk, that they wear doubtful brows, and guesses +bad things for her dear God Hymen in a twinkling. + +"Dear! dear!" she exclaimed, "and neither of you eaten a scrap! And +there's my dear young lady off into the prettiest sleep you ever see!" + +"Ha?" cried the lover, illuminated. + +"Soft as a baby!" Mrs. Berry averred. "I went to look at her this very +moment, and there's not a bit of trouble in her breath. It come and it +go like the sweetest regular instrument ever made. The Black Ox haven't +trod on her foot yet! Most like it was the air of London. But only +fancy, if you had called in a doctor! Why, I shouldn't have let her take +any of his quackery. Now, there!" + +Ripton attentively observed his chief, and saw him doff his hat with a +curious caution, and peer into its recess, from which, during Mrs. +Berry's speech, he drew forth a little glove--dropped there by some freak +of chance. + +"Keep me, keep me, now you have me!" sang the little glove, and amused +the lover with a thousand conceits. + +"When will she wake, do you think, Mrs. Berry?" he asked. + +"Oh! we mustn't go for disturbing her," said the guileful good creature. +"Bless ye! let her sleep it out. And if you young gentlemen was to take +my advice, and go and take a walk for to get a appetite--everybody should +eat! it's their sacred duty, no matter what their feelings be! and I say +it who'm no chicken!--I'll frickashee this--which is a chicken--against +your return. I'm a cook, I can assure ye!" + +The lover seized her two hands. "You're the best old soul in the world!" +he cried. Mrs. Berry appeared willing to kiss him. "We won't disturb +her. Let her sleep. Keep her in bed, Mrs. Berry. Will you? And we'll +call to inquire after her this evening, and come and see her to-morrow. +I'm sure you'll be kind to her. There! there!" Mrs. Berry was preparing +to whimper. "I trust her to you, you see. Good-bye, you dear old soul." + +He smuggled a handful of gold into her keeping, and went to dine with his +uncles, happy and hungry. + +Before they reached the hotel, they had agreed to draw Mrs. Berry into +their confidence, telling her (with embellishments) all save their names, +so that they might enjoy the counsel and assistance of that trump of a +woman, and yet have nothing to fear from her. Lucy was to receive the +name of Letitia, Ripton's youngest and best-looking sister. The +heartless fellow proposed it in cruel mockery of an old weakness of hers. + +"Letitia!" mused Richard. "I like the name. Both begin with L. There's +something soft--womanlike--in the L.'s." + +Material Ripton remarked that they looked like pounds on paper. The +lover roamed through his golden groves. "Lucy Feverel! that sounds +better! I wonder where Ralph is. I should like to help him. He's in +love with my cousin Clare. He'll never do anything till he marries. No +man can. I'm going to do a hundred things when it's over. We shall +travel first. I want to see the Alps. One doesn't know what the earth +is till one has seen the Alps. What a delight it will be to her! I +fancy I see her eyes gazing up at them. + + 'And oh, your dear blue eyes, that heavenward glance + With kindred beauty, banished humbleness, + Past weeping for mortality's distress-- + Yet from your soul a tear hangs there in trance. + And fills, but does not fall; + Softly I hear it call + At heaven's gate, till Sister Seraphs press + To look on you their old love from the skies: + Those are the eyes of Seraphs bright on your blue eyes! + +"Beautiful! These lines, Rip, were written by a man who was once a friend +of my father's. I intend to find him and make them friends again. You +don't care for poetry. It's no use your trying to swallow it, Rip!" + +"It sounds very nice," said Ripton, modestly shutting his mouth. + +"The Alps! Italy! Rome! and then I shall go to the East," the hero +continued. "She's ready to go anywhere with me, the dear brave heart! +Oh, the glorious golden East! I dream of the desert. I dream I'm chief +of an Arab tribe, and we fly all white in the moonlight on our mares, and +hurry to the rescue of my darling! And we push the spears, and we +scatter them, and I come to the tent where she crouches, and catch her to +my saddle, and away!--Rip! what a life!" + +Ripton strove to imagine he could enjoy it. + +"And then we shall come home, and I shall lead Austin's life, with her to +help me. First be virtuous, Rip! and then serve your country heart and +soul. A wise man told me that. I think I shall do something." + +Sunshine and cloud, cloud and sunshine, passed over the lover. Now life +was a narrow ring; now the distances extended, were winged, flew +illimitably. An hour ago and food was hateful. Now he manfully +refreshed his nature, and joined in Algernon's encomiums on Miss Letitia +Thompson. + +Meantime Beauty slept, watched by the veteran volunteer of the hero's +band. Lucy awoke from dreams which seemed reality, to the reality which +was a dream. She awoke calling for some friend, "Margaret!" and heard +one say, "My name is Bessy Berry, my love! not Margaret." Then she +asked piteously where she was, and where was Margaret, her dear friend, +and Mrs. Berry whispered, "Sure you've got a dearer!" + +"Ah!" sighed Lucy, sinking on her pillow, overwhelmed by the strangeness +of her state. + +Mrs. Berry closed the frill of her nightgown and adjusted the bedclothes +quietly. + +Her name was breathed. + +"Yes, my love?" she said. + +"Is he here?" + +"He's gone, my dear." + +"Gone?--Oh, where?" The young girl started up in disorder. + +"Gone, to be back, my love! Ah! that young gentleman!" Mrs. Berry +chanted: "Not a morsel have he eat; not a drop have he drunk!" + +"O Mrs. Berry! why did you not make him?" Lucy wept for the famine-struck +hero, who was just then feeding mightily. + +Mrs. Berry explained that to make one eat who thought the darling of his +heart like to die, was a sheer impossibility for the cleverest of women; +and on this deep truth Lucy reflected, with her eyes wide at the candle. +She wanted one to pour her feelings out to. She slid her hand from under +the bedclothes, and took Mrs. Berry's, and kissed it. The good creature +required no further avowal of her secret, but forthwith leaned her +consummate bosom to the pillow, and petitioned heaven to bless them +both!--Then the little bride was alarmed, and wondered how Mrs. Berry +could have guessed it. + +"Why," said Mrs. Berry, "your love is out of your eyes, and out of +everything ye do." And the little bride wondered more. She thought she +had been so very cautious not to betray it. The common woman in them +made cheer together after their own April fashion. Following which Mrs. +Berry probed for the sweet particulars of this beautiful love-match; but +the little bride's lips were locked. She only said her lover was above +her in station. + +"And you're a Catholic, my dear!" + +"Yes, Mrs. Berry!" + +"And him a Protestant." + +"Yes, Mrs. Berry!" + +"Dear, dear!--And why shouldn't ye be?" she ejaculated, seeing sadness +return to the bridal babe. "So as you was born, so shall ye be! But +you'll have to make your arrangements about the children. The girls to +worship with yet, the boys with him. It's the same God, my dear! You +mustn't blush at it, though you do look so pretty. If my young gentleman +could see you now!" + +"Please, Mrs. Berry!" Lucy murmured. + +"Why, he will, you know, my dear!" + +"Oh, please, Mrs. Berry!" + +"And you that can't bear the thoughts of it! Well, I do wish there was +fathers and mothers on both sides and dock-ments signed, and bridesmaids, +and a breakfast! but love is love, and ever will be, in spite of them." + +She made other and deeper dives into the little heart, but though she +drew up pearls, they were not of the kind she searched for. The one fact +that hung as a fruit upon her tree of Love, Lucy had given her; she would +not, in fealty to her lover, reveal its growth and history, however sadly +she yearned to pour out all to this dear old Mother Confessor. + +Her conduct drove Mrs. Berry from the rosy to the autumnal view of +matrimony, generally heralded by the announcement that it is a lottery. + +"And when you see your ticket," said Mrs. Berry, "you shan't know whether +it's a prize or a blank. And, Lord knows! some go on thinking it's a +prize when it turns on 'em and tears 'em. I'm one of the blanks, my +dear! I drew a blank in Berry. He was a black Berry to me, my dear! +Smile away! he truly was, and I a-prizin' him as proud as you can +conceive! My dear!" Mrs. Berry pressed her hands flat on her apron. +"We hadn't been a three months man and wife, when that man--it wasn't +the honeymoon, which some can't say--that man--Yes! he kicked me. +His wedded wife he kicked! Ah!" she sighedto Lucy's large eyes, +"I could have borne that. A blow don't touch the heart," the poor +creature tapped her sensitive side. "I went on loving of him, for +I'm a soft one. Tall as a Grenadier he is, and when out of service +grows his moustache. I used to call him my body-guardsman like a +Queen! I flattered him like the fools we women are. For, take my word +for it, my dear, there's nothing here below so vain as a man! That I +know. But I didn't deserve it.... I'm a superior cook .... I did not +deserve that noways." Mrs. Berry thumped her knee, and accentuated up +her climax: "I mended his linen. I saw to his adornments--he called his +clothes, the bad man! I was a servant to him, my dear! and there--it was +nine months--nine months from the day he swear to protect and cherish and +that--nine calendar months, and my gentleman is off with another woman! +Bone of his bone!--pish!" exclaimed Mrs. Berry, reckoning her wrongs over +vividly. "Here's my ring. A pretty ornament! What do it mean? I'm for +tearin' it off my finger a dozen times in the day. It's a symbol? I +call it a tomfoolery for the dead-alive to wear it, that's a widow and +not a widow, and haven't got a name for what she is in any Dixonary, I've +looked, my dear, and"--she spread out her arms--"Johnson haven't got a +name for me!" + +At this impressive woe Mrs. Berry's voice quavered into sobs. Lucy spoke +gentle words to the poor outcast from Johnson. The sorrows of Autumn +have no warning for April. The little bride, for all her tender pity, +felt happier when she had heard her landlady's moving tale of the +wickedness of man, which cast in bright relief the glory of that one hero +who was hers. Then from a short flight of inconceivable bliss, she fell, +shot by one of her hundred Argus-eyed fears. + +"O Mrs. Berry! I'm so young! Think of me--only just seventeen!" + +Mrs. Berry immediately dried her eyes to radiance. "Young, my dear! +Nonsense! There's no so much harm in being young, here and there. I +knew an Irish lady was married at fourteen. Her daughter married close +over fourteen. She was a grandmother by thirty! When any strange man +began, she used to ask him what pattern caps grandmothers wore. They'd +stare! Bless you! the grandmother could have married over and over +again. It was her daughter's fault, not hers, you know." + +"She was three years younger," mused Lucy. + +"She married beneath her, my dear. Ran off with her father's bailiff's +son. 'Ah, Berry!' she'd say, 'if I hadn't been foolish, I should be my +lady now--not Granny!' Her father never forgave her--left all his +estates out of the family." + +"Did her husband always love her?" Lucy preferred to know. + +"In his way, my dear, he did," said Mrs. Berry, coming upon her +matrimonial wisdom. "He couldn't help himself. If he left off, he began +again. She was so clever, and did make him so comfortable. Cook! there +wasn't such another cook out of a Alderman's kitchen; no, indeed! And +she a born lady! That tells ye it's the duty of all women! She had her +saying 'When the parlour fire gets low, put coals on the ketchen fire!' +and a good saying it is to treasure. Such is man! no use in havin' their +hearts if ye don't have their stomachs." + +Perceiving that she grew abstruse, Mrs. Berry added briskly: "You know +nothing about that yet, my dear. Only mind me and mark me: don't neglect +your cookery. Kissing don't last: cookery do!" + +Here, with an aphorism worthy a place in The Pilgrim'S Scrip, she broke +off to go posseting for her dear invalid. Lucy was quite well; very +eager to be allowed to rise and be ready when the knock should come. +Mrs. Berry, in her loving considerateness for the little bride, +positively commanded her to lie down, and be quiet, and submit to be +nursed and cherished. For Mrs. Berry well knew that ten minutes alone +with the hero could only be had while the little bride was in that +unattainable position. + +Thanks to her strategy, as she thought, her object was gained. The night +did not pass before she learnt, from the hero's own mouth, that Mr. +Richards, the father of the hero, and a stern lawyer, was adverse to his +union with this young lady he loved, because of a ward of his, heiress to +an immense property, whom he desired his son to espouse; and because his +darling Letitia was a Catholic--Letitia, the sole daughter of a brave +naval officer deceased, and in the hands of a savage uncle, who wanted to +sacrifice this beauty to a brute of a son. Mrs. Berry listened +credulously to the emphatic narrative, and spoke to the effect that the +wickedness of old people formed the excuse for the wildness of young +ones. The ceremonious administration of oaths of secrecy and devotion +over, she was enrolled in the hero's band, which now numbered three, and +entered upon the duties with feminine energy, for there are no +conspirators like women. Ripton's lieutenancy became a sinecure, his +rank merely titular. He had never been married--he knew nothing about +licences, except that they must be obtained, and were not difficult--he +had not an idea that so many days' warning must be given to the clergyman +of the parish where one of the parties was resident. How should he? All +his forethought was comprised in the ring, and whenever the discussion of +arrangements for the great event grew particularly hot and important, he +would say, with a shrewd nod: "We mustn't forget the ring, you know, Mrs. +Berry!" and the new member was only prevented by natural complacence from +shouting: "Oh, drat ye! and your ring too." Mrs. Berry had acted +conspicuously in fifteen marriages, by banns, and by licence, and to have +such an obvious requisite dinned in her ears was exasperating. They +could not have contracted alliance with an auxiliary more invaluable, an +authority so profound; and they acknowledged it to themselves. The hero +marched like an automaton at her bidding; Lieutenant Thompson was +rejoiced to perform services as errand-boy in the enterprise. + +"It's in hopes you'll be happier than me, I do it," said the devout and +charitable Berry. "Marriages is made in heaven, they say; and if that's +the case, I say they don't take much account of us below!" + +Her own woeful experiences had been given to the hero in exchange for his +story of cruel parents. + +Richard vowed to her that he would henceforth hold it a duty to hunt out +the wanderer from wedded bonds, and bring him back bound and suppliant. + +"Oh, he'll come!" said Mrs. Berry, pursing prophetic wrinkles: "he'll +come of his own accord. Never anywhere will he meet such a cook as Bessy +Berry! And he know her value in his heart of hearts. And I do believe, +when he do come, I shall be opening these arms to him again, and not +slapping his impidence in the face--I'm that soft! I always was--in +matrimony, Mr. Richards!" + +As when nations are secretly preparing for war, the docks and arsenals +hammer night and day, and busy contractors measure time by inches, and +the air hums around: for leagues as it were myriads of bees, so the house +and neighbourhood of the matrimonial soft one resounded in the heroic +style, and knew little of the changes of light decreed by Creation. Mrs. +Berry was the general of the hour. Down to Doctors' Commons she +expedited the hero, instructing him how boldly to face the Law, and fib: +for that the Law never could mist a fib and a bold face. Down the hero +went, and proclaimed his presence. And lo! the Law danced to him its +sedatest lovely bear's-dance. Think ye the Lawless susceptible to him +than flesh and blood? With a beautiful confidence it put the few +familiar questions to him, and nodded to his replies: then stamped the +bond, and took the fee. It must be an old vagabond at heart that can +permit the irrevocable to go so cheap, even to a hero. For only mark him +when he is petitioned by heroes and heroines to undo what he does so +easily! That small archway of Doctors' Commons seems the eye of a +needle, through which the lean purse has a way, somehow, of slipping more +readily than the portly; but once through, all are camels alike, the lean +purse an especially big camel. Dispensing tremendous marriage as it +does, the Law can have no conscience. + +"I hadn't the slightest difficulty," said the exulting hero. + +"Of course not!" returns Mrs. Berry. "It's as easy, if ye're in earnest, +as buying a plum bun." + +Likewise the ambassador of the hero went to claim the promise of the +Church to be in attendance on a certain spot, on a certain day, and there +hear oath of eternal fealty, and gird him about with all its forces: +which the Church, receiving a wink from the Law, obsequiously engaged to +do, for less than the price of a plum-cake. + +Meantime, while craftsmen and skilled women, directed by Mrs. Berry, were +toiling to deck the day at hand, Raynham and Belthorpe slept,--the former +soundly; and one day was as another to them. Regularly every morning a +letter arrived from Richard to his father, containing observations on the +phenomena of London; remarks (mainly cynical) on the speeches and acts of +Parliament; and reasons for not having yet been able to call on the +Grandisons. They were certainly rather monotonous and spiritless. The +baronet did not complain. That cold dutiful tone assured him there was +no internal trouble or distraction. "The letters of a healthful +physique!" he said to Lady Blandish, with sure insight. Complacently he +sat and smiled, little witting that his son's ordeal was imminent, and +that his son's ordeal was to be his own. Hippias wrote that his nephew +was killing him by making appointments which he never kept, and +altogether neglecting him in the most shameless way, so that his +ganglionic centre was in a ten times worse state than when he left +Raynham. He wrote very bitterly, but it was hard to feel compassion for +his offended stomach. + +On the other hand, young Tom Blaize was not forthcoming, and had +despatched no tidings whatever. Farmer Blaize smoked his pipe evening +after evening, vastly disturbed. London was a large place--young Tom +might be lost in it, he thought; and young Tom had his weaknesses. A +wolf at Belthorpe, he was likely to be a sheep in London, as yokels have +proved. But what had become of Lucy? This consideration almost sent +Farmer Blaize off to London direct, and he would have gone had not his +pipe enlightened him. A young fellow might play truant and get into a +scrape, but a young man and a young woman were sure to be heard of, +unless they were acting in complicity. Why, of course, young Tom had +behaved like a man, the rascal! and married her outright there, while he +had the chance. It was a long guess. Still it was the only reasonable +way of accounting for his extraordinary silence, and therefore the farmer +held to it that he had done the deed. He argued as modern men do who +think the hero, the upsetter of ordinary calculations, is gone from us. +So, after despatching a letter to a friend in town to be on the outlook +for son Tom, he continued awhile to smoke his pipe, rather elated than +not, and mused on the shrewd manner he should adopt when Master Honeymoon +did appear. + +Toward the middle of the second week of Richard's absence, Tom Bakewell +came to Raynham for Cassandra, and privately handed a letter to the +Eighteenth Century, containing a request for money, and a round sum. The +Eighteenth Century was as good as her word, and gave Tom a letter in +return, enclosing a cheque on her bankers, amply providing to keep the +heroic engine in motion at a moderate pace. Tom went back, and Raynham +and Lobourne slept and dreamed not of the morrow. The System, wedded to +Time, slept, and knew not how he had been outraged--anticipated by seven +pregnant seasons. For Time had heard the hero swear to that legalizing +instrument, and had also registered an oath. Ah me! venerable Hebrew +Time! he is unforgiving. Half the confusion and fever of the world comes +of this vendetta he declares against the hapless innocents who have once +done him a wrong. They cannot escape him. They will never outlive it. +The father of jokes, he is himself no joke; which it seems the business +of men to discover. + +The days roll round. He is their servant now. Mrs. Berry has a new +satin gown, a beautiful bonnet, a gold brooch, and sweet gloves, +presented to her by the hero, wherein to stand by his bride at the altar +to-morrow; and, instead of being an old wary hen, she is as much a +chicken as any of the party, such has been the magic of these articles. +Fathers she sees accepting the facts produced for them by their children; +a world content to be carved out as it pleases the hero. + +At last Time brings the bridal eve, and is blest as a benefactor. The +final arrangements are made; the bridegroom does depart; and Mrs. Berry +lights the little bride to her bed. Lucy stops on the landing where +there is an old clock eccentrically correct that night. 'Tis the +palpitating pause before the gates of her transfiguration. Mrs. Berry +sees her put her rosy finger on the One about to strike, and touch all +the hours successively till she comes to the Twelve that shall sound +"Wife" in her ears on the morrow, moving her lips the while, and looking +round archly solemn when she has done; and that sight so catches at Mrs. +Berry's heart that, not guessing Time to be the poor child's enemy, she +endangers her candle by folding Lucy warmly in her arms, whimpering; +"Bless you for a darling! you innocent lamb! You shall be happy! You +shall!" + +Old Time gazes grimly ahead. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +Although it blew hard when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, the passage of +that river is commonly calm; calm as Acheron. So long as he gets his +fare, the ferryman does not need to be told whom he carries: he pulls +with a will, and heroes may be over in half-an-hour. Only when they +stand on the opposite bank, do they see what a leap they have taken. The +shores they have relinquished shrink to an infinite remoteness. There +they have dreamed: here they must act. There lie youth and irresolution: +here manhood and purpose. They are veritably in another land: a moral +Acheron divides their life. Their memories scarce seem their own! The +Philosophical Geography (about to be published) observes that each man +has, one time or other, a little Rubicon--a clear or a foul water to +cross. It is asked him: "Wilt thou wed this Fate, and give up all behind +thee?" And "I will," firmly pronounced, speeds him over. The above- +named manuscript authority informs us, that by far the greater number of +caresses rolled by this heroic flood to its sister stream below, are +those of fellows who have repented their pledge, and have tried to swim +back to the bank they have blotted out. For though every man of us may +be a hero for one fatal minute, very few remain so after a day's march +even: and who wonders that Madam Fate is indignant, and wears the +features of the terrible Universal Fate to him? Fail before her, either +in heart or in act, and lo, how the alluring loves in her visage wither +and sicken to what it is modelled on! Be your Rubicon big or small, +clear or foul, it is the same: you shall not return. On--or to Acheron!- +-I subscribe to that saying of The Pilgrim's Scrip: + +"The danger of a little knowledge of things is disputable: but beware the +little knowledge of one's self!" + +Richard Feverel was now crossing the River of his Ordeal. Already the +mists were stealing over the land he had left: his life was cut in two, +and he breathed but the air that met his nostrils. His father, his +father's love, his boyhood and ambition, were shadowy. His poetic dreams +had taken a living attainable shape. He had a distincter impression of +the Autumnal Berry and her household than of anything at Raynham. And +yet the young man loved his father, loved his home: and I daresay Caesar +loved Rome: but whether he did or no, Caesar when he killed the Republic +was quite bald, and the hero we are dealing with is scarce beginning to +feel his despotic moustache. Did he know what he was made of? +Doubtless, nothing at all. But honest passion has an instinct that can +be safer than conscious wisdom. He was an arrow drawn to the head, +flying from the bow. His audacious mendacities and subterfuges did not +strike him as in any way criminal; for he was perfectly sure that the +winning and securing of Lucy would in the end be boisterously approved +of, and in that case, were not the means justified? Not that he took +trouble to argue thus, as older heroes and self-convicting villains are +in the habit of doing; to deduce a clear conscience. Conscience and Lucy +went together. + +It was a soft fair day. The Rubicon sparkled in the morning sun. One of +those days when London embraces the prospect of summer, and troops forth +all its babies. The pavement, the squares, the parks, were early alive +with the cries of young Britain. Violet and primrose girls, and organ +boys with military monkeys, and systematic bands very determined in tone +if not in tune, filled the atmosphere, and crowned the blazing procession +of omnibuses, freighted with business men, Cityward, where a column of +reddish brown smoke,--blown aloft by the South-west, marked the scene of +conflict to which these persistent warriors repaired. Richard had seen +much of early London that morning. His plans were laid. He had taken +care to ensure his personal liberty against accidents, by leaving his +hotel and his injured uncle Hippias at sunrise. To-day or to-morrow his +father was to arrive. Farmer Blaize, Tom Bakewell reported to him, was +raging in town. Another day and she might be torn from him: but to-day +this miracle of creation would be his, and then from those glittering +banks yonder, let them summon him to surrender her who dared! The +position of things looked so propitious that he naturally thought the +powers waiting on love conspired in his behalf. And she, too--since she +must cross this river, she had sworn to him to be brave, and do him +honour, and wear the true gladness of her heart in her face. Without a +suspicion of folly in his acts, or fear of results, Richard strolled into +Kensington Gardens, breakfasting on the foreshadow of his great joy, now +with a vision of his bride, now of the new life opening to him. Mountain +masses of clouds, rounded in sunlight, swung up the blue. The flowering +chestnut pavilions overhead rustled and hummed. A sound in his ears as +of a banner unfolding in the joyful distance lulled him. + +He was to meet his bride at the church at a quarter past eleven. His +watch said a quarter to ten. He strolled on beneath the long-stemmed +trees toward the well dedicated to a saint obscure. Some people were +drinking at the well. A florid lady stood by a younger one, who had a +little silver mug half-way to her mouth, and evinced undisguised dislike +to the liquor of the salutary saint. + +"Drink, child!" said the maturer lady. "That is only your second mug. I +insist upon your drinking three full ones every morning we're in town. +Your constitution positively requires iron!" + +"But, mama," the other expostulated, "it's so nasty. I shall be sick." + +"Drink!" was the harsh injunction. "Nothing to the German waters, my +dear. Here, let me taste." She took the mug and gave it a flying kiss. +"I declare I think it almost nice--not at all objectionable. Pray, taste +it," she said to a gentleman standing below them to act as cup-bearer. + +An unmistakable cis-Rubicon voice replied: "Certainly, if it's good +fellowship; though I confess I don't think mutual sickness a very +engaging ceremony." + +Can one never escape from one's relatives? Richard ejaculated inwardly. + +Without a doubt those people were Mrs. Doria, Clare, and Adrian. He had +them under his eyes. + +Clare, peeping up from her constitutional dose to make sure no man was +near to see the possible consequence of it, was the first to perceive +him. Her hand dropped. + +"Now, pray, drink, and do not fuss!" said Mrs. Doria. + +"Mama!" Clare gasped. + +Richard came forward and capitulated honourably, since retreat was out of +the question. Mrs. Doria swam to meet him: "My own boy! My dear +Richard!" profuse of exclamations. Clare shyly greeted him. Adrian kept +in the background. + +"Why, we were coming for you to-day, Richard," said Mrs. Doria, smiling +effusion; and rattled on, "We want another cavalier. This is delightful! +My dear nephew! You have grown from a boy to a man. And there's down on +his lip! And what brings you here at such an hour in the morning? +Poetry, I suppose! Here, take my, arm, child.--Clare! finish that mug +and thank your cousin for sparing you the third. I always bring her, +when we are by a chalybeate, to take the waters before breakfast. We +have to get up at unearthly hours. Think, my dear boy! Mothers are +sacrifices! And so you've been alone a fortnight with your agreeable +uncle! A charming time of it you must have had! Poor Hippias! what may +be his last nostrum?" + +"Nephew!" Adrian stretched his head round to the couple. "Doses of +nephew taken morning and night fourteen days! And he guarantees that it +shall destroy an iron constitution in a month." + +Richard mechanically shook Adrian's hand as he spoke. + +"Quite well, Ricky?" + +"Yes: well enough," Richard answered. + +"Well?" resumed his vigorous aunt, walking on with him, while Clare and +Adrian followed. "I really never saw you looking so handsome. There's +something about your face--look at me--you needn't blush. You've grown +to an Apollo. That blue buttoned-up frock coat becomes you admirably-- +and those gloves, and that easy neck-tie. Your style is irreproachable, +quite a style of your own! And nothing eccentric. You have the instinct +of dress. Dress shows blood, my dear boy, as much as anything else. +Boy!--you see, I can't forget old habits. You were a boy when I left, +and now!--Do you see any change in him, Clare?" she turned half round to +her daughter. + +"Richard is looking very well, mama," said Clare, glancing at him under +her eyelids. + +"I wish I could say the same of you, my dear.--Take my arm, Richard. Are +you afraid of your aunt? I want to get used to you. Won't it be +pleasant, our being all in town together in the season? How fresh the +Opera will be to you! Austin, I hear, takes stalls. You can come to the +Forey's box when you like. We are staying with the Foreys close by here. +I think it's a little too far out, you know; but they like the +neighbourhood. This is what I have always said: Give him more liberty! +Austin has seen it at last. How do you think Clare looking?" + +The question had to be repeated. Richard surveyed his cousin hastily, +and praised her looks. + +"Pale!" Mrs. Doria sighed. + +"Rather pale, aunt." + +"Grown very much--don't you think, Richard?" + +"Very tall girl indeed, aunt." + +"If she had but a little more colour, my dear Richard! I'm sure I give +her all the iron she can swallow, but that pallor still continues. I +think she does not prosper away from her old companion. She was +accustomed to look up to you, Richard"-- + +"Did you get Ralph's letter, aunt?" Richard interrupted her. + +"Absurd!" Mrs. Doria pressed his arm. "The nonsense of a boy! Why did +you undertake to forward such stuff?" + +"I'm certain he loves her," said Richard, in a serious way. + +The maternal eyes narrowed on him. "Life, my dear Richard, is a game of +cross-purposes," she observed, dropping her fluency, and was rather +angered to hear him laugh. He excused himself by saying that she spoke +so like his father. + +"You breakfast with us," she freshened off again. "The Foreys wish to +see you; the girls are dying to know you. Do you know, you have a +reputation on account of that"--she crushed an intruding adjective-- +"System you were brought up on. You mustn't mind it. For my part, I +think you look a credit to it. Don't be bashful with young women, mind! +As much as you please with the old ones. You know how to behave among +men. There you have your Drawing-room Guide! I'm sure I shall be proud +of you. Am I not?" + +Mrs. Doria addressed his eyes coaxingly. + +A benevolent idea struck Richard, that he might employ the minutes to +spare, in pleading the case of poor Ralph; and, as he was drawn along, he +pulled out his watch to note the precise number of minutes he could +dedicate to this charitable office. + +"Pardon me," said Mrs. Doria. "You want manners, my dear boy. I think +it never happened to me before that a man consulted his watch in my +presence." + +Richard mildly replied that he had an engagement at a particular hour, up +to which he was her servant. + +"Fiddlededee!" the vivacious lady sang. "Now I've got you, I mean to +keep you. Oh! I've heard all about you. This ridiculous indifference +that your father makes so much of! Why, of course, you wanted to see the +world! A strong healthy young man shut up all his life in a lonely +house--no friends, no society, no amusements but those of rustics! Of +course you were indifferent! Your intelligence and superior mind alone +saved you from becoming a dissipated country boor.--Where are the +others?" + +Clare and Adrian came up at a quick pace. + +"My damozel dropped something," Adrian explained. + +Her mother asked what it was. + +"Nothing, mama," said Clare, demurely, and they proceeded as before. + +Overborne by his aunt's fluency of tongue, and occupied in acute +calculation of the flying minutes, Richard let many pass before he edged +in a word for Ralph. When he did, Mrs. Doria stopped him immediately. + +"I must tell you, child, that I refuse to listen to such rank idiotcy." + +"It's nothing of the kind, aunt." + +"The fancy of a boy." + +"He's not a boy. He's half-a-year older than I am!" + +"You silly child! The moment you fall in love, you all think yourselves +men." + +"On my honour, aunt! I believe he loves her thoroughly." + +"Did he tell you so, child?" + +"Men don't speak openly of those things," said Richard. + +"Boys do," said Mrs. Doria. + +"But listen to me in earnest, aunt. I want you to be kind to Ralph. +Don't drive him to--You maybe sorry for it. Let him--do let him write to +her, and see her. I believe women are as cruel as men in these things." + +"I never encourage absurdity, Richard." + +"What objection have you to Ralph, aunt?" + +"Oh, they're both good families. It's not that absurdity, Richard. It +will be to his credit to remember that his first fancy wasn't a +dairymaid." Mrs. Doria pitched her accent tellingly. It did not touch +her nephew. + +"Don't you want Clare ever to marry?" He put the last point of reason to +her. + +Mrs. Doria laughed. "I hope so, child. We must find some comfortable +old gentleman for her." + +"What infamy!" mutters Richard. + +"And I engage Ralph shall be ready to dance at her wedding, or eat a +hearty breakfast--We don't dance at weddings now, and very properly. +It's a horrid sad business, not to be treated with levity.--Is that his +regiment?" she said, as they passed out of the hussar-sentinelled +gardens. "Tush, tush, child! Master Ralph will recover, as--hem! others +have done. A little headache--you call it heartache--and up you rise +again, looking better than ever. No doubt, to have a grain of sense +forced into your brains, you poor dear children! must be painful.. Girls +suffer as much as boys, I assure you. More, for their heads are weaker, +and their appetites less constant. Do I talk like your father now? +Whatever makes the boy fidget at his watch so?" + +Richard stopped short. Time spoke urgently. + +"I must go," he said. + +His face did not seem good for trifling. Mrs. Doria would trifle in +spite. + +"Listen, Clare! Richard is going. He says he has an engagement. What +possible engagement can a young man have at eleven o'clock in the +morning?--unless it's to be married!" Mrs. Doria laughed at the +ingenuity of her suggestion. + +"Is the church handy, Ricky?" said Adrian. "You can still give us half- +an-hour if it is. The celibate hours strike at Twelve." And he also +laughed in his fashion. + +"Won't you stay with us, Richard?" Clare asked. She blushed timidly, and +her voice shook. + +Something indefinite--a sharp-edged thrill in the tones made the burning +bridegroom speak gently to her. + +"Indeed, I would, Clare; I should like to please you, but I have a most +imperative appointment--that is, I promised--I must go. I shall see you +again"-- + +Mrs. Doria, took forcible possession of him. "Now, do come, and don't +waste words. I insist upon your having some breakfast first, and then, +if you really must go, you shall. Look! there's the house. At least you +will accompany your aunt to the door." + +Richard conceded this. She little imagined what she required of him. +Two of his golden minutes melted into nothingness. They were growing to +be jewels of price, one by one more and more precious as they ran, and +now so costly-rare--rich as his blood! not to kindest relations, dearest +friends, could he give another. The die is cast! Ferryman! push off. + +"Good-bye!" he cried, nodding bluffly at the three as one, and fled. + +They watched his abrupt muscular stride through the grounds of the house. +He looked like resolution on the march. Mrs. Doria, as usual with her +out of her brother's hearing, began rating the System. + +"See what becomes of that nonsensical education! The boy really does not +know how to behave like a common mortal. He has some paltry appointment, +or is mad after some ridiculous idea of his own, and everything must be +sacrificed to it! That's what Austin calls concentration of the +faculties. I think it's more likely to lead to downright insanity than +to greatness of any kind. And so I shall tell Austin. It's time he +should be spoken to seriously about him." + +"He's an engine, my dear aunt," said Adrian. "He isn't a boy, or a man, +but an engine. And he appears to have been at high pressure since he +came to town--out all day and half the night." + +"He's mad!" Mrs. Doria interjected. + +"Not at all. Extremely shrewd is Master Ricky, and carries as open an +eye ahead of him as the ships before Troy. He's more than a match for +any of us. He is for me, I confess." + +"Then," said Mrs. Doria, "he does astonish me!" + +Adrian begged her to retain her astonishment till the right season, which +would not be long arriving. + +Their common wisdom counselled them not to tell the Foreys of their +hopeful relative's ungracious behaviour. Clare had left them. When Mrs. +Doria went to her room her daughter was there, gazing down at something +in her hand, which she guiltily closed. + +In answer to an inquiry why she had not gone to take off her things, +Clare said she was not hungry. Mrs. Doria lamented the obstinacy of a +constitution that no quantity of iron could affect, and eclipsed the +looking-glass, saying: "Take them off here, child, and learn to assist +yourself." + +She disentangled her bonnet from the array of her spreading hair, talking +of Richard, and his handsome appearance, and extraordinary conduct. +Clare kept opening and shutting her hand, in an attitude half-pensive, +half-listless. She did not stir to undress. A joyless dimple hung in +one pale cheek, and she drew long even breaths. + +Mrs. Doria, assured by the glass that she was ready to show, came to her +daughter. + +"Now, really," she said, "you are too helpless, my dear. You cannot do a +thing without a dozen women at your elbow. What will become of you? You +will have to marry a millionaire.--What's the matter with you, child?" + +Clare undid her tight-shut fingers, as if to some attraction of her eyes, +and displayed a small gold hoop on the palm of a green glove. + +"A wedding-ring!" exclaimed Mrs. Doria, inspecting the curiosity most +daintily. + +There on Clare's pale green glove lay a wedding-ring! + +Rapid questions as to where, when, how, it was found, beset Clare, who +replied: "In the Gardens, mama. This morning. When I was walking behind +Richard." + +"Are you sure he did not give it you, Clare?" + +"Oh no, mama! he did not give it me." + +"Of course not! only he does such absurd things!" Ithought, perhaps-- +these boys are so exceedingly ridiculous!" Mrs. Doria had an idea that +it might have been concerted between the two young gentlemen, Richard and +Ralph, that the former should present this token of hymeneal devotion +from the latter to the young lady of his love; but a moment's reflection +exonerated boys even from such preposterous behaviour. + +"Now, I wonder," she speculated on Clare's cold face, "I do wonder +whether it's lucky to find a wedding-ring. What very quick eyes you +have, my darling!" Mrs. Doria kissed her. She thought it must be lucky, +and the circumstance made her feel tender to her child. Her child did +not move to the kiss. + +"Let's see whether it fits," said Mrs. Doria, almost infantine with +surprise and pleasure. + +Clare suffered her glove to be drawn off. The ring slid down her long +thin finger, and settled comfortably. + +"It does!" Mrs. Doria whispered. To find a wedding ring is open to any +woman; but to find a wedding-ring that fits may well cause a +superstitious emotion. Moreover, that it should be found while walking +in the neighbourhood of the identical youth whom a mother has destined +for her daughter, gives significance to the gentle perturbation of ideas +consequent on such a hint from Fortune. + +"It really fits!" she pursued. "Now I never pay any attention to the +nonsense of omens and that kind of thing" (had the ring been a horseshoe +Mrs. Doria would have pinked it up and dragged it obediently home), "but +this, I must say, is odd--to find a ring that fits!--singular! It never +happened to me. Sixpence is the most I ever discovered, and I have it +now. Mind you keep it, Clare--this ring: And," she laughed, "offer it to +Richard when he comes; say, you think he must have dropped it." + +The dimple in Clare's cheek quivered. + +Mother and daughter had never spoken explicitly of Richard. Mrs. Doria, +by exquisite management, had contrived to be sure that on one side there +would be no obstacle to her project of general happiness, without, as she +thought, compromising her daughter's feelings unnecessarily. It could do +no harm to an obedient young girl to hear that there was no youth in the +world like a certain youth. He the prince of his generation, she might +softly consent, when requested, to be his princess; and if never +requested (for Mrs. Doria envisaged failure), she might easily transfer +her softness to squires of lower degree. Clare had always been blindly +obedient to her mother (Adrian called them Mrs. Doria Battledoria and the +fair Shuttlecockiana), and her mother accepted in this blind obedience +the text of her entire character. It is difficult for those who think +very earnestly for their children to know when their children are +thinking on their own account. The exercise of their volition we +construe as revolt. Our love does not like to be invalided and deposed +from its command, and here I think yonder old thrush on the lawn who has +just kicked the last of her lank offspring out of the nest to go shift +for itself, much the kinder of the two, though sentimental people do +shrug their shoulders at these unsentimental acts of the creatures who +never wander from nature. Now, excess of obedience is, to one who +manages most exquisitely, as bad as insurrection. Happily Mrs. Doria saw +nothing in her daughter's manner save a want of iron. Her pallor, her +lassitude, the tremulous nerves in her face, exhibited an imperious +requirement of the mineral. + +"The reason why men and women are mysterious to us, and prove +disappointing," we learn from The Pilgrim's Scrip, "is, that we will read +them from our own book; just as we are perplexed by reading ourselves +from theirs." + +Mrs. Doria read her daughter from her own book, and she was gay; she +laughed with Adrian at the breakfast-table, and mock-seriously joined in +his jocose assertion that Clare was positively and by all hymeneal +auspices betrothed to the owner of that ring, be he who he may, and must, +whenever he should choose to come and claim her, give her hand to him +(for everybody agreed the owner must be masculine, as no woman would drop +a wedding-ring), and follow him whither he listed all the world over. +Amiable giggling Forey girls called Clare, The Betrothed. Dark man, or +fair? was mooted. Adrian threw off the first strophe of Clare's fortune +in burlesque rhymes, with an insinuating gipsy twang. Her aunt Forey +warned her to have her dresses in readiness. Her grandpapa Forey +pretended to grumble at bridal presents being expected from grandpapas. + +This one smelt orange-flower, another spoke solemnly of an old shoe. The +finding of a wedding-ring was celebrated through all the palpitating +accessories and rosy ceremonies involved by that famous instrument. In +the midst of the general hilarity, Clare showed her deplorable want of +iron by bursting into tears. + +Did the poor mocked-at heart divine what might be then enacting? +Perhaps, dimly, as we say: that is, without eyes. + +At an altar stand two fair young creatures, ready with their oaths. They +are asked to fix all time to the moment, and they do so. If there is +hesitation at the immense undertaking, it is but maidenly. She conceives +as little mental doubt of the sanity of the act as he. Over them hangs a +cool young curate in his raiment of office. Behind are two apparently +lucid people, distinguished from each other by sex and age: the foremost +a bunch of simmering black satin; under her shadow a cock-robin in the +dress of a gentleman, big joy swelling out his chest, and pert +satisfaction cocking his head. These be they who stand here in place of +parents to the young couple. All is well. The service proceeds. + +Firmly the bridegroom tells forth his words. This hour of the complacent +giant at least is his, and that he means to hold him bound through the +eternities, men may hear. Clearly, and with brave modesty, speaks she: +no less firmly, though her body trembles: her voice just vibrating while +the tone travels on, like a smitten vase. + +Time hears sentence pronounced on him: the frail hands bind his huge +limbs and lock the chains. He is used to it: he lets them do as they +will. + +Then comes that period when they are to give their troth to each other. +The Man with his right hand takes the Woman by her right hand: the Woman +with her right hand takes the Man by his right hand.--Devils dare not +laugh at whom Angels crowd to contemplate. + +Their hands are joined; their blood flows as one stream. Adam and fair +Eve front the generations. Are they not lovely? Purer fountains of life +were never in two bosoms. + +And then they loose their hands, and the cool curate doth bid the Man to +put a ring on the Woman's fourth finger, counting thumb. And the Man +thrusts his hand into one pocket, and into another, forward and back many +times into all his pockets. He remembers that he felt for it, and felt +it in his waistcoat pocket, when in the Gardens. And his hand comes +forth empty. And the Man is ghastly to look at! + +Yet, though Angels smile, shall not Devils laugh! The curate +deliberates. The black satin bunch ceases to simmer. He in her shadow +changes from a beaming cock-robin to an inquisitive sparrow. Eyes +multiply questions: lips have no reply. Time ominously shakes his chain, +and in the pause a sound of mockery stings their ears. + +Think ye a hero is one to be defeated in his first battle? Look at the +clock! there are but seven minutes to the stroke of the celibate hours: +the veteran is surely lifting his two hands to deliver fire, and his shot +will sunder them in twain so nearly united. All the jewellers of London +speeding down with sacks full of the nuptial circlet cannot save them! + +The battle must be won on the field, and what does the hero now? It is +an inspiration! For who else would dream of such a reserve in the rear? +None see what he does; only that the black-satin bunch is remonstratingly +agitated, stormily shaken, and subdued: and as though the menacing cloud +had opened, and dropped the dear token from the skies at his demand, he +produces the symbol of their consent, and the service proceeds: "With +this ring I thee wed." + +They are prayed over and blest. For good, or for ill, this deed is done. +The names are registered; fees fly right and left: they thank, and +salute, the curate, whose official coolness melts into a smile of +monastic gallantry: the beadle on the steps waves off a gaping world as +they issue forth bridegroom and bridesman recklessly scatter gold on him: +carriage doors are banged to: the coachmen drive off, and the scene +closes, everybody happy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +And the next moment the bride is weeping as if she would dissolve to one +of Dian's Virgin Fountains from the clasp of the Sun-God. She has nobly +preserved the mask imposed by comedies, till the curtain has fallen, and +now she weeps, streams with tears. Have patience, O impetuous young man! +It is your profession to be a hero. This poor heart is new to it, and +her duties involve such wild acts, such brigandage, such terrors and +tasks, she is quite unnerved. She did you honour till now. Bear with +her now. She does not cry the cry of ordinary maidens in like cases. +While the struggle went on her tender face was brave; but, alas! Omens +are against her: she holds an ever-present dreadful one on that fatal +fourth finger of hers, which has coiled itself round her dream of +delight, and takes her in its clutch like a horrid serpent. And yet she +must love it. She dares not part from it. She must love and hug it, and +feed on its strange honey, and all the bliss it gives her casts all the +deeper shadow on what is to come. + +Say: Is it not enough to cause feminine apprehension, for a woman to be +married in another woman's ring? + +You are amazons, ladies, at Saragossa, and a thousand citadels--wherever +there is strife, and Time is to be taken by the throat. Then shall few +men match your sublime fury. But what if you see a vulture, visible only +to yourselves, hovering over the house you are gaily led by the torch to +inhabit? Will you not crouch and be cowards? + +As for the hero, in the hour of victory he pays no heed to omens. He +does his best to win his darling to confidence by caresses. Is she not +his? Is he not hers? And why, when the battle is won, does she weep? +Does she regret what she has done? + +Oh, never! never! her soft blue eyes assure him, steadfast love seen +swimming on clear depths of faith in them, through the shower. + +He is silenced by her exceeding beauty, and sits perplexed waiting for +the shower to pass. + +Alone with Mrs. Berry, in her bedroom, Lucy gave tongue to her distress, +and a second character in the comedy changed her face. + +"O Mrs. Berry! Mrs. Berry! what has happened! what has happened!" + +"My darlin' child!" The bridal Berry gazed at the finger of doleful joy. +"I'd forgot all about it! And that's what've made me feel so queer ever +since, then! I've been seemin' as if I wasn't myself somehow, without my +ring. Dear! dear! what a wilful young gentleman! We ain't a match for +men in that state--Lord help us!" + +Mrs. Berry sat on the edge of a chair: Lucy on the edge of the bed. + +"What do you think of it, Mrs. Berry? Is it not terrible?" + +"I can't say I should 'a liked it myself, my dear," Mrs. Berry candidly +responded. + +"Oh! why, why, why did it happen!" the young bride bent to a flood of +fresh tears, murmuring that she felt already old--forsaken. + +"Haven't you got a comfort in your religion for all accidents?" Mrs. +Berry inquired. + +"None for this. I know it's wrong to cry when I am so happy. I hope he +will forgive me." + +Mrs. Berry vowed her bride was the sweetest, softest, beautifulest thing +in life. + +"I'll cry no more," said Lucy. "Leave me, Mrs. Berry, and come back when +I ring." + +She drew forth a little silver cross, and fell upon her knees to the bed. +Mrs. Berry left the room tiptoe. + +When she was called to return, Lucy was calm and tearless, and smiled +kindly to her. + +"It's over now," she said. + +Mrs. Berry sedately looked for her ring to follow. + +"He does not wish me to go in to the breakfast you have prepared, Mrs. +Berry. I begged to be excused. I cannot eat." + +Mrs. Berry very much deplored it, as she had laid out a superior nuptial +breakfast, but with her mind on her ring she nodded assentingly. + +"We shall not have much packing to do, Mrs. Berry." + +"No, my dear. It's pretty well all done." + +"We are going to the Isle of Wight, Mrs. Berry." + +"And a very suitable spot ye've chose, my dear!" + +"He loves the sea. He wishes to be near it." + +"Don't ye cross to-night, if it's anyways rough, my dear. It isn't +advisable." Mrs. Berry sank her voice to say, "Don't ye be soft and give +way to him there, or you'll both be repenting it." + +Lucy had only been staving off the unpleasantness she had to speak. She +saw Mrs. Berry's eyes pursuing her ring, and screwed up her courage at +last. + +"Mrs. Berry." + +"Yes, my dear." + +"Mrs. Berry, you shall have another ring." + +"Another, my dear?" Berry did not comprehend. "One's quite enough for +the objeck," she remarked. + +"I mean," Lucy touched her fourth finger, "I cannot part with this." She +looked straight at Mrs. Berry. + +That bewildered creature gazed at her, and at the ring, till she had +thoroughly exhausted the meaning of the words, and then exclaimed, +horror-struck: "Deary me, now! you don't say that? You're to be married +again in your own religion." + +The young wife repeated: "I can never part with it." + +"But, my dear!" the wretched Berry wrung her hands, divided between +compassion and a sense of injury. "My dear!" she kept expostulating like +a mute. + +"I know all that you would say, Mrs. Berry. I am very grieved to pain +you. It is mine now, and must be mine. I cannot give it back." + +There she sat, suddenly developed to the most inflexible little heroine +in the three Kingdoms. + +From her first perception of the meaning of the young bride's words, Mrs. +Berry, a shrewd physiognomist, knew that her case was hopeless, unless +she treated her as she herself had been treated, and seized the ring by +force of arms; and that she had not heart for. + +"What!" she gasped faintly, "one's own lawful wedding-ring you wouldn't +give back to a body?" + +"Because it is mine, Mrs. Berry. It was yours, but it is mine now. You +shall have whatever you ask for but that. Pray, forgive me! It must be +so." + +Mrs. Berry rocked on her chair, and sounded her hands together. It +amazed her that this soft little creature could be thus firm. She tried +argument. + +"Don't ye know, my dear, it's the fatalest thing you're inflictin' upon +me, reelly! Don't ye know that bein' bereft of one's own lawful wedding- +ring's the fatalest thing in life, and there's no prosperity after it! +For what stands in place o' that, when that's gone, my dear? And what +could ye give me to compensate a body for the loss o' that? Don't ye +know--Oh, deary me!" The little bride's face was so set that poor Berry +wailed off in despair. + +"I know it," said Lucy. "I know it all. I know what I do to you. Dear, +dear Mrs. Berry! forgive me! If I parted with my ring I know it would be +fatal." + +So this fair young freebooter took possession of her argument as well as +her ring. + +Berry racked her distracted wits for a further appeal. + +"But, my child," she counter-argued, "you don't understand. It ain't as +you think. It ain't a hurt to you now. Not a bit, it ain't. It makes +no difference now! Any ring does while the wearer's a maid. And your +Mr. Richard will find the very ring he intended for ye. And, of course, +that's the one you'll wear as his wife. It's all the same now, my dear. +It's no shame to a maid. Now do--now do--there's a darlin'!" + +Wheedling availed as little as argument. + +"Mrs. Berry," said Lucy, "you know what my--he spoke: 'With this ring I +thee wed.' It was with this ring. Then how could it be with another?" + +Berry was constrained despondently to acknowledge that was logic. + +She hit upon an artful conjecture: + +"Won't it be unlucky your wearin' of the ring which served me so? Think +o' that!" + +"It may! it may! it may!" cried Lucy. + +"And arn't you rushin' into it, my dear?" + +"Mrs. Berry," Lucy said again, "it was this ring. It cannot--it never +can be another. It was this. What it brings me I must bear. I shall +wear it till I die!" + +"Then what am I to do?" the ill-used woman groaned. "What shall I tell +my husband when he come back to me, and see I've got a new ring waitin' +for him? Won't that be a welcome?" + +Quoth Lucy: "How can he know it is not the same; in a plain gold ring?" + +"You never see so keen a eyed man in joolry as my Berry!" returned his +solitary spouse. "Not know, my dear? Why, any one would know that've +got eyes in his head. There's as much difference in wedding-rings as +there's in wedding people! Now, do pray be reasonable, my own sweet!" + +"Pray, do not ask me," pleads Lucy. + +"Pray, do think better of it," urges Berry. + +"Pray, pray, Mrs. Berry!" pleads Lucy. + +"--And not leave your old Berry all forlorn just when you're so happy!" + +"Indeed I would not, you dear, kind old creature!" Lucy faltered. + +Mrs. Berry thought she had her. + +"Just when you're going to be the happiest wife on earth--all you want +yours!" she pursued the tender strain. "A handsome young gentleman! +Love and Fortune smilin' on ye!"-- + +Lucy rose up. + +"Mrs. Berry," she said, "I think we must not lose time in getting ready, +or he will be impatient." + +Poor Berry surveyed her in abject wonder from the edge of her chair. +Dignity and resolve were in the ductile form she had hitherto folded +under her wing. In an hour the heroine had risen to the measure of the +hero. Without being exactly aware what creature she was dealing with, +Berry acknowledged to herself it was not one of the common run, and +sighed, and submitted. + +"It's like a divorce, that it is!" she sobbed. + +After putting the corners of her apron to her eyes, Berry bustled humbly +about the packing. Then Lucy, whose heart was full to her, came and +kissed her, and Berry bumped down and regularly cried. This over, she +had recourse to fatalism. + +"I suppose it was to be, my dear! It's my punishment for meddlin' wi' +such matters. No, I'm not sorry. Bless ye both. Who'd 'a thought you +was so wilful?--you that any one might have taken for one of the silly- +softs! You're a pair, my dear! indeed you are! You was made to meet! +But we mustn't show him we've been crying.--Men don't like it when +they're happy. Let's wash our faces and try to bear our lot." + +So saying the black-satin bunch careened to a renewed deluge. She +deserved some sympathy, for if it is sad to be married in another +person's ring, how much sadder to have one's own old accustomed lawful +ring violently torn off one's finger and eternally severed from one! But +where you have heroes and heroines, these terrible complications ensue. + +They had now both fought their battle of the ring, and with equal honour +and success. + +In the chamber of banquet Richard was giving Ripton his last directions. +Though it was a private wedding, Mrs. Berry had prepared a sumptuous +breakfast. Chickens offered their breasts: pies hinted savoury secrets: +things mystic, in a mash, with Gallic appellatives, jellies, creams, +fruits, strewed the table: as a tower in the midst, the cake colossal: +the priestly vesture of its nuptial white relieved by hymeneal +splendours. + +Many hours, much labour and anxiety of mind, Mrs. Berry had expended upon +this breakfast, and why? There is one who comes to all feasts that have +their basis in Folly, whom criminals of trained instinct are careful to +provide against: who will speak, and whose hateful voice must somehow be +silenced while the feast is going on. This personage is The Philosopher. +Mrs. Berry knew him. She knew that he would come. She provided against +him in the manner she thought most efficacious: that is, by cheating her +eyes and intoxicating her conscience with the due and proper glories +incident to weddings where fathers dilate, mothers collapse, and marriage +settlements are flourished on high by the family lawyer: and had there +been no show of the kind to greet her on her return from the church, she +would, and she foresaw she would, have stared at squalor and emptiness, +and repented her work. The Philosopher would have laid hold of her by +the ear, and called her bad names. Entrenched behind a breakfast-table +so legitimately adorned, Mrs. Berry defied him. In the presence of that +cake he dared not speak above a whisper. And there were wines to drown +him in, should he still think of protesting; fiery wines, and cool: +claret sent purposely by the bridegroom for the delectation of his +friend. + +For one good hour, therefore, the labour of many hours kept him dumb. +Ripton was fortifying himself so as to forget him altogether, and the +world as well, till the next morning. Ripton was excited, overdone with +delight. He had already finished one bottle, and listened, pleasantly +flushed, to his emphatic and more abstemious chief. He had nothing to do +but to listen, and to drink. The hero would not allow him to shout +Victory! or hear a word of toasts; and as, from the quantity of oil +poured on it, his eloquence was becoming a natural force in his bosom, +the poor fellow was afflicted with a sort of elephantiasis of suppressed +emotion. At times he half-rose from his chair, and fell vacuously into +it again; or he chuckled in the face of weighty, severely-worded +instructions; tapped his chest, stretched his arms, yawned, and in short +behaved so singularly that Richard observed it, and said: "On my soul, I +don't think you know a word I'm saying." + +"Every word, Ricky!" Ripton spirted through the opening. "I'm going down +to your governor, and tell him: Sir Austin! Here's your only chance of +being a happy father--no, no!--Oh! don't you fear me, Ricky! I shall +talk the old gentleman over." + +His chief said: + +"Look here. You had better not go down to-night. Go down the first +thing to-morrow, by the six o'clock train. Give him my letter. Listen +to me--give him my letter, and don't speak a word till he speaks. His +eyebrows will go up and down, he won't say much. I know him. If he asks +you about her, don't be a fool, but say what you think of her sensibly"-- + +No cork could hold in Ripton when she was alluded to. He shouted: "She's +an angel!" + +Richard checked him: "Speak sensibly, I say--quietly. You can say how +gentle and good she is--my fleur-de-luce! And say, this was not her +doing. If any one's to blame, it's I. I made her marry me. Then go to +Lady Blandish, if you don't find her at the house. You may say whatever +you please to her. Give her my letter, and tell her I want to hear from +her immediately. She has seen Lucy, and I know what she thinks of her. +You will then go to Farmer Blaize. I told you Lucy happens to be his +niece--she has not lived long there. She lived with her aunt Desborough +in France while she was a child, and can hardly be called a relative to +the farmer--there's not a point of likeness between them. Poor darling! +she never knew her mother. Go to Mr. Blaize, and tell him. You will +treat him just as you would treat any other gentleman. If you are civil, +he is sure to be. And if he abuses me, for my sake and hers you will +still treat him with respect. You hear? And then write me a full +account of all that has been said and done. You will have my address the +day after to-morrow. By the way, Tom will be here this afternoon. Write +out for him where to call on you the day after to-morrow, in case you +have heard anything in the morning you think I ought to know at once, as +Tom will join me that night. Don't mention to anybody about my losing +the ring, Ripton. I wouldn't have Adrian get hold of that for a thousand +pounds. How on earth I came to lose it! How well she bore it, Rip! How +beautifully she behaved!" + +Ripton again shouted: "An angel!" Throwing up the heels of his second +bottle, he said: + +"You may trust your friend, Richard. Aha! when you pulled at old Mrs. +Berry I didn't know what was up. I do wish you'd let me drink her +health?" + +"Here's to Penelope!" said Richard, just wetting his mouth. The carriage +was at the door: a couple of dire organs, each grinding the same tune, +and a vulture-scented itinerant band (from which not the secretest veiled +wedding can escape) worked harmoniously without in the production of +discord, and the noise acting on his nervous state made him begin to fume +and send in messages for his bride by the maid. + +By and by the lovely young bride presented herself dressed for her +journey, and smiling from stained eyes. + +Mrs. Berry was requested to drink some wine, which Ripton poured out for +her, enabling Mrs. Berry thereby to measure his condition. + +The bride now kissed Mrs. Berry, and Mrs. Berry kissed the bridegroom, on +the plea of her softness. Lucy gave Ripton her hand, with a musical +"Good-bye, Mr. Thompson," and her extreme graciousness made him just +sensible enough to sit down before he murmured his fervent hopes for her +happiness. + +"I shall take good care of him," said Mrs. Berry, focussing her eyes to +the comprehension of the company. + +"Farewell, Penelope!" cried Richard. "I shall tell the police everywhere +to look out for your lord." + +"Oh my dears! good-bye, and Heaven bless ye both!" + +Berry quavered, touched with compunction at the thoughts of approaching +loneliness. Ripton, his mouth drawn like a bow to his ears, brought up +the rear to the carriage, receiving a fair slap on the cheek from an old +shoe precipitated by Mrs. Berry's enthusiastic female domestic. + +White handkerchiefs were waved, the adieux had fallen to signs: they were +off. Then did a thought of such urgency illumine Mrs. Berry, that she +telegraphed, hand in air; awakening Ripton's lungs, for the coachman to +stop, and ran back to the house. Richard chafed to be gone, but at his +bride's intercession he consented to wait. Presently they beheld the old +black-satin bunch stream through the street-door, down the bit of garden, +and up the astonished street; halting, panting, capless at the carriage +door, a book in her hand,--a much-used, dog-leaved, steamy, greasy book, +which; at the same time calling out in breathless jerks, "There! never ye +mind looks! I ain't got a new one. Read it, and don't ye forget it!" +she discharged into Lucy's lap, and retreated to the railings, a signal +for the coachman to drive away for good. + +How Richard laughed at the Berry's bridal gift! Lucy, too, lost the omen +at her heart as she glanced at the title of the volume. It was Dr. +Kitchener on Domestic Cookery! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +General withdrawing of heads from street-windows, emigration of organs +and bands, and a relaxed atmosphere in the circle of Mrs. Berry's abode, +proved that Dan Cupid had veritably flown to suck the life of fresh +regions. With a pensive mind she grasped Ripton's arm to regulate his +steps, and returned to the room where her creditor awaited her. In the +interval he had stormed her undefended fortress, the cake, from which +altitude he shook a dolorous head at the guilty woman. She smoothed her +excited apron, sighing. Let no one imagine that she regretted her +complicity. She was ready to cry torrents, but there must be absolute +castigation before this criminal shall conceive the sense of regret; and +probably then she will cling to her wickedness the more--such is the born +Pagan's tenacity! Mrs. Berry sighed, and gave him back his shake of the +head. O you wanton, improvident creature! said he. O you very wise old +gentleman! said she. He asked her the thing she had been doing. She +enlightened him with the fatalist's reply. He sounded a bogey's alarm of +contingent grave results. She retreated to the entrenched camp of the +fact she had helped to make. + +"It's done!" she exclaimed. How could she regret what she felt comfort +to know was done? Convinced that events alone could stamp a mark on such +stubborn flesh, he determined to wait for them, and crouched silent on +the cake, with one finger downwards at Ripton's incision there, showing a +crumbling chasm and gloomy rich recess. + +The eloquent indication was understood. "Dear! dear!" cried Mrs. Berry, +"what a heap o' cake, and no one to send it to!" + +Ripton had resumed his seat by the table and his embrace of the claret. +Clear ideas of satisfaction had left him and resolved to a boiling geysir +of indistinguishable transports. He bubbled, and waggled, and nodded +amicably to nothing, and successfully, though not without effort, +preserved his uppermost member from the seductions of the nymph, +Gravitation, who was on the look-out for his whole length shortly. + +"Ha! ha!" he shouted, about a minute after Mrs. Berry had spoken, and +almost abandoned himself to the nymph on the spot. Mrs. Berry's words +had just reached his wits. + +"Why do you laugh, young man?" she inquired, familiar and motherly on +account of his condition. + +Ripton laughed louder, and caught his chest on the edge of the table and +his nose on a chicken. "That's goo'!" he said, recovering, and rocking +under Mrs. Berry's eyes. "No friend!" + +"I did not say, no friend," she remarked. "I said, no one; meanin', I +know not where for to send it to." + +Ripton's response to this was: You put a Griffin on that cake. +Wheatsheaves each side." + +"His crest?" Mrs. Berry said sweetly. + +"Oldest baronetcy 'n England!" waved Ripton. + +"Yes?" Mrs. Berry encouraged him on. + +"You think he's Richards. We're oblige' be very close. And she's the +most lovely!--If I hear man say thing 'gainst her." + +"You needn't for to cry over her, young man," said Mrs. Berry. "I wanted +for to drink their right healths by their right names, and then go about +my day's work, and I do hope you won't keep me." + +Ripton stood bolt upright at her words. + +"You do?" he said, and filling a bumper he with cheerfully vinous +articulation and glibness of tongue proposed the health of Richard and +Lucy Feverel, of Raynham Abbey! and that mankind should not require an +expeditious example of the way to accept the inspiring toast, he drained +his bumper at a gulp. It finished him. The farthing rushlight of his +reason leapt and expired. He tumbled to the sofa and there stretched. + +Some minutes subsequent to Ripton's signalization of his devotion to the +bridal pair, Mrs. Berry's maid entered the room to say that a gentleman +was inquiring below after the young gentleman who had departed, and found +her mistress with a tottering wineglass in her hand, exhibiting every +symptom of unconsoled hysterics. Her mouth gaped, as if the fell +creditor had her by the swallow. She ejaculated with horrible exultation +that she had been and done it, as her disastrous aspect seemed to +testify, and her evident, but inexplicable, access of misery induced the +sympathetic maid to tender those caressing words that were all Mrs. Berry +wanted to go off into the self-caressing fit without delay; and she had +already given the preluding demoniac ironic outburst, when the maid +called heaven to witness that the gentleman would hear her; upon which +Mrs. Berry violently controlled her bosom, and ordered that he should be +shown upstairs instantly to see her the wretch she was. She repeated the +injunction. + +The maid did as she was told, and Mrs. Berry, wishing first to see +herself as she was, mutely accosted the looking-glass, and tried to look +a very little better. She dropped a shawl on Ripton and was settled, +smoothing her agitation when her visitor was announced. + +The gentleman was Adrian Harley. An interview with Tom Bakewell had put +him on the track, and now a momentary survey of the table, and its white- +vestured cake, made him whistle. + +Mrs. Berry plaintively begged him to do her the favour to be seated. + +"A fine morning, ma'am," said Adrian. + +"It have been!" Mrs. Berry answered, glancing over her shoulder at the +window, and gulping as if to get her heart down from her mouth. + +"A very fine Spring," pursued Adrian, calmly anatomizing her countenance. + +Mrs. Berry smothered an adjective to "weather" on a deep sigh. Her +wretchedness was palpable. In proportion to it, Adrian waned cheerful +and brisk. He divined enough of the business to see that there was some +strange intelligence to be fished out of the culprit who sat compressing +hysterics before him; and as he was never more in his element than when +he had a sinner, and a repentant prostrate abject sinner in hand, his +affable countenance might well deceive poor Berry. + +"I presume these are Mr. Thompson's lodgings?" he remarked, with a look +at the table. + +Mrs. Berry's head and the whites of her eyes informed him that they were +not Mr. Thompson's lodgings. + +"No?" said Adrian, and threw a carelessly inquisitive eye about him. +"Mr. Feverel is out, I suppose?" + +A convulsive start at the name, and two corroborating hands dropped on +her knees, formed Mrs. Berry's reply. + +"Mr. Feverel's man," continued Adrian, "told me I should be certain to +find him here. I thought he would be with his friend, Mr. Thompson. I'm +too late, I perceive. Their entertainment is over. I fancy you have +been having a party of them here, ma'am?--a bachelors' breakfast!" + +In the presence of that cake this observation seemed to mask an irony so +shrewd that Mrs. Berry could barely contain herself. She felt she must +speak. Making her face as deplorably propitiating as she could, she +began: + +"Sir, may I beg for to know your name?" + +Mr. Harley accorded her request. + +Groaning in the clutch of a pitiless truth, she continued: + +"And you are Mr. Harley, that was--oh! and you've come for +Mr.?"-- + +Mr. Richard Feverel was the gentleman Mr. Harley had come for. + +"Oh! and it's no mistake, and he's of Raynham Abbey?" Mrs. Berry +inquired. + +Adrian, very much amused, assured her that he was born and bred there. + +"His father's Sir Austin?" wailed the black-satin bunch from behind her +handkerchief. + +Adrian verified Richard's descent. + +"Oh, then, what have I been and done!" she cried, and stared blankly at +her visitor. "I been and married my baby! I been and married the bread +out of my own mouth. O Mr. Harley! Mr. Harley! I knew you when you was +a boy that big, and wore jackets; and all of you. And it's my softness +that's my ruin, for I never can resist a man's asking. Look at that +cake, Mr. Harley!" + +Adrian followed her directions quite coolly. "Wedding-cake, ma'am!" he +said. + +"Bride-cake it is, Mr. Harley!" + +"Did you make it yourself, ma'am?" + +The quiet ease of the question overwhelmed Mrs. Berry and upset that +train of symbolic representations by which she was seeking to make him +guess the catastrophe and spare her the furnace of confession. + +"I did not make it myself, Mr. Harley," she replied. "It's a bought +cake, and I'm a lost woman. Little I dreamed when I had him in my arms a +baby that I should some day be marrying him out of my own house! I +little dreamed that! Oh, why did he come to me! Don't you remember his +old nurse, when he was a baby in arms, that went away so sudden, and no +fault of hers, Mr. Harley! The very mornin' after the night you got into +Mr. Benson's cellar, and got so tipsy on his Madeary--I remember it as +clear as yesterday!--and Mr. Benson was that angry he threatened to use +the whip to you, and I helped put you to bed. I'm that very woman." + +Adrian smiled placidly at these reminiscences of his guileless youthful +life. + +"Well, ma'am! well?" he said. He would bring her to the furnace. + +"Won't you see it all, kind sir?" Mrs. Berry appealed to him in pathetic +dumb show. + +Doubtless by this time Adrian did see it all, and was mentally cursing at +Folly, and reckoning the immediate consequences, but he looked +uninstructed, his peculiar dimple-smile was undisturbed, his comfortable +full-bodied posture was the same. "Well, ma'am?" he spurred her on. + +Mrs. Berry burst forth: "It were done this mornin', Mr. Harley, in the +church, at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty to, by licence." + +Adrian was now obliged to comprehend a case of matrimony. "Oh!" he +said, like one who is as hard as facts, and as little to be moved: +"Somebody was married this morning; was it Mr. Thompson, or Mr. Feverel?" + +Mrs. Berry shuffled up to Ripton, and removed the shawl from him, saying: +"Do he look like a new married bridegroom, Mr. Harley?" + +Adrian inspected the oblivious Ripton with philosophic gravity. + +"This young gentleman was at church this morning?" he asked. + +"Oh! quite reasonable and proper then," Mrs. Berry begged him to +understand. + +"Of course, ma'am." Adrian lifted and let fall the stupid inanimate +limbs of the gone wretch, puckering his mouth queerly. "You were all +reasonable and proper, ma'am. The principal male performer, then, is my +cousin, Mr. Feverel? He was married by you, this morning, by licence at +your parish church, and came here, and ate a hearty breakfast, and left +intoxicated." + +Mrs. Berry flew out. "He never drink a drop, sir. A more moderate young +gentleman you never see. Oh! don't ye think that now, Mr. Harley. He +was as upright and master of his mind as you be." + +"Ay!" the wise youth nodded thanks to her for the comparison, "I mean the +other form of intoxication." + +Mrs. Berry sighed. She could say nothing on that score. + +Adrian desired her to sit down, and compose herself, and tell him +circumstantially what had been done. + +She obeyed, in utter perplexity at his perfectly composed demeanour. + +Mrs. Berry, as her recital declared, was no other than that identical +woman who once in old days had dared to behold the baronet behind his +mask, and had ever since lived in exile from the Raynham world on a +little pension regularly paid to her as an indemnity. She was that +woman, and the thought of it made her almost accuse Providence for the +betraying excess of softness it had endowed her with. How was she to +recognize her baby grown a man? He came in a feigned name; not a word of +the family was mentioned. He came like an ordinary mortal, though she +felt something more than ordinary to him--she knew she did. He came +bringing a beautiful young lady, and on what grounds could she turn her +back on them? Why, seeing that all was chaste and legal, why should she +interfere to make them unhappy--so few the chances of happiness in this +world! Mrs. Berry related the seizure of her ring. + +"One wrench," said the sobbing culprit, "one, and my ring was off!" + +She had no suspicions, and the task of writing her name in the vestry- +book had been too enacting for a thought upon the other signatures. + +"I daresay you were exceedingly sorry for what you had done," said +Adrian. + +"Indeed, sir," moaned Berry, "I were, and am." + +"And would do your best to rectify the mischief--eh, ma'am?" + +"Indeed, and indeed, sir, I would," she protested solemnly. + +"--As, of course, you should--knowing the family. Where may these +lunatics have gone to spend the Moon?" + +Mrs. Berry swimmingly replied: "To the Isle--I don't quite know, sir!" +she snapped the indication short, and jumped out of the pit she had +fallen into. Repentant as she might be, those dears should not be +pursued and cruelly balked of their young bliss! "To-morrow, if you +please, Mr. Harley: not to-day!" + +"A pleasant spot," Adrian observed, smiling at his easy prey. + +By a measurement of dates he discovered that the bridegroom had brought +his bride to the house on the day he had quitted Raynham, and this was +enough to satisfy Adrian's mind that there had been concoction and +chicanery. Chance, probably, had brought him to the old woman: chance +certainly had not brought him to the young one. + +"Very well, ma'am," he said, in answer to her petitions for his +favourable offices with Sir Austin in behalf of her little pension and +the bridal pair, "I will tell him you were only a blind agent in the +affair, being naturally soft, and that you trust he will bless the +consummation. He will be in town +to-morrow morning; but one of you two must see him to-night. An emetic +kindly administered will set our friend here on his legs. A bath and a +clean shirt, and he might go. I don't see why your name should appear at +all. Brush him up, and send him to Bellingham by the seven o'clock +train. He will find his way to Raynham; he knows the neighbourhood best +in the dark. Let him go and state the case. Remember, one of you must +go." + +With this fair prospect of leaving a choice of a perdition between the +couple of unfortunates, for them to fight and lose all their virtues +over, Adrian said, "Good morning." + +Mrs. Berry touchingly arrested him. "You won't refuse a piece of his +cake, Mr. Harley?" + +"Oh, dear, no, ma'am," Adrian turned to the cake with alacrity. "I shall +claim a very large piece. Richard has a great many friends who will +rejoice to eat his wedding-cake. Cut me a fair quarter, Mrs. Berry. Put +it in paper, if you please. I shall be delighted to carry it to them, +and apportion it equitably according to their several degrees of +relationship." + +Mrs. Berry cut the cake. Somehow, as she sliced through it, the +sweetness and hapless innocence of the bride was presented to her, and +she launched into eulogies of Lucy, and clearly showed how little she +regretted her conduct. She vowed that they seemed made for each other; +that both, were beautiful; both had spirit; both were innocent; and to +part them, or make them unhappy, would be, Mrs. Berry wrought herself to +cry aloud, oh, such a pity! + +Adrian listened to it as the expression of a matter-of-fact opinion. He +took the huge quarter of cake, nodded multitudinous promises, and left +Mrs. Berry to bless his good heart. + +"So dies the System!" was Adrian's comment in the street. "And now let +prophets roar! He dies respectably in a marriage-bed, which is more than +I should have foretold of the monster. Meantime," he gave the cake a +dramatic tap, "I'll go sow nightmares." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +Adrian really bore the news he had heard with creditable +disinterestedness, and admirable repression of anything beneath the +dignity of a philosopher. When one has attained that felicitous point of +wisdom from which one sees all mankind to be fools, the diminutive +objects may make what new moves they please, one does not marvel at them: +their sedateness is as comical as their frolic, and their frenzies more +comical still. On this intellectual eminence the wise youth had built +his castle, and he had lived in it from an early period. Astonishment +never shook the foundations, nor did envy of greater heights tempt him to +relinquish the security of his stronghold, for he saw none. Jugglers he +saw running up ladders that overtopped him, and air-balloons scaling the +empyrean; but the former came precipitately down again, and the latter +were at the mercy of the winds; while he remained tranquil on his solid +unambitious ground, fitting his morality to the laws, his conscience to +his morality, his comfort to his conscience. Not that voluntarily he cut +himself off from his fellows: on the contrary, his sole amusement was +their society. Alone he was rather dull, as a man who beholds but one +thing must naturally be. Study of the animated varieties of that one +thing excited him sufficiently to think life a pleasant play; and the +faculties he had forfeited to hold his elevated position he could +serenely enjoy by contemplation of them in others. Thus:--wonder at +Master Richard's madness: though he himself did not experience it, he was +eager to mark the effect on his beloved relatives. As he carried along +his vindictive hunch of cake, he shaped out their different attitudes of +amaze, bewilderment, horror; passing by some personal chagrin in the +prospect. For his patron had projected a journey, commencing with Paris, +culminating on the Alps, and lapsing in Rome: a delightful journey to +show Richard the highways of History and tear him from the risk of +further ignoble fascinations, that his spirit might be altogether bathed +in freshness and revived. This had been planned during Richard's absence +to surprise him. + +Now the dream of travel was to Adrian what the love of woman is to the +race of young men. It supplanted that foolishness. It was his Romance, +as we say; that buoyant anticipation on which in youth we ride the airs, +and which, as we wax older and too heavy for our atmosphere, hardens to +the Hobby, which, if an obstinate animal, is a safer horse, and conducts +man at a slower pace to the sexton. Adrian had never travelled. He was +aware that his romance was earthly and had discomforts only to be evaded +by the one potent talisman possessed by his patron. His Alp would hardly +be grand to him without an obsequious landlord in the foreground: he must +recline on Mammon's imperial cushions in order to moralize becomingly on +the ancient world. The search for pleasure at the expense of discomfort, +as frantic lovers woo their mistresses to partake the shelter of a but +and batten on a crust, Adrian deemed the bitterness of beggarliness. Let +his sweet mistress be given him in the pomp and splendour due to his +superior emotions, or not at all. Consequently the wise youth had long +nursed an ineffectual passion, and it argued a great nature in him, that +at the moment when his wishes were to be crowned, he should look with +such slight touches of spleen at the gorgeous composite fabric of +Parisian cookery and Roman antiquities crumbling into unsubstantial +mockery. Assuredly very few even of the philosophers would have turned +away uncomplainingly to meaner delights the moment after. + +Hippias received the first portion of the cake. + +He was sitting by the window in his hotel, reading. He had fought down +his breakfast with more than usual success, and was looking forward to +his dinner at the Foreys' with less than usual timidity. + +"Ah! glad you've come, Adrian," he said, and expanded his chest. "I was +afraid I should have to ride down. This is kind of you. We'll walk down +together through the park. It's absolutely dangerous to walk alone in +these streets. My opinion is, that orange-peel lasts all through the +year now, and will till legislation puts a stop to it. I give you my +word I slipped on a piece of orange-peel yesterday afternoon in +Piccadilly, and I thought I was down! I saved myself by a miracle." + +"You have an appetite, I hope?" asked Adrian. + +"I think I shall get one, after a bit of a walk," chirped Hippias. "Yes. +I think I feel hungry now." + +"Charmed to hear it," said Adrian, and began unpinning his parcel on his +knees. "How should you define Folly?" he checked the process to inquire. + +"Hm!" Hippias meditated; he prided himself on being oracular when such +questions were addressed to him. "I think I should define it to be a +slide." + +"Very good definition. In other words, a piece of orange-peel; once on +it, your life and limbs are in danger, and you are saved by a miracle. +You must present that to the Pilgrim. And the monument of folly, what +would that be?" + +Hippias meditated anew. "All the human race on one another's shoulders." +He chuckled at the sweeping sourness of the instance. + +"Very good," Adrian applauded, "or in default of that, some symbol of the +thing, say; such as this of which I have here brought you a chip." + +Adrian displayed the quarter of the cake. + +"This is the monument made portable--eh?" + +"Cake!" cried Hippias, retreating to his chair to dramatize his intense +disgust. "You're right of them that eat it. If I--if I don't mistake," +he peered at it, "the noxious composition bedizened in that way is what +they call wedding-cake. It's arrant poison! Who is it you want to kill? +What are you carrying such stuff about for?" + +Adrian rang the bell for a knife. "To present you with your due and +proper portion. You will have friends and relatives, and can't be saved +from them, not even by miracle. It is a habit which exhibits, perhaps, +the unconscious inherent cynicism of the human mind, for people who +consider that they have reached the acme of mundane felicity, to +distribute this token of esteem to their friends, with the object +probably" (he took the knife from a waiter and went to the table to slice +the cake) "of enabling those friends (these edifices require very +delicate incision--each particular currant and subtle condiment hangs to +its neighbour--a wedding-cake is evidently the most highly civilized of +cakes, and partakes of the evils as well as the advantages of +civilization!)--I was saying, they send us these love-tokens, no doubt +(we shall have to weigh out the crumbs, if each is to have his fair +share) that we may the better estimate their state of bliss by passing +some hours in purgatory. This, as far as I can apportion it without +weights and scales, is your share, my uncle!" + +He pushed the corner of the table bearing the cake towards Hippias. + +"Get away!" Hippias vehemently motioned, and started from his chair. +"I'll have none of it, I tell you! It's death! It's fifty times worse +than that beastly compound Christmas pudding! What fool has been doing +this, then? Who dares send me cake? Me! It's an insult." + +"You are not compelled to eat any before dinner," said Adrian, pointing +the corner of the table after him, "but your share you must take, and +appear to consume. One who has done so much to bring about the marriage +cannot in conscience refuse his allotment of the fruits. Maidens, I +hear, first cook it under their pillows, and extract nuptial dreams +therefrom--said to be of a lighter class, taken that way. It's a capital +cake, and, upon my honour, you have helped to make it--you have indeed! +So here it is." + +The table again went at Hippias. He ran nimbly round it, and flung +himself on a sofa exhausted, crying: "There!... My appetite's gone for +to-day!" + +"Then shall I tell Richard that you won't touch a morsel of his cake?" +said Adrian, leaning on his two hands over the table and looking at his +uncle. + +"Richard?" + +"Yes, your nephew: my cousin: Richard! Your companion since you've been +in town. He's married, you know. Married this morning at Kensington +parish church, by licence, at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty +to. Married, and gone to spend his honeymoon in the Isle of Wight, a +very delectable place for a month's residence. I have to announce to you +that, thanks to your assistance, the experiment is launched, sir!" + +"Richard married!" + +There was something to think and to say in objection to it, but the wits +of poor Hippias were softened by the shock. His hand travelled half-way +to his forehead, spread out to smooth the surface of that seat of reason, +and then fell. + +"Surely you knew all about it? you were so anxious to have him in town +under your charge...." + +"Married?" Hippias jumped up--he had it. "Why, he's under age! he's an +infant." + +"So he is. But the infant is not the less married. Fib like a man and +pay your fee--what does it matter? Any one who is breeched can obtain a +licence in our noble country. And the interests of morality demand that +it should not be difficult. Is it true--can you persuade anybody that +you have known nothing about it?" + +"Ha! infamous joke! I wish, sir, you would play your pranks on somebody +else," said Hippias, sternly, as he sank back on the sofa. "You've done +me up for the day, I can assure you." + +Adrian sat down to instil belief by gentle degrees, and put an artistic +finish to the work. He had the gratification of passing his uncle +through varied contortions, and at last Hippias perspired in conviction, +and exclaimed, "This accounts for his conduct to me. That boy must have +a cunning nothing short of infernal! I feel...I feel it just here, he +drew a hand along his midriff. + +"I'm not equal to this world of fools," he added faintly, and shut his +eyes. "No, I can't dine. Eat? ha!...no. Go without me!" + +Shortly after, Hippias went to bed, saying to himself, as he undressed, +"See what comes of our fine schemes! Poor Austin!" and as the pillow +swelled over his ears, "I'm not sure that a day's fast won't do me good." +The Dyspepsy had bought his philosophy at a heavy price; he had a right +to use it. + +Adrian resumed the procession of the cake. + +He sighted his melancholy uncle Algernon hunting an appetite in the Row, +and looking as if the hope ahead of him were also one-legged. The +Captain did not pass with out querying the ungainly parcel. + +"I hope I carry it ostentatiously enough?" said Adrian. + +"Enclosed is wherewithal to quiet the alarm of the land. Now may the +maids and wives of Merry England sleep secure. I had half a mind to fix +it on a pole, and engage a band to parade it. This is our dear Richard's +wedding-cake. Married at half-past eleven this morning, by licence, at +the Kensington parish church; his own ring being lost he employed the +ring of his beautiful bride's lachrymose land-lady, she standing adjacent +by the altar. His farewell to you as a bachelor, and hers as a maid, you +can claim on the spot if you think proper, and digest according to your +powers." + +Algernon let off steam in a whistle. "Thompson, the solicitor's +daughter!" he said. "I met them the other day, somewhere about here. He +introduced me to her. A pretty little baggage. + +"No." Adrian set him right. "'Tis a Miss Desborough, a Roman Catholic +dairymaid. Reminds one of pastoral England in the time of the +Plantagenets! He's quite equal to introducing her as Thompson's +daughter, and himself as Beelzebub's son. However, the wild animal is in +Hymen's chains, and the cake is cut. Will you have your morsel?" + +"Oh, by all means!--not now." Algernon had an unwonted air of +reflection.--" Father know it?" + +"Not yet. He will to-night by nine o'clock." + +"Then I must see him by seven. Don't say you met me." He nodded, and +pricked his horse. + +"Wants money!" said Adrian, putting the combustible he carried once more +in motion. + +The women were the crowning joy of his contemplative mind. He had +reserved them for his final discharge. Dear demonstrative creatures! +Dyspepsia would not weaken their poignant outcries, or self-interest +check their fainting fits. On the generic woman one could calculate. +Well might The Pilgrim's Scrip say of her that, "She is always at +Nature's breast"; not intending it as a compliment. Each woman is Eve +throughout the ages; whereas the Pilgrim would have us believe that the +Adam in men has become warier, if not wiser; and weak as he is, has +learnt a lesson from time. Probably the Pilgrim's meaning may be taken +to be, that Man grows, and Woman does not. + +At any rate, Adrian hoped for such natural choruses as you hear in the +nursery when a bauble is lost. He was awake to Mrs. Doria's maternal +predestinations, and guessed that Clare stood ready with the best form of +filial obedience. They were only a poor couple to gratify his +Mephistophelian humour, to be sure, but Mrs. Doria was equal to twenty, +and they would proclaim the diverse ways with which maidenhood and +womanhood took disappointment, while the surrounding Forey girls and +other females of the family assembly were expected to develop the finer +shades and tapering edges of an agitation to which no woman could be +cold. + +All went well. He managed cleverly to leave the cake unchallenged in a +conspicuous part of the drawing-room, and stepped gaily down to dinner. +Much of the conversation adverted to Richard. Mrs. Doria asked him if he +had seen the youth, or heard of him. + +"Seen him? no! Heard of him? yes!" said Adrian. "I have heard of him. +I heard that he was sublimely happy, and had eaten such a breakfast that +dinner was impossible; claret and cold chicken, cake and"-- + +"Cake at breakfast!" they all interjected., + +"That seems to be his fancy just now." + +"What an extraordinary taste!" + +"You know, he is educated on a System." + +One fast young male Forey allied the System and the cake in a miserable +pun. Adrian, a hater of puns, looked at him, and held the table silent, +as if he were going to speak; but he said nothing, and the young +gentleman vanished from the conversation in a blush, extinguished by his +own spark. + +Mrs. Doria peevishly exclaimed, "Oh! fish-cake, I suppose! I wish he +understood a little better the obligations of relationship." + +"Whether he understands them, I can't say," observed Adrian, "but I +assure you he is very energetic in extending them." + +The wise youth talked innuendoes whenever he had an opportunity, that his +dear relative might be rendered sufficiently inflammable by and by at the +aspect of the cake; but he was not thought more than commonly mysterious +and deep. + +"Was his appointment at the house of those Grandison people?" Mrs. Doria +asked, with a hostile upper-lip. + +Adrian warmed the blindfolded parties by replying, "Do they keep a beadle +at the door?" + +Mrs. Doria's animosity to Mrs. Grandison made her treat this as a piece +of satirical ingenuousness. "I daresay they do," she said. + +"And a curate on hand?" + +"Oh, I should think a dozen!" + +Old Mr. Forey advised his punning grandson Clarence to give that house a +wide berth, where he might be disposed of and dished-up at a moment's +notice, and the scent ran off at a jest. + +The Foreys gave good dinners, and with the old gentleman the excellent +old fashion remained in permanence of trooping off the ladies as soon as +they had taken their sustenance and just exchanged a smile with the +flowers and the dessert, when they rose to fade with a beautiful accord, +and the gallant males breathed under easier waistcoats, and settled to +the business of the table, sure that an hour for unbosoming and imbibing +was their own. Adrian took a chair by Brandon Forey, a barrister of +standing. + +"I want to ask you," he said, "whether an infant in law can legally bind +himself." + +"If he's old enough to affix his signature to an instrument, I suppose he +can," yawned Brandon. + +"Is he responsible for his acts?" + +"I've no doubt we could hang him." + +"Then what he could do for himself, you could do for him?" + +"Not quite so much; pretty near." + +"For instance, he can marry?" + +"That's not a criminal case, you know." + +"And the marriage is valid?" + +"You can dispute it." + +"Yes, and the Greeks and the Trojans can fight. It holds then?" + +"Both water and fire!" + +The patriarch of the table sang out to Adrian that he stopped the +vigorous circulation of the claret. + +"Dear me, sir!" said Adrian, "I beg pardon. The circumstances must +excuse me. The fact is, my cousin Richard got married to a dairymaid +this morning, and I wanted to know whether it held in law." + +It was amusing to watch the manly coolness with which the announcement +was taken. Nothing was heard more energetic than, "Deuce he has!" and, +"A dairymaid!" + +"I thought it better to let the ladies dine in peace," Adrian continued. +"I wanted to be able to console my aunt"-- + +"Well, but--well, but," the old gentleman, much the most excited, puffed- +-"eh, Brandon? He's a boy, this young ass! Do you mean to tell me a boy +can go and marry when he pleases, and any troll he pleases, and the +marriage is good? If I thought that I'd turn every woman off my +premises. I would! from the housekeeper to the scullery-maid. I'd have +no woman near him till--till"-- + +"Till the young greenhorn was grey, sir?" suggested Brandon. + +"Till he knew what women are made of, sir!" the old gentleman finished +his sentence vehemently. "What, d'ye think, will Feverel say to it, Mr. +Adrian?" + +"He has been trying the very System you have proposed sir--one that does +not reckon on the powerful action of curiosity on the juvenile +intelligence. I'm afraid it's the very worst way of solving the +problem." + +"Of course it is," said Clarence. "None but a fool!"-- + +"At your age," Adrian relieved his embarrassment, "it is natural, my dear +Clarence, that you should consider the idea of an isolated or imprisoned +manhood something monstrous, and we do not expect you to see what amount +of wisdom it contains. You follow one extreme, and we the other. I +don't say that a middle course exists. The history of mankind shows our +painful efforts to find one, but they have invariably resolved themselves +into asceticism, or laxity, acting and reacting. The moral question is, +if a naughty little man, by reason of his naughtiness, releases himself +from foolishness, does a foolish little man, by reason of his +foolishness, save himself from naughtiness?" + +A discussion, peculiar to men of the world, succeeded the laugh at Mr. +Clarence. Then coffee was handed round and the footman informed Adrian, +in a low voice, that Mrs. Doria Forey particularly wished to speak with +him. Adrian preferred not to go in alone. "Very well," he said, and +sipped his coffee. They talked on, sounding the depths of law in Brandon +Forey, and receiving nought but hollow echoes from that profound cavity. +He would not affirm that the marriage was invalid: he would not affirm +that it could not be annulled. He thought not: still he thought it would +be worth trying. A consummated and a non-consummated union were two +different things.... + +"Dear me!" said Adrian, "does the Law recognize that? Why, that's almost +human!" + +Another message was brought to Adrian that Mrs. Doria Forey very +particularly wished to speak with him. + +"What can be the matter?" he exclaimed, pleased to have his faith in +woman strengthened. The cake had exploded, no doubt. + +So it proved, when the gentlemen joined the fair society. All the +younger ladies stood about the table, whereon the cake stood displayed, +gaps being left for those sitting to feast their vision, and intrude the +comments and speculations continually arising from fresh shocks of wonder +at the unaccountable apparition. Entering with the half-guilty air of +men who know they have come from a grosser atmosphere, the gallant males +also ranged themselves round the common object of curiosity. + +"Here! Adrian!" Mrs. Doria cried. "Where is Adrian? Pray, come here. +Tell me! Where did this cake come from? Whose is it? What does it do +here? You know all about it, for you brought it. Clare saw you bring it +into the room. What does it mean? I insist upon a direct answer. Now +do not make me impatient, Adrian." + +Certainly Mrs. Doria was equal to twenty. By her concentrated rapidity +and volcanic complexion it was evident that suspicion had kindled. + +"I was really bound to bring it," Adrian protested. + +"Answer me!" + +The wise youth bowed: "Categorically. This cake came from the house of a +person, a female, of the name of Berry. It belongs to you partly, partly +to me, partly to Clare, and to the rest of our family, on the principle +of equal division for which purpose it is present...." + +"Yes! Speak!" + +"It means, my dear aunt, what that kind of cake usually does mean." + +"This, then, is the Breakfast! And the ring! Adrian! where is Richard?" + +Mrs. Doria still clung to unbelief in the monstrous horror. + +But when Adrian told her that Richard had left town, her struggling hope +sank. "The wretched boy has ruined himself!" she said, and sat down +trembling. + +Oh! that System! The delicate vituperations gentle ladies use instead of +oaths, Mrs. Doria showered on that System. She hesitated not to say that +her brother had got what he deserved. Opinionated, morbid, weak, justice +had overtaken him. Now he would see! but at what a price! at what a +sacrifice! + +Mrs. Doria, commanded Adrian to confirm her fears. + +Sadly the wise youth recapitulated Berry's words. "He was married this +morning at half-past eleven of the clock, or twenty to twelve, by +licence, at the Kensington parish church." + +"Then that was his appointment!" Mrs. Doria murmured. + +"That was the cake for breakfast!" breathed a second of her sex. + +"And it was his ring!" exclaimed a third. + +The men were silent, and made long faces. + +Clare stood cold and sedate. She and her mother avoided each other's +eyes. + +"Is it that abominable country person, Adrian?" + +"The happy damsel is, I regret to say, the Papist dairymaid," said +Adrian, in sorrowful but deliberate accents. + +Then arose a feminine hum, in the midst of which Mrs. Doria cried, +"Brandon!" She was a woman of energy. Her thoughts resolved to action +spontaneously. + +"Brandon," she drew the barrister a little aside, "can they not be +followed, and separated? I want your advice. Cannot we separate them? +A boy! it is really shameful if he should be allowed to fall into the +toils of a designing creature to ruin himself irrevocably. Can we not, +Brandon?" + +The worthy barrister felt inclined to laugh, but he answered her +entreaties: "From what I hear of the young groom I should imagine the +office perilous." + +"I'm speaking of law, Brandon. Can we not obtain an order from one of +your Courts to pursue them and separate them instantly?" + +"This evening?" + +"Yes!" + +Brandon was sorry to say she decidedly could not. + +"You might call on one of your Judges, Brandon." + +Brandon assured her that the Judges were a hard-worked race, and to a man +slept heavily after dinner. + +"Will you do so to-morrow, the first thing in the morning? Will you +promise me to do so, Brandon?--Or a magistrate! A magistrate would send +a policeman after them. My dear Brandon! I beg--I beg you to assist us +in this dreadful extremity. It will be the death of my poor brother. I +believe he would forgive anything but this. You have no idea what his +notions are of blood." + +Brandon tipped Adrian a significant nod to step in and aid. + +"What is it, aunt?" asked the wise youth. "You want them followed and +torn asunder by wild policemen?" + +"To-morrow!" Brandon queerly interposed. + +"Won't that be--just too late?" Adrian suggested. + +Mrs. Doria, sighed out her last spark of hope. + +"You see," said Adrian.... + +"Yes! yes!" Mrs. Doria did not require any of his elucidations. "Pray be +quiet, Adrian, and let me speak. Brandon! it cannot be! it's quite +impossible! Can you stand there and tell me that boy is legally married? +I never will believe it! The law cannot be so shamefully bad as to +permit a boy--a mere child--to do such absurd things. Grandpapa!" she +beckoned to the old gentleman. "Grandpapa! pray do make Brandon speak. +These lawyers never will. He might stop it, if he would. If I were a +man, do you think I would stand here?" + +"Well, my dear," the old gentleman toddled to compose her, "I'm quite of +your opinion. I believe he knows no more than you or I. My belief is +they none of them know anything till they join issue and go into Court. +I want to see a few female lawyers." + +"To encourage the bankrupt perruquier, sir?" said Adrian. "They would +have to keep a large supply of wigs on hand." + +"And you can jest, Adrian!" his aunt reproached him. "But I will not be +beaten. I know--I am firmly convinced that no law would ever allow a boy +to disgrace his family and ruin himself like that, and nothing shall +persuade me that it is so. Now, tell me, Brandon, and pray do speak in +answer to my questions, and please to forget you are dealing with a +woman. Can my nephew be rescued from the consequences of his folly? Is +what he has done legitimate? Is he bound for life by what he has done +while a boy? + +"Well--a," Brandon breathed through his teeth. "A--hm! the matter's so +very delicate, you see, Helen." + +"You're to forget that," Adrian remarked. + +"A--hm! well!" pursued Brandon. "Perhaps if you could arrest and divide +them before nightfall, and make affidavit of certain facts"... + +"Yes?" the eager woman hastened his lagging mouth. + +"Well...hm! a...in that case...a... Or if a lunatic, you could prove him +to have been of unsound mind."... + +"Oh! there's no doubt of his madness on my mind, Brandon." + +"Yes! well! in that case... Or if of different religious persuasions"... + +"She is a Catholic!" Mrs. Doria joyfully interjected. + +"Yes! well! in that case...objections might be taken to the form of the +marriage... Might be proved fictitious... Or if he's under, say, +eighteen years"... + +"He can't be much more," cried Mrs. Doria. "I think," she appeared to +reflect, and then faltered imploringly to Adrian, "What is Richard's +age?" + +The kind wise youth could not find it in his heart to strike away the +phantom straw she caught at. + +"Oh! about that, I should fancy," he muttered; and found it necessary at +the same time to duck and turn his head for concealment. Mrs. Doria +surpassed his expectations. + +"Yes I well, then..." Brandon was resuming with a shrug, which was meant +to say he still pledged himself to nothing, when Clare's voice was heard +from out the buzzing circle of her cousins: "Richard is nineteen years +and six months old to-day, mama." + +"Nonsense, child." + +"He is, mama." Clare's voice was very steadfast. + +"Nonsense, I tell you. How can you know?" + +"Richard is one year and nine months older than me, mama." + +Mrs. Doria fought the fact by years and finally by months. Clare was too +strong for her. + +"Singular child!" she mentally apostrophized the girl who scornfully +rejected straws while drowning. + +"But there's the religion still!" she comforted herself, and sat down to +cogitate. + +The men smiled and looked vacuous. + +Music was proposed. There are times when soft music hath not charms; +when it is put to as base uses as Imperial Caesar's dust and is taken to +fill horrid pauses. Angelica Forey thumped the piano, and sang: "I'm a +laughing Gitana, ha-ha! ha-ha!" Matilda Forey and her cousin Mary +Branksburne wedded their voices, and songfully incited all young people +to Haste to the bower that love has built, and defy the wise ones of the +world; but the wise ones of the world were in a majority there, and very +few places of assembly will be found where they are not; so the glowing +appeal of the British ballad-monger passed into the bosom of the +emptiness he addressed. Clare was asked to entertain the company. The +singular child calmly marched to the instrument, and turned over the +appropriate illustrations to the ballad-monger's repertory. + +Clare sang a little Irish air. Her duty done, she marched from the +piano. Mothers are rarely deceived by their daughters in these matters; +but Clare deceived her mother; and Mrs. Doria only persisted in feeling +an agony of pity for her child, that she might the more warrantably pity +herself--a not uncommon form of the emotion, for there is no juggler like +that heart the ballad-monger puts into our mouths so boldly. Remember +that she saw years of self-denial, years of a ripening scheme, rendered +fruitless in a minute, and by the System which had almost reduced her to +the condition of constitutional hypocrite. She had enough of bitterness +to brood over, and some excuse for self-pity. + +Still, even when she was cooler, Mrs. Doria's energetic nature prevented +her from giving up. Straws were straws, and the frailer they were the +harder she clutched them. + +She rose from her chair, and left the room, calling to Adrian to follow +her. + +"Adrian," she said, turning upon him in the passage, "you mentioned a +house where this horrible cake...where he was this morning. I desire you +to take me to that woman immediately." + +The wise youth had not bargained for personal servitude. He had hoped he +should be in time for the last act of the opera that night, after +enjoying the comedy of real life. + +"My dear aunt"...he was beginning to insinuate. + +"Order a cab to be sent for, and get your hat," said Mrs. Doria. + +There was nothing for it but to obey. He stamped his assent to the +Pilgrim's dictum, that Women are practical creatures, and now reflected +on his own account, that relationship to a young fool may be a vexation +and a nuisance. However, Mrs. Doria compensated him. + +What Mrs. Doria intended to do, the practical creature did not plainly +know; but her energy positively demanded to be used in some way or other, +and her instinct directed her to the offender on whom she could use it in +wrath. She wanted somebody to be angry with, somebody to abuse. She +dared not abuse her brother to his face: him she would have to console. +Adrian was a fellow-hypocrite to the System, and would, she was aware, +bring her into painfully delicate, albeit highly philosophic, ground by a +discussion of the case. So she drove to Bessy Berry simply to inquire +whither her nephew had flown. + +When a soft woman, and that soft woman a sinner, is matched with a woman +of energy, she does not show much fight, and she meets no mercy. Bessy +Berry's creditor came to her in female form that night. She then beheld +it in all its terrors. Hitherto it had appeared to her as a male, a +disembodied spirit of her imagination possessing male attributes, and the +peculiar male characteristic of being moved, and ultimately silenced, by +tears. As female, her creditor was terrible indeed. Still, had it not +been a late hour, Bessy Berry would have died rather than speak openly +that her babes had sped to make their nest in the Isle of Wight. They +had a long start, they were out of the reach of pursuers, they were safe, +and she told what she had to tell. She told more than was wise of her to +tell. She made mention of her early service in the family, and of her +little pension. Alas! her little pension! Her creditor had come +expecting no payment--come; as creditors are wont in such moods, just to +take it out of her--to employ the familiar term. At once Mrs. Doria +pounced upon the pension. + +"That, of course, you know is at an end," she said in the calmest manner, +and Berry did not plead for the little bit of bread to her. She only +asked a little consideration for her feelings. + +True admirers of women had better stand aside from the scene. +Undoubtedly it was very sad for Adrian to be compelled to witness it. +Mrs. Doria was not generous. The Pilgrim may be wrong about the sex not +growing; but its fashion of conducting warfare we must allow to be +barbarous, and according to what is deemed the pristine, or wild cat, +method. Ruin, nothing short of it, accompanied poor Berry to her bed +that night, and her character bled till morning on her pillow. + +The scene over, Adrian reconducted Mrs. Doria to her home. Mice had been +at the cake during her absence apparently. The ladies and gentlemen +present put it on the greedy mice, who were accused of having gorged and +gone to bed. + +"I'm sure they're quite welcome," said Mrs. Doria. "It's a farce, this +marriage, and Adrian has quite come to my way of thinking. I would not +touch an atom of it. Why, they were married in a married woman's ring! +Can that be legal, as you call it? Oh, I'm convinced! Don't tell me. +Austin will be in town to-morrow, and if he is true to his principles, he +will instantly adopt measures to rescue his son from infamy. I want no +legal advice. I go upon common sense, common decency. This marriage is +false." + +Mrs. Doria's fine scheme had become so much a part of her life, that she +could not give it up. She took Clare to her bed, and caressed and wept +over her, as she would not have done had she known the singular child, +saying, "Poor Richard! my dear poor boy! we must save him, Clare! we must +save him!" Of the two the mother showed the greater want of iron on this +occasion. Clare lay in her arms rigid and emotionless, with one of her +hands tight-locked. All she said was: "I knew it in the morning, mama." +She slept clasping Richard's nuptial ring. + +By this time all specially concerned in the System knew it. The +honeymoon was shoring placidly above them. Is not happiness like another +circulating medium? When we have a very great deal of it, some poor +hearts are aching for what is taken away from them. When we have gone +out and seized it on the highways, certain inscrutable laws are sure to +be at work to bring us to the criminal bar, sooner or later. Who knows +the honeymoon that did not steal somebody's sweetness? Richard Turpin +went forth, singing "Money or life" to the world: Richard Feverel has +done the same, substituting "Happiness" for "Money," frequently synonyms. +The coin he wanted he would have, and was just as much a highway robber +as his fellow Dick, so that those who have failed to recognize him as a +hero before, may now regard him in that light. Meanwhile the world he +has squeezed looks exceedingly patient and beautiful. His coin chinks +delicious music to him. Nature and the order of things on earth have no +warmer admirer than a jolly brigand or a young man made happy by the +Jews. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +And now the author of the System was on trial under the eyes of the lady +who loved him. What so kind as they? Yet are they very rigorous, those +soft watchful woman's eyes. If you are below the measure they have made +of you, you will feel it in the fulness of time. She cannot but show you +that she took you for a giant, and has had to come down a bit. You feel +yourself strangely diminishing in those sweet mirrors, till at last they +drop on you complacently level. But, oh beware, vain man, of ever waxing +enamoured of that wonderful elongation of a male creature you saw +reflected in her adoring upcast orbs! Beware of assisting to delude her! +A woman who is not quite a fool will forgive your being but a man, if you +are surely that: she will haply learn to acknowledge that no mortal +tailor could have fitted that figure she made of you respectably, and +that practically (though she sighs to think it) her ideal of you was on +the pattern of an overgrown charity-boy in the regulation jacket and +breech. For this she first scorns the narrow capacities of the tailor, +and then smiles at herself. But shouldst thou, when the hour says +plainly, Be thyself, and the woman is willing to take thee as thou art, +shouldst thou still aspire to be that thing of shanks and wrests, wilt +thou not seem contemptible as well as ridiculous? And when the fall +comes, will it not be flat on thy face, instead of to the common height +of men? You may fall miles below her measure of you, and be safe: +nothing is damaged save an overgrown charity-boy; but if you fall below +the common height of men, you must make up your mind to see her rustle +her gown, spy at the looking-glass, and transfer her allegiance. The +moral of which is, that if we pretend to be what we are not, woman, for +whose amusement the farce is performed, will find us out and punish us +for it. And it is usually the end of a sentimental dalliance. + +Had Sir Austin given vent to the pain and wrath it was natural he should +feel, he might have gone to unphilosophic excesses, and, however much he +lowered his reputation as a sage, Lady Blandish would have excused him: +she would not have loved him less for seeing him closer. But the poor +gentleman tasked his soul and stretched his muscles to act up to her +conception of him. He, a man of science in life, who was bound to be +surprised by nothing in nature, it was not for him to do more than lift +his eyebrows and draw in his lips at the news delivered by Ripton +Thompson, that ill bird at Raynham. + +All he said, after Ripton had handed the letters and carried his +penitential headache to bed, was: "You see, Emmeline, it is useless to +base any system on a human being." + +A very philosophical remark for one who has been busily at work building +for nearly twenty years. Too philosophical to seem genuine. It revealed +where the blow struck sharpest. Richard was no longer the Richard of his +creation--his pride and his joy--but simply a human being with the rest. +The bright star had sunk among the mass. + +And yet, what had the young man done? And in what had the System failed? + +The lady could not but ask herself this, while she condoled with the +offended father. + +"My friend," she said, tenderly taking his hand before she retired, "I +know how deeply you must be grieved. I know what your disappointment +must be. I do not beg of you to forgive him now. You cannot doubt his +love for this young person, and according to his light, has he not +behaved honourably, and as you would have wished, rather than bring her +to shame? You will think of that. It has been an accident--a +misfortune--a terrible misfortune"... + +"The God of this world is in the machine--not out of it," Sir Austin +interrupted her, and pressed her hand to get the good-night over. + +At any other time her mind would have been arrested to admire the phrase; +now it seemed perverse, vain, false, and she was tempted to turn the +meaning that was in it against himself, much as she pitied him. + +"You know, Emmeline," he added, "I believe very little in the fortune, or +misfortune, to which men attribute their successes and reverses. They +are useful impersonations to novelists; but my opinion is sufficiently +high of flesh and blood to believe that we make our own history without +intervention. Accidents?--Terrible misfortunes?--What are they?--Good- +night." + +"Good-night," she said, looking sad and troubled. "When I said, +'misfortune,' I meant, of course, that he is to blame; but--shall I leave +you his letter to me?" + +"I think I have enough to meditate upon," he replied, coldly bowing. + +"God bless you," she whispered. "And--may I say it? do not shut your +heart." + +He assured her that he hoped not to do so and the moment she was gone he +set about shutting it as tight as he could. + +If, instead of saying, Base no system on a human being, he had said, +Never experimentalize with one, he would have been nearer the truth of +his own case. He had experimented on humanity in the person of the son +he loved as his life, and at once, when the experiment appeared to have +failed, all humanity's failings fell on the shoulders of his son. +Richard's parting laugh in the train--it was explicable now: it sounded +in his ears like the mockery of this base nature of ours at every +endeavour to exalt and chasten it. The young man had plotted this. From +step to step Sir Austin traced the plot. The curious mask he had worn +since his illness; the selection of his incapable uncle Hippias for a +companion in preference to Adrian; it was an evident, well-perfected +plot. That hideous laugh would not be silenced: Base, like the rest, +treacherous, a creature of passions using his abilities solely to gratify +them--never surely had humanity such chances as in him! A Manichaean +tendency, from which the sententious eulogist of nature had been +struggling for years (and which was partly at the bottom of the System), +now began to cloud and usurp dominion of his mind. As he sat alone in +the forlorn dead-hush of his library, he saw the devil. + +How are we to know when we are at the head and fountain of the fates of +them we love? + +There by the springs of Richard's future, his father sat: and the devil +said to him: "Only be quiet: do nothing: resolutely do nothing: your +object now is to keep a brave face to the world, so that all may know you +superior to this human nature that has deceived you. For it is the +shameless deception, not the marriage, that has wounded you." + +"Ay!" answered the baronet, "the shameless deception, not the marriage: +wicked and ruinous as it must be; a destroyer of my tenderest hopes! my +dearest schemes! Not the marriage--the shameless deception!" and he +crumpled up his son's letter to him, and tossed it into the fire. + +How are we to distinguish the dark chief of the Manichaeans when he talks +our own thoughts to us? + +Further he whispered, "And your System:--if you would be brave to the +world, have courage to cast the dream of it out of you: relinquish an +impossible project; see it as it is--dead: too good for men!" + +"Ay!" muttered the baronet: "all who would save them perish on the +Cross!" + +And so he sat nursing the devil. + +By and by he took his lamp, and put on the old cloak and cap, and went to +gaze at Ripton. That exhausted debauchee and youth without a destiny +slept a dead sleep. A handkerchief was bound about his forehead, and his +helpless sunken chin and snoring nose projected up the pillow, made him +look absurdly piteous. The baronet remembered how often he had compared +his boy with this one: his own bright boy! And where was the difference +between them? + +"Mere outward gilding!" said his familiar. + +"Yes," he responded, "I daresay this one never positively plotted to +deceive his father: he followed his appetites unchecked, and is +internally the sounder of the two." + +Ripton, with his sunken chin and snoring nose under the light of the +lamp, stood for human nature, honest, however abject. + +"Miss Random, I fear very much, is a necessary establishment!" whispered +the monitor. + +"Does the evil in us demand its natural food, or it corrupts the whole?" +ejaculated Sir Austin. "And is no angel of avail till that is drawn off? +And is that our conflict--to see whether we can escape the contagion of +its embrace, and come uncorrupted out of that?" + +"The world is wise in its way," said the voice. + +"Though it look on itself through Port wine?" he suggested, remembering +his lawyer Thompson. + +"Wise in not seeking to be too wise," said the voice. + +"And getting intoxicated on its drug of comfort!" + +"Human nature is weak." + +"And Miss Random is an establishment, and Wild Oats an institution!" + +"It always has been so." + +"And always will be?" + +"So I fear! in spite of your very noble efforts." + +"And leads--whither? And ends--where?" + +Richard's laugh, taken up by horrid reverberations, as it were through +the lengths of the Lower Halls, replied. + +This colloquy of two voices in a brain was concluded by Sir Austin asking +again if there were no actual difference between the flower of his hopes +and yonder drunken weed, and receiving for answer that there was a +decided dissimilarity in the smell of the couple; becoming cognizant of +which he retreated. + +Sir Austin did not battle with the tempter. He took him into his bosom +at once, as if he had been ripe for him, and received his suggestions and +bowed to his dictates. Because he suffered, and decreed that he would +suffer silently, and be the only sufferer, it seemed to him that he was +great-minded in his calamity. He had stood against the world. The world +had beaten him. What then? He must shut his heart and mask his face; +that was all. To be far in advance of the mass, is as fruitless to +mankind, he reflected, as straggling in the rear. For how do we know +that they move behind us at all, or move in our track? What we win for +them is lost; and where we are overthrown we lie! + +It was thus that a fine mind and a fine heart at the bounds of a nature +not great, chose to colour his retrogression and countenance his +shortcoming; and it was thus that he set about ruining the work he had +done. He might well say, as he once did, that there are hours when the +clearest soul becomes a cunning fox. For a grief that was private and +peculiar, he unhesitatingly cast the blame upon humanity; just as he had +accused it in the period of what he termed his own ordeal. How had he +borne that? By masking his face. And he prepared the ordeal for his son +by doing the same. This was by no means his idea of a man's duty in +tribulation, about which he could be strenuously eloquent. + +But it was his instinct so to act, and in times of trial great natures +alone are not at the mercy of their instincts. Moreover it would cost +him pain to mask his face; pain worse than that he endured when there +still remained an object for him to open his heart to in proportion; and +he always reposed upon the Spartan comfort of bearing pain and being +passive. "Do nothing," said the devil he nursed; which meant in his +case, "Take me into you and don't cast me out." Excellent and sane is +the outburst of wrath to men, when it stops short of slaughter. For who +that locks it up to eat in solitary, can say that it is consumed? Sir +Austin had as weak a digestion for wrath, as poor Hippias for a green +duckling. Instead of eating it, it ate him. The wild beast in him was +not the less deadly because it did not roar, and the devil in him not the +less active because he resolved to do nothing. + +He sat at the springs of Richard's future, in the forlorn dead-hush of +his library there, hearing the cinders click in the extinguished fire, +and that humming stillness in which one may fancy one hears the midnight +Fates busily stirring their embryos. The lamp glowed mildly on the bust +of Chatham. + +Toward morning a gentle knock fell at his door. Lady Blandish glided in. +With hasty step she came straight to him, and took both his hands. + +"My friend," she said, speaking tearfully, and trembling, "I feared I +should find you here. I could not sleep. How is it with you?" + +"Well! Emmeline, well!" he replied, torturing his brows to fix the mask. + +He wished it had been Adrian who had come to him. He had an +extraordinary longing for Adrian's society. He knew that the wise youth +would divine how to treat him, and he mentally confessed to just enough +weakness to demand a certain kind of management. Besides, Adrian, he had +not a doubt, would accept him entirely as he seemed, and not pester him +in any way by trying to unlock his heart; whereas a woman, he feared, +would be waxing too womanly, and swelling from tears and supplications to +a scene, of all things abhorred by him the most. So he rapped the floor +with his foot, and gave the lady no very welcome face when he said it was +well with him. + +She sat down by his side, still holding one hand firmly, and softly +detaining the other. + +"Oh, my friend! may I believe you? May I speak to you?" She leaned +close to him. "You know my heart. I have no better ambition than to be +your friend. Surely I divide your grief, and may I not claim your +confidence? Who has wept more over your great and dreadful sorrows? I +would not have come to you, but I do believe that sorrow shared relieves +the burden, and it is now that you may feel a woman's aid, and something +of what a woman could be to you...." + +"Be assured," he gravely said, "I thank you, Emmeline, for your +intentions." + +"No, no! not for my intentions! And do not thank me. Think of +him...think of your dear boy... Our Richard, as we have called him.--Oh! +do not think it a foolish superstition of mine, but I have had a thought +this night that has kept me in torment till I rose to speak to you... +Tell me first you have forgiven him." + +"A father bears no malice to his son, Emmeline." + +"Your heart has forgiven him?" + +My heart has taken what he gave." + +"And quite forgiven him?" + +"You will hear no complaints of mine." + +The lady paused despondingly, and looked at him in a wistful manner, +saying with a sigh, "Yes! I know how noble you are, and different from +others!" + +He drew one of his hands from her relaxed hold. + +"You ought to be in bed, Emmeline." + +"I cannot sleep." + +"Go, and talk to me another time." + +"No, it must be now. You have helped me when I struggled to rise into a +clearer world, and I think, humble as I am, I can help you now. I have +had a thought this night that if you do not pray for him and bless +him...it will end miserably. My friend, have you done so?" + +He was stung and offended, and could hardly help showing it in spite of +his mask. + +"Have you done so, Austin?" + +"This is assuredly a new way of committing fathers to the follies of +their sons, Emmeline!" + +"No, not that. But will you pray for your boy, and bless him, before the +day comes?" + +He restrained himself to pronounce his words calmly:--"And I must do +this, or it will end in misery? How else can it end? Can I save him +from the seed he has sown? Consider, Emmeline, what you say. He has +repeated his cousin's sin. You see the end of that." + +"Oh, so different! This young person is not, is not of the class poor +Austin Wentworth allied himself to. Indeed it is different. And he--be +just and admit his nobleness. I fancied you did. This young person has +great beauty, she has the elements of good breeding, she--indeed I think, +had she been in another position, you would not have looked upon her +unfavourably." + +"She may be too good for my son!" The baronet spoke with sublime +bitterness. + +"No woman is too good for Richard, and you know it." + +"Pass her." + +"Yes, I will speak only of him. He met her by a fatal accident. We +thought his love dead, and so did he till he saw her again. He met her, +he thought we were plotting against him, he thought he should lose her +for ever, and is the madness of an hour he did this...." + +"My Emmeline pleads bravely for clandestine matches." + +"Ah! do not trifle, my friend. Say: would you have had him act as young +men in his position generally do to young women beneath them?" + +Sir Austin did not like the question. It probed him very severely. + +"You mean," he said, "that fathers must fold their arms, and either +submit to infamous marriages, or have these creatures ruined." + +"I do not mean that," exclaimed the lady, striving for what she did mean, +and how to express it. "I mean that he loved her. Is it not a madness +at his age? But what I chiefly mean is--save him from the consequences. +No, you shall not withdraw your hand. Think of his pride, his +sensitiveness, his great wild nature--wild when he is set wrong: think +how intense it is, set upon love; think, my friend, do not forget his +love for you." + +Sir Austin smiled an admirable smile of pity. + +"That I should save him, or any one, from consequences, is asking more +than the order of things will allow to you, Emmeline, and is not in the +disposition of this world. I cannot. Consequences are the natural +offspring of acts. My child, you are talking sentiment, which is the +distraction of our modern age in everything--a phantasmal vapour +distorting the image of the life we live. You ask me to give him a +golden age in spite of himself. All that could be done, by keeping him +in the paths of virtue and truth, I did. He is become a man, and as a +man he must reap his own sowing." + +The baffled lady sighed. He sat so rigid: he spoke so securely, as if +wisdom were to him more than the love of his son. And yet he did love +his son. Feeling sure that he loved his son while he spoke so loftily, +she reverenced him still, baffled as she was, and sensible that she had +been quibbled with. + +"All I ask of you is to open your heart to him," she said. + +He kept silent. + +"Call him a man,--he is, and must ever be the child of your education, my +friend." + +"You would console me, Emmeline, with the prospect that, if he ruins +himself, he spares the world of young women. Yes, that is something!" + +Closely she scanned the mask. It was impenetrable. He could meet her +eyes, and respond to the pressure of her hand, and smile, and not show +what he felt. Nor did he deem it hypocritical to seek to maintain his +elevation in her soft soul, by simulating supreme philosophy over +offended love. Nor did he know that he had an angel with him then: a +blind angel, and a weak one, but one who struck upon his chance. + +"Am I pardoned for coming to you?" she said, after a pause. + +"Surely I can read my Emmeline's intentions," he gently replied. + +"Very poor ones. I feel my weakness. I cannot utter half I have been +thinking. Oh, if I could!" + +"You speak very well, Emmeline." + +"At least, I am pardoned!" + +"Surely so." + +"And before I leave you, dear friend, shall I be forgiven?--may I beg +it?--will you bless him?" + +He was again silent. + +"Pray for him, Austin! pray for him ere the night is over." + +As she spoke she slid down to his feet and pressed his hand to her bosom. + +The baronet was startled. In very dread of the soft fit that wooed him, +he pushed back his chair, and rose, and went to the window. + +"It's day already!" he said with assumed vivacity, throwing open the +shutters, and displaying the young light on the lawn. + +Lady Blandish dried her tears as she knelt, and then joined him, and +glanced up silently at Richard's moon standing in wane toward the West. +She hoped it was because of her having been premature in pleading so +earnestly, that she had failed to move him, and she accused herself more +than the baronet. But in acting as she had done, she had treated him as +no common man, and she was compelled to perceive that his heart was at +present hardly superior to the hearts of ordinary men, however composed +his face might be, and apparently serene his wisdom. From that moment +she grew critical of him, and began to study her idol--a process +dangerous to idols. He, now that she seemed to have relinquished the +painful subject, drew to her, and as one who wished to smooth a foregone +roughness, murmured: "God's rarest blessing is, after all, a good woman! +My Emmeline bears her sleepless night well. She does not shame the day." +He gazed down on her with a fondling tenderness. + +"I could bear many, many!" she replied, meeting his eyes, "and you would +see me look better and better, if...if only..." but she had no +encouragement to end the sentence. + +Perhaps he wanted some mute form of consolation; perhaps the handsome +placid features of the dark-eyed dame touched him: at any rate their +Platonism was advanced by his putting an arm about her. She felt the arm +and talked of the morning. + +Thus proximate, they by and by both heard something very like a groan +behind them, and looking round, beheld the Saurian eye. Lady Blandish +smiled, but the baronet's discomposure was not to be concealed. By a +strange fatality every stage of their innocent loves was certain to have +a human beholder. + +"Oh, I'm sure I beg pardon," Benson mumbled, arresting his head in a +melancholy pendulosity. He was ordered out of the room. + +"And I think I shall follow him, and try to get forty winks," said Lady +Blandish. They parted with a quiet squeeze of hands. + +The baronet then called in Benson. + +"Get me my breakfast as soon as you can," he said, regardless of the +aspect of injured conscience Benson sombrely presented to him. "I am +going to town early. And, Benson," he added, "you will also go to town +this afternoon, or to-morrow, if it suits you, and take your book with +you to Mr. Thompson. You will not return here. A provision will be made +for you. You can go." + +The heavy butler essayed to speak, but the tremendous blow and the +baronet's gesture choked him. At the door he made another effort which +shook the rolls of his loose skin pitiably. An impatient signal sent him +out dumb,--and Raynham was quit of the one believer in the Great Shaddock +dogma. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Although it blew hard when Caesar crossed the Rubicon +As when nations are secretly preparing for war +The world is wise in its way +The danger of a little knowledge of things is disputable +Wise in not seeking to be too wise +Yet, though Angels smile, shall not Devils laugh + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Ordeal Richard Feverel, v4 +by George Meredith + |