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LADY BLANDISH TO AUSTIN WENTWORTH + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +At a season when the pleasant South-western Island has few attractions to +other than invalids and hermits enamoured of wind and rain, the potent +nobleman, Lord Mountfalcon, still lingered there to the disgust of his +friends and special parasite. "Mount's in for it again," they said among +themselves. "Hang the women!" was a natural sequence. For, don't you +see, what a shame it was of the women to be always kindling such a very +inflammable subject! All understood that Cupid had twanged his bow, and +transfixed a peer of Britain for the fiftieth time: but none would +perceive, though he vouched for it with his most eloquent oaths, that +this was a totally different case from the antecedent ones. So it had +been sworn to them too frequently before. He was as a man with mighty +tidings, and no language: intensely communicative, but inarticulate. +Good round oaths had formerly compassed and expounded his noble emotions. +They were now quite beyond the comprehension of blasphemy, even when +emphasized, and by this the poor lord divinely felt the case was +different. There is something impressive in a great human hulk writhing +under the unutterable torments of a mastery he cannot contend with, or +account for, or explain by means of intelligible words. At first he took +refuge in the depths of his contempt for women. Cupid gave him line. +When he had come to vent his worst of them, the fair face now stamped on +his brain beamed the more triumphantly: so the harpooned whale rose to +the surface, and after a few convulsions, surrendered his huge length. +My lord was in love with Richard's young wife. He gave proofs of it by +burying himself beside her. To her, could she have seen it, he gave +further proofs of a real devotion, in affecting, and in her presence +feeling, nothing beyond a lively interest in her well-being. This +wonder, that when near her he should be cool and composed, and when away +from her wrapped in a tempest of desires, was matter for what powers of +cogitation the heavy nobleman possessed. + +The Hon. Peter, tired of his journeys to and fro, urged him to press the +business. Lord Mountfalcon was wiser, or more scrupulous, than his +parasite. Almost every evening he saw Lucy. The inexperienced little +wife apprehended no harm in his visits. Moreover, Richard had commended +her to the care of Lord Mountfalcon, and Lady Judith. Lady Judith had +left the Island for London: Lord Mountfalcon remained. There could be no +harm. If she had ever thought so, she no longer did. Secretly, perhaps, +she was flattered. Lord Mountfalcon was as well educated as it is the +fortune of the run of titled elder sons to be: he could talk and +instruct: he was a lord: and he let her understand that he was wicked, +very wicked, and that she improved him. The heroine, in common with the +hero, has her ambition to be of use in the world--to do some good: and +the task of reclaiming a bad man is extremely seductive to good women. +Dear to their tender bosoms as old china is a bad man they are mending! +Lord Mountfalcon had none of the arts of a libertine: his gold, his +title, and his person had hitherto preserved him from having long to sigh +in vain, or sigh at all, possibly: the Hon. Peter did his villanies for +him. No alarm was given to Lucy's pure instinct, as might have been the +case had my lord been over-adept. It was nice in her martyrdom to have a +true friend to support her, and really to be able to do something for +that friend. Too simple-minded to think much of his lordship's position, +she was yet a woman. "He, a great nobleman, does not scorn to +acknowledge me, and think something of me," may have been one of the +half-thoughts passing through her now and then, as she reflected in self- +defence on the proud family she had married into. + +January was watering and freezing old earth by turns, when the Hon. Peter +travelled down to the sun of his purse with great news. He had no sooner +broached his lordship's immediate weakness, than Mountfalcon began to +plunge like a heavy dragoon in difficulties. He swore by this and that +he had come across an angel for his sins, and would do her no hurt. The +next moment he swore she must be his, though she cursed like a cat. His +lordship's illustrations were not choice. "I haven't advanced an inch," +he groaned. "Brayder! upon my soul, that little woman could do anything +with me. By heaven! I'd marry her to-morrow. Here I am, seeing her +every day in the week out or in, and what do you think she gets me to +talk about?--history! Isn't it enough to make a fellow mad? and there am +I lecturing like a prig, and by heaven! while I'm at it I feel a pleasure +in it; and when I leave the house I should feel an immense gratification +in shooting somebody. What do they say in town?" + +"Not much," said Brayder, significantly. + +"When's that fellow--her husband--coming down?" + +"I rather hope we've settled him for life, Mount." + +Nobleman and parasite exchanged looks. + +"How d'ye mean?" + +Brayder hummed an air, and broke it to say, "He's in for Don Juan at a +gallop, that's all." + +"The deuce! Has Bella got him?" Mountfalcon asked with eagerness. + +Brayder handed my lord a letter. It was dated from the Sussex coast, +signed "Richard," and was worded thus: + +"My beautiful Devil!-- + +"Since we're both devils together, and have found each other out, come to +me at once, or I shall be going somewhere in a hurry. Come, my bright +hell-star! I ran away from you, and now I ask you to come to me! You +have taught me how devils love, and I can't do without you. Come an hour +after you receive this." + +Mountfalcon turned over the letter to see if there was any more. +"Complimentary love-epistle!" he remarked, and rising from his chair and +striding about, muttered, "The dog! how infamously he treats his wife!" + +"Very bad," said Brayder. + +"How did you get hold of this?" + +"Strolled into Belle's dressing-room, waiting for her turned over her +pincushion hap-hazard. You know her trick." + +"By Jove! I think that girl does it on purpose. Thank heaven, I haven't +written her any letters for an age. Is she going to him?" + +"Not she! But it's odd, Mount!--did you ever know her refuse money +before? She tore up the cheque in style, and presented me the fragments +with two or three of the delicacies of language she learnt at your +Academy. I rather like to hear a woman swear. It embellishes her!" + +Mountfalcon took counsel of his parasite as to the end the letter could +be made to serve. Both conscientiously agreed that Richard's behaviour +to his wife was infamous, and that he at least deserved no mercy. "But," +said his lordship, "it won't do to show the letter. At first she'll be +swearing it's false, and then she'll stick to him closer. I know the +sluts." + +"The rule of contrary," said Brayder, carelessly. "She must see the +trahison with her eyes. "They believe their eyes. There's your chance, +Mount. You step in: you give her revenge and consolation--two birds at +one shot. That's what they like." + +"You're an ass, Brayder," the nobleman exclaimed. "You're an infernal +blackguard. You talk of this little woman as if she and other women were +all of a piece. I don't see anything I gain by this confounded letter. +Her husband's a brute--that's clear." + +"Will you leave it to me, Mount?" + +"Be damned before I do!" muttered my lord. + +"Thank you. Now see how this will end: You're too soft, Mount. You'll +be made a fool of." + +"I tell you, Brayder, there's nothing to be done. If I carry her off-- +I've been on the point of doing it every day--what'll come of that? +She'll look--I can't stand her eyes--I shall be a fool--worse off with +her than I am now." + +Mountfalcon yawned despondently. "And what do you think?" he pursued. +"Isn't it enough to make a fellow gnash his teeth? She's"...he mentioned +something in an underbreath, and turned red as he said it. + +"Hm!" Brayder put up his mouth and rapped the handle of his cane on his +chin. "That's disagreeable, Mount. You don't exactly want to act in +that character. You haven't got a diploma. Bother!" + +"Do you think I love her a bit less?" broke out my lord in a frenzy. "By +heaven! I'd read to her by her bedside, and talk that infernal history +to her, if it pleased her, all day and all night." + +"You're evidently graduating for a midwife, Mount." + +The nobleman appeared silently to accept the imputation. + +"What do they say in town?" he asked again. + +Brayder said the sole question was, whether it was maid, wife, or widow. + +"I'll go to her this evening," Mountfalcon resumed, after--to judge by +the cast of his face--reflecting deeply. "I'll go to her this evening. +She shall know what infernal torment she makes me suffer." + +"Do you mean to say she don't know it?" + +"Hasn't an idea--thinks me a friend. And so, by heaven! I'll be to +her." + +"A--hm!" went the Honourable Peter. "This way to the sign of the Green +Man, ladies!" + +"Do you want to be pitched out of the window, Brayder?" + +"Once was enough, Mount. The Salvage Man is strong. I may have +forgotten the trick of alighting on my feet. There--there! I'll be +sworn she's excessively innocent, and thinks you a disinterested friend." + +"I'll go to her this evening," Mountfalcon repeated. "She shall know +what damned misery it is to see her in such a position. I can't hold out +any longer. Deceit's horrible to such a girl as that. I'd rather have +her cursing me than speaking and looking as she does. Dear little girl!- +-she's only a child. You haven't an idea how sensible that little woman +is." + +"Have you?" inquired the cunning one. + +"My belief is, Brayder, that there are angels among women," said +Mountfalcon, evading his parasite's eye as he spoke. + +To the world, Lord Mountfalcon was the thoroughly wicked man; his +parasite simply ingeniously dissipated. Full many a man of God had +thought it the easier task to reclaim the Hon. Peter. + +Lucy received her noble friend by firelight that evening, and sat much in +the shade. She offered to have the candles brought in. He begged her to +allow the room to remain as it was. "I have something to say to you," he +observed with a certain solemnity. + +"Yes--to me?" said Lucy, quickly. + +Lord Mountfalcon knew he had a great deal to say, but how to say it, and +what it exactly was, he did not know.' + +"You conceal it admirably," he began, "but you must be very lonely here-- +I fear, unhappy." + +"I should have been lonely, but for your kindness, my lord," said Lucy. +"I am not unhappy." Her face was in shade and could not belie her. + +"Is there any help that one who would really be your friend might give +you, Mrs. Feverel?" + +"None indeed that I know of," Lucy replied. "Who can help us to pay for +our sins?" + +"At least you may permit me to endeavour to pay my debts, since you have +helped me to wash out some of any sins." + +"Ah, my lord!" said Lucy, not displeased. It is sweet for a woman to +believe she has drawn the serpent's teeth. + +"I tell you the truth," Lord Mountfalcon went on. "What object could I +have in deceiving you? I know you quite above flattery--so different +from other women!" + +"Oh, pray, do not say that," interposed Lucy. + +"According to my experience, then." + +"But you say you have met such--such very bad women." + +"I have. And now that I meet a good one, it is my misfortune." + +"Your misfortune, Lord Mountfalcon?" + +"Yes, and I might say more." + +His lordship held impressively mute. + +"How strange men are!" thought Lucy. "He had some unhappy secret." + +Tom Bakewell, who had a habit of coming into the room on various +pretences during the nobleman's visits, put a stop to the revelation, if +his lordship intended to make any. + +When they were alone again, Lucy said, smiling: "Do you know, I am always +ashamed to ask you to begin to read." + +Mountfalcon stared. "To read?--oh! ha! yes!" he remembered his evening +duties. "Very happy, I'm sure. Let me see. Where were we?" + +"The life of the Emperor Julian. But indeed I feel quite ashamed to ask +you to read, my lord. It's new to me; like a new world--hearing about +Emperors, and armies, and things that really have been on the earth we +walk upon. It fills my mind. But it must have ceased to interest you, +and I was thinking that I would not tease you any more." + +"Your pleasure is mine, Mrs. Feverel. 'Pon my honour, I'd read till I +was hoarse, to hear your remarks." + +"Are you laughing at me?" + +"Do I look so?" + +Lord Mountfalcon had fine full eyes, and by merely dropping the lids he +could appear to endow them with mental expression. + +"No, you are not," said Lucy. "I must thank you for your forbearance." + +The nobleman went on his honour loudly. + +Now it was an object of Lucy's to have him reading; for his sake, for her +sake, and for somebody else's sake; which somebody else was probably +considered first in the matter. When he was reading to her, he seemed to +be legitimizing his presence there; and though she had no doubts or +suspicions whatever, she was easier in her heart while she had him +employed in that office. So she rose to fetch the book, laid it open on +the table at his lordship's elbow, and quietly waited to ring for candles +when he should be willing to commence. + +That evening Lord Mountfalcon could not get himself up to the farce, and +he felt a pity for the strangely innocent unprotected child with anguish +hanging over her, that withheld the words he wanted to speak, or +insinuate. He sat silent and did nothing. + +"What I do not like him for," said Lucy, meditatively, "is his changing +his religion. He would have been such a hero, but for that. I could +have loved him." + +"Who is it you could have loved, Mrs. Feverel?" Lord Mountfalcon asked. + +"The Emperor Julian." + +"Oh! the Emperor Julian! Well, he was an apostate but then, you know, he +meant what he was about. He didn't even do it for a woman." + +"For a woman!" cried Lucy. "What man would for a woman?" + +"I would." + +"You, Lord Mountfalcon?" + +"Yes. I'd turn Catholic to-morrow." + +"You make me very unhappy if you say that, my lord." + +"Then I'll unsay it." + +Lucy slightly shuddered. She put her hand upon the bell to ring for +lights. + +"Do you reject a convert, Mrs. Feverel?" said the nobleman. + +"Oh yes! yes! I do. One who does not give his conscience I would not +have." + +"If he gives his heart and body, can he give more?" + +Lucy's hand pressed the bell. She did not like the doubtful light with +one who was so unscrupulous. Lord Mountfalcon had never spoken in this +way before. He spoke better, too. She missed the aristocratic twang in +his voice, and the hesitation for words, and the fluid lordliness with +which he rolled over difficulties in speech. + +Simultaneously with the sounding of the bell the door opened, and +presented Tom Bakewell. There was a double knock at the same instant at +the street door. Lucy delayed to give orders. + +"Can it be a letter, Tom!--so late?" she said, changing colour. "Pray +run and see." + +"That an't powst" Tom remarked, as he obeyed his mistress. + +"Are you very anxious for a letter, Mrs. Feverel?" Lord Mountfalcon +inquired. + +"Oh, no!--yes, I am, very." said Lucy. Her quick ear caught the tones of +a voice she remembered. "That dear old thing has come to see me," she +cried, starting up. + +Tom ushered a bunch of black satin into the room. + +"Mrs. Berry!" said Lucy, running up to her and kissing her. + +"Me, my darlin'!" Mrs. Berry, breathless and rosy with her journey, +returned the salute. "Me truly it is, in fault of a better, for I ain't +one to stand by and give the devil his licence--roamin'! and the salt +sure enough have spilte my bride-gown at the beginnin', which ain't the +best sign. Bless ye!--Oh, here he is." She beheld a male figure in a +chair by the half light, and swung around to address him. "You bad man!" +she held aloft one of her fat fingers, "I've come on ye like a bolt, I +have, and goin' to make ye do your duty, naughty boy! But your my +darlin' babe," she melted, as was her custom, "and I'll never meet you +and not give to ye the kiss of a mother." + +Before Lord Mountfalcon could find time to expostulate the soft woman had +him by the neck, and was down among his luxurious whiskers. + +"Ha!" She gave a smothered shriek, and fell back. "What hair's that?" + +Tom Bakewell just then illumined the transaction. + +"Oh, my gracious!" Mrs. Berry breathed with horror, "I been and kiss a +strange man!" + +Lucy, half-laughing, but in dreadful concern, begged the noble lord to +excuse the woful mistake. + +"Extremely flattered, highly favoured, I'm sure;" said his lordship, re- +arranging his disconcerted moustache; "may I beg the pleasure of an +introduction?" + +"My husband's dear old nurse--Mrs. Berry," said Lucy, taking her hand to +lend her countenance. "Lord Mountfalcon, Mrs. Berry." + +Mrs. Berry sought grace while she performed a series of apologetic bobs, +and wiped the perspiration from her forehead. + +Lucy put her into a chair: Lord Mountfalcon asked for an account of her +passage over to the Island; receiving distressingly full particulars, by +which it was revealed that the softness of her heart was only equalled by +the weakness of her stomach. The recital calmed Mrs. Berry down. + +"Well, and where's my--where's Mr. Richard? yer husband, my dear?" Mrs. +Berry turned from her tale to question. + +"Did you expect to see him here?" said Lucy, in a broken voice. + +"And where else, my love? since he haven't been seen in London a whole +fortnight." + +Lucy did not speak. + +"We will dismiss the Emperor Julian till to-morrow, I think," said Lord +Mountfalcon, rising and bowing. + +Lucy gave him her hand with mute thanks. He touched it distantly, +embraced Mrs. Berry in a farewell bow, and was shown out of the house by +Tom Bakewell. + +The moment he was gone, Mrs. Berry threw up her arms. "Did ye ever know +sich a horrid thing to go and happen to a virtuous woman!" she exclaimed. +"I could cry at it, I could! To be goin' and kissin' a strange hairy +man! Oh dear me! what's cornin' next, I wonder? Whiskers! thinks I--for +I know the touch o' whiskers--'t ain't like other hair--what! have he +growed a crop that sudden, I says to myself; and it flashed on me I been +and made a awful mistake! and the lights come in, and I see that great +hairy man--beggin' his pardon--nobleman, and if I could 'a dropped +through the floor out o' sight o' men, drat 'em! they're al'ays in the +way, that they are!"-- + +"Mrs. Berry," Lucy checked her, "did you expect to find him here?" + +"Askin' that solemn?" retorted Berry. "What him? your husband? O' +course I did! and you got him--somewheres hid." + +"I have not heard from my husband for fifteen days," said Lucy, and her +tears rolled heavily off her cheeks. + +"Not heer from him!--fifteen days!" Berry echoed. + +"O Mrs. Berry! dear kind Mrs. Berry! have you no news? nothing to tell +me! I've borne it so long. They're cruel to me, Mrs. Berry. Oh, do you +know if I have offended him--my husband? While he wrote I did not +complain. I could live on his letters for years. But not to hear from +him! To think I have ruined him, and that he repents! Do they want to +take him from me? Do they want me dead? O Mrs. Berry! I've had no one +to speak out my heart to all this time, and I cannot, cannot help crying, +Mrs. Berry!" + +Mrs. Berry was inclined to be miserable at what she heard from Lucy's +lips, and she was herself full of dire apprehension; but it was never +this excellent creature's system to be miserable in company. The sight +of a sorrow that was not positive, and could not refer to proof, set her +resolutely the other way. + +"Fiddle-faddle," she said. "I'd like to see him repent! He won't find +anywheres a beauty like his own dear little wife, and he know it. Now, +look you here, my dear--you blessed weepin' pet--the man that could see +ye with that hair of yours there in ruins, and he backed by the law, and +not rush into your arms and hold ye squeezed for life, he ain't got much +man in him, I say; and no one can say that of my babe! I was sayin', +look here, to comfort ye--oh, why, to be sure he've got some surprise for +ye. And so've I, my lamb! Hark, now! His father've come to town, like +a good reasonable man at last, to u-nite ye both, and bring your bodies +together, as your hearts is, for everlastin'. Now ain't that news?" + +"Oh!" cried Lucy, "that takes my last hope away. I thought he had gone +to his father." She burst into fresh tears. + +Mrs. Berry paused, disturbed. + +"Belike he's travellin' after him," she suggested. + +"Fifteen days, Mrs. Berry!" + +"Ah, fifteen weeks, my dear, after sieh a man as that. He's a regular +meteor, is Sir Austin Feverel, Raynham Abbey. Well, so hark you here. I +says to myself, that knows him--for I did think my babe was in his +natural nest--I says, the bar'net'll never write for you both to come up +and beg forgiveness, so down I'll go and fetch you up. For there was +your mistake, my dear, ever to leave your husband to go away from ye one +hour in a young marriage. It's dangerous, it's mad, it's wrong, and it's +only to be righted by your obeyin' of me, as I commands it: for I has my +fits, though I am a soft 'un. Obey me, and ye'll be happy tomorrow--or +the next to it." + +Lucy was willing to see comfort. She was weary of her self-inflicted +martyrdom, and glad to give herself up to somebody else's guidance +utterly. + +"But why does he not write to me, Mrs. Berry?" + +"'Cause, 'cause--who can tell the why of men, my dear? But that he love +ye faithful, I'll swear. Haven't he groaned in my arms that he couldn't +come to ye?--weak wretch! Hasn't he swore how he loved ye to me, poor +young man! But this is your fault, my sweet. Yes, it be. You should 'a +followed my 'dvice at the fust--'stead o' going into your 'eroics about +this and t'other." Here Mrs. Berry poured forth fresh sentences on +matrimony, pointed especially at young couples. "I should 'a been a fool +if I hadn't suffered myself," she confessed, "so I'll thank my Berry if I +makes you wise in season." + +Lucy smoothed her ruddy plump cheeks, and gazed up affectionately into +the soft woman's kind brown eyes. Endearing phrases passed from mouth to +mouth. And as she gazed Lucy blushed, as one who has something very +secret to tell, very sweet, very strange, but cannot quite bring herself +to speak it. + +"Well! these's three men in my life I kissed," said Mrs. Berry, too much +absorbed in her extraordinary adventure to notice the young wife's +struggling bosom, "three men, and one a nobleman! He've got more whisker +than my Berry, I wonder what the man thought. Ten to one he'll think, +now, I was glad o' my chance--they're that vain, whether they's lords or +commons. How was I to know? I nat'ral thinks none but her husband'd sit +in that chair. Ha! and in the dark? and alone with ye?" Mrs. Berry +hardened her eyes, "and your husband away? What do this mean? Tell to +me, child, what it mean his bein' here alone without ere a candle?" + +"Lord Mountfalcon is the only friend I have here," said Lucy. "He is +very kind. He comes almost every evening." + +"Lord Montfalcon--that his name!" Mrs. Berry exclaimed. "I been that +flurried by the man, I didn't mind it at first. He come every evenin', +and your husband out o' sight! My goodness me! it's gettin' worse and +worse. And what do he come for, now, ma'am? Now tell me candid what ye +do together here in the dark of an evenin'." + +Mrs. Berry glanced severely. + +"O Mrs. Berry! please not to speak in that way--I don't like it," said +Lucy, pouting. + +"What do he come for, I ask?" + +"Because he is kind, Mrs. Berry. He sees me very lonely, and wishes to +amuse me. And he tells me of things I know nothing about and"-- + +"And wants to be a-teachin' some of his things, mayhap," Mrs. Berry +interrupted with a ruffled breast. + +"You are a very ungenerous, suspicious, naughty old woman," said Lucy, +chiding her. + +"And you're a silly, unsuspectin' little bird," Mrs. Berry retorted, as +she returned her taps on the cheek. "You haven't told me what ye do +together, and what's his excuse for comin'." + +"Well, then, Mrs. Berry, almost every evening that he comes we read +History, and he explains the battles, and talks to me about the great +men. And he says I'm not silly, Mrs. Berry." + +"That's one bit o' lime on your wings, my bird. History, indeed! +History to a young married lovely woman alone in the dark! a pretty +History! Why, I know that man's name, my dear. He's a notorious living +rake, that Lord Montfalcon. No woman's safe with him." + +"Ah, but he hasn't deceived me, Mrs. Berry. He has not pretended he was +good." + +"More's his art," quoth the experienced dame. "So you read History +together in the dark; my dear!" + +"I was unwell to-night, Mrs. Berry. I wanted him not to see my face. +Look! there's the book open ready for him when the candles come in. And +now, you dear kind darling old thing, let me kiss you for coming to me. +I do love you. Talk of other things." + +"So we will," said Mrs. Berry softening to Lucy's caresses. "So let us. +A nobleman, indeed, alone with a young wife in the dark, and she sich a +beauty! I say this shall be put a stop to now and henceforth, on the +spot it shall! He won't meneuvele Bessy Berry with his arts. There! I +drop him. I'm dyin' for a cup o' tea, my dear." + +Lucy got up to ring the bell, and as Mrs. Berry, incapable of quite +dropping him, was continuing to say: "Let him go and boast I kiss him; he +ain't nothin' to be 'shamed of in a chaste woman's kiss--unawares--which +men don't get too often in their lives, I can assure 'em;"--her eye +surveyed Lucy's figure. + +Lo, when Lucy returned to her, Mrs. Berry surrounded her with her arms, +and drew her into feminine depths. "Oh, you blessed!" she cried in most +meaning tone, "you good, lovin', proper little wife, you!" + +"What is it, Mrs. Berry!" lisps Lucy, opening the most innocent blue +eyes. + +"As if I couldn't see, you pet! It was my flurry blinded me, or I'd 'a +marked ye the fast shock. Thinkin' to deceive me!" + +Mrs. Berry's eyes spoke generations. Lucy's wavered; she coloured all +over, and hid her face on the bounteous breast that mounted to her. + +"You're a sweet one," murmured the soft woman, patting her back, and +rocking her. "You're a rose, you are! and a bud on your stalk. Haven't +told a word to your husband, my dear?" she asked quickly. + +Lucy shook her head, looking sly and shy. + +"That's right. We'll give him a surprise; let it come all at once on +him, and thinks he--losin' breath 'I'm a father!' Nor a hint even you +haven't give him?" + +Lucy kissed her, to indicate it was quite a secret. + +"Oh! you are a sweet one," said Bessy Berry, and rocked her more closely +and lovingly. + +Then these two had a whispered conversation, from which let all of male +persuasion retire a space nothing under one mile. + +Returning, after a due interval, we see Mrs. Berry counting on her +fingers' ends. Concluding the sum, she cries prophetically: "Now this +right everything--a baby in the balance! Now I say this angel-infant +come from on high. It's God's messenger, my love! and it's not wrong to +say so. He thinks you worthy, or you wouldn't 'a had one--not for all +the tryin' in the world, you wouldn't, and some tries hard enough, poor +creatures! Now let us rejice and make merry! I'm for cryin' and +laughin', one and the same. This is the blessed seal of matrimony, which +Berry never stamp on me. It's be hoped it's a boy. Make that man a +grandfather, and his grandchild a son, and you got him safe. Oh! this +is what I call happiness, and I'll have my tea a little stronger in +consequence. I declare I could get tipsy to know this joyful news." + +So Mrs. Berry carolled. She had her tea a little stronger. She ate and +she drank; she rejoiced and made merry. The bliss of the chaste was +hers. + +Says Lucy demurely: "Now you know why I read History, and that sort of +books." + +"Do I?" replies Berry. "Belike I do. Since what you done's so good, my +darlin', I'm agreeable to anything. A fig for all the lords! They can't +come anigh a baby. You may read Voyages and Travels, my dear, and +Romances, and Tales of Love and War. You cut the riddle in your own dear +way, and that's all I cares for." + +"No, but you don't understand," persists Lucy. "I only read sensible +books, and talk of serious things, because I'm sure... because I have +heard say...dear Mrs. Berry! don't you understand now?" + +Mrs. Berry smacked her knees. "Only to think of her bein' that +thoughtful! and she a Catholic, too! Never tell me that people of one +religion ain't as good as another, after that. Why, you want to make him +a historian, to be sure! And that rake of a lord who've been comin' here +playin' at wolf, you been and made him--unbeknown to himself--sort o' +tutor to the unborn blessed! Ha! ha! say that little women ain't got art +ekal to the cunningest of 'em. Oh! I understand. Why, to be sure, +didn't I know a lady, a widow of a clergyman: he was a postermost child, +and afore his birth that women read nothin' but Blair's 'Grave' over and +over again, from the end to the beginnin';--that's a serious book!--very +hard readin'!--and at four years of age that child that come of it reelly +was the piousest infant!--he was like a little curate. His eyes was up; +he talked so solemn." Mrs. Berry imitated the little curate's appearance +and manner of speaking. "So she got her wish, for one!" + +But at this lady Lucy laughed. + +They chattered on happily till bedtime. Lucy arranged for Mrs. Berry to +sleep with her. "If it's not dreadful to ye, my sweet, sleepin' beside a +woman," said Mrs. Berry. "I know it were to me shortly after my Berry, +and I felt it. It don't somehow seem nat'ral after matrimony--a woman in +your bed! I was obliged to have somebody, for the cold sheets do give ye +the creeps when you've been used to that that's different." + +Upstairs they went together, Lucy not sharing these objections. Then +Lucy opened certain drawers, and exhibited pretty caps, and laced linen, +all adapted for a very small body, all the work of her own hands: and +Mrs. Berry praised them and her. "You been guessing a boy--woman-like," +she said. Then they cooed, and kissed, and undressed by the fire, and +knelt at the bedside, with their arms about each other, praying; both +praying for the unborn child; and Mrs. Berry pressed Lucy's waist the +moment she was about to breathe the petition to heaven to shield and +bless that coming life; and thereat Lucy closed to her, and felt a strong +love for her. Then Lucy got into bed first, leaving Berry to put out the +light, and before she did so, Berry leaned over her, and eyed her +roguishly, saying, "I never see ye like this, but I'm half in love with +ye myself, you blushin' beauty! Sweet's your eyes, and your hair do take +one so--lyin' back. I'd never forgive my father if he kep me away from +ye four-and-twenty hours just. Husband o' that!" Berry pointed at the +young wife's loveliness. "Ye look so ripe with kisses, and there they +are a-languishin'!--... You never look so but in your bed, ye beauty!-- +just as it ought to be." Lucy had to pretend to rise to put out the +light before Berry would give up her amorous chaste soliloquy. Then they +lay in bed, and Mrs. Berry fondled her, and arranged for their departure +to-morrow, and reviewed Richard's emotions when he came to hear he was +going to be made a father by her, and hinted at Lucy's delicious shivers +when Richard was again in his rightful place, which she, Bessy Berry, now +usurped; and all sorts of amorous sweet things; enough to make one fancy +the adage subverted, that stolen fruits are sweetest; she drew such +glowing pictures of bliss within the law and the limits of the +conscience, till at last, worn out, Lucy murmured "Peepy, dear Berry," +and the soft woman gradually ceased her chirp. + +Bessy Berry did not sleep. She lay thinking of the sweet brave heart +beside her, and listening to Lucy's breath as it came and went; squeezing +the fair sleeper's hand now and then, to ease her love as her reflections +warmed. A storm of wind came howling over the Hampshire hills, and +sprang white foam on the water, and shook the bare trees. It passed, +leaving a thin cloth of snow on the wintry land. The moon shone +brilliantly. Berry heard the house-dog bark. His bark was savage and +persistent. She was roused by the noise. By and by she fancied she +heard a movement in the house; then it seemed to her that the house-door +opened. She cocked her ears, and could almost make out voices in the +midnight stillness. She slipped from the bed, locked and bolted the door +of the room, assured herself of Lucy's unconsciousness, and went on +tiptoe to the window. The trees all stood white to the north; the ground +glittered; the cold was keen. Berry wrapped her fat arms across her +bosom, and peeped as close over into the garden as the situation of the +window permitted. Berry was a soft, not a timid, woman: and it happened +this night that her thoughts were above the fears of the dark. She was +sure of the voices; curiosity without a shade of alarm held her on the +watch; and gathering bundles of her day-apparel round her neck and +shoulders, she silenced the chattering of her teeth as well as she could, +and remained stationary. The low hum of the voices came to a break; +something was said in a louder tone; the house-door quietly shut; a man +walked out of the garden into the road. He paused opposite her window, +and Berry let the blind go back to its place, and peeped from behind an +edge of it. He was in the shadow of the house, so that it was impossible +to discern much of his figure. After some minutes he walked rapidly +away, and Berry returned to the bed an icicle, from which Lucy's limbs +sensitively shrank. + +Next morning Mrs. Berry asked Tom Bakewell if he had been disturbed in +the night. Tom, the mysterious, said he had slept like a top. Mrs. +Berry went into the garden. The snow was partially melted; all save one +spot, just under the portal, and there she saw the print of a man's foot. +By some strange guidance it occurred to her to go and find one of +Richard's boots. She did so, and, unperceived, she measured the sole of +the boot in that solitary footmark. There could be no doubt that it +fitted. She tried it from heel to toe a dozen times. + + + + +CHAPTER XL + + +Sir Austin Feverel had come to town with the serenity of a philosopher +who says, 'Tis now time; and the satisfaction of a man who has not +arrived thereat without a struggle. He had almost forgiven his son. His +deep love for him had well-nigh shaken loose from wounded pride and more +tenacious vanity. Stirrings of a remote sympathy for the creature who +had robbed him of his son and hewed at his System, were in his heart of +hearts. This he knew; and in his own mind he took credit for his +softness. But the world must not suppose him soft; the world must think +he was still acting on his System. Otherwise what would his long absence +signify?--Something highly unphilosophical. So, though love was strong, +and was moving him to a straightforward course, the last tug of vanity +drew him still aslant. + +The Aphorist read himself so well, that to juggle with himself was a +necessity. As he wished the world to see him, he beheld himself: one who +entirely put aside mere personal feelings: one in whom parental duty, +based on the science of life, was paramount: a Scientific Humanist, in +short. + +He was, therefore, rather surprised at a coldness in Lady Blandish's +manner when he did appear. "At last!" said the lady, in a sad way that +sounded reproachfully. Now the Scientific Humanist had, of course, +nothing to reproach himself with. + +But where was Richard? + +Adrian positively averred he was not with his wife. + +"If he had gone," said the baronet, "he would have anticipated me by a +few hours." + +This, when repeated to Lady Blandish, should have propitiated her, and +shown his great forgiveness. She, however, sighed, and looked at him +wistfully. + +Their converse was not happy and deeply intimate. Philosophy did not +seem to catch her mind; and fine phrases encountered a rueful assent, +more flattering to their grandeur than to their influence. + +Days went by. Richard did not present himself. Sir Austin's pitch of +self-command was to await the youth without signs of impatience. + +Seeing this, the lady told him her fears for Richard, and mentioned the +rumour of him that was about. + +"If," said the baronet, "this person, his wife, is what you paint her, I +do not share your fears for him. I think too well of him. If she is one +to inspire the sacredness of that union, I think too well of him. It is +impossible." + +The lady saw one thing to be done. + +"Call her to you," she said. "Have her with you at Raynham. Recognize +her. It is the disunion and doubt that so confuses him and drives him +wild. I confess to you I hoped he had gone to her. It seems not. If +she is with you his way will be clear. Will you do that?" + +Science is notoriously of slow movement. Lady Blandish's proposition was +far too hasty for Sir Austin. Women, rapid by nature, have no idea of +science. + +"We shall see her there in time, Emmeline. At present let it be between +me and my son." + +He spoke loftily. In truth it offended him to be asked to do anything, +when he had just brought himself to do so much. + +A month elapsed, and Richard appeared on the scene. + +The meeting between him and his father was not what his father had +expected and had crooned over in the Welsh mountains. Richard shook his +hand respectfully, and inquired after his health with the common social +solicitude. He then said: "During your absence, sir, I have taken the +liberty, without consulting you, to do something in which you are more +deeply concerned than myself. I have taken upon myself to find out my +mother and place her under my care. I trust you will not think I have +done wrong. I acted as I thought best." + +Sir Austin replied: "You are of an age, Richard, to judge for yourself in +such a case. I would have you simply beware of deceiving yourself in +imagining that you considered any one but yourself in acting as you did." + +"I have not deceived myself, sir," said Richard, and the interview was +over. Both hated an exposure of the feelings, and in that both were +satisfied: but the baronet, as one who loves, hoped and looked for tones +indicative of trouble and delight in the deep heart; and Richard gave him +none of those. The young man did not even face him as he spoke: if their +eyes met by chance, Richard's were defiantly cold. His whole bearing was +changed. + +"This rash marriage has altered him," said the very just man of science +in life: and that meant: "it has debased him." + +He pursued his reflections. "I see in him the desperate maturity of a +suddenly-ripened nature: and but for my faith that good work is never +lost, what should I think of the toil of my years? Lost, perhaps to me! +lost to him! It may show itself in his children." + +The Philosopher, we may conceive, has contentment in benefiting embryos: +but it was a somewhat bitter prospect to Sir Austin. Bitterly he felt +the injury to himself. + +One little incident spoke well of Richard. A poor woman called at the +hotel while he was missing. The baronet saw her, and she told him a tale +that threw Christian light on one part of Richard's nature. But this +might gratify the father in Sir Austin; it did not touch the man of +science. A Feverel, his son, would not do less, he thought. He sat down +deliberately to study his son. + +No definite observations enlightened him. Richard ate and drank; joked +and laughed. He was generally before Adrian in calling for a fresh +bottle. He talked easily of current topics; his gaiety did not sound +forced. In all he did, nevertheless, there was not the air of a youth +who sees a future before him. Sir Austin put that down. It might be +carelessness, and wanton blood, for no one could say he had much on his +mind. The man of science was not reckoning that Richard also might have +learned to act and wear a mask. Dead subjects--this is to say, people +not on their guard--he could penetrate and dissect. It is by a rare +chance, as scientific men well know, that one has an opportunity of +examining the structure of the living. + +However, that rare chance was granted to Sir Austin. They were engaged +to dine with Mrs. Doria at the Foreys', and walked down to her in the +afternoon, father and son arm-in-arm, Adrian beside them. Previously the +offended father had condescended to inform his son that it would shortly +be time for him to return to his wife, indicating that arrangements would +ultimately be ordered to receive her at Raynham. Richard had replied +nothing; which might mean excess of gratitude, or hypocrisy in concealing +his pleasure, or any one of the thousand shifts by which gratified human +nature expresses itself when all is made to run smooth with it. Now Mrs. +Berry had her surprise ready charged for the young husband. She had Lucy +in her own house waiting for him. Every day she expected him to call and +be overcome by the rapturous surprise, and every day, knowing his habit +of frequenting the park, she marched Lucy thither, under the plea that +Master Richard, whom she had already christened, should have an airing. + +The round of the red winter sun was behind the bare Kensington chestnuts, +when these two parties met. Happily for Lucy and the hope she bore in +her bosom, she was perversely admiring a fair horsewoman galloping by at +the moment. Mrs. Berry plucked at her gown once or twice, to prepare her +eyes for the shock, but Lucy's head was still half averted, and thinks +Mrs. Berry, "Twon't hurt her if she go into his arms head foremost." +They were close; Mrs. Berry performed the bob preliminary. Richard held +her silent with a terrible face; he grasped her arm, and put her behind +him. Other people intervened. Lucy saw nothing to account for Berry's +excessive flutter. Berry threw it on the air and some breakfast bacon, +which, she said, she knew in the morning while she ate it, was bad for +the bile, and which probably was the cause of her bursting into tears, +much to Lucy's astonishment. + +"What you ate makes you cry, Mrs. Berry?" + +"It's all--" Mrs. Berry pressed at her heart and leaned sideways, "it's +all stomach, my dear. Don't ye mind," and becoming aware of her +unfashionable behaviour, she trailed off to the shelter of the elms. + +"You have a singular manner with old ladies," said Sir Austin to his son, +after Berry had been swept aside. + +Scarcely courteous. She behaved like a mad woman, certainly."--Are you +ill, my son?" + +Richard was death-pale, his strong form smitten through with weakness. +The baronet sought Adrian's eye. Adrian had seen Lucy as they passed, +and he had a glimpse of Richard's countenance while disposing of Berry. +Had Lucy recognized them, he would have gone to her unhesitatingly. As +she did not, he thought it well, under the circumstances, to leave +matters as they were. He answered the baronet's look with a shrug. + +"Are you ill, Richard?" Sir Austin again asked his son. + +"Come on, sir! come on!" cried Richard. + +His father's further meditations, as they stepped briskly to the Foreys', +gave poor ferry a character which one who lectures on matrimony, and has +kissed but three men in her life, shrieks to hear the very title of. + +"Richard will go to his wife to-morrow," Sir Austin said to Adrian some +time before they went in to dinner. + +Adrian asked him if he had chanced to see a young fair-haired lady by the +side of the old one Richard had treated so peculiarly; and to the +baronet's acknowledgment that he remembered to have observed such a +person, Adrian said: "That was his wife, sir." + +Sir Austin could not dissect the living subject. As if a bullet had torn +open the young man's skull, and some blast of battle laid his palpitating +organization bare, he watched every motion of his brain and his heart; +and with the grief and terror of one whose mental habit was ever to +pierce to extremes. Not altogether conscious that he had hitherto played +with life, he felt that he was suddenly plunged into the stormful reality +of it. He projected to speak plainly to his son on all points that +night. + +"Richard is very gay," Mrs. Doris, whispered her brother. + +"All will be right with him to-morrow," he replied; for the game had been +in his hands so long, so long had he been the God of the machine, that +having once resolved to speak plainly and to act, he was to a certain +extent secure, bad as the thing to mend might be. + +"I notice he has rather a wild laugh--I don't exactly like his eyes," +said Mrs. Doria. + +"You will see a change in him to-morrow," the man of science remarked. + +It was reserved for Mrs. Doria herself to experience that change. In the +middle of the dinner a telegraphic message from her son-in-law, worthy +John Todhunter, reached the house, stating that Clare was alarmingly ill, +bidding her come instantly. She cast about for some one to accompany +her, and fixed on Richard. Before he would give his consent for Richard +to go, Sir Austin desired to speak with him apart, and in that interview +he said to his son: "My dear Richard! it was my intention that we should +come to an understanding together this night. But the time is short-- +poor Helen cannot spare many minutes. Let me then say that you deceived +me, and that I forgive you. We fix our seal on the past. You will bring +your wife to me when you return." And very cheerfully the baronet looked +down on the generous future he thus founded. + +"Will you have her at Raynham at once, sir?" said Richard. + +"Yes, my son, when you bring her." + +"Are you mocking me, sir?" + +"Pray, what do you mean?" + +"I ask you to receive her at once." + +"Well! the delay cannot be long. I do not apprehend that you will be +kept from your happiness many days." + +"I think it will be some time, sir!" said Richard, sighing deeply. + +"And what mental freak is this that can induce you to postpone it and +play with your first duty?" + +"What is my first duty, sir?" + +"Since you are married, to be with your wife." + +"I have heard that from an old woman called Berry!" said Richard to +himself, not intending irony. + +"Will you receive her at once?" he asked resolutely. + +The baronet was clouded by his son's reception of his graciousness. His +grateful prospect had formerly been Richard's marriage--the culmination +of his System. Richard had destroyed his participation in that. He now +looked for a pretty scene in recompense:--Richard leading up his wife to +him, and both being welcomed by him paternally, and so held one +ostentatious minute in his embrace. + +He said: "Before you return, I demur to receiving her." + +"Very well, sir," replied his son, and stood as if he had spoken all. + +"Really you tempt me to fancy you already regret your rash proceeding!" +the baronet exclaimed; and the next moment it pained him he had uttered +the words, Richard's eyes were so sorrowfully fierce. It pained him, but +he divined in that look a history, and he could not refrain from glancing +acutely and asking: "Do you?" + +"Regret it, sir?" The question aroused one of those struggles in the +young man's breast which a passionate storm of tears may still, and which +sink like leaden death into the soul when tears come not. Richard's eyes +had the light of the desert. + +"Do you?" his father repeated. "You tempt me--I almost fear you do." At +the thought--for he expressed his mind--the pity that he had for Richard +was not pure gold. + +"Ask me what I think of her, sir! Ask me what she is! Ask me what it is +to have taken one of God's precious angels and chained her to misery! +Ask me what it is to have plunged a sword into her heart, and to stand +over her and see such a creature bleeding! Do I regret that? Why, yes, +I do! Would you?" + +His eyes flew hard at his father under the ridge of his eyebrows. + +Sir Austin winced and reddened. Did he understand? There is ever in the +mind's eye a certain wilfulness. We see and understand; we see and won't +understand. + +"Tell me why you passed by her as you did this afternoon," he said +gravely: and in the same voice Richard answered: "I passed her because I +could not do otherwise." + +"Your wife, Richard?" + +"Yes! my wife!" + +"If she had seen you, Richard?" + +"God spared her that!" + +Mrs. Doria, bustling in practical haste, and bearing Richard's hat and +greatcoat in her energetic hands, came between them at this juncture. +Dimples of commiseration were in her cheeks while she kissed her +brother's perplexed forehead. She forgot her trouble about Clare, +deploring his fatuity. + +Sir Austin was forced to let his son depart. As of old, he took counsel +with Adrian, and the wise youth was soothing. "Somebody has kissed him, +sir, and the chaste boy can't get over it." This absurd suggestion did +more to appease the baronet than if Adrian had given a veritable +reasonable key to Richard's conduct. It set him thinking that it might +be a prudish strain in the young man's mind, due to the System in +difficulties. + +"I may have been wrong in one thing," he said, with an air of the utmost +doubt of it. "I, perhaps, was wrong in allowing him so much liberty +during his probation." + +Adrian pointed out to him that he had distinctly commanded it. + +"Yes, yes; that is on me." + +His was an order of mind that would accept the most burdensome charges, +and by some species of moral usury make a profit out of them. + +Clare was little talked of. Adrian attributed the employment of the +telegraph to John Todhunter's uxorious distress at a toothache, or +possibly the first symptoms of an heir to his house. + +"That child's mind has disease in it... She is not sound," said the +baronet. + +On the door-step of the hotel, when they returned, stood Mrs. Berry. Her +wish to speak a few words with the baronet reverentially communicated, +she was ushered upstairs into his room. + +Mrs. Berry compressed her person in the chair she was beckoned to occupy. + +"Well' ma'am, you have something to say," observed the baronet, for she +seemed loth to commence. + +"Wishin' I hadn't--" Mrs. Berry took him up, and mindful of the good rule +to begin at the beginning, pursued: "I dare say, Sir Austin, you don't +remember me, and I little thought when last we parted our meeting 'd be +like this. Twenty year don't go over one without showin' it, no more +than twenty ox. It's a might o' time,--twenty year! Leastways not quite +twenty, it ain't." + +"Round figures are best," Adrian remarked. + +"In them round figures a be-loved son have growed up, and got himself +married!" said Mrs. Berry, diving straight into the case. + +Sir Austin then learnt that he had before him the culprit who had +assisted his son in that venture. It was a stretch of his patience to +hear himself addressed on a family matter; but he was naturally +courteous. + +"He came to my house, Sir Austin, a stranger! If twenty year alters us +as have knowed each other on the earth, how must they alter they that we +parted with just come from heaven! And a heavenly babe he were! so +sweet! so strong! so fat!" + +Adrian laughed aloud. + +Mrs. Berry bumped a curtsey to him in her chair, continuing: "I wished +afore I spoke to say how thankful am I bound to be for my pension not cut +short, as have offended so, but that I know Sir Austin Feverel, Raynham +Abbey, ain't one o' them that likes to hear their good deeds pumlished. +And a pension to me now, it's something more than it were. For a pension +and pretty rosy cheeks in a maid, which I was--that's a bait many a +man'll bite, that won't so a forsaken wife!" + +"If you will speak to the point, ma'am, I will listen to you," the +baronet interrupted her. + +"It's the beginnin' that's the worst, and that's over, thank the Lord! +So I'll speak, Sir Austin, and say my say:--Lord speed me! Believin' our +idees o' matrimony to be sim'lar, then, I'll say, once married--married +for life! Yes! I don't even like widows. For I can't stop at the +grave. Not at the tomb I can't stop. My husband's my husband, and if +I'm a body at the Resurrection, I say, speaking humbly, my Berry is the +husband o' my body; and to think of two claimin' of me then--it makes me +hot all over. Such is my notion of that state 'tween man and woman. No +givin' in marriage, o' course I know; and if so I'm single." + +The baronet suppressed a smile. "Really, my good woman, you wander very +much." + +"Beggin' pardon, Sir Austin; but I has my point before me all the same, +and I'm comin' to it. Ac-knowledgin' our error, it'd done, and bein' +done, it's writ aloft. Oh! if you ony knew what a sweet young creature +she be! Indeed; 'taint all of humble birth that's unworthy, Sir Austin. +And she got her idees, too: She reads History! She talk that sensible as +would surprise ye. But for all that she's a prey to the artful o' men-- +unpertected. And it's a young marriage--but there's no fear for her, as +far as she go. The fear's t'other way. There's that in a man--at the +commencement--which make of him Lord knows what if you any way +interferes: whereas a woman bides quiet! It's consolation catch her, +which is what we mean by seduein'. Whereas a man--he's a savage!" + +Sir Austin turned his face to Adrian, who was listening with huge +delight. + +"Well, ma'am, I see you have something in your mind, if you would only +come to it quickly." + +"Then here's my point, Sir Austin. I say you bred him so as there ain't +another young gentleman like him in England, and proud he make me. And +as for her, I'll risk sayin'--it's done, and no harm--you might search +England through, and nowhere will ye find a maid that's his match like +his own wife. Then there they be. Are they together as should be? O +Lord no! Months they been divided. Then she all lonely and exposed, I +went, and fetched her out of seducers' ways--which they may say what they +like, but the inn'cent is most open to when they're healthy and +confidin'--I fetch her, and--the liberty--boxed her safe in my own house. +So much for that sweet! That you may do with women. But it's him--Mr. +Richard--I am bold, I know, but there--I'm in for it, and the Lord'll +help me! It's him, Sir Austin, in this great metropolis, warm from a +young marriage. It's him, and--I say nothin' of her, and how sweet she +bears it, and it's eating her at a time when Natur' should have no other +trouble but the one that's goin' on it's him, and I ask--so bold--shall +there--and a Christian gentlemen his father--shall there be a tug 'tween +him as a son and him as a husband--soon to be somethin' else? I speak +bold out--I'd have sons obey their fathers, but a priest's words spoke +over them, which they're now in my ears, I say I ain't a doubt on earth-- +I'm sure there ain't one in heaven--which dooty's the holier of the two." + +Sir Austin heard her to an end. Their views on the junction of the sexes +were undoubtedly akin. To be lectured on his prime subject, however, was +slightly disagreeable, and to be obliged mentally to assent to this old +lady's doctrine was rather humiliating, when it could not be averred that +he had latterly followed it out. He sat cross-legged and silent, a +finger to his temple. + +"One gets so addle-gated thinkin' many things," said Mrs. Berry, simply. +"That's why we see wonder clever people goin' wrong--to my mind. I think +it's al'ays the plan in a dielemmer to pray God and walk forward." + +The keen-witted soft woman was tracking the baronet's thoughts, and she +had absolutely run him down and taken an explanation out of his mouth, by +which Mrs. Berry was to have been informed that he had acted from a +principle of his own, and devolved a wisdom she could not be expected to +comprehend. + +Of course he became advised immediately that it would be waste of time to +direct such an explanation to her inferior capacity. + +He gave her his hand, saying, "My son has gone out of town to see his +cousin, who is ill. He will return in two or three days, and then they +will both come to me at Raynham." + +Mrs. Berry took the tips of his fingers, and went half-way to the floor +perpendicularly. "He pass her like a stranger in the park this evenin'," +she faltered. + +"Ah?" said the baronet. "Yes, well! they will be at Raynham before the +week is over." + +Mrs. Berry was not quite satisfied. "Not of his own accord he pass that +sweet young wife of his like a stranger this day, Sir Austin!" + +"I must beg you not to intrude further, ma'am." + +Mrs. Berry bobbed her bunch of a body out of the room. + +"All's well that ends well," she said to herself. "It's just bad +inquirin' too close among men. We must take 'em somethin' like +Providence--as they come. Thank heaven! I kep' back the baby." + +In Mrs. Berry's eyes the baby was the victorious reserve. + +Adrian asked his chief what he thought of that specimen of woman. + +"I think I have not met a better in my life," said the baronet, mingling +praise and sarcasm. + +Clare lies in her bed as placid as in the days when she breathed; her +white hands stretched their length along the sheets, at peace from head +to feet. She needs iron no more. Richard is face to face with death for +the first time. He sees the sculpture of clay--the spark gone. + +Clare gave her mother the welcome of the dead. This child would have +spoken nothing but kind commonplaces had she been alive. She was dead, +and none knew her malady. On her fourth finger were two wedding-rings. + +When hours of weeping had silenced the mother's anguish, she, for some +comfort she saw in it, pointed out that strange thing to Richard, +speaking low in the chamber of the dead; and then he learnt that it was +his own lost ring Clare wore in the two worlds. He learnt from her +husband that Clare's last request had been that neither of the rings +should be removed. She had written it; she would not speak it. + +"I beg of my husband, and all kind people who may have the care of me +between this and the grave, to bury me with my hands untouched." + +The tracing of the words showed the bodily torment she was suffering, as +she wrote them on a scrap of paper found beside her pillow. + +In wonder, as the dim idea grew from the waving of Clare's dead hand, +Richard paced the house, and hung about the awful room; dreading to enter +it, reluctant to quit it. The secret Clare had buried while she lived, +arose with her death. He saw it play like flame across her marble +features. The memory of her voice was like a knife at his nerves. His +coldness to her started up accusingly: her meekness was bitter blame. + +On the evening of the fourth day, her mother came to him in his bedroom, +with a face so white that he asked himself if aught worse could happen to +a mother than the loss of her child. Choking she said to him, "Read +this," and thrust a leather-bound pocket-book trembling in his hand. She +would not breathe to him what it was. She entreated him not to open it +before her. + +"Tell me," she said, "tell me what you think. John must not hear of it. +I have nobody to consult but you O Richard!" + +"My Diary" was written in the round hand of Clare's childhood on the +first page. The first name his eye encountered was his own. + +"Richard's fourteenth birthday. I have worked him a purse and put it +under his pillow, because he is going to have plenty of money. He does +not notice me now because he has a friend now, and he is ugly, but +Richard is not, and never will be." + +The occurrences of that day were subsequently recorded, and a childish +prayer to God for him set down. Step by step he saw her growing mind in +his history. As she advanced in years she began to look back, and made +much of little trivial remembrances, all bearing upon him. + +"We went into the fields and gathered cowslips together, and pelted each +other, and I told him he used to call them 'coals-sleeps' when he was a +baby, and he was angry at my telling him, for he does not like to be told +he was ever a baby." + +He remembered the incident, and remembered his stupid scorn of her meek +affection. Little Clare! how she lived before him in her white dress and +pink ribbons, and soft dark eyes! Upstairs she was lying dead. He read +on: + +"Mama says there is no one in the world like Richard, and I am sure there +is not, not in the whole world. He says he is going to be a great +General and going to the wars. If he does I shall dress myself as a boy +and go after him, and he will not know me till I am wounded. Oh I pray +he will never, never be wounded. I wonder what I should feel if Richard +was ever to die." + +Upstairs Clare was lying dead. + +"Lady Blandish said there was a likeness between Richard and me. Richard +said I hope I do not hang down my head as she does. He is angry with me +because I do not look people in the face and speak out, but I know I am +not looking after earthworms." + +Yes. He had told her that. A shiver seized him at the recollection. + +Then it came to a period when the words: "Richard kissed me," stood by +themselves, and marked a day in her life. + +Afterwards it was solemnly discovered that Richard wrote poetry. He read +one of his old forgotten compositions penned when he had that ambition. + + "Thy truth to me is truer + Than horse, or dog, or blade; + Thy vows to me are fewer + Than ever maiden made. + + Thou steppest from thy splendour + To make my life a song: + My bosom shall be tender + As thine has risen strong." + +All the verses were transcribed. "It is he who is the humble knight," +Clare explained at the close, "and his lady, is a Queen. Any Queen would +throw her crown away for him." + +It came to that period when Clare left Raynham with her mother. + +"Richard was not sorry to lose me. He only loves boys and men. +Something tells me I shall never see Raynham again. He was dressed in +blue. He said Good-bye, Clare, and kissed me on the cheek. Richard +never kisses me on the mouth. He did not know I went to his bed and +kissed him while he was asleep. He sleeps with one arm under his head, +and the other out on the bed. I moved away a bit of his hair that was +over his eyes. I wanted to cut it. I have one piece. I do not let +anybody see I am unhappy, not even mama. She says I want iron. I am +sure I do not. I like to write my name. Clare Doria Forey. Richard's +is Richard Doria Feverel." + +His breast rose convulsively. Clare Doria Forey! He knew the music of +that name. He had heard it somewhere. It sounded faint and mellow now +behind the hills of death. + +He could not read for tears. It was midnight. The hour seemed to belong +to her. The awful stillness and the darkness were Clare's. Clare's +voice clear and cold from the grave possessed it. + +Painfully, with blinded eyes, he looked over the breathless pages. She +spoke of his marriage, and her finding the ring. + +"I knew it was his. I knew he was going to be married that morning. I +saw him stand by the altar when they laughed at breakfast. His wife must +be so beautiful! Richard's wife! Perhaps he will love me better now he +is married. Mama says they must be separated. That is shameful. If I +can help him I will. I pray so that he may be happy. I hope God hears +poor sinners' prayers. I am very sinful. Nobody knows it as I do. They +say I am good, but I know. When I look on the ground I am not looking +after earthworms, as he said. Oh, do forgive me, God!" + +Then she spoke of her own marriage, and that it was her duty to obey her +mother. A blank in the Diary ensued. + +"I have seen Richard. Richard despises me," was the next entry. + +But now as he read his eyes were fixed, and the delicate feminine +handwriting like a black thread drew on his soul to one terrible +conclusion. + +"I cannot live. Richard despises me. I cannot bear the touch of my +fingers or the sight of my face. Oh! I understand him now. He should +not have kissed me so that last time. I wished to die while his mouth +was on mine." + +Further: "I have no escape. Richard said he would die rather than endure +it. I know he would. Why should I be afraid to do what he would do? I +think if my husband whipped me I could bear it better. He is so kind, +and tries to make me cheerful. He will soon be very unhappy. I pray to +God half the night. I seem to be losing sight of my God the more I +pray." + +Richard laid the book open on the table. Phantom surges seemed to be +mounting and travelling for his brain. Had Clare taken his wild words in +earnest? Did she lie there dead--he shrouded the thought. + +He wrapped the thoughts in shrouds, but he was again reading. + +"A quarter to one o'clock. I shall not be alive this time to-morrow. I +shall never see Richard now. I dreamed last night we were in the fields +together, and he walked with his arm round my waist. We were children, +but I thought we were married, and I showed him I wore his ring, and he +said--if you always wear it, Clare, you are as good as my wife. Then I +made a vow to wear it for ever and ever... "It is not mama's fault. She +does not think as Richard and I do of these things. He is not a coward, +nor am I. He hates cowards. + +"I have written to his father to make him happy. Perhaps when I am dead +he will hear what I say. + +"I heard just now Richard call distinctly--Clare, come out to me. Surely +he has not gone. I am going I know not where. I cannot think. I am +very cold." + +The words were written larger, and staggered towards the close, as if her +hand had lost mastery over the pen. + +"I can only remember Richard now a boy. A little boy and a big boy. I +am not sure now of his voice. I can only remember certain words. +'Clari,' and 'Don Ricardo,' and his laugh. He used to be full of fun. +Once we laughed all day together tumbling in the hay. Then he had a +friend, and began to write poetry, and be proud. If I had married a +young man he would have forgiven me, but I should not have been happier. +I must have died. God never looks on me. + +"It is past two o'clock. The sheep are bleating outside. It must be +very cold in the ground. Good-bye, Richard." + +With his name it began and ended. Even to herself Clare was not over- +communicative. The book was slender, yet her nineteen years of existence +left half the number of pages white. + +Those last words drew him irresistibly to gaze on her. There she lay, +the same impassive Clare. For a moment he wondered she had not moved--to +him she had become so different. She who had just filled his ears with +strange tidings--it was not possible to think her dead! She seemed to +have been speaking to him all through his life. His image was on that +still heart. + +He dismissed the night-watchers from the room, and remained with her +alone, till the sense of death oppressed him, and then the shock sent him +to the window to look for sky and stars. Behind a low broad pine, hung +with frosty mist, he heard a bell-wether of the flock in the silent fold. +Death in life it sounded. + +The mother found him praying at the foot of Clare's bed. She knelt by +his side, and they prayed, and their joint sobs shook their bodies, but +neither of them shed many tears. They held a dark unspoken secret in +common. They prayed God to forgive her. + +Clare was buried in the family vault of the Todhunters. Her mother +breathed no wish to have her lying at Lobourne. + +After the funeral, what they alone upon earth knew brought them together. + +"Richard," she said, "the worst is over for me. I have no one to love +but you, dear. We have all been fighting against God, and this... +Richard! you will come with me, and be united to your wife, and spare my +brother what I suffer." + +He answered the broken spirit: "I have killed one. She sees me as I am. +I cannot go with you to my wife, because I am not worthy to touch her +hand, and were I to go, I should do this to silence my self-contempt. Go +you to her, and when she asks of me, say I have a death upon my head +that--No! say that I am abroad, seeking for that which shall cleanse +me. If I find it I shall come to claim her. If not, God help us all!" + +She had no strength to contest his solemn words, or stay him, and he went +forth. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI + + +A man with a beard saluted the wise youth Adrian in the full blaze of +Piccadilly with a clap on the shoulder. Adrian glanced leisurely behind. + +"Do you want to try my nerves, my dear fellow? I'm not a man of fashion, +happily, or you would have struck the seat of them. How are you?" + +That was his welcome to Austin Wentworth after his long absence. + +Austin took his arm, and asked for news, with the hunger of one who had +been in the wilderness five years. + +"The Whigs have given up the ghost, my dear Austin. The free Briton is +to receive Liberty's pearl, the Ballot. The Aristocracy has had a +cycle's notice to quit. The Monarchy and old Madeira are going out; +Demos and Cape wines are coming in. They call it Reform. So, you see, +your absence has worked wonders. Depart for another five years, and you +will return to ruined stomachs, cracked sconces, general upset, an +equality made perfect by universal prostration." + +Austin indulged him in a laugh. "I want to hear about ourselves. How is +old Ricky?" + +"You know of his--what do they call it when greenhorns are licensed to +jump into the milkpails of dairymaids?--a very charming little woman she +makes, by the way--presentable! quite old Anacreon's rose in milk. Well! +everybody thought the System must die of it. Not a bit. It continued to +flourish in spite. It's in a consumption now, though--emaciated, lean, +raw, spectral! I've this morning escaped from Raynham to avoid the sight +of it. I have brought our genial uncle Hippias to town--a delightful +companion! I said to him: 'We've had a fine Spring.' 'Ugh!' he answers, +'there's a time when you come to think the Spring old.' You should have +heard how he trained out the 'old.' I felt something like decay in my sap +just to hear him. In the prize-fight of life, my dear Austin, our uncle +Hippias has been unfairly hit below the belt. Let's guard ourselves +there, and go and order dinner." + +"But where's Ricky now, and what is he doing?" said Austin. + +"Ask what he has done. The miraculous boy has gone and got a baby!" + +"A child? Richard has one?" Austin's clear eyes shone with pleasure. + +"I suppose it's not common among your tropical savages. He has one: one +as big as two. That has been the death-blow to the System. It bore the +marriage--the baby was too much for it. Could it swallow the baby, +'twould live. She, the wonderful woman, has produced a large boy. I +assure you it's quite amusing to see the System opening its mouth every +hour of the day, trying to gulp him down, aware that it would be a +consummate cure, or a happy release." + +By degrees Austin learnt the baronet's proceedings, and smiled sadly. + +"How has Ricky turned out?" he asked. "What sort of a character has he?" + +"The poor boy is ruined by his excessive anxiety about it. Character? he +has the character of a bullet with a treble charge of powder behind it. +Enthusiasm is the powder. That boy could get up an enthusiasm for the +maiden days of Ops! He was going to reform the world, after your +fashion, Austin,--you have something to answer for. Unfortunately he +began with the feminine side of it. Cupid proud of Phoebus newly slain, +or Pluto wishing to people his kingdom, if you like, put it into the soft +head of one of the guileless grateful creatures to kiss him for his good +work. Oh, horror! he never expected that. Conceive the System in the +flesh, and you have our Richard. The consequence is, that this male Peri +refuses to enter his Paradise, though the gates are open for him, the +trumpets blow, and the fair unspotted one awaits him fruitful within. We +heard of him last that he was trying the German waters--preparatory to +his undertaking the release of Italy from the subjugation of the Teuton. +Let's hope they'll wash him. He is in the company of Lady Judith Felle-- +your old friend, the ardent female Radical who married the decrepit to +carry out her principles. They always marry English lords, or foreign +princes: I admire their tactics." + +"Judith is bad for him in such a state. I like her, but she was always +too sentimental," said Austin. + +"Sentiment made her marry the old lord, I suppose? I like her for her +sentiment, Austin. Sentimental people are sure to live long and die fat. +Feeling, that's the slayer, coz. Sentiment! 'tis the cajolery of +existence: the soft bloom which whoso weareth, he or she is enviable. +Would that I had more!" + +"You're not much changed, Adrian." + +"I'm not a Radical, Austin." + +Further inquiries, responded to in Adrian's figurative speech, instructed +Austin that the baronet was waiting for his son, in a posture of +statuesque offended paternity, before he would receive his daughter-in- +law and grandson. That was what Adrian meant by the efforts of the +System to swallow the baby. + +"We're in a tangle," said the wise youth. "Time will extricate us, I +presume, or what is the venerable signor good for?" + +Austin mused some minutes, and asked for Lucy's place of residence. + +"We'll go to her by and by," said Adrian. + +"I shall go and see her now," said Austin. + +"Well, we'll go and order the dinner first, coz." + +"Give me her address." + +"Really, Austin, you carry matters with too long a beard," Adrian +objected. "Don't you care what you eat?" he roared hoarsely, looking +humorously hurt. "I daresay not. A slice out of him that's handy--sauce +du ciel! Go, batten on the baby, cannibal. Dinner at seven." + +Adrian gave him his own address, and Lucy's, and strolled off to do the +better thing. + +Overnight Mrs. Berry had observed a long stranger in her tea-cup. +Posting him on her fingers and starting him with a smack, he had vaulted +lightly and thereby indicated that he was positively coming the next day. +She forgot him in the bustle of her duties and the absorption of her +faculties in thoughts of the incomparable stranger Lucy had presented to +the world, till a knock at the street-door reminded her. "There he is!" +she cried, as she ran to open to him. "There's my stranger come!" Never +was a woman's faith in omens so justified. The stranger desired to see +Mrs. Richard Feverel. He said his name was Mr. Austin Wentworth. Mrs. +Berry clasped her hands, exclaiming, "Come at last!" and ran bolt out of +the house to look up and down the street. Presently she returned with +many excuses for her rudeness, saying: "I expected to see her comin' +home, Mr. Wentworth. Every day twice a day she go out to give her +blessed angel an airing. No leavin' the child with nursemaids for her! +She is a mother! and good milk, too, thank the Lord! though her heart's +so low." + +Indoors Mrs. Berry stated who she was, related the history of the young +couple and her participation in it, and admired the beard. "Although I'd +swear you don't wear it for ornament, now!" she said, having in the first +impulse designed a stroke at man's vanity. + +Ultimately Mrs. Berry spoke of the family complication, and with dejected +head and joined hands threw out dark hints about Richard. + +While Austin was giving his cheerfuller views of the case, Lucy came in +preceding the baby. + +"I am Austin Wentworth," he said, taking her hand. They read each +other's faces, these two, and smiled kinship. + +"Your name is Lucy?" + +She affirmed it softly. + +"And mine is Austin, as you know." + +Mrs. Berry allowed time for Lucy's charms to subdue him, and presented +Richard's representative, who, seeing a new face, suffered himself to be +contemplated before he commenced crying aloud and knocking at the doors +of Nature for something that was due to him. + +"Ain't he a lusty darlin'?" says Mrs. Berry. "Ain't he like his own +father? There can't be no doubt about zoo, zoo pitty pet. Look at his +fists. Ain't he got passion? Ain't he a splendid roarer? Oh!" and she +went off rapturously into baby-language. + +A fine boy, certainly. Mrs. Berry exhibited his legs for further proof, +desiring Austin's confirmation as to their being dumplings. + +Lucy murmured a word of excuse, and bore the splendid roarer out of the +room. + +"She might a done it here," said Mrs. Berry. "There's no prettier sight, +I say. If her dear husband could but see that! He's off in his heroics- +-he want to be doin' all sorts o' things: I say he'll never do anything +grander than that baby. You should 'a seen her uncle over that baby--he +came here, for I said, you shall see your own family, my dear, and so she +thinks. He come, and he laughed over that baby in the joy of his heart, +poor man! he cried, he did. You should see that Mr. Thompson, Mr. +Wentworth--a friend o' Mr. Richard's, and a very modest-minded young +gentleman--he worships her in his innocence. It's a sight to see him +with that baby. My belief is he's unhappy 'cause he can't anyways be +nurse-maid to him. O Mr. Wentworth! what do you think of her, sir?" + +Austin's reply was as satisfactory as a man's poor speech could make it. +He heard that Lady Feverel was in the house, and Mrs. Berry prepared the +way for him to pay his respects to her. Then Mrs. Berry ran to Lucy, and +the house buzzed with new life. The simple creatures felt in Austin's +presence something good among them. "He don't speak much," said Mrs. +Berry, "but I see by his eye he mean a deal. He ain't one o' yer long- +word gentry, who's all gay deceivers, every one of 'em." + +Lucy pressed the hearty suckling into her breast. "I wonder what he +thinks of me, Mrs. Berry? I could not speak to him. I loved him before +I saw him. I knew what his face was like." + +"He looks proper even with a beard, and that's a trial for a virtuous +man," said Mrs. Berry. "One sees straight through the hair with him. +Think! he'll think what any man'd think--you a-suckin spite o' all your +sorrow, my sweet,--and my Berry talkin' of his Roman matrons!--here's a +English wife'll match 'em all! that's what he thinks. And now that +leetle dark under yer eye'll clear, my darlin', now he've come." + +Mrs. Berry looked to no more than that; Lucy to no more than the peace +she had in being near Richard's best friend. When she sat down to tea it +was with a sense that the little room that held her was her home perhaps +for many a day. + +A chop procured and cooked by Mrs. Berry formed Austin's dinner. During +the meal he entertained them with anecdotes of his travels. Poor Lucy +had no temptation to try to conquer Austin. That heroic weakness of hers +was gone. + +Mrs. Berry had said: "Three cups--I goes no further," and Lucy had +rejected the proffer of more tea, when Austin, who was in the thick of a +Brazilian forest, asked her if she was a good traveller. + +"I mean, can you start at a minute's notice?" + +Lucy hesitated, and then said; "Yes," decisively, to which Mrs. Berry +added, that she was not a "luggage-woman" + +"There used to be a train at seven o'clock," Austin remarked, consulting +his watch. + +The two women were silent. + +"Could you get ready to come with me to Raynham in ten minutes?" + +Austin looked as if he had asked a commonplace question. + +Lucy's lips parted to speak. She could not answer. + +Loud rattled the teaboard to Mrs. Berry's dropping hands. + +"Joy and deliverance!" she exclaimed with a foundering voice. + +"Will you come?" Austin kindly asked again. + +Lucy tried to stop her beating heart, as she answered, "Yes." Mrs. Berry +cunningly pretended to interpret the irresolution in her tones with a +mighty whisper: "She's thinking what's to be done with baby." + +"He must learn to travel," said Austin. + +"Oh!" cried Mrs. Berry, "and I'll be his nuss, and bear him, a sweet! +Oh! and think of it! me nurse-maid once more at Raynham Abbey! but it's +nurse-woman now, you must say. Let us be goin' on the spot." + +She started up and away in hot haste, fearing delay would cool the +heaven-sent resolve. Austin smiled, eying his watch and Lucy +alternately. She was wishing to ask a multitude of questions. His face +reassured her, and saying: "I will be dressed instantly," she also left +the room. Talking, bustling, preparing, wrapping up my lord, and looking +to their neatnesses, they were nevertheless ready within the time +prescribed by Austin, and Mrs. Berry stood humming over the baby. "He'll +sleep it through," she said. "He's had enough for an alderman, and goes +to sleep sound after his dinner, he do, a duck!" Before they departed, +Lucy ran up to Lady Feverel. She returned for, the small one. + +"One moment, Mr. Wentworth?" + +"Just two," said Austin. + +Master Richard was taken up, and when Lucy came back her eyes were full +of tears. + +"She thinks she is never to see him again, Mr. Wentworth." + +"She shall," Austin said simply. + +Off they went, and with Austin near her, Lucy forgot to dwell at all upon +the great act of courage she was performing. + +"I do hope baby will not wake," was her chief solicitude. + +"He!" cries nurse-woman Berry, from the rear, "his little tum-tum's as +tight as he can hold, a pet! a lamb! a bird! a beauty! and ye may take +yer oath he never wakes till that's slack. He've got character of his +own, a blessed!" + +There are some tremendous citadels that only want to be taken by storm. +The baronet sat alone in his library, sick of resistance, and rejoicing +in the pride of no surrender; a terror to his friends and to himself. +Hearing Austin's name sonorously pronounced by the man of calves, he +looked up from his book, and held out his hand. "Glad to see you, +Austin." His appearance betokened complete security. The next minute he +found himself escaladed. + +It was a cry from Mrs. Berry that told him others were in the room +besides Austin. Lucy stood a little behind the lamp: Mrs. Berry close to +the door. The door was half open, and passing through it might be seen +the petrified figure of a fine man. The baronet glancing over the lamp +rose at Mrs. Berry's signification of a woman's personality. Austin +stepped back and led Lucy to him by the hand. "I have brought Richard's +wife, sir," he said with a pleased, perfectly uncalculating, countenance, +that was disarming. Very pale and trembling Lucy bowed. She felt her +two hands taken, and heard a kind voice. Could it be possible it +belonged to the dreadful father of her husband? She lifted her eyes +nervously: her hands were still detained. The baronet contemplated +Richard's choice. Had he ever had a rivalry with those pure eyes? He +saw the pain of her position shooting across her brows, and, uttering- +gentle inquiries as to her health, placed her in a seat. Mrs. Berry had +already fallen into a chair. + +"What aspect do you like for your bedroom?--East?" said the baronet. + +Lucy was asking herself wonderingly: "Am I to stay?" + +"Perhaps you had better take to Richard's room at once," he pursued. +"You have the Lobourne valley there and a good morning air, and will feel +more at home." + +Lucy's colour mounted. Mrs. Berry gave a short cough, as one who should +say, "The day is ours!" Undoubtedly--strange as it was to think it--the +fortress was carried. + +"Lucy is rather tired," said Austin, and to hear her Christian name thus +bravely spoken brought grateful dew to her eyes. + +The baronet was about to touch the bell. "But have you come alone?" he +asked. + +At this Mrs. Berry came forward. Not immediately: it seemed to require +effort for her to move, and when she was within the region of the lamp, +her agitation could not escape notice. The blissful bundle shook in her +arms. + +"By the way, what is he to me?" Austin inquired generally as he went and +unveiled the younger hope of Raynham. "My relationship is not so defined +as yours, sir." + +An observer might have supposed that the baronet peeped at his grandson +with the courteous indifference of one who merely wished to compliment +the mother of anybody's child. + +"I really think he's like Richard," Austin laughed. Lucy looked: I am +sure he is! + +"As like as one to one," Mrs. Berry murmured feebly; but Grandpapa not +speaking she thought it incumbent on her to pluck up. "And he's as +healthy as his father was, Sir Austin--spite o' the might 'a beens. +Reg'lar as the clock! We never want a clock since he come. We knows the +hour o' the day, and of the night." + +"You nurse him yourself, of course?" the baronet spoke to Lucy, and was +satisfied on that point. + +Mrs. Berry was going to display his prodigious legs. Lucy, fearing the +consequent effect on the prodigious lungs, begged her not to wake him. +"'T'd take a deal to do that," said Mrs. Berry, and harped on Master +Richard's health and the small wonder it was that he enjoyed it, +considering the superior quality of his diet, and the lavish attentions +of his mother, and then suddenly fell silent on a deep sigh. + +"He looks healthy," said the baronet, "but I am not a judge of babies." + +Thus, having capitulated, Raynham chose to acknowledge its new +commandant, who was now borne away, under the directions of the +housekeeper, to occupy the room Richard had slept in when an infant. + +Austin cast no thought on his success. The baronet said: "She is +extremely well-looking." He replied: "A person you take to at once." +There it ended. + +But a much more animated colloquy was taking place aloft, where Lucy and +Mrs. Berry sat alone. Lucy expected her to talk about the reception they +had met with, and the house, and the peculiarities of the rooms, and the +solid happiness that seemed in store. Mrs. Berry all the while would +persist in consulting the looking-glass. Her first distinct answer was, +"My dear! tell me candid, how do I look?" + +"Very nice indeed, Mrs. Berry; but could you have believed he would be so +kind, so considerate?" + +"I am sure I looked a frump," returned Mrs. Berry. "Oh dear! two birds +at a shot. What do you think, now?" + +"I never saw so wonderful a likeness," says Lucy. + +"Likeness! look at me." Mrs. Berry was trembling and hot in the palms. + +"You're very feverish, dear Berry. What can it be?" + +"Ain't it like the love-flutters of a young gal, my dear." + +"Go to bed, Berry, dear," says Lucy, pouting in her soft caressing way. +"I will undress you, and see to you, dear heart! You've had so much +excitement." + +"Ha! ha!" Berry laughed hysterically; "she thinks it's about this +business of hers. Why, it's child's-play, my darlin'. But I didn't look +for tragedy to-night. Sleep in this house I can't, my love!" + +Lucy was astonished. "Not sleep here, Mrs. Berry?--Oh! why, you silly +old thing? I know." + +"Do ye!" said Mrs. Berry, with a sceptical nose. + +"You're afraid of ghosts." + +"Belike I am when they're six foot two in their shoes, and bellows when +you stick a pin into their calves. I seen my Berry!" + +"Your husband?" + +"Large as life!" + +Lucy meditated on optical delusions, but Mrs. Berry described him as the +Colossus who had marched them into the library, and vowed that he had +recognized her and quaked. "Time ain't aged him," said Mrs. Berry, +"whereas me! he've got his excuse now. I know I look a frump." + +Lucy kissed her: "You look the nicest, dearest old thing." + +"You may say an old thing, my dear." + +"And your husband is really here?" + +"Berry's below!" + +Profoundly uttered as this was, it chased every vestige of incredulity. + +"What will you do, Mrs. Berry?" + +"Go, my dear. Leave him to be happy in his own way. It's over atween +us, I see that. When I entered the house I felt there was something +comin' over me, and lo and behold ye! no sooner was we in the hall- +passage--if it hadn't been for that blessed infant I should 'a dropped. +I must 'a known his step, for my heart began thumpin', and I knew I +hadn't got my hair straight--that Mr. Wentworth was in such a hurry--nor +my best gown. I knew he'd scorn me. He hates frumps." + +"Scorn you!" cried Lucy, angrily. "He who has behaved so wickedly!" + +Mrs. Berry attempted to rise. "I may as well go at once," she whimpered. +"If I see him I shall only be disgracin' of myself. I feel it all on my +side already. Did ye mark him, my dear? I know I was vexin' to him at +times, I was. Those big men are so touchy about their dignity--nat'ral. +Hark at me! I'm goin' all soft in a minute. Let me leave the house, my +dear. I daresay it was good half my fault. Young women don't understand +men sufficient--not altogether--and I was a young woman then; and then +what they goes and does they ain't quite answerable for: they, feels, I +daresay, pushed from behind. Yes. I'll go. I'm a frump. I'll go. +'Tain't in natur' for me to sleep in the same house." + +Lucy laid her hands on Mrs. Berry's shoulders, and forcibly fixed her in +her seat. "Leave baby, naughty woman? I tell you he shall come to you, +and fall on his knees to you and beg your forgiveness." + +"Berry on his knees!" + +"Yes. And he shall beg and pray you to forgive him." + +"If you get more from Martin Berry than breath-away words, great'll be my +wonder!" said Mrs. Berry. + +"We will see," said Lucy, thoroughly determined to do something for the +good creature that had befriended her. + +Mrs. Berry examined her gown. "Won't it seem we're runnin' after him?" +she murmured faintly. + +"He is your husband, Mrs. Berry. He may be wanting to come to you now." + +"Oh! Where is all I was goin' to say to that man when we met." Mrs. +Berry ejaculated. Lucy had left the room. + +On the landing outside the door Lucy met a lady dressed in black, who +stopped her and asked if she was Richard's wife, and kissed her, passing +from her immediately. Lucy despatched a message for Austin, and related +the Berry history. Austin sent for the great man and said: "Do you know +your wife is here?" Before Berry had time to draw himself up to +enunciate his longest, he was requested to step upstairs, and as his +young mistress at once led the way, Berry could not refuse to put his +legs in motion and carry the stately edifice aloft. + +Of the interview Mrs. Berry gave Lucy a slight sketch that night. "He +began in the old way, my dear, and says I, a true heart and plain words, +Martin Berry. So there he cuts himself and his Johnson short, and down +he goes--down on his knees. I never could 'a believed it. I kep my +dignity as a woman till I see that sight, but that done for me. I was a +ripe apple in his arms 'fore I knew where I was. There's something about +a fine man on his knees that's too much for us women. And it reely was +the penitent on his two knees, not the lover on his one. If he mean it! +But ah! what do you think he begs of me, my dear?.--not to make it known +in the house just yet! I can't, I can't say that look well." + +Lucy attributed it to his sense of shame at his conduct, and Mrs. Berry +did her best to look on it in that light. + +"Did the bar'net kiss ye when you wished him goodnight?" she asked. Lucy +said he had not. "Then bide awake as long as ye can," was Mrs. Berry's +rejoinder. "And now let us pray blessings on that simple-speaking +gentleman who does so much 'cause he says so little." + +Like many other natural people, Mrs. Berry was only silly where her own +soft heart was concerned. As she secretly anticipated, the baronet came +into her room when all was quiet. She saw him go and bend over Richard +the Second, and remain earnestly watching him. He then went to the half- +opened door of the room where Lucy slept, leaned his ear a moment, +knocked gently, and entered. Mrs. Berry heard low words interchanging +within. She could not catch a syllable, yet she would have sworn to the +context. "He've called her his daughter, promised her happiness, and +given a father's kiss to her." When Sir Austin passed out she was in a +deep sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII + + +Briareus reddening angrily over the sea--what is that vaporous Titan? +And Hesper set in his rosy garland--why looks he so implacably sweet? It +is that one has left that bright home to go forth and do cloudy work, and +he has got a stain with which he dare not return. Far in the West fair +Lucy beckons him to come. Ah, heaven! if he might! How strong and +fierce the temptation is! how subtle the sleepless desire! it drugs his +reason, his honour. For he loves her; she is still the first and only +woman to him. Otherwise would this black spot be hell to him? otherwise +would his limbs be chained while her arms are spread open to him. And if +he loves her, why then what is one fall in the pit, or a thousand? Is +not love the password to that beckoning bliss? So may we say; but here +is one whose body has been made a temple to him, and it is desecrated. + +A temple, and desecrated! For what is it fit for but for a dance of +devils? His education has thus wrought him to think. + +He can blame nothing but his own baseness. But to feel base and accept +the bliss that beckons--he has not fallen so low as that. + +Ah, happy English home! sweet wife! what mad miserable Wisp of the Fancy +led him away from you, high in his conceit? Poor wretch! that thought to +be he of the hundred hands, and war against the absolute Gods. Jove +whispered a light commission to the Laughing Dame; she met him; and how +did he shake Olympus? with laughter? + +Sure it were better to be Orestes, the Furies howling in his ears, than +one called to by a heavenly soul from whom he is for ever outcast. He +has not the oblivion of madness. Clothed in the lights of his first +passion, robed in the splendour of old skies, she meets him everywhere; +morning, evening, night, she shines above him; waylays him suddenly in +forest depths; drops palpably on his heart. At moments he forgets; he +rushes to embrace her; calls her his beloved, and lo, her innocent kiss +brings agony of shame to his face. + +Daily the struggle endured. His father wrote to him, begging him by the +love he had for him to return. From that hour Richard burnt unread all +the letters he received. He knew too well how easily he could persuade +himself: words from without might tempt him and quite extinguish the +spark of honourable feeling that tortured him, and that he clung to in +desperate self-vindication. + +To arrest young gentlemen on the downward slope is both a dangerous and +thankless office. It is, nevertheless, one that fair women greatly +prize, and certain of them professionally follow. Lady Judith, as far as +her sex would permit, was also of the Titans in their battle against the +absolute Gods; for which purpose, mark you, she had married a lord +incapable in all save his acres. Her achievements she kept to her own +mind: she did not look happy over them. She met Richard accidentally in +Paris; she saw his state; she let him learn that she alone on earth +understood him. The consequence was that he was forthwith enrolled in +her train. It soothed him to be near a woman. Did she venture her guess +as to the cause of his conduct, she blotted it out with a facility women +have, and cast on it a melancholy hue he was taught to participate in. +She spoke of sorrows, personal sorrows, much as he might speak of his-- +vaguely, and with self-blame. And she understood him. How the dark +unfathomed wealth within us gleams to a woman's eye! We are at compound +interest immediately: so much richer than we knew!--almost as rich as we +dreamed! But then the instant we are away from her we find ourselves +bankrupt, beggared. How is that? We do not ask. We hurry to her and +bask hungrily in her orbs. The eye must be feminine to be thus creative: +I cannot say why. Lady Judith understood Richard, and he feeling +infinitely vile, somehow held to her more feverishly, as one who dreaded +the worst in missing her. The spirit must rest; he was weak with what he +suffered. + +Austin found them among the hills of Nassau in Rhineland: Titans, male +and female, who had not displaced Jove, and were now adrift, prone on +floods of sentiment. The blue-flocked peasant swinging behind his oxen +of a morning, the gaily-kerchiefed fruit-woman, the jackass-driver, even +the doctor of those regions, have done more for their fellows. Horrible +reflection! Lady Judith is serene above it, but it frets at Richard when +he is out of her shadow. Often wretchedly he watches the young men of +his own age trooping to their work. Not cloud-work theirs! Work solid, +unambitious, fruitful! + +Lady Judith had a nobler in prospect for the hero. He gaped blindfolded +for anything, and she gave him the map of Europe in tatters. He +swallowed it comfortably. It was an intoxicating cordial. Himself on +horseback overriding wrecks of Empires! Well might common sense cower +with the meaner animals at the picture. Tacitly they agreed to recast +the civilized globe. The quality of vapour is to melt and shape itself +anew; but it is never the quality of vapour to reassume the same shapes. +Briareus of the hundred unoccupied hands may turn to a monstrous donkey +with his hind legs aloft, or twenty thousand jabbering apes. The +phantasmic groupings of the young brain are very like those we see in the +skies, and equally the sport of the wind. Lady Judith blew. There was +plenty of vapour in him, and it always resolved into some shape or other. +You that mark those clouds of eventide, and know youth, will see the +similitude: it will not be strange, it will barely seem foolish to you, +that a young man of Richard's age, Richard's education and position, +should be in this wild state. Had he not been nursed to believe he was +born for great things? Did she not say she was sure of it? And to feel +base, yet born for better, is enough to make one grasp at anything +cloudy. Suppose the hero with a game leg. How intense is his faith to +quacks! with what a passion of longing is he not seized to break +somebody's head! They spoke of Italy in low voices. "The time will +come," said she. "And I shall be ready," said he. What rank was he to +take in the liberating army? Captain, colonel, general in chief, or +simple private? Here, as became him, he was much more positive and +specific than she was: Simple private, he said. Yet he save himself +caracoling on horseback. Private in the cavalry, then, of course. +Private in the cavalry over-riding wrecks of Empires. She looked forth +under her brows with mournful indistinctness at that object in the +distance. They read Petrarch to get up the necessary fires. Italia mia! +Vain indeed was this speaking to those thick and mortal wounds in her +fair body, but their sighs went with the Tiber, the Arno, and the Po, and +their hands joined. Who has not wept for Italy? I see the aspirations +of a world arise for her, thick and frequent as the puffs of smoke from +cigars of Pannonian sentries! + +So when Austin came Richard said he could not leave Lady Judith, Lady +Judith said she could not part with him. For his sake, mind! This +Richard verified. Perhaps he had reason to be grateful. The high road +of Folly may have led him from one that terminates worse. Ho is foolish, +God knows; but for my part I will not laugh at the hero because he has +not got his occasion. Meet him when he is, as it were, anointed by his +occasion, and he is no laughing matter. + +Richard felt his safety in this which, to please the world, we must term +folly. Exhalation of vapours was a wholesome process to him, and +somebody who gave them shape and hue a beneficent Iris. He told Austin +plainly he could not leave her, and did not anticipate the day when he +could. + +"Why can't you go to your wife, Richard?" + +"For a reason you would be the first to approve, Austin." + +He welcomed Austin with every show of manly tenderness, and sadness at +heart. Austin he had always associated with his Lucy in that Hesperian +palace of the West. Austin waited patiently. Lady Judith's old lord +played on all the baths in Nassau without evoking the tune of health. +Whithersoever he listed she changed her abode. So admirable a wife was +to be pardoned for espousing an old man. She was an enthusiast even in +her connubial duties. She had the brows of an enthusiast. With occasion +she might have been a Charlotte Corday. So let her also be shielded from +the ban of ridicule. Nonsense of enthusiasts is very different from +nonsense of ninnies. She was truly a high-minded person, of that order +who always do what they see to be right, and always have confidence in +their optics. She was not unworthy of a young man's admiration, if she +was unfit to be his guide. She resumed her ancient intimacy with Austin +easily, while she preserved her new footing with Richard. She and Austin +were not unlike, only Austin never dreamed, and had not married an old +lord. + +The three were walking on the bridge at Limburg on the Lahn, where the +shadow of a stone bishop is thrown by the moonlight on the water brawling +over slabs of slate. A woman passed them bearing in her arms a baby, +whose mighty size drew their attention. + +"What a wopper!" Richard laughed. + +"Well, that is a fine fellow," said Austin, "but I don't think he's much +bigger than your boy." + +"He'll do for a nineteenth-century Arminius," Richard was saying. Then +he looked at Austin. + +"What was that you said?" Lady Judith asked of Austin. + +"What have I said that deserves to be repeated?" Austin counterqueried +quite innocently. + +"Richard has a son?" + +"You didn't know it?" + +"His modesty goes very far," said Lady Judith, sweeping the shadow of a +curtsey to Richard's paternity. + +Richard's heart throbbed with violence. He looked again in Austin's +face. Austin took it so much as a matter of course that he said nothing +more on the subject. + +"Well!" murmured Lady Judith. + +When the two men were alone, Richard said in a quick voice: "Austin! you +were in earnest?" + +"You didn't know it, Richard?" + +"No." + +"Why, they all wrote to you. Lucy wrote to you: your father, your aunt. +I believe Adrian wrote too." + +"I tore up their letters," said Richard. + +"He's a noble fellow, I can tell you. You've nothing to be ashamed of. +He'll soon be coming to ask about you. I made sure you knew." + +"No, I never knew." Richard walked away, and then said: "What is he +like?" + +"Well, he really is like you, but he has his mother's eyes." + +"And she's--" + +"Yes. I think the child has kept her well." + +"They're both at Raynham?" + +"Both." + +Hence fantastic vapours! What are ye to this! Where are the dreams of +the hero when he learns he has a child? Nature is taking him to her +bosom. She will speak presently. Every domesticated boor in these hills +can boast the same, yet marvels the hero at none of his visioned +prodigies as he does when he comes to hear of this most common +performance. A father? Richard fixed his eyes as if he were trying to +make out the lineaments of his child. + +Telling Austin he would be back in a few minutes, he sallied into the +air, and walked on and on. "A father!" he kept repeating to himself: "a +child!" And though he knew it not, he was striking the keynotes of +Nature. But he did know of a singular harmony that suddenly burst over +his whole being. + +The moon was surpassingly bright: the summer air heavy and still. He +left the high road and pierced into the forest. His walk was rapid: the +leaves on the trees brushed his cheeks; the dead leaves heaped in the +dells noised to his feet. Something of a religious joy--a strange sacred +pleasure--was in him. By degrees it wore; he remembered himself: and now +he was possessed by a proportionate anguish. A father! he dared never +see his child. And he had no longer his phantasies to fall upon. He was +utterly bare to his sin. In his troubled mind it seemed to him that +Clare looked down on him--Clare who saw him as he was; and that to her +eyes it would be infamy for him to go and print his kiss upon his child. +Then came stern efforts to command his misery and make the nerves of his +face iron. + +By the log of an ancient tree half buried in dead leaves of past summers, +beside a brook, he halted as one who had reached his journey's end. +There he discovered he had a companion in Lady Judith's little dog. He +gave the friendly animal a pat of recognition, and both were silent in +the forest-silence. + +It was impossible for Richard to return; his heart was surcharged. He +must advance, and on he footed, the little dog following. + +An oppressive slumber hung about the forest-branches. In the dells and +on the heights was the same dead heat. Here where the brook tinkled it +was no cool-lipped sound, but metallic, and without the spirit of water. +Yonder in a space of moonlight on lush grass, the beams were as white +fire to sight and feeling. No haze spread around. The valleys were +clear, defined to the shadows of their verges, the distances sharply +distinct, and with the colours of day but slightly softened. Richard +beheld a roe moving across a slope of sward far out of rifle-mark. The +breathless silence was significant, yet the moon shone in a broad blue +heaven. Tongue out of mouth trotted the little dog after him; crouched +panting when he stopped an instant; rose weariedly when he started +afresh. Now and then a large white night-moth flitted through the dusk +of the forest. + +On a barren corner of the wooded highland looking inland stood grey +topless ruins set in nettles and rank grass-blades. Richard mechanically +sat down on the crumbling flints to rest, and listened to the panting of +the dog. Sprinkled at his feet were emerald lights: hundreds of glow- +worms studded the dark dry ground. + +He sat and eyed them, thinking not at all. His energies were expended in +action. He sat as a part of the ruins, and the moon turned his shadow +Westward from the South. Overhead, as she declined, long ripples of +silver cloud were imperceptibly stealing toward her. They were the van +of a tempest. He did not observe them or the leaves beginning to +chatter. When he again pursued his course with his face to the Rhine, a +huge mountain appeared to rise sheer over him, and he had it in his mind +to scale it. He got no nearer to the base of it for all his vigorous +outstepping. The ground began to dip; he lost sight of the sky. Then +heavy, thunder-drops streak his cheek, the leaves were singing, the earth +breathed, it was black before him, and behind. All at once the thunder +spoke. The mountain he had marked was bursting over him. + +Up startled the whole forest in violet fire. He saw the country at the +foot of the hills to the bounding Rhine gleam, quiver, extinguished. +Then there were pauses; and the lightning seemed as the eye of heaven, +and the thunder as the tongue of heaven, each alternately addressing him; +filling him with awful rapture. Alone there--sole human creature among +the grandeurs and mysteries of storm--he felt the representative of his +kind, and his spirit rose, and marched, and exulted, let it be glory, let +it be ruin! Lower down the lightened abysses of air rolled the wrathful +crash; then white thrusts of light were darted from the sky, and great +curving ferns, seen steadfast in pallor a second, were supernaturally +agitated, and vanished. Then a shrill song roused in the leaves and the +herbage. Prolonged and louder it sounded, as deeper and heavier the +deluge pressed. A mighty force of water satisfied the desire of the +earth. Even in this, drenched as he was by the first outpouring, Richard +had a savage pleasure. Keeping in motion, he was scarcely conscious of +the wet, and the grateful breath of the weeds was refreshing. Suddenly +he stopped short, lifting a curious nostril. He fancied he smelt meadow- +sweet. He had never seen the flower in Rhineland--never thought of it; +and it would hardly be met with in a forest. He was sure he smelt it +fresh in dews. His little companion wagged a miserable wet tail some way +in advance. He went an slowly, thinking indistinctly. After two or +three steps he stooped and stretched out his hand to feel for the flower, +having, he knew not why, a strong wish to verify its growth there. +Groping about, his hand encountered something warm that started at his +touch, and he, with the instinct we have, seized it, and lifted it to +look at it. The creature was very small, evidently quite young. +Richard's eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, were able to discern it +for what it was, a tiny leveret, and ha supposed that the dog had +probably frightened its dam just before he found it. He put the little +thing on one hand in his breast, and stepped out rapidly as before. + +The rain was now steady; from every tree a fountain poured. So cool and +easy had his mind become that he was speculating on what kind of shelter +the birds could find, and how the butterflies and moths saved their +coloured wings from washing. Folded close they might hang under a leaf, +he thought. Lovingly he looked into the dripping darkness of the coverts +on each side, as one of their children. He was next musing on a strange +sensation he experienced. It ran up one arm with an indescribable +thrill, but communicated nothing to his heart. It was purely physical, +ceased for a time, and recommenced, till he had it all through his blood, +wonderfully thrilling. He grew aware that the little thing he carried in +his breast was licking his hand there. The small rough tongue going over +and over the palm of his hand produced the strange sensation he felt. +Now that he knew the cause, the marvel ended; but now that he knew the +cause, his heart was touched and made more of it. The gentle scraping +continued without intermission as on he walked. What did it say to him? +Human tongue could not have said so much just then. + +A pale grey light on the skirts of the flying tempest displayed the dawn. +Richard was walking hurriedly. The green drenched weeds lay all about in +his path, bent thick, and the forest drooped glimmeringly. Impelled as a +man who feels a revelation mounting obscurely to his brain, Richard was +passing one of those little forest-chapels, hung with votive wreaths, +where the peasant halts to kneel and pray. Cold, still, in the twilight +it stood, rain-drops pattering round it. He looked within, and saw the +Virgin holding her Child. He moved by. But not many steps had he gone +ere his strength went out of him, and he shuddered. What was it? He +asked not. He was in other hands. Vivid as lightning the Spirit of Life +illumined him. He felt in his heart the cry of his child, his darling's +touch. With shut eyes he saw them both. They drew him from the depths; +they led him a blind and tottering man. And as they led him he had a +sense of purification so sweet he shuddered again and again. + +When he looked out from his trance on the breathing world, the small +birds hopped and chirped: warm fresh sunlight was over all the hills. He +was on the edge of the forest, entering a plain clothed with ripe corn +under a spacious morning sky. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIII + + +They heard at Raynham that Richard was coming. Lucy had the news first +in a letter from Ripton Thompson, who met him at Bonn. Ripton did not +say that he had employed his vacation holiday on purpose to use his +efforts to induce his dear friend to return to his wife; and finding +Richard already on his way, of course Ripton said nothing to him, but +affected to be travelling for his pleasure like any cockney. Richard +also wrote to her. In case she should have gone to the sea he directed +her to send word to his hotel that he might not lose an hour. His letter +was sedate in tone, very sweet to her. Assisted by the faithful female +Berry, she was conquering an Aphorist. + +"Woman's reason is in the milk of her breasts," was one of his rough +notes, due to an observation of Lucy's maternal cares. Let us remember, +therefore, we men who have drunk of it largely there, that she has it. + +Mrs. Berry zealously apprised him how early Master Richard's education +had commenced, and the great future historian he must consequently be. +This trait in Lucy was of itself sufficient to win Sir Austin. + +"Here my plan with Richard was false," he reflected: "in presuming that +anything save blind fortuity would bring him such a mate as he should +have." He came to add: "And has got!" + +He could admit now that instinct had so far beaten science; for as +Richard was coming, as all were to be happy, his wisdom embraced them all +paternally as the author of their happiness. Between him and Lucy a +tender intimacy grew. + +"I told you she could talk, sir," said Adrian. + +"She thinks!" said the baronet. + +The delicate question how she was to treat her uncle, he settled +generously. Farmer Blaize should come up to Raynham when he would: Lucy +must visit him at least three times a week. He had Farmer Blaize and +Mrs. Berry to study, and really excellent Aphorisms sprang from the plain +human bases this natural couple presented. + +"It will do us no harm," he thought, "some of the honest blood of the +soil in our veins." And he was content in musing on the parentage of the +little cradled boy. A common sight for those who had the entry to the +library was the baronet cherishing the hand of his daughter-in-law. + +So Richard was crossing the sea, and hearts at Raynham were beating +quicker measures as the minutes progressed. That night he would be with +them. Sir Austin gave Lucy a longer, warmer salute when she came down to +breakfast in the morning. Mrs. Berry waxed thrice amorous. "It's your +second bridals, ye sweet livin' widow!" she said. "Thanks be the Lord! +it's the same man too! and a baby over the bed-post," she appended +seriously. + +"Strange," Berry declared it to be, "strange I feel none o' this to my +Berry now. All my feelin's o' love seem t'ave gone into you two sweet +chicks." + +In fact, the faithless male Berry complained of being treated badly, and +affected a superb jealousy of the baby; but the good dame told him that +if he suffered at all he suffered his due. Berry's position was +decidedly uncomfortable. It could not be concealed from the lower +household that he had a wife in the establishment, and for the +complications this gave rise to, his wife would not legitimately console +him. Lucy did intercede, but Mrs. Berry, was obdurate. She averred she +would not give up the child till he was weaned. "Then, perhaps," she +said prospectively. "You see I ain't so soft as you thought for." + +"You're a very unkind, vindictive old woman," said Lucy. + +"Belike I am," Mrs. Berry was proud to agree. We like a new character, +now and then. Berry had delayed too long. + +Were it not notorious that the straightlaced prudish dare not listen to, +the natural chaste, certain things Mrs. Berry thought it advisable to +impart to the young wife with regard to Berry's infidelity, and the +charity women should have toward sinful men, might here be reproduced. +Enough that she thought proper to broach the matter, and cite her own +Christian sentiments, now that she was indifferent in some degree. + +Oily calm is on the sea. At Raynham they look up at the sky and +speculate that Richard is approaching fairly speeded. He comes to throw +himself on his darling's mercy. Lucy irradiated over forest and sea, +tempest and peace--to her the hero comes humbly. Great is that day when +we see our folly! Ripton and he were the friends of old. Richard +encouraged him to talk of the two he could be eloquent on, and Ripton, +whose secret vanity was in his powers of speech, never tired of +enumerating Lucy's virtues, and the peculiar attributes of the baby. + +"She did not say a word against me, Rip?" + +"Against you, Richard! The moment she knew she was to be a mother, she +thought of nothing but her duty to the child. She's one who can't think +of herself." + +"You've seen her at Raynham, Rip?" + +"Yes, once. They asked me down. And your father's so fond of her--I'm +sure he thinks no woman like her, and he's right. She is so lovely, and +so good." + +Richard was too full of blame of himself to blame his father: too British +to expose his emotions. Ripton divined how deep and changed they were by +his manner. He had cast aside the hero, and however Ripton had obeyed +him and looked up to him in the heroic time, he loved him tenfold now. +He told his friend how much Lucy's mere womanly sweetness and excellence +had done for him, and Richard contrasted his own profitless extravagance +with the patient beauty of his dear home angel. He was not one to take +her on the easy terms that offered. There was that to do which made his +cheek burn as he thought of it, but he was going to do it, even though it +lost her to him. Just to see her and kneel to her was joy sufficient to +sustain him, and warm his blood in the prospect. They marked the white +cliffs growing over the water. Nearer, the sun made them lustrous. +Houses and people seemed to welcome the wild youth to common sense, +simplicity, and home. + +They were in town by mid-day. Richard had a momentary idea of not +driving to his hotel for letters. After a short debate he determined to +go there. The porter said he had two letters for Mr. Richard Feverel-- +one had been waiting some time. He went to the box and fetched them. +The first Richard opened was from Lucy, and as he read it, Ripton +observed the colour deepen on his face, while a quivering smile played +about his mouth. He opened the other indifferently. It began without +any form of address. Richard's forehead darkened at the signature. This +letter was in a sloping feminine hand, and flourished with light strokes +all over, like a field of the bearded barley. Thus it ran: + +"I know you are in a rage with me because I would not consent to ruin +you, you foolish fellow. What do you call it? Going to that unpleasant +place together. Thank you, my milliner is not ready yet, and I want to +make a good appearance when I do go. I suppose I shall have to some day. +Your health, Sir Richard. Now let me speak to you seriously. Go home to +your wife at once. But I know the sort of fellow you are, and I must be +plain with you. Did I ever say I loved you? You may hate me as much as +you please, but I will save you from being a fool. + +"Now listen to me. You know my relations with Mount. That beast Brayder +offered to pay all my debts and set me afloat, if I would keep you in +town. I declare on my honour I had no idea why, and I did not agree to +it. But you were such a handsome fellow--I noticed you in the park +before I heard a word of you. But then you fought shy--you were just as +tempting as a girl. You stung me. Do you know what that is? I would +make you care for me, and we know how it ended, without any intention of +mine, I swear. I'd have cut off my hand rather than do you any harm, +upon my honour. Circumstances! Then I saw it was all up between us. +Brayder came and began to chaff about you. I dealt the animal a stroke +on the face with my riding-whip--I shut him up pretty quick. Do you +think I would let a man speak about you?--I was going to swear. You see +I remember Dick's lessons. O my God! I do feel unhappy.--Brayder +offered me money. Go and think I took it, if you like. What do I care +what anybody thinks! Something that black-guard said made me suspicious. +I went down to the Isle of Wight where Mount was, and your wife was just +gone with an old lady who came and took her away. I should so have liked +to see her. You said, you remember, she would take me as a sister, and +treat me--I laughed at it then. My God! how I could cry now, if water +did any good to a devil, as you politely call poor me. I called at your +house and saw your man-servant, who said Mount had just been there. In a +minute it struck me. I was sure Mount was after a woman, but it never +struck me that woman was your wife. Then I saw why they wanted me to +keep you away. I went to Brayder. You know how I hate him. I made love +to the man to get it out of him. Richard! my word of honour, they have +planned to carry her off, if Mount finds he cannot seduce her. Talk of +devils! He's one; but he is not so bad as Brayder. I cannot forgive a +mean dog his villany. + +"Now after this, I am quite sure you are too much of a man to stop away +from her another moment. I have no more to say. I suppose we shall not +see each other again, so good-bye, Dick! I fancy I hear you cursing me. +Why can't you feel like other men on the subject? But if you were like +the rest of them I should not have cared for you a farthing. I have not +worn lilac since I saw you last. I'll be buried in your colour, Dick. +That will not offend you--will it? + +"You are not going to believe I took the money? If I thought you thought +that--it makes me feel like a devil only to fancy you think it. + +"The first time you meet Brayder, cane him publicly. + +"Adieu! Say it's because you don't like his face. I suppose devils must +not say Adieu. Here's plain old good-bye, then, between you and me. +Good-bye, dear Dick! You won't think that of me? + +"May I eat dry bread to the day of my death if I took or ever will touch +a scrap of their money. BELLA." + +Richard folded up the letter silently. + +"Jump into the cab," he said to Ripton. + +"Anything the matter, Richard?" + +"No." + +The driver received directions. Richard sat without speaking. His friend +knew that face. He asked whether there was bad news in the letter. For +answer, he had the lie circumstancial. He ventured to remark that they +were going the wrong way. + +"It'd the right way," cried Richard, and his jaws were hard and square, +and his eyes looked heavy and full. + +Ripton said no more, but thought. + +The cabman pulled up at a Club. A gentleman, in whom Ripton recognized +the Hon. Peter Brayder, was just then swinging a leg over his horse, with +one foot in the stirrup. Hearing his name called, the Hon. Peter turned +about, and stretched an affable hand. + +"Is Mountfalcon in town?" said Richard taking the horse's reins instead +of the gentlemanly hand. His voice and aspect were quite friendly. + +"Mount?" Brayder replied, curiously watching the action; "yes. He's off +this evening." + +"He is in town?" Richard released his horse. "I want to see him. Where +is he?" + +The young man looked pleasant: that which might have aroused Brayder's +suspicions was an old affair in parasitical register by this time. "Want +to see him? What about?" he said carelessly, and gave the address. + +"By the way," he sang out, "we thought of putting your name down, +Feverel." He indicated the lofty structure. "What do you say?" + +Richard nodded back at him, crying, "Hurry." Brayder returned the nod, +and those who promenaded the district soon beheld his body in elegant +motion to the stepping of his well-earned horse. + +"What do you want to see Lord Mountfalcon for, Richard?" said Ripton. + +"I just want to see him," Richard replied. + +Ripton was left in the cab at the door of my lord's residence. He had to +wait there a space of about ten minutes, when Richard returned with a +clearer visage, though somewhat heated. He stood outside the cab, and +Ripton was conscious of being examined by those strong grey eyes. As +clear as speech he understood them to say to him, "You won't do," but +which of the many things on earth he would not do for he was at a loss to +think. + +"Go down to Raynham, Ripton. Say I shall be there tonight certainly. +Don't bother me with questions. Drive off at once. Or wait. Get another +cab. I'll take this." + +Ripton was ejected, and found himself standing alone in the street. As +he was on the point of rushing after the galloping cab-horse to get a +word of elucidation, he heard some one speak behind him. + +"You are Feverel's friend?" + +Ripton had an eye for lords. An ambrosial footman, standing at the open +door of Lord Mountfalcon's house, and a gentleman standing on the +doorstep, told him that he was addressed by that nobleman. He was +requested to step into the house. When they were alone, Lord +Mountfalcon, slightly ruffled, said: "Feverel has insulted me grossly. I +must meet him, of course. It's a piece of infernal folly!--I suppose he +is not quite mad?" + +Ripton's only definite answer was, a gasping iteration of "My lord." + +My lord resumed: "I am perfectly guiltless of offending him, as far as I +know. In fact, I had a friendship for him. Is he liable to fits of this +sort of thing?" + +Not yet at conversation-point, Ripton stammered: "Fits, my lord?" + +"Ah!" went the other, eying Ripton in lordly cognizant style. "You know +nothing of this business, perhaps?" + +Ripton said he did not. + +"Have you any influence with him?" + +"Not much, my lord. Only now and then--a little." + +"You are not in the Army?" + +The question was quite unnecessary. Ripton confessed to the law, and my +lord did not look surprised. + +"I will not detain you," he said, distantly bowing. + +Ripton gave him a commoner's obeisance; but getting to the door, the +sense of the matter enlightened him. + +"It's a duel, my lord?" + +"No help for it, if his friends don't shut him up in Bedlam between this +and to-morrow morning." + +Of all horrible things a duel was the worst in Ripton's imagination. He +stood holding the handle of the door, revolving this last chapter of +calamity suddenly opened where happiness had promised. + +"A duel! but he won't, my lord,--he mustn't fight, my lord." + +"He must come on the ground," said my lord, positively. + +Ripton ejaculated unintelligible stuff. Finally Lord Mountfalcon said: +"I went out of my way, sir, in speaking to you. I saw you from the +window. Your friend is mad. Deuced methodical, I admit, but mad. I +have particular reasons to wish not to injure the young man, and if an +apology is to be got out of him when we're on the ground, I'll take it, +and we'll stop the damned scandal, if possible. You understand? I'm the +insulted party, and I shall only require of him to use formal words of +excuse to come to an amicable settlement. Let him just say he regrets +it. +Now, sir," the nobleman spoke with considerable earnestness, +"should anything happen--I have the honour to be known to Mrs. Feverel-- +and I beg you will tell her. I very particularly desire you to let her +know that I was not to blame." + +Mountfalcon rang the bell, and bowed him out. With this on his mind +Ripton hurried down to those who were waiting in joyful trust at Raynham. + + + + +CHAPTER XLIV + + +The watch consulted by Hippias alternately with his pulse, in occult +calculation hideous to mark, said half-past eleven on the midnight. +Adrian, wearing a composedly amused expression on his dimpled plump +face,--held slightly sideways, aloof from paper and pen,--sat writing at +the library table. Round the baronet's chair, in a semi-circle, were +Lucy, Lady Blandish, Mrs. Doria, and Ripton, that very ill bird at +Raynham. They were silent as those who question the flying minutes. +Ripton had said that Richard was sure to come; but the feminine eyes +reading him ever and anon, had gathered matter for disquietude, which +increased as time sped. Sir Austin persisted in his habitual air of +speculative repose. + +Remote as he appeared from vulgar anxiety, he was the first to speak and +betray his state. + +"Pray, put up that watch. Impatience serves nothing," he said, half- +turning hastily to his brother behind him. + +Hippias relinquished his pulse and mildly groaned: "It's no nightmare, +this!" + +His remark was unheard, and the bearing of it remained obscure. Adrian's +pen made a louder flourish on his manuscript; whether in commiseration or +infernal glee, none might say. + +"What are you writing?" the baronet inquired testily of Adrian, after a +pause; twitched, it may be, by a sort of jealousy of the wise youth's +coolness. + +"Do I disturb you, sir?" rejoined Adrian. "I am engaged on a portion of +a Proposal for uniting the Empires and Kingdoms of Europe under one +Paternal Head, on the model of the ever-to-be-admired and lamented Holy +Roman. This treats of the management of Youths and Maids, and of certain +magisterial functions connected therewith. 'It is decreed that these +officers be all and every men of science,' etc." And Adrian cheerily +drove his pen afresh. + +Mrs. Doria took Lucy's hand, mutely addressing encouragement to her, and +Lucy brought as much of a smile as she could command to reply with. + +"I fear we must give him up to-night," observed Lady Blandish. + +"If he said he would come, he will come," Sir Austin interjected. +Between him and the lady there was something of a contest secretly going +on. He was conscious that nothing save perfect success would now hold +this self-emancipating mind. She had seen him through. + +"He declared to me he would be certain to come," said Ripton; but he +could look at none of them as he said it, for he was growing aware that +Richard might have deceived him, and was feeling like a black conspirator +against their happiness. He determined to tell the baronet what he knew, +if Richard did not come by twelve. + +"What is the time?" he asked Hippias in a modest voice. + +"Time for me to be in bed," growled Hippias, as if everybody present had +been treating him badly. + +Mrs. Berry came in to apprise Lucy that she was wanted above. She +quietly rose. Sir Austin kissed her on the forehead, saying: "You had +better not come down again, my child." She kept her eyes on him. +"Oblige me by retiring for the night," he added. Lucy shook their hands, +and went out, accompanied by Mrs. Doria. + +"This agitation will be bad for the child," he said, speaking to himself +aloud. + +Lady Blandish remarked: "I think she might just as well have returned. +She will not sleep." + +"She will control herself for the child's sake." + +"You ask too much of her." + +"Of her, not," he emphasized. + +It was twelve o'clock when Hippies shut his watch, and said with +vehemence: "I'm convinced my circulation gradually and steadily +decreases!" + +"Going back to the pre-Harvey period!" murmured Adrian as he wrote. + +Sir Austin and Lady Blandish knew well that any comment would introduce +them to the interior of his machinery, the eternal view of which was +sufficiently harrowing; so they maintained a discreet reserve. Taking it +for acquiescence in his deplorable condition, Hippies resumed +despairingly: "It's a fact. I've brought you to see that. No one can be +more moderate than I am, and yet I get worse. My system is organically +sound--I believe: I do every possible thing, and yet I get worse. Nature +never forgives! I'll go to bed." + +The Dyspepsy departed unconsoled. + +Sir Austin took up his brother's thought: "I suppose nothing short of a +miracle helps us when we have offended her." + +"Nothing short of a quack satisfies us," said Adrian, applying wax to an +envelope of official dimensions. + +Ripton sat accusing his soul of cowardice while they talked; haunted by +Lucy's last look at him. He got up his courage presently and went round +to Adrian, who, after a few whispered words, deliberately rose and +accompanied him out of the room, shrugging. When they had gone, Lady +Blandish said to the baronet: "He is not coming." + +"To-morrow, then, if not tonight," he replied. "But I say he will come +to-night." + +"You do really wish to see him united to his wife?" + +The question made the baronet raise his brows with some displeasure. + +"Can you ask me?" + +"I mean," said, the ungenerous woman, "your System will require no +further sacrifices from either of them?" + +When he did answer, it was to say: "I think her altogether a superior +person. I confess I should scarcely have hoped to find one like her." + +"Admit that your science does not accomplish everything." + +"No: it was presumptuous--beyond a certain point," said the baronet, +meaning deep things. + +Lady Blandish eyed him. "Ah me!" she sighed, "if we would always be true +to our own wisdom!" + +"You are very singular to-night, Emmeline." Sir Austin stopped his walk +in front of her. + +In truth, was she not unjust? Here was an offending son freely forgiven. +Here was a young woman of humble birth, freely accepted into his family +and permitted to stand upon her qualities. Who would have done more--or +as much? This lady, for instance, had the case been hers, would have +fought it. All the people of position that he was acquainted with would +have fought it, and that without feeling it so peculiarly. But while the +baronet thought this, he did not think of the exceptional education his +son had received. He, took the common ground of fathers, forgetting his +System when it was absolutely on trial. False to his son it could not be +said that he had been false to his System he was. Others saw it plainly, +but he had to learn his lesson by and by. + +Lady Blandish gave him her face; then stretched her hand to the table, +saying, "Well! well!" She fingered a half-opened parcel lying there, and +drew forth a little book she recognized. "Ha! what is this?" she said. + +"Benson returned it this morning," he informed her. "The stupid fellow +took it away with him--by mischance, I am bound to believe." + +It was nothing other than the old Note-book. Lady Blandish turned over +the leaves, and came upon the later jottings. + +She read: "A maker of Proverbs--what is he but a narrow mind with the +mouthpiece of narrower?" + +"I do not agree with that," she observed. He was in no humour for +argument. + +"Was your humility feigned when you wrote it?" + +He merely said: "Consider the sort of minds influenced by set sayings. A +proverb is the half-way-house to an Idea, I conceive; and the majority +rest there content: can the keeper of such a house be flattered by his +company?" + +She felt her feminine intelligence swaying under him again. There must +be greatness in a man who could thus speak of his own special and +admirable aptitude. + +Further she read, "Which is the coward among us?--He who sneers at the +failings of Humanity!" + +"Oh! that is true! How much I admire that!" cried the dark-eyed dame as +she beamed intellectual raptures. + +Another Aphorism seemed closely to apply to him: "There is no more +grievous sight, as there is no greater perversion, than a wise man at the +mercy of his feelings." + +"He must have written it," she thought, "when he had himself for an +example--strange man that he is!" + +Lady Blandish was still inclined to submission, though decidedly +insubordinate. She had once been fairly conquered: but if what she +reverenced as a great mind could conquer her, it must be a great man that +should hold her captive. The Autumn Primrose blooms for the loftiest +manhood; is a vindictive flower in lesser hands. Nevertheless Sir Austin +had only to be successful, and this lady's allegiance was his for ever. +The trial was at hand. + +She said again: "He is not coming to-night," and the baronet, on whose +visage a contemplative pleased look had been rising for a minute past, +quietly added: "He is come." + +Richard's voice was heard in the hall. + +There was commotion all over the house at the return of the young heir. +Berry, seizing every possible occasion to approach his Bessy now that her +involuntary coldness had enhanced her value--"Such is men!" as the soft +woman reflected--Berry ascended to her and delivered the news in pompous +tones and wheedling gestures. "The best word you've spoke for many a +day," says she, and leaves him unfee'd, in an attitude, to hurry and pour +bliss into Lucy's ears. + +"Lord be praised!" she entered the adjoining room exclaiming, "we're got +to be happy at last. They men have come to their senses. I could cry to +your Virgin and kiss your Cross, you sweet!" + +"Hush!" Lucy admonished her, and crooned over the child on her knees. +The tiny open hands, full of sleep, clutched; the large blue eyes started +awake; and his mother, all trembling and palpitating, knowing, but +thirsting to hear it, covered him with her tresses, and tried to still +her frame, and rocked, and sang low, interdicting even a whisper from +bursting Mrs. Berry. + +Richard had come. He was under his father's roof, in the old home that +had so soon grown foreign to him. He stood close to his wife and child. +He might embrace them both: and now the fulness of his anguish and the +madness of the thing he had done smote the young man: now first he tasted +hard earthly misery. + +Had not God spoken to him in the tempest? Had not the finger of heaven +directed him homeward? And he had come: here he stood: congratulations +were thick in his ears: the cup of happiness was held to him, and he was +invited to drink of it. Which was the dream? his work for the morrow, or +this? But for a leaden load that he felt like a bullet in his breast, he +might have thought the morrow with death sitting on it was the dream. +Yes; he was awake. Now first the cloud of phantasms cleared away: he +beheld his real life, and the colours of true human joy: and on the +morrow perhaps he was to close his eyes on them. That leaden bullet +dispersed all unrealities. + +They stood about him in the hall, his father, Lady Blandish, Mrs. Doria, +Adrian, Ripton; people who had known him long. They shook his hand: they +gave him greetings he had never before understood the worth of or the +meaning. Now that he did they mocked him. There was Mrs. Berry in the +background bobbing, there was Martin Berry bowing, there was Tom Bakewell +grinning. Somehow he loved the sight of these better. + +"Ah, my old Penelope!" he said, breaking through the circle of his +relatives to go to her. "Tom! how are you?" + +"Bless ye, my Mr, Richard," whimpered Mrs. Berry, and whispered, rosily, +"all's agreeable now. She's waiting up in bed for ye, like a new-born." + +The person who betrayed most agitation was, Mrs. Doria. She held close +to him, and eagerly studied his face and every movement, as one +accustomed to masks. "You are pale, Richard?" He pleaded exhaustion. +"What detained you, dear?" "Business," he said. She drew him +imperiously apart from the others. "Richard! is it over?" He asked what +she meant. "The dreadful duel, Richard." He looked darkly. "Is it +over? is it done, Richard?" Getting no immediate answer, she continued-- +and such was her agitation that the words were shaken by pieces from her +mouth: "Don't pretend not to understand me, Richard! Is it over? Are +you going to die the death of my child--Clare's death? Is not one in a +family enough? Think of your dear young wife--we love her so!--your +child!--your father! Will you kill us all?" + +Mrs. Doria had chanced to overhear a trifle of Ripton's communication to +Adrian, and had built thereon with the dark forces of a stricken soul. + +Wondering how this woman could have divined it, Richard calmly said: +"It's arranged--the matter you allude to." + +"Indeed!--truly, dear?" + +"Yes." + +"Tell me"--but he broke away from her, saying: "You shall hear the +particulars to-morrow," and she, not alive to double meaning just then, +allowed him to leave her. + +He had eaten nothing for twelve hours, and called for food, but he would +take only dry bread and claret, which was served on a tray in the +library. He said, without any show of feeling, that he must eat before +he saw the young hope of Raynham: so there he sat, breaking bread, and +eating great mouthfuls, and washing them down with wine, talking of what +they would. His father's studious mind felt itself years behind him, he +was so completely altered. He had the precision of speech, the bearing +of a man of thirty. Indeed he had all that the necessity for cloaking an +infinite misery gives. But let things be as they might, he was, there. +For one night in his life Sir Austin's perspective of the future was +bounded by the night. + +"Will your go to your wife now?" he had asked and Richard had replied +with a strange indifference. The baronet thought it better that their +meeting should be private, and sent word for Lucy to wait upstairs. The +others perceived that father and son should now be left alone. Adrian +went up to him, and said: "I can no longer witness this painful sight, so +Good-night, Sir Famish! You may cheat yourself into the belief that +you've made a meal, but depend upon it your progeny--and it threatens to +be numerous--will cry aloud and rue the day. Nature never forgives! A +lost dinner can never be replaced! Good-night, my dear boy. And here-- +oblige me by taking this," he handed Richard the enormous envelope +containing what he had written that evening. "Credentials!" he exclaimed +humorously, slapping Richard on the shoulder. Ripton heard also the +words "propagator--species," but had no idea of their import. The wise +youth looked: You see we've made matters all right for you here, and +quitted the room on that unusual gleam of earnestness. + +Richard shook his hand, and Ripton's. Then Lady Blandish said her good- +night, praising Lucy, and promising to pray for their mutual happiness. +The two men who knew what was hanging over him, spoke together outside. +Ripton was for getting a positive assurance that the duel would not be +fought, but Adrian said: "Time enough tomorrow. He's safe enough while +he's here. I'll stop it to-morrow:" ending with banter of Ripton and +allusions to his adventures with Miss Random, which must, Adrian said, +have led him into many affairs of the sort. Certainly Richard was there, +and while he was there he must be safe. So thought Ripton, and went to +his bed. Mrs. Doria deliberated likewise, and likewise thought him safe +while he was there. For once in her life she thought it better not to +trust to her instinct, for fear of useless disturbance where peace should +be. So she said not a syllable of it to her brother. She only looked +more deeply into Richard's eyes, as she kissed him, praising Lucy. "I +have found a second daughter in her, dear. Oh! may you both be happy!" + +They all praised Lucy, now. His father commenced the moment they were +alone. "Poor Helen! Your wife has been a great comfort to her, Richard. +I think Helen must have sunk without her. So lovely a young person, +possessing mental faculty, and a conscience for her duties, I have never +before met." + +He wished to gratify his son by these eulogies of Lucy, and some hours +back he would have succeeded. Now it had the contrary effect. + +"You compliment me on my choice, sir?" + +Richard spoke sedately, but the irony was perceptible and he could speak +no other way, his bitterness was so intense. + +"I think you very fortunate," said his father. + +Sensitive to tone and manner as he was, his ebullition of paternal +feeling was frozen. Richard did not approach him. He leaned against the +chimney-piece, glancing at the floor, and lifting his eyes only when he +spoke. Fortunate! very fortunate! As he revolved his later history, and +remembered how clearly he had seen that his father must love Lucy if he +but knew her, and remembered his efforts to persuade her to come with +him, a sting of miserable rage blackened his brain. But could he blame +that gentle soul? Whom could he blame? Himself? Not utterly. His +father? Yes, and no. The blame was here, the blame was there: it was +everywhere and nowhere, and the young man cast it on the Fates, and +looked angrily at heaven, and grew reckless. + +"Richard," said his father, coming close to him, "it is late to-night. I +do not wish Lucy to remain in expectation longer, or I should have +explained myself to you thoroughly, and I think--or at least hope--you +would have justified me. I had cause to believe that you had not only +violated my confidence, but grossly deceived me. It was not so, I now +know. I was mistaken. Much of our misunderstanding has resulted from +that mistake. But you were married--a boy: you knew nothing of the +world, little of yourself. To save you in after-life--for there is a +period when mature men and women who have married young are more impelled +to temptation than in youth,--though not so exposed to it,--to save you, +I say, I decreed that you should experience self-denial and learn +something of your fellows of both sexes, before settling into a state +that must have been otherwise precarious, however excellent the woman who +is your mate. My System with you would have been otherwise imperfect, +and you would have felt the effects of it. It is over now. You are a +man. The dangers to which your nature was open are, I trust, at an end. +I wish you to be happy, and I give you both my blessing, and pray God to +conduct and strengthen you both." + +Sir Austin's mind was unconscious of not having spoken devoutly. True or +not, his words were idle to his son: his talk of dangers over, and +happiness, mockery. + +Richard coldly took his father's extended hand. + +"We will go to her," said the baronet. "I will leave you at her door." + +Not moving: looking fixedly at his father with a hard face on which the +colour rushed, Richard said: "A husband who has been unfaithful to his +wife may go to her there, sir?" + +It was horrible, it was cruel: Richard knew that. He wanted no advice on +such a matter, having fully resolved what to do. Yesterday he would have +listened to his father, and blamed himself alone, and done what was to be +done humbly before God and her: now in the recklessness of his misery he +had as little pity for any other soul as for his own. Sir Austin's brows +were deep drawn down. + +"What did you say, Richard?" + +Clearly his intelligence had taken it, but this--the worst he could hear- +-this that he had dreaded once and doubted, and smoothed over, and cast +aside--could it be? + +Richard said: "I told you all but the very words when we last parted. +What else do you think would have kept me from her?" + +Angered at his callous aspect, his father cried: "What brings you to her +now?" + +"That will be between us two," was the reply. + +Sir Austin fell into his chair. Meditation was impossible. He spoke +from a wrathful heart: "You will not dare to take her without"-- + +"No, sir," Richard interrupted him, "I shall not. Have no fear." + +"Then you did not love your wife?" + +"Did I not?" A smile passed faintly over Richard's face. + +"Did you care so much for this--this other person?" + +"So much? If you ask me whether I had affection for her, I can say I had +none." + +O base human nature! Then how? then why? A thousand questions rose in +the baronet's mind. Bessy Berry could have answered them every one. + +"Poor child! poor child!" he apostrophized Lucy, pacing the room. +Thinking of her, knowing her deep love for his son--her true forgiving +heart--it seemed she should be spared this misery. + +He proposed to Richard to spare her. Vast is the distinction between +women and men in this one sin, he said, and supported it with physical +and moral citations. His argument carried him so far, that to hear him +one would have imagined he thought the sin in men small indeed. His +words were idle. + +"She must know it," said Richard, sternly. "I will go to her now, sir, +if you please." + +Sir Austin detained him, expostulated, contradicted himself, confounded +his principles, made nonsense of all his theories. He could not induce +his son to waver in his resolve. Ultimately, their good-night being +interchanged, he understood that the happiness of Raynham depended on +Lucy's mercy. He had no fears of her sweet heart, but it was a strange +thing to have come to. On which should the accusation fall--on science, +or on human nature? + +He remained in the library pondering over the question, at times +breathing contempt for his son, and again seized with unwonted suspicion +of his own wisdom: troubled, much to be pitied, even if he deserved that +blow from his son which had plunged him into wretchedness. Richard went +straight to Tom Bakewell, roused the heavy sleeper, and told him to have +his mare saddled and waiting at the park gates East within an hour. +Tom's nearest approach to a hero was to be a faithful slave to his +master, and in doing this he acted to his conception of that high and +glorious character. He got up and heroically dashed his head into cold +water. "She shall be ready, sir," he nodded. + +"Tom! if you don't see me back here at Raynham, your money will go on +being paid to you." + +"Rather see you than the money, Mr. Richard," said Tom. + +"And you will always watch and see no harm comes to her, Tom." + +"Mrs. Richard, sir?" Tom stared. "God bless me, Mr. Richard"-- + +"No questions. You'll do what I say." + +"Ay, sir; that I will. Did'n Isle o' Wight." + +The very name of the Island shocked Richard's blood; and he had to walk +up and down before he could knock at Lucy's door. That infamous +conspiracy to which he owed his degradation and misery scarce left him +the feelings of a man when he thought of it. + +The soft beloved voice responded to his knock. He opened the door, and +stood before her. Lucy was half-way toward him. In the moment that +passed ere she was in his arms, he had time to observe the change in her. +He had left her a girl: he beheld a woman--a blooming woman: for pale at +first, no sooner did she see him than the colour was rich and deep on her +face and neck and bosom half shown through the loose dressing-robe, and +the sense of her exceeding beauty made his heart thump and his eyes swim. + +"My darling!" each cried, and they clung together, and her mouth was +fastened on his. + +They spoke no more. His soul was drowned in her kiss. Supporting her, +whose strength was gone, he, almost as weak as she, hung over her, and +clasped her closer, closer, till they were as one body, and in the +oblivion her lips put upon him he was free to the bliss of her embrace. +Heaven granted him that. He placed her in a chair and knelt at her feet +with both arms around her. Her bosom heaved; her eyes never quitted him: +their light as the light on a rolling wave. This young creature, +commonly so frank and straightforward, was broken with bashfulness in her +husband's arms--womanly bashfulness on the torrent of womanly love; +tenfold more seductive than the bashfulness of girlhood. Terrible +tenfold the loss of her seemed now, as distantly--far on the horizon of +memory--the fatal truth returned to him. + +Lose her? lose this? He looked up as if to ask God to confirm it. + +The same sweet blue eyes! the eyes that he had often seen in the dying +glories of evening; on him they dwelt, shifting, and fluttering, and +glittering, but constant: the light of them as the light on a rolling +wave. + +And true to him! true, good, glorious, as the angels of heaven! And his +she was! a woman--his wife! The temptation to take her, and be dumb, was +all powerful: the wish to die against her bosom so strong as to be the +prayer of his vital forces. Again he strained her to him, but this time +it was as a robber grasps priceless treasure--with exultation and +defiance. One instant of this. Lucy, whose pure tenderness had now +surmounted the first wild passion of their meeting, bent back her head +from her surrendered body, and said almost voicelessly, her underlids +wistfully quivering: "Come and see him--baby;" and then in great hope of +the happiness she was going to give her husband, and share with him, and +in tremour and doubt of what his feelings would be, she blushed, and her +brows worked: she tried to throw off the strangeness of a year of +separation, misunderstanding, and uncertainty. + +"Darling! come and see him. He is here." She spoke more clearly, though +no louder. + +Richard had released her, and she took his hand, and he suffered himself +to be led to the other side of the bed. His heart began rapidly +throbbing at the sight of a little rosy-curtained cot covered with lace +like milky summer cloud. + +It seemed to him he would lose his manhood if he looked on that child's +face. + +"Stop!" he cried suddenly. + +Lucy turned first to him, and then to her infant, fearing it should have +been disturbed. + +"Lucy, come back." + +"What is it, darling?" said she, in alarm at his voice and the grip he +had unwittingly given her hand. + +O God! what an Ordeal was this! that to-morrow he must face death, +perhaps die and be torn from his darling--his wife and his child; and +that ere he went forth, ere he could dare to see his child and lean his +head reproachfully on his young wife's breast--for the last time, it +might be--he must stab her to the heart, shatter the image she held of +him. + +"Lucy!" She saw him wrenched with agony, and her own face took the +whiteness of his--she bending forward to him, all her faculties strung to +hearing. + +He held her two hands that she might look on him and not spare the +horrible wound he was going to lay open to her eyes. + +"Lucy. Do you know why I came to you to-night?" + +She moved her lips repeating his words. + +"Lucy. Have you guessed why I did not come before?" + +Her head shook widened eyes. + +"Lucy. I did not come because I was not worthy of my wife! Do you +understand?" + +"Darling," she faltered plaintively, and hung crouching under him, "what +have I done to make you angry with me?" + +"O beloved!" cried he, the tears bursting out of his eyes. "O beloved!" +was all he could say, kissing her hands passionately. + +She waited, reassured, but in terror. + +"Lucy. I stayed away from you--I could not come to you, because... I +dared not come to you, my wife, my beloved! I could not come because I +was a coward: because--hear me--this was the reason: I have broken my +marriage oath." + +Again her lips moved. She caught at a dim fleshless meaning in them. +"But you love me? Richard! My husband! you love me?" + +"Yes. I have never loved, I never shall love, woman but you." + +"Darling! Kiss me." + +"Have you understood what I have told you?" + +"Kiss me," she said. + +He did not join lips. "I have come to you to-night to ask your +forgiveness." + +Her answer was: "Kiss me." + +"Can you forgive a man so base?" + +"But you love me, Richard?" + +"Yes: that I can say before God. I love you, and I have betrayed you, +and am unworthy of you--not worthy to touch your hand, to kneel at your +feet, to breathe the same air with you." + +Her eyes shone brilliantly. "You love me! you love me, darling!" And as +one who has sailed through dark fears into daylight, she said: "My +husband! my darling! you will never leave me? We never shall be parted +again?" + +He drew his breath painfully. To smooth her face growing rigid with +fresh fears at his silence, he met her mouth. That kiss in which she +spoke what her soul had to say, calmed her, and she smiled happily from +it, and in her manner reminded him of his first vision of her on the +summer morning in the field of the meadow-sweet. He held her to him, and +thought then of a holier picture: of Mother and Child: of the sweet +wonders of life she had made real to him. + +Had he not absolved his conscience? At least the pangs to come made him +think so. He now followed her leading hand. Lucy whispered: "You +mustn't disturb him--mustn't touch him, dear!" and with dainty fingers +drew off the covering to the little shoulder. One arm of the child was +out along the pillow; the small hand open. His baby-mouth was pouted +full; the dark lashes of his eyes seemed to lie on his plump cheeks. +Richard stooped lower down to him, hungering for some movement as a sign +that he lived. Lucy whispered. "He sleeps like you, Richard--one arm +under his head." Great wonder, and the stir of a grasping tenderness was +in Richard. He breathed quick and soft, bending lower, till Lucy's +curls, as she nestled and bent with him, rolled on the crimson quilt of +the cot. A smile went up the plump cheeks: forthwith the bud of a mouth +was in rapid motion. The young mother whispered, blushing: "He's +dreaming of me," and the simple words did more than Richard's eyes to +make him see what was. Then Lucy began to hum and buzz sweet baby- +language, and some of the tiny fingers stirred, and he made as if to +change his cosy position, but reconsidered, and deferred it, with a +peaceful little sigh. Lucy whispered: "He is such a big fellow. Oh! +when you see him awake he is so like you, Richard." + +He did not hear her immediately: it seemed a bit of heaven dropped there +in his likeness: the more human the fact of the child grew the more +heavenly it seemed. His son! his child! should he ever see him awake? +At the thought, he took the words that had been spoken, and started from +the dream he had been in. "Will he wake soon, Lucy?" + +"Oh no! not yet, dear: not for hours. I would have kept him awake for +you, but he was so sleepy." + +Richard stood back from the cot. He thought that if he saw the eyes of +his boy, and had him once on his heart, he never should have force to +leave him. Then he looked down on him, again struggled to tear himself +away. Two natures warred in his bosom, or it may have been the Magian +Conflict still going on. He had come to see his child once and to make +peace with his wife before it should be too late. Might he not stop with +them? Might he not relinquish that devilish pledge? Was not divine +happiness here offered to him?--If foolish Ripton had not delayed to tell +him of his interview with Mountfalcon all might have been well. But +pride said it was impossible. And then injury spoke. For why was he +thus base and spotted to the darling of his love? A mad pleasure in the +prospect of wreaking vengeance on the villain who had laid the trap for +him, once more blackened his brain. If he would stay he could not. So +he resolved, throwing the burden on Fate. The struggle was over, but oh, +the pain! + +Lucy beheld the tears streaming hot from his face on the child's cot. +She marvelled at such excess of emotion. But when his chest heaved, and +the extremity of mortal anguish appeared to have seized him, her heart +sank, and she tried to get him in her arms. He turned away from her and +went to the window. A half-moon was over the lake. + +"Look!" he said, "do you remember our rowing there one night, and we saw +the shadow of the cypress? I wish I could have come early to-night that +we might have had another row, and I have heard you sing there!" + +"Darling!" said she, "will it make you happier if I go with you now? I +will." + +"No, Lucy. Lucy, you are brave!" + +"Oh, no! that I'm not. I thought so once. I know I am not now." + +"Yes! to have lived--the child on your heart--and never to have uttered a +complaint!--you are brave. O my Lucy! my wife! you that have made me +man! I called you a coward. I remember it. I was the coward--I the +wretched vain fool! Darling! I am going to leave you now. You are +brave, and you will bear it. Listen: in two days, or three, I may be +back--back for good, if you will accept me. Promise me to go to bed +quietly. Kiss the child for me, and tell him his father has seen him. +He will learn to speak soon. Will he soon speak, Lucy?" + +Dreadful suspicion kept her speechless; she could only clutch one arm of +his with both her hands. + +"Going?" she presently gasped. + +"For two or three days. No more--I hope." + +"To-night?" + +"Yes. Now." + +"Going now? my husband!" her faculties abandoned her. + +"You will be brave, my Lucy!" + +"Richard! my darling husband! Going? What is it takes you from me?" +But questioning no further, she fell on her knees, and cried piteously to +him to stay--not to leave them. Then she dragged him to the little +sleeper, and urged him to pray by his side, and he did, but rose abruptly +from his prayer when he had muttered a few broken words--she praying on +with tight-strung nerves, in the faith that what she said to the +interceding Mother above would be stronger than human hands on him. Nor +could he go while she knelt there. + +And he wavered. He had not reckoned on her terrible suffering. She came +to him, quiet. "I knew you would remain." And taking his hand, +innocently fondling it: "Am I so changed from her he loved? You will not +leave me, dear?" But dread returned, and the words quavered as she spoke +them. + +He was almost vanquished by the loveliness of her womanhood. She drew +his hand to her heart, and strained it there under one breast. "Come: +lie on my heart," she murmured with a smile of holy sweetness. + +He wavered more, and drooped to her, but summoning the powers of hell, +kissed her suddenly, cried the words of parting, and hurried to the door. +It was over in an instant. She cried out his name, clinging to him +wildly, and was adjured to be brave, for he would be dishonoured if he +did not go. Then she was shaken off. + +Mrs. Berry was aroused by an unusual prolonged wailing of the child, +which showed that no one was comforting it, and failing to get any answer +to her applications for admittance, she made bold to enter. There she +saw Lucy, the child in her lap, sitting on the floor senseless:--she had +taken it from its sleep and tried to follow her husband with it as her +strongest appeal to him, and had fainted. + +"Oh my! oh my!" Mrs. Berry moaned, "and I just now thinkin' they was so +happy!" + +Warming and caressing the poor infant, she managed by degrees to revive +Lucy, and heard what had brought her to that situation. + +"Go to his father," said Mrs. Berry. "Ta-te-tiddle-te-heighty-O! Go, my +love, and every horse in Raynham shall be out after 'm. This is what men +brings us to! Heighty-oighty-iddlety-Ah! Or you take blessed baby, and +I'll go." + +The baronet himself knocked at the door. "What is this?" he said. "I +heard a noise and a step descend." + +"It's Mr. Richard have gone, Sir Austin! have gone from his wife and +babe! Rum-te-um-te-iddledy--Oh, my goodness! what sorrow's come on us!" +and Mrs. Berry wept, and sang to baby, and baby cried vehemently, and +Lucy, sobbing, took him and danced him and sang to him with drawn lips +and tears dropping over him. And if the Scientific Humanist to the day +of his death forgets the sight of those two poor true women jigging on +their wretched hearts to calm the child, he must have very little of the +human in him. + +There was no more sleep for Raynham that night. + + + + +CHAPTER XLV + + +"His ordeal is over. I have just come from his room and seen him bear +the worst that could be. Return at once--he has asked for you. I can +hardly write intelligibly, but I will tell you what we know. + +"Two days after the dreadful night when he left us, his father heard from +Ralph Morton. Richard had fought a duel in France with Lord Mountfalcon, +and was lying wounded at a hamlet on the coast. His father started +immediately with his poor wife, and I followed in company with his aunt +and his child. The wound was not dangerous. He was shot in the side +somewhere, but the ball injured no vital part. We thought all would be +well. Oh! how sick I am of theories, and Systems, and the pretensions of +men! There was his son lying all but dead, and the man was still +unconvinced of the folly he had been guilty of. I could hardly bear the +sight of his composure. I shall hate the name of Science till the day I +die. Give me nothing but commonplace unpretending people! + +"They were at a wretched French cabaret, smelling vilely, where we still +remain, and the people try as much as they can do to compensate for our +discomforts by their kindness. The French poor people are very +considerate where they see suffering. I will say that for them. The +doctors had not allowed his poor Lucy to go near him. She sat outside +his door, and none of us dared disturb her. That was a sight for +Science. His father and myself, and Mrs. Berry, were the only ones +permitted to wait on him, and whenever we came out, there she sat, not +speaking a word--for she had been told it would endanger his life--but +she looked such awful eagerness. She had the sort of eye I fancy mad +persons have. I was sure her reason was going. We did everything we +could think of to comfort her. A bed was made up for her and her meals +were brought to her there. Of course there was no getting her to eat. +What do you suppose his alarm was fixed on? He absolutely said to me-- +but I have not patience to repeat his words. He thought her to blame for +not commanding herself for the sake of her maternal duties. He had +absolutely an idea of insisting that she should make an effort to suckle +the child. I shall love that Mrs. Berry to the end of my days. I really +believe she has twice the sense of any of us--Science and all. She asked +him plainly if he wished to poison the child, and then he gave way, but +with a bad grace. + +"Poor man! perhaps I am hard on him. I remember that you said Richard +had done wrong. Yes; well, that may be. But his father eclipsed his +wrong in a greater wrong--a crime, or quite as bad; for if he deceived +himself in the belief that he was acting righteously in separating +husband and wife, and exposing his son as he did, I can only say that +there are some who are worse than people who deliberately commit crimes. +No doubt Science will benefit by it. They kill little animals for the +sake of Science. + +"We have with us Doctor Bairam, and a French physician from Dieppe, a +very skilful man. It was he who told us where the real danger lay. We +thought all would be well. A week had passed, and no fever supervened. +We told Richard that his wife was coming to him, and he could bear to +hear it. I went to her and began to circumlocute, thinking she listened +--she had the same eager look. When I told her she might go in with me +to see her dear husband, her features did not change. M. Despres, who +held her pulse at the time, told me, in a whisper, it was cerebral fever +--brain fever coming on. We have talked of her since. I noticed that +though she did not seem to understand me, her bosom heaved, and she +appeared to be trying to repress it, and choke something. I am sure now, +from what I know of her character, that she--even in the approaches of +delirium--was preventing herself from crying out. Her last hold of +reason was a thought for Richard. It was against a creature like this +that we plotted! I have the comfort of knowing that I did my share in +helping to destroy her. Had she seen her husband a day or two before-- +but no! there was a new System to interdict that! Or had she not so +violently controlled her nature as she did, I believe she might have been +saved. + +"He said once of a man, that his conscience was a coxcomb. Will you +believe that when he saw his son's wife--poor victim! lying delirious, he +could not even then see his error. You said he wished to take Providence +out of God's hands. His mad self-deceit would not leave him. I am +positive, that while he was standing over her, he was blaming her for not +having considered the child. Indeed he made a remark to me that it was +unfortunate 'disastrous,' I think he said--that the child should have to +be fed by hand. I dare say it is. All I pray is that this young child +may be saved from him. I cannot bear to see him look on it. He does not +spare himself bodily fatigue--but what is that? that is the vulgarest +form of love. I know what you will say. You will say I have lost all +charity, and I have. But I should not feel so, Austin, if I could be +quite sure that he is an altered man even now the blow has struck him. +He is reserved and simple in his speech, and his grief is evident, but I +have doubts. He heard her while she was senseless call him cruel and +harsh, and cry that she had suffered, and I saw then his mouth contract +as if he had been touched. Perhaps, when he thinks, his mind will be +clearer, but what he has done cannot be undone. I do not imagine he will +abuse women any more. The doctor called her a 'forte et belle jeune +femme:' and he said she was as noble a soul as ever God moulded clay +upon. A noble soul 'forte et belle!' She lies upstairs. If he can look +on her and not see his sin, I almost fear God will never enlighten him." + +She died five days after she had been removed. The shock had utterly +deranged her. I was with her. She died very quietly, breathing her last +breath without pain--asking for no one--a death I should like to die. + +"Her cries at one time were dreadfully loud. She screamed that she was +'drowning in fire,' and that her husband would not come to her to save +her. We deadened the sound as much as we could, but it was impossible to +prevent Richard from hearing. He knew her voice, and it produced an +effect like fever on him. Whenever she called he answered. You could +not hear them without weeping. Mrs. Berry sat with her, and I sat with +him, and his father moved from one to the other. + +"But the trial for us came when she was gone. How to communicate it to +Richard--or whether to do so at all! His father consulted with us. We +were quite decided that it would be madness to breathe it while he was in +that state. I can admit now--as things have turned out--we were wrong. +His father left us--I believe he spent the time in prayer--and then +leaning on me, he went to Richard, and said in so many words, that his +Lucy was no more. I thought it must kill him. He listened, and smiled. +I never saw a smile so sweet and so sad. He said he had seen her die, as +if he had passed through his suffering a long time ago. He shut his +eyes. I could see by the motion of his eyeballs up that he was straining +his sight to some inner heaven.--I cannot go on. + +"I think Richard is safe. Had we postponed the tidings, till he came to +his clear senses, it must have killed him. His father was right for +once, then. But if he has saved his son's body, he has given the death- +blow to his heart. Richard will never be what he promised. + +"A letter found on his clothes tells us the origin of the quarrel. I +have had an interview with Lord M. this morning. I cannot say I think +him exactly to blame: Richard forced him to fight. At least I do not +select him the foremost for blame. He was deeply and sincerely affected +by the calamity he has caused. Alas! he was only an instrument. Your +poor aunt is utterly prostrate and talks strange things of her daughter's +death. She is only happy in drudging. Dr. Bairam says we must under any +circumstances keep her employed. Whilst she is doing something, she can +chat freely, but the moment her hands are not occupied she gives me an +idea that she is going into a fit. + +"We expect the dear child's uncle to-day. Mr. Thompson is here. I have +taken him upstairs to look at her. That poor young man has a true heart. + +"Come at once. You will not be in time to see her. She will lie at +Raynham. If you could you would see an angel. He sits by her side for +hours. I can give you no description of her beauty. + +"You will not delay, I know, dear Austin, and I want you, for your +presence will make me more charitable than I find it possible to be. +Have you noticed the expression in the eyes of blind men? That is just +how Richard looks, as he lies there silent in his bed--striving to image +her on his brain." + +THE END + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A maker of Proverbs--what is he but a narrow mind wit +Feeling, nothing beyond a lively interest in her well-being +Further she read, "Which is the coward among us?" +Gentleman who does so much 'cause he says so little +Hermits enamoured of wind and rain +Heroine, in common with the hero, has her ambition to be of use +I rather like to hear a woman swear. It embellishes her! +I beg of my husband, and all kind people who may have the care +Intensely communicative, but inarticulate +Just bad inquirin' too close among men +January was watering and freezing old earth by turns +South-western Island has few attractions to other than invalids +Take 'em somethin' like Providence--as they come +Task of reclaiming a bad man is extremely seductive to good women +This was a totally different case from the antecedent ones + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Ordeal Richard Feverel, v6 +by George Meredith + diff --git a/4411.zip b/4411.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..baa5876 --- /dev/null +++ b/4411.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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