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Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by Pat Castevans <patcat@ctnet.net> +and David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +SANDRA BELLONI + +By George Meredith + + + +BOOK 4 + +XXVI. SUGGESTS THAT THE COMIC MASK HAS SOME KINSHIP WITH A SKULL +XXVII. SMALL LIFE AT BROOKFIELD +XXVIII. GEORGIANA FORD +XXIX. FIRST SCOURGING OF THE FINE SHADES +XXX. OF THE DOUBLE-MAN IN US, AND THE GREAT FIGHT + WHEN THESE ARE FULL-GROWN +XXXI. BESWORTH LAWN +XXXII. THE SUPPER +XXXIII. DEFEAT AND FLIGHT OF MRS. CHUMP + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +It was midnight. Mr. Pole had appeased his imagination with a chop, and +was trying to revive the memory of his old after-theatre night carouses +by listening to a song which Emilia sang to him, while he sipped at a +smoking mixture, and beat time on the table, rejoiced that he was warm +from head to foot at last. + +"That's a pretty song, my dear," he said. "A very pretty song. It does +for an old fellow; and so did my supper: light and wholesome. I'm an old +fellow; I ought to know I've got a grown-up son and grown-up daughters. +I shall be a grandpa, soon, I dare say. It's not the thing for me to go +about hearing glees. I had an idea of it. I'm better here. All I want +is to see my children happy, married and settled, and comfortable!" + +Emilia stole up to him, and dropped on one knee: "You love them?" + +"I do. I love my girls and my boy. And my brandy-and-water, do you mean +to say, you rogue?" + +"And me?" Emilia looked up at him beseechingly. + +"Yes, and you. I do. I haven't known you long, my dear, but I shall be +glad to do what I can for you. You shall make my house your home as long +as you live; and if I say, make haste and get married, it's only just +this: girls ought to marry young, and not be in an uncertain position." + +"Am I worth having?" + +"To be sure you are! I should think so. You haven't got a penny; but, +then, you're not for spending one. And"--Mr. Pole nodded to right and +left like a man who silenced a host of invisible logicians, urging this +and that--"you're a pleasant companion, thrifty, pretty, musical: by +Jingo! what more do they want? They'll have their song and chop at +home." + +"Yes; but suppose it depends upon their fathers?" + +"Well, if their fathers will be fools, my dear, I can't help 'em. We +needn't take 'em in a lump: how about the doctor? I'll see him to-morrow +morning, and hear what he has to say. Shall I?" + +Mr. Pole winked shrewdly. + +"You will not make my heart break?" Emilia's voice sounded one low chord +as she neared the thing she had to say. + +"Bless her soul!" the old merchant patted her; "I'm not the sort of man +for that." + +"Nor his?" + +"His?" Mr. Pole's nerves became uneasy in a minute, at the scent of a +mystification. He dashed his handkerchief over his forehead, repeating: +"His? Break a man's heart! I? What's the meaning of that? For God's +sake, don't bother me!" + +Emilia was still kneeling before him, eyeing him with a shadowed +steadfast air. + +"I say his, because his heart is in mine. He has any pain that hurts +me." + +"He may be tremendously in love," observed Mr. Pole; "but he seems a +deuced soft sort of a doctor! What's his name?" + +"I love Wilfrid." + +The merchant appeared to be giving ear to her, long after the words had +been uttered, while there was silence in the room. + +"Wilfrid? my son?" he cried with a start. + +"He is my lover." + +"Damned rascal!" Mr. Pole jumped from his chair. "Going and playing +with an unprotected girl. I can pardon a young man's folly, but this is +infamous. My dear child," he turned to Emilia, "if you've got any notion +about my son Wilfrid, you must root it up as quick as you can. If he's +been behaving like a villain, leave him to me. I detest, I hate, I +loathe, I would kick, a young man who deceives a girl. Even if he's my +son!--more's the reason!" + +Mr. Pole was walking up and down the room, fuming as he spoke. Emilia +tried to hold his hand, as he was passing, but he said: "There, my child! +I'm very sorry for you, and I'm damned angry with him. Let me go." + +"Can you, can you be angry with him for loving me?" + +"Deceiving you," returned Mr. Pole; "that's what it is. And I tell you, +I'd rather fifty times the fellow had deceived me. Anything rather than +that he should take advantage of a girl." + +"Wilfrid loves me and would die for me," said Emilia. + +"Now, let me tell you the fact," Mr. Pole came to a halt, fronting her. +"My son Wilfrid Pole may be in love, as he says, here and there, but he +is engaged to be married to a lady of title. I have his word--his oath. +He got near a thousand pounds out of my pocket the other day on that +understanding. I don't speak about the money, but--now--it's a lump-- +others would have made a nice row about it--but is he a liar? Is he a +seducing, idling, vagabond dog? Is he a contemptible scoundrel?" + +"He is my lover," said Emilia. + +She stood without changing a feature; as in a darkness, holding to the +one thing she was sure of. Then, with a sudden track of light in her +brain: "I know the mistake," she said. "Pardon him. He feared to offend +you, because you are his father, and he thought I might not quite please +you. For, he loves me. He has loved me from the first moment he saw me. +He cannot be engaged to another. I could bring him from any woman's +side. I have only to say to myself--he must come to me. For he loves +me! It is not a thing to doubt." + +Mr. Pole turned and recommenced his pacing with hasty steps. All the +indications of a nervous tempest were on him. Interjecting half-formed +phrases, and now and then staring at Emilia, as at an incomprehensible +object, he worked at his hair till it lent him the look of one in horror +at an apparition. + +"The fellow's going to marry Lady Charlotte Chillingworth, I tell you. +He has asked my permission. The infernal scamp! he knew it pleased me. +He bled me of a thousand pounds only the other day. I tell you, he's +going to marry Lady Charlotte Chillingworth." + +Emilia received this statement with a most perplexing smile. She shook +her head. "He cannot." + +"Cannot? I say he shall, and must, and in a couple of months, too!" + +The gravely sceptical smile on Emilia's face changed to a blank pallor. + +"Then, you make him, sir--you?" + +"He'll be a beggar, if he don't." + +"You will keep him without money?" + +Mr. Pole felt that he gazed on strange deeps in that girl's face. Her +voice had the wire-like hum of a rising wind. There was no menace in her +eyes: the lashes of them drooped almost tenderly, and the lips were but +softly closed. The heaving of the bosom, though weighty, was regular: +the hands hung straight down, and were open. She looked harmless; but +his physical apprehensiveness was sharpened by his nervous condition, and +he read power in her: the capacity to concentrate all animal and mental +vigour into one feeling--this being the power of the soul. + +So she stood, breathing quietly, steadily eyeing him. + +"No, no;" went on Mr. Pole. "Come, come. We'll sit down, and see, and +talk--see what can be done. You know I always meant kindly by you." + +"Oh, yes!" Emilia musically murmured, and it cost her nothing to smile +again. + +"Now, tell me how this began." Mr. Pole settled himself comfortably to +listen, all irritation having apparently left him, under the influence of +the dominant nature. "You need not be ashamed to talk it over to me." + +"I am not ashamed," Emilia led off, and told her tale simply, with here +and there one of her peculiar illustrations. She had not thought of love +till it came to life suddenly, she said; and then all the world looked +different. The relation of Wilfrid's bravery in fighting for her, varied +for a single instant the low monotony of her voice. At the close of the +confession, Mr. Pole wore an aspect of distress. This creature's utter +unlikeness to the girls he was accustomed to, corroborated his personal +view of the case, that Wilfrid certainly could not have been serious, and +that she was deluded. But he pitied her, for he had sufficient +imagination to prevent him from despising what he did not altogether +comprehend. So, to fortify the damsel, he gave her a lecture: first, on +young men--their selfish inconsiderateness, their weakness, the wanton +lives they led, their trick of lying for any sugar-plum, and how they +laughed at their dupes. Secondly, as to the conduct consequently to be +prescribed to girls, who were weaker, frailer, by disposition more +confiding, and who must believe nothing but what they heard their elders +say. + +Emilia gave patient heed to the lecture. + +"But I am safe," she remarked, when he had finished; "for my lover is not +as those young men are." + +To speak at all, and arrange his ideas, was a vexation to the poor +merchant. He was here like an irritable traveller, who knocks at a gate, +which makes as if it opens, without letting him in. Emilia's naive +confidence he read as stupidity. It brought on a fresh access of the +nervous fever lurking in him, and he cried, jumping from his seat: "Well, +you can't have him, and there's an end. You must give up--confound! why! +do you expect to have everything you want at starting? There, my child-- +but, upon my honour! a man loses his temper at having to talk for an hour +or so, and no result. You must go to bed; and--do you say your prayers? +Well! that's one way of getting out of it--pray that you may forget all +about what's not good for you. Why, you're almost like a young man, when +you set your mind on a thing. Bad! won't do! Say your prayers +regularly. And, please, pour me out a mouthful of brandy. My hand +trembles--I don't know what's the matter with it;--just like those rushes +on the Thames I used to see when out fishing. No wind, and yet there +they shake away. I wish it was daylight on the old river now! It's +night, and no mistake. I feel as if I had a fellow twirling a stick over +my head. The rascal's been at it for the last month. There, stop where +you are, my dear. Don't begin to dance!" + +He pressed at his misty eyes, half under the impression that she was +taking a succession of dazzling leaps in air. Terror of an impending +blow, which he associated with Emilia's voice, made him entreat her to be +silent. After a space, he breathed a long breath of relief, saying: "No, +no; you're firm enough on your feet. I don't think I ever saw you dance. +My girls have given it up. What led me to think...but, let's to bed, and +say our prayers. I want a kiss." + +Emilia kissed him on the forehead. The symptoms of illness were strange +to her, and passed unheeded. She was too full of her own burning passion +to take evidence from her sight. The sun of her world was threatened +with extinction. She felt herself already a wanderer in a land of tombs, +where none could say whether morning had come or gone. Intensely she +looked her misery in the face; and it was as a voice that said, "No sun: +never sun any more," to her. But a blue-hued moon slipped from among the +clouds, and hung in the black outstretched fingers of the tree of +darkness, fronting troubled waters. "This is thy light for ever! thou +shalt live in thy dream." So, as in a prison-house, did her soul now +recall the blissful hours by Wilming Weir. She sickened but an instant. +The blood in her veins was too strong a tide for her to crouch in that +imagined corpse-like universe which alternates with an irradiated Eden in +the brain of the passionate young. + +"Why should I lose him!" The dry sob choked her. + +She struggled with the emotion in her throat, and Mr. Pole, who had +previously dreaded supplication and appeals for pity, caressed her. +Instantly the flood poured out. + +"You are not cruel. I knew it. I should have died, if you had come +between us. Oh, Wilfrid's father, I love you!--I have never had a very +angry word on my mouth. Think! think! if you had made me curse you. +For, I could! You would have stopped my life, and Wilfrid's. What would +our last thoughts have been? We could not have forgiven you. Take up +dead birds killed by frost. You cry: Cruel winter! murdering cold! But +I knew better. You are Wilfrid's father, whom I can kneel to. My +lover's father! my own father! my friend next to heaven! Oh! bless my +love, for him. You have only to know what my love for him is! The +thought of losing him goes like perishing cold through my bones;--my +heart jerks, as if it had to pull up my body from the grave every time it +beats...." + +"God in heaven!" cried the horrified merchant, on whose susceptible +nerves these images wrought with such a force that he absolutely had +dread of her. He gasped, and felt at his heart, and then at his pulse; +rubbed the moisture from his forehead, and throwing a fixedly wild look +on her eyes, he jumped up and left her kneeling. + +His caress had implied mercy to Emilia: for she could not reconcile it +with the rejection of the petition of her soul. She was now a little +bewildered to see him trotting the room, frowning and blinking, and +feeling at one wrist, at momentary pauses, all his words being: "Let's be +quiet. Let's be good. Let's go to bed, and say our prayers;" mingled +with short ejaculations. + +"I may say," she intercepted him, "I may tell my dear lover that you +bless us both, and that we are to live. Oh, speak! sir! let me hear +you!" + +"Let's go to bed," iterated Mr. Pole. "Come, candles! do light them. In +God's name! light candles. And let's be off and say our prayers." + +"You consent, sir?" + +"What's that your heart does?" Mr. Pole stopped to enquire; adding: +"There, don't tell me. You've played the devil with mine. Who'd ever +have made me believe that I should feel more at ease running up and down +the room, than seated in my arm-chair! Among the wonders of the world, +that!" + +Emilia put up her lips to kiss him, as he passed her. There was +something deliciously soothing and haven-like to him in the aspect of her +calmness. + +"Now, you'll be a good girl," said he, when he had taken her salute. + +"And you," she rejoined, "will be happier!" + +His voice dropped. "If you go on like this, you've done for me!" + +But she could make no guess at any tragic meaning in his words. "My +father--let me call you so!" + +"Will you see that you can't have him?" he stamped the syllables into her +ears: and, with a notion of there being a foreign element about her, +repeated:--"No!--not have him!--not yours!--somebody else's!" + +This was clear enough. + +"Only you can separate us," said Emilia, with a brow levelled intently. + +"Well, and I"--Mr. Pole was pursuing in the gusty energy of his previous +explanation. His eyes met Emilia's, gravely widening. "I--I'm very +sorry," he broke down: "upon my soul, I am!" + +The old man went to the mantel-piece and leaned his elbow before the +glass. + +Emilia's bosom began to rise again. + +She was startled to hear him laugh. A slight melancholy little burst; +and then a louder one, followed by a full-toned laughter that fell short +and showed the heart was not in it. + +"That boy Braintop! What fun it was!" he said, looking all the while +into the glass. "Why can't we live in peace, and without bother! Is +your candle alight, my dear?" + +Emilia now thought that he was practising evasion. + +"I will light it," she said. + +Mr. Pole gave a wearied sigh. His head being still turned to the glass, +he listened with a shrouded face for her movements: saying, "Good night; +good night; I'll light my own. There's a dear!" + +A shouting was in his ears, which seemed to syllable distinctly: "If she +goes at once, I'm safe." + +The sight of pain at all was intolerable to him; but he had a prophetic +physical warning now that to witness pain inflicted by himself would be +more than he could endure. + +Emilia breathed a low, "Good night." + +"Good night, my love--all right to-morrow!" he replied briskly; and +remorse touching his kind heart as the music of her 'good night' +penetrated to it by thrilling avenues, he added injudiciously: "Don't +fret. We'll see what we can do. Soon make matters comfortable." + +"I love you, and I know you will not stab me," she answered. + +"No; certainly not," said Mr. Pole, still keeping his back to her. + +Struck with a sudden anticipating fear of having to go through this scene +on the morrow, he continued: "No misunderstands, mind! Wilfrid's done +with." + +There was a silence. He trusted she might be gone. Turning round, he +faced her; the light of the candle throwing her pale visage into ghostly +relief. + +"Where is sleep for you if you part us?" + +Mr. Pole flung up his arms. "I insist upon your going to bed. Why +shouldn't I sleep? Child's folly!" + +Though he spoke so, his brain was in strings to his timorous ticking +nerves; and he thought that it would be well to propitiate her and get +her to utter some words that would not haunt his pillow. + +"My dear girl! it's not my doing. I like you. I wish you well and +happy. Very fond of you;--blame circumstances, not me." Then he +murmured: "Are black spots on the eyelids a bad sign? I see big flakes +of soot falling in a dark room." + +Emilia's mated look fleeted. "You come between us, sir, because I have +no money?" + +"I tell you it's the boy's only chance to make his hit now." Mr. Pole +stamped his foot angrily. + +"And you make my Cornelia marry, though she loves another, as Wilfrid +loves me, and if they do not obey you they are to be beggars! Is it you +who can pray? Can you ever have good dreams? I saved my father from the +sin, by leaving him. He wished to sell me. But my poor father had no +money at all, and I can pardon him. Money was a bright thing to him: +like other things to us. Mr. Pole! What will any one say for you!" + +The unhappy merchant had made vehement efforts to perplex his hearing, +that her words might be empty and not future dragons round his couch. He +was looking forward to a night of sleep as a cure for the evil sensations +besetting him--his only chance. The chance was going; and with the +knowledge that it was unjustly torn from him--this one gleam of clear +reason in his brain undimmed by the irritable storm which plucked him +down--he cried out, to clear himself:-- + +"They are beggars, both, and all, if they don't marry before two months +are out. I'm a beggar then. I'm ruined. I shan't have a penny. I'm in +a workhouse. They are in good homes. They are safe, and thank their old +father. Now, then; now. Shall I sleep?" + +Emilia caught his staggering arm. The glazed light of his eyes went out. +He sank into a chair; white as if life had issued with the secret of his +life. Wonderful varying expressions had marked his features and the +tones of his voice, while he was uttering that sharp, succinct +confession; so that, strange as it sounded, every sentence fixed itself +on her with incontrovertible force, and the meaning of the whole flashed +through her mind. It struck her too awfully for speech. She held fast +to his nerveless hand, and kneeling before him, listened for his long +reluctant breathing. + +The 'Shall I sleep?' seemed answered. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +For days after the foregoing scene, Brookfield was unconscious of what +had befallen it. Wilfrid was trying his yacht, the ladies were preparing +for the great pleasure-gathering on Besworth lawn, and shaping astute +designs to exclude the presence of Mrs. Chump, for which they partly +condemned themselves; but, as they said, "Only hear her!" The excitable +woman was swelling from conjecture to certainty on a continuous public +cry of, "'Pon my hon'r!--d'ye think little Belloni's gone and marrud +Pole?" + +Emilia's supposed flight had deeply grieved the ladies, when alarm and +suspicion had subsided. Fear of some wretched male baseness on the part +of their brother was happily diverted by a letter, wherein he desired +them to come to him speedily. They attributed her conduct to dread of +Mr. Pericles. That fervid devotee of Euterpe received the tidings with +an obnoxious outburst, which made them seriously ask themselves +(individually and in secret) whether he was not a moneyed brute, and +nothing more. Nor could they satisfactorily answer the question. He +raved: "You let her go. Ha! what creatures you are--hein? But you find +not anozer in fifty years, I say; and here you stop, and forty hours pass +by, and not a sing in motion. What blood you have! It is water--not +blood. Such a voice, a verve, a style, an eye, a devil, zat girl! and +all drawn up and out before ze time by a man: she is spoilt!" + +He exhibited an anguish that they were not able to commiserate. Certain +expressions falling from him led them to guess that he had set some plot +in motion, which Emilia's flight had arrested; but his tragic outcries +were all on the higher ground of the loss to Art. They were glad to see +him go from the house. Soon he returned to demand Wilfrid's address. +Arabella wrote it out for him with rebuking composure. Then he insisted +upon having Captain Gambier's, whom he described as "ce nonchalant +dandy." + +"Him you will have a better opportunity of seeing by waiting here," said +Adela; and the captain came before Mr. Pericles had retreated. "Ce +nonchalant" was not quite true to his title, when he heard that Emilia +had flown. He did not say much, but iterated "Gone!" with an elegant +frown, adding, "She must come back, you know!" and was evidently more +than commonly puzzled and vexed, pursuing the strain in a way that +satisfied Mr. Pericles more thoroughly than Adela. + +"She shall come back as soon as she has a collar," growled Mr. Pericles, +meaning captivity. + +"If she'd only come back with her own maiden name," interjected Mrs. +Chump, "I'll give her a character; but, upon my hon'r--d'ye think ut +possible, now...?" + +Arabella talked over her, and rescued her father's name. + +The noisy sympathy and wild speculations of the Tinleys and Copleys had +to be endured. On the whole, the feeling toward Emilia was kind, and the +hope that she would come to no harm was fervently expressed by all the +ladies; frequently enough, also, to show the opinion that it might easily +happen. On such points Mrs. Chump never failed to bring the conversation +to a block. Supported as they were by Captain Gambier, Edward Buxley, +Freshfield Sumner, and more than once by Sir Twickenham (whom Freshfield, +launching angry shafts, now called the semi-betrothed, the statistical +cripple, and other strong things that show a developing genius for +street-cries and hustings--epithets in every member of the lists of the +great Rejected, or of the jilted who can affect to be philosophical), +notwithstanding these aids, the ladies of Brookfield were crushed by Mrs. +Chump. Her main offence was, that she revived for them so much of +themselves that they had buried. "Oh! the unutterably sordid City life!" +It hung about her like a smell of London smoke. As a mere animal, they +passed her by, and had almost come to a state of mind to pass her off. +It was the phantom, or rather the embodiment of their First Circle, that +they hated in the woman. She took heroes from the journals read by +servant-maids; she thought highly of the Court of Aldermen; she went on +public knees to the aristocracy; she was proud, in fact, of all City +appetites. What, though none saw the peculiar sting? They felt it; and +one virtue in possessing an 'ideal' is that, lodging in you as it does, +it insists upon the interior being furnished by your personal +satisfaction, and not by the blindness or stupidity of the outer world. +Thus, in one direction, an ideal precludes humbug. The ladies might +desire to cloak facts, but they had no pleasure in deception. They had +the feminine power of extinguishing things disagreeable, so long as +nature or the fates did them no violence. When these forces sent an +emissary to confound them, as was clearly the case with Mrs. Chump, they +fought. The dreadful creature insisted upon shows of maudlin affection +that could not be accorded to her, so that she existed in a condition of +preternatural sensitiveness. Among ladies pretending to dignity of life, +the horror of acrid complaints alternating with public offers of love +from a gross woman, may be pictured in the mind's eye. The absence of +Mr. Pole and Wilfrid, which caused Mrs. Chump to chafe at the restraint +imposed by the presence of males to whom she might not speak endearingly, +and deprived the ladies of proper counsel, and what good may be at times +in masculine authority, led to one fierce battle, wherein the great shot +was fired on both sides. Mrs. Chump was requested to leave the house: +she declined. Interrogated as to whether she remained as an enemy, +knowing herself to be so looked upon, she said that she remained to save +them from the dangers they invited. Those dangers she named, observing +that Mrs. Lupin, their aunt, might know them, but was as liable to be +sent to sleep by a fellow with a bag of jokes as a watchdog to be quieted +by a bone. The allusion here was to Mrs. Lupin's painful, partially +inexcusable, incurable sense of humour, especially when a gleam of it led +to the prohibited passages of life. The poor lady was afflicted so +keenly that, in instances where one of her sex and position in the social +scale is bound to perish rather than let even the shadow of a laugh +appear, or any sign of fleshly perception or sympathy peep out, she was +seen to be mutely, shockingly, penitentially convulsed: a degrading +sight. And albeit repeatedly remonstrated with, she, upon such +occasions, invariably turned imploring glances--a sort of frowning +entreaty--to the ladies, or to any of her sex present. "Did you not see +that? Oh! can you resist it?" she seemed to gasp, as she made those +fruitless efforts to drag them to her conscious level. "Sink thou, if +thou wilt," was the phrase indicated to her. She had once thought her +propensity innocent enough, and enjoyable. Her nieces had almost cured +her, by sitting on her, until Mrs. Chump came to make her worst than +ever. It is to be feared that Mrs. Chump was beginning to abuse her +power over the little colourless lady. We cannot, when we find ourselves +possessed of the gift of sending a creature into convulsions, avoid +exercising it. Mrs. Lupin was one of the victims of the modern feminine +'ideal.' She was in mind merely a woman; devout and charitable, as her +nieces admitted; but radically--what? They did not like to think, or to +say, what;--repugnant, seemed to be the word. A woman who consented to +perceive the double-meaning, who acknowledged its suggestions of a +violation of decency laughable, and who could not restrain laughter, was, +in their judgement, righteously a victim. After signal efforts to lift +her up, the verdict was that their Aunt Lupin did no credit to her sex. +If we conceive a timorous little body of finely-strung nerves, inclined +to be gay, and shrewdly apprehensive, but depending for her opinion of +herself upon those about her, we shall see that Mrs. Lupin's life was one +of sorrow and scourges in the atmosphere of the 'ideal.' Never did nun +of the cloister fight such a fight with the flesh, as this poor little +woman, that she might not give offence to the Tribunal of the Nice +Feelings which leads us to ask, "Is sentimentalism in our modern days +taking the place of monasticism to mortify our poor humanity?" The +sufferings of the Three of Brookfield under Mrs. Chump was not comparable +to Mrs. Lupin's. The good little woman's soul withered at the self- +contempt to which her nieces helped her daily. Laughter, far from +expanding her heart and invigorating her frame, was a thing that she felt +herself to be nourishing as a traitor in her bosom: and the worst was, +that it came upon her like a reckless intoxication at times, possessing +her as a devil might; and justifying itself, too, and daring to say, "Am +I not Nature?" Mrs. Lupin shrank from the remembrance of those moments. + +In another age, the scenes between Mrs. Lupin and Mrs. Chump, greatly +significant for humanity as they are, will be given without offence on +one side or martyrdom on the other. At present, and before our +sentimentalists are a concrete, it would be profitless rashness to depict +them. When the great shots were fired off (Mrs. Chump being requested to +depart, and refusing) Mrs. Lupin fluttered between the belligerents, +doing her best to be a medium for the restoration of peace. In repeating +Mrs. Chump's remarks, which were rendered purposely strong with Irish +spice by that woman, she choked; and when she conveyed to Mrs. Chump the +counter-remarks of the ladies, she provoked utterances that almost killed +her. A sadder life is not to be imagined. The perpetual irritation of a +desire to indulge in her mortal weakness, and listening to the sleepless +conscience that kept watch over it; her certainty that it would be better +for her to laugh right out, and yet her incapacity to contest the justice +of her nieces' rebuke; her struggle to resist Mrs. Chump, which ended in +a sensation of secret shameful liking for her--all these warring +influences within were seen in her behaviour. + +"I have always said," observed Cornelia, "that she labours under a +disease." What is more, she had always told Mrs. Lupin as much, and her +sisters had echoed her. Three to one in such a case is a severe trial to +the reason of solitary one. And Mrs. Lupin's case was peculiar, inasmuch +as the more she yielded to Chump-temptation and eased her heart of its +load of laughter, the more her heart cried out against her and subscribed +to the scorn of her nieces. Mrs. Chump acted a demon's part; she +thirsted for Mrs. Lupin that she might worry her. Hitherto she had not +known that anything peculiar lodged in her tongue, and with no other +person did she think of using it to produce a desired effect; but now the +scenes in Brookfield became hideous to the ladies, and not wanting in +their trials to the facial muscles of the gentlemen. A significant sign +of what the ladies were enduring was, that they ceased to speak of it in +their consultations. It is a blank period in the career of young +creatures when a fretting wretchedness forces them out of their dreams to +action; and it is then that they will do things that, seen from the +outside (i.e. in the conduct of others), they would hold to be monstrous, +all but impossible. Or how could Cornelia persuade herself, as she +certainly persuaded Sir Twickenham and the world about her, that she had +a contemplative pleasure in his society? Arabella drew nearer to Edward +Buxley, whom she had not treated well, and who, as she might have +guessed, had turned his thoughts toward Adela; though clearly without +encouragement. Adela indeed said openly to her sisters, with a Gallic +ejaculation, "Edward follows me, do you know; and he has adopted a sort +of Sicilian-vespers look whenever he meets me with Captain Gambier. I +could forgive him if he would draw out a dagger and be quite theatrical; +but, behold, we meet, and my bourgeois grunts and stammers, and seems to +beg us to believe that he means nothing whatever by his behaviour. Can +you convey to his City-intelligence that he is just a trifle ill-bred?" + +Now, Arabella had always seen Edward as a thing that was her own, which +accounts for the treatment to which, he had been subjected. A quick spur +of jealousy--a new sensation--was the origin of her leaning toward +Edward; and the plea of saving Adela from annoyance excused and covered +it. He, for his part, scarcely concealed his irritation, until a little +scented twisted note was put in his hand, which said, "You are as anxious +as I can be about our sweet lost Emilia! We believe ourselves to be on +her traces." This gave him wonderful comfort. It put Adela in a +beautiful fresh light as a devoted benefactress and delicious +intriguante. He threw off some of his most telling caricatures at this +period. Adela had divined that Captain Gambier suspected his cousin +Merthyr Powys of abstracting Emilia, that he might shield her from Mr. +Pericles. The Captain confessed it, calmly blushing, and that he was in +communication with Miss Georgiana Ford, Mr. Powys's half-sister; about +whom Adela was curious, until the Captain ejaculated, "A saint!"--whereat +she was satisfied, knowing by instinct that the preference is for +sinners. Their meetings usually referred to Emilia; and it was +astonishing how willingly the Captain would talk of her. Adela repeated +to herself, "This is our mask," and thus she made it the Captain's; for +it must be said that the conquering Captain had never felt so full of +pity to any girl or woman to whom he fancied he had done damage, as to +Emilia. He enjoyed a most thorough belief that she was growing up to +perplex him with her love, and he had not consequently attempted to +precipitate the measure; but her flight had prematurely perplexed him. +In grave debate with the ends of his moustache for a term, he concluded +by accusing Merthyr Powys; and with a little feeling of spite not unknown +to masculine dignity, he wrote to Merthyr's half-sister--"merely to +inquire, being aware that whatever he does you have been consulted on, +and the friends of this Miss Belloni are distressed by her absence." + +The ladies of Brookfield were accustomed to their father's occasional +unpremeditated absences, and neither of them had felt an apprehension +which she could not dismiss, until one morning Mr. Powys sent up his card +to Arabella, requesting permission to speak with her alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +Georgiana Ford would have had little claim among the fair saints to be +accepted by them as one of their order. Her reputation for coldness was +derived from the fact of her having stood a siege from Captain Gambier. +But she loved a creature of earth too well to put up a hand for saintly +honours. The passion of her life centred in devotion to her half- +brother. Those who had studied her said, perhaps with a touch of +malignity, that her religious instinct had its source in a desire to gain +some place of intercession for him. Merthyr had leaned upon it too often +to doubt the strength of it, whatever its purity might be. She, when +barely more than a child (a girl of sixteen), had followed him over the +then luckless Italian fields--sacrificing as much for a cause that she +held to be trivial, as he in the ardour of his half-fanatical worship. +Her theory was: "These Italians are in bondage, and since heaven permits +it, there has been guilt. By endurance they are strengthened, by +suffering chastened; so let them endure and suffer." She would cleave to +this view with many variations of pity. Merthyr's experience was tolerant +to the weaker vessel's young delight in power, which makes her sometimes, +though sweet and merciful by nature, enunciate Hebraic severities +oracularly. He smiled, and was never weary of pointing out practical +refutations. Whereat she said, "Will a thousand instances change the +principle?" When the brain, and especially the fine brain of a woman, +first begins to act for itself, the work is of heavy labour; she finds +herself plunging abroad on infinite seas, and runs speedily into the +anchorage of dogmas, obfuscatory saws, and what she calls principles. +Here she is safe; but if her thinking was not originally the mere action +of lively blood upon that battery of intelligence, she will by-and-by +reflect that it is not well for a live thing to be tied to a dead, and +that long clinging to safety confesses too much. Merthyr waited for +Georgians patiently. On all other points they were heart-in-heart. It +was her pride to say that she loved him with no sense of jealousy, and +prayed that he might find a woman, in plain words, worthy of him. This +woman had not been found; she confessed that she had never seen her. + +Georgians received Captain Gambier's communication in Monmouth. Merthyr +had now and then written of a Miss Belloni; but he had seemed to refer to +a sort of child, and Georgians had looked on her as another Italian +pensioner. She was decisive. The moment she awoke to feel herself +brooding over the thought of this girl, she started to join Merthyr. +Solitude is pasturage for a suspicion. On her way she grew persuaded +that her object was bad, and stopped; until the thought came, 'If he is +in a dilemma, who shall help him save his sister?' And, with spiritually +streaming eyes at a vision of companionship broken (but whether by his +taking another adviser, or by Miss Belloni, she did not ask), Georgiana +continued her journey. + +At the door of Lady Gosstre's town-house she hesitated, and said in her +mind, "What am I doing? and what earthliness has come into my love for +him?" + +Or, turning to the cry, "Will he want me?" stung herself. Conscious that +there was some poison in her love, but clinging to it not less, she +entered the house, and was soon in Merthyr's arms. + +"Why have you come up?" he asked. + +"Were you thinking of coming to me quickly?" she murmured in reply. + +He did not say yes, but that he had business in London. Nor did he say +what. + +Georgiana let him go. + +"How miserable is such a weakness! Is this my love?" she thought again. + +Then she went to her bedroom, and knelt, and prayed her Saviour's pardon +for loving a human thing too well. But, if the rays of her mind were +dimmed, her heart beat too forcibly for this complacent self-deceit. +"No; not too well! I cannot love him too well. I am selfish. When I +say that, it is myself I am loving. To love him thrice as dearly as I do +would bring me nearer to God. Love I mean, not idolatry--another form of +selfishness." + +She prayed to be guided out of the path of snares. + + "CAN YOU PRAY? CAN YOU PUT AWAY ALL PROPS OF SELF? THIS IS TRUE + WORSHIP, UNTO WHATSOEVER POWER YOU KNEEL." + +This passage out of a favourite book of sentences had virtue to help her +now in putting away the 'props of self.' It helped her for the time. +She could not foresee the contest that was commencing for her. + + "LOVE THAT SHRIEKS AT A MORTAL WOUND, AND BLEEDS HUMANLY, WHAT IS HE + BUT A PAGAN GOD, WITH THE PASSIONS OF A PAGAN GOD?" + +"Yes," thought Georgiana, meditating, "as different from the Christian +love as a brute from a man!" + +She felt that the revolution of the idea of love in her mind (all that +consoled her) was becoming a temptation. Quick in her impulses, she +dismissed it. "I am like a girl!" she said scornfully. "Like a woman" +would not have flattered her. Like what did she strive to be? The +picture of another self was before her--a creature calmly strong, +unruffled, and a refuge to her beloved. It was a steady light through +every wind that blew, save when the heart narrowed; and then it waxed +feeble, and the life in her was hungry for she knew not what. + +Georgiana's struggle was to make her great passion eat up all the others. +Sure of the intensity and thoroughness of her love for Merthyr, she would +forecast for herself tasks in his service impossible save to one +sensually dead and therefore spiritually sexless. "My love is pure," she +would say; as if that were the talisman which rendered it superhuman. +She was under the delusion that lovers' love was a reprehensible egoism. +Her heart had never had place for it; and thus her nature was +unconsummated, and the torment of a haunting insufficiency accompanied +her sweetest hours, ready to mislead her in all but very clearest +actions. + +She saw, or she divined, much of this struggle; but the vision of it was +fitful, not consecutive. It frightened and harassed without illuminating +her. Now, upon Merthyr's return, she was moved by it just enough to take +his hand and say:-- + +"We are the same?" + +"What can change us?" he replied. + +"Or who?" and as she smiled up to him, she was ashamed of her smile. + +"Yes, who!" he interjected, by this time quite enlightened. All subtle +feelings are discerned by Welsh eyes when untroubled by any mental +agitation. Brother and sister were Welsh, and I may observe that there +is human nature and Welsh nature. + +"Forgive me," she said; "I have been disturbed about you." + +Perceiving that it would be well to save her from any spiritual twists +and turns that she might reach what she desired to know, he spoke out +fully: "I have not written to you about Miss Belloni lately. I think it +must be seven or eight days since I had a letter from her--you shall see +it--looking as if it had been written in the dark. She gave the address +of a London hotel. I went to her, and her story was that she had come to +town to get Mr. Pole's consent to her marriage with his son; and that +when she succeeded in making herself understood by him, the old man fell, +smitten with paralysis, crying out that he was ruined, and his children +beggars." + +"Ah!" said Georgiana; "then this son is engaged to her?" + +"She calls him her lover." + +"Openly?" + +"Have I not told you? 'naked and unashamed.'" + +"Of course that has attracted my Merthyr!" Georgians drew to him +tenderly, breathing as one who has a burden off her heart. + +"But why did she write to you?" the question started up. + +For this reason: it appears that Mr. Pole showed such nervous irritation +at the idea of his family knowing the state he was in, that the doctor +attending him exacted a promise from her not to communicate with one of +them. She was alone, in great perplexity, and did what I had requested +her to do. She did me the honour to apply to me for any help it was in +my power to give. + +Georgiana stood eyeing the ground sideways. "What is she like?" + +"You shall see to-morrow, if you will come with me." + +"Dark, or fair?" + +Merthyr turned her face to the light, laughing softly. Georgiana +coloured, with dropped eyelids. + +She raised her eyes under their load of shame. "I will come gladly," she +said. + +"Early to-morrow, then," rejoined Merthyr. + +On the morrow, as they were driving to the hotel, Georgians wanted to +know whether he called 'this Miss Belloni' by her Christian name--a +question so needless that her over-conscious heart drummed with gratitude +when she saw that he purposely spared her from one meaning look. In this +mutual knowledge, mutual help, in minute as in great things, as well as +in the recognition of a common nobility of mind, the love of the two was +fortified. + +Emilia had not been left by Mr. Powys without the protection of a woman's +society in her singular position. Lady Charlotte's natural prompt +kindness required no spur from her friend that she should go and brace up +the spirits of a little woman, whom she pitied doubly for loving a man +who was deceiving her, and not loving one who was good for her. She went +frequently to Emilia, and sat with her in the sombre hotel drawing-room. +Still, frank as she was and blunt as she affected to be, she could not +bring her tongue to speak of Wilfrid. If she had fancied any sensitive +shuddering from the name and the subject to exist, she would have struck +boldly, being capable of cruelty and, where she was permitted to see a +weakness, rather fond of striking deep. A belief in the existence of +Emilia's courage touched her to compassion. One day, however, she said, +"What is it you take to in Merthyr Powys?" and this brought on plain +speaking. + +Emilia could give no reason; and it is a peculiarity of people who ask +such questions that they think a want of directness in the answer +suspicious. + +Lady Charlotte said gravely, "Come, come!" + +"What do you mean?" asked Emilia. "I like so many things in him." + +"You don't like one thing chiefly?" + +"I like--what do I like?--his kindness." + +"His kindness!" This was the sort of reply to make the lady implacable. +She seldom read others shrewdly, and could not know, that near her, +Emilia thought of Wilfrid in a way that made the vault of her brain seem +to echo with jarred chords. "His kindness! What a picture is the +'grateful girl!' I have seen rows of white-capped charity children +giving a bob and a sniffle as the parson went down the ranks promising +buns. Well! his kindness! You are right in appreciating as much as you +can see. I'll tell you why I like him;--because he is a gentleman. And +you haven't got an idea how rare that animal is. Dear me! Should I be +plainer to you if I called him a Christian gentleman? It's the cant of a +detestable school, my child. It means just this--but why should I +disturb your future faith in it? The professors mainly profess to be 'a +comfort to young women,' and I suppose you will meet your comfort, and +worship them with the 'growing mind;' and I must confess that they bait +it rather cunningly; nothing else would bite. They catch almost all the +raw boys who have anything in them. But for me, Merthyr himself would +have been caught long ago. There's no absolute harm in them, only that +they're a sentimental compromise. I deny their honesty; and if it's +flatly proved, I deny their intelligence. Well! this you can't +understand." + +"I have not understood you at all," said Emilia. + +"No? It's the tongue that's the natural traitor to a woman, and takes +longer runs with every added year. I suppose you know that Mr. Powys +wishes to send you to Italy?" + +"I do," said Emilia. + +"When are you going?" + +"I am not going?" + +"Why?" + +Emilia's bosom rose. She cried "Dear lady!" on the fall of it, and was +scarce audible--adding, "Do you love Wilfrid?" + +"Well, you have brought me to the point quickly," Lady Charlotte +remarked. "I don't commonly beat the bush long myself. Love him! You +might as well ask me my age. The indiscretion would be equal, and the +result the same. Love! I have a proper fear of the word. When two play +at love they spoil the game. It's enough that he says he loves me." + +Emilia looked relieved. "Poor lady!" she sighed. + +"Poor!" Lady Charlotte echoed, with curious eyes fixed on the puzzle +beside her. + +"Tell me you will not believe him," Emilia continued. "He is mine; I +shall never give him up. It is useless for you or any one else to love +him. I know what love is now. Stop while you can. I can be sorry for +you, but I will not let him go from me. He is my lover." + +Emilia closed her lips abruptly. She produced more effect than was +visible. Lady Charlotte drew out a letter, saying, "Perhaps this will +satisfy you." + +"Nothing!" cried Emilia, jumping to her feet. + +"Read it--read it; and, for heaven's sake, ma fille sauvage, don't think +I'm here to fight for the man! He is not Orpheus; and our modern +education teaches us that it's we who are to be run after. Will you read +it?" + +"No." + +"Will you read it to please me?" + +Emilia changed from a look of quiet opposition to gentleness of feature. +"Why will it please you if I read that he has flattered you? I never lie +about what I feel; I think men do." Her voice sank. + +"You won't allow yourself to imagine, then, that he has spoken false to +you?" + +"Tell me," retorted Emilia, "are you sure in your heart--as sure as it +beats each time--that he loves you? You are not." + +"It seems that we are dignifying my gentleman remarkably," said Lady +Charlotte. "When two women fight for a man, that is almost a meal for +his vanity. Now, listen. I am not, as they phrase it, in love. I am an +experienced person--what is called a woman of the world. I should not +make a marriage unless I had come to the conclusion that I could help my +husband, or he me. Do me the favour to read this letter." + +Emilia took it and opened it slowly. It was a letter in the tone of the +gallant paying homage with some fervour. Emilia searched every sentence +for the one word. That being absent, she handed back the letter, her +eyes lingering on the signature. + +"Do you see what he says?" asked Lady Charlotte; "that I can be a right +hand to him, as I believe I can." + +"He writes like a friend." Emilia uttered this as when we have a +contrast in the mind. + +"You excuse him for writing to me in that style?" + +"Yes; he may write to any woman like that." + +"He has latitude! You really fancy that's the sort of letter a friend +would write?" + +"That is how Mr. Powys would write to me," said Emilia. Lady Charlotte +laughed. "My unhappy Merthyr!" + +"Only if I could be a great deal older," Emilia hastened to add; and Lady +Charlotte slightly frowned, but rubbed it out with a smile. + +Rising, the lady said: "I have spoken to you upon equal terms; and +remember, very few women would have done what I have done. You are cared +for by Merthyr Powys, and that's enough. It would do you no harm to fix +your eyes upon him. You won't get him; but it would do you no harm. He +has a heart, as they call it; whatever it is, it's as strong as a cable. +He is a knight of the antique. He is specially guarded, however. Well, +he insists that you are his friend; so you are mine, and that is why I +have come to you and spoken to you. You will be silent about it, I need +not say. No one but yourself is aware that Lieutenant Pole does me the +honour to liken me to the good old gentleman who accompanied Telemachus +in his voyages, and chooses me from among the handmaidens of earth. On +this head you will promise to be silent." + +Lady Charlotte held forth her hand. Emilia would not take it before she +had replied, "I knew this before you came," and then she pressed the +extended fingers. + +Lady Charlotte drew her close. "Has Wilfrid taken you into his +confidence so far?" + +Emilia explained that she had heard it from his father. + +The lady's face lit up as from a sting of anger. "Very well--very well," +she said; and, presently, "You are right when you speak of the power of +lying in men. Observe--Wilfrid told me that not one living creature knew +there was question of an engagement between us. What would you do in my +case?" + +Emilia replied, "Forgive him; and I should think no more of it." + +"Yes. It would be right; and, presuming him to have the vice, I could be +of immense service to him, if at least he does not lie habitually. But +this is a description of treachery, you know." + +"Oh!" cried Emilia, "what kind of treachery is that, if he only will keep +his heart open for me to give all mine to it!" + +She stood clutching her hands in the half-sobbing ecstasy which +signalises a spiritual exaltation built on disquiet. She had shown small +emotion hitherto. The sight of it was like the sight of a mighty hostile +power to Lady Charlotte--a power that moved her--that challenged, and +irritated, and subdued her. For she saw there something that she had +not; and being of a nature leaning to great-mindedness, though not of the +first rank, she could not meanly mask her own deficiency by despising it. +To do this is the secret evil by which souls of men and women stop their +growth. + +Lady Charlotte decided now to say good-bye. Her parting was friendly-- +the form of it consisting of a nod, an extension of the hand, and a kind +word or two. + +When alone, Emilia wondered why she kept taking long breaths, and tried +to correct herself: but the heart laboured. Yet she seemed to have no +thought in her mind; she had no active sensation of pity or startled +self-love. She went to smooth Mr. Pole's pillow, as to a place of +forgetfulness. The querulous tyrannies of the invalid relieved her; but +the heavy lifting of her chest returned the moment she was alone. She +mentioned it to the doctor, who prescribed for liver, informing her that +the said organ conducted one of the most important functions of her +bodily system. + +Emilia listened to the lecturer, and promised to take his medicine, +trusting to be perfectly quieted by the nauseous draught; but when Mr. +Powys came, she rushed up to him, and fell with a cry upon his breast, +murmuring broken words that Georgiana might fairly interpret as her +suspicions directed. Nor had she ever seen Merthyr look as he did when +their eyes next met. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +The card of Mr. Powys found Arabella alone in the house. Mrs. Lupin was +among village school-children; Mrs. Chump had gone to London to see +whether anything was known of Mr. Pole at his office, where she fell upon +the youth Braintop, and made him her own for the day. Adela was out in +the woods, contemplating nature; and Cornelia was supposed to be walking +whither her stately fancy drew her. + +"Will you take long solitary walks unprotected?" she was asked. + +"I have a parasol," she replied; and could hear, miles distant, the +domestic comments being made on her innocence; and the story it would be +--"She thinks of no possible danger but from the sun." + +A little forcing of her innocence now was necessary as an opiate for her +conscience. She was doing what her conscience could only pardon on the +plea of her extreme innocence. The sisters, and the fashion at +Brookfield, permitted the assumption, and exaggerated it willingly. It +chanced, however, that Adela had reason to feel discontented. It was a +breach of implied contract, she thought, that Cornelia should, as she did +only yesterday, tell her that she had seen Edward Buxley in the woods, +and that she was of opinion that the air of the woods was bad for her. +Not to see would have been the sisterly obligation, in Adela's idea-- +especially when seeing embraced things that no loving sister should +believe. + +Bear in mind that we are sentimentalists. The eye is our servant, not +our master; and--so are the senses generally. We are not bound to accept +more than we choose from them. Thus we obtain delicacy; and thus, as you +will perceive, our civilization, by the aid of the sentimentalists, has +achieved an effective varnish. There, certainly, to the vulgar, mind a +tail is visible. The outrageous philosopher declares vehemently that no +beast of the field or the forest would own such a tail. (His meaning is, +that he discerns the sign of the animal slinking under the garb of the +stately polished creature. I have all the difficulty in the world to +keep him back and let me pursue my course.) These philosophers are a +bad-mannered body. Either in opposition, or in the support of them, I +maintain simply that the blinking sentimentalist helps to make +civilization what it is, and civilization has a great deal of merit. + +"Did you not leave your parasol behind you at Ipley?" said Adela, as she +met Cornelia in the afternoon. + +Cornelia coloured. Her pride supported her, and she violated fine shades +painfully in her response: "Mr. Barrett left me there. Is that your +meaning?" + +Adela was too much shocked to note the courageousness of the reply. +"Well! if all we do is to come into broad daylight!" was her horrified +mental ejaculation. + +The veil of life was about to be lifted for these ladies. They found +Arabella in her room, crying like an unchastened school-girl; and their +first idea was one of intense condemnation--fresh offences on the part of +Mrs. Chump being conjectured. Little by little Arabella sobbed out what +she had heard that day from Mr. Powys. + +After the first stupor Adela proposed to go to her father instantly, and +then suggested that they should all go. She continued talking in random +suggestions, and with singular heat, as if she conceived that the +sensibility of her sisters required to be aroused. By moving and acting, +it seemed to her that the prospect of a vast misery might be expunged, +and that she might escape from showing any likeness to Arabella's +shamefully-discoloured face. It was impossible for her to realize grief +in her own bosom. She walked the room in a nervous tremour, shedding a +note of sympathy to one sister and to the other. At last Arabella got +fuller command of her voice. When she had related that her father's +positive wish, furthered by the doctor's special injunction to obey it +scrupulously, was that they were not to go to him in London, and not to +breathe a word of his illness, but to remain at Brookfield entertaining +friends, Adela stamped her foot, saying that it was more than human +nature could bear. + +"If we go," said Arabella, "the London doctor assured Mr. Powys that he +would not answer for papa's life." + +"But, good heavens! are we papa's enemies? And why may Mr. Powys see him +if we, his daughters, cannot? Tell me how Mr. Powys met him and knew of +it! Tell me--I am bewildered. I feel that we are cheated in some way. +Oh! tell me something clear." + +Arabella said calmingly: "Emilia is with papa. She wrote to Mr. Powys. +Whether she did rightly or not we have not now to inquire. I believe +that she thought it right." + +"Entertain friends!" interjected Adela. "But papa cannot possibly mean +that we are to go through--to--the fete on Besworth Lawn, Bella! It's in +two days from this dreadful day." + +"Papa has mentioned it to Mr. Powys; he desires us not to postpone it. +We..." Arabella's voice broke piteously. + +"Oh! but this is torture!" cried Adela, with a deplorable vision of the +looking-glass rising before her, as she felt the tears sting her eyelids. +"This cannot be! No father would...not loving us as dear papa does! To +be quiet! to sit and be gay! to flaunt at a fete! Oh, mercy! mercy! +Tell me--he left us quite well--no one could have guessed. I remember he +looked at me from the carriage window. Tell me--it must be some moral +shock--what do you attribute it to? Wilfrid cannot be the guilty one. +We have been only too compliant to papa's wishes about that woman. Tell +me what you think it can be!" + +A voice said, "Money!" + +Which of the sisters had spoken Adela did not know. It was bitter enough +that one could be brought to utter the thing, even if her ideas were so +base as to suspect it. The tears now came dancing over her under-lids +like triumphing imps. "Money!" echoed through her again and again. +Curiously, too, she had no occasion to ask how it was that money might be +supposed to have operated on her father's health. Unable to realize to +herself the image of her father lying ill and suffering, but just +sufficiently touched by what she could conceive of his situation, the +bare whisper of money came like a foul insult to overwhelm her in floods +of liquid self-love. She wept with that last anguish of a woman who is +compelled to weep, but is incapable of finding any enjoyment in her +tears. Cornelia and Arabella caught her hands; she was the youngest, and +had been their pet. It gratified them that Adela should show a deep and +keen feeling. Adela did not check herself from a demonstration that +enabled her to look broadly, as it were, on her own tenderness of heart. +Following many outbursts, she asked, "And the illness--what is it? not +its cause--itself!" + +A voice said, "Paralysis!" + +Adela's tears stopped. She gazed on both faces, trying with open mouth +to form the word. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +Flying from port to port to effect an exchange of stewards (the endless +occupation of a yacht proprietor), Wilfrid had no tidings from +Brookfield. The night before the gathering on Besworth Lawn he went to +London and dined at his Club--a place where youths may drink largely of +the milk of this world's wisdom. Wilfrid's romantic sentiment was always +corrected by an hour at his Club. After dinner he strolled to a not +perfectly regulated theatre, in company with a brother officer; and when +they had done duty before the scenes for a space of time, they lounged +behind to disenchant themselves, in obedience to that precocious cynicism +which is the young man's extra-Luxury. The first figure that caught +Wilfrid's attention there was Mr. Pericles, in a white overcoat, +stretched along a sofa--his eyelids being down, though his eyes were +evidently vigilant beneath. A titter of ladies present told of some +recent interesting commotion. + +"Only a row between that rich Greek fellow who gave the supper, and +Marion," a vivacious dame explained to Wilfrid. "She's in one of her +jealous fits; she'd be jealous if her poodle-dog went on its hind-legs to +anybody else." + +"Poodle, by Jove!" said Wilfrid. "Pericles himself looks like an +elongated poodle shaved up to his moustache. Look at him. And he plays +the tyrant, does he?" + +"Oh! she stands that. Some of those absurd women like it, I think. +She's fussing about another girl." + +"You wouldn't?" + +"What man's worth it?" + +"But, would you?" + +"It depends upon the 'him,' monsieur. + +"Depends upon his being very handsome!" + +"And good." + +"And rich?" + +"No!" the lady fired up. "There you don't know us." + +The colloquy became almost tender, until she said, "Isn't this gassy, and +stifling? I confess I do like a carriage, and Richmond on a Sunday. And +then, with two daughters, you know! But what I complain of is her folly +in being in love, or something like it, with a rich fellow." + +"Love the poor devil--manage the rich, you mean." + +"Yes, of course; that makes them both happy." + +"It's a method of being charitable to two." + +A rather fleshy fairy now entered, and walked straight up to the looking- +glass to examine her paint--pronouncedly turning her back to the sofa, +where Mr. Pericles still lay at provoking full length. Her panting was +ominous of a further explosion. + +"Innocent child!" in the mockery of a foreign accent, commenced it; while +Wilfrid thought how unjustly and coldly critically he had accused his +little Emilia of vulgarity, now that he had this feminine display of it +swarming about him. + +"Innocent child, indeed! Be as deaf as you like, you shall hear. And +sofas are not made for men's dirty boots, in this country. I believe +they're all pigs abroad--the men; and the women--cats! Oh! don't open +your eyes--don't speak, pray. You're certain I must go when the bell +rings. You're waiting for that, you unmanly dog!" + +"A pig," Mr. Pericles here ventured to remind her, murmuring as one in a +dream. + +"A peeg!" she retorted mildly, somewhat mollified by her apparent +success. But Mr. Pericles had relapsed into his exasperating composure. +The breath of a deliberate and undeserved peacefulness continued to be +drawn in by his nostrils. + +At the accustomed warning there was an ostentatious rustle of retiring +dresses; whereat Mr. Pericles chose to proclaim himself awake. The +astute fairy-fury immediately stepped before him. + +"Now you can't go on pretending sleep. You shall hear, and everybody +shall hear. You know you're a villain! You're a wolf seeking..." + +Mr. Pericles waved his hand, and she was caught by the wrist and told +that the scene awaited her. + +"Let them wait!" she shouted, and, sharpening her cry as she was dragged +off, "Dare to take that girl to Italy! I know what that means, with you. +An Englishman might mean right--but you! You think you've been dealing +with a fool! Why, I can stop this in a minute, and I will. It's you're +the fool! Why, I know her father: he plays in the orchestra. I know her +name--Belloni!" + +Up sprang the Greek like a galvanized corpse; while two violent jerks +from the man hauling her out rattled the laugh of triumph which burst +from her. At the same time Wilfrid strove forward, with the frown of one +still bent listening, and he and Pericles were face to face. The +eyebrows of the latter shot up in a lively arch. He made a motion toward +the ceremony of 'shake-hands;' but, perceiving no correspondent overture, +grinned, "It is warm--ha?" + +"You feel the heat? Step outside a minute," said Wilfrid. + +"Oh, no!" Mr. Pericles looked pleasantly sagacious. Ze draught--a cold." + +"Will you come?" pursued Wilfrid. + +"Many sanks!" + +Wilfrid's hand was rising. At this juncture his brother officer slipped +out some languid words in his ear, indicative of his astonishment that he +should be championing a termagant, and horror at the idea of such a thing +being publicly imagined, tamed Wilfrid quickly. He recovered himself +with his usual cleverness. Seeing the signs of hostility vanish, Mr. +Pericles said, "You are on a search for your father? You have found him? +Hom! I should say a maladie of nerfs will come to him. A pin fall--he +start! A storm at night--he is out dancing among his ships of venture! +Not a bid of corage!--which is bad. If you shall find Mr. Pole for to- +morrow on ze lawn, vary glad." + +With a smile compounded of sniffing dog and Parisian obsequiousness, Mr. +Pericles passed, thinking "He has not got her:" for such was his +deduction if he saw that a man could flush for a woman's name. + +Wilfrid stood like a machine with a thousand wheels in revolt. +Sensations pricked at ideas, and immediately left them to account for +their existence as they best could. The ideas committed suicide without +a second's consideration. He felt the great gurgling sea in which they +were drowned heave and throb. Then came a fresh set, that poised better +on the slack-rope of his understanding. By degrees, a buried dread in +his brain threw off its shroud. The thought that there was something +wrong with his father stood clearly over him, to be swallowed at once in +the less tangible belief that a harm had come to Emilia--not was coming, +but had come. Passion thinks wilfully when it thinks at all. That night +he lay in a deep anguish, revolving the means by which he might help and +protect her. There seemed no way open, save by making her his own; and +did he belong to himself?. What bound him to Lady Charlotte? She was +not lovely or loving. He had not even kissed her hand; yet she held him +in a chain. + +The two men composing most of us at the outset of actual life began their +deadly wrestle within him, both having become awakened. If they wait for +circumstance, that steady fire will fuse them into one, who is commonly a +person of some strength; but throttling is the custom between them, and +we are used to see men of murdered halves. These men have what they +fought for: they are unaware of any guilt that may be charged against +them, though they know that they do not embrace Life; and so it is that +we have vague discontent too universal. Change, O Lawgiver! the length +of our minority, and let it not end till this battle is thoroughly fought +out in approving daylight. The period of our duality should be one as +irresponsible in your eyes as that of our infancy. Is he we call a young +man an individual--who is a pair of alternately kicking scales? Is he +educated, when he dreams not that he is divided? He has drunk Latin like +a vital air, and can quote what he remembers of Homer; but how has he +been fortified for this tremendous conflict of opening manhood, which is +to our life here what is the landing of a soul to the life to come? + +Meantime, it is a bad business when the double-man goes about kneeling at +the feet of more than one lady. Society (to give that institution its +due) permits him to seek partial invulnerability by dipping himself in a +dirty Styx, which corrects, as we hear said, the adolescent tendency to +folly. Wilfrid's sentiment had served him (well or ill as it may be), by +keeping him from a headlong plunge in the protecting river; and his folly +was unchastened. He did not even contemplate an escape from the net at +Emilia's expense. The idea came. The idea will come to a young man in +such a difficulty. "My mistress! My glorious stolen fruit! My dark +angel of love!" He deserves a little credit for seeing that Emilia never +could be his mistress, in the debased sense of the term. Union with her +meant life-long union, he knew. Ultimate mental subjection he may also +have seen in it, unconsciously. For, hazy thoughts of that nature may +mix with the belief that an alliance with her degrades us, in this +curious hotch-potch of emotions known to the world as youthful man. A +wife superior to her husband makes him ridiculous wilfully, if the wretch +is to be laughed at; but a mistress thus ill-matched cannot fail to cast +the absurdest light on her monstrous dwarf-custodian. Wilfrid had the +sagacity to perceive, and the keen apprehension of ridicule to shrink +from, the picture. Besides, he was beginning to love Emilia. His +struggle now was to pluck his passion from his heart; and such was +already his plight that he saw no other way of attempting it than by +taking horse and riding furiously in the direction of Besworth. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +"I am curious to see what you will make of this gathering. I can cook a +small company myself. It requires the powers of a giantess to mix a body +of people in the open air; and all that is said of commanders of armies +shall be said of you, if you succeed." + +This was Lady Gosstre's encouragement to the fair presidents of the fete +on Besworth Lawn. There had been a time when they would have cried out +internally: "We will do it, fail who may." That fallow hour was over. +Their sole thought was to get through the day. A little feverish impulse +of rivalry with her great pattern may have moved Arabella; but the +pressure of grief and dread, and the contrast between her actions and +feelings, forcibly restrained a vain display. As a consequence, she did +her duty better, and won applause from the great lady's moveable court on +eminences of the ground. + +"These girls are clever," she said to Lady Charlotte. "They don't bustle +too much. They don't make too distinct a difference of tone with the +different sets. I shall propose Miss Pole as secretary to our Pin and +Needle Relief Society." + +"Do," was the reply. "There is also the Polish Dance Committee; and, if +she has any energy left, she might be treasurer to the Ladies' General +Revolution Ball." + +"That is an association with which I am not acquainted," said Lady +Gosstre, directing her eye-glass on the field. "Here comes young Pole. +He's gallant, they tell me, and handsome: he studies us too obviously. +That's a mistake to be corrected, Charlotte. One doesn't like to see a +pair of eyes measuring us against a preconception quelconque. Now, there +is our Ionian Am...but you have corrected me, Merthyr:--host, if you +please. But, see! What is the man doing? Is he smitten with madness?" + +Mr. Pericles had made a furious dash at the band in the centre of the +lawn, scattered their music, and knocked over the stands. When his +gesticulations had been observed for some moments, Freshfield Sumner +said: "He has the look of a plucked hen, who remembers that she once +clapped wings, and tries to recover the practice." + +"Very good," said Lady Gosstre. She was not one who could be unkind to +the professional wit. "And the music-leaves go for feathers. What has +the band done to displease him? I thought the playing was good." + +"The instruments appear to have received a dismissal," said Lady +Charlotte. "I suppose this is a clearing of the stage for coming alarums +and excursions. Behold! the 'female element' is agitated. There are-- +can you reckon at this distance, Merthyr?--twelve, fourteen of my sex +entreating him in the best tragic fashion. Can he continue stern?" + +"They seem to be as violent as the women who tore up Orpheus," said Lady +Gosstre. + +Tracy Runningbrook shrieked, in a paroxysm, "Splendid!" from his couch on +the sward, and immediately ran off with the idea, bodily. + +"Have I stumbled anywhere?" Lady Gosstre leaned to Mr. Powys. + +He replied with a satiric sententiousness that told Lady Gosstre what she +wanted to know. + +"This is the isolated case where a little knowledge is truly dangerous," +said Lady Gosstre. "I prohibit girls from any allusion to the classics +until they have taken their degree and are warranted not to open the +wrong doors. On the whole, don't you think, Merthyr, it's better for +women to avoid that pool?" + +"And accept what the noble creature chooses to bring to us in buckets," +added Lady Charlotte. "What is your opinion, Georgey? I forget: Merthyr +has thought you worthy of instruction." + +"Merthyr taught me in camp," said Georgians, looking at her brother--her +face showing peace and that confirmed calm delight habitual to it. "We +found that there are times in war when you can do nothing, and you are +feverish to be employed. Then, if you can bring your mind to study, you +are sure to learn quickly. I liked nothing better than Latin Grammar." + +"Studying Latin Grammar to the tune of great guns must be a new +sensation," Freshfield Sumner observed. + +"The pleasure is in getting rid of all sensation," said she. "I mean you +command it without at all crushing your excitement. You cannot feel a +fuller happiness than when you look back on those hours: at least, I +speak for myself." + +"So," said Lady Gosstre, "Georgey did not waste her time after all, +Charlotte." + +What the latter thought was: "She could not handle a sword or fire a +pistol. Would I have consented to be mere camp-baggage?" Yet no woman +admired Georgiana Ford so much. Disappointment vitiated many of Lady +Charlotte's first impulses; and not until strong antagonism had thrown +her upon her generosity could she do justice to the finer natures about +her. There was full life in her veins; and she was hearing the thirty +fatal bells that should be music to a woman, if melancholy music; and she +had not lived. Time, that sounded in her ears, as it kindled no past, +spoke of no future. She was in unceasing rivalry with all of her sex who +had a passion, or a fixed affection, or even an employment. A sense that +she was wronged by her fate haunted this lady. Rivalry on behalf of a +man she would have held mean--she would have plucked it from her bosom at +once. She was simply envious of those who in the face of death could +say, "I have lived." Pride, and the absence of any power of self- +inspection, kept her blind to her disease. No recollection gave her boy +save of the hours in the hunting-field. There she led gallantly; but it +was not because of leading that she exulted. There the quick blood +struck on her brain like wine, and she seemed for a time to have some one +among the crowns of life. An object--who cared how small?--was ahead: a +poor old fox trying to save his brush; and Charlotte would have it if the +master of cunning did not beat her. "It's my natural thirst for blood," +she said. She did not laugh as she thought now and then that the old red +brush dragging over grey dews toward a yellow yolk in the curdled winter- +morning sky, was the single thing that could make her heart throb. + +Brookfield was supported in its trial by the discomfiture of the Tinleys. +These girls, with their brother, had evidently plotted to 'draw out' Mrs. +Chump. They had asked concerning her, severally; and hearing that she +had not returned from town, had each shown a blank face, or had been +doubtful of the next syllable. Of Wilfrid, Emilia, and Mr. Pole, +question and answer were interchanged. "Wilfrid will come in a few +minutes. Miss Belloni, you know, is preparing for Italy. Papa? Papa, I +really do fear will not be able to join us." Such was Brookfield's +concerted form of reply. The use of it, together with the gaiety of +dancing blood, gave Adela (who believed that she ought to be weeping, and +could have wept easily) strange twitches of what I would ask permission +to call the juvenile 'shrug-philosophy.' As thus: 'What creatures we +are, but life is so!' And again, 'Is not merriment dreadful when a +duty!' She was as miserable as she could be but not knowing that youth +furnished a plea available, the girl was ashamed of being cheerful at +all. Edward Burley's sketch of Mr. Pericles scattering his band, sent +her into muffled screams of laughter; for which she did internal penance +so bitter that, for her to be able to go on at all, the shrug-philosophy +was positively necessary; Mr. Pericles himself saw the sketch, and +remarked critically, "It is zat I have more hair:" following which, he +tapped the signal for an overture to commence, and at the first stroke +took a run, with his elbows clapping exactly as the shrewd hand of Edward +had drawn him. + +"See him--zat fellow," Mr. Pericles said to Laura Tinley, pointing to the +leader. "See him pose a maestro! zat leads zis tintamarre. He is a hum- +a-bug!" + +Laura did the vocal caricaturing, when she had gathered plenty of matter +of this kind. Altogether, as host, Mr. Pericles accomplished his duty in +furnishing amusement. + +Late in the afternoon, Sir Twickenham Pryme and Wilfrid arrived in +company. The baronet went straight to Cornelia. Wilfrid beckoned to +Adela, from whom he heard of his father's illness at the hotel in town, +and the conditions imposed on them. He nodded, said lightly, "Where's +Emilia?" and nodded again to the answer, "With papa," and then stopped as +he was walking off to one of the groups. "After all, it won't do for us +to listen to the whims of an invalid. I'm going back. You needn't say +you've seen me." + +"We have the doctor's most imperative injunction, dearest," pleaded +Adela, deceived for a moment. "Papa's illness is mental chiefly. He is +able to rise and will be here very soon, if he is not in any way crossed. +For heaven's sake, command yourself as we have done--painfully indeed! +Besides, you have been seen." + +"Has she--?" Wilfrid began; and toned an additional carelessness. "She +writes, of course?" + +"No, not once; and we are angry with her. It looks like ingratitude, or +stupidity. She can write." + +"People might say that we are not behaving well," returned Wilfrid, +repeating that he must go to town. But now Edward Burley camp running +with a message from the aristocratic heights, and thither Wilfrid walked +captive--saying in Adela's ear, "Don't be angry with her." + +Adela thought, very justly, "I shall, if you've been making a fool of +her, naughty boy!" + +Wilfrid saluted the ladies, and made his bow of introduction to Georgiana +Ford, at whom he looked twice, to confirm an impression that she was the +perfect contrast to Emilia; and for this reason he chose not to look at +her again. Lady Charlotte dropped him a quick recognition. + +If Brookfield could have thrown the burden from its mind, the day was one +to feel a pride in. Three Circles were present, and Brookfield +denominated two that it had passed through, and patronized all--from Lady +Gosstre (aristocracy) to the Tinley set (lucre), and from these to the +representative Sumner girls (cultivated poverty). There were also +intellectual, scientific, and Art circles to deal with; music, pleasant +to hear, albeit condemned by Mr. Pericles; agreeable chatter, courtly +flirtation and homage, and no dread of the defection of the letter H from +their family. + +"I feel more and more convinced," said Adela, meeting Arabella, "that we +can have really no cause for alarm; otherwise papa would not have been +cruel to his children." Arabella kindly reserved her opinion. "So let +us try and be happy," continued Adela, determining to be encouraged by +silence. With that she went on tiptoe gracefully and blew a kiss to her +sister's lips. Running to Captain Gambier, she said, "Do you really +enjoy this?" + +"Charming," replied the ever-affable gentleman. "If I might only venture +to say what makes it so infinitely!" + +Much to her immediate chagrin at missing a direct compliment, which would +have had to be parried, and might have led to 'vistas,' the too sprightly +young lady found herself running on: "It's as nice as sin, without the +knowledge that you are sinning." + +"Oh! do you think that part of it disagreeable?" said the captain. + +"I think the heat terrific:" she retrieved her ground. + +"Coquet et coquette," muttered Lady Charlotte, observing them from a +distance; and wondered whether her sex might be strongly represented in +this encounter. + +It was not in the best taste, nor was it perhaps good policy (if I may +quote the Tinley set), for the ladies of Brookfield to subscribe openly +to the right of certain people present to be exclusive. Arabella would +have answered: "Lady Gosstre and her party cannot associate with you to +your mutual pleasure and profit; and do you therefore blame her for not +attempting what would fail ludicrously?" With herself, as she was not +sorry to show, Lady Gosstre could associate. Cornelia had given up work +to become a part of the Court. Adela made flying excursions over the +lawn. Laura Tinley had the field below and Mr. Pericles to herself. +That anxious gentleman consulted his watch from time to time, as if he +expected the birth of an event. + +Lady Gosstre grew presently aware that there was more acrimony in +Freshfield Sumner's replies to Sir Twickenham (whom he had seduced into a +political argument) than the professional wit need employ; and as Mr. +Powys's talk was getting so attractive that the Court had become crowded, +she gave a hint to Georgiana and Lady Charlotte, prompt lieutenants, +whose retirement broke the circle. + +"I never shall understand how it was done," Adela said subsequently. It +is hoped that everybody sees the importance of understanding such points. + +She happened to be standing alone when a messenger came up to her and +placed a letter in her hand, addressed to her sister Cornelia. Adela +walked slowly up to the heights. She knew Mr. Barrett's handwriting. +"Good heavens!"--her thought may be translated out of Fine Shades--"does +C. really in her heart feel so blind to our situation that she can go on +playing still?" When she reached the group it was to hear Mr. Powys +speaking of Mr. Barrett. Cornelia was very pale, and stood wretchedly in +contrast among the faces. Adela beckoned her to step aside. "Here is a +letter," she said: "there's no postmark. What has been the talk of that +man?" + +"Do you mean of Mr. Barrett?" Cornelia replied:--"that his father was a +baronet, and a madman, who has just disinherited him." + +"Just?" cried Adela. She thought of the title. Cornelia had passed on. +A bizarre story of Mr. Barrett's father was related to Adela by Sir +Twickenham. She grappled it with her sense, and so got nothing out of +it. "Disinherited him because he wrote to his father, who was dying, to +say that he had gained a livelihood by playing the organ! He had a +hatred of music? It's incomprehensible! You know, Sir Twickenham, the +interest we take in Mr. Barrett." The masked anguish of Cornelia's voice +hung in her ears. She felt that it was now possible Cornelia might throw +over the rich for the penniless baronet, and absolutely for an instant +she thought nakedly, "The former ought not to be lost to the family." +Thick clouds obscured the vision. Lady Gosstre had once told her that +the point of Sir Twickenham's private character was his susceptibility to +ridicule. Her ladyship had at the same time complimented his discernment +in conjunction with Cornelia. "Yes," Adela now thought; "but if my +sister shows that she is not so wise as she looks!" Cornelia's figure +disappeared under the foliage bordering Besworth Lawn. + +As usual, Arabella had all the practical labour--a fact that was noticed +from the observant heights. "One sees mere de famille written on that +young woman," was the eulogy she won from Lady Gosstre. How much would +the great dame have marvelled to behold the ambition beneath the bustling +surface! Arabella was feverish, and Freshfield Sumner reported brilliant +things uttered by her. He became after a time her attendant, aide, and +occasional wit-foil. They had some sharp exchanges: and he could not but +reflect on the pleasure her keen zest of appreciation gave him compared +with Cornelia's grave smile, which had often kindled in him profane +doubts of the positive brightness, or rapidity of her intelligence. + +"Besworth at sunset! What a glorious picture to have living before you +every day!" said Lady Charlotte to her companion. + +Wilfrid flushed. She read his look; and said, when they were out of +hearing, "What a place for old people to sit here near the end of life! +The idea of it makes one almost forgive the necessity for getting old-- +doesn't it? Tracy Runningbrook might make a poem about silver heads and +sunset--something, you know! Very easy cantering then--no hunting! I +suppose one wouldn't have even a desire to go fast--a sort of cock-horse, +just as we began with. The stables, let me tell you, are too near the +scullery. One is bound to devise measures for the protection of the +morals of the household." + +While she was speaking, Wilfrid's thoughts ran: "My time has come to +strike for liberty." + +This too she perceived, and was prepared for him. + +He said: "Lady Charlotte, I feel that I must tell you...I fear that I +have been calculating rather more hopefully..." Here the pitfall of +sentiment yawned before him on a sudden. "I mean" (he struggled to avoid +it, but was at the brink in the next sentence) "--I mean, dear lady, that +I had hopes...Besworth pleased you... to offer you this..." + +"With yourself?" she relieved him. A different manner in a protesting +male would have charmed her better. She excused him, knowing what stood +in his way. + +"That I scarcely dared to hope," said Wilfrid, bewildered to see the +loose chain he had striven to cast off gather tightly round him. + +"You do hope it?" + +"I have." + +"You have hoped that I..." (she was not insolent by nature, and corrected +the form) "--to marry me?" + +"Yes, Lady Charlotte, I--I had that hope...if I could have offered this +place--Besworth. I find that my father will never buy it; I have +misunderstood him." + +He fixed his eyes on her, expecting a cool, or an ironical, rejoinder to +end the colloquy;--after which, fair freedom! She answered, "We may do +very well without it." + +Wilfrid was not equal to a start and the trick of rapturous astonishment. +He heard the words like the shooting of dungeon-bolts, thinking, "Oh, +heaven! if at the first I had only told the woman I do not love her!" +But that sentimental lead had ruined him. And, on second thoughts, how +could he have spoken thus to the point, when they had never previously +dealt in anything save sentimental implications? The folly was in his +speaking at all. The game was now in Lady Charlotte's hands. + +Adela, in another part of the field, had released herself by a consummate +use of the same weapon Wilfrid had so clumsily handled. Her object was +to put an end to the absurd and compromising sighs of Edward Buxley; and +she did so with the amiable contempt of a pupil dismissing a first +instructor in an art "We saw from the beginning it could not be, Edward." +The enamoured caricaturist vainly protested that he had not seen it from +the beginning, and did not now. He recalled to her that she had said he +was 'her first.' She admitted the truth, with eyes dwelling on him, +until a ringlet got displaced. Her first. To be that, sentimental man +would perish in the fires. To have been that will sometimes console him, +even when he has lived to see what a thing he was who caught the budding +fancy. The unhappy caricaturist groaned between triumph as a leader, and +anguish at the prospect of a possible host of successors. King in that +pure bosom, the thought would come--King of a mighty line, mayhap! And +sentimental man, awakened to this disastrous view of things, endures +shrewder pangs of rivalry in the contemplation of his usurping posterity +than if, as do they, he looked forward to a tricked, perfumed, pommaded +whipster, pirouetting like any Pierrot--the enviable image of the one who +realized her first dream, and to whom specially missioned angels first +opened the golden gates of her heart. + +"I have learnt to see, Edward, that you do not honour me with a love you +have diverted from one worthier than I am;" and in answer to the question +whether, though having to abjure her love, she loved him: "No, no; it is +my Arabella I love. I love, I will love, no one but her"--with sundry +caressing ejaculations that spring a thirst for kisses, and a tender +'putting of the case,' now and then. + +So much for Adela's part in the conflict. Edward was unaware that the +secret of her mastering him was, that she was now talking common-sense in +the tone of sentiment. He, on the contrary, talked sentiment in the tone +of common-sense. Of course he was beaten: and O, you young lovers, when +you hear the dear lips setting what you call the world's harsh language +to this music, know that an hour has struck for you! It is a fatal sound +to hear. Edward believed that his pleading had produced an effect when +he saw Miss Adela's bosom rise as with a weight on it. The burden of her +thoughts was--"How big and heavy Edward's eyes look when he is not +amusing!" To get rid of him she said, as with an impassioned coldness, +"Go." Her figure, repeating this under closed eyelids, was mysterious, +potent. When he exclaimed, "Then I will go," her eyelids lifted wide: +she shut them instantly, showing at the same time a slight tightening-in +of the upper lip. You beheld a creature tied to the stake of Duty. + +But she was exceedingly youthful, and had not reckoned upon man's being a +live machine, possessing impulses of his own. A violent seizure of her +waist, and enough of kisses to make up the sum popularly known as a +'shower,' stopped her performance. She struggled, and muttered +passionately to be released. "We are seen," she hazarded. At the +repetition, Edward, accustomed to dread the warning, let her go and fled. +Turning hurriedly about, Adela found that she had spoken truth unawares, +and never wished so much that she had lied. Sir Twickenham Pryme came +forward to her, with his usual stiff courtly step. + +"If you could have been a little--a little earlier," she murmured, with +an unflurried face, laying a trembling hand in his; and thus shielded +herself from a suspicion. + +"Could I know that I was wanted?" He pressed her hand. + +"I only know that I wish I had not left your side," said she--adding, +"Though you must have thought me what, if I were a man, you Members of +Parliament would call 'a bore,' for asking perpetual questions." + +"Nay, an apposite interrogation is the guarantee of a proper interest in +the subject," said the baronet. + +Cornelia was very soon reverted to. + +"Her intellect is contemplative," said Adela, exhibiting marvellous +mental composure. "She would lose her unerring judgement in active life. +She cannot weigh things in her mind rapidly. She is safe if her course +of action is clear." + +Sir Twickenham reserved his opinion of the truth of this. "I wonder +whether she can forgive those who offend or insult her, easily?" + +A singular pleasure warmed Adela's veins. Her cheeks kindling, she +replied, giving him her full face. "No; if they are worthy of +punishment. But--" and now he watched a downcast profile--"one must have +some forgiveness for fools." + +"Indeed, you speak like charity out of the windows of wisdom," said the +baronet. + +"Do you not require in Parliament to be tolerant at times?" Adela +pursued. + +Ho admitted it, and to her outcry of "Oh, that noble public life!" smiled +deprecatingly--"My dear young lady, if you only knew the burden it +brings!" + +"It brings its burden," said Adela, correcting, with a most proper +instinct, another enthusiastic burst. "At the same time the honour is +above the load. Am I talking too romantically? You are at least +occupied." + +"Nine-tenths of us to no very good purpose," the baronet appended. + +She rejoined: "If it were but a fraction, the good done would survive." + +"And be more honourable to do, perhaps," he ejaculated. "The consolation +should be great." + +"And is somehow small," said she; and they laughed softly. + +At this stage, Adela was 'an exceedingly interesting young person' in Sir +Twickenham's mental register. He tried her on politics and sociology. +She kept her ears open, and followed his lead carefully--venturing here +and there to indicate an opinion, and suggesting dissent in a pained +interrogation. Finally, "I confess," she said, "I understand much less +than I am willing to think; and so I console myself with the thought +that, after all, the drawing-room, and the...the kitchen?--well, an +educated 'female' must serve her term there, if she would be anything +better than a mere ornament, even in the highest walks of life--I mean +the household is our sphere. From that we mount to companionship--if we +can." + +Amazement of Sir Twickenham, on finding his own thought printed, as it +were, on the air before him by these pretty lips! + +The conversation progressed, until Adela, by chance, turned her eyes up a +cross pathway and perceived her sister Cornelia standing with Mr. Barrett +under a beech. The man certainly held one of her hands pressed to his +heart; and her attitude struck a doubt whether his other hand was +disengaged or her waist free. Adela walked nervously on without looking +at the baronet; she knew by his voice presently that his eyes had also +witnessed the sight. "Two in a day," she thought; "what will he imagine +us to be!" The baronet was thinking: "For your sister exposed, you +display more agitation than for yourself insulted." + +Adela found Arabella in so fresh a mood that she was sure good news had +been heard. It proved that Mrs. Chump had sent a few lines in a letter +carried by Braintop, to this effect: "My dears all! I found your father +on his back in bed, and he discharged me out of the room; and the sight +of me put him on his legs, and you will soon see him. Be civil to Mr. +Braintop, who is a faithful young man, of great merit, and show your +gratitude to--Martha Chump." + +Braintop confirmed the words of the letter: and then Adela said--"You +will do us the favour to stay and amuse yourself here. To-night there +will be a bed at Brookfield." + +"What will he do?" Arabella whispered. + +"Associate with the Tinleys," returned Adela. + +In accordance with the sentiment here half concealed, Brookfield soon +showed that it had risen from the hour of depression when it had simply +done its duty. Arabella formed an opposition-Court to the one in which +she had studied; but Mr. Pericles defeated her by constantly sending to +her for advice concerning the economies of the feast. Nevertheless, she +exhibited good pretensions to social queendom, both personal and +practical; and if Freshfield Sumner, instead of his crisp waspish +comments on people and things, had seconded her by keeping up a two- +minutes' flow of talk from time to time, she might have thought that Lady +Gosstre was only luckier than herself--not better endowed. + +Below, the Tinleys and their set surrounded Mr. Pericles--prompting him, +as was seen, to send up continual messages. One, to wit, "Is there to be +dancing to-night?" being answered, "Now, if you please," provoked +sarcastic cheering; and Laura ran up to say, "How kind of you! We +appreciate it. Continue to dispense blessings on poor mortals." + +"By the way, though" (Freshfield took his line from the calm closed lips +of his mistress), "poor mortals are not in the habit of climbing Olympus +to ask favours." + +"I perceived no barrier," quoth Laura. + +"Audacity never does." + +"Pray, how am I to be punished?" + +Freshfield paused for a potent stroke. "Not like Semele. She saw the +God:--you never will!" + +While Laura was hanging on the horrid edge between a false laugh and a +starting blush, Arabella said: "That visual excommunication has been +pronounced years ago, Freshfield." + +"Ah! then he hasn't changed his name in heaven?" Laura touched her thus +for the familiar use of the gentle-man's Christian name. + +"You must not imagine that very great changes are demanded of those who +can be admitted." + +"I really find it hotter than below," said Laura, flying. + +Arabella's sharp eyes discerned a movement in Lady Gosstre's circle; and +she at once went over to her, and entreated the great lady, who set her +off so well, not to go. The sunset fronted Besworth Lawn; the last light +of day was danced down to inspiriting music: and now Arabella sent word +for Besworth hall-doors and windows to be opened; and on the company +beginning to disperse, there beckoned promise of a brilliant supper-table. + +"Admirable!" said Lady Gosstre, and the encomium was general among the +crowd surrounding Arabella; for up to this point the feasting had been +delicate, and something like plain hunger prevailed. Indeed, Arabella +had heard remarks of a bad nature, which she traced to the Tinley set, +and bore with, to meet her present reward. Making light of her triumph, +she encouraged Freshfield to start a wit-contest, and took part in it +herself, with the gaiety of an unoccupied mind. Her sisters had +aforetime more than once challenged her supremacy, but they bowed to it +now; and Adela especially did when, after a ringing hit to Freshfield +(which the Tinleys might also take to their own bosoms), she said in an +undertone, "What is there between C. and--?" Surprised by this +astonishing vigilance and power of thinking below the surface while she +performed above it, Adela incautiously turned her face toward the +meditative baronet, and was humiliated by Arabella's mute indication of +contempt for her coming answer. This march across the lawn to the +lighted windows of Besworth was the culmination of Brookfield's joy, and +the crown for which it had striven; though for how short a term it was to +be worn was little known. Was it not a very queenly sphere of Fine +Shades and Nice Feelings that Brookfield had realized? + +In Arabella's conscience lay a certain reproach of herself for permitting +the "vice of a lower circle" to cling to her--viz., she had still +betrayed a stupid hostility to the Tinleys: she had rejoiced to see them +incapable of mixing with any but their own set, and thus be stamped +publicly for what they were. She had struggled to repress it, and yet, +continually, her wits were in revolt against her judgement. Perhaps one +reason was that Albert Tinley had haunted her steps at an early part of +the day; and Albert--a sickening City young man, "full of insolence, and +half eyeglass," according to Freshfield--had once ventured to propose for +her. + +The idea that the Tinleys strove to catch at her skirts made Arabella +spiteful. Up to the threshold of Besworth, Freshfield, Mr. Powys, Tracy, +and Arabella kept the wheel of a dazzling run of small-talk, throwing +intermittent sparks. Laura Tinley would press up, apparently to hear, +but in reality (as all who knew her could see) with the object of being a +rival representative of her sex in this illustrious rare encounter of +divine intelligences. "You are anxious to know?" said Arabella, +hesitatingly. + +"To know, dear?" echoed Laura. + +"There was, I presumed, something you did not hear." Arabella was half +ashamed of the rudeness to which her antagonism to Laura's vulgarity +forced her. + +"Oh! I hear everything," Laura assured her. + +"Indeed!" said Arabella. "By the way, who conducts you?" (Laura was on +Edward Burley's arm.) "Oh! will you go to"--such and such an end of the +table. "And if, Lady Gosstre, I may beg of you to do me the service to +go there also," was added aloud; and lower, but quite audibly, "Mr. +Pericles will have music, so there can be no talking." This, with the +soupcon of a demi-shrug; "You will not suffer much" being implied. Laura +said to herself, "I am not a fool." A moment after, Arabella was +admitting in her own mind, as well as Fine Shades could interpret it, +that she was. On entering the dining-hall, she beheld two figures seated +at the point whither Laura was led by her partner. These were Mrs. Chump +and Mr. Pole, with champagne glasses in their hands. Arabella was pushed +on by the inexorable crowd of hungry people behind. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +Despite the pouring in of the flood of guests about the tables, Mrs. +Chump and Mr. Pole sat apparently unconcerned in their places, and, as if +to show their absolute indifference to observation and opinion, went +through the ceremony of drinking to one another, upon which they nodded +and chuckled: a suspicious eye had the option of divining that they used +the shelter of the table cloth for an interchange of squeezes. This +would have been further strengthened by Mrs. Chump's arresting +exclamation, "Pole! Company!" Mr. Pole looked up. He recognized Lady +Gosstre, and made an attempt, in his usual brisk style, to salute her. +Mrs. Champ drew him back. "Nothin' but his legs, my lady," she +whispered. "There's nothin' sets 'm up like champagne, my dears!" she +called out to the Three of Brookfield. + +Those ladies were now in the hall, gazing, as mildly as humanity would +allow, at their common destiny, thus startlingly displayed. There was no +doubt in the bosom of either one of them that exposure was to follow this +prelude. Mental resignation was not even demanded of them--merely +physical. They did not seek comfort in an interchange of glances, but +dropped their eyes, and masked their sight as they best could. Caesar +assassinated did a similar thing. + +"My dears!" pursued Mrs. Chump, in Irish exaggerated by wine, "I've found +'m for ye! And if ye'd seen 'm this afternoon--the little peaky, shaky +fellow that he was! and a doctor, too, feelin' his pulse. 'Is ut slow,' +says I, 'doctor?' and draws a bottle of champagne. He could hardly stand +before his first glass. 'Pon my hon'r, my lady, ye naver saw s'ch a +change in a mortal bein.--Pole, didn't ye go 'ha, ha!' now, and seem to +be nut-cracking with your fingers? He did; and if ye aver saw an +astonished doctor! 'Why,' says I, 'doctor, ye think ut's maguc! Why, +where's the secret? drink with 'm, to be sure! And you go and do that, +my lord doctor, my dear Mr. Doctor! Do ut all round, and your patients +'ll bless your feet." Why, isn't cheerful society and champagne the vary +best of medicines, if onnly the blood 'll go of itself a little? The +fault's in his legs; he's all right at top!--if he'd smooth his hair a +bit. + +Checking her tongue, Mrs. Chump performed this service lightly for him, +in the midst of his muttered comments on her Irish. + +The fact was manifest to the whole assembly, that they had indeed been +drinking champagne to some purpose. + +Wilfrid stepped up to two of his sisters, warning them hurriedly not to +go to their father: Adela he arrested with a look, but she burst the +restraint to fulfil a child's duty. She ran up gracefully, and taking +her father's hand, murmured a caressing "Dear papa!" + +"There--all right--quite right--quite well," Mr. Pole repeated. "Glad to +see you all: go away." + +He tried to look kindly out of the nervous fit into which a word, in a +significant tone, from one of his daughters had instantly plunged him. +Mrs. Chump admonished her: "Will ye undo all that I've been doin' this +blessed day?" + +"Glad you haven't missed the day altogether, sir," Wilfrid greeted his +father in an offhand way. + +"Ah, my boy!" went the old man, returning him what was meant for a bluff +nod. + +Lady Charlotte gave Wilfrid an open look. It meant: "If you can act like +that, and know as much as I know, you are worth more than I reckoned." +He talked evenly and simply, and appeared on the surface as composed as +any of the guests present. Nor was he visibly disturbed when Mrs. Chump, +catching his eye, addressed him aloud:-- + +"Ye'd have been more grateful to me to have brought little Belloni as +well now, I know, Mr. Wilfrid. But I was just obliged to leave her at +the hotel; for Pole can't endure her. He 'bomunates the sight of 'r. If +ye aver saw a dog burnt by the fire, Pole's second to 'm, if onnly ye +speak that garl's name." + +The head of a strange musician, belonging to the band stationed outside, +was thrust through one of the window apertures. Mr. Pericles beckoned +him imperiously to retire, and perform. He objected, and an altercation +in bad English diverted the company. It was changed to Italian. "Mia +figlia," seized Wilfrid's ear. Mr. Pericles bellowed, "Allegro." Two +minutes after Braintop felt a touch on his shoulder; and Wilfrid, +speaking in a tone of friend to friend, begged him to go to town by the +last train and remove Miss Belloni to an hotel, which he named. +"Certainly," said Braintop; "but if I meet her father..?" Wilfrid +summoned champagne for him; whereupon Mrs. Chump cried out, "Ye're kind +to wait upon the young man, Mr. Wilfrid; and that Mr. Braintop's an +invalu'ble young man. And what do ye want with the hotel, when we've +left it, Mr. Paricles?" + +The Greek raised his head from Mr. Pole, shrugging at her openly. He and +Wilfrid then measured eyes a moment. "Some champagne togezer?" said Mr. +Pericles. "With all my heart," was the reply; and their glasses were +filled, and they bowed, and drank. Wilfrid took his seat, drew forth his +pocket-book; and while talking affably to Lady Charlotte beside him, and +affecting once or twice to ponder over her remarks, or to meditate a +fitting answer, wrote on a slip of paper under the table:-- + + "Mine! my angel! You will see me to-morrow. + + "YOUR LOVER." + +This, being inserted in an envelope, with zig-zag letters of address to +form Emilia's name, he contrived to pass to Braintop's hands, and resumed +his conversation with Lady Charlotte, who said, when there was nothing +left to discover, "But what is it you concoct down there?" "I!" cried +Wilfrid, lifting his hands, and so betraying himself after the fashion of +the very innocent. She despised any reading of acts not on the surface, +and nodded to the explanation he gave--to wit: "By the way, do you mean-- +have you noticed my habit of touching my fingers' ends as I talk? I +count them backwards and forwards." + +"Shows nervousness," said Lady Charlotte; "you are a boy!" + +"Exceedingly a boy." + +"Now I put a finger on his vanity," said she; and thought indeed that she +had played on him. + +"Mr. Pole," (Lady Gosstre addressed that gentleman,) "I must hope that +you will leave this dining-hall as it is; there is nothing in the +neighbourhood to match it!" + +"Delightful!" interposed Laura Tinley; "but is it settled?" + +Mr. Pole leaned forward to her ladyship; and suddenly catching the sense +of her words, "Ah, why not?" he said, and reached his hand to some +champagne, which he raised to his mouth, but drank nothing of. +Reflection appeared to tell him that his safety lay in drinking, and he +drained the glass at a gulp. Mrs. Chump had it filled immediately, and +explained to a wondering neighbour, "It's that that keeps 'm on his +legs." + +"We shall envy you immensely," said Laura Tinley to Arabella; who +replied, "I assure you that no decision has been come to." + +"Ah, you want to surprise us with cards on a sudden from Besworth!" + +"That is not the surprise I have in store," returned Arabella sedately. + +"Then you have a surprise? Do tell me." + +"How true to her sex is the lady who seeks to turn 'what it is' into +'what it isn't!'" said Freshfield, trusty lieutenant. + +"I think a little peeping makes surprises sweeter; I'm weak enough to +think that," Lady Charlotte threw in. + +"That is so true!" exclaimed Laura. + +"Well; and a secret shared is a fact uncommonly well aired--that is also +true. But, remember, you do not desire the surprise; you are a +destroying force to it;" and Freshfield bowed. + +"Curiosity!" sighed some one, relieving Freshfield from a sense of the +guilt of heaviness. + +"I am a Pandora," Laura smilingly said. + +"To whom?" Tracy Runningbrook's shout was heard. + +"With champagne in the heads of the men, and classics in the heads of the +women, we shall come; to something," remarked Lady Gosstre half to +herself and Georgiana near her. + +An observer of Mr. Pole might have seen that he was fretting at a +restriction on his tongue. Occasionally he would sit forward erect in +his chair, shake his coat-collar, frown, and sound a preparatory 'hem; +but it ended in his rubbing his hair away on the back of his head. Mrs. +Chump, who was herself perceiving new virtues in champagne with every +glass, took the movements as indicative of a companion exploration of the +spiritual resources of this vintage. She no longer called for it, but +lifted a majestic finger (a Siddons or tenth-Muse finger, as Freshfield +named it) behind the row of heads; upon which champagne speedily bubbled +in the glasses. Laughter at the performance had fairly set in. Arabella +glanced nervously round for Mr. Pericles, who looked at his watch and +spread the fingers of one hand open thrice--an act that telegraphed +fifteen minutes. In fifteen minutes an opera troupe, with three famous +chiefs and a renowned prima-donna were to arrive. The fact was known +solely to Arabella and Mr. Pericles. It was the Surprise of the evening. +But within fifteen minutes, what might not happen, with heads going at +champagne-pace? + +Arabella proposed to Freshfield to rise. "Don't the ladies go first?" +the wit turned sensualist stammered; and incurred that worse than frown, +a cold look of half-comprehension, which reduces indefinitely the +proportions of the object gazed at. There were probably a dozen very +young men in the room waiting to rise with their partners at a signal for +dancing; and these could not be calculated upon to take an initiative, or +follow one--as ladies, poor slaves! will do when the electric hostess +rustles. The men present were non-conductors. Arabella knew that she +could carry off the women, but such a proceeding would leave her father +at the mercy of the wine; and, moreover, the probability was that Mrs. +Chump would remain by him, and, sole in a company of males, explode her +sex with ridicule, Brookfield in the bargain. So Arabella, under a +prophetic sense of evil, waited; and this came of it. Mr. Pole patted +Mrs. Chump's hand publicly. In spite of the steady hum of small-talk--in +spite of Freshfield Sumner's circulation of a crisp anecdote--in spite of +Lady Gosstre's kind effort to stop him by engaging him in conversation, +Mr. Pole forced on for a speech. He said that he had not been the thing +lately. It might be his legs, as his dear friend Martha, on his right, +insisted; but he had felt it in his head, though as strong as any man +present. + +"Harrk at 'm!" cried Mrs. Chump, letting her eyes roll fondly away from +him into her glass. + +"Business, my lady!" Mr. Pole resumed. "Ah, you don't know what that is. +We've got to work hard to keep our heads up equal with you. We don't +swim with corks. And my old friend, Ralph Tinley--he sells iron, and +has got a mine. That's simple. But, my God, ma'am, when a man has his +eye on the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic, and the Baltic, and the Black +Sea, and half-a-dozen colonies at once, he--you--" + +"Well, it's a precious big eye he's got, Pole," Mrs. Chump came to his +relief. + +"--he don't know whether he's a ruined dog, or a man to hold up his head +in any company." + +"Oh, Lord, Pole, if ye're going to talk of beggary!" Mrs. Chump threw up +her hands. "My lady, I naver could abide the name of 't. I'm a kind +heart, ye know, but I can't bear a ragged friend. I hate 'm! He seems +to give me a pinch." + +Having uttered this, it struck her that it was of a kind to convulse Mrs. +Lupin, for whose seizures she could never accurately account; and looking +round, she perceived, sure enough, that little forlorn body agitated, +with a handkerchief to her mouth. + +"As to Besworth," Mr. Pole had continued, "I might buy twenty Besworths. +If--if the cut shows the right card. If--" Sweat started on his +forehead, and he lifted his eyebrows, blinking. "But none!" (he smote +the table) "none can say I haven't been a good father! I've educated my +girls to marry the best the land can show. I bought a house to marry +them out of; it was their own idea." He caught Arabella's eyes. I +thought so, at all events; for why should I have paid the money if I +hadn't thought so? when then--yes, that sum..." (was he choking!) saved +me!--saved me!" + +A piteous desperate outburst marked the last words, that seemed to +struggle from a tightened cord. + +"Not that there's anything the matter," he resumed, with a very brisk +wink. "I'm quite sound: heart's sound, lungs sound, stomach regular. I +can see, and smell, and hear. Sense of touch is rather lumpy at times, I +know; but the doctor says it's nothing--nothing at all; and I should be +all right, if I didn't feel that I was always wearing a great leaden +hat." + +"My gracious, Pole, if ye're not talkin' pos'tuv nonsense!" exclaimed +Mrs. Chump. + +"Well, my dear Martha" (Mr. Pole turned to her argumentatively), "how do +you account for my legs? I feel it at top. I declare I've felt the edge +of the brim half a yard out. Now, my lady, a man in that state--sound +and strong as the youngest--but I mean a vexed man--worried man bothered +man, he doesn't want a woman to look after him;--I mean, he does--he +does! And why won't young girls--oh! they might, they might--see that? +And when she's no extra expense, but brings him--helps him to face--and +no one has said the world's a jolly world so often as I have. It's +jolly!" He groaned. + +Lady Charlotte saw Wilfrid gazing at one spot on the table without a +change of countenance. She murmured to him, "What hits you hits me." + +Mr. Pole had recommenced, on the evident instigation of Laura Tinley, +though Lady Gosstre and Freshfield Sumner had both sought to check the +current. In Chump's lifetime, it appeared, he (Mr. Pole) had thought of +Mrs. Chump with a respectful ardour; and albeit she was no longer what +she was when Chump brought her over, a blooming Irish girl--"her hair +exactly as now, the black curl half over the cheek, and a bright laugh, +and a white neck, fat round arms, and--" + +A shout of "Oh, Pole! ye seem to be undressin' of me before them all," +diverted the neighbours of the Beauty. + +"Who would not like such praise?" Laura Tinley, to keep alive the +subject, laid herself open to Freshfield by a remark. + +"At the same personal peril?" he inquired smoothly. + +Mr. Pericles stood up, crying "Enfin!" as the doors were flung open, and +a great Signora of operatic fame entered the hall, supported on one side +by a charming gentleman (a tenore), who shared her fame and more with +her. In the rear were two working baritones; and behind them, outside, +Italian heads might be discerned. + +The names of the Queen of Song and Prince of Singers flew round the room; +and Laura uttered words of real gratitude, for the delightful surprise, +to Arabella, as the latter turned from her welcome of them. "She is +exactly like Emilia--young," was uttered. The thought went with a pang +through Wilfrid's breast. When the Signora was asked if she would sup or +take champagne, and she replied that she would sup by-and-by, and drink +porter now, the likeness to Emilia was established among the Poles. + +Meantime the unhappy Braintop received an indication that he must depart. +As he left the hall he brushed past the chief-clerk of his office, who +soon appeared bowing and elbowing among the guests. "What a substitute +for me!" thought Braintop bitterly; and in the belief that this old clerk +would certainly go back that night, and might undertake his commission, +he lingered near the band on the verge of the lawn. A touch at his elbow +startled him. In the half-light he discerned Emilia. "Don't say you +have seen me," were her first words. But when he gave her the letter, +she drew him aside, and read it by the aid of lighted matches held in +Braintop's hat drawing in her fervent breath to a "Yes! yes!" at the +close, while she pressed the letter to her throat. Presently the singing +began in an upper room, that had shortly before flashed with sudden +light. Braintop entreated Emilia to go in, and then rejoiced that she +had refused. They stood in a clear night-air, under a yellowing +crescent, listening to the voice of an imperial woman. Impressed as he +was, Braintop had, nevertheless, leisure to look out of his vinous mist +and notice, with some misgiving, a parading light at a certain distance-- +apparently the light of cigarettes being freshly kindled. He was too +much elated to feel alarm: but "If her father were to catch me again," he +thought. And with Emilia on his arm! + +Mr. Pole's chief-clerk had brought discomposing news. He was received by +an outburst of "No business, Payne; I won't have business!" + +Turning to Mr. Pericles, the old clerk said: "I came rather for you, sir, +not expecting to find Mr. Pole." He was told by Mr. Pericles to speak +what he had to say: and then the guests, who had fallen slightly back, +heard a cavernous murmur; and some, whose eyes where on Mr. Pole, +observed a sharp conflict of white and red in his face. + +"There, there, there, there!" went Mr. Pole. "'Hem, Pericles!" His +handkerchief was drawn out; and he became engaged, as it were, in wiping +a moisture from the palm of his hand. "Pericles, have you got pluck now? +Eh?" + +Mr. Pericles had leaned down his ear for the whole of the news. + +"Ten sossand," he said, smoothing his waistbands, and then inserting his +thumbs into the pits of his waistcoat. "Also a chance of forty. Let us +not lose time for ze music." + +He walked away. + +"I don't believe in that d---d coolness, ma'am," said Mr. Pole, wheeling +round on Freshfield Sumner. "It's put on. That wears a mask; he's one +of those confounded humbugs who wear a mask. Ten-forty! and all for a +shrug; it's not human. I tell you, he does that just out of a sort of +jealousy to rival me as an Englishman. Because I'm cool, he must be. Do +you think a mother doesn't feel the loss of her children?" + +"I fear that I must grow petticoats before I can answer purely feminine +questions," said Freshfield. + +"Of course--of course," assented Mr. Pole; "and a man feels like a mother +to his money. For the moment, he does--for the moment. What are those +fellows--Spartans--women who cut off their breasts--?" + +Freshfield suggested, "Amazons." + +"No; they were women," Mr. Pole corrected him; "and if anything hurt +them, they never cried out. That's what--ha!--our friend Pericles is +trying at. He's a fool. He won't sleep to-night. He'll lie till he +gets cold in the feet, and then tuck them up like a Dutch doll, and +perspire cold till his heart gives a bound, and he'll jump up and think +his last hour's come. Wind on the stomach, do ye call it? I say it's +wearing a mask!" + +The bird's-eye of the little merchant shot decisive meaning. + +Two young ladies had run from his neighbourhood, making as if to lift +hands to ears. The sight of them brought Mrs. Chump to his side. "Pole! +Pole!" she said, "is there annything wrong?" + +"Wrong, Martha?" He bent to her, attempting Irish--"Arrah, now! and +mustn't all be right if you're here?" + +She smote his cheek fondly. "Ye're not a bit of an Irish-man, ye deer +little fella." + +"Come along and dance," cried he imperiously. + +"A pretty spectacle--two fandangoes, when there's singing, ye silly!" +Mrs. Chump led him upstairs, chafing one of his hands, and remarking +loudly on the wonder it was to see his knees constantly 'give' as he +walked. + +On the dark lawn, pressing Wilfrid's written words for fiery nourishment +to her heart, Emilia listened to the singing. + +"Why do people make a noise, and not be satisfied to feel?" she said +angrily to Braintop, as a great clapping of hands followed a divine aria. +Her ideas on this point would have been different in the room. + +By degrees a tender delirium took hold of her sense; and then a subtle +emotion--which was partly prompted by dim rivalry with the voice that +seemed to be speaking so richly to the man she loved--set her bosom +rising and falling. She translated it to herself thus: "What a joy it +will be to him to hear me now!" And in a pause she sang clear out-- + + "Prima d'Italia amica;" + +and hung on the last note, to be sure that she would be heard by him. + +Braintop saw the cigarette dash into sparks on the grass. At the same +moment a snarl of critical vituperation told Emilia that she had offended +taste and her father. He shouted her name, and, striding up to her, +stumbled over Braintop, whom he caught with one hand, while the other +fell firmly on Emilia. + +"'Amica--amica-a-a,'" he burlesqued her stress of the luckless note- + lowing it at her, and telling her in triumphant Italian that she was +found at last. Braintop, after a short struggle, and an effort at +speech, which was loosely shaken in his mouth, heard that he stood a +prisoner. "Eh! you have not lost your cheeks," insulted his better +acquaintance with English slang. + +Alternately in this queer tongue and in Italian the pair of victims were +addressed. + +Emilia knew her father's temper. He had a habit of dallying with an evil +passion till it boiled over and possessed him. Believing Braintop to be +in danger of harm, she beckoned to some of the faces crowding the +windows; but the movement was not seen, as none of the circumstances were +at all understood. Wilfrid, however, knew well who had sung those three +bars, concerning which the 'Prima donna' questioned Mr. Pericles, and +would not be put off by hearing that it was a startled jackdaw, or an +owl, and an ole nightingale. The Greek rubbed his hands. "Now to +recommence," he said; "and we shall not notice a jackdaw again." His eye +went sideways watchfully at Wilfrid. "You like zat piece of opera?" + +"Immensely," said Wilfrid, half bowing to the Signora--to whom, as to +Majesty, Mr. Pericles introduced him, and fixed him. + +"Now! To seats!" + +Mr. Pericles' mandates was being obeyed, when a cry of "Wilfrid!" from +Emilia below, raised a flutter. + +Mr. Pole had been dozing in his chair. He rose at the cry, looking hard, +with a mechanical jerk of the neck, at two or three successive faces, and +calling, "Somebody--somebody" to take his outstretched hand trembling in +a paroxysm of nervous terror. + +Hearing his son's name again, but more faintly, he raised his voice for +Martha. "Don't let that girl come near me! I--I can't get on with +foreign girls!" + +His eyes went among the curious faces surrounding him. "Wilfrid!" he +shouted. To the second summons, "Sir" was replied, in the silence. +Neither saw the other as they spoke. + +"Are you going out to her, Wilfrid?" + +"Someone called me, sir." + +"He's got the cunning of hell," said Mr. Pole, baffled by his own +agitation. + +"Oh! don't talk o' that place," moaned Mrs. Chump. + +"Stop!" cried the old man. "Are you going? Stop! you shan't do +mischief. I mean--there--stop! Don't go. You're not to go. I say +you're not to go out." + +Emphasis and gesticulations gave their weight to the plain words. + +But rage at the upset of all sentiments and dignity that day made Wilfrid +reckless, and he now felt his love to be all he had. He heard his Emilia +being dragged away to misery--perhaps to be sold to shame. Maddened, he +was incapable of understanding his father's state, or caring for what the +world thought. His sisters gathered near him, but were voiceless. + +"Is he gone?" Mr. Pole burst forward. "You're gone, sir? Wilfrid, have +you gone to that girl? I ask you whether...(there's one shot at my +heart," he added in a swift undertone to one of the heads near him, while +he caught at his breast with both hands). "Wilfrid, will you stay here?" + +"For God's sake, go to him, Wilfrid," murmured Adela. "I can't." + +"Because if you do--if you don't--I mean, if you go..." The old man +gasped at the undertone. "Now I have got it in my throat." + +A quick physical fear caught hold of him. In a moment his voice changed +to entreaty. "I beg you won't go, my dear boy. Wilfrid, I tell you, +don't go. Because, you wouldn't act like a d--d--I'm not angry; but it +is like acting like a--Here's company, Wilfrid; come to me, my boy; do +come here. You mayn't ha--have your poor old father long, now he's got +you u--up in the world. I mean accidents, for I'm sound enough; only a +little nervous from brain--Is he gone?" + +Wilfrid was then leaving the room. + +Lady Gosstre had been speaking to Mr. Powys. She was about to say a word +to Lady Charlotte, when the latter walked to the doorway, and. In a +manner that smote his heart with a spasm of gratitude, said; "Don't heed +these people. He will bring on a fit if you don't stop. His nerves are +out, and the wine they have given him... Go to him: I will go to Emilia, +and do as much for her as you could." + +Wilfrid reached his father in time to see him stagger back into the arms +of Mrs. Chump, whose supplication was for the female stimulant known as +'something.' + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +On reaching home that night, Arabella surprised herself thinking, in the +midst of her anguish: "Whatever is said of us, it cannot be said that +there is a house where the servants have been better cared for." And +this reflection continued to burn with an astounding brilliancy through +all the revolutions of a mind contemplating the dread of a fallen +fortune, the fact of a public exposure, and what was to her an ambition +destroyed. Adela had no such thoughts. "I have been walking on a +plank," she gasped from time to time, as she gave startled glances into +the abyss of poverty, and hurried to her bedchamber--a faint whisper of +self-condemnation in her ears at the 'I' being foremost. The sisters +were too proud to touch upon one another's misery in complaints, or to be +common by holding debate on it. They had not once let their eyes meet at +Besworth, as the Tinleys wonderingly noticed. They said good night to +their papa, who was well enough to reply, adding peremptorily, +"Downstairs at half-past eight,"--an intimation that he would be at the +break-fast table and read prayers as usual. Inexperienced in nervous +disease, they were now filled with the idea that he was possibly acting-- +a notion that had never been kindled in them before; or, otherwise, how +came these rapid, almost instantaneous, recoveries? + +Cornelia alone sounded near the keynote. Since the night that she had +met him in the passage, and the next morning when Mrs. Chump had raised +the hubbub about her loss, Cornelia's thoughts had been troubled by some +haunting spectral relationship with money. It had helped to make her +reckless in granting interviews to Purcell Barrett. "If we are poor, I +am free;" and that she might then give herself to whomever she pleased, +was her logical deduction. The exposure at Besworth, and the partial +confirmation of her suspicions, were not without their secret comfort to +her. In the carriage, coming home, Wilfrid had touched her hand by +chance, and pressed it with good heart. She went to the library, +imagining that if he wished to see her he would appear, and by exposing +his own weakness learn to excuse hers. She was right in her guess; +Wilfrid came. He came sauntering into the room with "Ah! you here?" +Cornelia consented to play into his hypocrisy. "Yes, I generally think +better here," she replied. + +"And what has this pretty head got to do with thinking?" + +"Not much, I suppose, my lord," she replied, affecting nobly to +acknowledge the weakness of the female creature. + +Wilfrid kissed her with an unaccustomed fervour. This delicate mumming +was to his taste. It was yet more so when she spoke playfully to him of +his going soon to be a married man. He could answer to that in a smiling +negative, playing round the question, until she perceived that he really +desired to have his feeling for the odd dark girl who had recently shot +across their horizon touched, if only it were led to by the muffled ways +of innuendo. + +As a dog, that cannot ask you verbally to scratch his head, but wishes +it, will again and again thrust his head into your hand, petitioning +mutely that affection may divine him, so:--but we deal with a +sentimentalist, and the simile is too gross to be exact. For no sooner +was Wilfrid's head scratched, than the operation stuck him as +humiliating; in other words, the moment he felt his sisters fingers in +the ticklish part, he flew to another theme, then returned, and so +backward and forward--mystifying her not slightly, and making her think, +"Then he has no heart." She by no means intended to encourage love for +Emilia, but she hoped for his sake, that the sentiment he had indulged +was sincere. By-and-by he said, that though he had no particular +affection for Lady Charlotte, he should probably marry her. + +"Without loving her, Wilfrid? It is unfair to her; it is unfair to +yourself." + +Wilfrid understood perfectly who it was for whom she pleaded thus +vehemently. He let her continue: and when she had dwelt on the horrors +of marriages without love, and the supreme duty of espousing one who has +our 'heart's loyalty,' he said, "You may be right. A man must not play +with a girl. He must consider that he owes a duty to one who is more +dependent;"--implying that a woman s duty was distinct and different in +such a case. + +Cornelia could not rise and plead for her sex. Had she pushed forth the +'woman,' she must have stood for her. + +This is the game of Fine Shades and Nice Feelings, under whose empire you +see this family, and from which they are to emerge considerably shorn, +but purified--examples of One present passage of our civilization. + +"At least, dear, if" (Cornelia desperately breathed the name) +"--if Emilia were forced to give her hand...loving...you...we should be +right in pitying her?" + +The snare was almost too palpable. Wilfrid fell into it, from the simple +passion that the name inspired; and now his hand tightened. "Poor +child!" he moaned. + +She praised his kind heart: "You cannot be unjust and harsh, I know that. +You could not see her--me--any of us miserable. Women feel, dear. Ah! I +need not tell you that. Their tears are not the witnesses. When they do +not weep, but the hot drops stream inwardly:--and, oh! Wilfrid, let this +never happen to me. I shall not disgrace you, because I intend to see +you happy with...with her, whoever she is; and I would leave you happy. +But I should not survive it. I can look on Death. A marriage without +love is dishonour." + +Sentiment enjoys its splendid moods. Wilfrid having had the figure of +his beloved given to him under nuptial benediction, cloaked, even as he +wished it to be, could afford now to commiserate his sister, and he +admired her at the same time. "I'll take care you are not made a +sacrifice of when the event is fixed," he said--as if it had never been +in contemplation. + +"Oh! I have not known happiness for years, till this hour," Cornelia +whispered to him bashfully; and set him wondering why she should be happy +when she had nothing but his sanction to reject a man. + +On the other hand, her problem was to gain lost ground by letting him +know that, of the pair, it was not she who would marry beneath her +station. She tried it mentally in various ways. In the end she thought +it best to give him this positive assurance. "No," he rejoined, "a woman +never should." There was no admission of equality to be got out of him, +so she kissed him. Of their father's health a few words were said--of +Emilia nothing further. She saw that Wilfrid's mind was resolved upon +some part to play, but shrank from asking his confidence, lest facts +should be laid bare. + +At the breakfast-table Mr. Pole was a little late. He wore some of his +false air of briskness on a hazy face, and read prayers--drawing breath +between each sentence and rubbing his forehead; but the work was done by +a man in ordinary health, if you chose to think so, as Mrs. Chump did. +She made favourable remarks on his appearance, begging the ladies to +corroborate her. They were silent. + +"Now take a chop, Pole, and show your appetite," she said. "'A Chump- +chop, my love?' my little man used to invite me of a mornin'; and that +was the onnly joke he had, so it's worth rememberin'." + +A chop was placed before Mr. Pole. He turned it in his plate, and +wonderingly called to mind that he had once enjoyed chops. At a loss to +account for the distressing change, he exclaimed to himself, "Chump! I +wish the woman wouldn't thrust her husband between one's teeth. An egg!" + +The chop was displaced for an egg, which he tapped until Mrs. Chump cried +out, "Oh! if ye're not like a postman, Pole; and d'ye think ye've got a +letter for a chick inside there?" + +This allusion scared Mr. Pole from the egg. He quitted the table, +muttering, "Business! business!" and went to the library. + +When he was gone Mrs. Chump gave a cry to know where Braintop was, but, +forgetting him immediately, turned to the ladies and ejaculated, +"Broth'm. It's just brothin' he wants. Broth, I say, for anny man that +won't eat his chop or his egg. And, my dears, now, what do ye say to me +for bringing him home to ye? I expect to be thanked, I do; and then +we'll broth Pole together, till he's lusty as a prize-ox, and capers like +a monkey." + +Wretched woman! that could not see the ruin she had inflicted--that could +not imagine how her bitter breath cut against those sensitive skins! +During a short pause little Mrs. Lupin trotted to the door, and shot +through it, in a paroxysm. + +Then Wilfrid's voice was heard. He leaned against a corner of the +window, and spoke without directly looking at Mrs. Chump; so that she was +some time in getting to understand the preliminary, "Madam, you must +leave this house." But presently her chin dropped; and after feeble +efforts to interpose an exclamation, she sat quiet--overcome by the +deliberate gravity of his manner, and motioning despairingly with her +head, to relieve the swarm of unborn figure-less ideas suggested by his +passing speech. The ladies were ranged like tribunal shapes. It could +not be said of souls so afflicted that they felt pleasure in the scene; +but to assist in the administration of a rigorous justice is sweet to +them that are smarting. They scarcely approved his naked statement of +things when he came to Mrs. Chump's particular aspiration in the +household--viz., to take a station and the dignity of their name. The +effect he produced satisfied them that the measure was correct. Her back +gave a sharp bend, as if an eternal support had snapped. "Oh! ye hit +hard," she moaned. + +"I tell you kindly that we (who, you will acknowledge, must count for +something here) do not sanction any change that revolutionizes our +domestic relations," said Wilfrid; while Mrs. Chump heaved and rolled on +the swell of the big words like an overladen boat. "You have only to +understand so much, and this--that if we resist it, as we do, you, by +continuing to contemplate it, are provoking a contest which will probably +injure neither you nor me, but will be death to ham in his present +condition." + +Mrs. Chump was heard to mumble that she alone knew the secret of +restoring him to health, and that he was rendered peaky and poky only by +people supposing him so. + +"An astonishin' thing!" she burst out. "If I kiss 'm and say 'Poor +Pole!' he's poor Pole on the spot. And, if onnly I--" + +But Wilfrid's stern voice flowed over her. "Listen, madam, and let this +be finished between us. You know well that when a man has children, he +may wish to call another woman wife--a woman not their mother; but the +main question is, will his children consent to let her take that place? +We are of one mind, and will allow no one--no one--to assume that +position. And now, there's an end. We'll talk like friends. I have +only spoken in that tone that you might clearly comprehend me on an +important point. I know you entertain a true regard for my father, and +it is that belief which makes me--" + +"Friends!" cried Mrs. Chump, getting courage from the savour of cajolery +in these words. "Friends! Oh, ye fox! ye fox!" + +And now commenced a curious duett. Wilfrid merely wished to terminate +his sentence; Mrs. Chump wantonly sought to prevent him. Each was +burdened with serious matter; but they might have struck hands here, had +not this petty accidental opposition interposed. + +--"Makes me feel confident..." Wilfrid resumed. + +"And Pole's promos, Mr. Wilfrud; ye're forgettin' that." + +"Confident, ma'am." + +"He was the firrst to be soft." + +"I say, ma'am, for his sake--" + +"An' it's for his sake. And weak as he is on 's legs, poor fells; which +marr'ge 'll cure, bein' a certain rem'dy." + +"Mrs. Chump! I beg you to listen." + +"Mr. Wilfrud! and I can see too, and it's three weeks and ye kissed +little Belloni in the passage, outside this vary door, and out in the +garden." + +The blow was entirely unexpected, and took Wilfrid's breath, so that he +was not ready for his turn in this singular piece of harmony. + +"Ye did!" Mrs. Chump rejoiced to behold how her chance spark kindled +flame in his cheeks. "It's pos'tuv ye did. And ye're the best blusher +of the two, my dear; and no shame to ye, though it is a garl's business. +That little Belloni takes to 't like milk; but you--" + +Wilfrid strode up to her, saying imperiously, "I tell you to listen!" + +She succumbed at once to a show of physical ascendency, murmuring, "It's +sure he was seen kissin' of her twice, and mayhap more; and hearty smacks +of the lips, too--likin' it." + +The ladies rewarded Wilfrid for his service to their cause by absolutely +hearing nothing--a feat women can be capable of. + +Wilfrid, however, was angered by the absurdity of the charge and the +scene, and also by the profane touch on Emilia's name. + +"I must tell you, ma'am, that for my father's sake I must desire you to +quit this--you will see the advisability of quitting this house for a +time." + +"Pole's promus! Pole's promus!" Mrs. Chump wailed again. + +"Will you give me your assurance now that you will go, to be our guest +again subsequently?" + +"In writin' and in words, Mr. Wilfrud!" + +"Answer me, ma'am." + +"I will, Mr. Wilfrud; and Mr. Braintop's a witness, knowin' the nature of +an oath. There naver was a more sacrud promus. Says Pole, 'Martha--'" + +Wilfrid changed his tactics. Sitting down by her side, he said: "I am +sure you have an affection for my father." + +"I'm the most lovin' woman, my dear! If it wasn't for my vartue I don't +know what'd become o' me. Ye could ask Chump, if he wasn't in his grave, +poor fella! I'll be cryin' like a squeezed orr'nge presently. What with +Chump and Pole, two's too many for a melanch'ly woman." + +"You have an affection for my father I know, ma'am. Now, see! he's ill. +If you press him to do what we certainly resist, you endanger his life." + +Mrs. Chump started back from the man who bewildered her brain without +stifling her sense of justice. She knew that there was another way of +putting the case, whereby she was not stuck in the criminal box; but the +knowledge groped about blindly, and finding herself there, Mrs. Chump +lost all idea of a counter-accusation, and resorted to wriggling and +cajolery. "Ah! ye look sweeter when ye're kissin' us, Mr. Wilfrud; and I +wonder where the little Belloni has got to!" + +"Tell me, that there maybe no misunderstanding." Wilfrid again tried to +fix her. + +"A rosy rosy fresh bit of a mouth she's got! and pouts ut!" + +Wilfrid took her hand. "Answer me." + +"'Deed, and I'm modust, Mr. Wilfrud." + +"You do him the honour to be very fond of him. I am to believe that? +Then you must consent to leave us at the end of a week. You abandon any +idea of an impossible ceremony, and of us you make friends and not +enemies." + +At the concluding word, Mrs. Chump was no longer sustained by her +excursive fancy. She broke down, and wrung her hands, crying, "En'mies! +Pole's children my en'mies! Oh, Lord! that I should live to hear ut! and +Pole, that knew me a bride first blushin'!" + +She wailed and wept so that the ladies exchanged compassionate looks, and +Arabella rose to press her hand and diminish her distress. Wilfrid saw +that his work would be undone in a moment, and waved her to her seat. +The action was perceived by Mrs. Chump. + +"Oh, Mr. Wilfrud! my dear! and a soldier! and you that was my favourut! +If half my 'ffection for Pole wasn't the seein' of you so big and +handsome! And all my ideas to get ye marrud, avery one so snug in a +corner, with a neat little lawful ring on your fingers! And you that go +to keep me a lone woman, frightened of the darrk! I'm an awful coward, +that's the truth. And ye know that marr'ge is a holy thing! and it's +such a beaut'ful cer'mony! Oh, Mr. Wilfrud!--Lieuten't y' are! and I'd +have bought ye a captain, and made the hearts o' your sisters jump with +bonnuts and gowns and jools. Oh, Pole! Pole! why did you keep me so +short o' cash? It's been the roon of me! What did I care for your +brooches and your gifts? I wanted the good will of your daughters, sir-- +your son, Pole!" + +Mrs. Chump stopped her flow of tears. "Dear hearts!" she addressed her +silent judges, in mysterious guttural tones, "is it becas ye think +there's a bit of a fear of...?" + +The ladies repressed a violent inclination to huddle together, like +cattle from the blowing East. + +"I assure ye, 'taint poss'ble," pursued Mrs. Chump. "Why do I 'gree to +marry Pole? Just this, now. We sit chirpin' and chatterin' of times +that's gone, and live twice over, Pole and myself; and I'm used to 'm; +and I was soft to 'm when he was a merry buck, and you cradle lumber in +ideas, mind! for my vartue was always un'mpeach'ble. That's just the +reason. So, come, and let's all be friends, with money in our pockuts; +yell find me as much of a garl as army of ye. And, there! my weak time's +after my Porrt, my dears. So, now ye know when I can't be refusin' a +thing to ye. Are we friends?--say! are we?" + +Even if the ladies had been disposed to pardon her vulgarity, they could +not by any effort summon a charitable sentiment toward one of their sex +who degraded it by a public petition for a husband. This was not to be +excused; and, moreover, they entertained the sentimentalist's abhorrence +of the second marriage of a woman; regarding the act as simply execrable; +being treason to the ideal of the sex--treason to Woman's purity--treason +to the mysterious sentiment which places Woman so high, that when a woman +slips there is no help for it but she must be smashed. + +Seeing that each looked as implacable as the other, Mrs. Chump called +plaintively, "Arr'bella!" + +The lady spoke:-- + +"We are willing to be your friends, Mrs. Chump, and we request that you +will consider us in that light. We simply do not consent to give you a +name...." + +"But, we'll do without the name, my dear," interposed Mrs. Chump. "Ye'll +call me plain Martha, which is almost mother, and not a bit of 't. +There--Cornelia, my love! what do ye say?" + +"I can only reiterate my sister's words, which demand no elucidation," +replied Cornelia. + +The forlorn woman turned her lap towards the youngest. + +"Ad'la! ye sweet little cajoler! And don't use great cartwheels o' words +that leave a body crushed." + +Adela was suffering from a tendency to levity, which she knew to be +unbefitting the occasion, and likely to defeat its significance. She +said: "I am sure, Mrs. Chump, we are very much attached to you as Mrs. +Chump; but after a certain period of life, marriage does make people +ridiculous, and, as much for your sake as our own, we would advise you to +discard a notion that cannot benefit anybody. Believe in our attachment; +and we shall see you here now and then, and correspond with you when you +are away. And..." + +"Oh, ye puss! such an eel as y' are!" Mrs. Chump cried out. "What are ye +doin' but sugarin' the same dose, miss! Be qu't! It's a traitor that +makes what's nasty taste agree'ble. D'ye think my stomach's a fool? Ye +may wheedle the mouth, but not the stomach." + +At this offence there fell a dead silence. Wilfrid gazed on them all +indifferently, waiting for the moment to strike a final blow. + +When she had grasped the fact that Pity did not sit in the assembly, Mrs. +Chump rose. + +"Oh! if I haven't been sitting among three owls and a raven," she +exclaimed. Then she fussed at her gown. "I wish ye good day, young +ladus, and mayhap ye'd like to be interduced to No. 2 yourselves, some +fine mornin'? Prov'dence can wait. There's a patient hen on the eggs of +all of ye! I wouldn't marry Pole now--not if he was to fall flat and +howl for me. Mr. Wilfrud, I wish ye good-bye. Ye've done your work. +I'll be out of this house in half-an-hour." + +This was not quite what Wilfrid had meant to effect. He proposed to her +that she should come to the yacht, and indeed leave Brookfield to go on +board. But Mrs. Chump was in that frame of mind when, shamefully wounded +by others, we find our comfort in wilfully wounding ourselves. "No," she +said (betraying a meagre mollification at every offer), "I'll not stop. +I won't go to the yacht--unless I think better of ut. But I won't stop. +Ye've hurrt me, and I'll say good-bye. I hope ye'll none of ye be +widows. It's a crool thing. And when ye've got no children of your own, +and feel, all your inside risin' to another person's, and they hate ye-- +hate ye! Oh! Oh!--There, Mr. Wilfrud, ye needn't touch me elbow. Oh, +dear! look at me in the glass! and my hair! Annybody'd swear I'd been +drinkin'. I won't let Pole look at me. That'd cure 'm. And he must let +me have money, because I don't care for 'cumulations. Not now, when +there's no young--no garls and a precious boy, who'd say, when I'm gone, +'Bless her' Oh! 'Poor thing! Bless--' Oh! Augh!" A note of Sorrow's +own was fetched; and the next instant, with a figure of dignity, the +afflicted woman observed: "There's seven bottles of my Porrt, and there's +eleven of champagne, and some comut clar't I shall write where ut's to be +sent. And, if you please, look to the packing; for bits o' glass and a +red stain's not like your precious hope when you're undoin a hamper. And +that's just myself now, and I'm a broken woman; but naver mind, nobody!" + +A very formal and stiff "Good-bye," succeeding a wheezy lamentation, +concluded the speech. Casting a look at the glass, Mrs. Chump retired, +with her fingers on the ornamental piece of hair. + +The door having closed on her, Wilfrid said to his sisters: "I want one +of you to come with me to town immediately. Decide which will go." + +His eyes questioned Cornelia. Hers were dropped. + +"I have work to do," pleaded Adela. + +"An appointment? You will break it." + +"No, dear, not--" + +"Not exactly an appointment. Then there's nothing to break. Put on your +bonnet." + +Adela slipped from the room in a spirit of miserable obedience. + +"I could not possibly leave papa," said Arabella, and Wilfrid nodded his +head. His sisters knew quite well what was his business in town, but +they felt that they were at his mercy, and dared not remonstrate. +Cornelia ventured to say, "I think she should not come back to us till +papa is in a better state." + +"Perhaps not," replied Wilfrid, careless how much he betrayed by his +apprehension of the person indicated. + +The two returned late that night, and were met by Arabella at the gate. + +"Papa has been--don't be alarmed," she began. "He is better now. But +when he heard that she was not in the house, the blood left his hands and +feet. I have had to use a falsehood. I said, 'She left word that she +was coming back to-night or to-morrow.' Then he became simply angry. +Who could have believed that the sight of him so would ever have rejoiced +me!" + +Adela, worn with fatigue, sobbed, "Oh! Oh!" + +"By the way, Sir Twickenham called, and wished to see you," said Arabella +curiously. + +"Oh! so weary!" the fair girl ejaculated, half-dreaming that she saw +herself as she threw back her head and gazed at stars and clouds. "We +met Captain Gambier in town." Here she pinched Arabella's arm. + +The latter said, "Where?" + +"In a miserable street, where he looked like a peacock in a quagmire." + +Arabella entreated Wilfrid to be careful in his management of their +father. "Pray, do not thwart him. He has been anxious to know where you +have gone. He--he thinks you have conducted Mrs. Chump, and will bring +her back. I did not say it--I merely let him think so." + +She added presently, "He has spoken of money." + +"Yes?" went Adela, in a low breath. + +"Cornelia imagines that--that we--he is perhaps in--in want of it. +Merchants are, sometimes." + +"Did Sir Twickenham say he would call to-morrow?" asked Adela. + +"He said that most probably he would." + +Wilfrid had been silent. As he entered the house, Mr. Pole's bedroom- +bell rang, and word came that he was to go to his father. As soon as the +sisters were alone, Adela groaned: "We have been hunting that girl all +day in vile neighbourhoods. Wilfrid has not spoken more than a dozen +sentences. I have had to dine on buns and hideous soup. I am half-dead +with the smell of cabs. Oh! if ever I am poor it will kill me. That +damp hay and close musty life are too intolerable! Yes! You see I care +for what I eat. I seem to be growing an animal. And Wilfrid is going to +drag me over the same course to-morrow, if you don't prevent him. I +would not mind, only it is absolutely necessary that I should see Sir +Twickenham." + +She gave a reason why, which appeared to Arabella so cogent that she said +at once: "If Cornelia does not take your place I will." + +The kiss of thanks given by Adela was accompanied by a request for tea. +Arabella regretted that she had sent the servants to bed. + +"To bed!" cried her sister. "But they are the masters, not we! Really, +if life were a round of sensual pleasure, I think our servants might +congratulate themselves." + +Arabella affected to show that they had their troubles; but her statement +made it clear that the servants of Brookfield were peculiarly favoured +servants, as it was their mistress's pride to make them. Eventually +Adela consented to drink some sparkling light wine; and being thirsty she +drank eagerly, and her tongue was loosed, insomuch that she talked of +things as one who had never been a blessed inhabitant of the kingdom of +Fine Shades. She spoke of 'Cornelia's chances;' of 'Wilfrid's headstrong +infatuation--or worse;' and of 'Papa's position,' remarking that she +could both laugh and cry. + +Arabella, glad to see her refreshed, was pained by her rampant tone; and +when Adela, who had fallen into one of her reflective 'long-shot' moods, +chanced to say, "What a number of different beings there are in the +world!" her reply was, "I was just then thinking we are all less unlike +than we suppose." + +"Oh, my goodness!" cried Adela. "What! am I at all--at all--in the +remotest degree--like that creature we have got rid of?" + +The negative was not decisively enunciated or immediate; that is, it did +not come with the vehemence and volume that could alone have satisfied +Adela's expectation. + +The "We are all of one family" was an offensive truism, of which Adela +might justly complain. + +That night the ladies received their orders from Wilfrid--they were to +express no alarm before their father as to the state of his health, or to +treat him ostensibly as an invalid; they were to marvel publicly at Mrs. +Chump's continued absence, and a letter requesting her to return was to +be written. At the sign of an expostulation, Wilfrid smote them down by +saying that the old man's life hung on a thread, and it was for them to +cut it or not. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A marriage without love is dishonour +Bear in mind that we are sentimentalists--The eye is our servant +I am not ashamed +Love that shrieks at a mortal wound, and bleeds humanly +Love the poor devil +My mistress! My glorious stolen fruit! My dark angel of love +Poor mortals are not in the habit of climbing Olympus to ask +Revived for them so much of themselves +Solitude is pasturage for a suspicion +Victims of the modern feminine'ideal' + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Sandra Belloni, v4 +by George Meredith + diff --git a/4416.zip b/4416.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4997a9a --- /dev/null +++ b/4416.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. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..47fc7ad --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #4416 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4416) |